Again, without some moiety of faith and trust,[1] how can a man not feel to be defrauded of a mighty blessing? One may well ask: What fellowship, what converse, what society would be agreeable without confidence? What intercourse between man and wife be sweet apart from trustfulness? How should the "faithful esquire" whose faith is mistrusted still be lief and dear?[2]
[1] "How can he, whose faith's discredited, the moral bankrupt . . ."[2] Or, "the trusty knight and serving-man." Cf. "Morte d'Arthur,"xxi. 5, King Arthur and Sir Bedivere.
Well, then, of this frank confidence in others the tyrant has the scantiest share.[3] Seeing his life is such, he cannot even trust his meats and drinks, but he must bid his serving-men before the feast begins, or ever the libation to the gods is poured,[4] to taste the viands, out of sheer mistrust there may be mischief lurking in the cup or platter.[5] [3] Or, "from this . . . is almost absolutely debarred."[4] "Or ever grace is said." [5] Cf. "Cyrop." I. iii. 4.
Once more, the rest of mankind find in their fatherland a treasure worth all else beside. The citizens form their own body-guard[6] without pay or service-money against slaves and against evil-doers. It is theirs to see that none of themselves, no citizen, shall perish by a violent death. And they have advanced so far along the path of guardianship[7] that in many cases they have framed a law to the effect that "not the associate even of one who is blood-guilty shall be accounted pure." So that, by reason of their fatherland,[8] each several citizen can live at quiet and secure.
[6] "Are their own 'satellites,' spear-bearers." Cf. Thuc. i. 130; Herod. ii. 168; vii. 127.
[7] "Pushed so far the principle of mutual self-aid."[8] "Thanks to the blessing of a fatherland each citizen may spend his days in peace and safety."But for the tyrant it is again exactly the reverse.[9] Instead of aiding or avenging their despotic lord, cities bestow large honours on the slayer of a tyrant; ay, and in lieu of excommunicating the tyrannicide from sacred shrines,[10] as is the case with murderers of private citizens, they set up statues of the doers of such deeds[11] in temples.
[9] "Matters are once more reversed precisely," "it is all 'topsy- turvy.'"[10] "And sacrifices." Cf. Dem. "c. Lept." 137, {en toinun tois peri touton nomois o Drakon . . . katharon diorisen einai}. "Now in the laws upon this subject, Draco, although he strove to make it fearful and dreadful for a man to slay another, and ordained that the homicide should be excluded from lustrations, cups, and drink- offerings, from the temples and the market-place, specifying everything by which he thought most effectually to restrain people from such a practice, still did not abolish the rule of justice, but laid down the cases in which it should be lawful to kill, and declared that the killer under such circumstances should be deemed pure" (C. R. Kennedy).
[11] e.g. Harmodius and Aristogeiton. See Dem. loc. cit. 138: "The same rewards that you gave to Harmodius and Aristogiton," concerning whom Simonides himself wrote a votive couplet:
{'E meg' 'Athenaioisi phoos geneth' enik' 'Aristogeiton 'Ipparkhon kteine kai 'Armodios.}
