The East: Confucianism Taoism Buddhism
The West: Stoicism Epicureanism Christianity
The East: Confucianism Taoism
Buddhism
The West: Stoicism
Epicureanism Christianity
I HAVE undertaken, Nero Caesar, to write on the subject
of mercy, in order to serve in a way the purpose of a mirror, and thus reveal
you to yourself as one destined to attain to the greatest of all pleasures. For,
though the true profit of virtuous deeds lies in the doing, and there is no
fitting reward for the virtues apart from the virtues themselves, still it is a
pleasure to subject a good conscience to a round of inspection, then to cast
one's eyes upon this vast throng - discordant, factious, and unruly, ready to
run riot alike for the destruction of itself and others if it should break its
yoke - and finally to commune with oneself thus. "Have I of all mortals found
favour with Heaven and been chosen to serve on earth as vicar of the gods? I am
the arbiter of life and death for the nations; it rests in my power what each
man's lot and state shall be; by my lips Fortune proclaims what gift she would
bestow on each human being; from my utterance peoples and cities gather reasons
for rejoicing; without my favour and grace no part of the wide world can
prosper; all those many thousands of swords which my peace restrains will be
drawn at my nod; what nations shall be utterly destroyed, which banished, which
shall receive the gift of liberty, which have it taken from them, what kings
shall become slaves and whose heads shall be crowned with royal honour, what
cities shall fall and which shall rise this it is mine to decree. With all
things thus at my disposal, I have been moved neither by anger nor youthful
impulse to unjust punishment, nor by the foolhardiness and obstinacy of men
which have often wrung patience from even the serenest souls, nor yet by that
vainglory which employs terror for the display of might - a dread but all too
common use of great and lordly power. With me the sword is hidden, nay, is
sheathed; I am sparing to the utmost of even the meanest blood; no man fails to
find favour at my hands though be lack all else but the name of man. Sternness I
keep hidden, but mercy ever ready at hand. I so hold guard over myself as though
I were about to render an account to those laws which I have summoned from decay
and darkness into the light of day. I have been moved to pity by the fresh youth
of one, by the extreme old age of another; one I have pardoned for his high
position, another for his humble state; whenever I found no excuse for pity, for
my own sake I have spared. To-day, if the immortal gods should require a
reckoning from me, I am ready to give full tale of the human race."
This pronouncement, Caesar, you
may boldly make, that whatever has passed into your trust and guardianship is
still kept safe, that through you the state suffers no loss, either from
violence or from fraud. It is the rarest praise, hitherto denied to all other
princes, that you have coveted for yourself innocence of wrong. Nor has the
effort been in vain, and that unparalleled goodness of yours has not found men
ungrateful or grudging in their appraisement. Thanks are rendered to you; no
human being has ever been so dear to another as you are to the people of Rome -
its great and lasting blessing. But it is a mighty burden that you have taken
upon yourself; no one to-day talks of the deified Augustus or the early years of
Tiberius Caesar, or seeks for any model he would have you copy other than
yourself; the standard for your principate is the foretaste you have given. This
would have indeed been difficult if that goodness of yours were not innate but
only assumed for the moment. For no one can wear a mask long; the false quickly
lapses back into its own nature; but whatever has truth for its foundation, and
whatever springs, so to speak, from out the solid earth, grows by the mere
passing of time into something larger and better. Great was the hazard that the
Roman people faced so long as it was uncertain what course those noble talents
of yours would take; to-day the prayers of the state are assured, for there is
no danger that you will be seized by sudden forgetfulness of yourself. Over-much
prosperity, it is true, makes men greedy, and desires are never so well
controlled as to cease at the point of attainment; the ascent is from great to
greater, and men embrace the wildest hopes when once they have gained what they
did not hope for; and yet to-day your subjects one and all are constrained to
confess that they are happy, and, too, that nothing further can be added to
their blessings, except that these may last. Many facts force them to this
confession, which more than any other a man is loath to make: a security deep
and abounding, and justice enthroned above all injustice; before their eyes
hovers the fairest vision of a state which lacks no element of complete liberty
except the license of self-destruction. Above all, however, alike to the highest
and the lowest, extends the same admiration for your quality of mercy; for
although of other blessings each one experiences or expects a larger or smaller
measure in proportion to his lot, yet from mercy men all hope to have the same;
nor is there any man so wholly satisfied with his own innocence as not to
rejoice that mercy stands in sight, waiting for human errors.
I know, however, that there are
some who think that mercy upholds the worst class of men, since it is
superfluous unless there has been some crime, and since it alone of all the
virtues finds no exercise among the guiltless. But, first of all, just as
medicine is used by the sick, yet is held in honour by the healthy, so with
mercy - though it is those who deserve punishment that invoke it, yet even the
guiltless cherish it. Again, this virtue has scope even in the person of the
guiltless, because at times fortune takes the place of guilt; and not only does
mercy come to the rescue of innocence, but often of righteousness also, inasmuch
as, from the state of the times, there arise certain acts which, while praised,
may yet be punished. Then, too, there are a great many people who might be
turned back to the path of virtue if [they are released from punishment].
Nevertheless, pardoning ought not to be too common; for when the distinction
between the bad and the good is removed, the result is confusion and an epidemic
of Stoicism produced many " who were high-minded, yet futile, opponents of
imperial rule. Therefore a wise moderation should be exercised which will be
capable of distinguishing between curable and hopeless characters. Neither
should we have indiscriminate and general mercy, nor yet preclude it; for it is
as much a cruelty to pardon all as to pardon none. We should maintain the mean;
but since a perfect balance is difficult, if anything is to disturb the
equipoise it should turn the scale toward the kindlier side.
But these matters will be more
fitly discussed in their proper place. Here I shall divide this subject as a
whole into three parts. The first will treat of the remission of punishment; the
second will aim to show the nature and aspect of mercy; for since there are
certain vices which counterfeit virtues, they cannot be separated unless you
stamp them with marks by which they may be known apart. In the third place I
shall inquire how the mind is led to adopt this virtue, and how it establishes
it and by practice makes it its own. That no one of all the virtues is more
seemly for a man, since none is more human, is a necessary conviction not only
for those of us who maintain that man is a social creature, begotten for the
common good, but also for those who give man over to pleasure, whose words and
deeds all look to their own advantage. For if a man seeks calm and quiet, he
finds this virtue, which loves peace and stays the hand, forthwith suited to his
bent. Yet of all men none is better graced by mercy than a king or a prince. For
great power confers grace and glory only when it is potent for benefit; it is
surely a baneful might that is strong only for harm. He alone has firm and
well-grounded greatness whom all men know to be as much their friend as he is
their superior; whose concern they daily find to be vigilant for the safety of
each and all; upon whose approach they do not flee as if some monster or deadly
beast had leaped from his lair, but rush eagerly forward as toward a bright and
beneficent star. In his defence they are ready on the instant to throw
themselves before the swords of assassins, and to lay their bodies beneath his
feet if his path to safety must be paved with slaughtered men; his sleep they
guard by nightly vigils, his person they defend with an encircling barrier,
against assailing dangers they make themselves a rampart. Not without reason do
cities and peoples show this accord in giving such protection and love to their
kings, and in flinging themselves and all they have into the breach whenever the
safety of their ruler craves it. Nor is it self-depreciation or madness when
many thousands meet the steel for the sake of one man, and with many deaths
ransom the single life, it may be, of a feeble dotard.
The whole body is the servant of
the mind, and though the former is so much larger and so much more showy, while
the unsubstantial soul remains invisible not knowing where its secret habitation
lies, yet the hands, the feet, and the eyes are in its employ; the outer skin is
its defence; at its bidding we lie idle, or restlessly run to and fro; when it
commands, if it is a grasping tyrant, we search the sea for gain; if covetous of
fame, ere now we have thrust a right hand into the flame, or plunged willingly
into a chasm. In the same way this vast throng, encircling the life of one man,
is ruled by his spirit, guided by his reason, and would crush and cripple itself
with its own power if it were not upheld by wisdom.
It is, therefore, their own safety
that men love, when for one man they lead ten legions at a time into battle when
they rush to the forefront and expose their breasts to wounds that they may save
the standards of their emperor from defeat. For he is the bond by which the
commonwealth is united, the breath of life which these many thousands draw, who
in their own strength would be only a burden to themselves and the prey of
others if the great mind of the empire should be withdrawn.
If safe their king, one mind to
all;
Bereft of him, they troth recall.
Such a calamity would be the
destruction of the Roman peace, such a calamity will force the fortune of a
mighty people to its downfall. Just so long will this people be free from that
danger as it shall know how to submit to the rein; but if ever it shall tear
away the rein, or shall not suffer it to be replaced if shaken loose by some
mishap, then this unity and this fabric of mightiest empire will fly into many
parts, and the end of this city's rule will be one with the end of her
obedience. Therefore it is not strange that kings and princes and guardians of
the public order, whatever different name they bear, are held more dear even
than those bound to us by private ties; for if men of sense put public interest
above private, it follows that he too is dearer upon whom the whole state
centres. At an earlier day, in fact, Caesar so clothed himself with the powers
of state that neither one could be withdrawn without the destruction of both.
For while a Caesar needs power, the state also needs a head.
My discourse seems to have
withdrawn somewhat far from its purpose, but, in very truth, it bears closely
upon the real issue. For if - and this is what thus far it is establishing - you
are the soul of the state and the state your body, you see, I think, how
requisite is mercy; for you are merciful to yourself when you are seemingly
merciful to another. And so even reprobate citizens should have mercy as being
the weak members of the body, and if there should ever be need to let blood, the
hand must be held under control to keep it from cutting deeper than may be
necessary. The quality of mercy, then, as I was saying, is indeed for all men in
accordance with nature, but in rulers it has an especial comeliness inasmuch as
with them it finds more to save, and exhibits itself amid ampler opportunities.
For how small the harm the cruelty of a private citizen can do! But when princes
rage there is war. Though, moreover, the virtues are at harmony with each other,
and no one of them is better or more noble than another, yet to certain people a
certain virtue will be more suited. Greatness of soul is a virtue that is seemly
for every human being, even for him who is the lowliest of the lowly.
For what is greater or braver than to beat down
misfortune? Yet thls greatness of soul has freer play under circumstances of
good fortune, and is shown to better advantage upon the judge's bench than on
the floor.
Every house that mercy enters she
will render peaceful and happy, but in the palace she is more wonderful, in that
she is rarer. For what is more remarkable than that he whose anger nothing can
withstand, to whose sentence, too heavy though it be, even the victims bow the
head, whom, if he is very greatly incensed, no one will venture to gainsay, nay,
even to entreat -that this man should lay a restraining hand upon himself, and
use his power to better and more peaceful ends when he reflects, "Any one can
violate the law to kill, none but I, to save"? A lofty spirit befits a lofty
station, and if it does not rise to thxe lhevel of its station and even stand
above it, the other, too, is dragged downward to the ground. Moreover, the
peculiar marks of a lofty spirit are mildness and composure, and the lofty
disregard of injustice and wrongs. It is for women to rage in anger, for wild
beasts doubtless - and yet not even the noble sort of these - to bite and worry
their prostrate victims. Elephants and lions pass by what they have stricken
down; it is the ignoble beast that is relentless. Cruel and inexorable anger is
not seemly for a king, for thus he does not rise much above the other man,
toward whose own level he descends by being angry at him. But if he grants life,
if he grants position to those who have imperilled and deserve to lose them, he
does what none but a sovereign may; for one may take the life even of a
superior, but not give it ever except to an inferior. To save life is the
peculiar privilege of exalted station, which never has a right to greater
admiration than when it has the good fortune to have the same power as the gods,
by whose kindness we all, the evil as well as the good, are brought forth into
the light. Let a prince, therefore, appropriating to himself the spirit of the
gods, look with pleasure upon one class of his citizens because they are useful
and good; others let him leave to make up the count; let him be glad that some
of them live, some let him merely endure.
Consider this city, in which the
throng that streams ceaselessly through its widest streets is crushed to pieces
whenever anything gets in the way to check its course as it streams like a
rushing torrent, this city in which the seating space of three theatres is
required at one time, in which is consumed all the produce of the plough from
every land; consider how great would be the loneliness and the desolation of it
if none should be left but those whom a strict judge would acquit. How few
prosecutors there are who would escape conviction under the very law which they
cite for the prosecution; how few accusers are free from blame. And, I am
inclined to think, no one is more reluctant to grant pardon than he who again
and again has had reason to seek it. We have all sinned, some in serious, some
in trivial things; some from deliberate intention some by chance impulse, or
because we were led astray by the wickedness of others; some of us have not
stood strongly enough by good resolutions, and have lost our innocence against
our will and though still clinging to it; and not only have we done wrong, but
we shall go on doing wrong to the very end of life. Even if there is any one who
has so thoroughly cleansed his mind that nothing can any more confound him and
betray him, yet it is by sinning that he has reached the sinless state.
Since I have made mention of the gods, I shall do very
well to establish this as the standard after which a prince should model himself
-that he should wish so to be to his subjects, as he would wish the gods to be
to himself. Is it, then, desirable to have deities that cannot be moved to show
mercy to our sins and mistakes? Is it desirable to have them our enemies even to
the point of our complete destruction? And, of the ideal wise man of the Stoics,
so rarely produced. The doctrine that virtue is not merely the greatest but the
only good allowed no gradation of goodness or badness, and frankly recognized
the almost universal depravity of mankind. Seneca, with his humane tendencies
gives passionate emphasis to this belief making it the basis of a plea for mercy
and kindness. What king will escape the danger of having the soothsayers
gather up his riven limbs? But if the gods, merciful and just, do not instantly
avenge with the thunderbolt the shortcomings of the mighty, how much more just
is it for a man, set over men, to exercise his power in gentle spirit and to ask
himself which condition of the world is more pleasing to the eye and more lovely
- when the day is calm and clear, or when all nature quakes with crash upon
crash of thunder, and hither and yonder the lightnings flash? And yet the aspect
of a quiet and well- ordered empire is not different from that of a calm and
shining sky. A reign that is cruel is stormy and overcast with gloom, and, while
men tremble and grow pale at the sudden uproar, even he who is the cause of all
the turmoil does not fail to shudder. One in private life, if he stubbornly
seeks revenge, is more easily pardoned; for it is possible for him to receive
an injury, and his resentment springs from a sense of wrong; besides, he is
afraid of being scorned, and, when one is injured, the failure to make requital
seems a show of weakness, not of mercy. But the man for whom vengeance is easy,
by disregarding it, gains assured praise for clemency. Those placed in lowly
station are more free to use force, to quarrel, to rush into a brawl, and to
indulge their wrath; when the odds are matched, blows fall light; but in a king,
even loud speech and unbridled words ill accord with his majesty. You think that
it is a serious matter to deprive kings of the right of free speech, which
belongs to the humblest man. "That," you say, "is servitude, not sovereignty."
What? are you not aware that the sovereignty is ours, the servitude yours?
Far different is the position of those who escape notice in a crowd that they do
not overtop, whose virtues must struggle long in order to be seen, whose vices
keep under the cover of obscurity; but the words and deeds of such as you are
caught up by rumour, and, consequently, none should be more concerned about the
character of their reputation than those who, no matter what reputation they may
deserve, are sure to have a great one. How many things there are which you may
not do, which we, thanks to you, may do! It is possible for me to walk alone
without fear in any part of the city I please, though no companion attends me,
though I have no sword at my house, none at my side; you, amid the peace you
create, must live armed. You cannot escape from your lot; it besets you, and,
whenever you leave the heights, it pursues you with its magnificence. In this
lies the servitude of supreme greatness - that it cannot become less great; but
you share with the gods that inevitable condition. For even they are held in
bondage by heaven, and it is no more lawful for them to leave the heights than
it is safe for you; you are nailed to your pinnacle. Our movements are noticed
by few; we may come forth and retire and change our dress without the world
being aware; you can no more hide yourself than the sun. A flood of light
surrounds you; towards it every one turns his eyes. Think you to "come forth"?
Nay, you rise. You cannot speak but that all the nations of the earth hear your
voice; you cannot be angry without causing everything to tremble, because you
cannot strike any one down without shaking all that is around him. As the
lightning's stroke is dangerous for the few, though feared by all, so the
punishment born of great power I causes wider terror than harm, and not without
reason; for when the doer is omnipotent, men consider not how much he has done,
but how much he is likely to do. Consider, too, that whereas private citizens,
by enduring the wrongs already received, lie more open to receiving others, yet
kings by clemency gain a security more assured, because repeated punishment,
while it crushes the hatred of a few, stirs the hatred of all. The inclination
to vent one's rage should be less strong than the provocation for it; otherwise,
just as trees that have been trimmed throw out again countless branches, and as
many kinds of plants are cut back to make them grow thicker, so the cruelty of a
king by removing his enemies increases their number; for the parents and
children of those who have been killed, their relatives too and their friends,
step into the place of each single victim.
By an example from your own family
I wish to -remind you how true this is. The deified Augustus was a mild prince
if one should undertake to judge him from the time of his principate; but when
he shared the state with others, he wielded the sword.
When he was at your present age, having just passed his
eighteenth year, he had already buried his dagger in the bosom of friends; he
had already in stealth aimed a blow at the side of the consul, Mark Antony; he
had already been a partner in proscription. But when he had passed his fortieth
year and was staying in Gaul, the information was brought to him that Lucius
Cinna a dull-witted man, was concocting a plot against him. He was told where
Cornelius Cinna, son-in-law of Pompey, was the father of the conspirator, and
when and how he meant to attack him; one of the accomplices gave the
information. Augustus resolved to revenge himself upon the fellow, and ordered a
council of his friends to be called. He spent a restless night, reflecting that
it was a young man of noble birth, blameless but for this act, the grandson of
Gnaeus Pompeius, who was to be condemned. He could not now bear to kill one man,
he to whom Mark Antony had dictated the edict of proscription while they dined.
He moaned, and now and then would burst forth into fitful and inconsistent
speech: "What then? shall I let my murderer walk about in unconcern while I am
filled with fear? What! Shall he not pay the penalty who, sought in vain as my
life has been in so many civil wars, saved unhurt in so many battles of fleets
and armies, now that peace prevails on land and sea, is determining not to
murder but to immolate me?" (for the plan was to attack him while offering
sacrifice). Again, after an interval of silence, in louder tone he would express
much greater indignation at himself than at Cinna: "Why do you live on if so
many are concerned to have you die? What end will there be of punishments, and
of bloodshed? I am the obvious victim for whom young men of noble birth should
whet their swords. If so many must perish in order that I may not, my life is
not worth the price." At length Livia, his wife, broke in and said: "Will you
take a woman's advice? Follow the practice of physicians, who when the usual
remedies do not work try just the opposite. So far you have accomplished nothing
by severity. Salvidienus was followed by Lepidus, Lepidus by Murena, Murena by
Caepio, Caepio by Egnatius,, to say nothing of the others whose monstrous daring
makes one ashamed. Try now how mercy will work: pardon Lucius Cinna. He has been
arrested; now he cannot do you harm, but he can help your reputation." Happy to
have found a supporter, he thanked his wife, then ordered that the request to
the friends who had been asked to the conference be at once countermanded, and
summoned only Cinna to his presence. Having sent every one else from the room,
he ordered a second chair to be placed for Cinna and said: "My first request of
you is, that you will not interrupt me while I am talking, that you will not in
the course of my words utter a protest; you will be given free opportunity to
speak. Cinna, though I found you in the camp of the enemy, not made, but born,
my deadly foe, I saved you, I allowed you to keep the whole of your father's
estate. Today you are so prosperous, so rich, that your conquerors envy you, the
conquered. When you sought holy office, I gave it to you, passing over many
whose fathers had fought under me. Though such is the service that I have done
you, you have determined to kill me." When at these words Cinna cried out that
he was far from such madness, he said: "You are not keeping faith, Cinna; it was
agreed that you were not to interrupt. You are making ready, I say, to kill me."
He mentioned, further, the place, his confederates, the plan of the plot, the
one who had been entrusted with the dagger. And when he saw that Cinna had
dropped his eyes, silent now, not because of his compact, but because of his
conscience, he said: "What is your purpose in this? Is it that you yourself may
become the prince? On my word,the Roman people are hard put to it if nothing
stands in the way of your ruling except me. You cannot guard your own house;
just lately the influence of a mere freedman defeated you in a private suit;
plainly, nothing can be easier for you than to take action against Caesar! Tell
me, if I alone block your hopes, will Paulus and Fabius Maximus and the Cossi
and the Servilii and the great line of nobles, who are not the representatives
of empty names, but add distinction to their pedigree - will these put up with
you?" Not to fill up a great part of my book in repeating all his words -for he
is known to have talked more than two hours, lengthening out this ordeal with
which alone he intended to be content - at last he said: "Cinna, a second time I
grant you your life; the first time you were an open enemy, now, a plotter and a
parricide. From this day let there be a beginning of friendship between us; let
us put to the test which one of us acts in better faith - I in granting you your
life, or you in owing it to me." Later he, unsolicited, bestowed upon him the
consulship, chiding him because he did not boldly stand for the office. He found
Cinna most friendly and loyal, and became his sole heir. No one plotted against
him further.
Your great-great-grandfather
spared the vanquished; for if he had not spared them, whom would he have had to
rule? Sallustius and a Cocceius and a Deillius and the whole inner circle of his
court he recruited from the camp of his opponents; and now it was his own
mercifulness that gave him a Domitius, a Messala, an Asinius, a Cicero, and all
the flower of the state. What a long time was granted even Lepidus to die! For
many years he suffered him to retain the insignia of a ruler, and only after the
other's death did he permit the office of chief pontiff to be transferred to
himself; for he preferred to have it called an honour rather than a spoil. This
mercifulness led him on to safety and security, this made him popular and
beloved, although the necks of the Roman people had not yet been humbled when he
laid hand upon them; and today this preserves for him a reputation which is
scareely within the power of rulers even while they live. A god we believe him
to be, but not because we are bidden; that Augustus was a good prince, that he
well deserved the name of father, this we confess for no other reason than
because he did not avenge with cruelty even the personal insults which usually
sting a prince more than wrongs, because when he was the victim of lampoons he
smiled, because he seemed to suffer punishment when he was exacting it, because
he was so far from killing the various men whom he had convicted of intriguing
with his daughter that he banished them for their greater safety, and gave them
their credentials. Not merely to grant deliverance, but to guarantee it, when
you know that there will be many to take up your quarrel and do you the favour
of shedding an enemy's blood - this is really to forgive. Such was Augustus when
he was old, or just upon the verge of old age. In youth he was hot-headed,
flared up with anger, and did many things which he looked back upon with regret.
To compare the mildness of the deified Augustus with yours no one will dare,
even if the years of youth shall be brought into competition with an old age
that was more than ripe. Granted that he was restrained and merciful -yes, to be
sure, but it was after Actium's waters had been stained a with Roman blood,
after his own and an enemy's fleet had been wrecked off Sicily, after the
holocaust of Perusia and the proscriptions. I, surely, do not call weariness of
cruelty mercy. True mercy, Caesar, is this which you display, which arises from
no regret for violence, that bears no stain and never shed a compatriot's blood.
In a position of unlimited power this is in the truest sense self-control and an
all-embracing love of the human race even as of oneself - not to be perverted by
any low desire, or by hastiness of nature, or by the precedent of earlier
princes into testing by experiment what licence one may employ against
fellow-citizens, but rather to dull the edge of supreme power. Your gift,
Caesar, is a state unstained by blood, and your prideful boast that in the whole
world you have shed not a drop of human blood is the more significant and
wonderful because no one ever had the sword put into his hands at an earlier
age.
Mercy, then, makes rulers not only
more honoured, but safer, and is at the same time the glory of sovereign power
and its surest protection. For why is it that kings have grown old and have
handed on their thrones to children and grandchildren, while tyrants' sway is
accursed and short? What difference is there between a tyrant and a king (for
they are alike in the mere outward show of fortune and extent of power), except
that tyrants are cruel to serve their pleasure, kings only for a reason and by
necessity? "What then?" you say; "do not kings also often kill?" Yes, but only
when they are induced to do so for the good of the state. Tyrants take delight
in cruelty. But the difference between a tyrant and a king is one of deeds, not
of name; for while the elder Dionysius a may justly and deservedly be counted
better than many kings, what keeps Lucius Sulla from being styled a tyrant,
whose killing was stopped only by a dearth of foes? Though he abdicated the
dictatorship and returned to private life, yet what tyrant ever drank so
greedily of human blood as he, who ordered seven thousand Roman citizens to be
butchered at one time, and who, as he sat nearby at the temple of Bellona and
heard the mingled cry of the many thousands moaning beneath the sword, said to
the terror-stricken senate, "Let us attend to business, Gentlemen of the Senate;
only a few seditious persons are being killed by my order"? This was no lie; to
Sulla they seemed a few. But more about Sulla by and by, when we shall take up
the question of the sort of anger we should have for enemies, particularly if
fellow-countrymen have broken away from the body politic and passed over into
the category of enemies. Meanwhile, as I was saying, it is mercy that makes the
distinction between a king and a tyrant as great as it is, though both are
equally fenced about with arms; but the one uses the arms which he has to
fortify good-will, the other to curb great hatred by great fear, and yet the
very hands to which he has entrusted himself he cannot view without concern.
Conflicting causes force him to conflicting courses; for since he is hated
because he is feared, he wishes to be feared because he is hated, and not
knowing what frenzy is engendered when hatred grows too great, he takes as a
motto that accursed verse which has driven many to their fall:
Let them hate, if only they fear.
Now fear in moderation restrains
men's passions, but the fear that is constant and sharp and brings desperation
arouses the sluggish to boldness, and urges them to stop at nothing. In the same
way, a string of feathers may keep wild beasts hemmed in, but let a horseman
come upon them from behind with javelins, and they will try to escape through
the very objects that had made them run, and will trample down their fear. No
courage is so bold as that forced by utter desperation. Fear should leave some
sense of security, and hold out much more of hope than of peril; otherwise, if
an inoffensive man is made to fear the same peril as others, he takes pleasure
in rushing into peril and making an end of a life that is forfeit.
A king that is peaceable and
gentle finds his guards trusty, since he employs them for the common safety, and
the soldier, seeing that he is giving his service for the security of the state,
is proud and willing to undergo any hardship as a protector of the father of his
country; but he that is harsh and bloodthirsty inevitably gets the ill-will of
his own henchmen. It is impossible for any one to hold the good-will and loyalty
of servitors whom he uses, like the rack and the axe, as instruments of torture
and death, to whom he flings men as he would to wild beasts; no prisoner at the
bar is so troubled and anxious as he, seeing that he is in fear of men and gods,
the witnesses and the avengers of crimes, yet has reached a point where he has
not the power to change his conduct. For added to all the rest, this is still
cruelty's greatest curse - that one must persist in it, and no return to better
things is open; for crime must be safeguarded by crime. But what creature
is more unhappy than the man who now cannot help being wicked? A wretch to be
pitied, at least by himself! for that others should pity him would be a crime -
a man who has utilized his power for murder and pillage, who has caused mistrust
of all his dealings whether at home or abroad, who resorts to the sword because
he fears the sword, who trusts neither the loyalty of friends nor the affection
of his children; who, when he has surveyed what he has done and what he intends
to do, and has laid bare his conscience burdened with crimes and torturings,
often fears to die but more often prays for death, more hateful as he is to
himself than to his servitors. On the other hand, he whose care embraces all,
who, while guarding here with greater vigilance, there with less, yet fosters
each and every part of the state as a portion of himself; who is inclined to the
milder course even if it would profit him to punish, showing thus how loath he
is to turn his hand to harsh correction; whose mind is free from all hostility,
from all brutality; who so covets the approbation of his countrymen upon his
acts as ruler that he wields his power with mildness and for their good; who
thinks himself aboundingly happy if he can make the public sharers in his own
good fortune; who is affable in speech, easy of approach and access, lovable in
countenance, which most of all wins the affection of the masses, well-disposed
to just petitions and even to the unjust not harsh - such a one the whole state
loves, defends, and reveres. What people say of such a man is the same in secret
as in public. They are eager to rear up sons, and the childlessness once imposed
by public ills is now relaxed; no one doubts that his children will have cause
to thank him for permitting them to see so happy an age. Such a prince,
protected by his own good deeds, needs no bodyguard; the arms he wears are for
adornment only. What, then, is his duty? It is that of the good parent who is
wont to reprove Ms children sometimes gently, sometimes with threats, who at
times admonishes them even by stripes. Does any father in his senses disinherit
a son for his first offence? Only when great and repeated wrong-doing has
overcome his patience, only when what he fears outweighs what he reprimands,
does he resort to the decisive penalty; but first he makes many an effort to
reclaim a character that is still unformed, though inclined now to the more evil
side; when the case is hopeless, he tries extreme measures. No one resorts to
the exaction of punishment until he has exhausted all the means of correction.
This is the duty of a father, and it is also the duty of a prince, whom not in
empty flattery we have been led to call "the Father of his Country." For other
designations have been granted merely by way of honour; some we have styled "the
Great," "the Fortunate," and "the August," and we have heaped upon pretentious
greatness all possible titles as a tribute to such men; but to "the Father of
his Country" we have given the name in order that he way know that he has been
entrusted with a father's power, which is most forbearing in its care for the
interests of his children and subordinates his own to theirs. Slow would a
father be to sever his own flesh and blood; aye, after severing he would yearn
to restore them, and while severing he would moan aloud, hesitating often and
long; for he comes near to condemning gladly who condemns swiftly, and to
punishing unjustly who punishes unduly.
Within my memory the people in the
forum stabbed Tricho, a Roman knight, with their writing-styles because he had
flogged his son to death; Augustus Caesar's authority barely rescued him from
the indignant hands of fathers no less than of sons. Tarius, on the other hand,
having detected his son in a plot against his life, when after investigating the
case he found him guilty, won the admiration of every one because, satisfying
himself with exile - and a luxurious exile - he detained the parricide at
Marseilles, furnishing him with the same liberal allowance that he had been in
the habit of giving him before his guilt; the effect of this generosity was
that, in a community where a villain never lacks a defender, no one doubted that
the accused man had been justly condemned, since the father who could not hate
him had found it possible to condemn him. I will now use this very case to show
you an example of a good prince with whom you may compare the good father. When
Tarius was ready to open the inquiry on his son, he invited Augustus Caesar to
attend the council; Augustus came to the hearth of a private citizen, sat beside
him, and took part in the deliberation of another household. He did not say,
"Rather, let the man come to my house"; for, if he had, the inquiry would have
been conducted by Caesar and not by the father. When the case had been heard and
all the evidence had been sifted - what the young fellow said in his defense,
and what was brought up in accusation against him Caesar requested each man to
give his verdict in writing, lest all should vote according to his lead. Then,
before the tablets were opened, he solemnly declared that he would accept no
bequest from Tarius, who was a rich man. Some will say, "He showed weakness in
fearing that he might seem to be trying to clear the field for his own prospects
by sentencing the son." I think differently; any one of us might well have had
enough faith in his own good conscience to withstand hostile criticism, but
princes are bound to give much heed even to report. He solemnly declared that he
would not accept a bequest. Tarius did indeed on one and the same day lose a
second heir also, but Caesar saved the integrity of his vote; and after he had
proved that his severity was disinterested - for a prince should always have
regard for this - he said that the son ought to be banished to whatever place
the father should decide. His sentence was not the sack, nor serpents, nor
prison, since his thought was not of the man on whom he was passing sentence,
but of him for whom he was acting as counsellor. He said that the mildest sort
of punishment ought to satisfy a father in the case of a son who was very
youthful and had been moved to commit this crime, but in committing it had shown
himself faint-hearted - which was next door to being innocent; therefore the son
should be banished from the city and from his father's sight. How worthy he was
of being asked by parents to share their counsels! How worthy of being recorded
a co-heir with the children who were innocent! This is the spirit of mercy that
graces the prince; wherever he goes he should make everything more peaceable.
In the eyes of a ruler let no man
count for so little that his destruction is not noted; be he what he may, he is
part of the realm. From the forms of lesser power let us draw a parallel for
great power. There is more than one kind of power, a prince has power over his
subjects, a father over his children, a teacher over his pupils, a tribune or a
centurion over his soldiers. Will he not seem the worst sort of father who
controls his children by constant whippings for even the most trifling offences?
And of teachers, which will reflect more credit upon the liberal studies - the
one who will draw the blood of his pupils if their memory is weak, or if the eye
is not quick and lags in reading, or the one who chooses rather by kind
admonition and a sense of shame to correct, and so to teach, his pupils? Show me
a tribune or centurion that is harsh; he will cause deserters, who all the same
are pardonable. Is it just, I ask, that man should be subjected to severer and
harsher rule than dumb beasts? And yet the horse is not plied with the lash and
terrified by the horse-breaker who is an expert; for it will grow fearful and
obstinate unless it is soothed with caressing hand. The same is true of the
hunter, whether he is teaching young dogs to follow the trail, or makes use of
those already trained for routing out the game or running it down: he neither
employs constant threats (for that will break their spirit, and all their native
qualities will be gradually lost in a timidity unworthy of their breed), nor
does he allow them to range and roam around without restraint. This applies
again to drivers of the more sluggish beasts of burden, which, though they are
born to abuse and misery, may be driven to refuse the yoke by too much cruelty.
No creature is more difficult of
temper, none needs to be handled with greater skill, than man, and to none
should more mercy be shown. For what is more senseless than to subject man to
the foulest treatment at the hands of man, while one will blush to vent his
anger on beasts of burden and dogs? Diseases do not make us angry - we try to
cure them; yet here too is a disease, but of the mind; it requires gentle
treatment, and one to treat it who is anything but hostile to his patient. It is
a poor physician that lacks faith in his ability to cure; and he who has been
entrusted with the life of all the people ought to act upon the same principle
in dealing with those whose mind is diseased; he ought not to be too quick to
give up hope or to pronounce the symptoms fatal; he should wrestle with their
troubles and stay them; some he should reproach with their malady, some he
should dupe by a sugared dose in order to make a quicker and a better cure by
using deceptive remedies; the aim of the prince should be not merely to restore
the health, but also to leave no shameful scar. No glory redounds to a ruler
from cruel punislinient - for who doubts his ability to give it? - but, on the
other hand, the greatest glory is his if he holds his power in check, if he
rescues many from the wrath of others, if he sacrifices none to his own.
It is praiseworthy to use
authority over slaves with moderation. Even in the case of i. human chattel you
should consider not how much he can be made to suffer without retaliating, but
how much you are permitted to inflict by the principles of equity and right,
which require that mercy should be shown even to captives and purchased slaves.
With how much more justice do they require that free,
free-born, and reputable men should not be treated as mere chattels, but as
those who, outstripped by you in rank, have been committed to your charge to be,
not your slaves, but your wards. Even slaves have the right of refuge at the
statue of a god; and although the law allows anything in dealing with a slave,
yet in dealing with a human being there is an extreme which the right common to
all living creatures refuses to allow. Who did not hate Vedius Pollio even more
than his own slaves did, because he would fattten his lampreys on human blood,
and order those who had for some reason incurred his displeasure to be thrown
into his fishpond - or why not say his snake-preserve? The monster! He deserved
to die a thousand deaths, whether he threw his slaves as food to lampreys he
meant to eat, or whether he kept lampreys only to feed them on such food!
Even as cruel masters are pointed
at with scorn throughout the whole city, and are hated and loathed, so with
kings; while the wrong they do extends more widely, the infamy and hatred which
they incur is handed down to the ages. But how much better not to have been born
than to be counted among those born to the public harm!
It will be impossible for one to
imagine anything more seemly for a ruler than the quality of mercy, no matter in
what manner or with what justice he has been set over other men. We shall admit,
of course, that this quality is the more beautiful and wonderful, the greater
the power under which it is displayed; and this power need not be harmful if it
is adjusted to Nature's law. For Nature herself conceived the idea of king, as
we may recognize from the case of bees and other creatures; the king of the bees
has the roomiest cell, placed in the central and safest spot; besides, he does
no work, but superintends the work of the others, and if they lose their king,
they all scatter; they never tolerate more than one at a time, and they discover
the best one by means of a fight; moreover the appearance of the king is
striking and different from that of the others both in size and beauty. His
greatest mark of distinction, however, lies in this: bees are most easily
provoked, and, for the size of their bodies, excellent fighters, and where they
wound they leave their stings; but the king himself has no sting. Nature did not
wish him to be cruel or to seek a revenge that would be so costly, and so she
removed his weapon, and left his anger unarmed.
Great kings will find herein a
mighty precedent; for it is Nature's way to exercise herself in small matters,
and to bestow the tiniest proofs of great principles. Shameful were it not to
draw a lesson from the ways of the tiny creatures, since, as the mind of man has
so much more power to do harm, it ought to show the greater self-control. Would
at least that a man were subject to the same law, and that his anger broke off
along with his weapon, and that he could not injure more than once or use the
strength of ethers to wreak his hatred; for he would soon grow weary of his rage
if he had no instrument to satisfy it but himself, and if by giving rein to his
violence he ran the risk of death. But even as it is, such a man has no safe
course; for he must fear as much as he wishes to be feared, must watch the hands
of every person, and count himself assailed even when no one is for laying hold
on him, and not a moment must he have that is free from dread. Would any one
endure to live such a life when, doing no harm to others and consequently
fearless, he might exercise beneficently his privilege of power to the happiness
of all? For if any one thinks that a king can abide in safety where nothing is
safe from the king, he is wrong; for the price of security is an interchange of
security. He has no need to rear on high his towering castles, or to wall about
steep hills against ascent, or to cut away the sides of mountains, or to
encircle himself with rows of walls and turrets; through mercy a king will be
assured of safety on an open plain. His one impregnable defence is the love of
his countrymen. And what is more glorious than to live a life which all men hope
may last, and for which all voice their prayers when there is none to watch
them? to excite men's fears, not their hopes, if one's health gives way a
little? to have no one hold anything so precious that he would not gladly give
it in exchange for his chieftain's safety? Oh, surely a man so fortunate would
owe it also to himself -to live; to that end he has shown by constant evidences
of his goodness, not that the state is his, but that he is the state's. Who
would dare to devise any danger for such a man? Who would not wish to shield him
if he could, even from the chance of ill - him beneath whose sway justice,
peace, chastity, security, and honour flourish, under whom the state abounds in
wealth and a store of all good things? Nor does it gaze upon its ruler with
other emotion than, did they vouchsafe his the power of beholding them, we
should gaze upon the immortal gods - with veneration and with worship. But tell
me: he who bears himself in a godlike manner, who is beneficent and generous and
uses his power for the better end - does he not hold a place second only to the
gods? It is well that this should be your aim, this your ideal: to be considered
the greatest man, only if at the same time you are considered the best.
A prince usually inflicts
punishment for one of two reasons, to avenge either himself or another. I shall
first discuss the situation in which he is personally concerned; for moderation
is more difficult when vengeance serves the end of anger rather than of
discipline. At this point it is needless to caution him to be slow in believing,
to ferret out the truth, to befriend innocence, and to remember that to prove
this is as much the business of the judge as of the man under trial; for all
this concerns justice, not mercy. What I now urge is that, although he has been
clearly injured, he should keep his feelings under control, and, if he can in
safety, should remit the punishment; if not, that he should modify it, and be
far more willing to forgive wrongs done to himself than to others. For just as
the magnanimous man is not be who makes free with what is another's, but he who
deprives himself of what he gives to some one else, so I shall not call him
merciful who is peaceable when the smart is another's, but him who, though the
spur galls himself, does not become restive, who understands that it is
magnanimous to brook injuries even where authority is supreme, and that there is
nothing more glorious than a prince who, though wronged, remains unavenged.
Vengeance accomplishes usually one of
two purposes: if a person has been injured, it gives him either a compensation
or immunity for the future. But a prince's fortune is too exalted for him to
feel the need of compensation, and his power is too evident to lead him to seek
a reputation for power by injury to another. That, I say, is so, when he has
been assailed and outraged by his inferiors; for in the case of foes whom he
once counted his equals, he has vengeance enough if he sees them beneath Ms
heel. A slave, a snake, or an arrow may slay even a king; but no one has saved a
life who was not greater than the one whom he saved. Consequently he who has the
power to give and to take away life ought to use this great gift of the gods in
a noble spirit. If he attains this mastery over those who, as he knows, once
occupied a pinnacle that matched his own, upon such especially he has already
sated his revenge and accomplished all that genuine punishment required; for
that man has lost his life who owes it to another, and whosoever, having been
cast down from high estate at his enemy's feet, has awaited the verdict of
another upon his life and throne, lives on to the glory of his preserver, and by
being saved confers more upon the other's name than if he had been removed from
the eyes of men. For he is a lasting spectacle of another's prowess; in a
triumph he could have passed quickly out of sight. If, however, it has been
possible in safety to leave also his throne in his possession, and to restore
him to the height from which he fell, the praise of him who was content to take
from a conquered king nothing but his glory will rise in increasing
greatness. This is to triumph even over his own victory, and to attest that he
found among the vanquished nothing that was worthy of the victor. To his
fellow-countrymen, to the obscure, and to the lowly he should show the greater
moderation, as he has the less to gain by crushing them. Some men we should be
glad to spare, on some we should scorn to be avenged, and we should recoil from
them as from the tiny insects which defile the hand that crushes them; but in
the case of those whose names will be upon the lips of the community, whether
they are spared or punished, the opportunity for a notable clemency should be
made use of. Let us, pass now to the injuries done to others, in the punishment
of which these three aims, which the law has had in view, should be kept in view
also by the prince: either to reform the man that is punished, or by punishing
him to make the rest better, or by removing bad men to let the rest live in
greater security. You will more easily reform the culprits themselves by the
lighter form of punishment; for he will live more guardedly who has something
left to lose. No one is sparing of a ruined reputation; it brings a sort of
exemption from punishment to have no room left for punishment. The morals of the
state, moreover, are better mended by the sparing use of punitive measures; for
sin becomes familiar from the multitude of those who sin, and the official
stigma is less weighty if its force is weakened by the very number that it
condemns, and severity, which provides the best corrective, loses its potency by
repeated application. Good morals are established in the state and vice is wiped
out if a prince is patient with vice, not as if he approved of it, but as if
unwillingly and with great pain he had resort to chastisement. The very
mercifulness of the ruler makes men shrink from doing wrong; the punishment
which a kindly man decrees seems all the more severe.
You will notice, besides, that the
sins repeatedly punished are the sins repeatedly committed. Your father within
five years had more men sewed up in the sack than, by all accounts, there had
been victims of the sack throughout all time. Children ventured much less often
to incur the supreme sin so long as the crime lay outside the pale of the law.
For by supreme wisdom the men of the highest distinction and of the deepest
insight into the ways of nature chose rather to ignore the outrage as one
incredible and passing the bounds of boldness, than by punishing it to point out
the possibility of its being done; and so the crime of parricide began with the
law against it, and punishment showed children the way to the deed; filial piety
was truly at its lowest ebb after the sack became a more common sight than the
cross. In that state in which men are rarely punished a sympathy for uprightness
is formed, and encouragement is given to this virtue as to a common good. Let a
state think itself blameless, and it will be so; its anger against those who
depart from the general sobriety will be greater if it sees that they are few.
Believe me, it is dangerous to show a state in how great a majority evil men
are. A proposal was once made in the senate to distinguish slaves from free men
by their dress; it then became apparent how great would be the impending danger
if our slaves should begin to count our number. Be sure that we have a like
danger to fear if no man's guilt is pardoned; it will soon become apparent how
greatly the worse element of the state preponderates. Numerous executions are
not less discreditable to a prince than are numerous funerals to a physician;
the more indulgent the ruler, the better he is obeyed. Man's spirit is by nature
refractory, it struggles against opposition and difficulty, and is more ready to
follow than to be led; and as well-bred and high-spirited horses are better
managed by a loose rein, so a voluntary uprightness follows upon mercy under its
own impulse, and the state accounts it worthy to be maintained for the state's
own sake. By this course, therefore, more good is accomplished.
Cruelty is an evil thing befitting
least of all a man, and is unworthy of his spirit that is so kindly; for one to
take delight in blood and wounds and, throwing off the man, to change into a
creature of the woods, is the madness of a wild beast. For what difference does
it make, I beg of you, Alexander, whether you throw Lysimachus to a lion, or
yourself tear lion to pieces with your teeth? That lion's maw is yours, and
yours its savagery. How pleased you would have been had its claws been yours
instead, and yours those gaping jaws, big enough to swallow men! We do not
require of you that that hand of yours, the surest destruction of familiar
friends, should save the life of any man, that your savage spirit, the insatiate
curse of nations, should sate itself with anything short of blood and slaughter;
we call it now a mercy if to kill a friend the butcher is chosen among mankind.
The reason why brutality is most of all abhorred is this: because it
transgresses first all ordinary, and then all human, bounds, searches out new
kinds of torture, calls ingenuity into play to invent devices by which suffering
may be varied and prolonged, and takes delight in the afflictions of mankind;
then indeed the dread disease of that man's mind has reached the farthest limit
of insanity, when cruelty has changed into pleasure and to kill a human being
now becomes a joy. Hot upon the heels of such a man follow loathing, hatred,
poison, and the sword; he is assailed by as many perils as there are many men to
whom he is himself a peril, and he is beset sometimes by the plots of
individuals, at times, indeed, by an uprising of the community. For whole cities
are not roused by the trivial, destruction of single individuals; but that which
begins to rage widespread and aims at all becomes the mark of every weapon. Tiny
snakes pass unnoticed and no organized hunt is made for them; but when one
exceeds the usual size and grows into a monster, when it poisons springs with
its venom, with its breath scorches and destroys, then, wherever it advances, it
is attacked with engines of war. Petty evils may elude us and escape, but we go
out against the great ones. So, too, one sick person causes no confusion even in
his own household; but when repeated deaths show that a plague prevails, there
is a general outcry and flight of the community, and threatening hands are
lifted toward the gods themselves. If a fire is discovered beneath some single
roof, the family and the neighbours pour on water; but a widespread
conflagration that has now consumed many homes is put down only by the
destruction of half the city. The cruelty even of men in private station has
been avenged by the hands of slaves despite their certain risk of crucifixion;
nations and peoples have set to work to extirpate the cruelty of tyrants, when
some were suffering from it and others felt its menace. At times the tyrants'
own guards have risen up against them, and have practised upon their persons the
treachery and disloyalty and brutality and all else that they themselves had
taught them. For what can any one expect from him whom he himself has taught to
be bad? Wickedness is not obsequious long, nor guilty of crime only to the
extent that it is bid. But suppose that cruel rule is safe, what sort of a
kingdom has it? Nothing but the bare outlines of captured cities and the
terror-stricken countenances of widespread fear. Everywhere is sorrow, panic,
and disorder; even pleasures give rise to fear; men are not safe when they go to
the festal board, for there the tongue even of the drunkard must award itself
with ears, nor to the public shows where the material is sought for accusation
and ruin. Provided though they are at huge expense, in regal opulence, and with
artists of the choicest reputation, yet whom would games delight in prison?
Ye gods! what curse is this - to kill, to rage, to take delight in the clank of chains and in cutting off the heads of fellow- countrymen, to spill streams of blood wherever one may go and by one's appearance to terrify and repel? What else would living be if lions and bears held sway, if serpents and all the creatures that are most destructive were given supremacy over us?
These, devoid of reason and doomed to death by us on the
plea of their ferocity, yet spare their kind, and even among wild beasts
likeness forms a safeguard; but tyrants do not withhold their fury even from
their kin, strangers and friends are treated just alike, and the more they
indulge their fury, the more violent it becomes. Then from the murder of one and
again another it creeps on to the wiping out of nations, and to hurl the
firebrand on the roofs of houses and to drive the plough over ancient cities are
considered a sign of power, and to order the killing of one or two is believed
to be too small a show of royal might; unless at one time a herd of poor
wretches stands beneath the blade, rage counts its cruelty forced under control.
True happiness consists in giving
safety to many in calling back to life from the very verge of death, and in
earning the civic crown by showing mercy. No decoration is more worthy of the
eminence of a prince or more beautiful than that crown bestowed for saving the
lives of fellow-citizens; not trophies torn from a vanquished enemy, nor
chariots stained with barbarian blood, nor spoils acquired in war. To save life
by crowds and universally, this is a godlike use of power; but to kill in
multitudes and without distinction is the power of conflagration and of ruin.
BOOK II
I HAVE been especially induced to write on mercy by a
single utterance of yours, Nero Caesar, which I remember, when it was made, I
heard not without admiration and afterwards repeated to others - a noble,
high-minded utterance, showing great gentleness, which unpremeditated and not
intended for others' ears suddenly burst from you, and brought into the open
your kind-heartedness chafing against your lot. Burrus, your prefect, a rare
man, born to serve a prince like you, was about to execute two brigands, and was
bringing pressure upon you to record their names and the reasons why you wished
their execution; this, often deferred, he was insisting should at last be done.
He was reluctant, you were reluctant, and, when he had produced the paper and
was handing it to you, you exclaimed, "Would that I had not learned to write."
What an utterance! All nations should have heard it - those who dwell within the
Roman empire, and those on its borders who are scarcely assured of their
liberty, and those who through strength or courage rise up against it. What an
utterance! It should have been spoken before a gathering of all mankind, that
unto it princes and kings might pledge allegiance. What an utterance! Worthy of
the universal innocence of mankind, in favour whereof that long past age should
be renewed. Now assuredly it were fitting that men, thrusting out covetousness
from which springs every evil of the heart, should conspire for righteousness
and goodness, that piety and uprightness along with honour and temperance should
rise again, and that vice, having misused its long reign, should at length give
place to an age of happiness and purity.
We are pleased to hope and trust,
Caesar, that in large measure this will happen. That kindness of your heart will
be recounted, will be diffused little by little throughout the whole body of the
empire, and all things will be moulded into your likeness. It is from the head
that comes the health of the body; it is through it that all the parts are
lively and alert or languid and drooping according as their animating spirit has
life or withers. There will be citizens, there will be allies worthy of this
goodness, and uprightness will return to the whole world; your hands will
everywhere be spared. Permit me to linger longer on this point, but not merely
to please your ears; for that is not my way. I would rather offend with
the truth than please by
flattery. What then is my reason? Besides wishing you
to be as familiar as possible with your own good deeds and words in order that
what is now a natural impulse may become a principle, I reflect upon this, that
many striking but odious sayings have made their entry into human life and are
bandied about as famous; as for example, "Let them hate if only they fear," and
the Greek verse similar to it, in which a man would have the earth convulsed
with flame when once he is dead, and others of this type. And somehow or other
gifted men when dealing with a cruel and hateful theme have moulded violent and
passionate thoughts into more felicitous phrase; never before have I heard from
good and gentle lips an utterance that was full of spirit. What then is the
conclusion? Though it be seldom, against your will, and after great reluctance,
yet there are times when you must write the sort of thing that made you hate all
writing, but you must do it, as you now do, after great reluctance, after much
procrastination. And in order that we may not perchance be deceived at times by
the plausible name of mercy and led into an opposite quality,a/ let us see what
mercy is, what is its nature, and what its limitations.
Mercy means restraining the mind
from vengeance when it has the power to take it, or the leniency of a superior
towards an inferior in fixing punishment. In the fear that one definition may
not be comprehensive enough, and, so to speak, the case be lost, it is safer to
offer several; and so mercy may also be termed the inclination of the mind
towards leniency in exacting punishment. The following definition will encounter
objections, however closely it approaches the truth; if we shall say that mercy
is the moderation which remits something from the punishment that is deserved
and due, it will be objected that no virtue gives to any man less than his due.
Everybody, however, understands that the fact of the case is that mercy consists
in stopping short of what might have been deservedly proposed.
The ill-informed think that its
opposite is strictness; but no virtue is the opposite of a virtue. What then is
set over against mercy? It is cruelty, which is nothing else than harshness of
mind in exacting punishment. "But," you say, "there are some who do not exact
punishment, and yet are cruel, such as those who kill the strangers they meet,
not for the sake of gain, but for the sake of killing, and, not content with
killing, they torture, as the notorious Busiris and Procrustes, and the pirates
who lash their captives and commit them to the flames alive." This indeed is
cruelty; but because it does not result from vengeance - for no injury was
suffered and no sin stirs its wrath - for no crime preceded it - it falls
outside of our definition; for by the definition the mental excess was limited
to the exaction of punishment. That which finds pleasure in torture we may say
is not cruelty, but savagery - we may even call it madness; for there are
various kinds of madness, and none is more unmistakable than that which reaches
the point of murdering and mutilating men. Those, then, that I shall call cruel
are those who have a reason for punishing, but do not have moderation in it,
like Phalaris, who, they say, tortured men, even though they were not innocent,
in a manner that was inhuman and incredible. Avoiding sophistry we may define
cruelty to be the inclination of the mind toward the side of harshness. This
quality mercy repels and bids it stand afar from her; with strictness she is in
harmony.
At this point it is pertinent to
ask what pity is. For many commend it as a virtue, and call a pitiful man good.
But this too is a mental defect. We ought to avoid both, closely related as they
are to strictness and to mercy. For under the guise of strictness we fall into
cruelty, under the guise of mercy into pity. In the latter case a lighter risk
is involved, it is true, but the error is equal in both, since in both we fall
short of what is right. Consequently, just as religion does honour to the gods,
while superstition wrongs them, so good men will all display mercy and
gentleness, but pity they will avoid; for it is the failing of a weak nature
that succumbs to the sight of others' ills. And so it is most often seen in the
poorest types of persons; there are old women and wretched females who are moved
by the tears of the worst criminals, who, if they could, would break open their
prison. Pity regards the plight, not the cause of it; mercy is combined with
reason.
I am aware that among the
ill-informed the Stoic school is unpopular on the ground that it is excessively
harsh and not at all likely to give good counsel to princes and kings; the
criticism is made that it does not permit a wise man to be pitiful, does not
permit him to pardon. Such doctrine, if stated in the abstract, is hateful; for,
seemingly, no hope is left to human error, but all failures are brought to
punishment. And if this is so, what kind of a theory is it that bids us unlearn
the lesson of humanity, and closes the surest refuge against ill- fortune, the
haven of mutual help? But the fact is, no school is more kindly and gentle, none
more full of love to man and more concerned for the common good, so that it is
its avowed object to be of service and assistance, and to regard not merely
self- interest, but the interest of each and all. Pity is the sorrow of the mind
brought about by the sight of the distress of others, or sadness caused by the
ills of others which it believes come undeservedly. But no sorrow befalls the
wise man; his mind is serene, and nothing can happen to becloud it. Nothing,
too, so much befits a man as superiority of mind; but the mind cannot at the
same time be superior and sad. Sorrow blunts its powers, dissipates and hampers
them; this will not happen to a wise man even in the case of personal calamity,
but he will beat back all the rage of fortune and crush it first; he will
maintain always the same calm, unshaken appearance, and he could not do this if
he were accessible to sadness.
Consider, further, that the wise
man uses foresight, and keeps in readiness a plan of action; but what comes from
a troubled source is never clear and pure. Sorrow is not adapted to the
discernment of fact, to the discovery of expedients, to the avoidance of
dangers, or the weighing of justice; he, consequently, will not suffer pity,
because there cannot be pity without mental suffering. All else which I would
have those who feel pity do, he will do gladly and with a lofty spirit; he will
bring relief to another's tears, but will not add his own; to the shipwrecked
man he will give a hand, to the exile shelter, to the needy alms; he will not do
as most of those who wish to be thought pitiful do - fling insultingly their
alms, and scorn those whom they help and shrink from contact with them - but he
will give as a man to his fellow-man out of the common store; he will grant to a
mother's tears the life of her son, the captive's chains he will order to be
broken, he will release the gladiator from his training, he will bury the
carcass even of a criminal, but he will do these things with unruffled mind, and
a countenance under control. The wise man, therefore, will not pity, but will
succour, will benefit, and since he is born to be of help to all and to serve
the common good, he will give to each his share thereof. He will extend a due
measure of his goodness even to the unfortunates who deserve to be censured and
disciplined; but much more gladly will he come to the rescue of the distressed
and those struggling with mishap. Whenever he can, he will parry Fortune's
stroke; for in what way will he make better use of his resources or his strength
than in restoring what chance has overthrown? And, too, he will not avert his
countenance or his sympathy from any one because he has a withered leg, or is
emaciated and in rags, and is old and leans upon a staff; but all the worthy he
will aid, and will, like a god, look graciously upon the unfortunate. Pity is
akin to wretchedness; for it is partly composed of it and partly derived from
it. One knows that his eyes are weak if they too are suffused at the sight of
another's blear eyes, just as always to laugh when other people laugh is, in
faith, not merriment, but a disease, and for one to stretch his jaws too when
everybody else yawns is a disease. Pity is a weakness of the mind that is
over-much perturbed by suffering, and if anyone requires it from a wise man,
that is very much like requiring him to wail and moan at the funerals of
strangers.
"But," you ask, "why will he not
pardon?" Come then, let us now also decide what pardon is, and we shall perceive
that the wise man ought not to grant it. Pardon is the remission of a deserved
punishment. Why a wise man ought not to give this is explained more at length by
those who make a point of the doctrine; I, to speak briefly as if giving
another's opinion, explain it thus: "Pardon is given to a man who ought to be
punished; but a wise man does nothing which he ought not to do, omits to do
nothing which he ought to do; therefore he does not remit a punishment which he
ought to exact.
But in a more honourable way he will bestow upon you that which you wish to obtain by pardon; for the wise man will show mercy, be considerate, and rectify; he will do the same that he would do if he pardoned, and yet he will not pardon, since he who pardons admits that he has omitted to do something which he ought to have done. To one man he will give merely a reproof in words, and he will not inflict punishment if he sees that the other's age will permit reformation; another who is clearly suffering from the odium of crime he will order to go free, because he was misled, because wine made him fall; he will let his enemies go unharmed, sometimes even with praise if they were stirred to fight by honourable motives - to maintain their loyalty, a treaty, or their liberty. These are all the operations of mercy, not of forgiveness. Mercy has freedom in decision; it sentences not by the letter of the law, but in accordance with what is fair and good; it may acquit and it may assess the damages at any value it pleases. It does none of these things as if it were doing less than is just, but as if the justest thing were that which it has resolved upon. But to pardon is to fail to punish one whom you judge worthy of punishment; pardon is the remission of punishment that is due. Mercy is superior primarily in this, that it declares that those who are let off did not deserve any different treatment; it is more complete than pardon, more creditable. In my opinion the dispute is about words, but concerning the fact there is agreement. The wise man will remit many punishments, he will save many whose character though unsound can yet be freed from unsoundness. He will be like the good husbandman who tends, not merely the trees that are straight and tall, but also applies props to those that for some reason have grown crooked in order that they may be straightened; others he will trim, in order that their branching may not hamper their height; some that are weak because set in poor soil he will fertilize; to some suffering from the shade of the others he will open up the sky. So the wise man will see what method of treatment a given character should have, how the crooked may be made straight... . . .
a project of John Trapp
