But if you imagine that the tyrant, because he has more possessions than the private person, does for that reason derive greater pleasure from them, this is not so either, Simonides, but it is with tyrants as with athletes. Just as the athlete feels no glow of satisfaction in asserting his superiority over amateurs,[12] but annoyance rather when he sustains defeat at the hands of any real antagonist; so, too, the tyrant finds little consolation in the fact[13] that he is evidently richer than the private citizen. What he feels is pain, when he reflects that he has less himself than other monarchs. These he holds to be his true antagonists; these are his rivals in the race for wealth.
[12] Or, "It gives no pleasure to the athlete to win victories overamateurs." See "Mem." III. viii. 7.
[13] Or, "each time it is brought home to him that," etc.
Nor does the tyrant attain the object of his heart's desire more quickly than do humbler mortals theirs. For consider, what are their objects of ambition? The private citizen has set his heart, it may be, on a house, a farm, a servant. The tyrant hankers after cities, or wide territory, or harbours, or formidable citadels, things far more troublesome and more perilous to achieve than are the pettier ambitions of lesser men.
And hence it is, moreover, that you will find but few[14] private persons paupers by comparison with the large number of tyrants who deserve the title;[15] since the criterion of enough, or too much, is not fixed by mere arithmetic, but relatively to the needs of the individual.[16] In other words, whatever exceeds sufficiency is much, and what falls short of that is little.[17]
[14] Reading as vulg. {alla mentoi kai penetas opsei oukh outos oligous ton idioton os pollous ton turannon}. Lit. "however that may be, you will see not so few private persons in a state of penury as many despots." Breitenbach del. {oukh}, and transl., "Daher weist du auch in dem Masse wenige Arme unter den Privat- leuten finden, als viele unter den Tyrannen." Stob., {penetas opsei oligous ton idioton, pollous de ton turannon}. Stob. MS. Par., {alla mentoi kai plousious opsei oukh outos oligous ton idioton os penetas pollous ton turannon}. See Holden ad loc. and crit. n.
[15] Cf. "Mem." IV. ii. 37.
[16] Or, "not by the number of things we have, but in reference to the use we make of them." Cf. "Anab." VII. vii. 36.
[17] Dr. Holden aptly cf. Addison, "The Spectator," No. 574, on the text "Non possidentem multa vocaveris recte beatum . . ."And on this principle the tyrant, with his multiplicity of goods, is less well provided to meet necessary expenses than the private person; since the latter can always cut down his expenditure to suit his daily needs in any way he chooses; but the tyrant cannot do so, seeing that the largest expenses of a monarch are also the most necessary, being devoted to various methods of safeguarding his life, and to cut down any of themwould be little less than suicidal.[18]
[18] Or, "and to curtail these would seem to be self-slaughter."Or, to put it differently, why should any one expend compassion on a man, as if he were a beggar, who has it in his power to satisfy by just and honest means his every need?[19] Surely it would be more appropriate to call that man a wretched starveling beggar rather, who through lack of means is driven to live by ugly shifts and base contrivances.
[19] i.e. "to expend compassion on a man who, etc., were surely a pathetic fallacy." Al. "Is not the man who has it in his power, etc., far above being pitied?"Now it is your tyrant who is perpetually driven to iniquitous spoilation of temples and human beings, through chronic need of money wherewith to meet inevitable expenses, since he is forced to feed and support an army (even in times of peace) no less than if there were actual war, or else he signs his own death-warrant.[20]
[20] "A daily, hourly constraint is laid upon him to support an army as in war time, or--write his epitaph!"
