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PLATO, being desired by the Cyreneans to prescribe to
them good laws and to settle their government, refused to
do it, saying that it was a hard matter to give them any
law whilst they enjoyed so much prosperity, since nothing
is so fierce, arrogant, and untamable, as a man that thinks
himself to be in a happy condition. Wherefore it is very
difficult to give counsel to princes in matters of government; for they fear to receive advice as a thing seeming to
command them, lest the force of reason should seem to
lessen their power, by obliging it to submit to truth. And
they consider not the saying of Theopompus, king of
Sparta, who, being the first in that country that joined
the Ephori with the Kings, was reproached by his wife,
because by this means he would leave the kingdom to his
children less than he found it; to whom he replied, that
he should render it so much the greater, the firmer it was.
For, by holding the reins of government somewhat loose,
he avoided envy and danger; nevertheless, since he permitted the stream of his power to flow so freely into other
channels, what he gave to them must needs be a loss to
himself. Though philosophy possessing a prince as his
assistant and keeper, by taking away the dangerous part of
fulness of power (as if it were fulness of body), leaves
the sound part.
Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals. Translated from the Greek by several hands. Corrected and revised by. William W. Goodwin, PH. D. Boston. Little, Brown, and Company. Cambridge. Press Of John Wilson and son. 1874. 4.
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