Political Precepts (31-32)

Those that are versed in the keeping and breeding of bees look on that hive to be healthiest and in best condition, where there is most humming, and which is fullest of bustle and noise; but he to whom God has committed the care of the rational and political hive, reputing the felicity of the people to consist chiefly in quietness and tranquillity, will receive and to his power imitate the rest of Solon’s ordinances, but will doubt and wonder what it was that induced him to decree, that he who, when there arises a sedition in the city, adheres to neither party should be reputed infamous. For in the body, the beginning of its change from sickness to health is not wrought by the parts that are infected with the disease, but when the temperature of such parts as are sound, growing powerful, drives away what is contrary to nature; and in a state, where the people are disturbed by a sedition not dangerous and mortal, but which will after a while be composed and allayed, it is of necessity that there be a mixture of much that is uninfected and sound, and that it continue and cohabit in it. For thither flows from the wise what is fit and natural, and passes into the part that is diseased. But when cities are in an universal commotion, they are in danger of being utterly destroyed, unless, being constrained by some necessity and chastisement from abroad, they are by the force of their miseries reduced to wisdom. Yet does it not become you in the time of a sedition to sit as if you were neither sensible nor sorry, praising your own unconcernedness as a quiet and happy life, and taking delight in the error of others. But on such occasions chiefly should you put on the buskin of Theramenes, and conferring with both parties, join yourself to neither. For you will not seem a stranger by not being a partaker in injustice,

but a common friend to them all by your assistance; nor will you be envied for your not sharing in the calamity, when you appear equally to condole with every one of them. But the best is, by your providential care to prevent the raising of any sedition; and in this consists the greatest and most excellent point, as it were, of the political art. For you are to consider that, the greatest benefits a city can enjoy being peace, liberty, plenty, abundance of men, and concord, the people have at this time no need of statesmen for the procuring of peace; since all war, whether with Greeks or barbarians, is wholly taken away and banished from us. As for liberty, the people have as much as the emperors think fit to grant them, and more perhaps would not be expedient. The prudent man therefore will beg the Gods to grant to his fellow-citizens the unenvied plenty of the earth, and the kind temper of the seasons, and that wives may bear children like to their parents,[*] and also safety for all that is born and produced.

There remains therefore to a statesman, of all those things that are subject to his charge, this alone, which is inferior to none of the other benefits, the keeping of those who are co-inhabitants of the same city in perpetual concord and friendship, and the taking away of all contentions, animosities, and heart-burnings. In which he shall, as in the differences between friends, so converse with the party appearing to be most injured, as if he himself seemed also a sharer in the injury and equally offended at it, endeavoring afterwards so to appease him, by showing him how much those who pass by injuries excel such as strive to contend and conquer, not only in good-nature and sweetness of disposition, but also in prudence and magnanimity; and how, by remitting a little of their right in small matters, they get the better in the greatest and most important. He shall afterwards admonish them both in general and

apart, instructing them in the weakness of the Grecian affairs, which it is better for intelligent men to make the best of, and to live in peace and concord, than to engage in a contest for which fortune has left no reward. For what authority, what glory is there remaining for the conquerors? What power is there, which the least decree of a proconsul cannot abolish or transfer elsewhere, and which, though it should continue, would yet have any thing worth our pains? But since, as a conflagration in a town does not frequently begin in sacred and public places, but a lamp negligently left in a house, or the burning of a little trash or rubbish, raises a great fire and works a common mischief; so sedition in a state is not always kindled by contentions about public affairs, but oftentimes the differences arising from private concerns and jangles, being propagated into the public, have disturbed a whole city. It is no less becoming a statesman to remedy and prevent all these, so that some of them may never have any being, others may quickly be extinguished, and others hindered from increasing or taking hold of the public, and confined amongst the adversaries themselves. And as himself ought to take care for this, so should he advertise others, that private disturbances are the occasion of public ones, and little of great ones, if they are neglected and suffered to proceed without taking care to apply fit remedies to them in the beginning.

In this manner is the greatest and most dangerous disturbance that ever happened in Delphi said to have been occasioned by Crates, whose daughter Orgilaus, the son of Phalis, being about to marry, it happened that the cup they were using in the espousals brake asunder of itself; which he taking for an ill omen, left his bride, and went away with his father. Crates a little after, charging them with taking away a certain golden vessel, used in the sacrifices, caused Orgilaus and his brother, unheard, to be precipitated

from the top of a rock to the bottom, and afterwards slew several of their most intimate friends, as they were at their devotions in the temple of Providence. After many such things were perpetrated, the Delphians, putting to death Crates and his companions in the sedition, out of their estates which they called excommunicated, built the temples in the lower part of the town. In Syracuse also there were two young men, betwixt whom there was an extraordinary intimacy, one of which, having taken into his custody his friend’s catamite, vitiated him in his absence. The other at his return, by way of retaliation, debauched his companion’s wife. Then one of the ancient senators, coming into the council, proposed the banishing of them both before the city was ruined by their filling it with enmity. Yet did not he prevail; but a sedition arising on this occasion by very great calamities overturned a most excellently constituted commonweal. You have also a domestical example in the enmity between Pardalus and Tyrrhenus, which wanted little of destroying Sardis by embroiling it in revolt and war on little and private differences. A statesman therefore is not to slight the little offences and heart-burnings which, as diseases in a body, pass speedily from one to another, but to take them in hand, suppress, and cure them. For, as Cato says, by attention and carefulness great matters are made little, and little ones reduced to nothing. Now there is no better artifice of inuring men to this, than the showing one’s self easily pacified in his own private differences, persisting without rancor in matters of the first importance, and managing none with obstinacy, contending wrath, or any other passion, which may work sharpness or bitterness in necessary disputes. For as they bind certain round muffles about the hands of those who combat at buffets, that in their contests there may not arrive any fatal accident, the blows being soft and such as can do no great harm; so in such suits and processes with one’s fellow-citizens, it is best to manage the dispute by making use of pure and simple pretences, and not by sharpening and empoisoning matters, as if they were weapons, with calumnies, malice, and threats, to render them pernicious, great, and public. For he who in this manner carries himself with those with whom he has affairs will have others also subject to him. But contentions about public matters, where private grudges are taken away, are soon appeased, and bring no difficult or fatal mischiefs.