Hiero · Chapter 3A Discourse on Despotic Rule (2)
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(17) See Hold. (crit. app.); Hartman, op. cit. p. 260. (18) Cf. "Mem." I. ii. 38. (19) Cf. "Anab." II. vi. 11; "Hell." VI. iv. 16. (20) "Not of malice prepense." (21) Or, "Such then, as I describe it, is the type of war," etc.
III
Turn now and contemplate the sort of friendship whereof it is given to tyrants to partake. And first, let us examine with ourselves and see if friendship is truly a great boon to mortal man.
How fares it with the man who is beloved of friends? See with what gladness his friends and lovers hail his advent! delight to do him kindness! long for him when he is absent from them! (1) and welcome him most gladly on his return! (2) In any good which shall betide him they rejoice together; or if they see him overtaken by misfortune, they rush to his assistance as one man. (3)
(1) Reading {an ate}, or if {an apie}, transl. "have yearning hearts when he must leave them." (2) See Anton Rubinstein, "Die Musik and ihre Meister," p. 8, "Some Remarks on Beethoven's Sonata Op. 81." (3) Cf. "Cyrop." I. vi. 24 for a repetition of the sentiment and phraseology.
Nay! it has not escaped the observation of states and governments that friendship is the greatest boon, the sweetest happiness which men may taste. At any rate, the custom holds (4) in many states "to slay the adulterer" alone of all "with impunity," (5) for this reason clearly that such miscreants are held to be destroyers of that friendship (6) which binds the woman to the husband. Since where by some untoward chance a woman suffers violation of her chastity, (7) husbands do not the less honour them, as far as that goes, provided true affection still appear unsullied. (8)
(4) Lit. "many of the states have a law and custom to," etc. Cf. "Pol. Lac." ii. 4. (5) Cf. Plat. "Laws," 874 C, "if a man find his wife suffering violence he may kill the violator and be guiltless in the eye of the law." Dem. "in Aristocr." 53, {ean tis apokteine en athlois akon... e epi damarti, k.t.l.... touton eneka me pheugein kteinanta}. (6) See Lys. "de caed Eratosth." S. 32 f., {outos, o andres, tous biazomenous elattonos zemias axious egesato einai e tous peithontas. ton men gar thanaton kategno, tois de diplen epoiese ten blaben, egoumenos tous men diaprattomenous bia upo ton biasthenton miseisthai, tous de peisantas outos aution tas psukhas diaphtheirein ost' oikeioteras autois poiein tas allotrias gunaikas e tois andrasi kai pasan ep' ekeinois ten oikian gegonenai kai tous paidas adelous einai opoteron tugkhanousin ontes, ton andron e ton moikhon. anth' on o ton nomon titheis thanaton autois epoiese ten zemian}. Cf. "Cyrop." III. i. 39; "Symp." viii. 20; Plut. "Sol." xxiii., {olos de pleisten ekhein atopian oi peri ton gunaikon nomoi to Soloni dokousi. moikhon men gar anelein tio labonti dedoken, ean d' arpase tis eleutheran gunaika kai biasetai zemian ekaton drakhmas etaxe' kan proagogeue drakhmas aikosi, plen osai pephasmenos polountai, legon de tas etairas. autai gar emphanos phoitosi pros tous didontas}, "Solon's laws in general about women are his strangest, for he permitted any one to kill an adulterer that found him in the act; but if any one forced a free woman, a hundred drachmas was the fine; if he enticed her, twenty;—except those that sell themselves openly, that is, harlots, who go openly to those that hire them" (Clough, i. p. 190). (7) Or, "fall a victim to passion through some calamity," "commit a breach of chastity." Cf. Aristot. "H. A." VII. i. 9. (8) Or, "if true affection still retain its virgin purity." As to this extraordinary passage, see Hartman, op. cit. p. 242 foll.
So sovereign a good do I, for my part, esteem it to be loved, that I do verily believe spontaneous blessings are outpoured from gods and men on one so favoured.
This is that choice possession which, beyond all others, the monarch is deprived of.
But if you require further evidence that what I say is true, look at the matter thus: No friendship, I presume, is sounder than that which binds parents to their children and children to their parents, brothers and sisters to each other, (9) wives to husbands, comrade to comrade.
(9) Or, "brothers to brothers."
If, then, you will but thoughtfully consider it, you will discover it is the ordinary person who is chiefly blest in these relations. (10) While of tyrants, many have been murderers of their own children, many by their children murdered. Many brothers have been murderers of one another in contest for the crown; (11) many a monarch has been done to death by the wife of his bosom, (12) or even by his own familiar friend, by him of whose affection he was proudest. (13)
(10) Or, "that these more obvious affections are the sanctities of private life." (11) Or, "have caught at the throats of brothers"; lit. "been slain with mutually-murderous hand." Cf. Pind. Fr. 137; Aesch. "Sept. c. Theb." 931; "Ag." 1575, concerning Eteocles and Polynices. (12) See Grote, "H. G." xi. 288, xii. 6; "Hell." VI. iv. 36; Isocr. "On the Peace," 182; Plut. "Dem. Pol." iii. (Clough, v. p. 98); Tac. "Hist." v. 8, about the family feuds of the kings of Judaea. (13) "It was his own familiar friend who dealt the blow, the nearest and dearest to his heart."
How can you suppose, then, that being so hated by those whom nature predisposes and law compels to love him, the tyrant should be loved by any living soul beside?
IV
Again, without some moiety of faith and trust, (1) how can a man not feel to be defrauded of a mighty blessing? One may well ask: What fellowship, what converse, what society would be agreeable without confidence? What intercourse between man and wife be sweet apart from trustfulness? How should the "faithful esquire" whose faith is mistrusted still be lief and dear? (2)
(1) "How can he, whose faith's discredited, the moral bankrupt..." (2) Or, "the trusty knight and serving-man." Cf. "Morte d'Arthur," xxi. 5, King Arthur and Sir Bedivere.
Well, then, of this frank confidence in others the tyrant has the scantiest share. (3) Seeing his life is such, he cannot even trust his meats and drinks, but he must bid his serving-men before the feast begins, or ever the libation to the gods is poured, (4) to taste the viands, out of sheer mistrust there may be mischief lurking in the cup or platter. (5)
(3) Or, "from this... is almost absolutely debarred." (4) "Or ever grace is said." (5) Cf. "Cyrop." I. iii. 4.
Once more, the rest of mankind find in their fatherland a treasure worth all else beside. The citizens form their own body-guard (6) without pay or service-money against slaves and against evil-doers. It is theirs to see that none of themselves, no citizen, shall perish by a violent death. And they have advanced so far along the path of guardianship (7) that in many cases they have framed a law to the effect that "not the associate even of one who is blood-guilty shall be accounted pure." So that, by reason of their fatherland, (8) each several citizen can live at quiet and secure.
(6) "Are their own 'satellites,' spear-bearers." Cf. Thuc. i. 130; Herod. ii. 168; vii. 127. (7) "Pushed so far the principle of mutual self-aid." (8) "Thanks to the blessing of a fatherland each citizen may spend his days in peace and safety."
But for the tyrant it is again exactly the reverse. (9) Instead of aiding or avenging their despotic lord, cities bestow large honours on the slayer of a tyrant; ay, and in lieu of excommunicating the tyrannicide from sacred shrines, (10) as is the case with murderers of private citizens, they set up statues of the doers of such deeds (11) in temples.
(9) "Matters are once more reversed precisely," "it is all 'topsy-turvy.'" (10) "And sacrifices." Cf. Dem. "c. Lept." 137, {en toinun tois peri touton nomois o Drakon... katharon diorisen einai}. "Now in the laws upon this subject, Draco, although he strove to make it fearful and dreadful for a man to slay another, and ordained that the homicide should be excluded from lustrations, cups, and drink-offerings, from the temples and the market-place, specifying everything by which he thought most effectually to restrain people from such a practice, still did not abolish the rule of justice, but laid down the cases in which it should be lawful to kill, and declared that the killer under such circumstances should be deemed pure" (C. R. Kennedy). (11) e.g. Harmodius and Aristogeiton. See Dem. loc. cit. 138: "The same rewards that you gave to Harmodius and Aristogiton," concerning whom Simonides himself wrote a votive couplet: {'E meg' 'Athenaioisi phoos geneth' enik' 'Aristogeiton 'Ipparkhon kteine kai 'Armodios.}
But if you imagine that the tyrant, because he has more possessions than the private person, does for that reason derive greater pleasure from them, this is not so either, Simonides, but it is with tyrants as with athletes. Just as the athlete feels no glow of satisfaction in asserting his superiority over amateurs, (12) but annoyance rather when he sustains defeat at the hands of any real antagonist; so, too, the tyrant finds little consolation in the fact (13) that he is evidently richer than the private citizen. What he feels is pain, when he reflects that he has less himself than other monarchs. These he holds to be his true antagonists; these are his rivals in the race for wealth.
(12) Or, "It gives no pleasure to the athlete to win victories over amateurs." See "Mem." III. viii. 7. (13) Or, "each time it is brought home to him that," etc.
Nor does the tyrant attain the object of his heart's desire more quickly than do humbler mortals theirs. For consider, what are their objects of ambition? The private citizen has set his heart, it may be, on a house, a farm, a servant. The tyrant hankers after cities, or wide territory, or harbours, or formidable citadels, things far more troublesome and more perilous to achieve than are the pettier ambitions of lesser men.
And hence it is, moreover, that you will find but few (14) private persons paupers by comparison with the large number of tyrants who deserve the title; (15) since the criterion of enough, or too much, is not fixed by mere arithmetic, but relatively to the needs of the individual. (16) In other words, whatever exceeds sufficiency is much, and what falls short of that is little. (17)
(14) Reading as vulg. {alla mentoi kai penetas opsei oukh outos oligous ton idioton os pollous ton turannon}. Lit. "however that may be, you will see not so few private persons in a state of penury as many despots." Breitenbach del. {oukh}, and transl., "Daher weist du auch in dem Masse wenige Arme unter den Privat-leuten finden, als viele unter den Tyrannen." Stob., {penetas opsei oligous ton idioton, pollous de ton turannon}. Stob. MS. Par., {alla mentoi kai plousious opsei oukh outos oligous ton idioton os penetas pollous ton turannon}. See Holden ad loc. and crit. n. (15) Cf. "Mem." IV. ii. 37. (16) Or, "not by the number of things we have, but in reference to the use we make of them." Cf. "Anab." VII. vii. 36. (17) Dr. Holden aptly cf. Addison, "The Spectator," No. 574, on the text "Non possidentem multa vocaveris recte beatum..."
And on this principle the tyrant, with his multiplicity of goods, is less well provided to meet necessary expenses than the private person; since the latter can always cut down his expenditure to suit his daily needs in any way he chooses; but the tyrant cannot do so, seeing that the largest expenses of a monarch are also the most necessary, being devoted to various methods of safeguarding his life, and to cut down any of them would be little less than suicidal. (18)
(18) Or, "and to curtail these would seem to be self-slaughter."
Or, to put it differently, why should any one expend compassion on a man, as if he were a beggar, who has it in his power to satisfy by just and honest means his every need? (19) Surely it would be more appropriate to call that man a wretched starveling beggar rather, who through lack of means is driven to live by ugly shifts and base contrivances.
(19) i.e. "to expend compassion on a man who, etc., were surely a pathetic fallacy." Al. "Is not the man who has it in his power, etc., far above being pitied?"
Now it is your tyrant who is perpetually driven to iniquitous spoilation of temples and human beings, through chronic need of money wherewith to meet inevitable expenses, since he is forced to feed and support an army (even in times of peace) no less than if there were actual war, or else he signs his own death-warrant. (20)
(20) "A daily, hourly constraint is laid upon him to support an army as in war time, or—write his epitaph!"
V
But there is yet another sore affliction to which the tyrant is liable, Sinmonides, which I will name to you. It is this. Tyrants no less than ordinary mortals can distinguish merit. The orderly, (1) the wise, the just and upright, they freely recognise; but instead of admiring them, they are afraid of them—the courageous, lest they should venture something for the sake of freedom; the wise, lest they invent some subtle mischief; (2) the just and upright, lest the multitude should take a fancy to be led by them.
(1) The same epithets occur in Aristoph. "Plut." 89: {ego gar on meirakion epeiles' oti os tous dikaious kai sophous kai kosmious monous badioimen.} Stob. gives for {kasmious} {alkimous}. (2) Or, "for fear of machinations." But the word is suggestive of mechanical inventions also, like those of Archimedes in connection with a later Hiero (see Plut. "Marcel." xv. foll.); or of Lionardo, or of Michael Angelo (Symonds, "Renaissance in Italy," "The Fine Arts," pp. 315, 393).
And when he has secretly and silently made away with all such people through terror, whom has he to fall back upon to be of use to him, save only the unjust, the incontinent, and the slavish-natured? (3) Of these, the unjust can be trusted as sharing the tyrant's terror lest the cities should some day win their freedom and lay strong hands upon them; the incontinent, as satisfied with momentary license; and the slavish-natured, for the simple reason that they have not themselves the slightest aspiration after freedom. (4)
(3) Or, "the dishonest, the lascivious, and the servile." (4) "They have no aspiration even to be free," "they are content to wallow in the slough of despond." The {adikoi} (unjust) correspond to the {dikaioi} (just), {akrateis} (incontinent) to the {sophoi} (wise) (Breit. cf. "Mem." III. ix. 4, {sophian de kai sophrosunen ou diorizen}), {andrapododeis} (servile) to the {kasmioi}, {andreioi} (orderly, courageous).
This, then, I say, appears to me a sore affliction, that we should look upon the one set as good men, and yet be forced to lean upon the other.
And further, even a tyrant cannot but be something of a patriot—a lover of that state, without which he can neither hope for safety nor prosperity. On the other hand, his tyrrany, the exigencies of despotic rule, compel him to incriminate his fatherland. (5) To train his citizens to soldiery, to render them brave warriors, and well armed, confers no pleasure on him; rather he will take delight to make his foreigners more formidable than those to whom the state belongs, and these foreigners he will depend on as his body-guard.
(5) Or, "depreciate the land which gave him birth." Holden cf. "Cyrop." VII. ii. 22. See Sturz, s.v.
Nay more, not even in the years of plenty, (6) when abundance of all blessings reigns, not even then may the tyrant's heart rejoice amid the general joy, for the greater the indigence of the community the humbler he will find them: that is his theory.
(6) "In good seasons," "seasons of prosperity." Cf. Aristot. "Pol." v. 6. 17.
VI
He continued: I desire to make known to you, Simonides, (1) those divers pleasures which were mine whilst I was still a private citizen, but of which to-day, nay, from the moment I became a tyrant, I find myself deprived. In those days I consorted with my friends and fellows, to our mutual delectation; (2) or, if I craved for quietude, (3) I chose myself for my companion. Gaily the hours flitted at our drinking-parties, ofttimes till we had drowned such cares and troubles as are common to the life of man in Lethe's bowl; (4) or ofttimes till we had steeped our souls in song and dance (5) and revelry; ofttimes till the flame of passion kindled in the breasts of my companions and my own. (6) But now, welladay, I am deprived of those who took delight in me, because I have slaves instead of friends as my companions; I am robbed of my once delightful intercourse with them, because I discern no vestige of goodwill towards me in their looks. And as to the wine-cup and slumber—these I guard against, even as a man might guard against an ambuscade. Think only! to dread a crowd, to dread solitude, to dread the absence of a guard, to dread the very guards that guard, to shrink from having those about one's self unarmed, and yet to hate the sight of armed attendants. Can you conceive a more troublesome circumstance? (7) But that is not all. To place more confidence in foreigners than in your fellow-citizens, nay, in barbarians than in Hellenes, to be consumed with a desire to keep freemen slaves and yet to be driven, will he nill he, to make slaves free, are not all these the symptoms of a mind distracted and amazed with terror?
(1) Or, "I wish I could disclose to you (he added) those heart-easing joys." For {euphrosunas} cf. "Od." vi. 156; Aesch. "P. V." 540; Eur. "Bacch." 376. A favourite word with our author; see "Ages." ix. 4; "Cyrop." passim; "Mem." III. viii. 10; "Econ." ix. 12. (2) Lit. "delighting I in them and they in me." (3) Or, "when I sought tranquility I was my own companion." (4) Or, "in sheer forgetfulness." (5) Or, "absorbed our souls in song and festal cheer and dance." Cf. "Od." viii. 248, 249, {aiei d' emin dais te phile kitharis te khoroi te} | {eimata t' exemoiba loetra te therma kau eunai}, "and dear to us ever is the banquet and the harp and the dance, and changes of raiment, and the warm bath, and love and sleep" (Butcher and Lang). (6) Reading as vulg. {epithumias}. Breit. cf. "Mem." III. ix. 7; Plat. "Phaed." 116 E, "he has eaten and drunk and enjoyed the society of his beloved" (Jowett). See "Symp." the finale; or if, after Weiske and Cobet, {euthumias}, transl. "to the general hilarity of myself and the whole company" (cf. "Cyrop." I. iii. 12, IV. v. 7), but this is surely a bathos rhetorically. (7) Or, "a worse perplexity." See "Hell." VII. iii. 8.
For terror, you know, not only is a source of pain indwelling in the breast itself, but, ever in close attendance, shadowing the path, (8) becomes the destroyer of all sweet joys.
(8) Reading {sumparakolouthon lumeon}. Stob. gives {sumparomarton lumanter}. For the sentiment cf. "Cyrop." III. i. 25.
And if you know anything of war, Simonides, and war's alarms; if it was your fortune ever to be posted close to the enemy's lines, (9) try to recall to mind what sort of meals you made at those times, with what sort of slumber you courted rest. Be assured, there are no pains you then experienced, no horrors to compare with those that crowd upon the despot, who sees or seems to see fierce eyes of enemies glare at him, not face to face alone, but from every side.
(9) Or, "in the van of battle, opposite the hostile lines."
He had spoken so far, when Simonides took up the thread of the discourse, replying: Excellently put. A part I must admit, of what you say; since war is terrible. Yet, Hiero, you forget. When we, at any rate, are out campaigning, we have a custom; we place sentinels at the outposts, and when the watch is set, we take our suppers and turn in undauntedly.
And Hiero answered: Yes, I can well believe you, for the laws are the true outposts, (10) who guard the sentinels, keeping their fears alive both for themselves and in behalf of you. Whereas the tyrant hires his guards for pay like harvest labourers. (11) Now of all functions, all abilities, none, I presume, is more required of a guard than that of faithfulness; and yet one faithful man is a commodity more hard to find than scores of workmen for any sort of work you like to name; (12) and the more so, when the guards in question are not forthcoming except for money's sake; (13) and when they have it in their power to get far more in far less time by murdering the despot than they can hope to earn by lengthened service in protecting him.
(10) Or, "beyond the sentinels themselves is set the outpost of the laws, who watch the watch." (11) Or, "ten-day labourers in harvest-time." (12) Or, "but to discover one single faithful man is far more difficult than scores of labourers in any field of work you please." (13) Or, "are merely hirelings for filthy lucre's sake."
And as to that which roused your envy—our ability, as you call it, to benefit our friends most largely, and beyond all else, to triumph over our foes—here, again, matters are not as you suppose.
How, for instance, can you hope to benefit your friends, when you may rest assured the very friend whom you have made most your debtor will be the happiest to quit your sight as fast as may be? since nobody believes that anything a tyrant gives him is indeed his own, until he is well beyond the donor's jurisdiction.
So much for friends, and as to enemies conversely. How can you say "most power of triumphing over our enemies," when every tyrant knows full well they are all his enemies, every man of them, who are despotically ruled by him? And to put the whole of them to death or to imprison them is hardly possible; or who will be his subjects presently? Not so, but knowing they are his enemies, he must perform this dexterous feat: (14) he must keep them at arm's length, and yet be compelled to lean upon them.
(14) Lit. "he must at one and the same moment guard against them, and yet be driven also to depend upon them."
But be assured, Simonides, that when a tyrant fears any of his citizens, he is in a strait; it is ill work to see them living and ill work to put them to the death. Just as might happen with a horse; a noble beast, but there is that in him makes one fear he will do some mischief presently past curing. (15) His very virtue makes it hard to kill the creature, and yet to turn him to account alive is also hard; so careful must one be, he does not choose the thick of danger to work irreparable harm. And this, further, doubtless holds of all goods and chattels, which are at once a trouble and a benefit. If painful to their owners to possess, they are none the less a source of pain to part with.
(15) Lit. "good but fearful (i.e. he makes one fear), he will some day do some desperate mischief."
VII
Now when he had heard these reasonings, Simonides replied: O Hiero, there is a potent force, it would appear, the name of which is honour, so attractive that human beings strain to grasp it, (1) and in the effort they will undergo all pains, endure all perils. It would further seem that even you, you tyrants, in spite of all that sea of trouble which a tyranny involves, rush headlong in pursuit of it. You must be honoured. All the world shall be your ministers; they shall carry out your every injunction with unhesitating zeal. (2) You shall be the cynosure of neighbouring eyes; men shall rise from their seats at your approach; they shall step aside to yield you passage in the streets. (3) All present shall at all times magnify you, (4) and shall pay homage to you both with words and deeds. Those, I take it, are ever the kind of things which subjects do to please the monarch, (5) and thus they treat each hero of the moment, whom they strive to honour. (6)
(1) Lit. "that human beings will abide all risks and undergo all pains to clutch the bait." (2) Cf. "Cyrop." II. iii. 8; VIII. i. 29. (3) Cf. "Mem." II. iii. 16; "Cyrop." VII. v. 20. (4) {gerairosi}, poetic. Cf. "Cyrop." VIII. i. 39; "Hell." I. vii. 33; "Econ." iv. 8; "Herod." v. 67; Pind. "O." iii. 3, v. 11; "N." v. 15; "Od." xiv. 437, 441; "Il." vii. 321; Plat. "Rep." 468 D, quoting "Il." vii. 321. (5) Reading {tois turannois}, or if {tous turannous}, after Cobet, "That is how they treat crowned heads." (6) Cf. Tennyson, "Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington": With honour, honour, honour to him, Eternal honour to his name.
Yes, Hiero, and herein precisely lies the difference between a man and other animals, in this outstretching after honour. (7) Since, it would seem, all living creatures alike take pleasure in meats and drinks, in sleep and sexual joys. Only the love of honour is implanted neither in unreasoning brutes (8) nor universally in man. But they in whose hearts the passion for honour and fair fame has fallen like a seed, these unmistakably (9) are separated most widely from the brutes. These may claim to be called men, (10) not human beings merely. So that, in my poor judgment, it is but reasonable you should submit to bear the pains and penalties of royalty, since you are honoured far beyond all other mortal men. And indeed no pleasure known to man would seem to be nearer that of gods than the delight (11) which centres in proud attributes.
(7) Or, "in this strong aspiration after honour." Holden aptly cf. "Spectator," No. 467: "The love of praise is a passion deeply fixed in the mind of every extraordinary person; and those who are most affected with it seem most to partake of that particle of the divinity which distinguishes mankind from the inferior creation." (8) {alogous}, i.e. "without speech and reason"; cf. modern Greek {o alogos} = the horse (sc. the animal par excellence). See "Horsemanship," viii. 14. (9) {ede}, "ipso facto." (10) See "Anab." I. vii. 4; Frotscher ap. Breit. cf. Cic. "ad Fam." v. 17. 5, "ut et hominem te et virum esse meminisses." (11) Or, "joyance."
To these arguments Hiero replied: Nay, but, Simonides, the honours and proud attributes bestowed on tyrants have much in common with their love-makings, as I described them. Like honours like loves, the pair are of a piece.
For just as the ministrations won from loveless hearts (12) are felt to be devoid of grace, and embraces forcibly procured are sweet no longer, so the obsequious cringings of alarm are hardly honours. Since how shall we assert that people who are forced to rise from their seats do really rise to honour those whom they regard as malefactors? or that these others who step aside to let their betters pass them in the street, desire thus to show respect to miscreants? (13) And as to gifts, it is notorious, people commonly bestow them largely upon those they hate, and that too when their fears are gravest, hoping to avert impending evil. Nay, these are nothing more nor less than acts of slavery, and they may fairly be set down as such.
(12) Or, "the compliance of cold lips where love is not reciprocated is..." (13) Or, "to rank injustice."
But honours have a very different origin, (14) as different to my mind as are the sentiments to which they give expression. See how, for instance, men of common mould will single out a man, who is a man, (15) they feel, and competent to be their benefactor; one from whom they hope to reap rich blessings. His name lives upon their lips in praise. As they gaze at him, each one among them sees in him a private treasure. Spontaneously they yield him passage in the streets. They rise from their seats to do him honour, out of love not fear; they crown him for his public (16) virtue's sake and benefactions. They shower gifts upon him of their own free choice. These same are they who, if my definition holds, may well be said to render honour to their hero by such service, whilst he that is held worthy of these services is truly honoured. And for my part I can but offer my congratulations to him. "God bless him," say I, perceiving that so far from being the butt of foul conspiracy, he is an object of anxiety to all, lest evil should betide him; and so he pursues the even tenour of his days in happiness exempt from fears and jealousy (17) and risk. But the current of the tyrant's life runs differently. Day and night, I do assure you, Simonides, he lives like one condemned by the general verdict of mankind to die for his iniquity.