2
But, as I said, you are accused of being a hater of kings, and certain back friends of yours have presented Amasis with a paper of yours stuffed with sentences reproachful to majesty; as for instance, being at a certain time asked by Molpagoras the Ionian, what the most absurd thing was you had observed in your notice, you replied, An old king. Another time, in a dispute that happened in your company about the nature of beasts, you affirmed that of wild beasts, a king, of tame, a flatterer was the worst. Such apophthegms must needs be unacceptable to kings, who pretend there is vast difference between them and tyrants. This was Pittacus’s reply to Myrsilus, and it was spoken in jest, quoth Thales; nor was it an old king I said I should marvel at, but an old pilot. In this mistake, however. I am much of the youth’s mind who, throwing a stone at a bitch, hit his stepmother, adding, Not so bad. I therefore esteemed Solon a very wise and good man, when I understood he refused empire; and if Pittacus had not taken upon himself a monarchy, he had never exclaimed, O ye Gods! how hard a matter it is to be good! And Periander, however he seems to be sick of his father’s disease, is yet to be commended that he gives ear to wholesome discourses and converses only with wise and good men, rejecting the advice of Thrasybulus my countryman, who would have persuaded him to chop off the heads of his nobility. For a prince that chooses rather to govern slaves than freemen is like a foolish farmer, who throws his wheat and barley in the streets, to fill his barns with swarms of locusts and whole cages of birds. For government has one good thing to make amends for the many evils attending it, namely, honor and glory, provided the ruler rules good men because he is better than they, and great men seeming to be greater than they. But he that having ascended the throne minds only his own interest and ease, remitting all care and concern for the welfare of the subject, is fitter to tend sheep or to drive horses or to feed cattle than to govern men of reason.
