On Joseph

The factors which produce consummate excellence are three in number: learning, nature, practice. And these names are represented in three of the wise men to whom Moses gives the senior place. Since I have described the lives of these three, the life which results from teaching, the life of the self-taught and the life of practice, I will carry on the series by describing a fourth life, that of the statesman. This name again has its representation in one of the patriarchs who, as Moses shews, was trained to his calling from his earliest youth.

This training was first given to him at about the age of seventeen by the lore of the shepherd’s craft, which corresponds closely to the lore of statesmanship. And therefore I think the order of poets often speaks of kings as shepherds of peoples, for success in shepherding will produce the best king, since through the charge of flocks which deserve less thought and care he has been taught the charge of the noblest flock of living creatures—mankind.