Cyropaedia

As for you, Cambyses, you must also know[*](His words of counsel—(1) to Cambyses;) that it is not this golden sceptre that maintains your empire; but faithful friends are a monarch’s truest and surest sceptre. But do not think that man is naturally faithful; else all men would find the same persons faithful, just as all find the other properties of nature the same. But every one must create for himself faithfulness in his friends; and the winning of such friends comes in no wise by compulsion, but by kindness.

If, then, you shall endeavour to make others also fellow-guardians of your sovereignty, make a beginning nowhere sooner than with him who is of the same blood with yourself. Fellow-citizens, you know, stand nearer than foreigners do, and messmates nearer than those who eat elsewhere; but those who are sprung from the same seed, nursed by the same mother, reared in the same home, loved by the same parents, and who address the same persons as father and mother, how are they not the closest of all?

Do not you two, therefore, ever make of no effect those blessings whereby the gods have led the way to knitting close the bonds between brothers, but do you build at once upon that foundation still other works of love; and thus the love between you will always be a love that no other men can ever surpass. Surely he that has forethought for his brother is taking care for himself; for to whom else is a brother’s greatness more of an honour than to a brother? And who else will be honoured by the power of a great man so much as that man’s brother? And if a man’s brother is a great man, whom will any one so much fear to injure as that man’s brother?

Therefore, Tanaoxares, let no one more[*]((2) to Tanaoxares) readily than yourself yield obedience to your brother or more zealously support him. For his fortunes, good or ill, will touch no one more closely than yourself. And bear this also in mind: whom could you favour in the hope of getting more from him than from your brother? Where could you lend help and get in return a surer ally than you would find in him? Whom would it be a more shameful thing for you not to love than your own brother? And who is there in all the world whom it would be a more noble thing to prefer in honour than your brother? It is only a brother, you know, Cambyses, whom, if he holds the first place of love in his brother’s heart, the envy of others cannot reach.

Nay by our fathers’ gods I implore you, my sons, honour one another, if you care at all to give me pleasure. For assuredly, this one thing, so it[*](Cyrus on the immortality of the soul) seems to me, you do not know clearly, that I shall have no further being when I have finished this earthly life; for not even in this life have you seen my soul, but you have detected its existence by what it accomplished.

Have you never yet observed what terror the souls of those who have been foully dealt with strike into the hearts of those who have shed their blood, and what avenging deities they send upon the track of the wicked? And do you think that the honours paid to the dead would continue, if their souls had no part in any of them?

I am sure I do not; nor yet, my sons, have I ever convinced myself of this—that only as long as it is contained in a mortal body is the soul alive, but when it has been freed from it, is dead; for I see that it is the soul that endues mortal bodies with life, as long as it is in them.

Neither have I been able to convince myself of this—that the soul will want intelligence just when it is separated from this unintelligent body; but when the spirit is set free, pure and untrammelled by matter, then it is likely to be most intelligent. And when man is resolved into his primal elements, it is clear that every part returns to kindred matter, except the soul; that alone cannot be seen, either when present or when departing.