as by the manner in which they
educated their children, that all which they had in view was to make
them soldiers: besides, among all nations, those who have power enough
and reduce others to servitude are honoured on that account; as were the
Scythians, Persians, Thracians, and Gauls: with some there are laws to
heighten the virtue of courage; thus they tell us that at Carthage they
allowed every person to wear as many rings for distinction as he had
served campaigns. There was also a law in Macedonia, that a man who had
not himself killed an enemy should be obliged to wear a halter; among
the Scythians, at a festival, none were permitted to drink out of
the cup was carried about who had not done the same thing. Among the
Iberians, a warlike nation, they fixed as many columns upon a man's tomb
as he had slain enemies: and among different nations different things
of this sort prevail, some of them established by law, others by custom.
Probably it may seem too absurd to those who are willing to take this
subject into their consideration to inquire whether it is the business
of a legislator to be able to point out by what means a state may govern
and tyrannise over its neighbours, whether they will, or will not: for
how can that belong either to the politician or legislator which is
unlawful? for that cannot be lawful which is done not only justly, but
unjustly also: for a conquest may be unjustly made. But we see nothing
of this in the arts: for it is the business neither of the physician nor
the pilot to use either persuasion or force, the one to his patients,
the other to his passengers: and yet many seem to think a despotic
government is a political one, and what they would not allow to be just
or proper, if exercised over themselves, they will not blush to exercise
over others; for they endeavour to be wisely governed themselves, but
think it of no consequence whether others are so or not: but a despotic
power is absurd, except only where nature has framed the one party for
dominion, the other for subordination; and therefore no one ought to
assume it over all in general, but those only which are the proper
objects thereof: thus no one should hunt men either for food or
sacrifice, but what is fit for those purposes, and these are wild
animals which are eatable.

Now a city which is well governed might be very [1325a] happy in itself
while it enjoyed a good system of laws, although it should happen to be
so situated