Orationes 14

197. It is the custom for those who sail and travel to make vows according to what each man has in mind. One poet, indeed, once said jestingly that he was vowing a sacrifice of frankincense with gilded horns. We, men of Rome, on the way hither and during our voyage, made this vow: that, if we were preserved, we would address the city publicly in a manner not unmusical nor out of tune nor unworthy of the art. Now to vow to the city a speech equal in measure to her was not possible; rather, in truth, it needed yet another vow — perhaps a greater one — to be able to raise a speech such as should match so great a mass of city. Yet we promised to address her as best we could, since indeed others too render to the gods what is in their own measure, as the gods reckon measure for
198. themselves. But, men of Rome, inhabitants of the great city, if you have any share of forethought that I do not belie my vow, lend your aid to the venture, so that, beginning the very first of our encomia, we may have this too to say: that straightway it was possible to meet with such men, by whom a man, even if he was unmusical before, as Euripides says, becomes at once both tuneful and clever, and is able to speak even about things greater than himself. As for the city, all men sing of her and will sing; yet they make her less than if they were silent, by just so much as, in silence, it is possible neither to make her greater nor less than she is, but she remains undiminished in our knowledge, whereas speeches do the opposite of what they intend; for in praising they do not show exactly what they admire, but it is as if some painter, attempting to show through his art a body that is beautiful and admired by all, should then fall short — every man, surely, would say it were better not to paint, but either to allow the thing itself to be seen, or not to show it to them in an inferior imitation. And so it seems to me to be with this city too. Speeches take away the greater part of her marvels, and seem to me to do much the same as if someone, wishing to report the multitude of an army — such as that of Xerxes — and greatly marvelling at it, should then say that he saw ten or twenty thousand soldiers, and cavalry of such and such a number, telling not even a small fraction of the whole in the things at which he marvels.

For this is the first city to have proved that the power of speech does not reach to everything; about her it is not merely impossible to speak according to her worth, but impossible even to behold her worthily — rather, in truth, there is need of some all-seeing Argus, or rather of the all-seeing god who possesses her. For who, beholding so many mountain-peaks occupied with buildings, or plains laid out as pastures yet built into city, or so great a land gathered together into the name of a single city, could then 199. behold it exactly from any such watch-tower? For what Homer said of the snow, that, poured down, it covers the peaks of the high mountains and the topmost headlands, and the lotus-bearing plains and the rich works of men — and, he says, it is poured even upon the grey sea, over the harbours and shores — this is true also of this city. She covers the topmost headlands, she covers the land between, and she comes down even to the sea, where is the common emporium of mankind and the common market of all the things that grow upon the earth; and wherever a man may be within her, there is nothing to hinder his being equally in the centre. And indeed she has not been poured out merely upon the surface, but, far beyond the model, she rises to the greatest height of the air, so that her loftiness is to be likened not to a fall of snow but rather to the very peaks themselves. And just as a man who far surpasses others in size and strength is not content unless he can lift and carry others besides upon himself, so this city too, settled over so great a land, is not content, but, lifting up other cities equal in measure to herself, carries them one upon another. So, then, her name is fitting, and she is nothing else than Strength. Wherefore, if one should wish to unfold her cleanly, and, setting upon the ground the cities now suspended aloft, to lay them one beside another, all the space now intervening in Italy would, it seems to me, be filled up, and there would come to be one continuous city stretching to the Ionian Sea. And being so great as I have perhaps not even now sufficiently shown — though the eyes bear better witness — it cannot be said of her, as of others, that "she stands here"; nor that which someone said of the city of the Athenians and of the Lacedaemonians, declaring that the size of the one would appear double its power, and of the other the size much less than its power — far be the ill-omen of the comparison! — this one might say also of this city, great in all things, that she has not provided power 200. inconsistent with so great a size. Rather, one may, looking to the whole empire, marvel at the city no longer, reflecting that she rules but a small fraction of all the earth; and, looking to the city herself and the city's bounds, marvel no longer that the whole inhabited world is ruled by one so great. For what one of the chroniclers said of Asia — that one man rules over all the land the sun traverses — saying what was not true, unless he excepted all Libya and Europe from the sun's settings and risings — this has now come out to be true: that the sun's whole journey is your possession, and that the sun passes through what is yours. For no sea-crags, nor the Chelidonian and Cyanean Isles, bound your empire, nor a horse's day-long course to the sea, nor do you reign within fixed limits, nor does another prescribe how far you must rule; but the sea, like a girdle, is stretched out in the midst alike of the inhabited world and of your dominion. About it the great continents slope greatly down, ever filling you with their abundance from thence. Whatever the seasons grow and the several lands bear, and the rivers and lakes, and the arts of Greeks and barbarians, all are brought from every land and sea. So that if anyone should wish to behold all these things, he must either traverse the whole inhabited world to see them thus, or be in this city. For whatever grows and is made among each people, there is no way it is not always here, and in superfluity. So many merchant-ships come hither, conveying cargoes from all men at every season and at every turn of the autumn, that the city is like a common workshop of the earth. Cargoes from the Indians and, if you will, from the Blessed Arabians too, one may see in such quantity as to conjecture that for the future the trees there have been left bare, and that those people must come hither, if they need anything, to beg back something of their own. And garments, 201. again — Babylonian raiment and the adornments from the barbarian land beyond — arrive in much greater number and more easily than if one had to put in to Athens from Naxos or Cythnos bringing some of their wares. Your farmlands are Egypt, Sicily, and all of Libya that is cultivated. And the arrivals and departures of ships never cease, so that it is a wonder not only that the harbour, but that the very sea, should suffice for the merchantmen. And just as Hesiod said of the bounds of Ocean — that there is a place where all things have been bored through into one beginning and end — so all things have been bored through into this city, and all things meet together here: commerce, navigation, husbandry, the refining of metals, all the arts that are and have ever been, all things that are produced and that grow. Whatever one does not see here is not among the things that exist or have existed; so that it is not easy to decide whether the city surpasses the existing cities more, or the empire the empires that have ever been. I blush, indeed, that, after so many and so great things have been said, I should then appear, when my speech has nothing left, to make mention of some barbarian empire or some Hellenic power, and should seem to do the opposite of the Aeolian poets. For they, whenever they wish to belittle something of their own day, compare it with something great and famously ancient, thinking thus best to expose it; whereas I, having no other way to show how far your affairs surpass, shall compare them with small things of old. For you have made even the greatest things seem the smallest by your excesses. Since I shall choose out the greatest things and speak of them, while you will perhaps laugh at them. 202. Let us, then, consider the empire of the Persians, which was once greatly famed among the Greeks and gave the king who held it the title of "Great" — for the empires before it, being meaner, I shall pass over — and let us examine everything in order, both its size and what came to pass under it. For we must examine this too: how they themselves enjoyed what they had acquired, and how they treated their subjects. First, then: what the Atlantic Ocean now is to you, that the sea simply was to the king of old; there his empire was bounded, so that the Ionians and Aeolians were at the ends of his land. And when the king of the lands from the rising of the sun to its setting once attempted to cross into Greece, he was admired only so far as he greatly failed; and he made this a display of his own splendour, that he had it in his power to be deprived of many and great things. He, then, who fell so far short of mastering Greece and held Ionia at the edges of his realm — surely he was left short of your empire not by the cast of a discus, nor by the range of an arrow, but by the whole half of the inhabited world, and the sea besides. Nor was he even up to these bounds always king in the proper sense, but, according as the Athenians had power or the Lacedaemonians had fortune, now he was king as far as the Ionians and Aeolians and the sea, and again no longer of the Ionians, nor as far as the sea, but only as far as the Lydians, not seeing the sea from the Cyanean Isles to the west — being, as it were, a king in children's play, remaining above, coming down again, in need of those who would let him be king. This was made plain by the force that came with Agesilaus, and before him by the ten thousand who came with Clearchus: the one passing as far as Phrygia as through friendly country, the other reaching beyond the Euphrates as through a wilderness. And the profit they enjoyed from the empire was according to the wisdom of Oebares, who is said to have first told Cyrus, when he chafed at his much wandering and the necessity of being everywhere 203. carried about the empire, willing or unwilling, if he meant to be king — bidding him look to a hide: that the parts of it on which he stepped became low and touched the ground, but the parts he left rose up again, and were pressed down once more when he trod on them. Some sort of migratory kings, differing even from the nomad Scythians only in that they went about not on wagons but on covered carriages — nomad kings and wanderers, through distrust and fear of sitting in one place, pressing down truly, like a hide, their own land, and by this holding it: now Babylon, again Susa, then Ecbatana — neither knowing how to hold it always nor tending it like herdsmen. And indeed such it truly was, as of men distrustful that the empire was their own. For they took no thought of it as a thing of their own, nor did they increase to beauty and greatness either the cities or the lands, but, like men fallen into things not their own, they squandered shamefully and wickedly, seeking this — how they might rule over the weakest — and, as if contending with one another over bloodshed, the second man always tried, like pentathletes, to outdo the first. And it was a contest to slaughter as many as possible, to make as many houses and peoples desolate as possible, and to break as many oaths as possible. These, then, were what they enjoyed from their famed power, and the things that, by the law of nature, follow upon these: hatreds and plots from men so disposed, and revolts, and battles among one another, and continual strifes, and ceaseless rivalries. These, then, they enjoyed, ruling rather as from a curse than as in answer to a prayer; while the subjects suffered all that subjects of such men must — and indeed it has already nearly been said. For a child's beauty was a terror to its parents, and a wife's to her husband; and one had to 204. perish, not the man who had done most wrong, but the man who possessed most. There were then more destructions and razings of cities than — I almost say — there are now foundings. And it was easier to be saved making war than submitting; for in battles they were easily beaten, but in their seasons of power they outraged beyond all measure. And those who served them they despised as slaves, and the free they punished as enemies; so that they passed their lives hating and being hated. And indeed they often feared their subjects more than their enemies, using war for the most part as a means of reconciliation. The cause was that neither did those men know how to rule, nor did the subjects fulfil their part; for it is not possible to be ruled well when the rulers rule badly. For the office of king and that of master were not yet distinguished, but king and master were the same. Reasonably, then, they did not advance to great things; for this title does not go further than a household, but, when it comes to cities and nations, it easily ceases.

Alexander, again, who acquired the great empire up to your own and overran the earth, truly resembles one who has acquired a kingdom rather than one who has reigned. For just as if some private man should acquire much good land, but die before reaping its fruits, so it seems to me to have befallen him too. For he advanced over the most of the earth, and subdued all who withstood him, and tasted to the full of all hardships; but he was not able to establish the empire nor to set an end to his labours, but died in the very midst of his march of affairs. So that one might say that he succeeded in very many battles, but reigned very little, and became a great contender for a kingdom, but enjoyed nothing worthy of his purpose and his skill — but suffered much the same as if someone, contending in the Olympic games and overcoming his rivals, should then die upon his victory, before well and fairly 205. fitting the crown to his head. For what laws did he ordain for the several peoples? Or what permanent assessments of money or soldiers or ships did he make? Or by what customary administration, proceeding automatically through fixed rounds of time, did he conduct affairs? What polities did he establish among his subjects? The one work and memorial worthy of his nature that he left was the city named after him near Egypt, which he founded — doing you a kindness — that you might possess and master even the greatest city after your own. So that he overthrew the Persians as rulers, but did not himself rule those nearest to him. And when he died, the Macedonians at once were split into a myriad parts, showing by their deed that the empire was beyond them, and they could no longer hold even their own; but they came to such a pass of fortune that they were compelled to abandon their own land in order to rule a foreign one, like men resettled abroad rather than able to master. And it was like a riddle: the Macedonians not in Macedonia, but each one reigning wherever he could, as guards rather of the cities and the territories than rulers — uprooted kings, made so not by the Great King but by themselves, and, if one may so speak, like satraps without a king. And shall we say that such a state of things resembles brigandage rather than kingship?

But now, surely, the bounds of the empire are extended not contemptibly, nor so that it is possible to measure what is within them. Rather, from where the Persian's empire was then bounded, if one set out from there to walk westward, the remaining part is far greater than the whole of his. And nothing escapes you — not a city, not a nation, not a harbour, not a region — except whatever you have judged useless. The Red Sea and the cataracts of the Nile and Lake Maeotis, which to men of old were said to be at the ends of the earth, are like the fences of a courtyard to this city. And the Ocean, which some of the chroniclers disbelieved, saying it did not exist at 206. all, nor flow round the earth, but that the poets had found the name and put it into their poetry for the sake of delight — this you have so well discovered that not even the island here escaped you. So great and so vast in size, then, is the empire; yet it is far greater in exactness than in the circuit of its territory. For it is not Mysians who hold a kingdom there, nor Sacae, nor Pisidians, nor others in the midst, some settled in by force, some in revolt and unable to be taken; nor is it called the king's land while it belongs to all who are able to hold it; nor do satraps fight against one another as though they had no king; nor do cities take sides, some with these, some with those, and into some garrisons are sent and from others they are expelled. But, like the enclosure of a courtyard cleansed of all defilement, so the whole inhabited world utters one sound, more exactly than a chorus, praying together that this empire may endure for all time — so well is it marshalled by this leader of the chorus. By all, everywhere, alike is it ruled; and those settled in the mountains are humbler, in respect of not opposing, than those in the deepest plains, while the allotment-holders and inhabitants of the blessed plains are your farmers. Mainland and island are not at all distinguished, but, like one continuous country and one race, all obey in silence. Everything is accomplished by an order and a nod more easily than one could pluck a string; and if anything need be done, it suffices to resolve it, and it has been done. The governors sent out to the cities and nations are each rulers of those beneath them; but in their relations to themselves and to one another, all alike are ruled. And indeed one might say they differ from their subjects in this: that they are the first to show how one ought to be ruled; so great is the fear instilled in all of the great ruler who presides over 207. all things. Wherefore they think that he knows what they do better than they themselves, and they fear and reverence him more than anyone would his own master present and standing over him and commanding. No one is so high-minded as to be able to remain unmoved at the mere hearing of his name; but he rises and hymns and reveres him, and prays a double prayer — the one for himself to the gods, the other to the ruler himself concerning his own affairs. And if they are at all in doubt about suits and claims, whether of the subjects in common or in private — if any are worthy of it — they at once send to him, asking what they ought to do, and they wait until he gives a sign, no less than a chorus waits for its trainer. So that there is no need for him to wear himself out going round the whole empire, nor, being now among these, now among those, to confirm each matter whenever he treads their land; but with great ease, sitting still, he conducts the whole inhabited world by letters. And these are scarcely written before they are present, as though borne by winged messengers. But that which of all things is most worthy to be admired and marvelled at, and for which thanks must be paid in both word and deed, shall now be told. Holding so great an empire, and ruling it so firmly and with such great authority, you have above all won that victory which is wholly your own; for you alone of all who ever ruled, rule over free men. Caria has not been given to Tissaphernes, nor Phrygia to Pharnabazus, nor Egypt to another; nor is the nation spoken of as the household of so-and-so, to whom it was handed over to be a slave, though he himself be not free; but, just as those in the single cities, so you too, governing the whole inhabited world as a single city, set rulers over them, as if from elections, for the protection and care of the ruled, not that they should be masters. So that ruler gives place to ruler when his term has expired, and would not even readily meet his successor — so far is he from contending overmuch, as though the territory were 208. his own. And appeals, like an appeal from the demesmen to a court, are made with no less fear, on the part of those who receive them, concerning the judgement than on the part of those who make them. So that one might say that men now are ruled by those sent to them only so far as it pleases them. How, then, are these things not beyond every democracy? For there it is not possible, after the vote has been cast in the city, to go elsewhere or to other judges, but one must be content with the verdict — unless it be some small city that needs foreign judges beyond its deserts — or even, having prosecuted and not won, not to be defeated by that vote; but there remains another great judge, from whom nothing just ever escapes. And there, indeed, is great and seemly equality of small toward great, of obscure toward renowned, of poor toward rich, of low-born toward noble; and the saying of Hesiod comes to pass: "easily he gives strength, and easily he afflicts the strong." This judge and leader, according as justice leads, is like a wind in a ship, surely not favouring and escorting the rich man more and the poor man less, but ever benefiting alike whoever comes before him.

I shall now go through Greek affairs too, since I have come to this point in my speech — ashamed and fearing lest I seem to deal in trifles. Nevertheless, as I just said, I go through them not comparing equals with equals, but, there being no other examples, I am compelled to use what there is. And then it would be ridiculous to marvel at this very thing and to show that one cannot find others equal to yours, nor near it, but that all are hidden by these, and yet to wait to make the comparison until I have equals to mention. I do not think one ought to; since they would not be marvellous in the same way, if we had anything like to mention. And indeed I am not ignorant of this either: that Greek affairs will appear even meaner than those I just examined, in compass 209. of empire and in mass of achievement — the Greek than the Persian. But that the barbarians should be surpassed in resources and power, and the Greeks outdone in wisdom and self-control, seems to me great and altogether conducive to the praise of virtue, and a more brilliant contest than any. This, then, I come to tell: how those men dealt with affairs of their own of such magnitude; and if they appear unable to preserve things much smaller, the conclusion for the vote is plain. For the Athenians and Lacedaemonians did everything for the sake of empire and hegemony, and their power was to sail the sea and rule the Cyclades and hold the Thracian region and Thermopylae and the Hellespont and Coryphasium — and this was their power. And they suffered much the same as if someone desiring to become master of a body should take certain nails and extremities instead of the whole body, and should think he had what he wished; so those men too, desiring hegemony, reaped the fruit of little islands and headlands by the sea and harbours and such things, and wore themselves out about the sea, dreaming of hegemony rather than being able to acquire it. And becoming, for a season, like men in a round of allotment, the masters of the Greeks, each in turn, they did not, so to speak, preserve their position for even a single generation — at any rate not blamelessly; but, as the saying goes, they won the "Cadmean victory" over one another for the hegemony, as though the one party did not think the other should alone be hated forever, but they themselves should take their share of it. For one Lacedaemonian commander so disposed the Greeks that, having willingly got rid of these men, they sought out others to be their rulers. And having given themselves to the Athenians, when no long time had passed, they changed their minds, bearing neither the immoderation of the tributes nor those who, on that pretext, robbed them — being haled up each year to Athens to render account 210. for what was theirs, with allotment-holders sent against their land, and money-collectors besides the tributes, whenever some other need arose; unable, moreover, to keep their citadels free, and being in the hands of those men's demagogues, for better or for worse alike; compelled to serve campaigns that were not necessary, often during sacred months and festivals; and, to put it simply, enjoying no such benefit from the protectorate as to make it worth enduring these things. Vexed at the Athenians on these accounts, the many went over again to the Lacedaemonians, in the same way as before from them to the Athenians, and were again deceived by those men. For having proclaimed that they would make war on the Athenians for the freedom of the Greeks, and winning over the many by this, when those men had torn down the walls and become masters of affairs and of the power to do as they wished, they so far outdid the Athenians that they set up tyrannies in all the Greek cities, which they euphemistically called decarchies; and, having destroyed the one dominion of the Athenians, they brought in many of their own in its place — tyrannies which did not, like those at Athens or at Sparta, do harm to the subjects from afar, but were set up continually in the very territories of each, and, as it were, intertwined with them. So that, if at the beginning of the war they had proclaimed to the Greeks that they would make war on the Athenians in order to do them greater and more numerous evils than the Athenians, and to show that what came from the Athenians had been freedom for them, they could not have made good the promise better. For indeed they were straightway beaten by a single exile, abandoned by the Thebans, hated by the Corinthians; and the sea was filled with their harmosts as they were driven out, since they were "unharmonious" and not, according to their name, established or holding the 211. cities rightly. And when the Thebans, grown great through those men's wrongs and through the hatred conceived against them by the Greeks on that account, defeated them in the battle at Leuctra, at once the Lacedaemonians were out of the way, and yet no one could endure the Thebans, who had succeeded in a single battle. But it was seen to be more profitable still to put up with the "Cadmean" power than to have conquered the Lacedaemonians — so much were they hated. And these things I have not assembled by way of a common indictment of the Greeks — like that wonderful man who composed the Three-Headed — may no such necessity ever arise! — but I wish to show this: that the knowledge of how to rule did not yet exist before you. For if it had, it would have been among the Greeks, who surely surpassed the rest in wisdom; but this too is your discovery, and came in together with the rest. Since what was said of the Athenians is likely to be true if one should say it of all the Greeks: that, against rulers, in withstanding and overcoming the Persians and Lydians, and in enduring wealth and toils, they were good above all; but to rule themselves they were still untaught, and in the attempt they stumbled. And first they sent garrisons into the cities, which were always, surely, no fewer than the natives of each place to which they were sent; and they created suspicion even in those not yet garrisoned, as though carrying everything by strength and force. Both things, then, came to pass: that they neither held the cities securely and were besides hated, and reaped the evils of empire instead of the goods of empire — having an insecure greed but a strong reputation for greed. Then, in addition, what came of being always torn apart and divided was that they grew weaker at home and unable to save their own, through seeking to hold others'. They were thus unable, by the number of those they sent out, to overpower those they aimed to rule, nor did they leave themselves equal at home; but they were fewer abroad, and fewer at home; and 212. the advancing of the empire came to a pass of helplessness, since they had no further means by which to hold it; so that they hastened in the reverse direction of what they needed. And it was for them impossible and near a curse that what they wished should go forward, while the not-going-forward was lighter and held fewer fears. For they resembled nothing so much as men being dispersed rather than ruling, and toiling for the sake of toiling. For together with the achievement the sum was at once secretly undone, and again it came down to the same point, as the poets say. Moreover, it was profitable to them neither that the subjects should be strong, because of plots, nor weak, because of the wars from outside and so that there might be some advantage of the alliance; but they were disposed toward them much as men in games who lead one way forward and drag back another, having no way to deal with them, but, as it were, wishing them both to be and not to be, themselves handling and leading them, having no way to say what they were striving for. And the most ridiculous and absurd of all: for they compelled the rest, who had it in mind to do the same, to march against those of their number who revolted — doing much the same as if they should persuade the very men who had revolted to march against themselves. For they did not reckon that they were leading against them men of that same party, to whom it surely was not profitable to demonstrate, against themselves, zealous help to the others. So that here too they accomplished the opposite of what they wished and what was profitable; for, wishing to win over the revolters, they would even make those who were remaining revolt. For they showed them that, by remaining, they would be at their disposal against one another, but that all, by revolting in common, would be securely free; for in the end they would leave them no means by which they could be caught. So that they were so much worse for themselves than their faithless 213. allies, by as much as the allies withdrew each by himself, while these men, by what they did, were inducing a common revolt. So little, then, was there yet any system of empire; nor, knowing it, did they pursue it, but, holding small things and, as it were, mere outskirts and allotments, they were unable to preserve even these very things, through inexperience and incapacity to rule — neither leading the cities humanely nor able to hold them firmly, being at once burdensome and weak. At last, then, stripped bare, like Aesop's jackdaw, they fought alone against all.

This, however — which escaped, so to speak, all men before you — was reserved for you alone to discover and to perfect; and no wonder. For just as in other matters the arts arise in their materials, so, when the greatest empire and surpassing power came into being, then upon it the art too was composed and entered in, and both were strengthened through one another. By the greatness of the empire, the experience necessarily resulted; and again, by knowing how to rule, the empire increased, justly and reasonably at once. But this is, of all things, far the most worthy to see and to marvel at: the city's principle and the magnificence of its conception, that nothing among all things resembles it. For dividing into two parts all those under the empire — and saying this I have named the whole inhabited world — the more graceful and noble and powerful part everywhere you have rendered citizen, or even of one kindred stock; the rest you have made subject and ruled. And neither does the sea bar one from being a citizen, nor the extent of the lands between; nor are Asia and Europe here divided. But all things lie open in the midst to all; no one is a foreigner who is worthy of office or of trust, but there is established a common democracy of the earth under one man, the best ruler and director; and all come together as into a common 214. market-place, each to obtain his desert. What a city is to its own boundaries and territories, that this city is to the whole inhabited world, as if appointed the common town of the land. You might say that all who dwell round about, or in scattered settlements elsewhere, come together into this one citadel; and she has never yet refused anyone, but, just as the floor of the earth bears all, so she too receives men from every land, as the sea receives the rivers. And she has this too in common with the sea: that the sea does not become greater by the inflowing of the rivers, since it was fated, together with them, to keep its size in their stream; and so this city, by its size, shows no sign of increase. And just as those who receive things into their bosoms keep them so hidden, she holds men as they come and go, being and seeming the same.

Let this be said in passing, the speech having brought it in. But, as we were saying, being great, you measured out the city greatly, and you did not, glorying in this, make her admirable by giving no other a share in her, but you sought a filling worthy of her, and you made the name "Roman" belong not to a city but to a kind of common race — and that not one of all races, but a counterweight to all the rest. For you do not now divide the races into Greeks and barbarians, nor have you made the division ridiculous to them by showing your city more populous than well-nigh the whole Hellenic stock; but you have made the counter-division into Romans and not-Romans — so far have you carried the name of the city. These being thus divided, many in each city are your citizens no less than those of their own kindred, though some of them have not yet even seen the city; and there is no need of garrisons holding the citadels, but the greatest and most powerful men of each place 215. guard their own fatherlands for you; and you hold the cities doubly, both from here and through each people severally. No envy treads upon the empire; for you yourselves set the example of not being envious, by laying everything open in the midst and offering to those who are able not to be ruled rather than to rule in turn. Nor, again, does any hatred steal in from those left out; for, because the citizenship is common and as of one city, the rulers reasonably rule not as over aliens but as over their own. Moreover, there belongs to all the masses, under this citizenship, security against the powerful men among them; for upon these, if they dare to make any disturbance, comes straightway from you anger and vengeance. Thus reasonably both the poor and the rich are content with present conditions and find them advantageous, and there is no other way of life left; and there has come to be one harmony of constitution, embracing all. And what before seemed impossible to come together has met in your time: mastery of empire together with humanity — and great humanity at that — and it has not been impossible to rule with self-restraint. Thus, indeed, cities are clear of garrisons, and a battalion or a troop of horse suffices to be the guard of whole nations; and these not even settled in great numbers throughout the cities of each people, but sown in among the rest in scattered numbers through the lands, so that many of the nations do not know where their garrison is. But if any city, through excess of size, has outgrown the power of self-control by itself, you have not grudged even these the officers to oversee and guard them. And indeed all more gladly send you the tributes than some would receive them from others — reasonably. For to rule when one lacks power is not safe; but to be ruled by the stronger is "the second-best voyage," as they say — yet by you it is now shown to be even the first. All, then, cling fast, and would not sooner think to revolt than sailors would abandon the 216. helmsman; but, just as bats in caves cling to one another and to the rocks, fast adhering, so all hang from you with much fear and forethought lest anyone fall from this cluster; and they would sooner fear to be abandoned by you than they would abandon you. And instead of disputes over empire and primacy, by which all former wars broke out, some, like water flowing without a sound, most pleasantly keep quiet, gladly ceasing from toils and evils, having repented that they were after all fighting shadows; while others do not even know what empire they once held, nor remember it, but, just as in the tale of Pamphylus — or rather of Plato — the cities, already lying as it were upon the pyre through their strife and confusion with one another, received in one mass the hegemony, and suddenly came back to life. How they came to this they cannot say, nor do they know anything except to marvel at the present; but they have suffered like men awakened from sleep, who, in place of the dreams they just now saw, suddenly behold these realities and find themselves in the midst of them. Wars are no longer believed even to have happened, but for the most part are heard, in the manner of mere tales; and if anywhere on the frontiers they do come to blows, as is likely in a great and immeasurable empire, through the madness of the Getae or the misfortune of the Libyans or the wretchedness of those about the Red Sea, who are unable to make use of the goods at hand — then truly, like myths, both they themselves and the accounts of them quickly pass by. So great is your peace, even though war be your ancestral pursuit. For those who yesterday were cobblers and joiners are not today hoplites and horsemen; nor, as on the stage, is one transformed into a soldier who was just now a farmer; nor, as in a poor household, are the same men both cooks and stewards and bed-makers — you have not mixed things together thus. Nor did you wait for those already engaged in other pursuits to become soldiers from need; nor did you allow the enemy to muster you. 217. But the matters concerning the whole empire and the polity established over it have been told — in what manner you devised it and how you constituted it. But concerning the fighting force and the affairs of campaign, it is now time to speak — how you contrived this too and what arrangement you assigned to it. Wonderful, indeed, was your wisdom about this also, and it has no precedent at all. For up to the point of separating off the fighting force, the Egyptians too advanced, and seemed to have found this most wise discovery, that those who fought in defence of the country were settled apart from the rest — just as in many other things the Egyptians seemed, as they say, to be wise beyond others. But you, recognizing the same thing, did not do the same; rather you divided it so much more excellently and wisely, that under that arrangement the soldiers had not equal share of the polity with one another, but those who served were in the worse position than those who lived at peace, alone toiling forever — and so they were neither equal nor content. With you, however, all having an equal share, the fighting force can be settled apart. Thus the daring of Greeks and Egyptians and whomever one might name is surpassed by yours. And, falling so far behind you all in arms, they are still further behind in judgement; for you thought it not worthy of the empire and of your present prosperity that the men of the city should serve campaigns and suffer hardship, and you did not trust foreigners; yet soldiers were needed before the necessity came. What, then, did you do? You found a native army without troubling the citizens. This was provided you by your policy regarding the whole empire and by your excluding no foreigner from anything he is able and required to do. What, then, was the levying, and what the manner? Going to all the subject peoples, you looked there for those who should perform 218. this public service; and when you found them, you at once released them from their fatherland and gave them your own city in return, so that thereafter they would even be ashamed to say whence they originally were. Having made them citizens, you thus also made them soldiers, so that the men of the city do not serve, and those who serve are none the less citizens — men who, with their enlistment, have become cityless of their old city, but from the same day citizens and guardians of your own. And thus all follow, and no city bears ill-will; for you asked from each only so many as would neither be a burden to those who gave them nor be sufficient by themselves to make up the complement of one native army. So that the cities have all goodwill toward those sent out, as men shared in common from among themselves, but each city has by itself no power at all from its own men, nor do those who go out look anywhere but to you, since they are well organized only toward this. And indeed, by choosing the most suitable from every place, you found this no small gain. For you thought it should not be that, for the festal gatherings and crown-contests, those best endowed by nature and pre-eminent in body should be selected and trained, while the contestants in the greatest and truest deeds, who are to be victors over however many it falls to them to conquer on behalf of such an empire — that these should be brought together on the spot, and not long beforehand the greatest and most suitable, chosen out of all, be trained, so that, standing forth at once, they might be superior. These men, then, you purified and sifted from the common body of the rulers — not without the things I mentioned, nor so that the others remaining in the city should be more able to envy them, since they were not of equal honour of old, but they receive the share in the citizenship as a portion of honour. Having thus found and disposed them, you led them to the frontiers of the empire, and there, stationing them apart, assigned different posts to different men to guard. 219. Therefore concerning your walls too you took thought and devised — for now it is worth speaking of them. For neither, after the self-willed manner of the Lacedaemonians, could you call this city unwalled, nor, again, walled after the splendour of Babylon, or of whatever other city was more magnificently walled before or since; rather, you have shown that walling to be child's play and truly a woman's work. For to throw walls round the city itself, as if hiding her, or fleeing your subjects, you thought ignoble and contrary to the rest of your conception — as if some master should show himself afraid of his own slaves. Yet you did not neglect walls; you threw these round the empire, not the city, and you set them up as far off as possible, splendid and worthy of you, visible to those within the circle, but the journey to them, if one should wish to see them, being one of months and years, beginning to walk from the city. For beyond the outermost circle of the inhabited world, just as in the walling of a city, you led a second wall, more flexible and more easily guarded, and there you cast forward walls and built frontier cities, filling them with inhabitants in different regions, giving them serviceable arts and adorning them in other ways. Just as a trench surrounds a camp in a circle, so that the circumference of this enclosure is not even ten parasangs by reckoning, nor twenty, nor a little more — nor could you at once say how great, but as much as encloses within the inhabited part of Ethiopia, and the Phasis on this side, and the upper Euphrates, and, to the west, the great furthest island — all this one may call the circle and circuit of the walls. They are not built of bitumen or baked brick, nor do they stand gleaming with stucco; though these too, indeed, are used in each place, and very many, and with 220. the stones, as Homer said of the house-wall, exactly fitted, of boundless size and shining brighter than bronze. But the far greater and more august circle, everywhere altogether unbreakable and indissoluble, far outshining all, and none ever so firmly fixed — these walls are shielded by men who have never thought of flight, fitted to one another in that harmony in which Homer says the Myrmidons were — comparing it to the wall I just mentioned — with all the instruments of war so continuous, helmet to helmet, that no arrow could pass through the midst; and the shields, raised over their heads, would receive flying showers so much firmer than the city-walls of the poets that even horsemen may ride upon them; and you will then say truly that Euripides' phrase is real, that you behold "a plain all of bronze." And the breastplates so cling to one another that, even if you should station an unarmed man in the midst, the ranks on either side would suffice to meet at his place; and the javelins, falling about as if from Zeus, overtake one another. Such are the harmonies that have been closed up — both the circle of the passages of the walls and that which oversees the whole earth. Of old Darius, with Artaphernes and Datis, was able, by netting one island, to take one city; but you, having, if one may so speak, netted the whole inhabited world, thus preserve it by means of its common citizens and the foreigners whom — as I said — you led out, chosen from all, having held out hopes to good men as they arise that they will not repent. For it is not that the man ever first in ability will be of noble birth, and the second man second, and the rest of the ranks likewise; but each will hold the rank of which he is worthy, since here deeds, not words, judge the good; and you have made clear examples of these to all, so that all consider idleness a calamity, and deeds the means 221. of obtaining what they pray for; that they are of one mind against the enemy, but contend with one another throughout life for precedence; and that they alone of men pray to find enemies. So that when one looks to the training and order of the army, he will think the Homeric verse true: that even if the foes were ten times as many, they would quickly be turned and left "man for one." But when one looks to its complement and levying, he will say and think the saying of the Egyptian, who, when Cambyses was plundering the country and despoiling the temples, standing on the walls of Thebes held up a clod of earth and a cup of water from the Nile, making a symbol that, until he could transfer Egypt itself and the river Nile, and carry them off as plunder, he had not yet taken the wealth of Egypt; but while these remained, just so much more would quickly come to them again, and wealth would never fail Egypt. This too one may think and say of your army: that so long as no one can raise the country itself from its seat nor go off having emptied it, but the inhabited world must of necessity remain in its place, it is impossible for you to fail in masses of soldiers, but you have as many as you wish, coming from all that is.

And indeed, in respect of the science of tactics, you have shown all men to be children. For you did not set these exercises before your soldiers and commanders only against the enemy, but against themselves first. So that every day they live in formation, and no one ever leaves the post assigned to him; but, as in some eternal chorus, each knows and keeps his own place, and the lesser does not on that account envy the more honoured, but rules exactly over those of whom he is greater. I am vexed, for my part, that others have anticipated me in saying of the Lacedaemonians that their army, save for a few, is composed of rulers ruling rulers; for it was fitting that this should have been 222. reserved for you and said first of you — but he brought it out before it was due. Still, the Lacedaemonian army is likely to be of such a number that it is not unreasonable that all should be rulers; but in such numbers of musters and races, whose very names it is not easy to discover, beginning from one man who passes through all and oversees all — nations, cities, armies, commanders — and ending in one ruler of four men or of two, while we have passed over all the middle, and, like the turning of a thread, it descends ever from the more to the fewer, and so passes on through men ranked one above another to the end — how is this not beyond all human ordering? It occurs to me to quote the Homeric line, with a slight change at the end: "Such, surely, is the rule of Olympian Zeus from within." For when one man rules over so many, and those set under him are his ministers and envoys, far worse than himself but far better than those they administer, and accomplish all things in silence without uproar or confusion, and envy is out of the way, and all things everywhere are full of justice and reverence, and the fruit of virtue escapes no one — how does this verse not prevail?

It seems to me that not even within the city herself has the constitution been established in a manner like that of other men. For formerly there seemed to be three constitutions among men: two under two names each, each viewed according to the characters of those who held it — tyranny and oligarchy, kingship and aristocracy — and a third name, democracy, conducted well or ill. So the cities were divided as choice or fortune prevailed for each. But your case is in no way like; rather, it is as it were a blending of all the constitutions, without the worse element in each — and so this kind of constitution has prevailed. So that when one looks to the strength of the people, and how easily they obtain all that they 223. wish and ask, he will think it a democracy, and that nothing is lacking save what a people does wrong; but when he looks to the senate that deliberates and holds the magistracies, he will think there is no aristocracy more exact than this; and looking to the overseer and president of all these, from whom the people obtain what they wish and the few their rule and power, he sees that man, the one who holds the most perfect monarchy, free of a tyrant's evils and greater than a king's majesty. And it is not unreasonable that you alone should thus distinguish and discern these things, both concerning what is outside and what is within the city herself; for you alone are rulers, so to speak, according to nature. The others who held power before you became masters and slaves of one another in turn, and, being bastard heirs of empire, so passed it on, exchanging their position as in a ball-game: and the Macedonians were enslaved to the Persians, the Persians to the Medes, the Medes to the Syrians. But you all men have known to be rulers from as far back as they have known anything. Therefore, being free from the beginning and, as it were, born straightway to rule, you fitted out well everything that conduces to this, and you discovered a constitution such as no one had before, and you set over all men inescapable ordinances and ranks.

But what has long crept upon me and often troubled me, coming to the very lips, yet has always been carried aside hither by the speech — this, if I now say it, I should perhaps not fall out of season. By as much as you surpass all in the size of the whole empire, by so much do you surpass them in self-control and conception of polity, as is plain in what has been said. But now it seems to me one would not err in saying this also: that all those of old, even those who ruled over the most of the earth, ruled as it were over the bare bodies of the nations themselves. For when were there so many cities by land and by sea, or when were they so adorned throughout? Or who ever so traversed the lands of those days, reckoning the cities by the days of travel, and sometimes passing through two or three cities of the same 224. land as through so many narrow streets? So that the former rulers are surpassed not only in the sum of the empire so greatly, but, of the very same lands they ruled with you, they did not rule them equal nor alike; for it is possible to set against the nation of that time the city that is now within it. And indeed one might say that those men became kings, as it were, of wildernesses and forts, but you alone are rulers of cities. Now all the Greek cities flourish under you, and the dedications in them, the arts and all their adornments, hold honour for you, as adornment in a suburb. The coasts and the inland regions are filled with cities — some founded, some increased under you and by you. Ionia, the prize of so many contests, freed of garrisons and satraps, lies before all as a leader of beauty, having now advanced upon herself by as much as she before seemed to surpass the rest of the races in grace and adornment. And the august and great city of Alexander in Egypt has become an ornament of your dominion, like a necklace or bracelet of a rich woman among her many other possessions. You continue to care for the Greeks as for foster-fathers, holding a hand over them and, as it were, raising them when they are down — having left the best of them, and those of old your leaders, free and self-governing, and guiding the rest with moderation and with much sparing and forethought; and educating the barbarians, according to the nature each of them has, more gently or more sternly, as is fitting — for being rulers of men, you are not worse than the trainers of horses, but have examined their natures and lead them according to these. And indeed, as if the whole inhabited world were keeping festival, it has laid aside its old burden, the sword, and has turned to adornment and all gladness, with freedom to do so. All the other rivalries have left its actions, and this one strife alone holds all: how each city may appear the 225. fairest and most pleasing. Every place is full of gymnasia, fountains, gateways, temples, workshops, schools; and one may say, in the language of science, that the inhabited world, sick from the beginning, has been restored to health. Gifts never cease coming to these cities from you, nor is it possible to find which have obtained the greater, because of your equal humanity toward all. The cities, then, shine with radiance and grace, and the whole earth is adorned like a garden. The smoke from the plains and the beacon-fires, of friend and foe, have vanished, as if a wind had blown them away, beyond land and sea. In their place has been introduced every grace of spectacle and a countless number of games. So that one whole sacred and unquenchable fire of festivity never fails, but goes round, now to these, now to those, and is always somewhere; for all men have fared in a manner worthy of it. So that those alone deserve pity who are outside your dominion — if indeed any such there be anywhere — for the goods of which they are deprived. And indeed that which is said by all, that the earth is the mother of all and the common fatherland of all, you have best of all proved true. For now it is possible for both Greek and barbarian, both with his goods and without his goods, to travel easily wherever he wishes, exactly as if going from fatherland to fatherland. Neither do the Cilician Gates cause fear, nor the narrow and sandy passages through Arabia to Egypt, nor impassable mountains, nor boundless rivers, nor savage tribes of barbarians; but for safety it is enough to be a Roman — or rather one of those under you. And the saying of Homer, "the earth is yet common to all," you have made a reality in deed, having measured out the whole inhabited world, and yoked the rivers with bridges of every kind, and cut through mountains to make the land passable for horses, and filled the deserts with stations, and tamed all things with a settled and ordered way of life. So that I, for my part, conceive the life that is reckoned to have been before Triptolemus to have been this — the life before you, 226. a hard and rustic life, little removed from the life of the mountains; and that the city of the Athenians began the civilized and present way of life, but that this too was confirmed by you who came after — better second-comers, as they say. Nor, indeed, is there now any need to write a description of the earth, nor to enumerate the laws each people uses; but you have become common guides for all, having flung open all the gates of the inhabited world and given to those who wish the power to see all things with their own eyes; and having appointed common laws for all, and put an end to the things that before were pleasant in the telling of a tale but, if one took them by reckoning, unendurable; and having made marriages common and ordered the whole inhabited world as a single household. And truly, as the poets say, that before the rule of Zeus all things were full of faction and uproar and disorder, but that when Zeus came to power all things were set in order, and the Titans went off into the lowest recesses of the earth, thrust down by him and the gods with him — so too one, reckoning concerning affairs before you and in your time, would suppose that before your empire all things were confounded up and down and borne at random, but that, when you stood over them, the confusions and factions ceased, and order of all things and a bright light entered into life and polity, and laws appeared and the altars of the gods received belief. For before, men, as if mutilating their parents, mutilated the earth too; and they did not slay their children, but destroyed one another's and their own in factions and at the very altars. But now a common and clear security for all is given both to the earth itself and to those who dwell in it; and from suffering ill all are released, while for being well led they seem to me to have received 227. many means; and the gods, looking down, graciously help you to set the empire aright and grant you secure possession of it — Zeus, because you well care for the inhabited world, his fair work, as they say; Hera, honoured because marriages are made by law; Athena and Hephaestus, because the arts are honoured; Dionysus and Demeter, because their fruits are not outraged; Poseidon, because his sea is clear of naval battles, and has received merchant-ships in place of triremes. And the chorus of Apollo and Artemis and the Muses never ceases beholding its servants in the theatres; Hermes has his share of contests and embassies; and when did Aphrodite have more occasion for sowings and graces? Or when did the cities have a greater portion of them? And the graces of Asclepius and of the gods of Egypt have now most greatly increased among men. Nor, indeed, is Ares dishonoured by you, nor is there fear that he should throw all into confusion, as when he was slighted at the banquet of the Lapiths; but on the banks beyond the rivers he dances his ceaseless dance, keeping his arms clean of blood. And Helios, who beholds all things, has seen under you nothing violent or unjust, nor such things as were many in former times; so that reasonably he beholds your empire most gladly. And it seems to me that Hesiod, had he been as perfect and prophetic in poetry as Homer — who, like him, was not ignorant that your empire would be — but had foreseen it and uttered it in his verses, would not, as now, having begun his genealogy from the golden race, or, when he came to set forth concerning the last and iron race, have said that this would be its ruin, "when men at their birth shall be grey at the temples"; but he would have said that when your protectorate and empire should be established, then the iron race would perish from the earth, 228. and to Justice and Reverence then would be granted a return among men, and that he pitied those born before you.

The honours, then, that have been introduced among you have truly been brought in by you and are ever more confirmed in succession. But he who now is the great ruler — like a pure contestant — so far surpasses, by what comes from himself, his father, as it is not easy even to say that he himself surpasses others. And indeed one might say that justice and law are truly whatever this man should judge. And why should not this too be plain before all the rest: that he holds the partners of his empire as his own sons, like to himself, more than any of those before him? But the contest set before me from the beginning was greater than any — to make my speech equal to the greatness of the empire; and it needs nearly as much time as the empire itself — and that would be all eternity. It is best, then, just as the poets of dithyrambs and paeans do, to add a prayer and so close the speech. Let, then, all the gods and the children of the gods be invoked, and let them grant that this empire and this city flourish forever and never cease, until anvils swim upon the sea and trees cease to bloom in spring; and that the great ruler and his children be safe and dispense good things to all. My venture is accomplished; whether for worse or for better, it is now permitted to cast the vote.