Praecepta gerendae reipublicae

And not only should the statesman show himself and his native State blameless towards our rulers,[*](i.e. the Romans.) but he should also have always a friend among the men of high station who have the greatest power as a firm bulwark, so to speak, of his administration; for the Romans themselves are most eager to promote the political interests of their friends; and it is a fine thing also, when we gain advantage from the friendship of great men, to turn it to the welfare of our community, as Polybius and Panaetius, through Scipio’s goodwill towards them, conferred great benefits upon their native States.[*](Arcadia and Rhodes respectively. Polybius was a statesman and historian, Panaetius a Stoic philosopher.) And Caesar,[*](Augustus Caesar is meant. For a further account of his treatment of Areius see Life of Antony, chap. lxxx.) when he took Alexandria, drove into the city holding Areius by the hand and conversing with him only of all his friends, then said to the Alexandrians, who were expecting the most extreme measures and were begging for mercy, that he pardoned them on account of the greatness of their city and for the sake of its founder Alexander, and thirdly, said he, as a favour to my friend here. Is there any comparison between such a favour and the procuratorships and governorships of provinces from which many talents may be gained and in pursuit of which most public men grow old haunting the doors of other men’s houses[*](This refers to the Roman custom of greeting at the front door.) and leaving their own affairs uncared for?

Or should we correct Euripides[*](Euripides in Phoenissae, 524 f. represents Eteocles as saying - εἴπερ γὰρ ἀδικεῖν χρή, τυραννίδος πέρικάλλιστον ἀδικεῖν. If wrong be ever right, for the throne’s sake Were wrong most right. (Way’s translation.) If Plutarch quotes this passage, correcting it to suit his purpose, he simply substitutes ἀγρυπνεῖν for ἀδικεῖν and πατρίδος for τυραννίδος. And the sentiment about equality, as the basis of true friendship, seems to be an echo of 535 f. of the same play. This method of dealing with passages from the poets is not infrequently employed by Plutarch.) when he chants the sentiment that if a man must spend sleepless nights and haunt another mans court and subject himself to an intimacy with a great man, it is best to do so for the sake of his native land, but otherwise it is best to welcome and hold fast friendships based on equality and justice?

However, the statesman, while making his native State readily obedient to its sovereigns, must not further humble it; nor, when the leg has been fettered, go on and subject the neck to the yoke, as some do who, by referring everything, great or small, to the sovereigns, bring the reproach of slavery upon their country, or rather wholly destroy its constitutional government,making it dazed, timid, and powerless in everything. For just as those who have become accustomed neither to dine nor to bathe except by the physician’s orders do not even enjoy that degree of health which nature grants them, so those who invite the sovereign’s decision on every decree, meeting of a council, granting of a privilege,[*](This doubtless refers to honorary citizenship, crowns, statues, and the like.) or administrative measure, force their sovereign to be their master more than he desires. And the cause of this is chiefly the greed and contentiousness of the foremost citizens; for either, in cases in which they are injuring their inferiors, they force them into exile from the State, or, in matters concerning which they differ among themselves, since they are unwilling

to occupy an inferior position among their fellow-citizens, they call in those who are mightier; and as a result senate, popular assembly, courts, and the entire local government lose their authority. But the statesman should soothe the ordinary citizens by granting them equality and the powerful by concessions in return, thus keeping them within the bounds of the local government and solving their difficulties as if they were diseases, making for them, as it were, a sort of secret political medicine; he will prefer to be himself defeated among his fellow-citizens rather than to be successful by outraging and destroying the principles of justice in his own city and he will beg everyone else to do likewise, and will teach them how great an evil is contentiousness. But as it is, not only do they not make honourable and gracious compromises with their fellow-citizens and tribesmen[*](The citizens of most ancient states were divided into tribes or clans.) at home and with their neighbours and colleagues in office, but they carry their dissensions outside to the doors of professional orators and put them in the hands of lawyers, to their own great injury and disgrace. For when physicians cannot entirely eradicate diseases, they turn them outwards to the surface of the body; but the statesman, if he cannot keep the State entirely free from troubles, will at any rate try to cure and control whatever disturbs it and causes sedition, keeping it meanwhile hidden within the State, so that it may have as little need as possible of physicians and medicine drawn from outside. For the policy of the statesman should be that which holds fast to security and avoids the tumultuous and mad impulse of empty opinion, as has been said. In his disposition, however, high spirit and

1. courage must be, full of daring,
2. Dauntless, and such as inspires all men who for weal of their country
3. ’Gainst men of hostile intent[*](Homer, Il. xvii. 156 ff.)

and against difficult conditions and times stand firm in resistance and struggle to the end. For he must not create storms himself, and yet he must not desert the State when storms fall upon it; he must not stir up the State and make it reel perilously, but when it is reeling and in danger, he must come to its assistance and employ his frankness of speech as a sacred anchor[*](See note on 812 b above.) heaved over in the greatest perils. Such were the troubles which overtook the Pergamenes under Nero and the Rhodians recently under Domitian and the Thessalians earlier under Augustus, when they burned Petraeus alive.

Then slumb’ring thou never wouldst see him,[*](Homer, Il. iv. 223. Spoken of Agamemnon.)

nor cowering in fear, the man who is really a statesman, nor would you see him throwing blame upon others and putting himself out of danger, but you will see him serving on embassies, sailing the seas and saying first not only

Here we have come, the slayers; avert thou the plague, O Apollo,[*](Callimachus, p. 787 ed. Schneider.)

but, even though he had no part in the wrongdoing of the people, taking dangers upon himself in their behalf. For this is noble; and besides being noble, one man’s excellence and wisdom by arousing admiration has often mitigated anger which has been aroused against the whole people and has dissipated the threatened terror and bitterness. Something of that sort seems to have happened to the Persian king in the case of Boulis and Sperchis[*](The story of these two is told in Moralia, 235 f, 236.) the Spartans, and happened to Pompey in the case of Sthenno,[*](See Moralia, 203 d, where the name is Sthennius, and Life of Pompey, chap. x.) when, as he was going to punish the Mamertines for revolting, Sthenno told him that he would be doing wrong if he should destroy many innocent men for the fault of one; for, he said, it was he himself who had caused the city to revolt by persuading his friends and compelling his enemies. This so affected Pompey that he let the city go unpunished and also treated Sthenno kindly. But Sulla’s guest-friend, practising virtue of the same sort but not having to do with the same sort of man, met with a noble end. For when Sulla, after the capture of Praenestê, was going to slaughter all the rest of the citizens but was letting that one man go on account of his guest-friendship, he declared that he would not be indebted for his life to the slayer of his fatherland, and then mingled with his fellow-citizens and was cut down with them. However, we must pray to be spared such crises and must hope for better things.

And deeming every public office to be something great and sacred, we must also pay the highest honour to one who holds an office; but the honour of an office resides in concord and friendship with one’s colleagues much more than in crowns and a purple-bordered robe. But those who consider that serving together in a campaign or in the school for young citizens[*](Athenian youths from eighteen to twenty years of age were called ephebi. For one year they were trained chiefly in gymnastics and military drill, then for a year they served as guards on the frontier. cf. Aristotle, Constitution of Athens, chap. xlii.) is the beginning

of friendship, but regard joint service in the generalship or other office as the cause of enmity, have failed to avoid one of the three evils; for either they regard their colleagues as their equals and are themselves factious, or they envy them as their superiors, or despise them as their inferiors. But a man ought to conciliate his superior, add prestige to his inferior, honour his equal, and be affable and friendly to all, considering that they have been made

Friends, not of festive board,

nor of tankard,

nor of fireside’s cheer,[*](Apparently a quotation from a comedy. See Kock, Com. Att. Frag. iii. p. 495.)

but all alike by vote of the people, and that they bear goodwill toward one another as a heritage, so to speak, from their fatherland. At any rate Scipio was criticized in Rome because, when he entertained his friends at the dedication of the temple of Hercules, he did not include his colleague Mummius; for even if in general the two men did not consider themselves friends, on such occasions they usually thought it proper to show honour and friendliness to each other on account of their office. Inasmuch, therefore, as the omission of so slight an act of courtesy brought a reputation for haughtiness to Scipio, a man in other respects admirable, how can anyone be considered honourable and fair-minded who detracts from the dignity of a colleague in office, or maliciously flouts him by actions which reveal ambitious rivalry, or is so self-willed that he arrogates and annexes to himself everything, in short, at the expense of his colleague? I recollect that when I was still a young man I was sent with another as envoy to the proconsul; the other man was somehow left behind; I alone met the proconsul and accomplished the business. Now when I came back and was to make the report of our mission, my father left his seat and told me in private not to say I went, but we went, not I said, but we said, and in all other ways to associate my colleague in a joint report. For that sort of thing is not only honourable and kind, but it also takes the sting out of any envy of our reputation. And therefore great men ascribe to God and to Fortune a share in their successes, as Timoleon, who put down the tyrannies in Sicily, founded a sanctuary of Automatia (Chance); and Python, when he was admired and honoured by the Athenians for slaying Cotys, said God did this, borrowing from me the hand that did the deed. And Theopompus, King of the Lacedaemonians, replied to the man who said that Sparta was preserved because the kings were fitted to rule, No, it is rather because the people are fitted to obey.

Now both of these arise from each other. Most people say and believe that it is the business of political teaching to cause men to be good subjects; for, they say, the subject class is in every State larger than the ruling class; and each official rules but a short time, whereas he is ruled all the time, if he is a citizen of a democracy; so that it is a most excellent and useful thing to learn to obey those in authority, even if they happen to be deficient in power and reputation. For it is absurd that in a tragedy the chief actor, even though he is

a Theodorus or a Polus,[*](Theodorus and Polus were famous actors at Athens in the fourth century b.c. See J. B. O’Connor, Chapters in the History of Actors and Acting in Ancient Greece, pp. 100, 128. The terms τραγῳδός and κωμῳδός were used for actors who had been assigned to the highest rank and were privileged to bring out old plays at the festivals, and they stand in sharp contrast to the hireling actors, usually referred to after Demosthenes’ time as tritagonists, to whom were often given the third-class roles of kings; see ibid. chap. i.) often makes his entrance after a hireling who takes third-class parts and addresses him in humble fashion, just because the latter wears the diadem and sceptre, but that in real affairs and in government the rich and famous man belittles and despises the official who is plebeian and poor, thereby using his own high standing to insult and destroy that of the State, instead of enhancing it rather and adding to the office the esteem and power derived from himself. So at Sparta the kings gave precedence to the ephors, and if any other Spartan was summoned, he did not walk slowly in obeying the summons, but by running eagerly at full speed through the market-place they exhibited to their fellow-citizens their spirit of obedience, rejoicing in paying honour to their rulers. They did not behave like some uncultured and unmannerly persons who, as if swaggering in the excess of their own power, abuse the umpires at the games, revile the choregi at the Dionysiac festival, and jeer at generals and gymnasiarchs, not knowing and not understanding that it is often more glorious to pay honour than to receive it. For to a man who has great power in the State greater distinction accrues through serving in the bodyguard and the escort of an official than through being so served and escorted by him, or rather the latter brings him dislike and envy, but the former brings true reputation, that which comes from goodwill; and by being seen sometimes at the official’s door, by greeting him first, and by putting him in the middle place[*](Cf. Life of Cicero, chap. ii., Cicero placed in their midst, as a mark of honour, Perrin’s translation, L.C.L.) in walking a man adds lustre to the State without taking anything from himself.

And it is also a service to the people sometimes to endure the evil speech and anger of a man in office, repeating to oneself either the words of Diomedes:

For unto him will accrue mighty glory,[*](Homer, Il. iv. 415.)

or the saying of Demosthenes,[*](Demosthenes, xxi. (Against Meidias) 524. Meidias had insulted Demosthenes in public when Demosthenes was choregus, officially appointed to bear the expense of a chorus.) that now he is not only Demosthenes, but also one of the thesmothetae,[*](The thesmothetae were the six junior archons at Athens. Their chief duty was supervision of the courts of law.) or a choregus, or the wearer of a crown.[*](The stephanephori were officials whose duties varied in different cities. At Athens they were concerned with public festivals.) We should, therefore, put off our requital to the right time; for then either we shall attack him after his term of office is ended or in the delay our gain will be the cessation of anger.