The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [241]
6. ‘Because this man is a good man and poor, but you are rich since you have appropriated much of the state’s wealth.’
7. And Xenophon says that Agesilaus delighted in enriching his friends, he being himself above money.
8. But since, to quote Simonides, ‘all larks must grow a crest’, and every public career bears its crop of enmities and disagreements, the public man must take care over these matters.
9. So most people commend Themistocles and Aristeides who, whenever they went on an embassy or in command of an army,
10. Laid down their private enmity at the frontier, then took it up again later.
11. And some people are also immensely pleased by the conduct of Cretinas of Magnesia.
12. He was a political opponent of Hermeias, a man who was not powerful, but was ambitious, with a brilliant mind,
13. And when the Mithridatic war broke out, seeing that the state was in danger,
14. He told Hermeias to take over the command and manage affairs, while he himself withdrew;
15. Or, if Hermeias wished him to be general, then Hermeias should remove himself,
16. That they might not by ambitious strife with one another destroy the state.
17. The challenge pleased Hermeias, and saying that Cretinas was more versed in war than himself, he went away with his wife and children.
18. And as he was departing Cretinas escorted him, first giving him out of his own means such things as were more useful to exiles than to people besieged in a city,
19. After which by his excellent military leadership he saved the state when it was on the brink of destruction.
20. For if it is a noble thing and the mark of an exalted individual to be willing to make peace with a personal enemy for the sake of those things for which we ought even to give up a friend,
21. Certainly Phocion and Cato and their like acted much better,
22. For they would allow no personal enmity to have any bearing whatsoever upon political differences,
23. But were stern and inexorable only in public contests against sacrificing what was for the common good;
24. Yet in private matters they treated kindly and without anger their political opponents.
25. For the statesman should not regard any fellow-citizen as an enemy,
26. Unless some man, such as Aristion, Nabis or Catiline, should appear who is a running sore to the state.
27. Those who are in other ways out of harmony he should, like a skilful musician, bring into unison by gently tightening or relaxing the strings of his control,
28. Not attacking angrily and insultingly those who err, but making an appeal designed rather to make a moral impression.
29. If his opponents say or do anything good, the statesman should not be vexed by their honours,
30. Nor should he be sparing of complimentary words for their good actions;
31. For if we act in this way our blame, where it is needed, will be thought justified,
32. And we shall make them dislike evil by exalting virtue and showing through comparison that good actions are more worthy and fitting than the other kind.
Chapter 23
1. And I think also that the statesman should give testimony in just causes even for his opponents,
2. Should aid them in court against malicious prosecutors,
3. And should discredit calumnies about them if such accusations are alien to the principles he knows that they profess;
4. Just as the infamous Nero, a little before he put Thrasea to death, whom he hated and feared intensely,
5. Nevertheless when someone accused him of a bad and unjust decision in court, said: ‘I wish Thrasea were as good a friend to me as he is a most excellent judge.’
6. And it is not a bad method for confounding persons of a different kind,
7. Men who are naturally vicious and prone to evil conduct, to mention to them some enemy of theirs who is of finer character,
8. And to say: ‘He would not have said that or done that.’
9. Cato, although he had opposed Pompey in the violent measures which he and Caesar applied to the state,
10. When war broke out between them advised handing over the leadership to Pompey, saying:
11. ‘The men who can bring about