Hiero

Turn next to friendship, and behold how despots share in it. First let us consider whether friendship is a great blessing to mankind.

When a man is loved by friends, I take it, they rejoice at his presence, delight to do him good, miss him when he is absent, greet him most joyfully on his return, rejoice with him in his good fortune, unite in aiding him when they see him tripping.[*](Xen. Cyrop. 1.6.24)

Even states are not blind to the fact that friendship is a very great blessing, and very delightful to men. At any rate, many states have a law that adulterers only may be put to death with impunity, obviously for this reason, because they believe them to be destroyers of the wife’s friendship with her husband;

although,[*](ἐπεὶ should be rendered though, not since here, for it introduces a reason why one might suppose that there would be some restriction on the right to kill an adulterer, and not the reason why all adulterers may be killed with impunity. Compare, for instance, Plat. Prot. 335c. The accident is, of course, rape.) when a woman’s lapse is the result of some accident, husbands do not honour their wives any less on that account, provided that wives seem to reserve their affection unblemished.

In my judgment, to be loved is a blessing so precious that I believe good things fall literally of themselves on him who is loved from gods and men alike.

Such, then, is the nature of this possession—a possession wherein despots above all other men are stinted. If you want to know that I am speaking the truth, Simonides, consider the question in this way.

The firmest friendships, I take it, are supposed to be those that unite parents to children, children to parents, wives to husbands, comrades to comrades.

Now you will find, if you will but observe, that private citizens are, in fact, loved most deeply by these. But what of despots? Many have slain their own children; many have themselves been murdered by their children; many brothers, partners in despotism, have perished by each other’s hand; many have been destroyed even by their own wives, aye, and by comrades whom they accounted their closest friends.

Seeing, then, that they are so hated by those who are bound by natural ties and constrained by custom to love them most, how are we to suppose that they are loved by any other being?

Next take confidence. Surely he who has very little of that is stinted in a great blessing? What companionship is pleasant without mutual trust? What intercourse between husband and wife is delightful without confidence? What squire is pleasant if he is not trusted?

Now of this confidence in others despots enjoy the smallest share. They go in constant suspicion even of their meat and drink; they bid their servitors taste them first, before the libation is offered to the gods, because of their misgiving that they may sup poison in the dish or the bowl.

Again, to all other men their fatherland is very precious. For citizens ward one another without pay from their slaves and from evildoers, to the end that none of the citizens may perish by a violent death.

They have gone so far in measures of precaution that many have made a law whereby even the companion of the bloodguilty is deemed impure; and so—thanks to the fatherland—every citizen lives in security.

But for despots the position is the reverse in this case too. Instead of avenging them, the cities heap honours on the slayer of the despot; and, whereas they exclude the murderers of private persons from the temples, the cities, so far from treating assassins in the same manner, actually put up statues of them in the holy places.

If you suppose that just because he has more possessions than the private citizen, the despot gets more enjoyment out of them, this is not so either, Simonides. Trained athletes feel no pleasure when they prove superior to amateurs, but they are cut to the quick when they are beaten by a rival athlete; in like manner the despot feels no pleasure when he is seen to possess more than private citizens, but is vexed when he has less than other despots; for he regards them as his rivals in wealth.

Nor even does the despot gain the object of his desire any quicker than the private citizen. For the private citizen desires a house or a farm or a servant; but the despot covets cities or wide territory or harbours or strong citadels, and these are far more difficult and perilous to acquire than the objects that attract the citizen.

And, moreover, you will find that even poverty is rarer among private citizens than among despots. For much and little are to be measured not by number, but in relation to the owner’s needs; so that what is more than enough is much, and what is less than enough is little.

Therefore, the despot with his abundance of wealth has less to meet his necessary expenses than the private citizen. For while private citizens can cut down the daily expenditure as they please, despots cannot, since the largest items in their expenses and the most essential are the sums they spend on the life-guards, and to curtail any of these means ruin.