ertain
persons having committed suspicious actions or intending to commit them,
but also how A said so-and-so, and B hearing it was silent, how one man
laughed and somebody else wept.

[-19-] "I could cite innumerable other details of like nature which,
no matter how true they were, are no business for free men to concern
themselves about or report to you. If they went unnoticed, they would do
you no harm, but when heard they might irritate you even against your
will: and that ought by no means to happen, especially in a ruler of the
people. Now many believe that from this cause large numbers unjustly
perish, some without a trial and others by some unwarranted condemnation
of a court. They will not admit that the evidence given or statements
made under torture or any similar proof against them is genuine. This is
the sort of talk, though some of it may not be just, which is reported in
the case of practically all so put to death. And you ought, Augustus,
to be free not only from injustice but from the appearance of it. It is
sufficient for a private individual to avoid irregular conduct, but it
behooves a ruler to incur not even the suspicion of it. You are the
leader of human beings, not of beasts, and the only way you can make
them really friendly to you is by persuading them by every means
and constantly, without a break, that you will wrong no one either
voluntarily or involuntarily. A man can be forced to fear another but he
has to be persuaded to love him: and he is to be persuaded by the good
treatment he himself receives and the benefits he sees conferred on
others. The person, however, who suspects that somebody has perished
unjustly both fears that he may some day meet the same fate and is
compelled to hate the one responsible for the deed. And to be hated by
one's subjects is (besides containing no element of good) exceedingly
unprofitable. The general mass of people feel that ordinary individuals
must defend themselves against all who wrong them in any way or else be
despised and consequently oppressed: but rulers, they think, ought to
prosecute those who wrong the State but endure those who are thought
to commit offences against them privately; rulers can not be harmed by
disdain or assault, because they have many guardians to protect them.

[-20-] "When I hear this and turn my attention to this I feel inclined to
tell you outright to put no one to death for any such reason. Places of
supremacy are establi