r part, trusted so
completely in his courage, that not one of them quitted Syracuse or
showed any sign of fear.

All these dangers, therefore, which attend the contrivance of a plot,
must be passed through before you come to its execution; or if you would
escape them, you must observe the following precautions: Your first
and surest, nay, to say truth, your only safeguard, is to leave your
accomplices no time to accuse you; for which reason you must impart the
affair to them, only at the moment when you mean it to be carried out,
and not before. Those who have followed this course have wholly escaped
the preliminary dangers of conspiracies, and, generally speaking, the
others also; indeed, I may say that they have all succeeded, and that it
is open to every prudent man to act as they did. It will be enough to
give two instances of plots effected in this way. Nelematus, unable to
endure the tyranny of Aristotimus, despot of Epirus, assembling many
of his friends and kinsmen in his house, exhorted them to free their
country; and when some of them asked for time to consider and mature
their plans, he bade his slaves close the doors, and told those
assembled that unless they swore to go at once and do as he directed
he would make them over to Aristotimus as prisoners. Alarmed by his
threats, they bound themselves by a solemn oath, and going forth at once
and without delay, successfully carried out his bidding. A certain Magus
having fraudulently usurped the throne of Persia; Ortanes, a grandee of
that realm, discovering the fraud, disclosed it to six others of the
chief nobility, telling them that it behoved them to free the kingdom
from the tyranny of this impostor. And when some among them asked for
time, Darius, who was one of the six summoned by Ortanes, stood up and
said, "Either we go at once to do this deed, or I go to the Magus to
accuse you all." Whereupon, all rising together, without time given to
any to change his mind, they went forth and succeeded in effecting their
end. Not unlike these instances was the plan taken by the Etolians to
rid themselves of Nabis, the Spartan tyrant, to whom, under pretence of
succouring him, they sent Alasamenes, their fellow-citizen, with two
hundred foot soldiers and thirty horsemen. For they imparted their real
design to Alasamenes only, charging the rest, under pain of exile, to
obey him in whatever he commanded. Alasamenes repaired to Sparta, and
never divulged his commission