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Following him Thales said that he accounted it happiness for a ruler to reach old age and die a natural death.
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Fourth, Anacharsis said, If only he have sound sense.
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Fifth, Cleobulus, If he trust none of his associates.
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Sixth, Pittacus, If the ruler should manage to make his subjects fear, not him, but for him. Plutarch cites a concrete case in his Life of Aratus, chap. xxv. (p. 1039 A).
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Chilon followed by saying that a ruler’s thoughts should never be the thoughts of a mortal, but of an immortal always.
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When these sentiments had been expressed, we insisted that Periander himself should also say something. And he, not very cheerful, but with a hard set face, said, Well, I may add my view, that the opinions expressed, taken as a whole, practically divorce any man possessed of sense from being a ruler.
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Whereupon Aesop, as though taking us to task, said, You ought, then, to have carried out this discussion by yourselves, and not, while professing to be counsellors and friends, to have made yourselves complainants against rulers.
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Solon then, laying his hand on Aesop’s head and smiling the while, said, Don’t you think that anyone could make a ruler more moderate and a despot more reasonable if he could persuade them that it is better not to rule than to rule?
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Who, he replied, would believe you in this matter in preference to the god who said, according to the oracle referring to you, Blessed the city that hears the command of one herald only?
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Yet it is a fact, said Solon, that even now the Athenians hearken to one herald and ruler only, and that one, the law, under their democratic constitution. You are clever in understanding ravens and jackdaws, but you have no true ear for the voice of equality, but think that, according to the god, the city which hearkens to one man fares the best, whereas in a social gathering you regard it as a virtue to have everybody talk and on every sort of subject.
