Seneca: DIALOGI

1. Scribere de clementia, Nero Caesar, institui, ut quodam modo speculi vice fungerer et te tibi ostenderem perventurum ad voluptatem maximam omnium. Quamvis enim recte factorum verus fructus sit fecisse nec ullum virtutum pretium dignum illis extra ipsas sit, iuvat inspicere et circumire bonam conscientiam, tum immittere oculos in hanc immensam multitudinem discordem, seditiosam, impotentem, in perniciem alienam suamque pariter exsultaturam, si hoc iugum fregerit, et ita loqui secum: 2. 'Egone ex omnibus mortalibus placui electusque sum, qui in terris deorum vice fungerer? Ego vitae necisque gentibus arbiter; qualem quisque sortem statumque habeat, in mea manu positum est; quid cuique mortalium Fortuna datum velit, meo ore pronuntiat; ex nostro responso laetitiae causas populi urbesque concipiunt; nulla pars usquam nisi volente propitioque me floret; haec tot milia gladiorum, quae pax mea comprimit, ad nutum meum stringentur; quas nationes funditus excidi, quas transportari, quibus libertatem dari, quibus eripi, quos reges mancipia fieri quorumque capiti regium circumdari decus oporteat, quae ruant urbes, quae oriantur, mea iuris dictio est.

1. I have set myself to write on clemency, Nero Caesar, so that I might in some way serve in the stead of a mirror and show you to yourself as about to arrive at the greatest pleasure of all. For although the true fruit of right deeds is to have done them, and no price of virtues worthy of them lies outside the virtues themselves, it is a joy to look into and make a circuit around a good conscience, then to cast your eyes upon this immense multitude—discordant, seditious, unbridled—ready to exult equally in another’s and in its own ruin, if it should break this yoke, and so to speak with oneself: 2. ‘Have I, out of all mortals, found favor and been chosen to serve on earth in the stead of the gods? I am the arbiter of life and death for the peoples; what lot and condition each person shall have is placed in my hand; what Fortune wills to be given to each of mortals, she proclaims by my mouth; from our answer peoples and cities conceive causes of rejoicing; no region anywhere flourishes unless I am willing and propitious; these so many thousands of swords, which my peace restrains, will be drawn at my nod; which nations ought to be extirpated from the root, which to be transported, to whom liberty ought to be given, from whom to be snatched away, which kings ought to become mancipia, and upon whose head the royal adornment ought to be set, which cities should fall, which should arise—this is my iurisdictio.’

3. In hac tanta facultate rerum non ira me ad iniqua supplicia compulit, non iuvenilis impetus, non temeritas hominum et contumacia, quae saepe tranquillissimis quoque pectoribus patientiam extorsit, non ipsa ostentandae per terrores potentiae dira, sed frequens magnis imperiis gloria. Conditum, immo constrictum apud me ferrum est, summa parsimonia etiam vilissimi sanguinis; nemo non, cui alia desunt, hominis nomine apud me gratiosus est. 4. Severitatem abditam, at clementiam in procinctu habeo; sic me custodio, tamquam legibus, quas ex situ ac tenebris in lucem evocavi, rationem redditurus sim.

3. In this so great a power over affairs, neither anger has driven me to unjust punishments, nor youthful impetus, nor the temerity of men and their contumacy, which has often extorted patience even from the most tranquil breasts, nor the grim glory itself, frequent in great empires, of displaying power through terrors. The sword is sheathed—nay rather, bound fast—by me; there is the utmost parsimony even of the vilest blood; there is no one who, when other things are lacking, is not in my favor by the name of “human being.” 4. I keep severity hidden, but clemency in the battle-line; thus I guard myself, as though I were about to render an account to the laws which I have summoned from neglect and darkness into the light.

Alterius aetate prima motus sum, alterius ultima; alium dignitati donavi, alium humilitati; quotiens nullam inveneram misericordiae causam, mihi peperci. Hodie dis immortalibus, si a me rationem repetant, adnumerare genus humanum paratus sum.'

I was moved by the first age of one, by the last of another; I have pardoned one for dignity, another for humility; as often as I found no cause for mercy, I spared myself. Today, to the immortal gods, if they should demand an account from me, I am prepared to count the human race.'

5. Potes hoc, Caesar, audacter praedicare: omnia, quae in fidem tutelamque tuam venerunt, tuta haberi, nihil per te neque vi neque clam adimi rei publicae. Rarissimam laudem et nulli adhuc principum concessam concupisti innocentiam. Non perdit operam nec bonitas ista tua singularis ingratos aut malignos aestimatores nancta est.

5. You can, Caesar, boldly proclaim this: that all things which have come into your trust and tutelage are held safe, that nothing by you, neither by force nor by stealth, is taken from the commonwealth. You have coveted a most rare praise, innocence, granted as yet to none of the princes. Your effort is not lost, nor has that singular goodness of yours encountered ungrateful or malign appraisers.

Refertur tibi gratia; nemo unus homo uni homini tam carus umquam fuit, quam tu populo Romano, magnum longumque eius bonum. 6. Sed ingens tibi onus imposuisti; nemo iam divum Augustum nec Ti. Caesaris prima tempora loquitur nec, quod te imitari velit, exemplar extra te quaerit; principatus tuus ad gustum exigitur. Difficile hoc fuisset, si non naturalis tibi ista bonitas esset, sed ad tempus sumpta.

Gratitude is returned to you; no one single man was ever so dear to one single man as you are to the Roman people, the great and long-lasting good of it. 6. But you have imposed a huge burden on yourself; no one now speaks of the deified Augustus nor of the earliest times of Tiberius Caesar, nor, in order to imitate you, does he seek an exemplar outside you; your principate is gauged by taste. This would have been difficult, if that goodness of yours were not natural to you, but assumed for a time.

Nemo enim potest personam diu ferre, ficta cito in naturam suam recidunt; quibus veritas subest quaeque, ut ita dicam, ex solido enascuntur, tempore ipso in maius meliusque procedunt.

For no one can
bear a persona for long; feigned things quickly fall back into their own nature; those which have truth underlying them and which, so to speak,
are born out of something solid, with time itself advance into what is greater and better.

7. Magnam adibat aleam populus Romanus, cum incertum esset, quo se ista tua nobilis indoles daret; iam vota publica in tuto sunt; nec enim periculum est, ne te subita tui capiat oblivio. Facit quidem avidos nimia felicitas, nec tam temperatae cupiditates sunt umquam, ut in eo, quod contigit, desinant; gradus a magnis ad maiora fit, et spes improbissimas conplectuntur insperata adsecuti; omnibus tamen nunc civibus tuis et haec confessio exprimitur esse felices et illa nihil iam his accedere bonis posse, nisi ut perpetua sint. 8. Multa illos cogunt ad hanc confessionem, qua nulla in homine tardior est: securitas alta, adfluens, ius supra omnem iniuriam positum; obversatur oculis laetissima forma rei publicae, cui ad summam libertatem nihil deest nisi pereundi licentia.

7. The Roman people was running a great hazard, when it was uncertain to what that noble nature of yours would apply itself; now the public vows are in safety; for there is no danger that a sudden forgetfulness of yourself may seize you. Excessive felicity indeed makes men avid, nor are cupidities ever so tempered that they stop at what has been attained; a step is made from great things to greater, and, having achieved the unexpected, they embrace the most immoderate hopes; nevertheless now from all your citizens this confession too is wrung, that they are happy, and this other: that nothing can now be added to these goods, except that they be perpetual. 8. Many things compel them to this confession, than which none is slower in a man: deep, overflowing security, a right set above every injury; the most joyful form of the commonwealth is before their eyes, to which nothing is lacking for consummate liberty except the license of perishing.

9. Praecipue tamen aequalis ad maximos imosque pervenit clementiae tuae admiratio; cetera enim bona pro portione fortunae suae quisque sentit aut exspectat maiora minoraque, ex clementia omnes idem sperant; nec est quisquam, cui tam valde innocentia sua placeat, ut non stare in conspectu clementiam paratam humanis erroribus gaudeat.

9. Chiefly, however, the admiration of your clemency, equal, reaches to the highest and the lowest; for the other goods each one feels, in proportion to his fortune, or expects greater or lesser, but from clemency all hope the same; nor is there anyone to whom his own innocence is so very pleasing that he does not rejoice to have clemency, ready for human errors, standing in view.

II.

1. Esse autem aliquos scio, qui clementia pessimum quemque putent sustineri, quoniam nisi post crimen supervacua est et sola haec virtus inter innocentes cessat. Sed primum omnium, sicut medicinae apud aegros usus, etiam apud sanos honor est, ita clementiam, quamvis poena digni invocent, etiam innocentes colunt. Deinde habet haec in persona quoque innocentium locum, quia interim fortuna pro culpa est; nec innocentiae tantum clementia succurrit, sed saepe virtuti, quoniam quidem condicione temporum incidunt quaedam, quae possint laudata puniri.

1. But I know that there are some who think that clemency sustains each worst sort of person, since it is superfluous unless after a crime, and this virtue alone falls idle among the innocent. But first of all, just as the use of medicine is among the sick, yet among the healthy it is an honor, so clemency, although those worthy of punishment invoke it, even the innocent cultivate. Next, this has a place even in the person of the innocent, because sometimes fortune stands in place of fault; nor does clemency help innocence only, but often virtue, since indeed by the condition of the times certain things occur which, though laudable, can be punished.

Adice, quod magna pars hominum est, quae reverti ad innocentiam possit, si poenae remissio fuerit>. 2. Non tamen volgo ignoscere decet; nam ubi discrimen inter malos bonosque sublatum est, confusio sequitur et vitiorum eruptio; itaque adhibenda moderatio est, quae sanabilia ingenia distinguere a deploratis sciat. Nec promiscuam habere ac volgarem clementiam oportet nec abscisam; nam tam omnibus ignoscere crudelitas quam nulli. Modum tenere debemus; sed quia difficile est temperamentum, quidquid aequo plus futurum est, in partem humaniorem praeponderet.

Add, that a great part of mankind exists which can revert to innocence, if there be a remission of punishment>. 2. Yet it is not fitting to pardon vulgarly; for when the discrimination between the bad and the good has been removed, confusion follows and an eruption of vices; and so moderation must be applied, which knows how to distinguish curable dispositions from the deplored. Nor ought one to have clemency promiscuous and vulgar, nor abscised; for to forgive all is as much cruelty as to forgive none. We ought to hold to the measure; but because temperament is difficult, whatever is going to exceed the equal, let it preponderate to the more humane side.

III.

1. Sed haec suo melius loco dicentur. Nunc in tres partes omnem hanc materiam dividam. Prima erit manumissionis; secunda, quae naturam clementiae habitumque demonstret: nam cum sint vitia quaedam virtutes imitantia, non possunt secerni, nisi signa, quibus dinoscantur, impresseris; tertio loco quaeremus, quomodo ad hanc virtutem perducatur animus, quomodo confirmet eam et usu suam faciat.

1. But these matters will be better said in their own place. Now I shall divide all this material into three parts. The first will be of manumission; the second, which may demonstrate the nature of clemency and its habit: for since there are certain vices imitating virtues, they cannot be separated, unless you have imprinted the signs by which they may be discerned, in the third place we shall inquire how the mind may be conducted to this virtue, how it may confirm it and by use make it its own.

2. Nullam ex omnibus virtutibus homini magis convenire, cum sit nulla humanior, constet necesse est non solum inter nos, qui hominem sociale animal communi bono genitum videri volumus, sed etiam inter illos, qui hominem voluptati donant, quorum omnia dicta factaque ad utilitates suas spectant; nam si quietem petit et otium, hanc virtutem naturae suae nanctus est, quae pacem amat et manus retinet. 3. Nullum tamen clementia ex omnibus magis quam regem aut principem decet. Ita enim magnae vires decori gloriaeque sunt, si illis salutaris potentia est; nam pestifera vis est valere ad nocendum.

2. It must be agreed that no virtue among all is more fitting to a human being, since none is more humane, not only among us, who wish man to seem a social animal born for the common good, but even among those who give man over to pleasure, whose every sayings and doings look to their own utilities; for if he seeks quiet and leisure, he has found in this virtue one suited to his nature, which loves peace and holds back its hands.
3. Yet clemency befits no one among all more than a king or a prince. For great powers are an ornament and a glory, if they have a salutary potency; for it is a pestiferous force to be strong for harming.

Illius demum magnitudo stabilis fundataque est, quem omnes tam supra se esse quam pro se sciunt, cuius curam excubare pro salute singulorum atque universorum cottidie experiuntur, quo procedente non, tamquam malum aliquod aut noxium animal e cubili prosilierit, diffugiunt, sed tamquam ad clarum ac beneficum sidus certatim advolant. Obicere se pro illo mucronibus insidiantium paratissimi et substernere corpora sua, si per stragem illi humanam iter ad salutem struendum sit, somnum eius nocturnis excubiis muniunt, latera obiecti circumfusique defendunt, incurrentibus periculis se opponunt.

His greatness at last is stable and well-founded, whom all know to be both above themselves and on their side, whose watchful care for the safety of individuals and of all they experience daily; when he proceeds, they do not, as if some evil or noxious animal had leapt from its lair, scatter in flight, but, as to a bright and beneficent star, they flock eagerly. Most ready are they to interpose themselves for him against the blades of plotters, and to lay down their bodies beneath, if through human slaughter a path to safety must be built for him; they fortify his sleep with nocturnal watches, having thrown themselves before him and surrounding him they defend his flanks; against dangers as they rush in they set themselves in opposition.

4. Non est hic sine ratione populis urbibusque consensus sic protegendi amandique reges et se suaque iactandi, quocumque desideravit imperantis salus; nec haec vilitas sui est aut dementia pro uno capite tot milia excipere ferrum ac multis mortibus unam animam redimere nonnumquam senis et invalidi.

4. This consensus of peoples and cities thus to protect and to love kings, and to hazard themselves
and their own, wherever the safety of the ruler has desired, is not without reason; nor is this cheapening of oneself or madness
for so many thousands to receive the steel for one head, and by many deaths to redeem one soul,
sometimes of an old and infirm man.

5. Quemadmodum totum corpus animo deservit et, cum hoc tanto maius tantoque speciosius sit, ille in occulto maneat tenuis et in qua sede latitet incertus, tamen manus, pedes, oculi negotium illi gerunt, illum haec cutis munit, illius iussu iacemus aut inquieti discurrimus, cum ille imperavit, sive avarus dominus est, mare lucri causa scrutamur, sive ambitiosus, iam dudum dextram flammis obiecimus aut voluntarii terram subsiluimus, sic haec immensa multitudo unius animae circumdata illius spiritu regitur, illius ratione flectitur pressura se ac fractura viribus suis, nisi consilio sustineretur.

5. Just as the whole body is subservient to the soul, and although this is so much greater and more fair, that remains in hiding, subtle, and uncertain in what seat it lies concealed, nevertheless the hands, feet, eyes transact business for it, this skin fortifies it, at its command we lie down or, restless, run about, when it has commanded—whether it is an avaricious master, we scrutinize the sea for the sake of gain, or an ambitious one, long since we have exposed the right hand to flames or, as volunteers, we have sprung to the ground—so this immense multitude, encompassed by the spirit of one soul, is governed; it is bent by its reason, and would press upon and shatter itself by its own forces, unless it were sustained by counsel.

IV.

1. Suam itaque incolumitatem amant, cum pro uno homine denas legiones in aciem deducunt, cum in primam frontem procurrunt et adversa volneribus pectora ferunt, ne imperatoris sui signa vertantur. Ille est enim vinculum, per quod res publica cohaeret, ille spiritus vitalis, quem haec tot milia trahunt nihil ipsa per se futura nisi onus et praeda, si mens illa imperii subtrahatur.

1. Thus they love their own safety, when for the sake of one man they lead ten legions into the battle-line, when they run forward into the foremost front and offer their chests, face-on, to wounds, lest the standards of their emperor be turned back. For he is the bond by which the republic coheres, he the vital spirit which these so many thousands draw, they themselves being nothing by themselves except a burden and booty, if that mind of empire be withdrawn.

Rege incolumi mens omnibus una;
amisso rupere fidem.

With the king safe, the mind is one for all;
with him lost, they broke faith.

2. Hic casus Romanae pacis exitium erit, hic tanti fortunam populi in ruinas aget; tam diu ab isto periculo aberit hic populus, quam diu sciet ferre frenos, quos si quando abruperit vel aliquo casu discussos reponi sibi passus non erit, haec unitas et hic maximi imperii contextus in partes multas dissiliet, idemque huic urbi finis dominandi erit, qui parendi fuerit. 3. Ideo principes regesque et quocumque alio nomine sunt tutores status publici non est mirum amari ultra privatas etiam necessitudines; nam si sanis hominibus publica privatis potiora sunt, sequitur, ut is quoque carior sit, in quem se res publica convertit. Olim enim ita se induit rei publicae Caesar, ut seduci alterum non posset sine utriusque pernicie; nam et illi viribus opus est et huic capite.

2. This mischance will be the destruction of Roman peace, this will drive the fortune of so great a people into ruins; so long will this people be away from that danger as long as it knows how to bear the bridles, which, if ever it has broken off, or, when by some chance they have been shaken loose, it will not allow to be put back upon itself, this unity and this fabric of the greatest empire will burst apart into many parts, and the same limit to ruling will be for this city as there was for obeying. 3. Therefore princes and kings, and under whatever other name there are guardians of the public status, it is no wonder that they are loved beyond even private relationships; for if to sane men public matters are preferable to private, it follows that he too is dearer, upon whom the commonwealth turns itself. For long ago Caesar so clothed himself with the commonwealth that the one could not be separated from the other without the perdition of both; for that one has need of forces and this one of a head.

1. Longius videtur recessisse a proposito oratio mea, at mehercules rem ipsam premit. Nam si, quod adhuc colligit, tu animus rei publicae tuae es, illa corpus tuum, vides, ut puto, quam necessaria sit clementia; tibi enim parcis, cum videris alteri parcere. Parcendum itaque est etiam improbandis civibus non aliter quam membris languentibus, et, si quando misso sanguine opus est, sustinenda est manus, ne ultra, quam necesse sit, incidat.

1. It seems my speech has withdrawn further from the purpose, but, by Hercules, it presses the very matter. For if,
as it has thus far gathered, you are the soul of your commonwealth, and it is your body, you see, as I think, how
necessary clemency is; for you spare yourself when you seem to spare another. Therefore one must spare
even disapproved citizens no otherwise than languishing limbs; and, if ever there is need of letting blood,
the hand must be held back, lest it cut further than is necessary.

2. Est ergo, ut dicebam, clementia omnibus quidem hominibus secundum naturam, maxime tamen decora imperatoribus, quanto plus habet apud illos, quod servet, quantoque in maiore materia apparet. Quantulum enim nocet privata crudelitas! principum saevitia bellum est.

2. Therefore, as I was saying,
clemency is indeed according to nature for all human beings, yet most of all decorous for emperors,
the more, in their case, there is that it may preserve, and the more it appears in a greater material. For how little does private cruelty harm! The savagery of princes is war.

3. Cum autem virtutibus inter se sit concordia nec ulla altera melior aut honestior sit, quaedam tamen quibusdam personis aptior est. Decet magnanimitas quemlibet mortalem, etiam illum, infra quem nihil est; quid enim maius aut fortius quam malam fortunam retundere? Haec tamen magnanimitas in bona fortuna laxiorem locum habet meliusque in tribunali quam in plano conspicitur.

3. However, since among the virtues there is concord among themselves and none is better or more honorable than another, yet certain ones are more apt to certain persons. Magnanimity befits any mortal, even him than whom nothing is lower; for what is greater or stronger than to blunt ill fortune? This magnanimity, however, has a more ample room in good fortune, and is better seen on the tribunal than on the plain.

4. Clementia, in quamcumque domum pervenerit, eam felicem tranquillamque praestabit, sed in regia, quo rarior, eo mirabilior. Quid enim est memorabilius quam eum, cuius irae nihil obstat, cuius graviori sententiae ipsi, qui pereunt, adsentiuntur, quem nemo interpellaturus est, immo, si vehementius excanduit, ne deprecaturus est quidem, ipsum sibi manum inicere et potestate sua in melius placidiusque uti hoc ipsum cogitantem: 'Occidere contra legem nemo non potest, servare nemo praeter me'? 5. Magnam fortunam magnus animus decet, qui, nisi se ad illam extulit et altior stetit, illam quoque infra ad terram deducit; magni autem animi proprium est placidum esse tranquillumque et iniurias atque offensiones superne despicere. Muliebre est furere in ira, ferarum vero nec generosarum quidem praemordere et urguere proiectos.

4. Clemency, into whatever house it shall have come, will render it happy and tranquil; but in the palace, the rarer it is, the more marvelous. For what is more memorable than that he, whose wrath nothing hinders, to whose graver sentence even those who are perishing assent, whom no one is going to interrupt—nay rather, if he has flared up more vehemently, not even is anyone going to entreat—to lay a hand upon himself and to use his power for the better and more placidly, pondering this very thought: 'To kill contrary to law anyone can; to save, no one except me'? 5. Great fortune befits a magnanimous spirit, which, unless it lifts itself up to that fortune and stands higher, brings that fortune too down below to the ground; and it is the proper mark of a great spirit to be placid and tranquil and to look down from above upon injuries and offenses. It is womanish to rave in anger; but it is the part of beasts—indeed not even of generous ones—to snap and to harry the prostrate.

Elephanti leonesque transeunt, quae impulerunt; ignobilis bestiae pertinacia est. 6. Non decet regem saeva nec inexorabilis ira, non multum enim supra eum eminet, cui se irascendo exaequat; at si dat vitam, si dat dignitatem periclitantibus et meritis amittere, facit, quod nulli nisi rerum potenti licet; vita enim etiam superiori eripitur, numquam nisi inferiori datur. 7. Servare proprium est excellentis fortunae, quae numquam magis suspici debet, quam cum illi contigit idem posse quod dis, quorum beneficio in lucem edimur tam boni quam mali.

Elephants and lions pass over what they have knocked down; it is the pertinacity of an ignoble beast. 6. It befits not a king to be savage nor inexorable in wrath, for he does not stand much above him to whom, by growing angry, he makes himself equal; but if he gives life, if he gives dignity to those in peril and meriting to lose it, he does what is permitted to none save to one potent over affairs; for life is snatched even from a superior, it is never given except to an inferior. 7. To save is the proper mark of eminent fortune, which ought never to be looked up to more than when it has chanced to it to be able to do the same as the gods, by whose benefaction we are brought forth into the light, both good and bad.

Deorum itaque sibi animum adserens princeps alios ex civibus suis, quia utiles bonique sunt, libens videat, alios in numerum relinquat; quosdam esse gaudeat, quosdam patiatur.

Of the gods therefore asserting to himself the spirit, the prince should gladly see some among his citizens, because they are useful and good, see others left in the number; let him rejoice that some exist, let him tolerate others.

VI.

1. Cogitato, in hac civitate, in qua turba per latissima itinera sine intermissione defluens eliditur, quotiens aliquid obstitit, quod cursum eius velut torrentis rapidi moraretur, in qua tribus eodem tempore theatris caveae postulantur, in qua consumitur quicquid terris omnibus aratur, quanta solitudo ac vastitas futura sit, si nihil relinquitur, nisi quod iudex severus absolverit. 2. Quotus quisque ex quaesitoribus est, qui non ex ipsa ea lege teneatur, qua quaerit? quotus quisque accusator vacat culpa?

1. Consider, in this city, where the throng, flowing down without intermission through the very broadest roads,
is dashed to pieces, whenever anything has stood in the way to delay its course like that of a rapid torrent; in which
at the same time seating-tiers are demanded for three theaters, in which whatever is ploughed on all the lands
is consumed—how great a solitude and desolation there will be, if nothing is left except what a severe judge
will acquit. 2. How few among the inquisitors are there who are not held by the very law by which they investigate? how few accusers are free from culpability?

Et nescio, an nemo ad dandam veniam difficilior sit, quam qui illam petere saepius meruit. 3. Peccavimus omnes, alii gravia, alii leviora, alii ex destinato, alii forte impulsi aut aliena nequitia ablati; alii in bonis consiliis parum fortiter stetimus et innocentiam inviti ac retinentes perdidimus; nec deliquimus tantum, sed usque ad extremum aevi delinquemus. 4. Etiam si quis tam bene iam purgavit animum, ut nihil obturbare eum amplius possit ac fallere, ad innocentiam tamen peccando pervenit.

And I do not know whether there is no one more difficult for granting pardon than he who has more often deserved to seek it. 3. We have all sinned: some in weightier matters, others in lighter; some by design, others driven by chance or carried off by another’s iniquity; others in good counsels have stood too little stoutly and, unwilling and clinging, have lost innocence; nor have we only been delinquent, but we shall be delinquent even to the extremity of our lifetime. 4. Even if someone has now so well purged his mind that nothing can any longer disturb and deceive him, nevertheless he has come to innocence by sinning.

VII.

1. Quoniam deorum feci mentionem, optime hoc exemplum principi constituam, ad quod formetur, ut se talem esse civibus, quales sibi deos velit. Expedit ergo habere inexorabilia peccatis atque erroribus numina, expedit usque ad ultimam infesta perniciem? Et quis regum erit tutus, cuius non membra haruspices colligant?

1. Since I have made mention of the gods, I shall most fittingly set up this example for the prince, to which he may be formed: that he be to his citizens such as he would wish the gods to be to himself. Is it expedient, then, to have divinities inexorable to sins and errors; is it expedient that they be hostile even to ultimate perdition? And which of kings will be safe, whose limbs the haruspices do not gather?

2. Quod si di placabiles et aequi delicta potentium non statim fulminibus persequuntur, quanto aequius est hominem hominibus praepositum miti animo exercere imperium et cogitare, uter mundi status gratior oculis pulchriorque sit, sereno et puro die, an cum fragoribus crebris omnia quatiuntur et ignes hinc atque illinc micant! Atqui non alia facies est quieti moratique imperii quam sereni caeli et nitentis. 3. Crudele regnum turbidum tenebrisque obscurum est, inter trementes et ad repentinum sonitum expavescentes ne eo quidem, qui omnia perturbat, inconcusso.

2. But if the gods, placable and equitable, do not at once pursue the delicts of the powerful with thunderbolts, how much more equitable is it for a man set over men to exercise imperium with a mild spirit and to consider which condition of the world is more pleasing to the eyes and more beautiful: on a serene and pure day, or when with frequent crashes all things are shaken and fires flash here and there! And indeed there is no other aspect of a quiet and well-ordered imperium than that of a serene and shining sky. 3. A cruel kingdom is turbid and darkened with shadows, amid people trembling and, at a sudden sound, taking fright—nor even does he himself, who throws all things into perturbation, remain unshaken.

Facilius privatis ignoscitur pertinaciter se vindicantibus; possunt enim laedi, dolorque eorum ab iniuria venit; timent praeterea contemptum, et non rettulisse laedentibus gratiam infirmitas videtur, non clementia; at cui ultio in facili est, is omissa ea certam laudem mansuetudinis consequitur. 4. Humili loco positis exercere manum, litigare, in rixam procurrere ac morem irae suae gerere liberius est; leves inter paria ictus sunt; regi vociferatio quoque verborumque intemperantia non ex maiestate est.

More easily pardon is granted to private persons pertinaciously avenging themselves; for they can be harmed, and their pain comes from injury; moreover they fear contempt, and to have not repaid to those who harmed them seems an infirmity, not clemency; but he to whom vengeance is easy, with it omitted attains a sure praise of mansuetude. 4. For those placed in a humble station, to exercise the hand, to litigate, to run into a brawl and to carry on the custom of their anger is freer; the blows among equals are light; for a king, even vociferation and intemperance of words is not of majesty.

VIII.

1. Grave putas eripi loquendi arbitrium regibus, quod humillimi habent. 'Ista' inquis 'servitus est, non imperium.' Quid? tu non experiris istud nobis esse, tibi servitutem?

1. Do you think it grave to snatch away from kings the discretion of speaking, which the very humblest possess? “That,” you say, “is servitude, not command.” What? do you not find that that is for us command, for you servitude?

Alia condicio est eorum, qui in turba, quam non excedunt, latent, quorum et virtutes, ut appareant, diu luctantur et vitia tenebras habent; vestra facta dictaque rumor excipit, et ideo nullis magis curandum est, qualem famam habeant, quam qui, qualemcumque meruerint, magnam habituri sunt. 2. Quam multa tibi non licent, quae nobis beneficio tuo licent! Possum in qualibet parte urbis solus incedere sine timore, quamvis nullus sequatur comes, nullus sit domi, nullus ad latus gladius; tibi in tua pace armato vivendum est.

Another condition holds for those who hide in the crowd, which they do not leave, whose virtues struggle long in order to appear, and whose vices have darkness; your deeds and words rumor catches, and therefore by none is it more to be cared for what sort of fame they have than by those who, of whatever sort they shall have deserved, are going to have a great one. 2. How many things are not permitted to you, which by your benefaction are permitted to us! I can, in any part of the city, walk alone without fear, although no companion follows, no one is at home, no sword is at my side; you, in your own peace, must live armed.

Aberrare a fortuna tua non potes; obsidet te et, quocumque descendis, magno apparatu sequitur. 3. Est haec summae magnitudinis servitus non posse fieri minorem; sed cum dis tibi communis ipsa necessitas est. Nam illos quoque caelum adligatos tenet, nec magis illis descendere datum est quam tibi tutum: fastigio tuo adfixus es. 4. Nostros motus pauci sentiunt, prodire nobis ac recedere et mutare habitum sine sensu publico licet; tibi non magis quam soli latere contingit.

You cannot stray from your fortune; it besieges you and, wherever
you descend, it follows with great apparatus. 3. This is the servitude of the highest magnitude: not to be able to become
less; but with the gods this very necessity is common to you. For heaven too holds them bound
and it is no more granted to them to descend than it is safe for you: you are affixed to your pinnacle. 4. Our
motions few perceive; for us it is permitted to go forth and to withdraw and to change our appearance without public perception; for you
it is no more possible to lie hidden than for the sun.

Multa circa te lux est, omnium in istam conversi oculi sunt; prodire te putas? Oriris. 5. Loqui non potes, nisi ut vocem tuam, quae ubique sunt gentes, excipiant; irasci non potes, nisi ut omnia tremant, quia neminem adfligere, nisi ut, quidquid circa fuerit, quatiatur.

There is much light around you, the eyes of all are turned upon that; do you think you go forth? You arise.
5. You cannot speak, except that the nations which are everywhere receive your voice; you cannot be angry, except that all things tremble, since you afflict no one without whatever is around being shaken.

Ut fulmina paucorum periculo cadunt, omnium metu, sic animadversiones magnarum potestatum terrent latius quam nocent, non sine causa; non enim, quantum fecerit, sed quantum facturus sit, cogitatur in eo, qui omnia potest. 6. Adice nunc, quod privatos homines ad accipiendas iniurias opportuniores acceptarum patientia facit, regibus certior est ex mansuetudine securitas, quia frequens vindicta paucorum odium opprimit, omnium inritat. 7. Voluntas oportet ante saeviendi quam causa deficiat; alioqui, quemadmodum praecisae arbores plurimis ramis repullulant et multa satorum genera, ut densiora surgant, reciduntur, ita regia crudelitas auget inimicorum numerum tollendo; parentes enim liberique eorum, qui interfecti sunt, et propinqui et amici in locum singulorum succedunt.

Just as thunderbolts fall with the peril of a few, with the fear of all, so the punishments of great powers terrify more widely than they harm, not without cause; for in him who can do all things, it is not how much he has done, but how much he is going to do that is considered. 6. Add now that, while the patience of injuries received makes private men more apt to accept wrongs, for kings a more certain security comes from mildness, because frequent vengeance crushes the hatred of the few, it irritates that of all. 7. The will to be savage ought to fail before the cause; otherwise, just as trees cut back sprout again with very many branches and many kinds of sown crops are pruned so that they may rise thicker, so royal cruelty, by removing men, increases the number of enemies; for the parents and children of those who have been killed, and their kinsmen and friends, step into the place of each single one.

IX.

1. Hoc quam verum sit, admonere te exemplo domestico volo. Divus Augustus fuit mitis princeps, si quis illum a principatu suo aestimare incipiat; in communi quidem rei publicae gladium movit. Cum hoc aetatis esset, quod tu nunc es, duodevicensimum egressus annum, iam pugiones in sinum amicorum absconderat, iam insidiis M. Antonii consulis latus petierat, iam fuerat collega proscriptionis.

1. How true this is, I wish to admonish you by a domestic example. The deified Augustus was a mild princeps, if anyone begins to estimate him from his principate; yet in the commonwealth at large he wielded the sword. When he was of that age which you are now, having passed his 18th year, he had already hidden daggers in the bosom of friends, had already aimed at the side of the consul Mark Antony by ambush, had already been a colleague in proscription.

2. Sed cum annum quadragensimum transisset et in Gallia moraretur, delatum est ad eum indicium L. Cinnam, stolidi ingenii virum, insidias ei struere; dictum est, et ubi et quando et quemadmodum adgredi vellet; unus ex consciis deferebat. 3. Constituit se ab eo vindicare et consilium amicorum advocari iussit. Nox illi inquieta erat, cum cogitaret adulescentem nobilem, hoc detracto integrum, Cn. Pompei nepotem, damnandum; iam unum hominem occidere non poterat, cui M. Antonius proscriptionis edictum inter cenam dictarat.

2. But when he had passed his fortieth year and was staying in Gaul,
an information was brought to him that Lucius Cinna, a man of stolid disposition, was laying plots against him; it was told as well where and when and in what manner he wished to attack; one of the accomplices was informing. 3. He resolved to avenge himself upon him and ordered a council of friends to be summoned. The night was restless for him, as he considered that a noble youth—this set aside, unimpeached—the grandson of Gnaeus Pompeius, had to be condemned; by now he could not kill even a single man, for whom Marcus Antonius had dictated an edict of proscription during dinner.

4. Gemens subinde voces varias emittebat et inter se contrarias: 'Quid ergo? Ego percussorem meum securum ambulare patiar me sollicito? Ergo non dabit poenas, qui tot civilibus bellis frustra petitum caput, tot navalibus, tot pedestribus proeliis incolume, postquam terra marique pax parata est, non occidere constituat, sed immolare?' (nam sacrificantem placuerat adoriri.) 5. Rursus silentio interposito maiore multo voce sibi quam Cinnae irascebatur: 'Quid vivis, si perire te tam multorum interest?

4. Groaning, he kept from time to time emitting various and mutually contrary utterances: 'What then? I—
shall I allow my assassin to walk secure while I am anxious? So then he will not pay the penalties, he who, after so many
civil wars in which my head was sought in vain, so many naval, so many land battles, has come through unscathed,
after peace has been prepared on land and sea, determines not to kill, but to immolate?' (for
it had been decided to assail him while he was sacrificing.) 5. Again, after a pause, with a much louder voice he was angrier with himself than
with Cinna: 'Why do you live, if it is in the interest of so many that you perish?'

Quis finis erit suppliciorum? Quis sanguinis? Ego sum nobilibus adulescentulis expositum caput, in quod mucrones acuant; non est tanti vita, si, ut ego non peream, tam multa perdenda sunt.' 6. Interpellavit tandem illum Livia uxor et: 'Admittis' inquit 'muliebre consilium?

What end will there be
to punishments? What of bloodshed? I am an exposed head for noble adolescents, upon which
they sharpen their blades; life is not worth so much, if, so that I may not perish, so many things must be lost.' 6.
At length his wife Livia interrupted him and said: 'Will you admit,' she said, 'a womanly counsel?'

Fac, quod medici solent, qui, ubi usitata remedia non procedunt, temptant contraria. Severitate nihil adhuc profecisti; Salvidienum Lepidus secutus est, Lepidum Murena, Murenam Caepio, Caepionem Egnatius, ut alios taceam, quos tantum ausos pudet. Nunc tempta, quomodo tibi cedat clementia; ignosce L. Cinnae.

Do what
physicians are wont to do, who, when the usual remedies do not succeed, try contraries. By severity you have
thus far profited nothing; Lepidus followed Salvidienus, Murena [followed] Lepidus, Caepio [followed] Murena,
Egnatius [followed] Caepio, to be silent of others who are ashamed to have dared so much. Now try how it may turn out for you with
clemency; forgive L. Cinna.

Deprensus est; iam nocere tibi non potest, prodesse famae tuae potest.' 7. Gavisus, sibi quod advocatum invenerat, uxori quidem gratias egit, renuntiari autem extemplo amicis, quos in consilium rogaverat, imperavit et Cinnam unum ad se accersit dimissisque omnibus e cubiculo, cum alteram Cinnae poni cathedram iussisset: 'Hoc' inquit 'primum a te peto, ne me loquentem interpelles, ne medio sermone meo proclames; dabitur tibi loquendi liberum tempus. 8. Ego te, Cinna, cum in hostium castris invenissem, non factum tantum mihi inimicum sed natum, servavi, patrimonium tibi omne concessi. Hodie tam felix et tam dives es, ut victo victores invideant.

He has been caught; now he cannot harm you, he can benefit your fame.' 7. Having rejoiced, because he had found an advocate for himself, he indeed gave thanks to his wife, but he ordered that it be reported at once to the friends whom he had asked into counsel, and he summoned Cinna alone to himself and, with all dismissed from the bedchamber, since he had ordered another chair to be placed for Cinna: 'This,' he says, 'first I ask of you: do not interrupt me speaking, do not cry out in the middle of my speech; a free time for speaking will be given to you. 8. I, Cinna, when I had found you in the enemies’ camp, not only made but born an enemy to me, saved you, I granted you all your patrimony. Today you are so fortunate and so rich that the victors envy the vanquished.

Sacerdotium tibi petenti praeteritis compluribus, quorum parentes mecum militaverant, dedi; cum sic de te meruerim, occidere me constituisti.' 9. Cum ad hanc vocem exclamasset procul hanc ab se abesse dementiam: 'Non praestas' inquit 'fidem, Cinna; convenerat, ne interloquereris. Occidere, inquam, me paras'; adiecit locum, socios, diem, ordinem insidiarum, cui commissum esset ferrum. 10. Et cum defixum videret nec ex conventione iam, sed ex conscientia tacentem: 'Quo' inquit 'hoc animo facis?

'I gave you the priesthood, you seeking it, with many passed over whose parents had served with me in the army; though I had thus deserved of you, you resolved to kill me.'
9. When at this word he cried out that such dementia was far from him: 'You do not keep faith,' he said, 'Cinna; it had been agreed that you would not interrupt. To kill me, I say, you are preparing'; and he added the place, the associates, the day, the order of the ambush, and to whom the steel had been entrusted.
10. And when he saw him transfixed and now keeping silence not from the agreement, but from conscience: 'With what mind,' he said, 'do you do this?'

ut ipse sis princeps? male mehercules cum populo Romano agitur, si tibi ad imperandum nihil praeter me obstat. Domum tueri tuam non potes, nuper libertini hominis gratia in privato iudicio superatus es; adeo nihil facilius potes quam contra Caesarem advocare.

so that you yourself may be princeps? badly, by Hercules, it goes with the Roman people, if nothing hinders you for commanding except me.
You cannot protect your own house; lately you were overcome in a private judgment by the favor of a freedman; so much so that you can do nothing more easily than call an advocate against Caesar.

Cedo, si spes tuas solus impedio, Paulusne te et Fabius Maximus et Cossi et Servilii ferent tantumque agmen nobilium non inania nomina praeferentium, sed eorum, qui imaginibus suis decori sint?'

Come then, if I alone impede your hopes,
will Paulus and Fabius Maximus and the Cossi and the Servilii bear you, and so great a host of nobles
not carrying empty names in front, but those who are an honor to their own ancestral images?'

11. Ne totam eius orationem repetendo magnam partem voluminis occupem (diutius enim quam duabus horis locutum esse constat, cum hanc poenam, qua sola erat contentus futurus, extenderet): 'Vitam' inquit 'tibi, Cinna, iterum do, prius hosti, nunc insidiatori ac parricidae. Ex hodierno die inter nos amicitia incipiat; contendamus, utrum ego meliore fide tibi vitam dederim an tu debeas.' 12. Post hoc detulit ultro consulatum questus quod non auderet petere. Amicissimum fidelissimumque habuit, heres solus illi fuit.

11. Lest by rehearsing his whole oration I occupy a great part of the volume (for it is agreed that he spoke for longer than two hours, while he extended this penalty, with which alone he would have been content): “Life,” he says, “to you, Cinna, I give again—before to an enemy, now to a plotter and parricide. From this day let amity begin between us; let us contend whether I have given you your life with better good faith, or you ought to owe it.” 12. After this he of his own accord conferred the consulship, complaining that he did not dare to seek it. He held him as a most friendly and most faithful man; and he was his sole heir.

Nullis amplius insidiis ab ullo petitus est.

He was no longer assailed by any plots from anyone.

10.

1. Ignovit abavus tuus victis; nam si non ignovisset, quibus imperasset? Sallustium et Cocceios et Deillios et totam cohortem primae admissionis ex adversariorum castris conscripsit; iam Domitios, Messalas, Asinios, Cicerones, quidquid floris erat in civitate, clementiae suae debebat. Ipsum Lepidum quam diu mori passus est!

1. Your great-great-grandfather forgave the vanquished; for if he had not forgiven, whom would he have ruled? Sallustius and the Cocceii
and the Deillii and the whole cohort of the first admission he enrolled from the adversaries’ camp; and further
the Domitii, the Messalae, the Asinii, the Ciceros—whatever flower there was in the state—owed to his clemency. Lepidus himself—how long he allowed him to die!

Per multos annos tulit ornamenta principis retinentem et pontificatum maximum non nisi mortuo illo transferri in se passus est; maluit enim illum honorem vocari quam spolium. 2. Haec eum clementia ad salutem securitatemque perduxit; haec gratum ac favorabilem reddidit, quamvis nondum subactis populi Romani cervicibus manum imposuisset; haec hodieque praestat illi famam, quae vix vivis principibus servit. 3. Deum esse non tamquam iussi credimus; bonum fuisse principem Augustum, bene illi parentis nomen convenisse fatemur ob nullam aliam causam, quam quod contumelias quoque suas, quae acerbiores principibus solent esse quam iniuriae, nulla crudelitate exsequebatur, quod probrosis in se dictis adrisit, quod dare illum poenas apparebat, cum exigeret, quod, quoscumque ob adulterium filiae suae damnaverat, adeo non occidit, ut dimissis, quo tutiores essent, diplomata daret.

For many years he tolerated him retaining the ornaments of a princeps, and he allowed the supreme pontificate to be transferred onto himself only when that man was dead; for he preferred that to be called an honor rather than spoil. 2. This clemency led him to safety and security; this made him pleasing and favorable, although he had not yet laid his hand upon the necks of the Roman people, not yet subdued; this even today affords to him a fame which scarcely serves living princes. 3. We do not believe him to be a god as though ordered; we confess that Augustus was a good prince, that the name of father suited him well, for no other cause than that he did not pursue even his own insults—which are wont to be more bitter to princes than injuries—with any cruelty, that he smiled at opprobrious words said against himself, that it appeared he was himself paying the penalties when he exacted them, that whomever he had condemned on account of his daughter’s adultery he so far from killed that, after dismissing them, in order that they might be safer, he gave them diplomas.

4. Hoc est ignoscere, cum scias multos futuros, qui pro te irascantur et tibi sanguine alieno gratificentur, non dare tantum salutem, sed praestare.

4. This is to forgive, when you know there will be many who will be angry on your behalf and will gratify you with another’s blood, not only to give safety, but to guarantee it.

XI.

11.

1. Haec Augustus senex aut iam in senectutem annis vergentibus; in adulescentia caluit, arsit ira, multa fecit, ad quae invitus oculos retorquebat. Comparare nemo mansuetudini tuae audebit divum Augustum, etiam si in certamen iuvenilium annorum deduxerit senectutem plus quam maturam; fuerit moderatus et clemens, nempe post mare Actiacum Romano cruore infectum, nempe post fractas in Sicilia classes et suas et alienas, nempe post Perusinas aras et proscriptiones. 2. Ego vero clementiam non voco lassam crudelitatem; haec est, Caesar, clementia vera, quam tu praestas, quae non saevitiae paenitentia coepit, nullam habere maculam, numquam civilem sanguinem fudisse; haec est in maxima potestate verissima animi temperantia et humani generis comprendens ut sui amor non cupiditate aliqua, non temeritate ingenii, non priorum principum exemplis corruptum, quantum sibi cives suos liceat, experiendo temptare, sed hebetare aciem imperii sui.

1. This was Augustus as an old man, or with his years now bending into old age; in adolescence he was hot, he burned with anger, he did many things at which he was unwilling to look back. No one will dare to compare to your mansuetude the deified Augustus, even if he should lead his more-than-mature old age into a contest with youthful years; let him have been moderate and clement—namely after the Actian sea stained with Roman gore, namely after the fleets shattered in Sicily, both his own and others’, namely after the Perusine altars and the proscriptions. 2. But I for my part do not call a tired cruelty clemency; this, Caesar, is true clemency, which you display, which did not begin from repentance of savagery, to have no stain, never to have poured out civil blood; this is, in the greatest power, the truest temperance of spirit and an embracing of the human race as love of one’s own self, not corrupted by any cupidity, not by rashness of nature, not by the examples of prior princes, to try by experimenting how much toward his fellow citizens is permitted to himself, but to dull the edge of his own imperium.

3. Praestitisti, Caesar, civitatem incruentam, et hoc, quod magno animo gloriatus es nullam te toto orbe stillam cruoris humani misisse, eo maius est mirabiliusque, quod nulli umquam citius gladius commissus est.

3. You have bestowed, Caesar, a bloodless commonwealth, and this, that with a magnanimous spirit you have gloried that you have sent forth not a single drop of human blood through the whole world,
is all the greater and more wondrous, because to no one ever was the sword entrusted more swiftly.

4. Clementia ergo non tantum honestiores sed tutiores praestat ornamentumque imperiorum est simul et certissima salus. Quid enim est, cur reges consenuerint liberisque ac nepotibus tradiderint regna, tyrannorum exsecrabilis ac brevis potestas sit? Quid interest inter tyrannum ac regem (species enim ipsa fortunae ac licentia par est), nisi quod tyranni in voluptatem saeviunt, reges non nisi ex causa ac necessitate?

4. Clemency therefore renders not only things more honorable but also safer, and is the ornament of empires and at the same time the most certain safety. For what is the reason that kings have grown old and have handed down their realms to children and grandchildren, while the power of tyrants is execrable and brief? What difference is there between a tyrant and a king (for the very appearance of fortune and license is equal), except that tyrants are savage for pleasure, kings only for cause and necessity?

XII.

12.

1. 'Quid ergo? Non reges quoque occidere solent?' Sed quotiens id fieri publica utilitas persuadet; tyrannis saevitia cordi est. Tyrannus autem a rege factis distat, non nomine; nam et Dionysius maior iure meritoque praeferri multis regibus potest, et L. Sullam tyrannum appellari quid prohibet, cui occidendi finem fecit inopia hostium?

1. 'What then? Are not kings also accustomed to kill?' But only as often as public utility persuades that this be done; to tyrants, savagery is dear at heart. A tyrant, however, differs from a king in deeds, not in name; for even Dionysius the Elder can by right and by desert be preferred to many kings, and what forbids Lucius Sulla to be called a tyrant, for whom a lack of enemies put an end to killing?

2. Descenderit licet e dictatura sua et se togae reddiderit, quis tamen umquam tyrannus tam avide humanum sanguinem bibit quam ille, qui septem milia civium Romanorum contrucidari iussit et, cum in vicino ad aedem Bellonae sedens exaudisset conclamationem tot milium sub gladio gementium, exterrito senatu: 'Hoc agamus' inquit, 'P.C.; seditiosi pauculi meo iussu occiduntur'? 3. Hoc non est mentitus; pauci Sullae videbantur. Sed mox de Sulla, cum quaeremus, quomodo hostibus irascendum sit, utique si in hostile nomen cives et ex eodem corpore abrupti transierint; interim, hoc quod dicebam, clementia efficit, ut magnum inter regem tyrannumque discrimen sit, uterque licet non minus armis valletur; sed alter arma habet, quibus in munimentum pacis utitur, alter, ut magno timore magna odia compescat, nec illas ipsas manus, quibus se commisit, securus adspicit. 4. Contrariis in contraria agitur; nam cum invisus sit, quia timetur, timeri vult, quia invisus est, et illo exsecrabili versu, qui multos praecipites dedit, utitur: Oderint, dum metuant, ignarus, quanta rabies oriatur, ubi supra modum odia creverunt.

2. Although he had descended from his
dictatorship and had returned himself to the toga, yet what tyrant ever so greedily
drank human blood as that man, who ordered seven thousand Roman citizens to be butchered and, when
sitting near the temple of Bellona, had heard the outcry of so many thousands groaning under the sword,
with the Senate terrified: 'Let us attend to this,' he said, 'Conscript Fathers; a few seditious men are being put to death by my order'? 3. In this he did not
lie; few seemed to Sulla. But soon about Sulla, when we inquire how one should be angry toward enemies,
especially if citizens, torn from the same body, have passed over into the hostile name;
meanwhile, as I was saying, clemency brings it about that there is a great difference between a king and a tyrant,
although each be no less well-fortified with arms; but the one has arms which he uses for the fortification of peace,
the other, in order to restrain great hatreds by great fear, nor does he even regard those very hands to whom he has entrusted himself,
with security. 4. He is driven by contraries into contraries; for since he is hated because he is feared, he wishes to be feared
because he is hated, and he uses that execrable verse, which has hurled many headlong: 'Let them hate, so long as they fear,'
unaware how great a rage arises when hatreds have grown beyond measure.

Temperatus enim timor cohibet animos, adsiduus vero et acer et extrema admovens in audaciam iacentes excitat et omnia experiri suadet. 5. Sic feras linea et pinnae clusas contineant, easdem a tergo eques telis incessat: temptabunt fugam per ipsa, quae fugerant, proculcabuntque formidinem. Acerrima virtus est, quam ultima necessitas extundit.

Temperate fear restrains minds; but assiduous and sharp, and bringing the extremes to bear, it rouses those lying in faintheartedness into audacity and urges them to try everything. 5. Thus let wild beasts, shut in by the line and the wings, be held; let the horseman from the rear assail those same with missiles: they will attempt flight through the very things which they had fled, and they will trample dread underfoot. The keenest virtue is that which utmost necessity hammers out.

Relinquat oportet securi aliquid metus multoque plus spei quam periculorum ostentet; alioqui, ubi quiescenti paria metuuntur, incurrere in pericula iuvat et ut aliena anima abuti.

It ought to leave to the secure person
something of fear, and to display much more of hope than of perils; otherwise, when for the one at rest equal things
are feared, it is pleasing to incur perils and to abuse life as if it were another’s.

XIII.

13.

1. Placido tranquilloque regi fida sunt auxilia sua, ut quibus ad communem salutem utatur, gloriosusque miles (publicae enim securitati se dare operam videt) omnem laborem libens patitur ut parentis custos; at illum acerbum et sanguinarium necesse est graventur stipatores sui. 2. Non potest habere quisquam bonae ac fidae voluntatis ministros, quibus in tormentis ut eculeo et ferramentis ad mortem paratis utitur, quibus non aliter quam bestiis homines obiectat, omnibus reis aerumnosior ac sollicitior, ut qui homines deosque testes facinorum ac vindices timeat, eo perductus, ut non liceat illi mutare mores. Hoc enim inter cetera vel pessimum habet crudelitas: perseverandum est nec ad meliora patet regressus; scelera enim sceleribus tuenda sunt.

1. To a placid and tranquil king his auxiliaries are faithful, as those whom he employs for the common safety, and the soldier is glorious (for he sees that he is giving his efforts to public security), he willingly endures every labor as a guardian of a parent; but that bitter and bloodthirsty one—of necessity his own bodyguards are weighed down. 2. No one can have ministers of good and faithful will, if he uses them in torments, as a rack and iron implements prepared for death, to whom he throws men no otherwise than to beasts, more wretched and more anxious than all defendants, inasmuch as he fears men and gods as witnesses and avengers of his crimes, brought to such a point that it is not permitted him to change his mores. For cruelty has this among other things as the very worst: one must persevere, nor is there a return open to better things; for crimes must be defended by crimes.

Quid autem eo infelicius, cui iam esse malo necesse est? 3. O miserabilem illum, sibi certe! nam ceteris misereri eius nefas sit, qui caedibus ac rapinis potentiam exercuit, qui suspecta sibi cuncta reddidit tam externa quam domestica, cum arma metuat, ad arma confugiens, non amicorum fidei credens, non pietati liberorum; qui, ubi circumspexit, quaeque fecit quaeque facturus est, et conscientiam suam plenam sceleribus ac tormentis adaperuit, saepe mortem timet, saepius optat, invisior sibi quam servientibus.

What, however, is more unhappy than he for whom it is now necessary to be evil? 3. O most miserable that man, to himself at any rate! for it would be a nefas for the rest to pity him, he who has exercised his power by slaughters and rapines, who has rendered all things suspect to himself, as well external as domestic; who, while he fears arms, flees to arms, trusting neither to the good faith of friends nor to the pietas of his children; who, when he has looked around at what he has done and what he is going to do, and has laid open his conscience, full of crimes and torments, often fears death, more often longs for it, more hateful to himself than to his servants.

4. E contrario is, cui curae sunt universa, qui alia magis, alia minus tuetur, nullam non rei publicae partem tamquam sui nutrit, inclinatus ad mitiora, etiam, si ex usu est animadvertere, ostendens, quam invitus aspero remedio manus admoveat, in cuius animo nihil hostile, nihil efferum est, qui potentiam suam placide ac salutariter exercet adprobare imperia sua civibus cupiens, felix abunde sibi visus, si fortunam suam publicarit, sermone adfabilis, aditu accessuque facilis, voltu, qui maxime populos demeretur, amabilis, aequis desideriis propensus, etiam inquis non acerbus, a tota civitate amatur, defenditur, colitur. 5. Eadem de illo homines secreto loquuntur quae palam; tollere filios cupiunt et publicis malis sterilitas indicta recluditur; bene se meriturum de liberis suis quisque non dubitat, quibus tale saeculum ostenderit. Hic princeps suo beneficio tutus nihil praesidiis eget, arma ornamenti causa habet.

4. On the contrary, he to whom the universal things are a care, who protects some things more, others less, nourishes not any part of the republic otherwise than as his own, inclined to milder measures, even, if it is of use to censure, showing how unwillingly he lays his hands to a harsh remedy, in whose mind there is nothing hostile, nothing savage, who exercises his power placidly and salutarily, desiring to have his commands approved among the citizens, seeming abundantly happy to himself, if he publicizes his good fortune, affable in speech, easy of approach and access, with a countenance which most wins over peoples, amiable, inclined to equitable desires, not bitter even in inquisitions, is loved by the whole city, is defended, is honored. 5. The same things about him men speak in secret as openly; they desire to rear children, and the sterility imposed by public evils is re-opened; each one does not doubt that he will merit well of his children, to whom he will have shown such an age. This prince, safe by his own beneficence, needs nothing in the way of garrisons; he has arms for the sake of ornament.

XIV.

14.

1. Quod ergo officium eius est? Quod bonorum parentium, qui obiurgare liberos non numquam blande, non numquam minaciter solent, aliquando admonere etiam verberibus. Numquid aliquis sanus filium a prima offensa exheredat?

1. What, then, is his duty? That of good parents, who are accustomed to upbraid their children sometimes gently, sometimes menacingly, at times even to admonish with blows. Does any sane person disinherit a son at the first offense?

nisi magnae et multae iniuriae patientiam evicerunt, nisi plus est, quod timet, quam quod damnat, non accedit ad decretorium stilum; multa ante temptat, quibus dubiam indolem et peiore iam loco positam revocet; simul deploratum est, ultima experitur. Nemo ad supplicia exigenda pervenit, nisi qui remedia consumpsit. 2. Hoc, quod parenti, etiam principi faciendum est, quem appellavimus Patrem Patriae non adulatione vana adducti.

unless great and many injuries have overcome patience, unless what he fears is more than what he condemns, he does not approach the decretory stylus; he tries many things beforehand, by which he may recall a doubtful disposition and one already set in a worse condition; as soon as it is despaired of, he tries the last measures. No one arrives at exacting punishments, except one who has exhausted the remedies. 2. This, which a parent must do, must be done even by a prince, whom we have called the Father of the Fatherland, not led by vain adulation.

Cetera enim cognomina honori data sunt; Magnos et Felices et Augustos diximus et ambitiosae maiestati quicquid potuimus titulorum congessimus illis hoc tribuentes; Patrem quidem Patriae appellavimus, ut sciret datam sibi potestatem patriam, quae est temperantissima liberis consulens suaque post illos reponens. 3. Tarde sibi pater membra sua abscidat, etiam, cum absciderit, reponere cupiat et in abscidendo gemat cunctatus multum diuque; prope est enim, ut libenter damnet, qui cito; prope est, ut inique puniat, qui nimis.

For the rest of the cognomina were given for honor; we have called them Great and Fortunate and August, and upon their ambitious majesty we heaped whatever of titles we could, granting them this; indeed we have called him Father of the Fatherland, so that he might know that a paternal power was given to him, which is most temperate, consulting for its children and placing its own interests after them. 3. Let a father cut off his own limbs slowly; even, when he has cut them off, let him desire to replace them, and in the cutting-off let him groan, having long hesitated much and long; for he is near to condemning gladly who condemns quickly; he is near to punishing unjustly who punishes too much.

XV.

15.

1. Trichonem equitem Romanum memoria nostra, quia filium suum flagellis occiderat, populus graphiis in foro confodit; vix illum Augusti Caesaris auctoritas infestis tam patrum quam filiorum manibus eripuit. 2. Tarium, qui filium deprensum in parricidii consilio damnavit causa cognita, nemo non suspexit, quod contentus exsilio et exsilio delicato Massiliae parricidam continuit et annua illi praestitit, quanta praestare integro solebat; haec liberalitas effecit, ut, in qua civitate numquam deest patronus peioribus, nemo dubitaret, quin reus merito damnatus esset, quem is pater damnare potuisset, qui odisse non poterat.

1. Tricho, a Roman equestrian, within our remembrance, because he had killed his own son with scourges, the people stabbed in the forum with styluses; scarcely did the authority of Augustus Caesar snatch him from the hostile hands both of fathers and of sons. 2. Tarius, who, his son having been caught in a design of parricide, condemned him after the case had been examined, was looked up to by everyone, because, content with exile—and a delicate exile at Massilia—he kept the parricide in restraint and furnished him an annual allowance as much as he was accustomed to furnish when he was still in his integrity; this liberality brought it about that, in that commonwealth in which a patron is never lacking for the worse sort, no one doubted that the defendant had been deservedly condemned, whom that father could have condemned who could not hate.

3. Hoc ipso exemplo dabo, quem compares bono patri, bonum principem. Cogniturus de filio Tarius advocavit in consilium Caesarem Augustum; venit in privatos penates, adsedit, pars alieni consilii fuit, non dixit; 'Immo in meam domum veniat'; quod si factum esset, Caesaris futura erat cognitio, non patris. 4. Audita causa excussisque omnibus, et his, quae adulescens pro se dixerat, et his, quibus arguebatur, petit, ut sententiam suam quisque scriberet, ne ea omnium fieret, quae Caesaris fuisset; deinde, priusquam aperirentur codicilli, iuravit se Tarii, hominis locupletis, hereditatem non aditurum.

3. By this very example I shall present, whom you may compare to a good father, a good prince. About to conduct an inquiry concerning his son, Tarius called Caesar Augustus into council; he came into private household, sat down, was a part of another’s counsel, he did not say, “Nay rather, let him come into my house”; for if that had been done, the hearing would have been Caesar’s, not the father’s. 4. The case having been heard and everything sifted, both those points which the youth had said on his own behalf and those by which he was accused, he requested that each should write his sentence, lest that should become everyone’s which would have been Caesar’s; then, before the tablets were opened, he swore that he would not enter upon the inheritance of Tarius, an opulent man.

5. Dicet aliquis: 'Pusillo animo timuit, ne videretur locum spei suae aperire velle filii damnatione.' Ego contra sentio; quilibet nostrum debuisset adversus opiniones malignas satis fiduciae habere in bona conscientia, principes multa debent etiam famae dare. Iuravit se non aditurum hereditatem. 6. Tarius quidem eodem die et alterum heredem perdidit, sed Caesar libertatem sententiae suae redemit; et postquam adprobavit gratuitam esse severitatem suam, quod principi semper curandum est, dixit relegandum, quo patri videretur.

5. Someone will say: 'With a pusillanimous spirit he feared, lest
he might seem to want to open a place for his own hope by the son’s condemnation.' I feel the contrary; any one of us
ought to have enough confidence against malign opinions in a good conscience; princes
ought to give much also to reputation. He swore that he would not enter upon the inheritance. 6. Tarius indeed on the same
day lost even the other heir, but Caesar redeemed the freedom of his judgment; and after
he approved that his severity was gratuitous, which a prince must always take care of, he said
that he was to be relegated, to whatever place would seem good to the father.

7. Non culleum, non serpentes, non carcerem decrevit memor, non de quo censeret, sed cui in consilio esset; mollissimo genere poenae contentum esse debere patrem dixit in filio adulescentulo impulso in id scelus, in quo se, quod proximum erat ab innocentia, timide gessisset; debere illum ab urbe et a parentis oculis submoveri.

7. He decreed neither the sack, nor serpents, nor prison
mindful that he was not giving his vote about one on whom he sat in judgment, but was in the council of another; he said that a father ought to be content with the gentlest kind of penalty
for an adolescent son driven into that crime, in which he had borne himself timidly—what was next to innocence;
that he ought to be removed from the city and from a parent’s eyes.

XVI.

16.

1. O dignum, quem in consilium patres advocarent! O dignum, quem coheredem innocentibus liberis scriberent! Haec clementia principem decet; quocumque venerit, mansuetiora omnia faciat.

1. O worthy, whom the Fathers would summon into their council! O worthy, whom they would write as coheir to innocent children! This clemency befits a princeps; wherever he shall have come, let him make all things gentler.

Nemo regi tam vilis sit, ut illum perire non sentiat; qualiscumque pars imperii est. 2. In magna imperia ex minoribus petamus exemplum. Non unum est imperandi genus; imperat princeps civibus suis, pater liberis, praeceptor discentibus, tribunus vel centurio militibus.

Let no one be so worthless to a king that he would not feel it if that man were to perish; whatever part of his command he be. 2. In great commands let us seek an example from smaller ones. There is not one kind of commanding; the prince commands his citizens, the father his children, the preceptor learners, the tribune or centurion soldiers.

3. Nonne pessimus pater videbitur, qui adsiduis plagis liberos etiam ex levissimis causis compescet? Uter autem praeceptor liberalibus studiis dignior, qui excarnificabit discipulos, si memoria illis non constiterit aut si parum agilis in legendo oculus haeserit, an qui monitionibus et verecundia emendare ac docere malit? Tribunum centurionemque da saevum: desertores faciet, quibus tamen ignoscitur.

3. Will not the worst father seem to be the one who, with continual lashes, will restrain his children even for the slightest causes? But which preceptor is more worthy of liberal studies: the one who will flay his pupils if memory has not stood firm for them, or if the eye, too little agile in reading, has stuck; or the one who prefers to correct and to teach by admonitions and modest shame? Give a savage tribune and centurion: he will make deserters, to whom, nevertheless, pardon is granted.

4. Numquidnam aequum est gravius homini et durius imperari, quam imperatur animalibus mutis? Atqui equum non crebris verberibus exterret domandi peritus magister; fiet enim formidolosus et contumax, nisi eum blandiente tactu permulseris. 5. Idem facit ille venator, quique instituit catulos vestigia sequi quique iam exercitatis utitur ad excitandas vel persequendas feras: nec crebro illis minatur (contundet enim animos et, quicquid est indolis, comminuetur trepidatione degeneri) nec licentiam vagandi errandique passim concedit.

4. Is it in any way equitable that a man be commanded more heavily and more harshly than mute animals are commanded? And yet a master skilled in taming does not terrify a horse with frequent lashes; for he will become timorous and contumacious, unless you soothe him with a coaxing touch. 5. The same does that huntsman, both he who trains pups to follow tracks and he who already uses the well-drilled ones to rouse or to pursue wild beasts: nor does he often threaten them (for he will crush their spirits and whatever there is of inborn nature will be broken by a degenerate trepidation) nor does he grant a license of wandering and straying everywhere.

Adicias his licet tardiora agentes iumenta, quae, cum ad contumeliam et miserias nata sint, nimia saevitia cogantur iugum detractare.

You may add to these, if you like, the beasts of burden that go more slowly, who, although born for contumely and miseries
are compelled by excessive savagery to shrink from the yoke.

XVII.

17.

1. Nullum animal morosius est, nullum maiore arte tractandum quam homo, nulli magis parcendum. Quid enim est stultius quam in iumentis quidem et canibus erubescere iras exercere, pessima autem condicione sub homine hominem esse? Morbis medemur nec irascimur; atqui et hic morbus est animi; mollem medicinam desiderat ipsumque medentem minime infestum aegro.

1. No animal is more morose, none to be handled with greater art than man, to none is more
forbearance to be shown. For what is more foolish than to blush to exercise wrath upon beasts of burden and dogs,
yet that a man be under a man in the worst condition? We medicate diseases and we do not grow angry;
and yet this too is a disease of the mind; it desires a soft remedy and the healer himself
least hostile to the sick man.

2. Mali medici est desperare, ne curet: idem in iis, quorum animus adfectus est, facere debebit is, cui tradita salus omnium est, non cito spem proicere nec mortifera signa pronuntiare; luctetur cum vitiis, resistat, aliis morbum suum exprobret, quosdam molli curatione decipiat citius meliusque sanaturus remediis fallentibus; agat princeps curam non tantum salutis, sed etiam honestae cicatricis. 3. Nulla regi gloria est ex saeva animadversione (quis enim dubitat posse?), at contra maxima, si vim suam continet, si multos irae alienae eripuit, neminem suae impendit.

2. It is the part of a bad physician to despair, and so not to treat: the same, in the case of those whose mind is affected, must he do to whom the safety of all has been entrusted, not quickly to cast away hope nor to pronounce death-bearing signs; let him wrestle with vices, let him resist, let him upbraid some with their disease, let him deceive certain persons with a gentle cure, being about to heal them sooner and better by remedies that beguile; let the prince take care not only for safety, but also for an honorable cicatrix. 3. There is no glory for a king from savage animadversion (for who doubts that he can?), but on the contrary the greatest, if he restrains his force, if he has snatched many from another’s wrath, if he expends his own on no one.

XVIII.

18.

1. Servis imperare moderate laus est. Et in mancipio cogitandum est, non quantum illud impune possit pati, sed quantum tibi permittat aequi bonique natura, quae parcere etiam captivis et pretio paratis iubet. Quanto iustius iubet hominibus liberis, ingenuis, honestis non ut mancipiis abuti sed ut his, quos gradu antecedas quorumque tibi non servitus tradita sit, sed tutela.

1. To command slaves with moderation is praiseworthy. And in the case of a mancipium one must consider, not how much it can suffer with impunity, but how much the nature of what is fair and good permits you, which bids you spare even captives and those procured for a price. How much more justly does it bid you, in regard to free men, ingenuous (freeborn), honorable, not to abuse them as mancipia but as those whom you out-rank in station and of whom not slavery has been handed over to you, but guardianship.

2. Servis ad statuam licet confugere; cum in servum omnia liceant, est aliquid, quod in hominem licere commune ius animantium vetet. Quis non Vedium Pollionem peius oderat quam servi sui, quod muraenas sanguine humano saginabat et eos, qui se aliquid offenderant, in vivarium, quid aliud quam serpentium, abici iubebat? O hominem mille mortibus dignum, sive devorandos servos obiciebat muraenis, quas esurus erat, sive in hoc tantum illas alebat, ut sic aleret.

2. It is permitted for slaves to flee for refuge to the statue; although everything may be permitted against a slave, there is something which the common law of living creatures forbids to be permitted against a human being. Who did not hate Vedius Pollio worse than his own slaves did, because he would fatten moray eels with human blood and ordered those who had offended him in any way to be thrown into a vivarium—what else than of serpents? O a man worthy of a thousand deaths, whether he was casting slaves to be devoured to the moray eels, which he was going to eat, or whether he was feeding them for this one purpose only, that he might feed them thus.

3. Quemadmodum domini crudeles tota civitate commonstrantur invisique et detestabiles sunt, ita regum et iniuria latius patet et infamia atque odium saeculis traditur; quanto autem non nasci melius fuit, quam numerari inter publico malo natos!

3. Just as cruel masters are pointed out throughout the whole city and are hated and detestable, so the injustice of kings spreads more widely, and infamy and hatred are handed down to the ages; and how much better it was not to be born than to be numbered among those born for the public evil!

XIX.

19.

1. Excogitare nemo quicquam poterit, quod magis decorum regenti sit quam clementia, quocumque modo is et quocumque iure praepositus ceteris erit. Eo scilicet formosius id esse magnificentiusque fatebimur, quo in maiore praestabitur potestate, quam non oportet noxiam esse, si ad naturae legem componitur. 2. Natura enim commenta est regem, quod et ex aliis animalibus licet cognoscere et ex apibus; quarum regi amplissimum cubile est medioque ac tutissimo loco; praeterea opere vacat exactor alienorum operum, et amisso rege totum dilabitur, nec umquam plus unum patiuntur melioremque pugna quaerunt; praeterea insignis regi forma est dissimilisque ceteris cum magnitudine tum nitore.

1. No one will be able to devise anything that is more decorous for a ruler than clemency, in whatever way and by whatever right he will be set over the rest. We shall of course confess that it is by so much the more beautiful and more magnificent, the greater the power in which it is displayed—a power which ought not to be noxious, if it is conformed to the law of nature. 2. For nature has contrived a king—which it is permitted to recognize both from other animals and from bees; for their king has the most ample couch in the middle and safest place; moreover he is free from work, the exactor of others’ works, and, the king being lost, the whole dissolves; nor do they ever endure more than one, and they seek the better by battle; moreover, the king’s form is remarkable and unlike the others both in magnitude and in brightness.

3. Hoc tamen maxime distinguitur: iracundissimae ac pro corporis captu pugnacissimae sunt apes et aculeos in volnere relinquunt, rex ipse sine aculeo est; noluit illum natura nec saevum esse nec ultionem magno constaturam petere telumque detraxit et iram eius inermem reliquit.

3. However, this is the chief distinction: bees are most irascible and, in proportion to the size of their body, most pugnacious, and they leave their stings in the
wound; the king himself is without a sting; nature did not wish him to be savage, nor to seek vengeance that would cost dear, and she took away the weapon and left his anger
unarmed.

Exemplar hoc magnis regibus ingens; est enim illi mos exercere se in parvis et ingentium rerum documenta in minima parere. 4. Pudeat ab exiguis animalibus non trahere mores, cum tanto hominum moderatior esse animus debeat, quanto vehementius nocet. Utinam quidem eadem homini lex esset et ira cum telo suo frangeretur nec saepius liceret nocere quam semel nec alienis viribus exercere odia!

This exemplar is immense for great kings; for it is Nature’s custom to exercise herself in small things and to bring forth proofs of enormous matters in the least. 4. Let it shame us not to draw morals from very small animals, since the spirit of human beings ought to be the more moderate, the more vehemently it harms. Would that indeed the same law were for man, and that anger were broken along with its own weapon, and that it were not permitted to harm more often than once, nor to exercise hatreds by others’ forces!

Facile enim lassaretur furor, si per se sibi satis faceret et si mortis periculo vim suam effunderet. 5. Sed ne nunc quidem illi cursus tutus est; tantum enim necesse est timeat, quantum timeri voluit, et manus omnium observet et eo quoque tempore, quo non captatur, peti se iudicet nullumque momentum immune a metu habeat. Hanc aliquis agere vitam sustinet, cum liceat innoxium aliis, ob hoc securum, salutare potentiae ius laetis omnibus tractare?

For rage would easily be wearied, if it made satisfaction to itself by itself, and if it poured out its force at the peril of death. 5. But not even now is his course safe; for he must fear as much as he wished to be feared, and observe the hands of all, and even at that time when he is not being captured, he judges himself to be targeted, and has no moment immune from fear. Does anyone endure to live this life, when it is permitted to handle a salutary right of power, harmless to others, on this account secure, to the joy of all?

Errat enim, si quis existimat tutum esse ibi regem, ubi nihil a rege tutum est; securitas securitate mutua paciscenda est. 6. Non opus est instruere in altum editas arces nec in adscensum arduos colles emunire nec latera montium abscidere, multiplicibus se muris turribusque saepire: salvum regem clementia in aperto praestabit. Unum est inexpugnabile munimentum amor civium.

He errs, if anyone supposes that the king is safe there where nothing is safe from the king; security must be bargained for by mutual security. 6. There is no need to erect citadels set on high, nor to fortify hills arduous for ascent, nor to cut away the sides of mountains, to hedge oneself about with multiple walls and towers: clemency will make a king safe in the open. One impregnable muniment is the love of the citizens.

7. Quid pulchrius est quam vivere optantibus cunctis et vota non sub custode nuncupantibus? Si paulum valetudo titubavit, non spem hominum excitari, sed metum? Nihil esse cuiquam tam pretiosum, quod non pro salute praesidis sui commutatum velit?

7. What is more beautiful than to live desired by all, and with vows pronounced not under a guard? If
his health has wavered a little, not the hope of men is aroused, but fear? That there is nothing so
precious to anyone that he would not wish it exchanged for the safety of his ruler?

8. O ne ille, cui contingit ut sibi quoque vivere debeat? In hoc adsiduis bonitatis argumentis probavit non rem publicam suam esse, sed se rei publicae. Quis huic audeat struere aliquod periculum?

8. O indeed, how fortunate he, to whom it befalls that
he ought to live for himself as well? Herein, by assiduous arguments of goodness, he has proved not that the republic is his, but that he belongs to the republic.
Who would dare to construct any peril against this man?

Quis ab hoc non, si possit, fortunam quoque avertere velit, sub quo iustitia, pax, pudicitia, securitas, dignitas florent, sub quo opulenta civitas copia bonorum omnium abundat? Nec alio animo rectorem suum intuetur, quam si di immortales potestatem visendi sui faciant, intueamur venerantes colentesque. 9. Quid autem?

Who would not, if
he could, wish also to avert Fortune from him, under whom justice, peace, pudicity, security, dignity
flourish, under whom the opulent city abounds with an abundance of all goods? Nor does he behold his ruler with any other spirit than as if the immortal gods should grant the power of seeing themselves—we gaze upon them venerating and cherishing. 9. What moreover?

Non proximum illis locum tenet is, qui se ex deorum natura gerit, beneficus ac largus et in melius potens? Hoc adfectare, hoc imitari decet, maximum ita haberi, ut optimus simul habeare.

Does not he hold the place next to them, who carries himself according to the nature of the gods, beneficent and munificent and potent toward the better? To aspire to this, to imitate this is fitting: to be held as greatest in such a way that you may at the same time be held as best.

XX.

20.

1. A duabus causis punire princeps solet, si aut se vindicat aut alium. Prius de ea parte disseram, quae ipsum contingit; difficilius est enim moderari, ubi dolori debetur ultio, quam ubi exemplo. 2. Supervacuum est hoc loco admonere, ne facile credat, ut verum excutiat, ut innocentiae faveat et, ut appareat, non minorem agi rem periclitantis quam iudicis sciat; hoc enim ad iustitiam, non ad clementiam pertinet; nunc illum hortamur, ut manifeste laesus animum in potestate habeat et poenam, si tuto poterit, donet, si minus, temperet longeque sit in suis quam in alienis iniuriis exorabilior.

1. A prince is wont to punish for two causes, if either he vindicates himself or another. I will first discourse about that part which touches himself; for it is more difficult to moderate, where vengeance is owed to dolor, than where to example.
2. It is superfluous in this place to admonish that he not easily believe, that he sift the truth, that he favor innocence, and, to make it appear, that he know that no lesser matter is being transacted for the one imperiled than for the judge; for this pertains to justice, not to clemency; now we exhort him, that, though manifestly injured, he have his spirit in his power and remit the penalty, if he can safely; if not, let him temper it, and let him be far more exorable in his own than in others’ injuries.

3. Nam quemadmodum non est magni animi, qui de alieno liberalis est, sed ille, qui, quod alteri donat, sibi detrahit, ita clementem vocabo non in alieno dolore facilem, sed eum, qui, cum suis stimulis exagitetur, non prosilit, qui intellegit magni animi esse iniurias in summa potentia pati nec quicquam esse gloriosius principe impune laeso.

3. For just as he is not of great spirit who is liberal with what is another’s, but rather he who takes from himself what he gives to another, so I will call clement not one who is easy over another’s pain, but him who, when he is agitated by his own goads, does not leap forth; who understands that it is of great spirit to endure injuries in the highest power, and that nothing is more glorious than a prince injured with impunity.

XXI.

21.

1. Ultio duas praestare res solet: aut solacium adfert ei, qui accepit iniuriam, aut in reliquum securitatem. Principis maior est fortuna, quam ut solacio egeat, manifestiorque vis, quam ut alieno malo opinionem sibi virium quaerat. Hoc dico, cum ab inferioribus petitus violatusque est; nam si, quos pares aliquando habuit, infra se videt, satis vindicatus est.

1. Vengeance is wont to furnish two things: either it brings solace to him who has received an injury, or security for the future. A prince’s fortune is greater than that he should need solace, and his power more manifest than that he should seek for himself a reputation of strength from another’s misfortune. I say this when he has been assailed and violated by inferiors; for if he sees those whom he once had as equals beneath himself, he is sufficiently avenged.

Regem et servus occidit et serpens et sagitta; servavit quidem nemo nisi maior eo, quem servabat. 2. Uti itaque animose debet tanto munere deorum dandi auferendique vitam potens. In iis praesertim, quos scit aliquando sibi par fastigium obtinuisse, hoc arbitrium adeptus ultionem implevit perfecitque, quantum verae poenae satis erat; perdidit enim vitam, qui debet, et, quisquis ex alto ad inimici pedes abiectus alienam de capite regnoque sententiam exspectavit, in servatoris sui gloriam vivit plusque eius nomini confert incolumis, quam si ex oculis ablatus esset.

A king both a slave kills and a serpent and an arrow; indeed no one has saved him except one greater than the one whom he was saving. 2. Therefore he ought to use his power spiritedly, endowed with so great a gift of the gods, being potent for giving and taking away life. Especially in the case of those whom he knows once to have held a fastigium equal to his own, by having obtained this arbitrament he has filled up and perfected vengeance, as much as was enough for true penalty; for he has lost life who owes it, and whoever, thrown down from on high to an enemy’s feet, has awaited another’s sentence concerning his head and his kingdom, lives for the glory of his savior and, unharmed, contributes more to his name than if he had been removed from sight.

Adsiduum enim spectaculum alienae virtutis est; in triumpho cito transisset. 3. Si vero regnum quoque suum tuto relinqui apud eum potuit reponique eo, unde deciderat, ingenti incremento surgit laus eius, qui contentus fuit ex rege victo nihil praeter gloriam sumere. Hoc est etiam ex victoria sua triumphare testarique nihil se, quod dignum esset victore, apud victos invenisse.

For it is a constant spectacle of another’s virtue; in a triumph it would have quickly passed by.
3. But if his kingdom
too could be safely left with him and restored to the place whence it had fallen, the praise of him who was content to take from a conquered king nothing except glory rises with an enormous increment.
This is also to triumph from
his own victory and to attest that he found among the conquered nothing which was worthy of a victor.

4. Cum civibus et ignotis atque humilibus eo moderatius agendum est, quo minoris est adflixisse eos. Quibusdam libenter parcas, a quibusdam te vindicare fastidias et non aliter quam ab animalibus parvis sed obterentem inquinantibus reducenda manus est; at in iis, qui in ore civitatis servati punitique erunt, occasione notae clementiae utendum est.

4. With citizens and with unknowns and the humble one must act the more moderately, the less of a thing it is to have afflicted them. Some you should gladly spare; on some you disdain to avenge yourself, and the hand must be drawn back just as from small animals that do not bite but, when crushed, befoul; but in the case of those who will be, on the lips of the city, spared and punished, the occasion for renowned clemency is to be used.

XXII.

22.

1. Transeamus ad alienas iniurias, in quibus vindicandis haec tria lex secuta est, quae princeps quoque sequi debet: aut ut eum, quem punit, emendet, aut ut poena eius ceteros meliores reddat, aut ut sublatis malis securiores ceteri vivant. Ipsos facilius emendabis minore poena; diligentius enim vivit, cui aliquid integri superest. Nemo dignitati perditae parcit; impunitatis genus est iam non habere poenae locum.

1. Let us pass over to others’ injuries, in the avenging of which this threefold law has been followed, which a prince too ought to follow: either that he amend him whom he punishes, or that his penalty make the rest better,
or that, the evils having been removed, the others live more secure. You will more easily amend the very men with a lesser penalty;
for he lives more diligently, for whom something of integrity remains. No one spares a dignity that has been lost; it is a kind of impunity that there is now no place for punishment.

2. Civitatis autem mores magis corrigit parcitas animadversionum; facit enim consuetudinem peccandi multitudo peccantium, et minus gravis nota est, quam turba damnationum levat, et severitas, quod maximum remedium habet, adsiduitate amittit auctoritatem. 3. Constituit bonos mores civitati princeps et vitia eluit, si patiens eorum est, non tamquam probet, sed tamquam invitus et cum magno tormento ad castigandum veniat. Verecundiam peccandi facit ipsa clementia regentis; gravior multo poena videtur, quae a miti viro constituitur.

2. The morals of the state are more corrected by the parsimony
of animadversions; for a multitude of offenders makes a habit of offending, and the mark
is less weighty, which a crowd of condemnations lightens, and severity, which has the greatest remedy,
by assiduity loses its authority. 3. The prince establishes good morals for the state and washes out vices, if
he is patient of them, not as though he approves, but as though unwilling and with great torment he comes
to castigate. The very clemency of the ruler produces a shame of offending; a punishment seems much more grave
which is instituted by a mild man.

XXIII.

23.

1. Praeterea videbis ea saepe committi, quae saepe vindicantur. Pater tuus plures intra quinquennium culleo insuit, quam omnibus saeculis insutos accepimus. Multo minus audebant liberi nefas ultimum admittere, quam diu sine lege crimen fuit.

1. Moreover, you will see those things often committed which are often avenged. Your father sewed more people into the culleus within five years than we have received as sewn up through all the ages. Much less did children dare to commit the ultimate impiety, so long as the crime was without a law.

Summa enim prudentia altissimi viri et rerum naturae peritissimi maluerunt velut incredibile scelus et ultra audaciam positum praeterire quam, dum vindicant, ostendere posse fieri; itaque parricidae cum lege coeperunt, et illis facinus poena monstravit; pessimo vero loco pietas fuit, postquam saepius culleos vidimus quam cruces. 2. In qua civitate raro homines puniuntur, in ea consensus fit innocentiae et indulgetur velut publico bono. Putet se innocentem esse civitas, erit; magis irascetur a communi frugalitate desciscentibus, si paucos esse eos viderit.

For with the highest prudence
the most exalted men and those most skilled in the nature of things preferred to pass over, as though an incredible crime and set beyond audacity, rather than, while they punish, to show that it can be done; and thus parricides began with the law, and punishment demonstrated the deed to them; in the worst position indeed was piety, after we saw sacks more often than crosses. 2. In that commonwealth in which men are rarely punished, there is formed a consensus for innocence and indulgence is granted as if for the public good. Let the state think itself to be innocent—so it will be; it will be more angered at those defecting from the common frugality, if it sees them to be few.

Periculosum est, mihi crede, ostendere civitati, quanto plures mali sint.

It is perilous, believe me, to show the commonwealth how much more numerous the wicked are.

XXIV.

24.

1. Dicta est aliquando a senatu sententia, ut servos a liberis cultus distingueret; deinde apparuit, quantum periculum immineret, si servi nostri numerare nos coepissent. Idem scito metuendum esse, si nulli ignoscitur; cito apparebit, pars civitatis deterior quanto praegravet. Non minus principi turpia sunt multa supplicia quam medico multa funera; remissius imperanti melius paretur.

1. A decree was once pronounced by the Senate, to distinguish the attire of slaves from that of the free; then it became apparent how great a peril was impending, if our slaves should begin to count us. Know that the same is to be feared, if no one is forgiven; it will soon appear how much the worse part of the state outweighs. No less shameful to a prince are many punishments than to a physician many funerals; one who commands more leniently is better obeyed.

2. Natura contumax est humanus animus et in contrarium atque arduum nitens sequiturque facilius quam ducitur; et ut generosi ac nobiles equi melius facili freno reguntur, ita clementiam voluntaria innocentia impetu suo sequitur, et dignam putat civitas, quam servet sibi. Plus itaque hac via proficitur.

2. By nature the human spirit is contumacious and, striving toward the contrary and the arduous, follows more readily than it is led; and, as well-bred and noble horses are better governed by an easy bit, so voluntary innocence, by its own impulse, follows clemency, and the state deems her worthy to keep for itself. More, therefore, is gained by this way.

XXV.

25.

1. Crudelitas minime humanum malum est indignumque tam miti animo; ferina ista rabies est sanguine gaudere ac volneribus et abiecto homine in silvestre animal transire. Quid enim interest, oro te, Alexander, leoni Lysimachum obicias an ipse laceres dentibus tuis? Tuum illud os est, tua illa feritas.

1. Cruelty is by no means a human evil and is unworthy of so mild a spirit; that is feral rabidity—to rejoice in blood and wounds and, the human cast aside, to pass over into a forest-animal. For what difference is there, I beg you, Alexander, whether you cast Lysimachus to a lion or yourself tear him with your own teeth? That mouth is yours, that ferocity is yours.

O quam cuperes tibi potius ungues esse, tibi rictum illum edendorum hominum capacem! Non exigimus a te, ut manus ista, exitium familiarium certissimum, ulli salutaris sit, ut iste animus ferox, insatiabile gentium malum, citra sanguinem caedemque satietur; clementia iam vocatur, ad occidendum amicum cum carnifex inter homines eligitur. 2. Hoc est, quare vel maxime abominanda sit saevitia, quod excedit fines primum solitos, deinde humanos, nova supplicia conquirit, ingenium advocat, ut instrumenta excogitet, per quae varietur atque extendatur dolor, delectatur malis hominum; tunc illi dirus animi morbus ad insaniam pervenit ultimam, cum crudelitas versa est in voluptatem et iam occidere hominem iuvat.

O how you would prefer that you yourself had claws, that you yourself had that gaping maw capacious for devouring men!
We do not demand of you that that hand—most certain destruction of your household—be health-giving to anyone, that that fierce spirit—the insatiable bane of nations—be sated short of blood and slaughter; it is now called clemency, when, to kill a friend, a hangman is chosen from among men. 2.
This is why savagery is to be most abominated: because it exceeds limits, first the accustomed, then the human; it seeks out new punishments, it summons ingenuity to devise instruments by which pain may be varied and extended; it delights in the evils of men; then that dread disease of the mind reaches ultimate insanity, when cruelty is turned into pleasure, and now it delights one to kill a man.

3. Matura talem virum a tergo sequitur aversio, odia, venena, gladii; tam multis periculis petitur, quam multorum ipse periculum est, privatisque non numquam consiliis, alias vero consternatione publica circumvenitur. Levis enim et privata pernicies non totas urbes movet; quod late furere coepit et omnes adpetit, undique configitur. 4. Serpentes parvolae fallunt nec publice conquiruntur; ubi aliqua solitam mensuram transit et in monstrum excrevit, ubi fontes sputu inficit et, si adflavit, deurit obteritque, quacumque incessit, ballistis petitur.

3. A swift aversion follows such a man from behind, hatreds, poisons, swords; by as many
dangers is he attacked as he himself is a danger to many, and he is sometimes circumvented by private
plots, at other times indeed by public consternation. A slight and private perdition does not move whole
cities; that which has begun to rage far and wide and aims at all is pierced from every side. 4. Little
serpents escape notice and are not hunted down publicly; when something passes the accustomed measure
and has grown out into a monster, when it taints springs with spittle and, if it has breathed upon them,
it scorches and crushes wherever it has trodden, it is targeted with ballistae.

Possunt verba dare et evadere pusilla mala, ingentibus obviam itur. 5. Sic unus aeger ne domum quidem perturbat; at ubi crebris mortibus pestilentiam esse apparuit, conclamatio civitatis ac fuga est, et dis ipsis manus intentantur. Sub uno aliquo tecto flamma apparuit: familia vicinique aquam ingerunt; at incendium vastum et multas iam domos depastum parte urbis obruitur.

Petty evils can put one off with words and escape; the huge ones are met head‑on. 5. Thus a single sick man does not even disturb a household; but when by frequent deaths it has become apparent that there is a pestilence, there is an outcry of the city and a flight, and threatening hands are raised against the gods themselves. Under some one roof a flame has appeared: the household and the neighbors pour in water; but a vast conflagration, already having devoured many houses, is crushed by a part of the city being thrown down.

XXVI.

26.

1. Crudelitatem privatorum quoque serviles manus sub certo crucis periculo ultae sunt; tyrannorum gentes populique et, quorum erat malum, et ei, quibus imminebat, exscindere adgressi sunt. Aliquando sua praesidia in ipsos consurrexerunt perfidiamque et impietatem et feritatem et, quidquid ab illis didicerant, in ipsos exercuerunt. Quid enim potest quisquam ab eo sperare, quem malum esse docuit?

1. The cruelty of private persons too was avenged by servile bands under the sure peril of the cross; the nations and peoples of tyrants, both those to whom the evil belonged, and those upon whom it was impending, to extirpate they set about. Sometimes their own guards rose up against them and perfidy and impiety and ferocity and, whatever they had learned from them, they practiced against them. For what indeed can anyone from him hope, whom he has taught to be evil?

Non diu nequitia apparet nec, quantum iubetur, peccat. 2. Sed puta esse tutam crudelitatem, quale eius regnum est? Non aliud quam captarum urbium forma et terribiles facies publici metus.

Wickedness does not take long to appear, nor does it sin only as much as it is bidden. 2. But suppose cruelty to be safe; what is the nature of its kingdom? Nothing other than the appearance of captured cities and the terrible faces of public fear.

Omnia maesta, trepida, confusa; voluptates ipsae timentur; non convivia securi ineunt, in quibus lingua sollicite etiam ebriis custodienda est, non spectacula, ex quibus materia criminis ac periculi quaeritur. Apparentur licet magna impensa et regiis opibus et artificum exquisitis nominibus, quem tamen ludi in carcere iuvent?

All things are mournful, trembling, confused; the pleasures themselves are feared; not to banquets do they enter securely, in which the tongue must be guarded anxiously even by the drunken, nor to spectacles, from which material for accusation and danger is sought. Let great expense be prepared, with royal resources and with the exquisite names of artificers, yet whom do games in prison benefit?

3. Quod istud, di boni, malum est occidere, saevire, delectari sono catenarum et civium capita decidere, quocumque ventum est, multum sanguinis fundere, adspectu suo terrere ac fugare! Quae alia vita esset, si leones ursique regnarent, si serpentibus in nos ac noxiosissimo cuique animali daretur potestas? 4. Illa rationis expertia et a nobis immanitatis crimine damnata abstinent suis, et tuta est etiam inter feras similitudo: horum ne a necessariis quidem sibi rabies temperat, sed externa suaque in aequo habet, quo plus se exercitat, eo incitatior.

3. What evil, good gods, is this: to kill, to rage, to take delight in the sound of chains and to lop off the heads of citizens,
to pour out much blood wherever one has come, to terrify and rout by one’s very appearance! What other life would there be, if lions and bears were to reign, if power were given against us to serpents and to each most noxious
animal? 4. Those creatures devoid of reason and condemned by us on the charge of savagery
abstain from their own kind, and likeness is safe even among wild beasts: the rage of these does not restrain itself even from those necessary to them,
but holds outsiders and its own on the same footing; the more it exercises itself, the more incited it is.

A singulorum deinde caedibus in exitia gentium serpit et inicere tectis ignem, aratrum vetustis urbibus inducere potentiam putat; et unum occidi iubere aut alterum parum imperatorium credit; nisi eodem tempore grex miserorum sub ictu stetit, crudelitatem suam in ordinem coactam putat.

From the slayings of individuals it then creeps into the ruin of nations, and he deems it power to cast fire upon roofs, to drive the plough over age-old cities; and he thinks it not sufficiently imperatorial to order that this one or that one be killed; unless at the same time a flock of the wretched has stood under the blow, he supposes his cruelty has been marshaled into order.

5. Felicitas illa multis salutem dare et ad vitam ab ipsa morte revocare et mereri clementia civicam. Nullum ornamentum principis fastigio dignius pulchriusque est quam illa corona ob cives servatos, non hostilia arma detracta victis, non currus barbarorum sanguine cruenti, non parta bello spolia. Haec divina potentia est gregatim ac publice servare; multos quidem occidere et indiscretos incendii ac ruinae potentia est.

5. That felicity is to give salvation to many and to call back to life from death itself, and by clemency to merit the civic crown. No ornament more worthy and more beautiful for the prince’s pinnacle exists than that crown for citizens saved—no hostile arms stripped from the vanquished, no chariots blood-clotted with the blood of barbarians, no spoils procured in war. This is a divine potency: to save in crowds and publicly; to kill many, indeed, is the indiscriminate power of conflagration and collapse.

1. Ut de clementia scriberem, Nero Caesar, una me vox tua maxime compulit, quam ego non sine admiratione et, cum diceretur, audisse memini et deinde aliis narrasse, vocem generosam, magni animi, magnae lenitatis, quae non composita nec alienis auribus data subito erupit et bonitatem tuam cum fortuna tua litigantem in medium adduxit. 2. Animadversurus in latrones duos Burrus praefectus tuus, vir egregius et tibi principi natus, exigebat a te, scriberes, in quos et ex qua causa animadverti velles; hoc saepe dilatum ut aliquando fieret, instabat. Invitus invito cum chartam protulisset traderetque, exclamasti: 'Vellem litteras nescirem!' 3. O dignam vocem, quam audirent omnes gentes, quae Romanum imperium incolunt quaeque iuxta iacent dubiae libertatis quaeque se contra viribus aut animis attollunt!

1. That I should write about clemency, Nero Caesar, one utterance of yours especially compelled me, which I remember to have heard—not without admiration—when it was being spoken, and then afterwards to have told to others, a generous utterance, of great spirit, of great lenity, which, not composed nor offered to alien ears, burst forth suddenly and brought your goodness, litigating with your fortune, into the open. 2. When he was about to take punitive action against two brigands, Burrus, your prefect, an outstanding man and one born for you as princeps, demanded of you that you write whom and for what cause you wished to have punished; this having often been deferred, he pressed that it at last be done. When, reluctant with a reluctant man, he had produced the paper and was handing it over, you exclaimed: 'I wish I did not know letters!' 3. O a voice worthy to be heard by all the nations who inhabit the Roman imperium, and by those who lie nearby in doubtful liberty, and by those who raise themselves against it with forces or with courage!

O vocem in contionem omnium mortalium mittendam, in cuius verba principes regesque iurarent! O vocem publica generis humani innocentia dignam, cui redderetur antiquum illud saeculum! 4. Nunc profecto consentire decebat ad aequum bonumque expulsa alieni cupidine, ex qua omne animi malum oritur, pietatem integritatemque cum fide ac modestia resurgere et vitia diuturno abusa regno dare tandem felici ac puro saeculo locum.

O a voice to be sent into the assembly of all mortals, upon whose words princes and kings would swear! O a voice worthy of the public innocence of the human race, by which that ancient age would be restored! 4. Now indeed it was fitting to agree to the just and the good, with cupidity for what is another’s driven out, from which every evil of the mind arises, that piety and integrity, together with fidelity and modesty, might rise again, and that vices, having abused a long reign, at last give place to a happy and pure age.

II.

1. Futurum hoc, Caesar, ex magna parte sperare et confidere libet. Tradetur ista animi tui mansuetudo diffundeturque paulatim per omne imperii corpus, et cuncta in similitudinem tuam formabuntur. A capite bona valetudo: inde omnia vegeta sunt atque erecta aut languore demissa, prout animus eorum vivit aut marcet.

1. It is pleasing, Caesar, to hope and to confide for the most part that this will come to be. That gentleness of your spirit will be handed down and will be diffused little by little through the whole body of the empire, and all things will be formed into your similitude. From the head, good health: from there everything is vigorous and erect, or let down by languor, according as their spirit lives or withers.

Erunt cives, erunt socii digni hac bonitate, et in totum orbem recti mores revertentur; parcetur ubique manibus tuis. 2. Diutius me morari hic patere, non ut blandum auribus tuis (nec enim hic mihi mos est; maluerim veris offendere quam placere adulando); quid ergo est? Praeter id, quod bene factis dictisque tuis quam familiarissimum esse te cupio, ut, quod nunc natura et impetus est, fiat iudicium, illud mecum considero multas voces magnas, sed detestabiles, in vitam humanam pervenisse celebresque volgo ferri, ut illam: 'oderint, dum metuant,' cui Graecus versus similis est, qui se mortuo terram misceri ignibus iubet, et alia huius notae.

There will be citizens, there will be allies worthy of this goodness, and into the whole
world right morals will return; there will be sparing everywhere at your hands. 2. Permit me to linger here
longer, not in order to be bland to your ears (for this is not my custom; I would prefer to offend with truths
than to please by adulating); what, then, is it? Besides this—that I desire you to be as thoroughly familiar as possible with your
good deeds and sayings, so that what now is nature and impulse may become judgment—I consider with myself that many
sayings, grand but detestable, have penetrated into human life and are borne about popularly as
celebrated, as that one: 'let them hate, so long as they fear,' to which a Greek verse is similar, which bids, when he is dead,
that the earth be mixed with fires, and others of this stamp.

3. Ac nescio quomodo ingenia in immani et invisa materia secundiore ore expresserunt sensus vehementes et concitatos; nullam adhuc vocem audii ex bono lenique animosam. Quid ergo est? Ut raro, invitus et cum magna cunctatione, ita aliquando scribas necesse est istud, quod tibi in odium litteras adduxit, sed, sicut facis, cum magna cunctatione, cum multis dilationibus.

3. And I do not know how minds, in monstrous and hateful material, with a more auspicious mouth have expressed vehement and agitated feelings; no voice have I yet heard, spirited, from what is good and gentle. What then is it? That, rarely, unwilling and with great hesitation, thus sometimes you must write that thing which has brought letters into hatred for you, but, as you do, with great hesitation, with many delays.

III.

1. Et ne forte decipiat nos speciosum clementiae nomen aliquando et in contrarium abducat, videamus, quid sit clementia qualisque sit et quos fines habeat.

1. And lest perhaps the specious name of clemency sometime deceive us and lead us aside into the contrary, let us see what clemency is, of what sort it is, and what bounds it has.

Clementia est temperantia animi in potestate ulciscendi vel lenitas superioris adversus inferiorem in constituendis poenis. Plura proponere tutius est, ne una finitio parum rem comprehendat et, ut ita dicam, formula excidat; itaque dici potest et inclinatio animi ad lenitatem in poena exigenda. 2. Illa finitio contradictiones inveniet, quamvis maxime ad verum accedat, si dixerimus clementiam esse moderationem aliquid ex merita ac debita poena remittentem: reclamabitur nullam virtutem cuiquam minus debito facere.

Clemency is a temperance of mind in the power of avenging, or the lenity of a superior toward an inferior in establishing punishments. It is safer to propose more, lest one definition too little comprehend the matter and, so to speak, fall out of the formula; and so it can also be called an inclination of mind toward lenity in exacting punishment. 2. That definition will find contradictions, however much it approaches the true, if we say that clemency is a moderation remitting something from the deserved and due punishment: there will be a protest that no virtue does to anyone less than what is due.

Atqui hoc omnes intellegunt clementiam esse, quae se flectit citra id, quod merito constitui posset.

And yet all understand this to be clemency: that it bends itself short of what could deservedly be imposed.

IV.

1. Huic contrariam imperiti putant severitatem; sed nulla virtus virtuti contraria est. Quid ergo opponitur clementiae? Crudelitas, quae nihil aliud est quam atrocitas animi in exigendis poenis.

1. To this the unskilled think severity is opposed; but no virtue is contrary to virtue. What then is set in opposition to clemency? Cruelty, which is nothing else than an atrocity of mind in exacting penalties.

'Sed quidam non exigunt poenas, crudeles tamen sunt, tamquam qui ignotos homines et obvios non in compendium, sed occidendi causa occidunt nec interficere contenti saeviunt, ut Busiris ille et Procrustes et piratae, qui captos verberant et in ignem vivos imponunt.' 2. Haec crudelitas quidem; sed quia nec ultionem sequitur (non enim laesa est) nec peccato alicui irascitur (nullum enim antecessit crimen), extra finitionem nostram cadit; finitio enim continebat in poenis exigendis intemperantiam animi. Possumus dicere non esse hanc crudelitatem, sed feritatem, cui voluptati saevitia est; possumus insaniam vocare: nam varia sunt genera eius et nullum certius, quam quod in caedes hominum et lancinationes pervenit. 3. Illos ergo crudeles vocabo, qui puniendi causam habent, modum non habent, sicut in Phalari, quem aiunt non quidem in homines innocentes, sed super humanum ac probabilem modum saevisse.

'But certain men do not exact punishments, yet they are cruel, like those who kill unknown men and passers-by not for gain, but for the sake of killing, and, not content to kill, rage savagely, as that Busiris and Procrustes and the pirates, who beat their captives and set them alive upon the fire.'
2. This is indeed cruelty; but because it neither follows after vengeance (for there has been no injury) nor is angered at any sin (for no crime has preceded), it falls outside our definition; for the definition contained an intemperance of mind in exacting punishments. We can say that this is not cruelty, but ferity, to which savagery is a pleasure; we can call it insanity: for there are various kinds of it, and none more certain than that which comes to the slaughters of men and dismemberments.
3. Therefore I shall call those cruel who have a cause for punishing, but have no measure, as in the case of Phalaris, whom they say was savage not indeed against innocent men, but beyond a human and probable measure.

Possumus effugere cavillationem et ita finire, ut sit crudelitas inclinatio animi ad asperiora. Hanc clementia repellit longe iussam stare a se; cum severitate illi convenit.

We can escape cavil and define it thus: that cruelty is an inclination of the mind toward harsher things. Clemency repels this, bidding it stand far off from herself; with severity it is in accord.

4. Ad rem pertinet quaerere hoc loco, quid sit misericordia; plerique enim ut virtutem eam laudant et bonum hominem vocant misericordem. Et haec vitium animi est. Utraque circa severitatem circaque clementiam posita sunt, quae vitare debemus; per speciem enim severitatis in crudelitatem incidimus, per speciem clementiae in misericordiam.

4. It pertains to the matter to inquire at this point what pity is; for the majority praise it as a virtue and call a good man “pitiful.” And this too is a vice of the mind. Both are set around severity and around clemency, which we ought to avoid; for under the appearance of severity we fall into cruelty, under the appearance of clemency into pity.

In hoc leviore periculo erratur, sed par error est a vero recedentium.

In this the peril is lighter, but equal is the error of those receding from verity.

1. Ergo quemadmodum religio deos colit, superstitio violat, ita clementiam mansuetudinemque omnes boni viri praestabunt, misericordiam autem vitabunt; est enim vitium pusilli animi ad speciem alienorum malorum succidentis. Itaque pessimo cuique familiarissima est; anus et mulierculae sunt, quae lacrimis nocentissimorum moventur, quae, si liceret, carcerem effringerent. Misericordia non causam, sed fortunam spectat; clementia rationi accedit.

1. Therefore, just as religion worships the gods, superstition violates them, so all good men will exhibit clemency and mansuetude, but they will avoid mercy; for it is a vice of a small-souled mind that buckles at the sight of others’ ills. And so it is most familiar to every worst sort; there are old women and little women, who are moved by tears for the most guilty, who, if it were permitted, would break open the prison. Mercy regards not the cause, but fortune; clemency goes with reason.

2. Scio male audire apud imperitos sectam Stoicorum tamquam duram nimis et minime principibus regibusque bonum daturam consilium; obicitur illi, quod sapientem negat misereri, negat ignoscere. Haec, si per se ponantur, invisa sunt; videntur enim nullam relinquere spem humanis erroribus, sed omnia delicta ad poenam deducere. 3. Quod si est quidnam haec scientia, quae dediscere humanitatem iubet portumque adversus fortunam certissimum mutuo auxilio cludit?

2. I know that among the unskilled the sect of the Stoics has a bad reputation as being too hard and as by no means going to give good counsel to princes and kings; it is objected to it, that it denies that the wise man pities, it denies that he forgives. These things, if set forth by themselves, are odious; for they seem to leave no hope for human errors, but to lead all offenses to punishment. 3. But if it is so, what then is this science, which bids us unlearn humanity and closes the surest haven against Fortune, mutual aid?

Sed nulla secta benignior leniorque est, nulla amantior hominum et communis boni attentior, ut propositum sit usui esse et auxilio nec sibi tantum, sed universis singulisque consulere. 4. Misericordia est aegritudo animi ob alienarum miseriarum speciem aut tristitia ex alienis malis contracta, quae accidere immerentibus credit; aegritudo autem in sapientem virum non cadit; serena eius mens est, nec quicquam incidere potest, quod illam obducat. Nihilque aeque hominem quam magnus animus decet; non potest autem magnus esse idem ac maestus.

But no sect is more benign and more lenient, none more loving of human beings and more attentive to the common good, so that its purpose is to be of use and of assistance, and to look out not for itself only, but for all collectively and for individuals. 4. Mercy is an affliction of the mind on account of the appearance of others’ miseries, or a sadness contracted from others’ evils, which it believes to befall the undeserving; but affliction does not befall a wise man; his mind is serene, nor can anything occur that will draw a covering over it. And nothing so befits a man as a great spirit; however, he cannot be great and at the same time gloomy.

5. Maeror contundit mentes, abicit, contrahit; hoc sapienti ne in suis quidem accidet calamitatibus, sed omnem fortunae iram reverberabit et ante se franget; eandem semper faciem servabit, placidam, inconcussam, quod facere non posset, si tristitiam reciperet.

5. Mourning bruises minds, casts them down, contracts them; this will not befall the wise man, not even in his own calamities, but he will beat back all the wrath of Fortune and will break it before him; he will keep the same face always, placid, unshaken, which he would not be able to do, if he admitted sadness.

VI.

1. Adice, quod sapiens et providet et in expedito consilium habet; numquam autem liquidum sincerumque ex turbido venit. Tristitia inhabilis est ad dispiciendas res, utilia excogitanda, periculosa vitanda, aequa aestimanda; ergo non miseretur, quia id sine miseria animi non fit. 2. Cetera omnia, quae, qui miserentur, volo facere, libens et altus animo faciet; succurret alienis lacrimis, non accedet; dabit manum naufrago, exsuli hospitium, egenti stipem, non hanc contumeliosam, quam pars maior horum, qui misericordes videri volunt, abicit et fastidit, quos adiuvat, contingique ab iis timet, sed ut homo homini ex communi dabit; donabit lacrimis maternis filium et catenas solvi iubebit et ludo eximet et cadaver etiam noxium sepeliet, sed faciet ista tranquilla mente, voltu suo.

1. Add, that the wise man both foresees and has his counsel at the ready; never, however, does anything clear and pure come out of the turbid. Sadness is unfit for discerning things, for excogitating what is useful, for avoiding perilous things, for estimating what is equitable; therefore he does not pity, because that is not done without a misery of mind. 2. All the other things which I want those who pity to do, he will do gladly and exalted in spirit; he will succor others’ tears, he will not join them; he will give a hand to the shipwrecked man, hospitality to the exile, alms to the needy—not that contumelious kind which the greater part of those who wish to seem merciful fling down and feel disgust for those whom they help, and fear to be touched by them—but as man to man he will give from what is common; he will grant back to maternal tears a son, and he will order chains to be loosed, and he will take a man out of the training-school, and he will even bury a noxious (guilty) corpse, but he will do these things with a tranquil mind, with his own expression.

3. Ergo non miserebitur sapiens, sed succurret, sed proderit, in commune auxilium natus ac bonum publicum, ex quo dabit cuique partem. Etiam ad calamitosos pro portione improbandosque et emendandos bonitatem suam permittet; adflictis vero et forte laborantibus multo libentius subveniet. Quotiens poterit, fortunae intercedet; ubi enim opibus potius utetur aut viribus, quam ad restituenda, quae casus impulit?

3. Therefore the wise man will not pity, but he will succor, rather, he will be of benefit—born for the common aid and the public good, from which he will give to each a share. Even toward the calamity‑stricken, in proportion—and toward those to be reproved and emended—he will permit his goodness; but to the afflicted and to those bravely laboring he will much more willingly bring help. As often as he can, he will intercede against Fortune; for when will he rather employ his resources or his strength than for restoring what chance has struck down?

Voltum quidem non deiciet nec animum ob crus alicuius aridum aut pannosam maciem et innixam baculo senectutem; ceterum omnibus dignis proderit et deorum more calamitosos propitius respiciet.

He will not cast down his visage nor his spirit on account of someone’s withered leg, or ragged emaciation, or old age leaning upon a staff; but he will benefit all who are worthy, and, in the manner of the gods, will look propitiously upon the calamitous.

4. Misericordia vicina est miseriae; habet enim aliquid trahitque ex ea. Imbecillos oculos esse scias, qui ad alienam lippitudinem et ipsi subfunduntur, tam mehercules quam morbum esse, non hilaritatem, semper adridere ridentibus et ad omnium oscitationem ipsum quoque os diducere; misericordia vitium est animorum nimis miseria paventium, quam si quis a sapiente exigit, prope est, ut lamentationem exigat et in alienis funeribus gemitus.

4. Mercy is near to misery; for it has something and draws from it. Know that feeble eyes are such as, at another’s bleariness, themselves too are suffused; and, by Hercules, that it is a disease, not hilarity, always to grin with the laughing, and at everyone’s yawning to draw apart one’s own mouth as well; mercy is a vice of souls too much dreading misery, which, if someone demands from a wise man, he is close to demanding lamentation and groans at other people’s funerals.

VII.

1. 'At quare non ignoscet?' Agedum constituamus nunc quoque, quid sit venia, et sciemus dari illam a sapiente non debere. Venia est poenae meritae remissio. Hanc sapiens quare non debeat dare, reddunt rationem diutius, quibus hoc propositum est; ego ut breviter tamquam in alieno iudicio dicam: Ei ignoscitur, qui puniri debuit; sapiens autem nihil facit, quod non debet, nihil praetermittit, quod debet; itaque poenam, quam exigere debet, non donat.

1. 'But why will he not forgive?' Come now, let us also determine what pardon is, and we shall know that it ought not to be given by the wise man. Pardon is the remission of a deserved penalty. Those for whom this is the thesis render the rationale at greater length; I, to speak briefly as if in another’s court, say this: He is forgiven who ought to have been punished; but the wise man does nothing that he ought not, omits nothing that he ought; and so the penalty which he ought to exact, he does not bestow.

2. Sed illud, quod ex venia consequi vis, honestiore tibi via tribuet; parcet enim sapiens, consulet et corriget; idem faciet, quod, si ignosceret, nec ignoscet, quoniam, qui ignoscit, fatetur aliquid se, quod fieri debuit, omisisse. Aliquem verbis tantum admonebit, poena non adficiet aetatem eius emendabilem intuens; aliquem invidia criminis manifeste laborantem iubebit incolumem esse, quia deceptus est, quia per vinum lapsus; hostes dimittet salvos, aliquando etiam laudatos, si honestis causis pro fide, pro foedere, pro libertate in bellum acciti sunt. 3. Haec omnia non veniae, sed clementiae opera sunt.

2. But that which you wish to obtain from pardon, he will grant to you by a more honorable path; for the wise man will spare, will take counsel and will correct; the same thing he will do as if he were forgiving, and yet he will not forgive, since he who forgives admits that he has omitted something which ought to have been done.
He will admonish someone with words only; he will not afflict with punishment, considering his age to be corrigible; he will order someone who is manifestly laboring under the odium of an accusation to be unharmed, because he was deceived, because he slipped through wine; he will dismiss enemies safe, sometimes even praised, if for honorable causes they were called into war for good faith, for treaty, for liberty. 3. All these are works not of pardon, but of clemency.

Clementia liberum arbitrium habet; non sub formula, sed ex aequo et bono iudicat; et absolvere illi licet et, quanti vult, taxare litem. Nihil ex his facit, tamquam iusto minus fecerit, sed tamquam id, quod constituit, iustissimum sit. Ignoscere autem est, quem iudices puniendum, non punire; venia debitae poenae remissio est.

Clemency has free discretion; it judges not under a formula, but from equity and good; and it may both absolve and assess the case at whatever value it wishes. Nothing of these does it do,
as though it had done less than what is just, but as though that which it has determined is most just. To forgive, however,
is not to punish one whom you judge to be punishable; pardon is the remission of a due penalty.

Clementia hoc primum praestat, ut, quos dimittit, nihil aliud illos pati debuisse pronuntiet; plenior est quam venia, honestior est. 4. De verbo, ut mea fert opinio, controversia est, de re quidem convenit. Sapiens multa remittet, multos parum sani, sed sanabilis ingenii servabit.

Clemency this first accomplishes: that, as to those whom it lets go, it pronounces that they ought to have suffered nothing else; it is fuller than pardon, it is more honorable. 4. About the word, as my opinion bears, there is controversy; about the thing, indeed, there is agreement. The wise man will remit many things; he will preserve many of a character somewhat unsound, yet sanable.

Agricolas bonos imitabitur, qui non tantum rectas procerasque arbores colunt; illis quoque, quas aliqua depravavit causa, adminicula, quibus derigantur, adplicant; alias circumcidunt, ne proceritatem rami premant, quasdam infirmas vitio loci nutriunt, quibusdam aliena umbra laborantibus caelum aperiunt. 5. Videbit, quod ingenium qua ratione tractandum sit, quo modo in rectum prava flectantur. * * *

He will imitate good farmers
who not only cultivate straight and towering trees; to those also which some cause has distorted,
they apply props, by which they may be straightened; others they prune, lest the branches weigh down their height,
some that are weak through the fault of the place they nourish, for some laboring under another’s shade
they open the sky. 5. He will see by what method a given temperament must be handled, in what way
the crooked may be bent into the straight. * * *