The Good Book

by A. C. Grayling

  12. Laelius, however, was not puffed up by any of those sayings, but continued always eagerly to exalt Scipio’s virtue and renown.

  13. And Pompey’s friend Afranius, even though he was of humble station,

  14. Nevertheless expected to be elected consul, but when Pompey favoured other candidates, he relinquished his ambition,

  15. Saying that gaining the consulship would be to him not so much glorious as painful and troublesome, if it were against Pompey’s will and without his co-operation;

  16. And so after waiting only one year he both gained the office and retained the friendship.

  17. Those who are thus led to renown by the hand of others gain favour with many,

  18. And at the same time, if anything unpleasant happens, are less disliked;

  19. And that is why Philip advised Alexander to gain friends as long as he could while another man was king,

  20. By having pleasant relations with others and maintaining friendly ties with them.

  21. But anyone who is entering upon a public career should choose as his leader a man who is not merely of established reputation and powerful,

  22. But one who is all this on account of real worth. For just as not every tree will accept and support the vine which entwines about it, but some trees stifle and ruin its growth,

  23. So in states, the men who are not lovers of what is noble, but merely lovers of honours and of office,

  24. Do not give young men opportunities for public activities,

  25. But through envy repress them and, to speak figuratively, wither them up by depriving them of glory, their natural nourishment.

  26. So Marius, after having achieved many successes in Libya and Gaul with the help of Sulla, ceased to employ him and cast him off, being angered by his growth in power.

  27. Sulla, however, exalted Pompey from the time of his youth, rising up and uncovering his head when he came near;

  28. And also by giving the other young men opportunities for leadership,

  29. And by urging some on even against their will, he filled his armies with ambition and eagerness;

  30. And he gained power over them all by wishing to be, not the only great man, but first and greatest among many great men.

  31. Such, then, are the men to whom young statesmen should attach themselves and cling closely,

  32. Not snatching glory away from them, like Aesop’s wren who was carried up on the eagle’s shoulders, then suddenly flew out and got ahead of him,

  33. But receiving it from them in goodwill and friendship, knowing that no one can ever command well who has not first learned rightly to obey, as Plato says.

  Chapter 21

  1. Next comes the decision to be made concerning friends, and here we approve neither the idea of Cleon nor of Themistocles.

  2. For Cleon, when he first decided to take up political life, brought his friends together and renounced his friendship with them,

  3. As something which often weakens and perverts the right and just choice of policy in political life.

  4. But he would have done better if he had cast out of his character avarice and love of strife, and cleansed himself of envy and malice;

  5. For the state needs, not men who have no friends or comrades, but good and self-controlled men.

  6. As it was, he drove away his friends, but a hundred cursed flatterers circled and fawned around him instead,

  7. And he subjected himself to the masses to win their favour, making the basest and most unsound element of the people his associates against the best.

  8. But Themistocles on the other hand, when someone said that he would govern well if he showed himself equally impartial to all, replied,

  9. ‘May I never take my seat on such a throne that my friends shall not have more from me than those who are not my friends!’

  10. He also was wrong; for he subordinated the government to his friendship, putting the affairs of the community and the public below private favours and interests.

  11. And yet when Simonides asked for something that was not just, he said to him:

  12. ‘He is not a good poet who sings contrary to metre, nor is he an equitable ruler who grants favours contrary to law.’

  13. For the architect chooses subordinates and handicraftsmen who will not spoil his work but will co-operate to perfect it.

  14. The statesman who is, as Pindar says, the best of craftsmen and the maker of lawfulness and justice, should choose friends whose convictions are like his own,

  15. Who will aid him and share his enthusiasm for what is noble;

  16. And must avoid those who are always wrongfully and by violent means trying to divert him to various other uses.

  17. A politician of the latter sort will be found to be no better than a builder or a carpenter who through ignorance and error makes use of such squares and rulers and levels as are sure to make his work crooked.

  18. For friends are the living and thinking tools of the statesman, and he ought not to slip with them when they go wrong,

  19. But he must be on the watch that they do not err even through ignorance.

  20. It was this that disgraced Solon and brought him into disrepute among the citizens;

  21. For when he made up his mind to lighten debts and to introduce the cancellation of debts, he told his friends about it, and they did a very wrong thing;

  22. They secretly borrowed large sums of money before the law was published,

  23. And later, after its publication, they were found to have bought splendid houses and much land with the loans they no longer needed to repay.

  24. Solon, who was wronged by them, was nevertheless accused of sharing in their wrongdoing.

  25. For the principles that govern a statesman’s conduct do not force him to act with severity against the moderate errors of his friends;

  26. On the contrary, they make it possible for him, after he has once made the chief public interests safe,

  27. Out of his abundant resources to assist his friends, take his stand beside them, and help them out of their troubles.

  28. And there are also favours which arouse no ill-will, such as aiding a friend to gain an office,

  29. Putting into his hands some honourable administrative function or some friendly foreign mission,

  30. For example one which includes honours to a ruler or negotiations with a state concerning friendship and concord;

  31. And if some public activity be laborious, but conspicuous and important,

  32. The statesman can first appoint himself to the post and then choose his friend as assistant,

  33. For such concession to one’s friends adorns those who give praise no less than those who receive it.

  34. Then, besides, a man ought to ascribe to his friends a share in his own good and kindly acts of favour;

  35. He should tell those who have been benefited to praise and show them affection as the originators and advisers of the favours.

  36. But base and absurd requests he should reject, not harshly but gently,

  37. Informing the askers by way of consolation that the requests are not in accord with their own excellence and reputation.

  38. Epameinondas exemplifies this most admirably: after refusing to let the pedlar out of prison at Pelopidas’ request,

  39. And then letting him out a little later when his mistress asked it, he said, ‘Favours of that sort, Pelopidas, are fit for courtesans to receive, but not for generals.’

  40. But Cato acted harshly and arbitrarily when he was quaestor, and Catulus the censor, one of his most intimate friends, asked for the acquittal of a man who was being tried,

  41. By saying: ‘It is a disgrace that you, whose duty it is to train us young men to honourable conduct, have to be thrown out by our servants.’

  42. For he might, while refusing the favour in fact, have avoided harshness of speech,

  43. By producing the impression that the offensive quality of his action was not due to his own
will, but was forced upon him by law and justice.

  Chapter 22

  1. The administration of affairs frequently gives the man in public life this sort of chance to help his friends.

  2. Hand over to one friend a case at law which will bring in a good fee as advocate in a just cause,

  3. To another introduce a rich man who needs legal oversight and protection, and help another to get some profitable contract or lease.

  4. Epameinondas even told a friend to go to a certain rich man and ask for a talent, saying that it was he who bade him give it;

  5. And when the man who had been asked for it came and asked him the reason, he replied:

  6. ‘Because this man is a good man and poor, but you are rich since you have appropriated much of the state’s wealth.’

  7. And Xenophon says that Agesilaus delighted in enriching his friends, he being himself above money.

  8. But since, to quote Simonides, ‘all larks must grow a crest’, and every public career bears its crop of enmities and disagreements, the public man must take care over these matters.

  9. So most people commend Themistocles and Aristeides who, whenever they went on an embassy or in command of an army,

  10. Laid down their private enmity at the frontier, then took it up again later.

  11. And some people are also immensely pleased by the conduct of Cretinas of Magnesia.

  12. He was a political opponent of Hermeias, a man who was not powerful, but was ambitious, with a brilliant mind,

  13. And when the Mithridatic war broke out, seeing that the state was in danger,

  14. He told Hermeias to take over the command and manage affairs, while he himself withdrew;

  15. Or, if Hermeias wished him to be general, then Hermeias should remove himself,

  16. That they might not by ambitious strife with one another destroy the state.

  17. The challenge pleased Hermeias, and saying that Cretinas was more versed in war than himself, he went away with his wife and children.

  18. And as he was departing Cretinas escorted him, first giving him out of his own means such things as were more useful to exiles than to people besieged in a city,

  19. After which by his excellent military leadership he saved the state when it was on the brink of destruction.

  20. For if it is a noble thing and the mark of an exalted individual to be willing to make peace with a personal enemy for the sake of those things for which we ought even to give up a friend,

  21. Certainly Phocion and Cato and their like acted much better,

  22. For they would allow no personal enmity to have any bearing whatsoever upon political differences,

  23. But were stern and inexorable only in public contests against sacrificing what was for the common good;

  24. Yet in private matters they treated kindly and without anger their political opponents.

  25. For the statesman should not regard any fellow-citizen as an enemy,

  26. Unless some man, such as Aristion, Nabis or Catiline, should appear who is a running sore to the state.

  27. Those who are in other ways out of harmony he should, like a skilful musician, bring into unison by gently tightening or relaxing the strings of his control,

  28. Not attacking angrily and insultingly those who err, but making an appeal designed rather to make a moral impression.

  29. If his opponents say or do anything good, the statesman should not be vexed by their honours,

  30. Nor should he be sparing of complimentary words for their good actions;

  31. For if we act in this way our blame, where it is needed, will be thought justified,

  32. And we shall make them dislike evil by exalting virtue and showing through comparison that good actions are more worthy and fitting than the other kind.

  Chapter 23

  1. And I think also that the statesman should give testimony in just causes even for his opponents,

  2. Should aid them in court against malicious prosecutors,

  3. And should discredit calumnies about them if such accusations are alien to the principles he knows that they profess;

  4. Just as the infamous Nero, a little before he put Thrasea to death, whom he hated and feared intensely,

  5. Nevertheless when someone accused him of a bad and unjust decision in court, said: ‘I wish Thrasea were as good a friend to me as he is a most excellent judge.’

  6. And it is not a bad method for confounding persons of a different kind,

  7. Men who are naturally vicious and prone to evil conduct, to mention to them some enemy of theirs who is of finer character,

  8. And to say: ‘He would not have said that or done that.’

  9. Cato, although he had opposed Pompey in the violent measures which he and Caesar applied to the state,

  10. When war broke out between them advised handing over the leadership to Pompey, saying:

  11. ‘The men who can bring about great evils can also end them.’

  12. For blame which is mingled with praise and contains nothing insulting, but merely frankness of speech,

  13. And arouses not anger, but a pricking of the conscience and repentance,

  14. Appears both kindly and healing; but abusive speech is not at all fitting for statesmen.

  15. Jeering and scurrility bring disgrace upon the speakers of them rather than upon those spoken of,

  16. And moreover they bring confusion into the conduct of affairs and they disturb councils and assemblies.

  17. Therefore Phocion did well when he stopped speaking and yielded the floor to a man who was reviling him,

  18. And then, when the fellow had at last become silent, came forward again saying:

  19. ‘Well, then, about the cavalry and the heavy infantry you have heard already;

  20. ‘It remains for me to discuss the light infantry and the targeteers.’

  21. But since many men find it hard to endure that sort of thing quietly, and abusive speakers are often, and not without general benefit, made to shut their mouths by the retorts they evoke,

  22. Let the reply be brief in wording, showing no temper and no extreme rancour,

  23. But urbanity mingled with playfulness and grace which somehow or other has a sting in it.

  24. There are men who enter upon every kind of public service, as Cato did, claiming that the good citizen ought, so far as in him lies, to omit no trouble or diligence;

  25. And they commend Epameinondas because, when through envy and as an insult he had been appointed telmarch by the Thebans, he did not neglect his duties,

  26. But saying that not only does the office distinguish the man, but also the man the office,

  27. He advanced the telmarchy to a position of great consideration and dignity,

  28. Though previously it had been nothing but a sort of supervision of the alleys for the removal of dung and the draining of water in the streets.

  29. All such are helped by the remark of Antisthenes which has been handed down to memory;

  30. For when someone expressed surprise that he himself carried a dried fish through the marketplace, he said, ‘Yes, but it is for myself’;

  31. But I, on the other hand, say to those who criticise me for standing and watching tiles being measured or concrete or stones being delivered,

  32. That I attend to these things, not for myself, but for my native town.

  33. For there are many other things in regard to which a man would be petty who attended to them himself for his own sake,

  34. But if he does it for the public and for the state’s sake, he is not ignoble;

  35. On the contrary his attention to duty and his zeal are all the greater when applied to little things.

  Chapter 24

  1. But there are others who think the conduct of Pericles was more dignified and splendid, one of whom is Critolaus the Peripatetic,

  2. Who claims that just as the Salaminia and the Paralus, ships at Athens, were not sent out to sea for every service,
but only for necessary and important missions,

  3. So the statesman should reserve himself for the most momentous and important matters.

  4. The statesman ought to find the people fond of him when he comes to them and to leave a longing for him when he is not there;

  5. Which Scipio Africanus accomplished by spending much of his time in the country,

  6. Thereby at one and the same time removing the weight of envy and giving a breathing space to those who thought they were oppressed by his glory.

  7. Timesias of Clazomenae was in other respects a good man in his service to the state, but by doing everything himself he had aroused rancour;

  8. But of this he was unaware until the following incident took place:

  9. Some boys were playing a game of knocking a knucklebone out of a hole when he was passing by;

  10. And the boy who had struck at it said: ‘I’d like to knock the brains out of Timesias as truly as this has been knocked out of the hole.’

  11. Timesias, hearing this and understanding that dislike of him had permeated all the people,

  12. Returned home and told his wife what had happened; and directing her to pack up and follow him, he went immediately away from his house and out from the city.

  13. And it appears that Themistocles, when he met with the same treatment from the Athenians, said,

  14. ‘Why, my dear people, are you tired of receiving repeated benefits?’

  15. Now of such sayings some are well said, others are not.

  16. For so far as goodwill and solicitude for the common weal are concerned, a statesman should not hold aloof from any part of public affairs, but should pay attention to them all and inform himself about all details;

  17. Nor should he hold himself aloof, waiting for the extreme necessities and fortunes of the state;

  18. But perform other duties by means of different instruments operated by different agents,

  19. Thus giving a turn or a twist to the instruments while they sit apart, as a ship’s captain makes use of sailors, lookout men and boatswains,

  20. Some of whom they often call to the stern and entrust with the tiller,

  21. Just so it is fitting that the statesman should yield office to others and should invite them to the orators’ platform in a gracious and kindly manner,