[10] Or, "they are mental partly, partly physical."

[11] Lit. "the incidents of waking life present sensations of a more
vivid character."

To this statement Hiero made answer: And I, for my part, O Simonides,
would find it hard to state, outside the list of things which you have
named yourself, in what respect the despot can have other channels of
perception.[12] So that up to this point I do not see that the
despotic life differs in any way at all from that of common people.

[12] i.e. "being like constituted, the autocratic person has no other
sources of perception: he has no claim to a wider gamut of
sensation, and consequently thus far there is not a pin to choose
between the life of the despot and that of a private person."

Then Simonides: Only in this respect it surely differs, in that the
pleasures which the "tyrant" enjoys through all these several avenues
of sense are many times more numerous, and the pains he suffers are
far fewer.

To which Hiero: Nay, that is not so, Simonides, take my word for it;
the fact is rather that the pleasures of the despot are far fewer than
those of people in a humbler condition, and his pains not only far
more numerous, but more intense.

That sounds incredible (exclaimed Simonides); if it were really so,
how do you explain the passionate desire commonly displayed to wield
the tyrant's sceptre, and that too on the part of persons reputed to