On Kingship 66–77

they took up arms. For it is so that the goods of the cities and of the land may be kept safe that the king fights in front of them and enlists those who will fight in front of them. Whoever, then, wards off the foreign enemy from my flock but himself uses it immoderately seems to me no different from a dog that chases the wolves as far away as possible for this very reason, that it may itself ravage the flock at leisure, when it ought to take as the wage of its watch its fill of the milk. Strict peace requires that the soldiers be trained to treat the unarmed as brothers, taking only what they have been assigned. Nor is it kingly to wear out the cities with taxes. For where does a good king need much money? He is neither one who through looseness of mind lets himself into costly works, preferring boastful ambition to sober need, nor one who with a boy's mind lavishes on

the amusements of the stage the sweat of serious men; nor one driven to the need of many wars, which, as the Laconian says, do not feed on fixed rations; for our argument made the good king one whom no one plots against or attacks. With his expenses, then, held to what is needed, he needs nothing superfluous. He can become the gentlest of revenue-raisers, remitting arrears that are unavoidable and content with what is proportionate to the means of those who pay. A money-loving king is more shameful than a huckster; for the huckster relieves the want of his household, but the king's vice of mind has no excuse. For my part, often examining each of the passions and what sort of men it makes of those who are given to it, I think I see even among private persons that this money-making tribe is more ignoble than any other, malicious and thoroughly illiberal, and would find a place not wholly dishonoured only in a diseased commonwealth. They have already been despised even by themselves, because, against the will of

nature, they think in reverse about what is first and what is last. For nature ordered the body to the service of the soul, and external things to the use of the body, and gave the last the second place; but they subject both body and soul to the third. Having dishonoured themselves and made a slave of what should rule in them, what great and noble thing could they still do or plan? I declare them more ignoble than ants and smaller of mind, and I am not ashamed of the truth; for the ants measure their gathering by the needs of life, while these men think fit to measure life by the need of gathering. Drive away, then, from yourself and from your subjects this grievous plague, so that, being good, you may rule over the good; and let a rivalry in virtue be set up, in which the king himself is both contestant and judge of the games. For it is shameful, someone said, that people compete in public at javelin-throwing and boxing, and that there are crowns for those who win at these, while no one competes in temperance or in virtue. It is likely, surely,

or rather more than likely, indeed altogether necessary, that the cities, following such a disposition in their king, will live the life of old, the golden, the much-sung life, with no leisure for evils and leisure for good things, and above all for piety, in which the king himself will be their leader, asking from God the beginning of every work, lesser and greater. For there is no sight or sound more august than an emperor among his people lifting up his hands and worshipping the King common to himself and his people. And it is reasonable that the divine should rejoice when glorified by the service of a pious emperor, and should make such a man its own by ineffable bonds. From this, then — from being dear to God — he is above all a lover of mankind, showing himself to his subjects such as the King is to him. And with this, what that is needed would not likely be present? And again my speech turns back to what was said a little before.

We set down beneficence as the mark of kingship — the bestower of good things, again, the gracious one — recounting the names the king shares with God. Let these very things, then, and all that was said with them before I promised to mould the king in the speech, now be fitted into their parts and complete the statue. Its chief point was that, being a provider of good things, he will not grow tired of doing this, any more than the sun grows tired of giving its rays to plants and animals; for it is no toil for it to shine, since it has brightness in its essence and is a source of light. Setting himself, then, upon such a form of life, he will through himself bring order to everything his rule reaches; and those who sit near him, who are second to him alone and first of all others, he will order by the kingly adornment of his soul, so that they are benefactors of men each to the measure of the power allotted to him. And so

the first care for human beings advances further, with more people having it in hand. But in an empire of such greatness governors must also be sent out to the provinces. After this, great care must be taken in choosing the magistrates set over justice. For this is a divine and magnificent providence: to wish to know every place and man and dispute oneself requires much going round, and not even Dionysius, who established his rule over a single island and not even the whole of it, would have been able to take care of it. But through a few overseers it is possible to care for the many. This [the wise] called

a godlike and universal care, which, remaining in a steady character and not stooping to whatever parts it chances on, lets none of the parts escape it, whatever they may be. Using this, God does not himself work out in detail each of the things here, but uses nature as his hand, remaining in his own character, and is the cause of good things down to the last, becoming the cause of the causes. In this way the king too should pursue his care of the whole. Let him distribute his rule, as far as possible, among the most just and best overseers; for it is easier for him to know a few than many, and easier to perceive the failures or successes of a few. Let magistrates, then, be chosen by merit and not, as now, by wealth; since we entrust the body to physicians, not to the richest, but to those most skilled in the art, and still more must one prefer, as magistrate, the man who has the science of ruling to the rich man, because more is at stake with him of things being worse or better. What then? If someone has gathered wealth from his very wickedness, is he therefore worthy to rule, and not the man who is poor but

lawful and just, who is not ashamed to live with poverty precisely because he is just? But that rich man, however he became rich, who has bought his office, would not know what sort of dispenser of justice he might become. For such a man, so to speak, would not easily hate injustice and would hardly disdain money, but would surely turn the court into a market for lawsuits; for it is not likely that he would open his eyes wide and look fiercely back at gold. On the contrary, he would be abashed and give in and at last embrace it, being grateful to it for this very reason, that he has exchanged his share of wealth for public office and has hired the cities as he would anything else. He knows, then, that it is because of this that he is venerable and sits on high, gazed

upon by many other people and by the just and poor who come before him. But you, make virtue conspicuous, even when it lives with poverty. Let not a man's prudence escape you, nor his justice, nor the rest of the swarm of the soul's goods, hidden under a poor garment; but draw him into the open and require him to make his virtue public, for it ought not to keep at home but to be in the open air and in the contest. For know well: you will proclaim such men for the moment, but you yourself will be proclaimed for ever, having given to the succession of time an example of a happy kingship. If you do this, you will soon see many ashamed of having made money, and others

priding themselves on voluntary poverty; and men's present opinions on the matter will change, so that to have acquired wealth will be a reproach, and to have kept to poverty will count as dignity. Of the many enviable and blessed things God has given to kingship, one would admire none less than, and perhaps more than all, the power it has in the souls of its subjects, and would sing of it: that a king changes men's opinion of character, burned in by old habit and earliest upbringing, simply by being seen to honour the opposite and to value it most; for whatever a king delights in must at once grow and be practised by more. But having come to this point in my speech, I wish also to pray for my own beloved. May you fall in love,

O emperor, with philosophy and true education; for then, from what has been said, many must become your fellow lovers, and of them there would be some benefit. For now, as it has been neglected, there is danger that it may be put out, and that in a little while not even a spark will be left for those who wish to kindle it. Have I, then, been praying for philosophy? Or is it no loss to her, even if she departs from mankind? For she has her hearth with God, about whom she is mostly occupied even while here, and when the earthly region does not receive her as she comes down, she stays with the Father, and might justly say to us: “I have no need of this honour; I think I am honoured by the portion of Zeus.” But human affairs become worse and better, wholly happy and wretched, as she is present or absent. It is for these, then, and not for philosophy, that I have prayed. And may I obtain the prayer which Plato prayed and did not obtain.

May I see you with philosophy joined to kingship, and no one will hear me speak any further about kingship. But it is now time to be silent, since in this one thing I have summed up everything. If this comes to pass, I have given you what I asked at the beginning: I myself promised to show you in words the statue of a king — for speech is truly the shadow of deed — and to receive it back from you living and moving. And I shall see it before long, and you will render to me the work of a king, if my words do not stay outside around your ears, but enter in and make their home in the recesses of your soul. Indeed I am persuaded that it is not without God that philosophy has been roused to this exhortation, since God, as is easy to guess, is eager to increase your fortunes. And I should rightly be the first to enjoy the harvest of my own seeds, finding you such a king as I fashion, when I give and receive account of what the cities ask.