ABSTRACT
The survey of Greek political thought, to which this chapter forms an appendix, ended with Philo, the chief exponent of the theory of Hellenistic kingship. Brief mention was made of some of the authors who after him had some contribution to make to the subject, but they were dismissed as belonging to a different world of thought. But this procedure is open to criticism. Philo, who was still alive in the reign of Gaius, knew only the world of imperial Rome, which had been created by Augustus. It could be said also that the work of Augustus was itself a contribution—Roman not Greek—to political thought. Hence, if we view ancient political thought as a whole, the break ought to come rather at the point just before Christian thinkers begin to be influential, that is before Tertullian. The emperor Marcus Aurelius would then be the last of the pagan thinkers to be included. To trace the history of Graeco-Roman political philosophy in the first and second centuries A.d. would require a book rather than a chapter: only a rapid survey therefore will be attempted in the pages which follow.
