fallen victims to designing enemies. You must have heard of what happened
only the other day, how Archelaus of Macedonia was slain by his beloved
(compare Aristotle, Pol.), whose love for the tyranny was not less than
that of Archelaus for him. The tyrannicide expected by his crime to become
tyrant and afterwards to have a happy life; but when he had held the
tyranny three or four days, he was in his turn conspired against and slain.
Or look at certain of our own citizens,--and of their actions we have been
not hearers, but eyewitnesses,--who have desired to obtain military
command: of those who have gained their object, some are even to this day
exiles from the city, while others have lost their lives. And even they
who seem to have fared best, have not only gone through many perils and
terrors during their office, but after their return home they have been
beset by informers worse than they once were by their foes, insomuch that
several of them have wished that they had remained in a private station
rather than have had the glories of command. If, indeed, such perils and
terrors were of profit to the commonwealth, there would be reason in
undergoing them; but the very contrary is the case. Again, you will find
persons who have prayed for offspring, and when their prayers were heard,
have fallen into the greatest pains and sufferings. For some have begotten
children who were utterly bad, and have therefore passed all their days in
misery, while the parents of good children have undergone the misfortune of
losing them, and have been so little happier than the others that they
would have preferred never to have had children rather than to have had
them and lost them. And yet, although these and the like examples are
manifest and known of all, it is rare to find any one who has refused what
has been offered him, or, if he were likely to gain aught by prayer, has
refrained from making his petition. The mass of mankind would not decline
to accept a tyranny, or the command of an army, or any of the numerous
things which cause more harm than good: but rather, if they had them not,
would have prayed to obtain them. And often in a short space of time they