SelfDefinition.Org
Hiero a.k.a Tyrannicus
by Xenophon
(430-354 BC)
Part 2
(1) To this Simonides said, "Well, these disadvantages you mention seem to me at least to be very trivial. For I see many," he said, "of those who are reputed to be real men, willingly suffer disadvantages in food, drink, and delicacies, and even refrain from sex.
(2) "But you tyrants far surpass private men surely in the following. You devise great enterprises; you execute them swiftly; you have the greatest amount of superfluous things; you own horses surpassing in virtue, arms surpassing in beauty, superior adornment for your women, the most magnificent houses, and these furnished with what is of the most value; moreoever, the servants you possess are the best in their numbers and their knowledge; and you are the ones most capable of harming your private enemies and benefiting your friends."
(3) To this Hiero said, "I do not wonder at all that the multitude of human beings are utterly deceived by tyranny, Simonides. For the crowd seems to me to form the opinion that some men are happy and wretched by seeing.
(4) "Now tyranny displays openly, evident for all to see, the possessions which are held to be of much value. But it keeps what is harsh hidden in the tyrants' souls, where human happiness and unhappiness are stored up.
(5) "That this escapes the notice of the multitude is, as I said, not a wonder to me. But that you too are unaware of this, you who are reputed to get a finer view of most matters through your understanding than through your eyes, this I do hold to be a wonder.
(6) "But I myself know clearly from experience, Simonides, and I tell you that the tyrant has the least share of the greatest goods, and possesses the largest share of the greatest evils.
(7) "Take this for example: if peace is held to be a great good for human beings, for tyrants there is the least share in it; and if war is a great evil, in this tyrants get the largest share.
(8) "For, to begin with, it is possible for private men, unless their city is engaged in fighting a common war, to take a journey wherever they wish, without being afraid that someone will kill them. But the tyrants, all of them, proceed everywhere as through hostile territory. They themselves at least think it necessary to go armed and always to be surrounded by an armed bodyguard.
(9) "Moreover, if private men go on an expedition somewhere into enemy country, they believe they are safe at least after they have returned home. But the tyrants know that when they reach their own city they are then in the midst of the largest number of their enemies.
(10) "Again, if others who are stronger attack the city, and those outside the wall, being weaker, think they are in danger, all believe they have been rendered safe, at least after they have come within the fortifications. The tyrant, however, not even when he passes inside his house is free from danger; he thinks it is there that he must be particularly on his guard.
(11) "Furthermore, for private men, relief from war is brought about both by treaties and by peace. Whereas for tyrants peace is never made with those subject to their tyranny; nor could the tyrant be confident trusting for a moment to a treaty.
(12) "There are wars of course which cities wage and war which tyrants wage against those they have subjected to force. Now in these wars, everything hard which the man in the cities undergoes, the tyrant too undergoes.
(13) "For both must be armed, must be on their guard, and run risks; and if, being beaten, they suffer some harm, each suffers pain from these wars.
(14) "Up to this point, then, the wars of both are equal. But when it comes to the pleasures which the men in the cities get from fighting the cities, these the tyrants cease to have.
(15) "For surely when the cities overpower their opponents in a battle, it is not easy to express now much pleasure [the men] get from routing the enemy; how much from the pursuit; how much from killing their enemies; how they exult in the deed; how they receive a brilliant reputation for themselves; and how they take delight in believing they have augmented their city.
(16) "Each one pretends that he shared in the planning and killed the most; and it is hard to find where they do not make some false additions, claiming they killed more than all who really died. So noble a thing does a great victory seem to them.
(17) "But when the tyrant suspects certain men of plotting against him, and, perceiving that they are in fact plotting, puts them to death, he knows that he does not augment the whole city; he knows without a doubt that he will rule fewer men, and he cannot be glad; he does not pride himself on the deed, but rather minimizes what has happened as much as he can, and while he does it he makes the apology that he has done it without committing injustice. Thus what he has done does not seem noble even to him.
(18) "And when they whom he feared are dead he is not any bolder, but is still more on his guard than before. So, then, the tyrant spends his life fighting the kind of war which I myself am showing you."