Complete Works of Xenophon (Illustrated) (Delphi Ancient Classics) (79 page)

“As for you, Cambyses, you must also know that it is not this golden sceptre that maintains your empire; but faithful friends are a monarch’s truest and surest sceptre. But do not think that man is naturally faithful; else all men would find the same persons faithful, just as all find the other properties of nature the same. But every one must create for himself faithfulness in his friends; and the winning of such friends comes in no wise by compulsion, but by kindness.
[14]
If, then, you shall endeavour to make others also fellow-guardians of your sovereignty, make a beginning nowhere sooner than with him who is of the same blood with yourself. Fellow-citizens, you know, stand nearer than foreigners do, and messmates nearer than those who eat elsewhere; but those who are sprung from the same seed, nursed by the same mother, reared in the same home, loved by the same parents, and who address the same persons as father and mother, how are they not the closest of all?
[15]
Do not you two, therefore, ever make of no effect those blessings whereby the gods have led the way to knitting close the bonds between brothers, but do you build at once upon that foundation still other works of love; and thus the love between you will always be a love that no other men can ever surpass. Surely he that has forethought for his brother is taking care for himself; for to whom else is a brother’s greatness more of an honour than to a brother? And who else will be honoured by the power of a great man so much as that man’s brother? And if a man’s brother is a great man, whom will any one so much fear to injure as that man’s brother?
[16]

“Therefore, Tanaoxares, let no one more readily than yourself yield obedience to your brother or more zealously support him. For his fortunes, good or ill, will touch no one more closely than yourself. And bear this also in mind: whom could you favour in the hope of getting more from him than from your brother? Where could you lend help and get in return a surer ally than you would find in him? Whom would it be a more shameful thing for you not to love than your own brother? And who is there in all the world whom it would be a more noble thing to prefer in honour than your brother? It is only a brother, you know, Cambyses, whom, if he holds the first place of love in his brother’s heart, the envy of others cannot reach.
[17]

“Nay by our fathers’ gods I implore you, my sons, honour one another, if you care at all to give me pleasure. For assuredly, this one thing, so it seems to me, you do not know clearly, that I shall have no further being when I have finished this earthly life; for not even in this life have you seen my soul, but you have detected its existence by what it accomplished.
[18]
Have you never yet observed what terror the souls of those who have been foully dealt with strike into the hearts of those who have shed their blood, and what avenging deities they send upon the track of the wicked? And do you think that the honours paid to the dead would continue, if their souls had no part in any of them?
[19]
I am sure I do not; nor yet, my sons, have I ever convinced myself of this — that only as long as it is contained in a mortal body is the soul alive, but when it has been freed from it, is dead; for I see that it is the soul that endues mortal bodies with life, as long as it is in them.
[20]
Neither have I been able to convince myself of this — that the soul will want intelligence just when it is separated from this unintelligent body; but when the spirit is set free, pure and untrammelled by matter, then it is likely to be most intelligent. And when man is resolved into his primal elements, it is clear that every part returns to kindred matter, except the soul; that alone cannot be seen, either when present or when departing.
[21]

“Consider again,” he continued, “that there is nothing in the world more nearly akin to death than is sleep; and the soul of man at just such times is revealed in its most divine aspect and at such times, too, it looks forward into the future; for then, it seems, it is most untrammelled by the bonds of the flesh.
[22]

“Now if this is true, as I think it is, and if the soul does leave the body, then do what I request of you and show reverence for my soul. But if it is not so, and if the soul remains in the body and dies with it, then at least fear the gods, eternal, all-seeing, omnipotent, who keep this ordered universe together, unimpaired, ageless, unerring, indescribable in its beauty and its grandeur; and never allow yourselves to do or purpose anything wicked or unholy.
[23]

“Next to the gods, however, show respect also to all the race of men as they continue in perpetual succession; for the gods, do not hide you away in darkness, but your works must ever live on in the sight of all men; and if they are pure and untainted with unrighteousness, they will make your power manifest among all mankind. But if you conceive any unrighteous schemes against each other, you will forfeit in the eyes of all men your right to be trusted. For no one would be able any longer to trust you — not even if he very much desired to do so — if he saw either of you wronging that one who has the first claim to the other’s love.
[24]

“Now, if I am giving you sufficient instructions as to what manner of men you ought to be one towards the other — well and good; if not, then you must learn it from the history of the past, for this is the best source of instruction. For, as a rule, parents have always been friends to their children, brothers to their brothers; but ere now some of them have been at enmity one with another. Whichever, therefore, of these two courses you shall find to have been profitable, choose that, and you would counsel well.
[25]

“But of this, perhaps, enough.

“Now as to my body, when I am dead, my sons, lay it away neither in gold nor in silver nor in anything else, but commit it to the earth as soon as may be. For what is more blessed than to be united with the earth, which brings forth and nourishes all things beautiful and all things good? I have always been a friend to man, and I think I should gladly now become a part of that which does him so much good.
[26]

“But I must conclude,” he said; “for my soul seems to me to be slipping away from those parts of my body, from which, as it appears, it is wont to begin its departure. So if any one wishes to take my hand or desires to look into my face while I yet live, let him come near; but after I have covered myself over, I beg of you, my children, let no one look upon my body, not even yourselves.
[27]

“Invite, however, all the Persians and our allies to my burial, to joy with me in that I shall henceforth be in security such that no evil can ever again come nigh me, whether I shall be in the divine presence or whether I shall no longer have any being; and to all those who come show all the courtesies that are usual in honour of a man that has been blessed of fortune, and then dismiss them.
[28]

“Remember also this last word of mine,” he said: “if you do good to your friends, you will also be able to punish your enemies. And now farewell, my children, and say farewell to your mother as from me. And to all my friends, both present and absent, I bid farewell.”

After these words, he shook hands with them all, covered himself over, and so died.<

8.
That Cyrus’s empire was the greatest and most glorious of all the kingdoms in Asia — of that it may be its own witness. For it was bounded on the east by the Indian Ocean, on the north by the Black Sea, on the west by Cyprus and Egypt, and on the south by Ethiopia. And although it was of such magnitude, it was governed by the single will of Cyrus; and he honoured his subjects and cared for them as if they were his own children; and they, on their part, reverenced Cyrus as a father.
[2]
Still, as soon as Cyrus was dead, his children at once fell into dissension, states and nations began to revolt, and everything began to deteriorate. And that what I say is the truth, I will prove, beginning with the Persians’ attitude toward religion.lgt;

I know, for example, that in early times the kings and their officers, in their dealings with even the worst offenders, would abide by an oath that they might have given, and be true to any pledge they might have made.
[3]
For had they not had such a character for honour, and had they not been true to their reputation, not a man would have trusted them, just as not a single person any longer trusts them, now that their lack of character is notorious; and the generals of the Greeks who joined the expedition of Cyrus the Younger would not have had such confidence in them even on that occasion. But, as it was, trusting in the previous reputation of the Persian kings, they placed themselves in the king’s power, were led into his presence, and had their heads cut off. And many also of the barbarians who joined that expedition went to their doom, some deluded by one promise, others by another.
[4]

But at the present time they are still worse, as the following will show: if, for example, any one in the olden times risked his life for the king, or if any one reduced a state or a nation to submission to him, or effected anything else of good or glory for him, such an one received honour and preferment; now, on the other hand, if any one seems to bring some advantage to the king by evil-doing, whether as Mithradates did, by betraying his own father Ariobarzanes, or as a certain Rheomithres did, in violating his most sacred oaths and leaving his wife and children and the children of his friends behind as hostages in the power of the king of Egypt — such are the ones who now have the highest honours heaped upon them.
[5]

Witnessing such a state of morality, all the inhabitants of Asia have been turned to wickedness and wrong-doing. For, whatever the character of the rulers is, such also that of the people under them for the most part becomes. In this respect they are now even more unprincipled than before.
[6]

In money matters, too, they are more dishonest in this particular: they arrest not merely those who have committed many offences, but even those who have done no wrong, and against all justice compel them to pay fines; and so those who are supposed to be rich are kept in a state of terror no less than those who have committed many crimes, and they are no more willing than malefactors are to come into close relations with their superiors in power; in fact, they do not even venture to enlist in the royal army.
[7]
Accordingly, owing to their impiety toward the gods and their iniquity toward man, any one who is engaged in war with them can, if he desire, range up and down their country without having to strike a blow. Their principles in so far, therefore, are in every respect worse now than they were in antiquity.
[8]

In the next place, as I will now show, they do not care for their physical strength as they used to do/. For example, it used to be their custom neither to spit nor to blow the nose. It is obvious that they observed this custom not for the sake of saving the moisture in the body, but from the wish to harden the body by labour and perspiration. But now the custom of refraining from spitting or blowing the nose still continues, but they never give themselves the trouble to work off the moisture in some other direction.
[9]
In former times it was their custom also to eat but once in the day, so that they might devote the whole day to business and hard work. Now, to be sure, the custom of eating but once a day still prevails, but they begin to eat at the hour when those who breakfast earliest begin their morning meal, and they keep on eating and drinking until the hour when those who stay up latest go to bed.
[10]

They had also the custom of not bringing pots into their banquets, evidently because they thought that if one did not drink to excess, both mind and body would be less uncertain. So even now the custom of not bringing in the pots still obtains, but they drink so much that, instead of carrying anything in, they are themselves carried out when they are no longer able to stand straight enough to walk out.
[11]

Again, this also was a native custom of theirs, neither to eat nor drink while on a march, nor yet to be seen doing any of the necessary consequences of eating or drinking. Even yet that same abstinence prevails, but they make their journeys so short that no one would be surprised at their ability to resist those calls of nature.
[12]

Again, in times past they used to go out hunting so often that the hunts afforded sufficient exercise for both men and horses. But since Artaxerxes and his court became the victims of wine, they have neither gone out themselves in the old way nor taken the others out hunting; on the contrary, if any one often went hunting with his friends out of sheer love for physical exertion, the courtiers would not hide their jealousy and would hate him as presuming to be a better man than they.
[13]

Again, it is still the custom for the boys to be educated at court; but instruction and practice in horsemanship have died out, because there are no occasions on which they may give an exhibition and win distinction for skill. And while anciently the boys used there to hear cases at law justly decided and so to learn justice, as they believed — that also has been entirely reversed; for now they see all too clearly that whichever party gives the larger bribe wins the case.
[14]
The boys of that time used also to learn the properties of the products of the earth, so as to avail themselves of the useful ones and keep away from those that were harmful. But now it looks as if they learned them only in order to do as much harm as possible; at any rate, there is no place where more people die or lose their lives from poisons than there.
[15]

Furthermore, they are much more effeminate now than they were in Cyrus’s day. For at that time they still adhered to the old discipline and the old abstinence that they received from the Persians, but adopted the Median garb and Median luxury; now, on the contrary, they are allowing the rigour of the Persians to die out, while they keep up the effeminacy of the Medes.
[16]