More Anti-Statism: The Underpinnings of the State
La Boétie wrote the following essay while still a law student at the University of Orléans in the early 1550s. Gene Sharp, author of The Politics of Nonviolent Action, had this to say about it: "[La] Boétie's Discourse is a highly significant essay on the ultimate source of political power, the origins of dictatorship, and the means by which people can prevent political enslavement and liberate themselves. The Discourse should have a prominent place in the history of political theory, and also of the development of the power analysis in which the technique of non-violent struggle is rooted."
The Politics of Obedience:
The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude
by Étienne de la Boétie
(Part I)
I see no good in having several lords; Let one alone be master, let one alone be king. |
THESE WORDS Homer puts in the mouth of Ulysses,1
as he addresses the people. If he had said nothing
further than "I see no good in having several lords," it
would have been well spoken. For the sake of logic he
should have maintained that the rule of several could
not be good since the power of one man alone, as soon
as he acquires the title of master, becomes abusive and
unreasonable. Instead he declared what seems preposterous:
"Let one alone be master, let one alone be king."
We must not be critical of Ulysses, who at the moment
was perhaps obliged to speak these words in order to
quell a mutiny in the army, for this reason, in my
opinion, choosing language to meet the emergency
rather than the truth. Yet, in the light of reason, it is a
great misfortune to be at the beck and call of one
master, for it is impossible to be sure that he is going to
be kind, since it is always in his power to be cruel
whenever he pleases. As for having several masters,
according to the number one has, it amounts to being
that many times unfortunate. Although I do not wish at
this time to discuss this much debated question, namely
whether other types of government are preferable to
monarchy,2 still I should like to know, before casting
doubt on the place that monarchy should occupy
among commonwealths, whether or not it belongs to
such a group, since it is hard to believe that there is
anything of common wealth in a country where
everything belongs to one master. This question, however,
can remain for another time and would really
require a separate treatment involving by its very nature
all sorts of political discussion.
FOR THE PRESENT I should like merely to understand
how it happens that so many men, so many villages, so
many cities, so many nations, sometimes suffer under a
single tyrant who has no other power than the power
they give him; who is able to harm them only to the
extent to which they have the willingness to bear with
him; who could do them absolutely no injury unless
they preferred to put up with him rather than contradict
him. Surely a striking situation! Yet it is so
common that one must grieve the more and wonder the
less at the spectacle of a million men serving in
wretchedness, their necks under the yoke, not constrained
by a greater multitude than they, but simply, it
would seem, delighted and charmed by the name of one
man alone whose power they need not fear, for he is
evidently the one person whose qualities they cannot
admire because of his inhumanity and brutality toward
them. A weakness characteristic of human kind is that
we often have to obey force; we have to make
concessions; we ourselves cannot always be the stronger.
Therefore, when a nation is constrained by the fortune
of war to serve a single clique, as happened when the
city of Athens served the thirty Tyrants3 one should
not be amazed that the nation obeys, but simply be
grieved by the situation; or rather, instead of being
amazed or saddened, consider patiently the evil and
look forward hopefully toward a happier future.
Our nature is such that the common duties of human
relationship occupy a great part of the course of our
life. It is reasonable to love virtue, to esteem good
deeds, to be grateful for good from whatever source we
may receive it, and, often, to give up some of our
comfort in order to increase the honor and advantage of
some man whom we love and who deserves it. Therefore, if the inhabitants of a country have found some great
personage who has shown rare foresight in
protecting them in an emergency, rare boldness in
defending them, rare solicitude in governing them, and
if, from that point on, they contract the habit of
obeying him and depending on him to such an extent
that they grant him certain prerogatives, I fear that such
a procedure is not prudent, inasmuch as they remove
him from a position in which he was doing good and
advance him to a dignity in which he may do evil.
Certainly while he continues to manifest good will one
need fear no harm from a man who seems to be
generally well disposed.
But O good Lord! What strange phenomenon is this?
What name shall we give it? What is the nature of this
misfortune? What vice is it, or, rather, what degradation?
To see an endless multitude of people not merely
obeying, but driven to servility? Not ruled, but tyrannized
over? These wretches have no wealth, no kin, nor
wife nor children, not even life itself that they can call
their own. They suffer plundering, wantonness, cruelty,
not from an army, not from a barbarian horde, on
account of whom they must shed their blood and
sacrifice their lives, but from a single man; not from a
Hercules nor from a Samson, but from a single little
man. Too frequently this same little man is the most
cowardly and effeminate in the nation, a stranger to the
powder of battle and hesitant on the sands of the
tournament; not only without energy to direct men by
force, but with hardly enough virility to bed with a
common woman! Shall we call subjection to such a
leader cowardice? Shall we say that those who serve him
are cowardly and faint-hearted? If two, if three, if four,
do not defend themselves from the one, we might call
that circumstance surprising but nevertheless conceivable.
In such a case one might be justified in
suspecting a lack of courage. But if a hundred, if a
thousand endure the caprice of a single man, should we
not rather say that they lack not the courage but the
desire to rise against him, and that such an attitude
indicates indifference rather than cowardice? When not
a hundred, not a thousand men, but a hundred
provinces, a thousand cities, a million men, refuse to
assail a single man from whom the kindest treatment
received is the infliction of serfdom and slavery, what
shall we call that? Is it cowardice? Of course there is in
every vice inevitably some limit beyond which one
cannot go. Two, possibly ten, may fear one; but when a
thousand, a million men, a thousand cities, fail to
protect themselves against the domination of one man,
this cannot be called cowardly, for cowardice does not
sink to such a depth, any more than valor can be termed
the effort of one individual to scale a fortress, to attack
an army, or to conquer a kingdom. What monstrous
vice, then, is this which does not even deserve to be
called cowardice, a vice for which no term can be found
vile enough, which nature herself disavows and our
tongues refuse to name?
Place on one side fifty thousand armed men, and on
the other the same number; let them join in battle, one
side fighting to retain its liberty, the other to take it
away; to which would you, at a guess, promise victory?
Which men do you think would march more gallantly to
combat---those who anticipate as a reward for their
suffering the maintenance of their freedom, or those
who cannot expect any other prize for the blows
exchanged than the enslavement of others? One side will
have before its eyes the blessings of the past and the
hope of similar joy in the future; their thoughts will
dwell less on the comparatively brief pain of battle than
on what they may have to endure forever, they, their
children, and all their posterity. The other side has
nothing to inspire it with courage except the weak urge
of greed, which fades before danger and which can never
be so keen, it seems to me, that it will not be dismayed
by the least drop of blood from wounds. Consider the
justly famous battles of Miltiades,4 Leonidas,5
Themistocles,6 still fresh today in recorded history and
in the minds of men as if they had occurred but
yesterday, battles fought in Greece for the welfare of
the Greeks and as an example to the world. What power
do you think gave to such a mere handful of men not
the strength but the courage to withstand the attack of
a fleet so vast that even the seas were burdened, and to
defeat the armies of so many nations, armies so
immense that their officers alone outnumbered the
entire Greek force? What was it but the fact that in
those glorious days this struggle represented not so
much a fight of Greeks against Persians as a victory of
liberty over domination, of freedom over greed?
It amazes us to hear accounts of the valor that liberty
arouses in the hearts of those who defend it; but who
could believe reports of what goes on every day among
the inhabitants of some countries, who could really
believe that one man alone may mistreat a hundred
thousand and deprive them of their liberty? Who would
credit such a report if he merely heard it, without being
present to witness the event? And if this condition
occurred only in distant lands and were reported to us,
which one among us would not assume the tale to be
imagined or invented, and not really true? Obviously
there is no need of fighting to overcome this single
tyrant, for he is automatically defeated if the country
refuses consent to its own enslavement: it is not
necessary to deprive him of anything, but simply to give
him nothing; there is no need that the country make an
effort to do anything for itself provided it does nothing
against itself. It is therefore the inhabitants themselves
who permit, or, rather, bring about, their own subjection,
since by ceasing to submit they would put an end
to their servitude. A people enslaves itself, cuts its own
throat, when, having a choice between being vassals and
being free men, it deserts its liberties and takes on the
yoke, gives consent to its own misery, or, rather,
apparently welcomes it. If it cost the people anything to
recover its freedom, I should not urge action to this end,
although there is nothing a human should hold more
dear than the restoration of his own natural right, to
change himself from a beast of burden back to a man, so
to speak. I do not demand of him so much boldness; let
him prefer the doubtful security of living wretchedly to
the uncertain hope of living as he pleases. What then? If
in order to have liberty nothing more is needed than to
long for it, if only a simple act of the will is necessary, is
there any nation in the world that considers a single
wish too high a price to pay in order to recover rights
which it ought to be ready to redeem at the cost of its
blood, rights such that their loss must bring all men of
honor to the point of feeling life to be unendurable and
death itself a deliverance?
Everyone knows that the fire from a little spark will
increase and blaze ever higher as long as it finds wood to
burn; yet without being quenched by water, but merely
by finding no more fuel to feed on, it consumes itself,
dies down, and is no longer a flame. Similarly, the more
tyrants pillage, the more they crave, the more they ruin
and destroy; the more one yields to them, and obeys
them, by that much do they become mightier and more
formidable, the readier to annihilate and destroy. But if
not one thing is yielded to them, if, without any
violence they are simply not obeyed, they become
naked and undone and as nothing, just as, when the root
receives no nourishment, the branch withers and dies.
To achieve the good that they desire, the bold do not
fear danger; the intelligent do not refuse to undergo
suffering. It is the stupid and cowardly who are neither
able to endure hardship nor to vindicate their rights;
they stop at merely longing for them, and lose through
timidity the valor roused by the effort to claim their
rights, although the desire to enjoy them still remains as
part of their nature. A longing common to both the wise
and the foolish, to brave men and to cowards, is this
longing for all those things which, when acquired, would
make them happy and contented. Yet one element
appears to be lacking. I do not know how it happens
that nature fails to place within the hearts of men a
burning desire for liberty, a blessing so great and so
desirable that when it is lost all evils follow thereafter,
and even the blessings that remain lose taste and savor
because of their corruption by servitude. Liberty is the
only joy upon which men do not seem to insist; for
surely if they really wanted it they would receive it.
Apparently they refuse this wonderful privilege because
it is so easily acquired.
Poor, wretched, and stupid peoples, nations determined
on your own misfortune and blind to your
own good! You let yourselves be deprived before your
own eyes of the best part of your revenues; your fields
are plundered, your homes robbed, your family heirlooms
taken away. You live in such a way that you
cannot claim a single thing as your own; and it would
seem that you consider yourselves lucky to be loaned
your property, your families, and your very lives. All
this havoc, this misfortune, this ruin, descends upon you
not from alien foes, but from the one enemy whom you
yourselves render as powerful as he is, for whom you go
bravely to war, for whose greatness you do not refuse to
offer your own bodies unto death. He who thus
domineers over you has only two eyes, only two hands,
only one body, no more than is possessed by the least
man among the infinite numbers dwelling in your cities;
he has indeed nothing more than the power that you
confer upon him to destroy you. Where has he acquired
enough eyes to spy upon you, if you do not provide
them yourselves? How can he have so many arms to beat
you with, if he does not borrow them from you? The
feet that trample down your cities, where does he get
them if they are not your own? How does he have any
power over you except through you? How would he
dare assail you if he had no cooperation from you?
What could he do to you if you yourselves did not
connive with the thief who plunders you, if you were
not accomplices of the murderer who kills you, if you
were not traitors to yourselves? You sow your crops in
order that he may ravage them, you install and furnish
your homes to give him goods to pillage; you rear your
daughters that he may gratify his lust; you bring up
your children in order that he may confer upon them
the greatest privilege he knows---to be led into his
battles, to be delivered to butchery, to be made the
servants of his greed and the instruments of his
vengeance; you yield your bodies unto hard labor in
order that he may indulge in his delights and wallow in
his filthy pleasures; you weaken yourselves in order to
make him the stronger and the mightier to hold you in
check. From all these indignities, such as the very beasts
of the field would not endure, you can deliver yourselves
if you try, not by taking action, but merely by
willing to be free. Resolve to serve no more, and you are
at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon
the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you
support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a
great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall
of his own weight and break into pieces?
(Part II)
DOCTORS ARE NO DOUBT CORRECT in warning us
not to touch incurable wounds; and I am presumably
taking chances in preaching as I do to a people which
has long lost all sensitivity and, no longer conscious of
its infirmity, is plainly suffering from mortal illness. Let
us therefore understand by logic, if we can, how it
happens that this obstinate willingness to submit has
become so deeply rooted in a nation that the very love
of liberty now seems no longer natural.
In the first place, all would agree that, if we led our
lives according to the ways intended by nature and the
lessons taught by her, we should be intuitively obedient
to our parents; later we should adopt reason as our
guide and become slaves to nobody. Concerning the
obedience given instinctively to one's father and
mother, we are in agreement, each one admitting
himself to be a model. As to whether reason is born
with us or not, that is a question loudly discussed by
academicians and treated by all schools of philosophers.
For the present I think I do not err in stating that there
is in our souls some native seed of reason, which, if
nourished by good counsel and training, flowers into
virtue, but which, on the other hand, if unable to resist
the vices surrounding it, is stifled and blighted. Yet
surely if there is anything in this world clear and
obvious, to which one cannot close one's eyes, it is the
fact that nature, handmaiden of God, governess of men,
has cast us all in the same mold in order that we may
behold in one another companions, or rather brothers.
If in distributing her gifts nature has favored some more
than others with respect to body or spirit, she has
nevertheless not planned to place us within this world as
if it were a field of battle, and has not endowed the
stronger or the cleverer in order that they may act like
armed brigands in a forest and attack the weaker. One
should rather conclude that in distributing larger shares
to some and smaller shares to others, nature has
intended to give occasion for brotherly love to become
manifest, some of us having the strength to give help to
others who are in need of it. Hence, since this kind
mother has given us the whole world as a dwelling place,
has lodged us in the same house, has fashioned us
according to the same model so that in beholding one
another we might almost recognize ourselves; since she
has bestowed upon us all the great gift of voice and
speech for fraternal relationship, thus achieving by the
common and mutual statement of our thoughts a
communion of our wills; and since she has tried in every
way to narrow and tighten the bond of our union and
kinship; since she has revealed in every possible manner
her intention, not so much to associate us as to make us
one organic whole, there can be no further doubt that
we are all naturally free, inasmuch as we are all
comrades. Accordingly it should not enter the mind of
anyone that nature has placed some of us in slavery,
since she has actually created us all in one likeness.
Therefore it is fruitless to argue whether or not
liberty is natural, since none can be held in slavery
without being wronged, and in a world governed by a
nature, which is reasonable, there is nothing so contrary
as an injustice. Since freedom is our natural state, we are
not only in possession of it but have the urge to defend
it. Now, if perchance some cast a doubt on this
conclusion and are so corrupted that they are not able
to recognize their rights and inborn tendencies, I shall
have to do them the honor that is properly theirs and
place, so to speak, brute beasts in the pulpit to throw
light on their nature and condition, The very beasts,
God help me! if men are not too deaf, cry out to them,
"Long live Liberty!" Many among them die as soon as
captured: just as the fish loses life as soon as he leaves
the water, so do these creatures close their eyes upon
the light and have no desire to survive the loss of their
natural freedom. If the animals were to constitute their
kingdom by rank, their nobility would be chosen from this
type. Others, from the largest to the smallest, when
captured put up such a strong resistance by means of
claws, horns, beak, and paws, that they show clearly
enough how they cling to what they are losing;
afterwards in captivity they manifest by so many
evident signs their awareness of their misfortune, that it
is easy to see they are languishing rather than living, and
continue their existence---more in lamentation of their
lost freedom than in enjoyment of their servitude. What
else can explain the behavior of the elephant who, after
defending himself to the last ounce of his strength and
knowing himself on the point of being taken, dashes his
jaws against the trees and breaks his tusks, thus
manifesting his longing to remain free as he has been
and proving his wit and ability to buy off the huntsmen
in the hope that through the sacrifice of his tusks he will
be permitted to offer his ivory as a ransom for his
liberty? We feed the horse from birth in order to train
him to do our bidding. Yet he is tamed with such
difficulty that when we begin to break him in he bites
the bit, he rears at the touch of the spur, as if to reveal
his instinct and show by his actions that, if he obeys, he
does so not of his own free will but under constraint.
What more can we say?
Even the oxen under the weight of the yoke
complain,
And the birds in their cage lament,
as I expressed it some time ago, toying with our French
poesy. For I shall not hesitate in writing to you, O
Longa, to introduce some of my verses, which I never
read to you because of your obvious encouragement
which is quite likely to make me conceited. And now,
since all beings, because they feel, suffer misery in
subjection and long for liberty; since the very beasts,
although made for the service of man, cannot become
accustomed to control without protest, what evil chance
has so denatured man that he, the only creature really
born to be free, lacks the memory of his original
condition and the desire to return to it?
There are three kinds of tyrants; some receive their
proud position through elections by the people, others
by force of arms, others by inheritance. Those who have
acquired power by means of war act in such wise that it
is evident they rule over a conquered country. Those
who are born to kingship are scarcely any better,
because they are nourished on the breast of tyranny,
suck in with their milk the instincts of the tyrant, and
consider the people under them as their inherited serfs;
and according to their individual disposition, miserly or
prodigal, they treat their kingdom as their property. He
who has received the state from the people, however,
ought to be, it seems to me, more bearable and would
be so, I think, were it not for the fact that as soon as he
sees himself higher than the others, flattered by that
quality which we call grandeur, he plans never to
relinquish his position. Such a man usually determines
to pass on to his children the authority that the people
have conferred upon him; and once his heirs have taken
this attitude, strange it is how far they surpass other
tyrants in all sorts of vices, and especially in cruelty,
because they find no other means to impose this new
tyranny than by tightening control and removing their
subjects so far from any notion of liberty that even if
the memory of it is fresh it will soon be eradicated. Yet,
to speak accurately, I do perceive that there is some
difference among these three types of tyranny, but as
for stating a preference, I cannot grant there is any. For
although the means of coming into power differ, still
the method of ruling is practically the same; those who
are elected act as if they were breaking in bullocks;
those who are conquerors make the people their prey;
those who are heirs plan to treat them as if they were
their natural slaves.
In connection with this, let us imagine some newborn
individuals, neither acquainted with slavery nor desirous
of liberty, ignorant indeed of the very words. If they
were permitted to choose between being slaves and free
men, to which would they give their vote? There can be
no doubt that they would much prefer to be guided by
reason itself than to be ordered about by the whims of a
single man. The only possible exception might be the
Israelites who, without any compulsion or need, appointed
a tyrant.7 I can never read their history without
becoming angered and even inhuman enough to find
satisfaction in the many evils that befell them on this
account. But certainly all men, as long as they remain
men, before letting themselves become enslaved must
either be driven by force or led into it by deception;
conquered by foreign armies, as were Sparta and Athens
by the forces of Alexander8 or by political factions, as
when at an earlier period the control of Athens had
passed into the hands of Pisistrates.9 When they lose
their liberty through deceit they are not so often
betrayed by others as misled by themselves. This was
the case with the people of Syracuse, chief city of
Sicily when, in the throes of war and heedlessly
planning only for the present danger, they promoted
Denis,10 their first tyrant, by entrusting to him the
command of the army, without realizing that they had
given him such power that on his victorious return this
worthy man would behave as if he had vanquished not
his enemies but his compatriots, transforming himself
from captain to king, and then from king to tyrant.11
It is incredible how as soon as a people becomes
subject, it promptly falls into such complete forgetfulness
of its freedom that it can hardly be roused to the
point of regaining it, obeying so easily and so willingly
that one is led to say, on beholding such a situation,
that this people has not so much lost its liberty as won
its enslavement. It is true that in the beginning men
submit under constraint and by force; but those who
come after them obey without regret and perform
willingly what their predecessors had done because they
had to. This is why men born under the yoke and then
nourished and reared in slavery are content, without
further effort, to live in their native circumstance,
unaware of any other state or right, and considering as
quite natural the condition into which they were born.
There is, however, no heir so spendthrift or indifferent
that he does not sometimes scan the account books of
his father in order to see if he is enjoying all the
privileges of his legacy or whether, perchance, his rights
and those of his predecessor have not been encroached
upon. Nevertheless it is clear enough that the powerful
influence of custom is in no respect more compelling
than in this, namely, habituation to subjection. It is said
that Mithridates12 trained himself to drink poison. Like
him we learn to swallow, and not to find bitter, the
venom of servitude. It cannot be denied that nature is
influential in shaping us to her will and making us reveal
our rich or meager endowment; yet it must be admitted
that she has less power over us than custom, for the
reason that native endowment, no matter how good, is
dissipated unless encouraged, whereas environment always
shapes us in its own way, whatever that may be, in
spite of nature's gifts. The good seed that nature plants
in us is so slight and so slippery that it cannot withstand
the least harm from wrong nourishment; it flourishes
less easily, becomes spoiled, withers, and comes to
nothing. Fruit trees retain their own particular quality if
permitted to grow undisturbed, but lose it promptly and
bear strange fruit not their own when ingrafted. Every
herb has its peculiar characteristics, its virtues and
properties; yet frost, weather, soil, or the gardener's
hand increase or diminish its strength; the plant seen
one spot cannot be recognized in another.
Whoever could have observed the early Venetians, a
handful of people living so freely that the most wicked
among them would not wish to be king over them, so
born and trained that they would not vie with one
another except as to which one could give the best
counsel and nurture their liberty most carefully, so
instructed and developed from their cradles that they
would not exchange for all the other delights of the
world an iota of their freedom; who, I say, familiar with
the original nature of such a people, could visit today
the territories of the man known as the Great Doge,13
and there contemplate with composure a people unwilling
to live except to serve him, and maintaining his
power at the cost of their lives? Who would believe that
these two groups of people had an identical origin?
Would one not rather conclude that upon leaving a city
of men he had chanced upon a menagerie of beasts?
Lycurgus,14 the lawgiver of Sparta, is reported to have
reared two dogs of the same litter by fattening one in
the kitchen and training the other in the fields to the
sound of the bugle and the horn, thereby to demonstrate
to the Lacedaemonians that men, too, develop
according to their early habits. He set the two dogs in
the open market place, and between them he placed a
bowl of soup and a hare. One ran to the bowl of soup,
the other to the hare; yet they were, as he maintained,
born brothers of the same parents. In such manner did
this leader, by his laws and customs, shape and instruct
the Spartans so well that any one of them would sooner
have died than acknowledge any sovereign other than
law and reason.
It gives me pleasure to recall a conversation of the
olden time between one of the favorites of Xerxes, the
great king of Persia, and two Lacedaemonians. When
Xerxes equipped his great army to conquer Greece, he
sent his ambassadors into the Greek cities to ask for
water and earth. That was the procedure the Persians
adopted in summoning the cities to surrender. Neither
to Athens nor to Sparta, however, did he dispatch such
messengers, because those who had been sent there by
Darius his father had been thrown, by the Athenians
and Spartans, some into ditches and others into wells,
with the invitation to help themselves freely there to
water and soil to take back to their prince. Those
Greeks could not permit even the slightest suggestion of
encroachment upon their liberty. The Spartans suspected,
nevertheless, that they had incurred the wrath
of the gods by their action, and especially the wrath of
Talthybios, the god of the heralds; in order to appease
him they decided to send Xerxes two of their
citizens in atonement for the cruel death inflicted upon
the ambassadors of his father. Two Spartans, one named
Sperte and the other Bulis, volunteered to offer themselves
as a sacrifice. So they departed, and on the way
they came to the palace of the Persian named Hydarnes,
lieutenant of the king in all the Asiatic cities situated on
the sea coasts. He received them with great honor,
feasted them, and then, speaking of one thing and
another, he asked them why they refused so obdurately
his king's friendship. "Consider well, O Spartans," said
he, "and realize by my example that the king knows
how to honor those who are worthy, and believe that if
you were his men he would do the same for you; if you
belonged to him and he had known you, there is not
one among you who might not be the lord of some
Greek city."
"By such words, Hydarnes, you give us no good
counsel," replied the Lacedaemonians, "because you
have experienced merely the advantage of which you
speak; you do not know the privilege we enjoy. You
have the honor of the king's favor; but you know
nothing about liberty, what relish it has and how sweet
it is. For if you had any knowledge of it, you yourself
would advise us to defend it, not with lance and shield,
but with our very teeth and nails."
Only Spartans could give such an answer, and surely
both of them spoke as they had been trained. It was
impossible for the Persian to regret liberty, not having
known it, nor for the Lacedaemonians to find subjection
acceptable after having enjoyed freedom.
Cato the Utican, while still a child under the rod,
could come and go in the house of Sylla the despot.
Because of the place and family of his origin and
because he and Sylla were close relatives, the door was
never closed to him. He always had his teacher with him
when he went there, as was the custom for children of
noble birth. He noticed that in the house of Sylla, in the
dictator's presence or at his command, some men were
imprisoned and others sentenced; one was banished,
another was strangled; one demanded the goods of
another citizen, another his head; in short, all went
there, not as to the house of a city magistrate but as to
the people's tyrant, and this was therefore not a court
of justice, but rather a resort of tyranny. Whereupon the
young lad said to his teacher, "Why don't you give me a
dagger? I will hide it under my robe. I often go into
Sylla's room before he is risen, and my arm is strong
enough to rid the city of him." There is a speech truly
characteristic of Cato; it was a true beginning of this
hero so worthy of his end. And should one not mention
his name or his country, but state merely the fact as it
is, the episode itself would speak eloquently, and
anyone would divine that he was a Roman born in
Rome at the time when she was free.
And why all this? Certainly not because I believe that
the land or the region has anything to do with it, for in
any place and in any climate subjection is bitter and to
be free is pleasant; but merely because I am of the
opinion that one should pity those who, at birth, arrive
with the yoke upon their necks. We should exonerate
and forgive them, since they have not seen even the
shadow of liberty, and, being quite unaware of it,
cannot perceive the evil endured through their own
slavery. If there were actually a country like that of the
Cimmerians mentioned by Homer,15 where the sun
shines otherwise than on our own, shedding its radiance
steadily for six successive months and then leaving
humanity to drowse in obscurity until it returns at the
end of another half-year, should we be surprised to learn
that those born during this long night do grow so
accustomed to their native darkness that unless they
were told about the sun they would have no desire to
see the light? One never pines for what he has never
known; longing comes only after enjoyment and constitutes,
amidst the experience of sorrow, the memory of
past joy. It is truly the nature of man to be free and to
wish to be so, yet his character is such that he
instinctively follows the tendencies that his training
gives him.
Let us therefore admit that all those things to which
he is trained and accustomed seem natural to man and
that only that is truly native to him which he receives
with his primitive, untrained individuality. Thus custom
becomes the first reason for voluntary servitude. Men
are like handsome race horses who first bite the bit and
later like it, and rearing under the saddle a while soon
learn to enjoy displaying their harness and prance
proudly beneath their trappings. Similarly men will
grow accustomed to the idea that they have always been
in subjection, that their fathers lived in the same way;
they will think they are obliged to suffer this evil, and
will persuade themselves by example and imitation of
others, finally investing those who order them around
with proprietary rights, based on the idea that it has
always been that way.
There are always a few, better endowed than others,
who feel the weight of the yoke and cannot restrain
themselves from attempting to shake it off: these are
the men who never become tamed under subjection and
who always, like Ulysses on land and sea constantly
seeking the smoke of his chimney, cannot prevent
themselves from peering about for their natural privileges
and from remembering their ancestors and their
former ways. These are in fact the men who, possessed
of clear minds and far-sighted spirit, are not satisfied,
like the brutish mass, to see only what is at their feet,
but rather look about them, behind and before, and
even recall the things of the past in order to judge those
of the future, and compare both with their present
condition. These are the ones who, having good minds
of their own, have further trained them by study and
learning. Even if liberty had entirely perished from the
earth, such men would invent it. For them slavery has
no satisfactions, no matter how well disguised.
The Grand Turk16 was well aware that books and
teaching more than anything else give men the sense to
comprehend their own nature and to detest tyranny. I
understand that in his territory there are few educated
people, for he does not want many. On account of this
restriction, men of strong zeal and devotion, who in
spite of the passing of time have preserved their love of
freedom, still remain ineffective because, however
numerous they may be, they are not known to one
another; under the tyrant they have lost freedom of
action, of speech, and almost of thought; they are alone
in their aspiration. Indeed Momus, god of mockery, was
not merely joking when he found this to criticize in the
man fashioned by Vulcan, namely, that the maker had
not set a little window in his creature's heart to render
his thoughts visible. It is reported that Brutus, Cassius,
and Casca, on undertaking to free Rome, and for that
matter the whole world, refused to include in their band
Cicero, that great enthusiast for the public welfare if
ever there was one, because they considered his heart
too timid for such a lofty deed; they trusted his
willingness but they were none too sure of his courage.
Yet whoever studies the deeds of earlier days and the
annals of antiquity will find practically no instance of
heroes who failed to deliver their country from evil
hands when they set about their task with a firm,
whole-hearted, and sincere intention. Liberty, as if to
reveal her nature, seems to have given them new
strength. Harmodios and Aristogiton, Thrasybulus,
Brutus the Elder, Valerianus, and Dion achieved successfully
what they planned virtuously: for hardly ever does
good fortune fail a strong will. Brutus the Younger and
Cassius were successful in eliminating servitude, and
although they perished in their attempt to restore
liberty, they did not die miserably (what blasphemy it
would be to say there was anything miserable about
these men, either in their death or in their living!).17
Their loss worked great harm, everlasting misfortune,
and complete destruction of the Republic, which
appears to have been buried with them. Other and later
undertakings against the Roman emperors were merely
plottings of ambitious people, who deserve no pity for
the misfortunes that overtook them, for it is evident
that they sought not to destroy, but merely to usurp the
crown, scheming to drive away the tyrant, but to retain
tyranny. For myself, I could not wish such men to
propser and I am glad they have shown by their example
that the sacred name of Liberty must never be used to
cover a false enterprise.
But to come back to the thread of our discourse,
which I have practically lost: the essential reason why
men take orders willingly is that they are born serfs and
are reared as such. From this cause there follows
another result, namely that people easily become
cowardly and submissive under tyrants. For this observation
I am deeply grateful to Hippocrates, the renowned
father of medicine, who noted and reported it
in a treatise of his entitled Concerning Diseases. This
famous man was certainly endowed with a great heart
and proved it clearly by his reply to the Great King,
who wanted to attach him to his person by means of
special privileges and large gifts. Hippocrates answered
frankly that it would be a weight on his conscience to
make use of his science for the cure of barbarians who
wished to slay his fellow Greeks, or to serve faithfully
by his skill anyone who undertook to enslave Greece.
The letter he sent the king can still be read among his
other works and will forever testify to his great heart
and noble character.
By this time it should be evident that liberty once
lost, valor also perishes. A subject people shows neither
gladness nor eagerness in combat: its men march
sullenly to danger almost as if in bonds, and stultified;
they do not feel throbbing within them that eagerness
for liberty which engenders scorn of peril and imparts
readiness to acquire honor and glory by a brave death
amidst one's comrades. Among free men there is
competition as to who will do most, each for the
common good, each by himself, all expecting to share in
the misfortunes of defeat, or in the benefits of victory;
but an enslaved people loses in addition to this warlike
courage, all signs of enthusiasm, for their hearts are
degraded, submissive, and incapable of any great deed.
Tyrants are well aware of this, and, in order to degrade
their subjects further, encourage them to assume this
attitude and make it instinctive.
Xenophon, grave historian of first rank among the
Greeks, wrote a book in which he makes Simonides
speak with Hieron, Tyrant of Syracuse, concerning the
anxieties of the tyrant. This book is full of fine and
serious remonstrances, which in my opinion are as
persuasive as words can be. Would to God that all
despots who have ever lived might have kept it before
their eyes and used it as a mirror! I cannot believe they
would have failed to recognize their warts and to have
conceived some shame for their blotches. In this treatise
is explained the torment in which tyrants find themselves
when obliged to fear everyone because they do
evil unto every man. Among other things we find the
statement that bad kings employ foreigners in their wars
and pay them, not daring to entrust weapons in the
hands of their own people, whom they have wronged.
(There have been good kings who have used mercenaries
from foreign nations, even among the French, although
more so formerly than today, but with the quite
different purpose of preserving their own people,
considering as nothing the loss of money in the effort to
spare French lives. That is, I believe, what Scipio the
great African meant when he said he would rather save
one citizen than defeat a hundred enemies.) For it is
plainly evident that the dictator does not consider his
power firmly established until he has reached the point
where there is no man under him who is of any worth.
Therefore there may be justly applied to him the
reproach to the master of the elephants made by
Thrason and reported by Terence:
Are you indeed so proud
Because you command wild beasts?
This method tyrants use of stultifying their subjects
cannot be more clearly observed than in what Cyrus did
with the Lydians after he had taken Sardis, their chief
city, and had at his mercy the captured Croesus, their
fabulously rich king. When news was brought to him
that the people of Sardis had rebelled, it would have
been easy for him to reduce them by force; but being
unwilling either to sack such a fine city or to maintain
an army there to police it, he thought of an unusual
expedient for reducing it. He established in it brothels,
taverns, and public games, and issued the proclamation
that the inhabitants were to enjoy them. He found this
type of garrison so effective that he never again had to
draw the sword against the Lydians. These wretched
people enjoyed themselves inventing all kinds of games,
so that the Latins have derived the word from them, and
what we call pastimes they call ludi, as if they meant to
say Lydi. Not all tyrants have manifested so clearly their
intention to effeminize their victims; but in fact, what
the aforementioned despot publicly proclaimed and put
into effect, most of the others have pursued secretly as
an end. It is indeed the nature of the populace, whose
density is always greater in the cities, to be suspicious
toward one who has their welfare at heart, and gullible
toward one who fools them. Do not imagine that there
is any bird more easily caught by decoy, nor any fish
sooner fixed on the hook by wormy bait, than are all
these poor fools neatly tricked into servitude by the
slightest feather passed, so to speak, before their
mouths. Truly it is a marvelous thing that they let
themselves be caught so quickly at the slightest tickling
of their fancy. Plays, farces, spectacles, gladiators,
strange beasts, medals, pictures, and other such opiates,
these were for ancient peoples the bait toward slavery,
the price of their liberty, the instruments of tyranny. By
these practices and enticements the ancient dictators so
successfully lulled their subjects under the yoke, that
the stupefied peoples, fascinated by the pastimes and
vain pleasures flashed before their eyes, learned subservience
as naively, but not so creditably, as little
children learn to read by looking at bright picture
books. Roman tyrants invented a further refinement.
They often provided the city wards with feasts to cajole
the rabble, always more readily tempted by the pleasure
of eating than by anything else. The most intelligent and
understanding amongst them would not have quit his
soup bowl to recover the liberty of the Republic of
Plato. Tyrants would distribute largess, a bushel of
wheat, a gallon of wine, and a sesterce: and then
everybody would shamelessly cry, "Long live the King!"
The fools did not realize that they were merely
recovering a portion of their own property, and that
their ruler could not have given them what they were
receiving without having first taken it from them. A
man might one day be presented with a sesterce and
gorge himself at the public feast, lauding Tiberius and
Nero for handsome liberality, who on the morrow,
would be forced to abandon his property to their
avarice, his children to their lust, his very blood to the
cruelty of these magnificent emperors, without offering
any more resistance than a stone or a tree stump. The
mob has always behaved in this way---eagerly open to
bribes that cannot be honorably accepted, and dissolutely
callous to degradation and insult that cannot be
honorably endured. Nowadays I do not meet anyone
who, on hearing mention of Nero, does not shudder at
the very name of that hideous monster, that disgusting
and vile pestilence. Yet when he died---when this
incendiary, this executioner, this savage beast, died as
vilely as he had lived---the noble Roman people, mindful
of his games and his festivals, were saddened to the
point of wearing mourning for him. Thus wrote
Cornelius Tacitus, a competent and serious author, and
one of the most reliable. This will not be considered
peculiar in view of what this same people had previously
done at the death of Julius Caesar, who had swept away
their laws and their liberty, in whose character, it seems
to me, there was nothing worth while, for his very
liberality, which is so highly praised, was more baneful
than the cruelest tyrant who ever existed, because it was
actually this poisonous amiability of his that sweetened
servitude for the Roman people. After his death, that
people, still preserving on their palates the flavor of his
banquets and in their minds the memory of his
prodigality, vied with one another to pay him homage.
They piled up the seats of the Forum for the great fire
that reduced his body to ashes, and later raised a
column to him as to "The Father of His People." (Such
was the inscription on the capital.) They did him more
honor, dead as he was, than they had any right to confer
upon any man in the world, except perhaps on those
who had killed him.
They didn't even neglect, these Roman emperors, to
assume generally the title of Tribune of the People,
partly because this office was held sacred and inviolable
and also because it had been founded for the defense
and protection of the people and enjoyed the favor of
the state. By this means they made sure that the
populace would trust them completely, as if they
merely used the title and did not abuse it. Today there
are some who do not behave very differently; they never
undertake an unjust policy, even one of some importance,
without prefacing it with some pretty speech
concerning public welfare and common good. You well
know, O Longa, this formula which they use quite
cleverly in certain places; although for the most part, to
be sure, there cannot be cleverness where there is so
much impudence. The kings of the Assyrians and even
after them those of the Medes showed themselves in
public as seldom as possible in order to set up a doubt in
the minds of the rabble as to whether they were not in
some way more than man, and thereby to encourage
people to use their imagination for those things which
they cannot judge by sight. Thus a great many nations
who for a long time dwelt under the control of the
Assyrians became accustomed, with all this mystery, to
their own subjection, and submitted the more readily
for not knowing what sort of master they had, or
scarcely even if they had one, all of them fearing by
report someone they had never seen. The earliest kings
of Egypt rarely showed themselves without carrying a
cat, or sometimes a branch, or appearing with fire on
their heads, masking themselves with these objects and
parading like workers of magic. By doing this they
inspired their subjects with reverence and admiration,
whereas with people neither too stupid nor too slavish
they would merely have aroused, it seems to me,
amusement and laughter. It is pitiful to review the list of
devices that early despots used to establish their
tyranny; to discover how many little tricks they
employed, always finding the populace conveniently
gullible, readily caught in the net as soon as it was
spread. Indeed they always fooled their victims so easily
that while mocking them they enslaved them the more.
What comment can I make concerning another fine
counterfeit that ancient peoples accepted as true
money? They believed firmly that the great toe of
Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, performed miracles and cured
diseases of the spleen; they even enhanced the tale
further with the legend that this toe, after the corpse
had been burned, was found among the ashes, untouched
by the fire. In this wise a foolish people itself
invents lies and then believes them. Many men have
recounted such things, but in such a way that it is easy
to see that the parts were pieced together from idle
gossip of the city and silly reports from the rabble.
When Vespasian, returning from Assyria, passes through
Alexandria on his way to Rome to take possession of
the empire, he performs wonders: he makes the crippled
straight, restores sight to the blind, and does many other
fine things, concerning which the credulous and undiscriminating
were, in my opinion, more blind than those
cured. Tyrants themselves have wondered that men
could endure the persecution of a single man; they have
insisted on using religion for their own protection and,
where possible, have borrowed a stray bit of divinity to
bolster up their evil ways. If we are to believe the Sybil
of Virgil, Salmoneus, in torment for having paraded as
Jupiter in order to deceive the populace, now atones in
nethermost Hell:
-
He suffered endless torment for having dared to
- imitate
-
The thunderbolts of heaven and the flames of
-
Jupiter.
-
Upon a chariot drawn by four chargers he went,
- unsteadily
-
Riding aloft, in his fist a great shining torch.
Among the Greeks and into the market-place
In the heart of the city of Elis he had ridden
-
boldly:
-
And displaying thus his vainglory he assumed
An honor which undeniably belongs to the gods
-
alone.
-
This fool who imitated storm and the inimitable
-
thunderbolt
-
By clash of brass and with his dizzying charge
On horn-hoofed steeds, the all-powerful Father
-
beheld,
-
Hurled not a torch, nor the feeble light
From a waxen taper with its smoky fumes,
But by the furious blast of thunder and lightning
He brought him low, his heels above his head.
If such a one, who in his time acted merely through
the folly of insolence, is so well received in Hell, I think
that those who have used religion as a cloak to hide
their vileness will be even more deservedly lodged in the
same place.
Our own leaders have employed in France certain
similar devices, such as toads, fleurs-de-lys, sacred
vessels, and standards with flames of gold. However that
may be, I do not wish, for my part, to be incredulous,
since neither we nor our ancestors have had any
occasion up to now for skepticism. Our kings have
always been so generous in times of peace and so valiant
in time of war, that from birth they seem not to have
been created by nature like many others, but even
before birth to have been designated by Almighty God
for the government and preservation of this kingdom.
Even if this were not so, yet should I not enter the
tilting ground to call in question the truth of our
traditions, or to examine them so strictly as to take
away their fine conceits. Here is such a field for our
French poetry, now not merely honored but, it seems to
me, reborn through our Rosnard, our Baif, our Bellay.
These poets are defending our language so well that I
dare to believe that very soon neither the Greeks nor the
Latins will in this respect have any advantage over us
except possibly that of seniority. And I should assuredly
do wrong to our poesy---I like to use that word despite the
fact that several have rhymed mechanically, for I still
discern a number of men today capable of ennobling
poetry and restoring it to its first lustre---but, as I say, I
should do the Muse great injury if I deprived her now of
those fine tales about. King Clovis, amongst which it
seems to me I can already see how agreeably and how
happily the inspiration of our Ronsard in his Frunciade
will play. I appreciate his loftiness, I am aware of his
keen spirit, and I know the charm of the man: he will
appropriate the oriflamme to his use much as did the
Romans their sacred bucklers and the shields cast from
heaven to earth, according to Virgil. He will use our
phial of holy oil much as the Athenians used the basket
of Ericthonius; he will win applause for our deeds of
valor as they did for their olive wreath which they insist
can still be found in Minerva's tower. Certainly I should
be presumptuous if I tried to cast slurs on our records
and thus invade the realm of our poets.
But to return to our subject, the thread of which I
have unwittingly lost in this discussion: it has always
happened that tyrants, in order to strengthen their
power, have made every effort to train their people not
only in obedience and servility toward themselves, but
also in adoration. Therefore all that I have said up to the
present concerning the means by which a more willing
submission has been obtained applies to dictators in
their relationship with the inferior and common classes.
(Part III)
I COME NOW to a point which is, in my opinion, the
mainspring and the secret of domination, the support
and foundation of tyranny. Whoever thinks that
halberds, sentries, the placing of the watch, serve to
protect and shield tyrants is, in my judgment, completely
mistaken. These are used, it seems to me, more
for ceremony and a show of force than for any reliance
placed in them. The archers forbid the entrance to the
palace to the poorly dressed who have no weapons, not
to the well armed who can carry out some plot.
Certainly it is easy to say of the Roman emperors that
fewer escaped from danger by aid of their guards than
were killed by their own archers.18 It is not the troops
on horseback, it is not the companies afoot, it is not
arms that defend the tyrant. This does not seem credible
on first thought, but it is nevertheless true that there are
only four or five who maintain the dictator, four or five
who keep the country in bondage to him. Five or six
have always had access to his ear, and have either gone
to him of their own accord, or else have been
summoned by him, to be accomplices in his cruelties,
companions in his pleausres, panders to his lusts, and
sharers in his plunders. These six manage their chief so
successfully that he comes to be held accountable not
only for his own misdeeds but even for theirs. The six
have six hundred who profit under them, and with the
six hundred they do what they have accomplished with
their tyrant. The six hundred maintain under them six
thousand, whom they promote in rank, upon whom
they confer the government of provinces or the direction
of finances, in order that they may serve as instruments
of avarice and cruelty, executing orders at the proper
time and working such havoc all around that they could
not last except under the shadow of the six hundred,
nor be exempt from law and punishment except
through their influence.
The consequence of all this is fatal indeed. And
whoever is pleased to unwind the skein will observe that
not the six thousand but a hundred thousand, and even
millions, cling to the tyrant by this cord to which they
are tied. According to Homer, Jupiter boasts of being
able to draw to himself all the gods when he pulls a
chain. Such a scheme caused the increase in the senate
under Julius, the formation of new ranks, the creation
of offices; not really, if properly considered, to reform
justice, but to provide new supporters of despotism. In
short, when the point is reached, through big favors or
little ones, that large profits or small are obtained under
a tyrant, there are found almost as many people to
whom tyranny seems advantageous as those to whom
liberty would seem desirable. Doctors declare that if,
when some part of the body has gangrene a disturbance
arises in another spot, it immediately flows to the
troubled part. Even so, whenever a ruler makes himself a
dictator, all the wicked dregs of the nation---I do not
mean the pack of petty thieves and earless ruffians19
who, in a republic, are unimportant in evil or good---but
all those who are corrupted by burning ambition or
extraordinary avarice, these gather around him and
support him in order to have a share in the booty and to
constitute themselves petty chiefs under the big tyrant.
This is the practice among notorious robbers and
famous pirates: some scour the country, others pursue
voyagers; some lie in ambush, others keep a lookout;
some commit murder, others robbery; and although
there are among them differences in rank, some being
only underlings while others are chieftains of gangs, yet
is there not a single one among them who does not feel
himself to be a sharer, if not of the main booty, at least
in the pursuit of it. It is dependably related that Sicilian
pirates gathered in such great numbers that it became
necessary to send against them Pompey the Great, and
that they drew into their alliance fine towns and great
cities in whose harbors they took refuge on returning
from their expeditions, paying handsomely for the
haven given their stolen goods.
Thus the despot subdues his subjects, some of them
by means of others, and thus is he protected by those
from whom, if they were decent men, he would have to
guard himself; just as, in order to split wood, one has to
use a wedge of the wood itself. Such are his archers, his
guards, his halberdiers; not that they themselves do not
suffer occasionally at his hands, but this riff-raff,
abandoned alike by God and man, can be led to endure
evil if permitted to commit it, not against him who
exploits them, but against those who like themselves
submit, but are helpless. Nevertheless, observing those
men who painfully serve the tyrant in order to win some
profit from his tyranny and from the subjection of the
populace, I am often overcome with amazement at their
wickedness and sometimes by pity for their folly. For,
in all honesty, can it be in any way except in folly that
you approach a tyrant, withdrawing further from your
liberty and, so to speak, embracing with both hands
your servitude? Let such men lay aside briefly their
ambition, or let them forget for a moment their avarice,
and look at themselves as they really are. Then they
will realize clearly that the townspeople, the peasants
whom they trample under foot and treat worse than
convicts or slaves, they will realize, I say, that these
people, mistreated as they may be, are nevertheless, in
comparison with themselves, better off and fairly free.
The tiller of the soil and the artisan, no matter how
enslaved, discharge their obligation when they do what
they are told to do; but the dictator sees men about him
wooing and begging his favor, and doing much more
than he tells them to do. Such men must not only obey
orders; they must anticipate his wishes; to satisfy him
they must foresee his desires; they must wear themselves
out, torment themselves, kill themselves with work in
his interest, and accept his pleasure as their own,
neglecting their preference for his, distorting their
character and corrupting their nature; they must pay
heed to his words, to his intonation, to his gestures, and
to his glance. Let them have no eye, nor foot, nor hand
that is not alert to respond to his wishes or to seek out
his thoughts.
Can that be called a happy life? Can it be called
living? Is there anything more intolerable than that
situation, I won't say for a man of mettle nor even for a
man of high birth, but simply for a man of common
sense or, to go even further, for anyone having the face
of a man? What condition is more wretched than to live
thus, with nothing to call one's own, receiving from
someone else one's sustenance, one's power to act, one's
body, one's very life?
Still men accept servility in order to acquire wealth;
as if they could acquire anything of their own when
they cannot even assert that they belong to themselves,
or as if anyone could possess under a tyrant a single
thing in his own name. Yet they act as if their wealth
really belonged to them, and forget that it is they
themselves who give the ruler the power to deprive
everybody of everything, leaving nothing that anyone
can identify as belonging to somebody. They notice that
nothing makes men so subservient to a tyrant's cruelty
as property; that the possession of wealth is the worst of
crimes against him, punishable even by death; that he
loves nothing quite so much as money and ruins only
the rich, who come before him as before a butcher,
offering themselves so stuffed and bulging that they
make his mouth water. These favorites should not recall
so much the memory of those who have won great
wealth from tyrants as of those who, after they had for
some time amassed it, have lost to him their property as
well as their lives; they should consider not how many
others have gained a fortune, but rather how few of
them have kept it. Whether we examine ancient history
or simply the times in which we live, we shall see clearly
how great is the number of those who, having by
shameful means won the ear of princes---who either
profit from their villainies or take advantage of their
naiveté---were in the end reduced to nothing by these
very princes; and although at first such servitors were
met by a ready willingness to promote their interests,
they later found an equally obvious inconstancy which
brought them to ruin. Certainly among so large a
number of people who have at one time or another had
some relationship with bad rulers, there have been few
or practically none at all who have not felt applied to
themselves the tyrant's animosity, which they had
formerly stirred up against others. Most often, after
becoming rich by despoiling others, under the favor of
his protection, they find themselves at last enriching
him with their own spoils.
Even men of character---if it sometimes happens that
a tyrant likes such a man well enough to hold him in his
good graces, because in him shine forth the virtue and
integrity that inspire a certain reverence even in the
most depraved--even men of character, I say, could not
long avoid succumbing to the common malady and
would early experience the effects of tyranny at their
own expense. A Seneca, a Burrus, a Thrasea, this
triumverate of splendid men, will provide a sufficient
reminder of such misfortune. Two of them were close to
the tyrant by the fatal responsibility of holding in their
hands the management of his affairs, and both were
esteemed and beloved by him. One of them, moreover,
had a peculiar claim upon his friendship, having instructed
his master as a child. Yet these three by their
cruel death give sufficient evidence of how little faith
one can place in the friendship of an evil ruler. Indeed
what friendship may be expected from one whose heart
is bitter enough to hate even his own people, who do
naught else but obey him? It is because he does not
know how to love that he ultimately impoverishes his
own spirit and destroys his own empire.
Now if one would argue that these men fell into
disgrace because they wanted to act honorably, let him
look around boldly at others close to that same tyrant,
and he will see that those who came into his favor and
maintained themselves by dishonorable means did not
fare much better. Who has ever heard tell of a love more
centered, of an affection more persistent, who has ever
read of a man more desperately attached to a woman
than Nero was to Poppaea? Yet she was later poisoned
by his own hand. Agrippina his mother had killed her
husband, Claudius, in order to exalt her son; to gratify
him she had never hesitated at doing or bearing
anything; and yet this very son, her offspring, her
emperor, elevated by her hand, after failing her often,
finally took her life. It is indeed true that no one denies
she would have well deserved this punishment, if only it
had come to her by some other hand than that of the
son she had brought into the world. Who was ever more
easily managed, more naive, or, to speak quite frankly, a
greater simpleton, than Claudius the Emperor? Who was
ever more wrapped up in his wife than he in Messalina,
whom he delivered finally into the hands of the
executioner? Stupidity in a tyrant always renders him
incapable of benevolent action; but in some mysterious
way by dint of acting cruelly even towards those who
are his closest associates, he seems to manifest what
little intelligence he may have.
Quite generally known is the striking phrase of that
other tyrant who, gazing at the throat of his wife, a
woman he dearly loved and without whom it seemed he
could not live, caressed her with this charming comment:
"This lovely throat would be cut at once if I but
gave the order." That is why the majority of the
dictators of former days were commonly slain by their
closest favorites who, observing the nature of tyranny,
could not be so confident of the whim of the tyrant as
they were distrustful of his power. Thus was Domitian
killed by Stephen, Commodus by one of his mistresses,
Antoninus by Macrinus, and practically all the others in
similar violent fashion.
The fact is that the tyrant is never truly loved, nor
does he love. Friendship is a sacred word, a holy thing;
it is never developed except between persons of character,
and never takes root except through mutual
respect; it flourishes not so much by kindnesses as by
sincerity. What makes one friend sure of another is the
knowledge of his integrity: as guarantees he has his
friend's fine nature, his honor, and his constancy. There
can be no friendship where there is cruelty, where there
is disloyalty, where there is injustice. And in places
where the wicked gather there is conspiracy only, not
companionship: these have no affection for one
another; fear alone holds them together; they are not
friends, they are merely accomplices.
Although it might not be impossible, yet it would be
difficult to find true friendship in a tyrant; elevated
above others and having no companions, he finds
himself already beyond the pale of friendship, which
receives its real sustenance from an equality that, to
proceed without a limp, must have its two limbs equal.
That is why there is honor among thieves (or so it is
reported) in the sharing of the booty; they are peers and
comrades; if they are not fond of one another they at
least respect one another and do not seek to lessen their
strength by squabbling. But the favorites of a tyrant can
never feel entirely secure, and the less so because he has
learned from them that he is all powerful and unlimited
by any law or obligation. Thus it becomes his wont to
consider his own will as reason enough, and to be master
of all with never a compeer. Therefore it seems a pity
that with so many examples at hand, with the danger
always present, no one is anxious to act the wise man at
the expense of the others, and that among so many
persons fawning upon their ruler there is not a single
one who has the wisdom and the boldness to say to him
what, according to the fable,20 the fox said to the lion
who feigned illness: "I should be glad to enter your lair
to pay my respects; but I see many tracks of beasts that
have gone toward you, yet not a single trace of any who
have come back."
These wretches see the glint of the despot's treasures
and are bedazzled by the radiance of his splendor.
Drawn by this brilliance they come near, without
realizing they are approaching a flame that cannot fail
to scorch them. Similarly attracted, the indiscreet
satyr of the old fables, on seeing the bright fire brought
down by Prometheus, found it so beautiful that he went
and kissed it, and was burned21; so, as the Tuscan22
poet reminds us, the moth, intent upon desire, seeks the
flame because it shines, and also experiences its other
quality, the burning. Moreover, even admitting that
favorites may at times escape from the hands of him
they serve, they are never safe from the ruler who comes
after him. If he is good, they must render an account of
their past and recognize at last that justice exists; if he is
bad and resembles their late master, he will certainly
have his own favorites, who are not usually satisfied to
occupy in their turn merely the posts of their precedessors,
but will more often insist on their wealth and their
lives. Can anyone be found, then, who under such
perilous circumstances and with so little security will
still be ambitious to fill such an ill-fated position and
serve, despite such perils, so dangerous a master? Good
God, what suffering, what martyrdom all this involves!
To be occupied night and day in planning to please one
person, and yet to fear him more than anyone else in
the world; to be always on the watch, ears open,
wondering whence the blow will come; to search out
conspiracy, to be on guard against snares, to scan the
faces of companions for signs of treachery, to smile at
everybody and be mortally afraid of all, to be sure of
nobody, either as an open enemy or as a reliable friend;
showing always a gay countenance despite an apprehensive
heart, unable to be joyous yet not daring to be
sad!
However, there is satisfaction in examining what they
get out of all this torment, what advantage they derive
from all the trouble of their wretched existence.
Actually the people never blame the tyrant for the evils
they suffer, but they do place responsibility on those
who influence him; peoples, nations, all compete with
one another, even the peasants, even the tillers of the
soil, in mentioning the names of the favorites, in
analyzing their vices, and heaping upon them a thousand
insults, a thousand obscenities, a thousand maledictions.
All their prayers, all their vows are directed against these
persons; they hold them accountable for all their
misfortunes, their pestilences, their famines; and if at
times they show them outward respect, at those very
moments they are fuming in their hearts and hold them
in greater horror than wild beasts. This is the glory and
honor heaped upon influential favorites for their services
by people who, if they could tear apart their living
bodies, would still clamor for more, only half satiated
by the agony they might behold. For even when the
favorites are dead those who live after are never too lazy
to blacken the names of these man-eaters23 with the ink
of a thousand pens, tear their reputations into bits in a
thousand books, and drag, so to speak, their bones past
posterity, forever punishing them after their death for
their wicked lives.
Let us therefore learn while there is yet time, let us
learn to do good. Let us raise our eyes to Heaven for the
sake of our honor, for the very love of virtue, or, to
speak wisely, for the love and praise of God Almighty,
who is the infallible witness of our deeds and the just
judge of our faults. As for me, I truly believe I am right,
since there is nothing so contrary to a generous and
loving God as tyranny---I believe He has reserved, in a
separate spot in Hell, some very special punishment for
tyrants and their accomplices.
NOTES
- Iliad, Book II, Lines 204--205.---H.K.
- Government by a single ruler. From the Greek monos
(single) and arkhein (to command).---H.K.
- An autocratic council of thirty magistrates that governed
Athens for eight months in 404 B.C. They exhibited such
monstrous despotism that the city rose in anger and drove them
forth.---H.E.
- Athenian general, died 489 B.C. Some of his battles:
expedition against Scythians; Lemnos; Imbros; Marathon, where
Darius the Pemian was defeated.---H.K.
- King of Sparta, died at Thermopolae in 480 B.C., defending
the pass with three hundred loyal Spartans against Xerxes.---H.K.
- Athenian statesman and general, died 460 B.C. Some of his
battles: expedition against Aegean Isles; victory over Persians
under Xerxes at Salamis.---H.K.
- The reference is to Saul anointed by Samuel.---H.K.
- Alexander the Macedonian became the acknowledged
master of all Hellenes at the Assembly of Corinth, 335 B.C.---H.K.
- Athenian tyrant, died 627 B.C. He used ruse and bluster to
control the city and was obliged to flee several times.---H.K.
- Denis or Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, died in 367 B.C. Of
lowly birth, this dictator imposed himself by plottings, putsches,
and purges. The danger from which he saved his city was the
invasion by the Carthaginians.---H.K.
- Dionysius seized power in Syraeuse in 405 B.C.---M.N.R.
- Mithridates (c. 135--63 B.C.) was next to Hannibal the most
dreaded and potent enemy of Roman power. The reference in the
text is to his youth when he spent some years in retirement
hardening himself and immunizing himself against poison. In his
old age, defeated by Pompey, betrayed by his own son, he tried
poison and Finally had to resort to the dagger of a friendly Gaul.
(Pliny, Natural History, XXIV, 2.)---H.K.
- The ruler of Venice.---M.N.R.
- A half-legendary figure concerning whose life Plutarch
admits there is much obscurity. He bequeathed to his land a rigid
code regulating land, assembly, education, with the individual
subordinate to the state.---H.K.
- Odyssey. Book II, Lines 14--19. The Cimmerians were a
barbarian people active north of the Black Sea in the eighth and
seventh centuries B.C., and gave their name to Crimea.---M.N.R.
- The Ottoman Sultan of Constantinople was often called the
Grand Turk.---M.N.R.
- Brutus and Cassias helped to assassinate Julius Caesar in 44
B.C. They committed suicide after being defeated by Marcus
Antonius at the Battles of Philippi in 42 B.C.---M.N.R.
- Almost a third of the Roman Emperors were killed by their
own soldiers.---M.N.R.
- The cutting off of ears as a punishment for thievery is very
ancient. In the middle ages it was still practiced under St. Louis.
Men so mutilated were dishonored and could not enter the clergy
or the magistracy.---H.K.
- By Aesop.---M.N.R.
- Aeschylus' Prometheus the Firebearer (fragment).---M.N.R.
- Petrarch, Cazoniere, Sonnet XVII. La Boetie has accurately
rendered the lines concerning the moth.---H.K.
- The word was used by Homer in the Iliad, Book I, Line
341.---M.N.R.
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