is heart's desire more quickly
than do humbler mortals theirs. For consider, what are their objects of
ambition? The private citizen has set his heart, it may be, on a house,
a farm, a servant. The tyrant hankers after cities, or wide territory,
or harbours, or formidable citadels, things far more troublesome and
more perilous to achieve than are the pettier ambitions of lesser men.

And hence it is, moreover, that you will find but few (14) private
persons paupers by comparison with the large number of tyrants who
deserve the title; (15) since the criterion of enough, or too much,
is not fixed by mere arithmetic, but relatively to the needs of the
individual. (16) In other words, whatever exceeds sufficiency is much,
and what falls short of that is little. (17)

(14) Reading as vulg. {alla mentoi kai penetas opsei oukh outos
oligous ton idioton os pollous ton turannon}. Lit. "however that
may be, you will see not so few private persons in a state of
penury as many despots." Breitenbach del. {oukh}, and transl.,
"Daher weist du auch in dem Masse wenige Arme unter den
Privat-leuten finden, als viele unter den Tyrannen." Stob.,
{penetas opsei oligous ton idioton, pollous de ton
turannon}. Stob. MS. Par., {alla mentoi kai plousious opsei
oukh outos oligous ton idioton os penetas pollous ton
turannon}. See Holden ad loc. and crit. n.

(15) Cf. "Mem." IV. ii. 37.

(16) Or, "not by the number of things we have, but in reference to the
use we make of them." Cf. "Anab." VII. vii. 36.

(17) Dr. Holden aptly cf. Addison, "The Spectator," No. 574, on the
text "Non possidentem multa vocaveris recte beatum..."

And on this principle the tyrant, with his multiplicity of goods, is
less well provided to meet necessary expenses than the private person;
since the latter can always cut down his expenditure to suit his daily
needs in any way he chooses; but the tyrant cannot do so, seeing that
the largest expenses of a monarch are also the most necessary, being
devoted to various methods of safeguarding his life, and to cut down any
of them would be little less than suicidal. (18)

(18) Or, "and to curtail these would seem to be self-slaughter."

Or, to put it differently, why should any one expend compassion on a
man, as if he were a beggar, who has it in his power to satisfy by
just and honest means his every need? (19) Surely it would be more
appropriate to call that man a wretch