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.
2. 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 Dromoclides 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, cannot 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.
3. 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.
4. 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 sometimes 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.
5. 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,[48]
not only venerating Jupiter the counsellor, Mars the slaughterer, and
Pallas the warrior, but invocating also Calliope,