usion to mistresses, foreigners, and fiddlers; keeping an exact
account both of what you receive and pay; which is a practice some
tyrants do actually follow, by which means they seem rather fathers of
families than tyrants: nor need you ever fear the want of money while
you have the supreme power of the state in your own hands. It is also
much better for those tyrants who quit their kingdom to do this than to
leave behind them money they have hoarded up; for their regents will
be much less desirous of making innovations, and they are more to be
dreaded by absent tyrants than the citizens; for such of them as he
suspects he takes with him, but these regents must be left behind. He
should also endeavour to appear to collect such taxes and require such
services as the exigencies of the state demand, that whenever they are
wanted they may be ready in time of war; and particularly to take care
that he appear to collect and keep them not as his own property, but the
public's. His appearance also should not be severe, but respectable, so
that he should inspire those who approach him with veneration and not
fear; but this will not be easily accomplished if he is despised. If,
therefore, he will not take the pains to acquire any other, he ought to
endeavour to be a man of political abilities, and to fix that opinion of
himself in the judgment of his subjects. He should also take care not to
appear to be guilty of the least offence against modesty, nor to suffer
it in those under him: nor to permit the women of his family to treat
others haughtily; for the haughtiness of women has been the ruin of many
tyrants. With respect to the pleasures of sense, he ought to do directly
contrary to the practice of some tyrants at present; for they do not
only continually indulge themselves in them for many days together, but
they seem also to desire to have other witnesses of it, that they may
wonder at their happiness; whereas he ought really to be moderate in
these, and, if not, to appear to others to avoid them-for it is not the
sober man who is exposed either to plots or contempt, but the drunkard;
not the early riser, but the sluggard. His conduct in general should
also be contrary to what is reported of former tyrants; for he ought to
improve and adorn his city, so as to seem a guardian and not a tyrant;
and, moreover., always to [1315a] seem particularly attentive to the
worship of the gods; for from persons of such a character men enter