Sceptre
object · 2 works · 2 mentions · 4 anchored passages
sceptre · the ordinances · the sceptre
in the texts
Orations
The royal staff symbolizing the authority granted by Zeus to legitimate kings, and held by the goddess Royalty.
that not all hold the sceptre and this office from Zeus, but only the good man, and on no other just terms than that he take counsel and have care for those he rules;
Come, then, let us describe the character and disposition of the good king, comprehending it in brief as best we may — the man to whom the son of crooked-counselling Cronus gave the sceptre and the ordinances, that he might take counsel for his people.
So first he showed him, seated upon the greater peak on a splendid throne, a woman fair of form and tall, arrayed in white raiment, holding a sceptre neither of gold nor of silver, but of another, pure and far more radiant substance, such as men most often paint for Hera;
Memorabilia
A token of political authority that Socrates treats as insufficient for genuine rule.
Kings and rulers, he said, are not those who hold the sceptre, nor those who are chosen by the multitude, nor those on whom the lot falls, nor those who owe their power to force or deception;