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Look at the one-man-rule which is established in various states and observe how many there are who aspire to it and are ready to undergo anything whatsoever to obtain it. And yet what that is dire and difficult is not its portion?Cf. Pictures of the fate of despots in Isoc. 2.5, Isoc. 10.32 ff., and Plat. Rep. 579. Is it not true that when men obtain unlimited power they find themselves at once in the coil of so many troubles
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that they are compelled to make war upon all their citizens, to hate those from whom they have suffered no wrong whatsoever, to suspect their own friends and daily companions, to entrust the safety of their persons to hirelings whom they have never even seen, to fear no less those who guard their lives than those who plot against them, and to be so suspicious towards all men as not to feel secure even in the company of their nearest kin?Cf. Cicero, Laelius15: “haec enim est tyrannorum vita nimirum in qua nulla fides, nulla caritas, nulla stabilis bennnevolentiae potest esse fiducia; omnia semper suspecta atque sollicita.”
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And naturally so; for they know well that those who held despotic power before them have been put out of the way, some by their parents,Alexander of Macedon by his mother. some by their sons,Astyages by Cyrus. some by their brothers,Acetas by Perdiccas; Jason of Pherae by Polydorus. and some by their wivesAlexander of Pherae. and, furthermore, that the lineage of these rulers has been blotted out from the sight of men.See Isoc. 5.108, note. Nevertheless they willingly submit themselves to such a multitude of calamities.Cf. the saying of Periander (Hdt. 3.53): τυραννὶς χρῆμα σφαλερόν· πολλοὶ δ′ αὐτῆς ἐρασταί εἰσι. And when men who are of the foremost rank and of the greatest reputation are enamored of so many evils, is it any wonder that the rest of the world covets other evils of the same kind?
