3.A REIGN THAT IS CRUEL IS STORMY
4. CLEMENCY, THEN, MAKES RULERS NOT ONLY MORE HONORED
Minor premise. For the proposition had already been put forward that for kings security becomes surer through clemency. The argument from utility is very powerful in hortatory speeches. Quintilian: In persuading, honor is first to be considered, then utility. There are those who think the
consideration of utility alone should form part of deliberation.
THE GLORY OF SOVEREIGN POWER Interpretation.
FOR WHY IS IT THAT KINGS HAVE GROWN OLD, AND... TO CHILDREN
They who obtain a lawful rule and accommodate it to the public good, die their own death, not before their time, but often grow old in leisure and peace. At last, when they have to yield to the laws of nature, they leave their rule to the inheritance of their family. It passes to their sons and thence to their grandsons. But tyrants so long as they live are execrable, and are often dispatched by the sword rather than by illness. They so exercise violent power that it is not permanent. This, then, is a locus ex contrariis: first the proposition is laid down: KINGS GROW OLD, THE POWER OF TYRANTS IS BRIEF — thus the contraries are contrasted with one another. There follows the difference between king and tyrant. Then is subjoined an illustration of that difference. Seneca’s statement that kings pass on their rule to their children and grandchildren as if from hand to
hand is drawn from the jus gentium. Homer elegantly signifies this by the verse in the Iliad [2.46]: And he grasped his father’s scepter, ever
unstained.
OF TYRANTS IS... SHORT
Juvenal [Sat., 10.112f] meant this: Few the kings who without blood and slaughter, / Few the tyrants who without a savage death, / Descend to Ceres’ son-in-law. And Seneca the Tragedian in his Medea [196]:
Unrighteous kingdoms cannot lasting be. And in his Thyestes [215217]:
Where there is no shame, / No care for right, no piety, virtue, faith, / Sovereignty is insecure. That noble saying of Theopompus King of the Spartans comes to mind: [Plut., Moralia, 779E]:... when his wife reproached him because he would hand down to his children a less powerful kingdom than that which he had received he said: “nay, more powerful rather, inasmuch as it will be more lasting.” For it was during his reign that the ephors had been instituted, to prevent royal whim from going to excess. See Cicero [Off., 2.23.80].
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A TYRANT AND A KING
Whatever difference there is, usage rather than etymology or original meaning determines it. Tyrannus is a Greek word, derived from the neutral verb tyranneg, which to the Greeks meant “to rule.” Hence Isocrates in his oration on Evagoras said tyrannikon for the one skilled in governing. And Aristophanes, Clouds [563f], says: Zeus, ruling on high,/King [turranos]
of all the gods. Sophocles [Fr. 12]: Tyrants raise by conversation with the raise. This Servius also attests in his Commentary on the Aeneid [A., 7.266]. His words are: Among the Greeks there is no distinction between tyrant and king, although among us a usurper of rule is styled a tyrant.
These references sufficiently refute Verrius Flaccus’ error, who wrote that tyrants were so called from the Etruscans, who were also called
“Tyrrhenians from Tyrrhenus, leader of the Lydians, because that nation was noted for its cruelty.” Consequently, Latin authors also often use this term in the good sense. Virgil [A., 4.320f]:
For thee the Libyan tribes and Nomad tyrants Hate me.
And [Ibid., 7.266]:
To me it shall be a pledge of the peace to have touched your tyrant’hand.
Horace [C., 3.17.69: Who first is said to have held the walls / Of Formiae and Liris where it floods/Marica’s shores, possessing/Lordship [tyrannus far and wide. Statius [Theb., 2.444f]: Lest they should suffer so oft the uncertainty of fortune,/ Groaning submit to orders, and unwillingly obey a doubtful tyrant. See Augustine [DCD, 2.21.2; 5.19]. Now the use prevailed of calling a tyrant one who rules against the will of his subjects or
intemperately exercises power, so that it has become a term for a vice.
And thus for the Greeks tyrannus and basileus are distinguished as with us, king and tyrant. Solon accordingly writes in a certain poem that he was horrified at the infamy of the term, when he despised a tyranny offered to him voluntarily by his citizens.
ARISTOTLE, ETH. [8.12,1160BL
considers tyranny a transgression of the true limits of kingship. And in the Pol. [3.5.2, 1279ab9]; Our customary designation for a monarchy that aims at the common advantage is “kingship”; for a government of more than one yet only a few “aristocracy”... while when the multitude govern a state with a view to the common advantage, it is called “a republic.” But all such forms of government are likely to be unstable, and to transgress their proper bounds: Kingship becomes tyranny, aristocracy becomes the absolute sway of a few men (oligarchy), and democracy becomes a government of the rabble. Now there are many sorts of tyranny of which Aristotle treats [Ibid., 5.10-12, 1310a35-1316629]. Cicero, Top., [22.85]:
In the other class which we divided into two parts, one applies to
resemblance and difference, for instance: What is the difference between a friend and a flatterer, between a king and a tyrant? Seneca, Agamemnon [125f]: Mycenae’s king he was;/He will come back her tyrant... Wherever Seneca uses the word, it is to be taken in the bad sense.
CHAPTER 12
1. “What then?” you say: “are not kings also accustomed to kill?” Yes, but only when they are induced to do so for the public good. Tyrants take delight in cruelty. But the difference between a tyrant and a king is one of deeds, not of name. For the elder Dionysius may justly and deservedly be counted better than many kings. What keeps Lucius Sulla from being styled a tyrant? His killing was stopped only by a dearth of foes;
2. yet he abdicated the dictatorship and resumed the toga. Yet what