To an Uneducated Ruler (2-3)

But most kings and rulers are so foolish as to act like unskilful sculptors, who think their colossal figures look large and imposing if they are modelled with their feet far apart, their muscles tense, and their mouths wide open. For these rulers seem by heaviness of voice, harshness of expression, truculence of manner, and unsociability in their way of living to be imitating the dignity and majesty of the princely station, although in fact they are not at all different from colossal statues which have a heroic and godlike form on the outside, but inside are full of clay, stone, and lead, - except that in the case of the statues the weight of those substances keeps them permanently upright without leaning, whereas uneducated generals and rulers are often rocked and capsized by the ignorance within them; for since the foundation upon which they have built up their lofty power is not laid straight, they lean with it and lose their balance. But just as a rule, if it is made rigid and inflexible, makes other things straight when they are fitted to it and laid alongside it, in like manner the sovereign must first gain command of himself, must regulate his own soul and establish his own character, then make his subjects

fit his pattern. For one who is falling cannot hold others up, nor can one who is ignorant teach, nor the uncultivated impart culture, nor the disorderly make order, nor can he rule who is under no rule. But most people foolishly believe that the first advantage of ruling is freedom from being ruled. And indeed the King of the Persians used to think that everyone was a slave except his own wife, whose master he ought to have been most of all.

Who, then, shall rule the ruler? The

Law, the king of all,

Both mortals and immortals,

as Pindar[*] says - not law written outside him in books or on wooden tablets[*] or the like, but reason endowed with life within him, always abiding with him and watching over him and never leaving his soul without its leadership. For example, the King of the Persians had one of his chamberlains assigned to the special duty of entering his chamber in the morning and saying to him: Arise, O King, and consider matters which the great Oromasdes[*] wished you to consider. But the educated and wise ruler has within him the voice which always thus speaks to him and exhorts him. Indeed Polemo said that love was the service of the gods for the care and preservation of the young; one might more truly say that rulers serve god for the care and preservation of men, in order that of the glorious gifts which the gods give to men they may distribute some and safeguard others.

Dost thou behold this lofty, boundless sky

Which holds the earth enwrapped in soft embrace?[*]

The sky sends down the beginnings of the appropriate seeds, and the earth causes them to sprout up; some are made to grow by showers and some by winds, and some by the warmth of stars and moon; but it is the sun which adorns all things and mingles in all things what men call the love charm which is derived from himself. But these gifts and blessings, so excellent and so great, which the gods bestow cannot be rightly enjoyed nor used without law and justice and a ruler. Now justice is the aim and end of law, but law is the work of the ruler, and the ruler is the image of God who orders all things. Such a ruler needs no Pheidias nor Polycleitus nor Myron to model him, but by his virtue he forms himself in the likeness of God and thus creates a statue most delightful of all to behold and most worthy of divinity. Now just as in the heavens God has established as a most beautiful image of himself the sun and the moon, so in states a ruler

who in God’s likeness

Righteous decisions upholds,[*]

that is to say, one who, possessing god’s wisdom, establishes, as his likeness and luminary, intelligence in place of sceptre or thunderbolt or trident, with which attributes some rulers represent themselves in sculpture and painting, thus causing their folly to arouse hostile feelings, because they claim what they cannot attain. For God visits his wrath upon those who imitate his thunders, lightnings, and sunbeams, but with those who emulate his virtue and make themselves like unto his goodness and mercy he is well pleased and therefore causes them to prosper and gives them a share of his own equity, justice, truth, and gentleness, than which nothing is more divine, - nor fire, nor light, nor the course of the sun, nor the risings and settings of the stars, nor eternity and immortality. For God enjoys felicity, not through the length of his life, but through the ruling quality of his virtue; for this is divine; and excellent also is that part of virtue which submits to rule.