Praecepta gerendae reipublicae

If ever, O Menemachus, that saying of Nestor’s in Homer,

There is no Greek can contradict or mend

What you have said, yet to no perfect end

Is your speech brought,

[*](Il. IX. 55.)

might pertinently be made use of and applied, it is against those exhorting, but nothing teaching nor any way instructing, philosophers. For they do (in this respect) resemble those who are indeed careful in snuffing the lamps, but negligent in supplying them with oIl. Seeing therefore that you, being by reason moved to engage yourself in the affairs of the state, desire, as becomes the nobility of your family,

Both to speak and act heroicly

[*](Il. IX. 443.)

in the service of your country, and that, not having attained to such maturity of age as to have observed the life of a wise and philosophical man openly spent in the transactions of the state and public debates, and to have been a spectator of worthy examples represented not in word but in deed, you request me to lay you down some political precepts and instructions; I think it no ways becoming me to give you a denial, but heartily wish that the work may be worthy both of your zeal and my forwardness. Now I have, according to your request, made use in this my discourse of sundry and various examples.

First then for the administration of state affairs, let there be laid, as a firm and solid foundation, an intention and purpose, having for its principles judgment and reason, and not any impulse from vain-glory, emulation, or want of other employment. For as those who have nothing grateful to them at home frequently spend their time in the forum, though they have no occasion that requires it; so some men, because they have no business of their own worth employing themselves in, thrust themselves into public affairs, using policy as a divertisement. Many also, having been by chance engaged in the negotiations of the commonweal, and being cloyed with them cannot yet easily quit them; in which they suffer the same with those who, going on board a ship that they may be there a little tossed, and being after carried away into the deep, send forth many a long look towards the shore, being sea-sick and giddy-headed, and yet necessitated to stay and accommodate themselves to their present fortune.

Past is the lovely pleasure

They took, when th’ sea was calm and weather bright,

In walking at their leisure

On the ship’s deck,

Whilst her sharp beak

With merry gale,

And full blown sail,

Did through the surging billows cut its course aright.

And these do most of all discredit the matter by their repenting and being discontented, when either hoping for glory they fall into disgrace, or expecting to become formidable to others by their power they are engaged in affairs full of dangers and troubles. But he who on a well grounded principle of reason undertakes to act in the public, as an employ very honorable and most beseeming him, is dismayed by none of these things; nor does he therefore change his opinion. For we must not come to the management of the commonweal on a design of gaining and growing rich by it, as Stratocles and Dromo slides exhorted one another to the golden harvest,—so in mirth terming the tribunal, or place of making harangues to the people,—nor yet as seized with some sudden fit of passion, as did heretofore Caius Gracchus, who having, whilst his brothers’ misfortunes were hot, withdrawn himself to a retired life most remote from public affairs, did afterwards, inflamed by indignation at the injuries and affronts put on him by some persons, thrust himself into the state, where being soon filled with affairs and glory, when he sought to desist and desired change and repose, he could not (so great was it grown) find how to lay down his authority, but perished with it. And as for those who through emulation frame themselves for the public as actors for the stage, they must needs repent of their design, finding themselves under a necessity of either serving those whom they think themselves worthy to govern, or disobliging those whom they desire to please. Now I am of opinion, that those who by chance and without foresight stumble upon policy, falling as it were into a pit, connot but be troubled and repent; whereas they that go leisurely into it, with preparation and a good resolution, comfort themselves moderately in all occurrences, as having no other end of their actions but the discharging of their duty with honor.

Now they that have thus grounded their choice within themselves, and rendered it immovable and difficult to be changed, must set themselves to contemplate that disposition of the citizens which, being compounded (as it were) of all their natures, appears most prevalent among them. For the endeavoring presently to form the manners and change the nature of a people is neither easy nor safe, but a work requiring much time and great authority. But as wine in the beginning is overcome by the nature of the drinker, but afterwards, gently warming him and mixing itself in his veins, assimilates and changes him who drinks

it into its own likeness, so must a statesman, till he has by his reputation and credit obtained a leading power amongst the people, accommodate himself to the dispositions of the subjects, knowing how to consider and conjecture those things with which the people are naturally delighted and by which they are usually drawn. The Athenians, to wit, are easily moved to anger, and not difficultly changed to mercy, more willing to suspect quickly than to be informed by leisure; and as they are readier to help mean and inconsiderable persons, so do they embrace and esteem facetious and merry speeches; they are exceedingly delighted with those that praise them, and very little offended with such as jeer them; they are terrible even to their governors, and yet courteous to their very enemies. Far other is the disposition of the Carthaginians, severe, rigid, obsequious to their rulers, harsh to their subjects, most abject in their fear, most cruel in their anger, firm in their resolutions, untractable, and hard to be moved by sportive and pleasant discourse. Should Cleon have requested them to defer their assembly, because he had sacrificed to the Gods and was to feast certain strangers, they would not have risen up, laughing and clapping their hands for joy; nor, if Alcibiades, as he was making an harangue to them, had let slip a quail from under his cloak, would they have striven who should catch her and restore her to him again, but would rather have killed them both on the place, as contemning and deriding them; since they banished Hanno for making use of a lion to carry his baggage to the army, accusing him of affecting tyranny. Neither do I think, that the Thebans, if they had been made masters of their enemies’ letters, would have foreborne looking into them, as did the Athenians, when, having taken the messengers of Philip who were carrying a letter superscribed to Olympias, they would not so much as open it, or discover the conjugal secrets of an absent husband, written to his wife. Nor yet do I believe that the Athenians on the other side would have patiently suffered the haughtiness and disdain of Epaminondas, when, refusing to answer an accusation brought against him, he rose up from the theatre, and went away through the midst of the assembly to the place of public exercises. And much less am I of opinion that the Spartans would have endured the contumely and scurrility of Stratocles, who persuaded the people to offer sacrifices of thanksgiving to the Gods, as having obtained the victory, and afterwards, when, being truly informed of the loss they had received, they were angry with him, asked them what injury they had sustained in having through his means spent three days merrily.

Courtly flatterers indeed, like to quail-catchers, by imitating the voices and assimilating themselves to the manners of kings, chiefly insinuate into their favors and entrap them by deceit; but it is not convenient for a statesman to imitate the people’s manners, but to know them, and make use of those things toward every person by which he is most likely to be taken. For the ignorance of men’s humors brings no less disorders and obstacles in commonweals than in the friendships of kings.

When therefore you shall have already gotten power and authority amongst the people, then must you endeavor to reform their disposition, treating them gently, and by little and little drawing them to what is better. For the changing of a multitude is a difficult and laborious work. But as for your own manners and behavior, so compose and adorn them, as knowing that you are henceforth to lead your life on an open stage; and if it is no easy task for you wholly to extirpate vice out of your soul, at least take away and retrench those offences which are most notorious and apparent. For you cannot but have heard how Themistocles, when he designed to enter upon the management of public affairs, withdrew himself from drinking

and revelling, and fell to watching, fasting, and studying, saying to his intimate friends, that Miltiades’s trophy suffered him not to sleep. And Pericles also so changed himself, both as to the comportment of his body and his manner of living, that he walked gravely, discoursed affably, always showed a staid and settled countenance, continually kept his hand under his robe, and went only that way which led to the assembly and the senate. For a multitude is not so tractable as that it should be easy for every one to take it with safety, but it is a service much to be valued, if, being like a suspicious and skittish beast, it can be so managed that, without being frighted either by sight or voice, it will submit to receive instruction.

These things therefore are not slightly to be observed; nor are we to neglect taking such care of our own life and manners that they may be clear from all stain and reprehension. For statesmen are not only liable to give an account of what they say or do in public; but there is a busy enquiry made into their very meals, beds, marriages, and every either sportive or serious action. For what need we speak of Alcibiades, who, being of all men the most active in public affairs, and withal an invincible commander, perished by his irregularity in living and his audaciousness, and who by his luxury and prodigality rendered the state unbenefited by all his other good qualities? —since the Athenians blamed Cimon’s wine; the Romans, having nothing else to cavil at, found fault with Scipio’s sleeping; and the enemies of Pompey the Great, having observed that he scratched his head with one finger, upbraided him with it. For as a freckle or wart in the face is more prejudicial than stains, maims, and scars in the rest of the body; so little faults, discerned in the lives of princes and statesmen, appear great, through an opinion most men have conceived of government and policy, which they look on as a great and excellent thing, and such as

ought to be pure from all absurdity and imperfection. Therefore not unjustly is Livius Drusus commended, who, when several parts of his house lay open to the view of his neighbors, being told by a certain workman that he would for the expense only of five talents alter and remedy that fault, said: I will give thee indeed ten, to make my whole house so transparent that all the city may see how I live. For he was a temperate and modest man. And yet perhaps he had no need of this perspicuity; for many persons pry into those manners, counsels, actions, and lives of statesmen which seem to be most deeply concealed, no less loving and admiring one, and hating and despising another, for their private than for their public transactions. What then! perhaps you may say: Do not cities make use also of such men as live dissolutely and effeminately? True; for as women with child frequently long for stones and chalk, as those that are stomach-sick do for salt-fish and such other meats, which a little after they spit out again and reject; so also the people sometime through wantonness and petulancy, and sometimes for want of better guides, make use of those that come first to hand, though at the same time detesting and contemning them, and after rejoice at such things spoken against them as the comedian Plato makes the people themselves to say:

Quick, take me by the hand, and hold me fast,

Or I’ll Agyrrius captain choose in haste.

And again he brings them in, calling for a basin and feather that they may vomit, and saying,

A chamber-pot by my tribunal stands.

And a little after,

It feeds a stinking pest, foul Cephalus.

And the Roman people, when Carbo promised them something, and (to confirm it) added an oath and execration, unanimously swore on the contrary that they would not believe him. And in Lacedaemon, when a certain dissolute man named Demosthenes had delivered a very convenient opinion, the people rejected it; but the Ephori, who approved of his advice, having chosen by lot one of the ancient senators, commanded him to repeat the same discourse, pouring it (as it were) out of a filthy vessel into a clean one, that it might be acceptable to the multitude. Of so great moment either way in political affairs is the belief conceived of a person’s disposition and manners.

Yet are we not therefore so to lay the whole stress on virtue, as utterly to neglect all gracefulness and efficacy of speech; but esteeming rhetoric, though not the worker, yet a coadjutor and forwarder of persuasion, we should correct that saying of Menander,

The speaker’s manners, not his speech, persuade.

For both manners and language ought to concur, unless any one forsooth shall say that—as it is the pilot who steers the ship, and not the rudder, and the rider that turns the horse, and not the bridle—so political virtue, using not eloquence but manners as an helm and bridle, persuades and guides a city, which is (to speak with Plato) an animal most easy to be turned, managing and directing it (as it were) from the poop. For since those great and (as Homer calls them) Jove-begotten kings, setting themselves out with their purple, sceptres, guards, and the very oracles of the Gods, and subjecting to them by their majesty the multitude, as if they were of a better nature and more excellent mould than other men, desired also to be eloquent orators, and neglected neither the gracefulness of speech,

Nor public meeting, that more perfect they

Might be for feats of war,

[*](Il. IX. 441.)

not only venerating Jupiter the counsellor, Mars the slaughterer, and Pallas the warrior, but invocating also Calliope,

Who still attends on regal Majesty,

[*](See Od. VII. 165.)

by her persuasive oratory appeasing and moderating the fierceness and violence of the people; how is it possible that a private man in a plebeian garb and with a vulgar mien, undertaking to conduct a city, should ever be able to prevail over and govern the multitude, if he is not endowed with alluring and all-persuading eloquence? The captains indeed and pilots of ships make use of others to deliver their commands; but a statesman ought to have in himself not only a spirit of government, but also a commanding faculty of speech, that he may not stand in need of another’s voice, nor be constrained to say, as did Iphicrates when he was run down by the eloquence of Aristophon, My adversaries have the better actors, but mine is the more excellent play, nor yet be often obliged to make use of these words of Euripides,

O that the race of miserable men

Were speechless!

and again,

Alas! Why have not men’s affairs a tongue,

That those fine pleaders who of right make wrong

Might be no longer in request?

[*](Eurip. Frag. 977 and 442.)

For to these evasions perhaps might an Alcamenes, a Nesiotes, an Ictinus, and any such mechanical persons as get their bread by their hands, be permitted on their oath to have recourse. As it sometime happened in Athens, where, when two architects were examined about the erecting a certain public work, one of them, who was of a free and voluble speech and had his tongue (as we say) well hung, making a long and premeditated harangue concerning the method and order of raising such a fabric, greatly moved the people; but the other, who was indeed the better workman though the worse speaker, coming forth into the midst, only said, Ye men of Athens, what this man has spoken, I will do. For those men venerate only Minerva surnamed Ergane (or the Artisan), who, as Sophocles says of them,

Do on the massy anvil lay

A lifeless iron bar, where they

With blows of heavy hammer make

It pliant to the work they undertake.

But the prophet or minister of Minerva Polias (that is, the protectress of cities) and of Themis (or Justice) the counsellor,

Who both convenes assemblies, and again

Dissolves them,

[*](Od. II. 69.)

making use of no other instrument but speech, does, by forming and fashioning some things and smoothing and polishing others that, like certain knots in timber or flaws in iron, are averse to his work, embellish and adorn a city. By this means the government of Pericles was in name (as Thucydides[*](Thuc. II. 65.) says) a democracy, but in effect the rule of one principal man through the power of his eloquence. For there were living at the same time Cimon, and also Ephialtes and Thucydides,[*](The son of Melesias, not the historian. (G.)) all good men; now Thucydides, being asked by Archidamus, king of the Spartans, whether himself or Pericles were the better wrestler, thus answered: That is not easily known; for when I in wrestling overthrow him, he, by his words persuading the spectators that he did not fall, gains the victory. And this did not only bring glory to himself, but safety also to the city; for being persuaded by him, it preserved the happiness it had gotten, and abstained from intermeddling with foreign affairs. But Nicias, though having the same design, yet falling short in the art of persuasion, when he endeavored by his speech, as by a gentle curb, to restrain and turn the people, could not compass it or prevail with them, but was fain to depart, being violently hurried and dragged (as it were) by the neck and shoulders into Sicily. They say, that a wolf is not to be held by the ears; but a people and city are chiefly to be drawn by the ears, and not as some do who, being unpractised in eloquence, seek other absurd and unartificial ways of taking them, and either draw them by the belly, making them feasts and banquets, or by the purse, bestowing on them gifts and largesses, or by the eye, exhibiting to them masks and prizes or public shows of dancers and fencers,—by which they do not so much lead as cunningly catch the people. For to lead a people is to persuade them by reason and eloquence; but such allurements of the multitude nothing differ from the baits laid for the taking of irrational animals.

Let not yet the speech of a statesman be youthful and theatrical, as if he were making an harangue composed, like a garland, of curious and florid words; nor again —as Pytheas said of an oration made by Demosthenes, that it smelt of the lamp and sophistical curiosity—let it consist of over-subtle arguments and periods, exactly framed by rule and compass. But as musicians require that the strings of their instruments should be sweetly and gently touched, and not rudely thrummed or beaten; so in the speech of a statesman, both when he counsels and when he commands, there should not appear either violence or cunning, nor should he think himself worthy of commendation for having spoken formally, artificially, and with an exact observation of punctualities; but his whole discourse ought to be full of ingenuous simplicity, true magnanimity, fatherly freedom, and careful providence and understanding, joined with goodness and honesty, gracefulness and attraction, proceeding from grave expressions

and proper and persuasive sentences. Now a political oration does much more properly than a juridical one admit of sententious speeches, histories, fables, and metaphors, by which those who moderately and seasonably use them exceedingly move their hearers; as he did who said, Make not Greece one-eyed; and Demades, when he affirmed of himself, that he was to manage the wreck of the state; and Archilochus, when he said

Nor let the stone of Tantalus

Over this isle hang always thus;

and Pericles, when he commanded the eyesore[*](So he called the little island Aegina.) of the Piraeus to be taken away; and Phocion, when he pronounced of Leosthenes’s victory, that the beginning or the short course of the war was good, but that he feared the long race that was to follow. But in general, majesty and greatness more benefit a political discourse, a pattern of which may be the Philippics, and (amongst the orations set down by Thucydides) that of Sthenelaidas the Ephor, that of Archidamus at Plataea, and that of Pericles after the plague. But as for those rhetorical flourishes and harangues of Ephorus, Theopompus, and Anaximenes, which they made after they had armed and set in order the battalions, it may be said of them,

None talks thus foolishly so near the sword.

[*](Eurip. Autolycus, Frag. 284, vs. 22.)

Nevertheless, both taunts and raillery may sometimes be part of political discourse, so they proceed not to injury or scurrility, but are usefully spoken by him who either reprehends or scoffs. But these things seem most to be allowed in answers and replies. For in that manner to begin a discourse as if one had purposely prepared himself for it, is the part of a common jester, and carries with it an opinion of maliciousness; as was incident to the biting jests of Cicero, Cato the Elder, and Euxitheus, an intimate

acquaintance of Aristotle,—all of whom frequently began first to jeer; but in him, who does it only in revenge, the seasonableness of it renders it not only pardonable but also graceful. Such was the answer of Demosthenes, when one that was suspected of thievery derided him for writing by night: I know that the keeping my candle burning all night is offensive to you. So when Demades bawled out, Demosthenes forsooth would correct me: thus would the sow (as the proverb has it) teach Minerva;—That Minerva, replied Demosthenes, was not long since taken in adultery. Not ungraceful also was that of Xenaenetus to those citizens who upbraided him with flying when he was general, ’Twas with you, my dear hearts. But in raillery great care is to be taken for the avoiding of excess, and of any thing that may either by its unseasonableness offend the hearers or show the speaker to be of an ungenerous and sordid disposition;—such as were the sayings of Democrates. For he, going up into the assembly, said that, like the city, he had little force but much wind; and after the overthrow at Chaeronea, going forth to the people, he said: I would not have had the state to be in so ill a condition that you should be contented to hear me also giving you counsel. For this showed a mean-spirited person, as the other did a madman; but neither of them was becoming a statesman. Now the succinctness of Phocion’s speech was admired; whence Polyeuctus affirmed, that Demosthenes was the greatest orator, but that Phocion spake most forcibly, for that his discourse did in very few words contain abundance of matter. And Demosthenes, who contemned others, was wont, when Phocion stood up, to say, The hatchet (or pruning-knife) of my orations arises.

Let your chief endeavor therefore be, to use to the multitude a premeditated and not empty speech, and that with safety, knowing that Pericles himself, before he made

any discourse to the people, was wont to pray that there might not a word pass from him foreign to the business he was to treat of. It is requisite also, that you have a voluble tongue, and be exercised in speaking on all occurrences; for occasions are quick, and bring many sudden things in political affairs. Wherefore also Demosthenes was, as they say, inferior to many, withdrawing and absconding himself when sudden occasion offered. And Theophrastus relates that Alcibiades, desirous to speak not only what he ought but as he ought, often hesitated and stood still in the midst of his speech, seeking and composing expressions fit for his purpose. But he who, as matters and occasions present themselves, rises up to speak, most of all moves, leads, and disposes of the multitude. Thus Leo Byzantius came to make an harangue to the Athenians, being then at dissension amongst themselves; by whom when he perceived himself to be laughed at for the littleness of his stature, What would you do, said he, if you saw my wife, who scarce reaches up to my knees? And the laughter thereupon increasing, Yet, went he on, as little as we are, when we fall out with one another, the city of Byzantium is not big enough to hold us. So Pytheas the orator, who declaimed against the honors decreed to Alexander, when one said to him, Dare you, being so young, discourse of so great matters? made this answer, And yet Alexander, whom you decree to be a God, is younger than I am.