To the ancient Athenians, Theseus was a paragon of a wise ruler.

Question

Is this statement true or false? Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

I believe the statement is true in terms of its content since Theseus, the legendary king of Athens, was mostly revered for his rule especially his unification of Attica.

 

But the use in the statement of paragon--or particularly the choice here for its complement, i.e., what follows it in the sentence--may be somewhat unidiomatic in that I think the usual complementation of paragon is the preposition of followed by a noun phrase that expresses some (normally positive and desirable) abstract quality, e.g., wisdom, virtue or good governance, not a noun phrase referring to a specific human role or occupation like a wise ruler, an administrator or a helpful tutor. For the latter usage, we would probably employ instead of paragon a noun like model or exemplar.