To Donatus 13

Or do you think those at least safe, those secure with stable firmness amid the insignia of honours and ample wealth, whom, shining in the splendour of a royal court, the protection of armed guards surrounds? Their fear is greater than others'. Such a man is forced to fear as much as he is feared. Loftiness exacts penalties equally from the more powerful, though he be hedged in by a band of attendants and guard his side, enclosed and protected, with numerous escort. As he does not allow his subjects to be secure, so necessarily he himself is not secure: his own power holds in its grip before others those whom it makes terrible. It smiles that it may rage, it flatters that it may deceive, it lifts up that it may cast down. By a kind of interest on harm, the greater the sum of rank and honours has been, the greater the usury of punishments exacted.