On Kingship 3–33

Must it be, then, that unless someone comes from a city great and wealthy, and brings proud and luxurious speeches, such as rhetoric and poetry beget — popular arts,

popular offspring — such a man, when he comes here, must hang his head, as having no freedom of speech in the palace, unable to boast of the grandeur of his country or to furnish the pleasure of charming and familiar recitals that would win over the emperor and those who sit in council with him? Or will you also cast off philosophy when she visits you, and will no one recognize her, appearing here after so long a time, but rather act as her host and say something good of her to those to whom it is worth saying? For she needs these things, I think, not for her own sake but for yours, lest, being despised, she should become of no use. She herself will provide speeches — not these cheerful ones that put young men into a state of pleasure, dissolute in character and dressed up in diction for the display of a bastard beauty, but of another sort, for those able to reach them: weighty and inspired, manly and dignified, and refusing, for the sake of servile flattery, to buy the favours of the powerful

with them. These speeches are so unbending, so wholly daring, and so out of place in a palace, that they say it will not be enough for them if someone allows them not to praise everything about the emperor and the emperor in every respect; but, if occasion offers, they even threaten to give pain, and promise to bite the heart, not on the surface only but to the middle, in case someone, being pained, might be helped. Worth much indeed to an emperor's hearing would free speech be; but praise given for everything, harming with pleasure, seems to me like those poisons which people steep in honey and hold out to those who are to perish. Do you not know that cookery, with its sauces and its calling forth of bastard appetites, maims bodies, while gymnastics and medicine both save, though at the moment they cause pain? I want you, then, to be among those who are saved, even if you are going to be annoyed at being saved. For meat is not allowed to rot by

the bite of salt; and the mind of a young emperor, inclined by his power to walk wherever it may chance, is held together by the truth of words. Bear, then, with this foreign kind of speech; and let not these words be convicted among you of boorishness and be silenced before they have advanced even a little, because they are not servants of persuasion, pleasant to the young and their playmates, but tutors of a sort, plain correctors, and heavy to meet. But if you prove strong enough to bear such company, and your ears have not been wholly spoiled by the praises you are used to hearing — “here indeed within am I myself.” Cyrene sends me to you, to crown your head with gold and your soul with philosophy: a Greek city, an ancient and venerable name, and in song

by countless wise men of old; now poor and downcast, a great ruin, and in need of the emperor if it is to do anything worthy of its ancient story. This want of mine you will heal whenever you wish, and it will rest with you, if you so will, that I bring you a second crown from my country, great and prosperous by then. But speech now needs no city in order to speak freely and be bold before an emperor; for truth is the nobility of speech, and no speech has ever become baser or more glorious because of its place. Let us set out, then, with God, and take in hand the finest of speeches — or, to speak more truly, of works. For he who has taken care of one man, the emperor, that he may be the best, has gone the shortest way to setting right all households, all cities and all nations, small and great, near and far, all of which must enjoy the emperor's soul, whatever its condition may be. Do you wish, then, that we begin thus, so that you may also follow

the speech? For it would be wise not to scare away the quarry. Let us say, then, what an emperor ought to do and what he ought not, setting the shameful beside the noble. And you, standing over what comes from each side, when you recognize something fitting, love it as approved by philosophy, and reject the other with abhorrence, and resolve to do the one always and the other never again. But when, in the course of the speech, we come to the things that ought not to be done, of which both we and you yourself know you are guilty, show yourself displeased with yourself and blush, because something has appeared to be yours that is not worthy to be yours. Such a colour promises the virtue that comes of repentance; and this shame seems divine even to Hesiod. But the man who is obstinate in his faults, ashamed to confess ignorance, gains no knowledge from repentance, nor has he any use for healing words; a wise man would say that he needs punishment. So rough from the very prelude, and harsh, is philosophy in coming forward. For I perceive that some of you are already disturbed and count freedom of speech a terrible thing. But I promised to do this, and it was for those who foresaw it

to brace themselves stoutly and hold out against the assaults. Now, you rejoice to hear these things, and everyone sings them, and I agree with you: that so great a greatness of rule is yours as is no one else's, and heaps of wealth beyond the Darius of old, and horse by many tens of thousands, and those who use them, archers and men in breastplates, against whom, when they have a leader, all resistance is weak; and cities beyond number do you homage, most of them without seeing you, and not even expecting to see the sight that is better than any prayer. These things would be said of you by us more truly than by anyone. What, then, is the point on which we do not agree with those others? They weave praise for you out of these things and call you happy; but I would least of all praise you for them, though I would most of all count you fortunate. For being counted fortunate and being praised are not one nature, but each is different from the other. One is counted fortunate

for things outside oneself; one is praised for things within, in which happiness has its seat. The one is still an uncertain gift of fortune, the other the proper good of the will. So, too, the one is steadfast of itself, while good fortune wanders, and often turns round into its very opposite. For guarding it there is need of God himself, need of mind, need of skill, need of the right moment, need of many deeds in many places and of every kind, of which there is no experience, and which do not come easily to those who try. For good fortune is not kept safe for human beings without effort, as it comes to them; you see indeed from what lives the stages of the tragedians have been furnished: not from the misfortunes of private men and the poor, but from those of the strong and the powerful and of tyrants. For a small house has no room for the greatness of a calamity, nor poverty for a mass of misfortunes. But the man who is brilliant in his fortunes is the one who may become conspicuous in danger

and in the other portion of fortune. But often virtue has begun good fortune, and praise has led the way to good fortune for human beings, as if fortune were ashamed not to bear witness to manifest virtues. If this must be confirmed by examples, let us not fetch it from outside: recall your father, and you will see that rule was given him as a reward of virtue. Fortune is not the cause of virtue; but some before now have drawn fortune along with deeds done in accordance with virtue. May you be numbered among these, O emperor, so that philosophy may not speak here in vain. May kingship be venerable to you for this reason, that it exercised and advanced your virtue, which needs material sufficient for its own greatness and could not find room in the setting of any life smaller than kingship. You must train, then, to have a kingly soul, and make a defence on fortune's behalf, lest it be prosecuted for unreason because your life and your father's did not proceed from like beginnings. For him military service procured the kingship; for you, kingship is your military service, and you owe virtue to fortune. He acquired good things by toil

but you inherited them without toil. There is need, then, of toil to guard them. And this is what I have long been saying, the hard thing that needs countless eyes: lest fortune, as she is wont to do, turn back midway on the road, like bad fellow travellers. To these the wise compare her instability. You see that even in your father's case, although his proclamation came clearly upon his achievements, envy did not leave his old age free of struggle; and so God did not leave him uncrowned either. Having gone against two tyrants and overthrown both, he ended his life at the second trophy, yielding to no human being, but to nature, against which no weapon is strong and no mind resourceful; and he had virtue for his shroud, leaving to you the kingship unchallenged. May virtue preserve it for you, and may God preserve it through virtue. For God is needed everywhere, and not least by those who are not athletes or workers on their own account but, like you, heirs of fortune. He to whom God has allotted most, and whom he has caused to be called great king while still quite a boy, must choose every toil and leave behind all ease,

taking little sleep and the greatest share of cares, if one is to wear the name of king as befits him. For the old saying is right, that it is not the number of subjects that makes a king, any more than a tyrant, since neither does a number of sheep make a shepherd, any more than a butcher, who drives them off to cut them up, both to gorge himself and to sell a dinner to others. …

[who seeks what is] better for them, and is willing to toil so that nothing may be toilsome for them, and to face danger first so that they may live in safety, and to lie awake and keep company with cares so that by night and by day they may be at leisure from troubles — he is a shepherd among sheep, and among human beings a king. But whoever enjoys his leadership for luxury and indulges himself in his power, thinking he ought to fill all his own appetites from what the governed will lament, counting this the profit of ruling many, that the pleasure-loving part of his soul is served by many; in a word, whoever does not fatten the flock but wishes himself to be fattened by the flock — him I call a butcher among cattle, him I declare a tyrant, when the people governed is a rational one. This is your one measure of kingship; and now bring yourself to the touchstone. If you fit, use justly the noble title of the noble thing;

but if you do not fit, try to straighten what is twisted and to grow true to the rule. For I do not despair of your age's being capable of every advance, if only someone would spur it on toward virtue; for youth too is strong in its leaning either way, just as rivers, once given the starting points of their courses, rush on more insatiably. That is why the young emperor needs philosophy to take hold of him early and draw him back from the outflow to either side. For different vices are neighbours of different virtues, and from each virtue the slip is not into some other vice but into its neighbour. And tyranny lies beside kingship, very close to its door, just as rashness lies beside courage and prodigality beside liberality; and the great-souled man, unless he is kept by philosophy within the bounds of virtue, steps over them and becomes a boaster and vulgar in mind instead of great-souled.

Fear, then, and recognize no other disease of kingship but tyranny, using the marks the argument has laid down; and remember that for a king his way of life is the law, while for a tyrant law is his way of life. Power is a material common to both, though their lives are at war. The height of good fortune and happiness, then, belongs to the man whose will all things by nature follow, while the will follows prudence, and, though mistress of things outside, yields rule to its better partner and receives from her the watchwords of what is to be done. For power is not enough for happiness, nor did God place blessedness in strength; but prudence must be present, or rather go before, so that one may use one's power most finely. And this man and this life I proclaim the most perfect, which is complete

from both and does not limp on one: he who, having been allotted to rule, knows how to rule. For it is invincible when strength and wisdom come together; but parted from each other, ignorant force and weak prudence are easily overcome. And I have admired this in the wise Egyptians. The Egyptians make the form of the god Hermes double, setting a young man beside an old one, holding that whoever among them is to watch over things well must be both intelligent and valiant, since either without the other is of no complete use. That is also why they set up the Sphinx at the entrances of their sacred precincts, a holy symbol of the pairing of the virtues: a beast in strength, a human being in prudence. For strength, deprived of intelligent leadership, is carried along senselessly, mixing

and throwing affairs into confusion; and mind is useless for action when it is not served by hands. All the virtues, then, adorn kings, but prudence is the most kingly of them all. Make her, I pray, your assessor; for the other three will follow the eldest of the sisters, and at once you will have them all as tent-mates and fellow soldiers at your side. I shall speak a word that sounds strange at first hearing, but is wholly bound up with the truth. When I set weakness beside power, poverty beside wealth, and the disadvantages in everything beside the advantages in everything, if they were judged against each other bare, apart from prudence, then poverty and powerlessness and a private life, rather than the greatest leadership, are the happier lot for those who have least share of mind and prudence; for they would sin less, since the vice in their will finds no outlet into action. For external goods,

which Aristotle and Plato, my guides, are accustomed to call instrumental, know how to serve vices no less than virtues. For this reason these two men, and all the streams of philosophy that have flowed from them, neither thought them worthy of the better name nor condemned them to the worse, but call them instrumental: now good, now bad, as they take their colour from the dispositions of those who use them. Just as it is worth praying, then, that the bad man may lack the instruments, so that his wickedness may remain inactive, so all, cities and private persons alike, would benefit from their being present to one who will use them well, so that the nature of virtue may not wither away useless, idle and unknown, but spend its power on benefits to mankind. Use the goods before you, then, in this way; for only so would you use them as goods. Let households and cities, peoples and nations and continents, enjoy a kingly forethought and an intelligent care — the care which God himself, having set himself up among the intelligible things as archetype, gives as an image of his providence, wishing the things here to be ordered in imitation of what is above the world. The king here, then, is a friend of the great King, being his namesake, if he does not belie the name; and he does not belie it if the other of God's names is also present in him. Before saying which,

it would not be out of season to discuss here something from philosophy, preparing clarity in advance. No name has ever yet appeared that touches the essence of God; but human beings, failing to grasp its expression, wish to touch him through the things that come from him. Whether you call him father, or maker, or anything else, or principle, or cause, all these are relations of him to the things that come from him. And so, in calling him king, you named him from those he rules, and did not try to grasp his nature directly. Now, then, I come to speak of the remaining one of the names, which I promised you and deferred to this moment. What will this be, that is ranged alongside and joined to the king here, which I said confirms him and shows him to be truly what he is called and not falsely named? Good.

— for God, I suppose, is hymned as good by all men everywhere, by wise peoples and unwise; and in this they all concede to one another and agree, who in other respects stand apart in their notions of the divine and divide his pure and indivisible nature among differing opinions. Yet even this undisputed name, “good,” does not yet reveal God's seat in being, but is borrowed from the things that come after him. For “good” does not reach the hearing in an absolute sense, but as good for those for whom it is effective and who are able to enjoy it; for this is what the meaning of the name intends, to interpret God as the cause of good things. And the sacred prayers of our fathers in holy rites, crying out to the God over all, do not glorify his power but adore his care. Since, then, God is the giver of the things that befit God, of life and

mind, and of anything else among the things after him that is not unworthy to come from the First, it would befit you not to desert the post at which you were stationed, nor to shame the name you share, but to set yourself to the imitation: to flood the cities with all good things, and to pour out happiness on each of your subjects, as far as each can receive it. So we would truly call you great king, not giving the title from habit, not serving our need, not begging off your anger, but assenting with the very judging part of the soul and using the tongue as a guileless interpreter of the mind. Come, then, let me paint the king for you in words, like a statue; and do you show me this statue moving and come to life. I shall take into my workshop, if need be, some of the thoughts that came to the minds of ancient and blessed men; and you should love them no less than the rest, but rather more, as indisputably fitting for a king, since about them the wise of old and of today think alike. Let piety first be laid as a safe foundation, on which the statue will stand firm; and never will

a storm overturn it while it holds to the foundation. Piety will also rise with it and appear in many places, and not least at the summit. Starting from here, I say that, with God as leader, the king must first be king of himself and establish monarchy in his own soul. For know this well: a human being is no simple thing, nor of one form; God has settled together, in the structure of one living creature, a crowd of powers of every mixture and every voice; and we are, I think, a beast stranger than the hydra and somehow more many-headed. For surely it is not with the same part that we think and desire, nor with the same that we are angry and grieve, and that by which we feel pleasure and fear; but you see that there is in these a male and a female, both bold and

cowardly; there are in it things opposed in every way; and there is a certain nature running through all of them in the middle, which we call mind, and which I deem worthy to reign in the king's soul, after putting down the mob rule and democracy of the passions. For so, starting from his own hearth, he would reign, using the rule of leadership that accords with nature. Whoever has made the irrational parts of the soul tame and submissive and presented them obedient to reason, ordering the multitude under one intelligent leadership, he is the divine man, whether private citizen or king — rather a king, because he shares his virtue with whole nations, and many human beings reap the benefit of the goods of one. Such a man must lead an inner life free of strife, with a godlike calm reaching even to his face; and he is not a fearful but an exceedingly august sight, in a disposition of unfeigned reverence, striking with wonder his friends — which is the same as saying the good — and dismaying his enemies and the wicked. Regret does not set foot in this man's soul. For whatever he does,

he does as resolved by all the parts of his soul, because all have been ordered under one principle, and the parts have not refused to be parts and have converged into one whole. But whoever scatters the forward thrust of these parts, letting them be many in action and wishing to persuade the creature part by part, you will see him now lofty in mind, now laid low; troubled now by impulse, now by flight, and by pains and pleasures and strange appetites. Such a man never agrees with himself. “I understand what evils I am about to do, but passion is stronger than my counsels,” said someone who recognized the otherness and discord of powers of equal strength. This, then, is the first and a very kingly thing: to reign over oneself, setting mind over the many-formed beast that lives with it, and not to claim to rule many tens of thousands

of men while being himself the slave of the most shameful mistresses, pleasure and pain and all the kindred beasts that make their home in the creature. From here, then, going out from himself, the king will first meet those near him, his friends, with whom as companions he will take counsel about the whole. These he will call friends, not using the name ironically, nor like those who disguise the harshness and arrogance of despotism under a name kinder than the reality. For what possession is so kingly as a friend at one's side? What sharer of good fortune is sweeter? Who is surer for bearing with one a worse turn of fortune? Who more guileless in praise? Who less painful in stinging admonition? And what plainer proof of a kindly king could the multitude have than if he is seen always making his companions enviable? For so he would be loved even by those far off, and good men would pray to obtain a king's friendship. The opposite of all this holds for tyrants,

which is why the clever proverb, “far from Zeus and his thunderbolt,” said of one who treats his companions as plotters, declares that safety with obscurity is less fearful than the dangers of a conspicuous life. For no one was sooner counted fortunate for the tyrant's friendship than he was caught by his enmity. But the king knows that self-sufficiency belongs to God, since God is a primal being set above those he rules; but for a man ruling many men like himself, nature is not sufficient for planning every task. Healing, then, nature's deficiency, he joins himself to his friends, multiplying his power. For so he will see with the eyes of all, hear with the ears of all, and deliberate with the judgments of all brought together into one. But one must be on guard with all one's mind — and, if we can, use all the weapons in the courts for this — lest flattery slip in unnoticed, wearing the mask of friendship. By this alone, even while the bodyguards are awake, kingship is plundered; for it makes its way, unless it is very firmly kept out,

deep within the treasuries and attacks the most precious of the king's possessions, his soul itself. For loyalty to companions is not the least of a king's virtues. It was this that made the famous Cyrus and Agesilaus the most renowned of kings among Greeks and barbarians. He will know, then, what must be done, and will confirm a resolution among his friends; but for it to become deeds he needs many hands. The argument, proceeding, now leads the king out of the palace, and after his friends hands him over to the soldiers, friends of the second rank, and, bringing him down to the plain, makes him review men and horses and arms. There he will ride with the horseman, run with the foot soldier, serve as a hoplite with the hoplite, act as a peltast with the peltast, and throw the javelin with the light-armed, drawing each into living comradeship by sharing in the work, so that here too he may not speak ironically when he calls them fellow soldiers, but they may recognize him as one who speaks to them as one of themselves, and bear witness that the name is spoken from deeds. Perhaps you are annoyed that we bid you toil; but, take my word for it, toil touches a kingly body least.

For whoever toils in the sight of others is least overcome by toil. When a king trains his body, lives in the open, and is busy with arms, the peoples everywhere are his theatre. He turns the eyes of those present, and no one can bear to look elsewhere when the king is doing something in full view; and every deed of the king, turned into song, rings in the ears of the absent. This habit — the king's not being a rare sight to the soldiers — can create in the soldiers' souls a very strong goodwill toward him. And what kingship is more secure than one walled by love? What private man, doing small things, is more free from fear and less plotted against than that king whom his subjects do not fear, but fear for? The military class

— the fighting class — [Plato] likens most of all to the dog, an animal that distinguishes friend and foe by knowledge and ignorance. What could be more shameful for a king than that those who fight in his defence should know him only through the painters? Not only will this benefit come from frequent mingling, that the army surrounds him like a single body grown together, but also many of the things that happen at such times: some are exercise in the works of war, others the first rites and preparations of generalship, which rouse one to greater and more serious things. For it is no small thing, in the need of war, to name a general, to name a lieutenant-general, a cavalry commander, a battalion commander and a standard-bearer, if so it happens, and to call some of the veterans by name, with recognition, and to en-

-courage them — I mean those in command in each cavalry squadron and infantry unit. For Homer, setting one of the gods beside the Achaeans in battle, says that with a blow of his sceptre he filled the young men with mighty strength, so that their souls were roused the more to war and fighting, and they could not bear to keep either their feet or their hands still; for “and their feet below and their hands above were eager” means that they dart of their own accord to the work of battle. To my mind the king would do this same thing by calling men by name: he would rouse even one whom no trumpet stirs to ambition, and spur on the fighter. For everyone wishes to toil with the king as witness.

This, it seems, is how the poet judges, that it is a very great help to a king in peace and in war. Perceiving first this very thing, that it weighs most for men's courage that not even the common soldiers be unknown to the king, he made Agamemnon not only call the soldiers by name, but has him also admonish his brother, besides the address, “to name each man by his father and his lineage from of old, and to honour all, and not be proud.” And to “honour” is to speak well of someone, if he knew of some good thing done by him or achieved. Do you see how Homer makes the king the praiser of a commoner? And who would not be lavish of his blood when the king had praised him? This good, then, will come to you from associating often with soldiers; and you will know beforehand their

characters and lives, and what post befits each man at each moment. Consider this too. The king is a craftsman of wars, as the cobbler is of shoes. The cobbler is ridiculous when he does not know the tools of his craft; and how will the king know how to use soldiers as tools if he does not know them? But now that we have come to this point, if I bring the general argument down to the present matter, perhaps I would not shoot wide of the mark: “Who knows if, with heaven's help, I may stir his spirit by my counsel? Good is the counsel of a true man.” For I say that nothing before now has made the affairs of the Romans worse