36
And now on the subject of temperance, also, I have still more important things to recount. For, since I realized that all men are most jealous for their wives and children, being above all quick to resent offenses against them, and that wantonness in these relations is responsible for the greatest evils—many ere now, of princely rank as well as of private station, having lost their lives because of it—, I so strictly avoided all these grounds of offense that, from the time when I became king, no one can charge me with having approached any woman but my own wife.
37
I was not, of course, unaware that those kings also are highly thought of by the multitude who are just in their dealings with their citizens, even though they provide themselves with pleasures from outside their households; but I desired both to put myself as far above such suspicions as possible and at the same time to set up my conduct as a pattern to my people, knowing that the multitude are likely to spend their lives in practices in which they see their rulers occupied.
38
Then again, I considered that it is also the duty of kings to be as much better than private citizens as they are superior to them in rank; and that those kings act contrary to all reason who compel their subjects to live decently but are themselves less continent than those over whom they rule.
39
Moreover, I saw that while the majority of people are masters of themselves in other matters, even the best are slaves to the passions whose objects are boys and women; and therefore I wanted to show that I could be strong in those things in which I should be superior, not merely to people in general, but even to those who pride themselves on their virtue.
