2
First, then, at the base of political activity there must be, as a firm and strong foundation, a choice of policy arising from judgement and reason, not from mere impulse due to empty opinion or contentiousness or lack of other activities. For just as those who have no useful occupation at home spend most of their time in the market-place, even if there is nothing they need there, just so some men, because they have no business of their own that is worth serious attention, throw themselves into public affairs, treating political activity as a pastime, and many who have become engaged in public affairs by chance and have had enough of them are no longer able to retire from them without difficulty; they are in the same predicament as persons who have gone aboard a vessel to be rocked a bit and then have been driven out into the open sea; they turn their gaze outside, seasick and much disturbed, but obliged to stay where they are and endure their present plight. Over the bright calm sea The fair-faced loves went past them to the mad Outrage of the ship’s oars that plough the deep.Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Graec. iii. p. 396, ascribed to Simonides. These men cast the greatest discredit upon public life by regretting their course and being unhappy when, after hoping for glory, they have fallen into disgrace or, after expecting to be feared by others on account of their power, they are drawn into affairs which involve dangers and popular disorders. But the man who has entered upon public life from conviction and reasoning, as the activity most befitting him and most honourable, is not frightened by any of these things, nor is his conviction changed. For neither is it right to enter upon public life as a gainful trade, as Stratocles and Dromocleides and their set used to invite each other to come to the golden harvest (for so they called the orators’ platform in jest); nor ought we to enter upon it as if wTe were suddenly seized by an onset of strong emotion, as Gaius Gracchus did, who, when his brother’s misfortunes were still fresh, withdrew so far as possible from public affairs and then, inflamed by anger because certain persons insulted and reviled him, rushed into public life. And although he was quickly satiated with public affairs and fame, yet when he tried to stop and wished for a change and a quiet life, he found that his power was too great to be laid down but before he could lay it down he perished. And those who make themselves up for political competition or the race for glory, as actors do for the stage, must necessarily regret their action, since they must either serve those whom they think they should rule or offend those whom they wish to please. On the contrary, I believe that those who, like men who fall into a well, stumble into public life by mere chance and unexpectedly must be cast into confusion and regret their course, whereas those who enter into it quietly, as the result of preparation and reflection, will be moderate in their conduct of affairs and will not be discomposed by anything, inasmuch as they have honour itself and nothing else as the purpose of their actions.
