Note 33 — Chapter IX · CORINTH, SIKYON, AND MEGARA. — AGE OF THE GRECIAN DESPOTS.

Consult, especially, the treatise of Xenophon, called Hiero, or Τυραννικὸς, in which the interior life and feelings of the Grecian despot are strikingly set forth, in a supposed dialogue with the poet Simonides. The tenor of Plato’s remarks in the eighth and ninth books of the Republic, and those of Aristotle in the fifth book (ch. 8 and 9) of the Politics, display the same picture, though not with such fulness of detail. The speech of one of the assassins of Euphrôn (despot of Sikyon) is remarkable, as a specimen of Grecian feeling (Xenoph. Hellen. vii, 3, 7-12). The expressions both of Plato and Tacitus, in regard to the mental wretchedness of the despot, are the strongest which the language affords: Καὶ πένης τῇ ἀληθείᾳ φαίνεται, ἐάν τις ὅλην ψυχὴν ἐπίστηται θεάσασθαι, καὶ φόβου γέμων διὰ παντὸς τοῦ βίου, σφαδασμῶν τε καὶ ὀδυνῶν πλήρης ... Ἀνάγκη καὶ εἶναι, καὶ ἔτι μᾶλλον γίγνεσθαι αὐτῷ ἢ πρότερον διὰ τὴν ἀρχὴν, φθονερῷ, ἀπίστῳ, ἀδίκῳ, ἀφίλῳ, ἀνοσίῳ, καὶ πάσης κακίας πανδοκεῖ τε καὶ τροφεῖ, καὶ ἐξ ἁπάντων τούτων μάλιστα μὲν αὐτῷ δυστυχεῖ εἶναι, ἔπειτα δὲ καὶ τοὺς πλησίον αὑτῷ τοιούτους ἀπεργάζεσθαι (Republic, ix, p. 580).

And Tacitus, in the well-known passage (Annal. vi, 6): “Neque frustra præstantissimus sapientiæ firmare solitus est, si recludantur tyrannorum mentes, posse aspici laniatus et ictus: quando ut corpora verberibus, ita sævitiâ, libidine, malis consultis, animus dilaceretur. Quippe Tiberium non fortuna, non solitudines, protegebant, quin tormenta pectoris suasque ipse pœnas fateretur.”

It is not easy to imagine power more completely surrounded with all circumstances calculated to render it repulsive to a man of ordinary benevolence: the Grecian despot had large means of doing harm,—scarcely any means of doing good. Yet the acquisition of power over others, under any conditions, is a motive so all-absorbing, that even this precarious and anti-social sceptre was always intensely coveted,—Τυραννὶς, χρῆμα σφαλερὸν, πολλοὶ δὲ αὐτῆς ἐρασταί εἰσι (Herod. iii, 53). See the striking lines of Solon (Fragment, vii, ed. Schneidewin), and the saying of Jason of Pheræ, who used to declare that he felt incessant hunger until he became despot,—πεινῇν, ὅτε μὴ τυραννοῖ· ὡς οὐκ ἐπιστάμενος ἰδιώτης εἶναι (Aristot. Polit. iii, 2, 6).