“Yet, why need we use foreign examples, when we have some of our own?  We Romans, ourselves, after trying a different social organization at first, later, when we had gone through many bitter experiences, felt a desire for liberty; and having secured it we attained our present eminence, strong in no advantages save those that come from democracy, through which the senate debated, the people ratified, the force under arms showed zeal, and the commanders were fired with ambition.  None of these things could be done under a tyranny.  For that reason, indeed, the ancient Romans detested it so much as to impose a curse upon that form of government.

[-10-] “Aside from these considerations, if one is to speak about what is disadvantageous for you personally, how could you endure the management of so many interests by day and night alike?  How could you hold out in your enfeebled state?  How could you participate in human enjoyments?  How could you be happy if deprived of them?  What could cause you real pleasure?  When would you be free from biting grief?  It is quite inevitable that the man who holds so great an empire should reflect deeply, be subject to many fears enjoy very little pleasure, but hear and see, perform and suffer, always and everywhere, what is most disagreeable.  That is why, I think, both Greeks and some barbarians would not accept government by a king when offered to them.

“Knowing this beforehand, take good counsel before you enter upon such an existence.  For it is disgraceful, or rather impossible, after you have once plunged into it to rise to the upper air again.  Do not be deceived by the greatness of the authority nor the abundance of possessions, nor the mass of body-guards, nor the throng of courtiers.  Men who have great power have great troubles:  those who have large possessions are obliged to spend largely:  the crowd of body-guards is gathered because of the crowd of conspirators:  and the flatterers would be more glad to destroy than to save any one.  Consequently, in view of these facts, no sensible man would desire to become supreme ruler. [-11-] If the fact that such rulers can enrich and preserve others and perform many other good deeds, and that, by Jupiter, they may also outrage others and injure whomsoever they please leads any one to think that tyranny is worth striving for, he is utterly mistaken.  I need not tell you that to live licentiously and to do evil is base and hazardous and hated of both gods and men.  You are not that sort of man, and it is not for these reasons that you would choose to be sole ruler.  I have elected to speak now not of everything which one might accomplish who handled affairs badly, but of what even the very best are compelled to do and endure when they adopt the system.  The other point,—­that one may bestow abundant favors,—­is worthy of zeal, to be sure:  yet when this disposition is indulged in private capacity, it is noble, august, glorious, and safe, whereas in monarchies it is first of all not a sufficient offset to the other, more disagreeable matters, that any one should choose monarchy for this especially when one is to grant to others the benefit to be derived therefrom, and accept himself the unpleasantness involved in the rest of the conduct of the office.