[18] Or, "and to curtail these would seem to be self-slaughter."
Or, to put it differently, why should any one expend compassion on a man, as if he were a beggar, who has it in his power to satisfy by just and honest means his every need?[19] Surely it would be more appropriate to call that man a wretched starveling beggar rather, who through lack of means is driven to live by ugly shifts and base contrivances.
[19] i.e. "to expend compassion on a man who, etc., were surely a pathetic fallacy." Al. "Is not the man who has it in his power, etc., far above being pitied?"
Now it is your tyrant who is perpetually driven to iniquitous spoilation of temples and human beings, through chronic need of money wherewith to meet inevitable expenses, since he is forced to feed and support an army (even in times of peace) no less than if there were actual war, or else he signs his own death-warrant.[20]
[20] "A daily, hourly constraint is laid upon him to support an army as in war time, or--write his epitaph!"
V
But there is yet another sore affliction to which the tyrant is liable, Sinmonides, which I will name to you. It is this. Tyrants no less than ordinary mortals can distinguish merit. The orderly,[1] the wise, the just and upright, they freely recognise; but instead of admiring them, they are afraid of them--the courageous, lest they should venture something for the sake of freedom; the wise, lest they invent some subtle mischief;[2] the just and upright, lest the multitude should take a fancy to be led by them.
[1] The same epithets occur in Aristoph. "Plut." 89:
{ego gar on meirakion epeiles' oti os tous dikaious kai sophous kai kosmious monous badioimen.}
Stob. gives for {kasmious} {alkimous}.
[2] Or, "for fear of machinations." But the word is suggestive of mechanical inventions also, like those of Archimedes in connection with a later Hiero (see Plut. "Marcel." xv. foll.); or of Lionardo, or of Michael Angelo (Symonds, "Renaissance in Italy," "The Fine Arts," pp. 315, 393).
And when he has secretly and silently made away with all such people through terror, whom has he to fall back upon to be of use to him, save only the unjust, the incontinent, and the slavish-natured?[3] Of these, the unjust can be trusted as sharing the tyrant's terror lest the cities should some day win their freedom and lay strong hands upon them; the incontinent, as satisfied with momentary license; and the slavish-natured, for the simple reason that they have not themselves the slightest aspiration after freedom.[4]
[3] Or, "the dishonest, the lascivious, and the servile."
[4] "They have no aspiration even to be free," "they are content to wallow in the slough of despond." The {adikoi} (unjust) correspond to the {dikaioi} (just), {akrateis} (incontinent) to the {sophoi} (wise) (Breit. cf. "Mem." III. ix. 4, {sophian de kai sophrosunen ou diorizen}), {andrapododeis} (servile) to the {kasmioi}, {andreioi} (orderly, courageous).
This, then, I say, appears to me a sore affliction, that we should look upon the one set as good men, and yet be forced to lean upon the other.
And further, even a tyrant cannot but be something of a patriot--a lover of that state, without which he can neither hope for safety nor prosperity. On the other hand, his tyrrany, the exigencies of despotic rule, compel him to incriminate his fatherland.[5] To train his citizens to soldiery, to render them brave warriors, and well armed, confers no pleasure on him; rather he will take delight to make his foreigners more formidable than those to whom the state belongs, and these foreigners he will depend on as his body-guard.
[5] Or, "depreciate the land which gave him birth." Holden cf. "Cyrop." VII. ii. 22. See Sturz, s.v.
Nay more, not even in the years of plenty,[6] when abundance of all blessings reigns, not even then may the tyrant's heart rejoice amid the general joy, for the greater the indigence of the community the humbler he will find them: that is his theory.
[6] "In good seasons," "seasons of prosperity." Cf. Aristot. "Pol." v. 6. 17.
VI
He continued: I desire to make known to you, Simonides,[1] those divers pleasures which were mine whilst I was still a private citizen, but of which to-day, nay, from the moment I became a tyrant, I find myself deprived. In those days I consorted with my friends and fellows, to our mutual delectation;[2] or, if I craved for quietude,[3] I chose myself for my companion. Gaily the hours flitted at our drinking-parties, ofttimes till we had drowned such cares and troubles as are common to the life of man in Lethe's bowl;[4] or ofttimes till we had steeped our souls in song and dance[5] and revelry; ofttimes till the flame of passion kindled in the breasts of my companions and my own.[6] But now, welladay, I am deprived of those who took delight in me, because I have slaves instead of friends as my companions; I am robbed of my once delightful intercourse with them, because I discern no vestige of goodwill towards me in their looks. And as to the wine-cup and slumber--these I guard against, even as a man might guard against an ambuscade. Think only! to dread a crowd, to dread solitude, to dread the absence of a guard, to dread the very guards that guard, to shrink from having those about one's self unarmed, and yet to hate the sight of armed attendants. Can you conceive a more troublesome circumstance?[7] But that is not all. To place more confidence in foreigners than in your fellow-citizens, nay, in barbarians than in Hellenes, to be consumed with a desire to keep freemen slaves and yet to be driven, will he nill he, to make slaves free, are not all these the symptoms of a mind distracted and amazed with terror?
[1] Or, "I wish I could disclose to you (he added) those heart-easing joys." For {euphrosunas} cf. "Od." vi. 156; Aesch. "P. V." 540; Eur. "Bacch." 376. A favourite word with our author; see "Ages." ix. 4; "Cyrop." passim; "Mem." III. viii. 10; "Econ." ix. 12.
[2] Lit. "delighting I in them and they in me."
[3] Or, "when I sought tranquility I was my own companion."
[4] Or, "in sheer forgetfulness."
[5] Or, "absorbed our souls in song and festal cheer and dance." Cf. "Od." viii. 248, 249, {aiei d' emin dais te phile kitharis te khoroi te} | {eimata t' exemoiba loetra te therma kau eunai}, "and dear to us ever is the banquet and the harp and the dance, and changes of raiment, and the warm bath, and love and sleep" (Butcher and Lang).
[6] Reading as vulg. {epithumias}. Breit. cf. "Mem." III. ix. 7; Plat. "Phaed." 116 E, "he has eaten and drunk and enjoyed the society of his beloved" (Jowett). See "Symp." the finale; or if, after Weiske and Cobet, {euthumias}, transl. "to the general hilarity of myself and the whole company" (cf. "Cyrop." I. iii. 12, IV. v. 7), but this is surely a bathos rhetorically.
[7] Or, "a worse perplexity." See "Hell." VII. iii. 8.
For terror, you know, not only is a source of pain indwelling in the breast itself, but, ever in close attendance, shadowing the path,[8] becomes the destroyer of all sweet joys.
[8] Reading {sumparakolouthon lumeon}. Stob. gives {sumparomarton lumanter}. For the sentiment cf. "Cyrop." III. i. 25.
And if you know anything of war, Simonides, and war's alarms; if it was your fortune ever to be posted close to the enemy's lines,[9] try to recall to mind what sort of meals you made at those times, with what sort of slumber you courted rest. Be assured, there are no pains you then experienced, no horrors to compare with those that crowd upon the despot, who sees or seems to see fierce eyes of enemies glare at him, not face to face alone, but from every side.
[9] Or, "in the van of battle, opposite the hostile lines."
He had spoken so far, when Simonides took up the thread of the discourse, replying: Excellently put. A part I must admit, of what you say; since war is terrible. Yet, Hiero, you forget. When we, at any rate, are out campaigning, we have a custom; we place sentinels at the outposts, and when the watch is set, we take our suppers and turn in undauntedly.