of a court.  They will not admit that the evidence given or statements made under torture or any similar proof against them is genuine.  This is the sort of talk, though some of it may not be just, which is reported in the case of practically all so put to death.  And you ought, Augustus, to be free not only from injustice but from the appearance of it.  It is sufficient for a private individual to avoid irregular conduct, but it behooves a ruler to incur not even the suspicion of it.  You are the leader of human beings, not of beasts, and the only way you can make them really friendly to you is by persuading them by every means and constantly, without a break, that you will wrong no one either voluntarily or involuntarily.  A man can be forced to fear another but he has to be persuaded to love him:  and he is to be persuaded by the good treatment he himself receives and the benefits he sees conferred on others.  The person, however, who suspects that somebody has perished unjustly both fears that he may some day meet the same fate and is compelled to hate the one responsible for the deed.  And to be hated by one’s subjects is (besides containing no element of good) exceedingly unprofitable.  The general mass of people feel that ordinary individuals must defend themselves against all who wrong them in any way or else be despised and consequently oppressed:  but rulers, they think, ought to prosecute those who wrong the State but endure those who are thought to commit offences against them privately; rulers can not be harmed by disdain or assault, because they have many guardians to protect them.

[-20-] “When I hear this and turn my attention to this I feel inclined to tell you outright to put no one to death for any such reason.  Places of supremacy are established for the preservation of subjects, to prevent them from being injured either by one another or by foreign tribes:  such places are not, by Jupiter, for the purpose of allowing the rulers themselves to hard their subjects.  It is most glorious to be able not to destroy most of the citizens but to save them all, if possible.  It is right to educate them by laws and, favours and admonitions, that they may be right-minded and further to watch and guard them, so that even if they wish to do wrong they may not be able.  And if there is anything ailing, we must cure and correct it in some way, in order that there may be no entire loss.  To endure the offences of the multitude is a task requiring great prudence and force:  if any one should simply punish all of them as they deserve, before he knew it he would have destroyed the majority of mankind.  For these reasons, then, I give you my opinion to the effect that you should not inflict the death penalty for any such error, but bring the men to their senses in some other way, so that they will not again do anything dangerous.  What crime could a man commit shut up on an island, or in the country, or in some city, not only destitute of a throng of servants and money,