Hiero

Simonides, the poet, once paid a visit to Hiero, the despot. When both found time to spare, Simonides said: Hiero, will you please explain something to me that you probably know better than I? And pray what is it, said Hiero, that I can know better than one so wise as yourself?

I know you were born a private citizen, he answered, and are now a despot. Therefore, as you have experienced both fortunes, you probably know better than I how the lives of the despot and the citizen differ as regards the joys and sorrows that fall to man’s lot.

Surely, said Hiero, seeing that you are still a private citizen, it is for you to remind me of what happens in a citizen’s life; and then, I think, I could best show you the differences between the two.

Well, said Simonides, taking the suggestion, I think I have observed that sights affect private citizens with pleasure and pain through the eyes, sounds through the ears, smells through the nostrils, meat and drink through the mouth, carnal appetites—of course we all know how.

In the case of cold and heat, things hard and soft, light and heavy, our sensations of pleasure and pain depend on the whole body, I think. In good and evil we seem to feel pleasure or pain, as the case may be—sometimes through the instrumentality of the moral being only, at other times through that of the moral and the physical being together.

Sleep, it seems clear to me, affects us with pleasure; but how and by what means and when are puzzles that I feel less able to solve. And perhaps it is no matter for surprise if our sensations are clearer when we are awake than when we are asleep.

For my part, Simonides, said Hiero in answer to this, I cannot say how a despot could have any sensations apart from those you have mentioned. So far, therefore, I fail to see that the despot’s life differs in any respect from the citizen’s.

In this respect it does differ, said Simonides: the pleasures it experiences by means of these various organs are infinitely greater in number, and the pains it undergoes are far fewer. It is not so, Simonides, retorted Hiero; I assure you far fewer pleasures fall to despots than to citizens of modest means, and many more and much greater pains. Incredible! exclaimed Simonides.

Were it so, how should a despot’s throne be an object of desire to many, even of those who are reputed to be men of ample means? And how should all the world envy despots?

For this reason of course, said Hiero, that they speculate on the subject without experience of both estates. But I will try to show you that I am speaking the truth, beginning with the sense of sight. That was your first point, if I am not mistaken.

In the first place, then, taking the objects that we perceive by means of vision, I find by calculation that in regard to sight-seeing, despots are worse off. In every land there are things worth seeing: and in search of these private citizens visit any city they choose, and attend the national festivals, where all things reputed to be most worth seeing are assembled.

But despots are not at all concerned with missions to shows. For it is risky for them to go where they will be no stronger than the crowd, and their property at home is too insecure to be left in charge of others while they are abroad. For they fear to lose their throne, and at the same time to be unable to take vengeance on the authors of the wrong. Perhaps you may say:

But, after all, such spectacles come to them even if they stay at home. No, no, Simonides, only one in a hundred such; and what there are of them are offered to despots at a price so exorbitant that showmen who exhibit some trifle expect to leave the court in an hour with far more money than they get from all the rest of the world in a lifetime.

Ah, said Simonides, but if you are worse off in the matter of sight-seeing, the sense of hearing, you know, gives you the advantage. Praise, the sweetest of all sounds, is never lacking, for all your courtiers praise everything you do and every word you utter. Abuse, on the contrary, that most offensive of sounds, is never in your ears, for no one likes to speak evil of a despot in his presence.

And what pleasure, asked Hiero, comes, do you suppose, of this shrinking from evil words, when one knows well that all harbour evil thoughts against the despot, in spite of their silence? Or what pleasure comes of this praise, do you think, when the praises sound suspiciously like flattery?

Well yes, replied Simonides, in this of course I agree with you entirely, Hiero, that praise from the freest is sweetest. But this, now, you will not persuade anyone to believe, that the things which support human life do not yield you a far greater number of pleasures.

Yes, Simonides, and I know that the reason why most men judge that we have more enjoyment in eating and drinking than private citizens is this; they think that they themselves would find the dinner served at our table better eating than what they get. Anything, in fact, that is better than what they are accustomed to gives them pleasure.

This is why all men look forward to the festivals, except the despots. For their table is always laden with plenty, and admits of no extras on feast days. Here then is one pleasure in respect of which they are worse off than the private citizen, the pleasure of anticipation.

But further, your own experience tells you, I am sure, that the greater the number of superfluous dishes set before a man, the sooner a feeling of repletion comes over him; and so, as regards the duration of his pleasure too, the man who has many courses put before him is worse off than the moderate liver.

But surely, said Simonides, so long as the appetite holds out, the man who dines at the costlier banquet has far more pleasure than he who is served with the cheaper meal.