or starting back for fear, any one who is truly a statesman; neither
shall you find him accusing others and withdrawing himself out of
harm’s way; but you shall have him rather going on embassies, sailing
to foreign parts, and not only saying first,
We’re here, Apollo, who the murther wrought,
No longer plague our country for our fault,
but also ready to undergo perils and dangers for the multitude, even
though he has not been at all partaker of their crime. For this indeed
is a gallant action; and besides its honesty, one only man’s virtue and
magnanimity has often wonderfully mitigated the anger conceived against
a whole multitude, and dissipated the terror and bitterness with which
they were threatened. Such an influence with a king of Persia had the
deportment of Sperchis and Bulis, two noble Spartans; and equally
prevalent was the speech of Stheno with Pompey, when, being about to
punish the Mamertines for their defection, he was told by Stheno, that
he would not act justly if he should for one guilty person destroy
abundance of innocents; for that he himself had caused the revolt of
the city, by persuading his friends and forcing his enemies to that
attempt. This speech did so dispose Pompey, that he both pardoned the
city and courteously treated Stheno. But Sylla’s host, having used the
like virtue towards an unlike person, generously ended his days. For
when Sylla, having taken the city of Praeneste, determined to put all
the rest of the inhabitants to the sword, and to spare only him for the
hospitality that had been between them, he, saying that he would not be
indebted for his preservation to the destroyer of his country, thrust
himself in amongst his fellow-citizens, and was massacred with them. We
ought therefore indeed to deprecate such times as these, and hope for
better things.
20. Moreover, we should honor, as a great and sacred thing, every
magistracy and magistrate. Now the mutual concord and friendship of
magistrates with one another is a far greater honor of magistracy
than their diadems and purple-garded robes. Now those who lay for a
foundation of friendship their having been fellow-soldiers or having
spent their youth together, and take their being joint commanders or
co-magistrates for a cause of enmity, cannot avoid being guilty of
one of these three evils. For either, regarding their colleagues in
government as their equals, they brangle with them; or looking on them
as their superiors, they envy them; or esteeming them their inferiors,
they despise them; whereas, indeed, one ought to court his superior,
advance his inferior, honor his equal, and love and embrace all, as
having been made friends, not by eating at the same table, drinking in
the same cup, or meeting at the same solemn feast, but by a common and
public bond, and having in some sort an hereditary benevolence derived
from their country. Scipio therefore was ill spoken of in Rome, for
that, making a feast for his friends at the dedication of a temple
to Hercules, he invited not to it his colleague Mummius; for, though
in other things they took not one another for friends, yet in such
occurrences as these they should have mutually honored and caressed
each other, for the sake of their common magistracy. If then the
omission of so small a civility brought Scipio, who was otherwise an
admirable man, under a suspicion of arrogancy; how can he who seeks
to impair the dignity of his colleague, or to obfuscate the lustre of
his actions, or through insolency to draw and attribute all things to
himself, taking them wholly from his companion, be esteemed reasonable
and moderate? I remember that, when I was yet but a young man, being
jointly with another sent on an embassy to the proconsul, and my
companion—I know not on what occasion—stopping by the way, I went on
alone and performed the affair. Now when at my return I was to render
an account of my charge, my father, taking me aside, admonished me not
to say _I went_ but _We went_, not _I spoke_ but _We spoke_, and so
through all the rest to make my report by associating my companion, and
rendering him a sharer in my actions. For this is not only decent and
courteous, but also takes from glory what is offensive, that is, envy.
Whence it is that great men generally co-ascribe their most glorious
actions to their Daemon or Fortune; as did Timoleon, who having
destroyed the tyrannies in Sicily, consecrated a temple to Chance;
and Python, when, being admired and honored by the Athenians for
having slain Cotys, he said, God did this, making use of my hand. But
Theopompus, king of the Lacedaemonians, when one said that Sparta was
preserved because its kings were well skilled in governing, replied:
’Tis rather because the people are well versed in obeying.
21. These two things then are affected by each other; yet most men both
say and think that the business of political instruction is to render
the people pliable to be governed. For there are in every city more
governed than governors, and every one who lives in a democracy rules
only a short time, but is subject all his life, so that it is the most
excellent and useful lesson we can learn, to obey those who are set
over us, though they are less furnished with authority and reputation.
For it is absurd that a Theodorus or a Polus, the principal actor in
a tragedy, should often obey a hireling who plays the third part, and
speak humbly to him because he wears a diadem and a sceptre; and that
in real actions and in the government of the state, a rich and mighty
man should undervalue and contemn a magistrate because he is simple
and poor, thus injuring and degrading the dignity of the commonweal by
his own; whereas he should rather by his own reputation and authority
have increased and advanced that of the magistrate. As in Sparta the
kings rose up out of their thrones to the ephors, and whoever else
was sent for by them did not slowly obey, but running hastily and
with speed through the forum, gave a pattern of obedience to his
fellow-citizens, whilst he gloried in honoring the magistrates; not
like to some ill-bred and barbarous persons, who, priding themselves in
the abundance of their power, affront the judges of the public combats,
revile the directors of the dances in the Bacchanals, and deride
military commanders and these that preside over the exercises of youth,
neither knowing nor understanding that to honor is sometimes more
glorious than to be honored. For to a man of great authority in a city,
his accompanying and attending on the magistrate is a greater grace
than if he were himself accompanied and attended on by him; or rather
this indeed would bring trouble and envy, but that brings real glory,
and such as proceeds from kindness and good-will. And such a man, being
seen sometimes at the magistrate’s door, and saluting him first, and
giving him the middle place in walking, does, without taking any thing
from himself, add ornament to the city.
22. It is also a popular thing and wins greatly on the multitude, to
bear patiently the reproaches and indignation of a magistrate, saying
either with Diomedes,