our good-will. I may of course meet with some catastrophe, as happens
to many; for it is not possible for a man to please everybody, especially
when he has been involved in so great wars, some foreign and some civil,
and has had affairs of such magnitude entrusted to him: yet even so, I
am quite ready to choose to die as a private citizen before my appointed
time rather than to become immortal as a sole ruler. That very
circumstance will bring me fame,--that I not only murdered no one in
order to hold possession of the sovereignty but even died untimely in
order to avoid becoming monarch. The man who has dared to slay me will
certainly be punished by Heaven and by you, as took place in the case
of my father. He was declared to be equal to a god and obtained eternal
honors, whereas those who slew him perished, the evil men, in evil
plight. We could not become deathless, yet by living well and by dying
well we do in a sense gain this boon. Therefore I, who possess the first
requisite and hope to possess the second, return to you the arms and the
provinces, the revenues and the laws. I make only this final suggestion,
that you be not disheartened through fear of the magnitude of affairs or
the difficulty of handling them, nor neglect them in disdain, with the
idea that they can be easily managed.

[-10-] "I have, indeed, no objection to suggesting to you in a summary
way what ought to be done in each of the leading categories. And what
are these suggestions? First, guard vigilantly the established laws and
change none of them. What remains fixed, though it be inferior, is more
advantageous than what is always subject to innovations, even though it
seem to be superior. Next, whatever injunctions these laws lay upon you
be careful to perform, and to refrain from whatever they forbid, and do
this scrupulously not only in word but also in deed, not only in public
but in private, that you may obtain not penalties but honors. The offices
both of peace and of war you should entrust to those who are each time
the most excellent and sensible, without jealousy of any persons, and
entering into rivalry not that this man or that man may reap some
advantage but that the city may be preserved and prosperous. Such men you
must honor but chastise those who show any different spirit in politics.
Make your private means public property of the city, and keep your hands
off public money as you would off your neighbors' goods. Keep careful
watc