on the lips of Marcus Aurelius. Cf. Capitol, Aurelius i. 1 and iv. 27. It was a
standardized topic of compliment to princes in Themistius, Julian, the Panegyrici
Latini, and many modern imitators. Among the rulers who have
been thus compared with Plato's philosophic king are Marcus Aurelius,
Constantine, Arcadius,
James I., Frederick the Great, and Napoleon. There is a partial history of the commonplace in
T. Sinko's Program, Sententiae Platonicae de philophis
regnantibus fata quae fuerint, Krakow, 1904, in the
supplementary article of Karl Praechter, Byzantinische
Zeitschrift, xiv. (1905) pp.
4579-491, and in the dissertation of Emil Wolff, Francis Bacons
Verhaltnis