Episode 4

He who advises a sick man, whose manner of life is prejudicial tohealth, is clearly bound first of all to change his patient's mannerof life, and if the patient is willing to obey him, he may go on togive him other advice. But if he is not willing, I shall considerone who declines to advise such a patient to be a man and a physician,and one who gives in to him to be unmanly and unprofessional. In thesame way with regard to a State, whether it be under a single ruler ormore than one, if, while the government is being carried onmethodically and in a right course, it asks advice about any detailsof policy, it is the part of a wise man to advise such people. Butwhen men are travelling altogether outside the path of rightgovernment and flatly refuse to move in the right path, and start bygiving notice to their adviser that he must leave the government aloneand make no change in it under penalty of death-if such men shouldorder their counsellors to pander to their wishes and desires and toadvise them in what way their object may most readily and easily beonce for all accomplished, I should consider as unmanly one whoaccepts the duty of giving such forms of advice, and one who refusesit to be a true man.

Holding these views, whenever anyone consults me about any of theweightiest matters affecting his own life, as, for instance, theacquisition of property or the proper treatment of body or mind, if itseems to me that his daily life rests on any system, or if he seemslikely to listen to advice about the things on which he consults me, Iadvise him with readiness, and do not content myself with giving him amerely perfunctory answer. But if a man does not consult me at all, orevidently does not intend to follow my advice, I do not take theinitiative in advising such a man, and will not use compulsion to him,even if he be my own son. I would advise a slave under suchcircumstances, and would use compulsion to him if he were unwilling.

To a father or mother I do not think that piety allows one to offercompulsion, unless they are suffering from an attack of insanity;and if they are following any regular habits of life which please thembut do not please me, I would not offend them by offering useless,advice, nor would I flatter them or truckle to them, providing themwith the means of satisfying desires which I myself would sooner diethan cherish. The wise man should go through life with the sameattitude of mind towards his country. If she should appear to him tobe following a policy which is not a good one, he should say so,provided that his words are not likely either to fall on deaf earsor to lead to the loss of his own life. But force against his nativeland he should not use in order to bring about a change ofconstitution, when it is not possible for the best constitution tobe introduced without driving men into exile or putting them to death;he should keep quiet and offer up prayers for his own welfare andfor that of his country.

These are the principles in accordance with which I should adviseyou, as also, jointly with Dion, I advised Dionysios, bidding him inthe first place to live his daily life in a way that would make him asfar as possible master of himself and able to gain faithful friendsand supporters, in order that he might not have the same experience ashis father. For his father, having taken under his rule many greatcities of Sicily which had been utterly destroyed by the barbarians,was not able to found them afresh and to establish in them trustworthygovernments carried on by his own supporters, either by men who had noties of blood with him, or by his brothers whom he had brought up whenthey were younger, and had raised from humble station to high officeand from poverty to immense wealth. Not one of these was he able towork upon by persuasion, instruction, services and ties of kindred, soas to make him a partner in his rule; and he showed himself inferiorto Darius with a sevenfold inferiority. For Darius did not put histrust in brothers or in men whom he had brought up, but only in hisconfederates in the overthrow of the Mede and Eunuch; and to thesehe assigned portions of his empire, seven in number, each of themgreater than all Sicily; and they were faithful to him and did notattack either him or one another. Thus he showed a pattern of what thegood lawgiver and king ought to be; for he drew up laws by which hehas secured the Persian empire in safety down to the present time.

Again, to give another instance, the Athenians took under their rulevery many cities not founded by themselves, which had been hard hit bythe barbarians but were still in existence, and maintained theirrule over these for seventy years, because they had in each them menwhom they could trust. But Dionysios, who had gathered the whole ofSicily into a single city, and was so clever that he trusted no one,only secured his own safety with great difficulty. For he was badlyoff for trustworthy friends; and there is no surer criterion of virtueand vice than this, whether a man is or is not destitute of suchfriends.

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