Hiero

Now the chief qualification required in the guards, I presume, is faithfulness. But it is far harder to find one faithful guard than hundreds of workmen for any kind of work, especially when money supplies the guards, and they have it in their power to get far more in a moment by assassinating the despot than they receive from him for years of service among his guards.

You said that you envy us our unrivalled power to confer benefits on our friends, and our unrivalled success in crushing our enemies. But that is another delusion.

For how can you possibly feel that you benefit friends when you know well that he who receives most from you would be delighted to get out of your sight as quickly as possible? For, no matter what a man has received from a despot, nobody regards it as his own, until he is outside the giver’s dominion.

Or again, how can you say that despots more than others are able to crush enemies, when they know well that all who are subject to their despotism are their enemies and that it is impossible to put them all to death or imprison them—else who will be left for the despot to rule over?—and, knowing them to be their enemies, they must beware of them, and, nevertheless, must needs make use of them?

And I can assure you of this, Simonides: when a despot fears any citizen, he is reluctant to see him alive, and yet reluctant to put him to death. To illustrate my point, suppose that a good horse makes his master afraid that he will do him some fatal mischief: the man will feel reluctant to slaughter him on account of his good qualities, and yet his anxiety lest the animal may work some fatal mischief in a moment of danger will make him reluctant to keep him alive and use him.

Yes, and this is equally true of all possessions that are troublesome as well as useful: it is painful to possess them, and painful to get rid of them.

These statements drew from Simonides the following reply: A great thing, surely, Hiero, is the honour for which men strive so earnestly that they undergo any toil and endure any danger to win it!