Hiero

Further, a great despot must needs have mercenaries; and no burden presses more heavily on the citizens than that, since they believe that these troops are maintained not in the interests of equality, but for the despot’s personal ends.

In answer to this Simonides said: Well, Hiero, I do not deny that all these matters must receive attention. But I should divide a ruler’s activities into two classes, those that lead inevitably to unpopularity, and those that are greeted with thanks.

The duty of teaching the people what things are best, and of dispensing praise and honour to those who accomplish the same most efficiently, is a form of activity that is greeted with thanks. The duty of pronouncing censure, using coercion, inflicting pains and penalties on those who come short in any respect, is one that must of necessity give rise to a certain amount of unpopularity.

Therefore my sentence is that a great ruler should delegate to others the task of punishing those who require to be coerced, and should reserve to himself the privilege of awarding the prizes. The excellence of this arrangement is established by daily experience.

Thus, when we want to have a choral competition, the ruler offers prizes, but the task of assembling the choirs is delegated to choir-masters, and others have the task of training them and coercing those who come short in any respect. Obviously, then, in this case, the pleasant part falls to the ruler, the disagreeables fall to others.

Why, then, should not all other public affairs be managed on this principle? For all communities are divided into parts—tribes, wards, unions, as the case may be—and every one of these parts is subject to its appointed ruler.

If, then, the analogy of the choruses were followed and prizes were offered to these parts for excellence of equipment, good discipline, horsemanship, courage in the field and fair dealing in business, the natural outcome would be competition, and consequently an earnest endeavour to improve in all these respects too.