necessity for some military leader and umpire of disputes. Now to have one general or umpire is unquestionably the happiest provision for such a necessity. The apprehension that the one person so selected may ultimately become a master is unknown to the man who is truly free; he does not even dream of such a possibility; to no one does he attribute the power of subjugating his liberty, and to no one that is himself free the wish to lord it over others—for he who is utterly insensible to the sublime beauty of liberty and thirsts only for dominion, is in reality in love with slavery, so long as he does not contemplate the likelihood of being himself a slave; and thus it is, that as the science of morals originated in crime, and theology in heresy, so politics sprang into existence with servitude.
And yet, although we find their prototypes in antiquity, it is certain that our monarchs have not the honeyed and persuasive speech which characterized the kings of Homer and Hesiod.[1]
- ↑
Ὅντινα τιμήσουσι Δὶος κοῦραι μεγάλοιο,
Γεινόμενόν τ' ἐσίδωσι διοτρεφέων βασιλήων,
Τῷ μὲν ἐπὶ γλώσσῃ γλυκερὴν χείουσιν ἔερσην,
Τοῦ δ' ἔπέ ἐκ στόματος ῥεῖ μείλιχα.Τούνεκα γὰρ βασιλῆες ἐχέφρονες, οὕνεκα λαοῖς
Βλαπτόμενοις ἀγορῆφι μετάτροπα ἔργα τελεῦσι
Ῥηιδίως, μαλακοῖσι παραιφάμενοι ἐπέεσσιν.Hesiod. Theog. 81. sqq. 88 sqq.
"Whomsoever of the race of kings,—
The foster-sons of Jove,—Jove's daughters will
To honour, on whose infant head, when first
Usher'd to light, they placid gaze from high,
Upon his tongue they shed a balmy dew;
And words, as honey sweet, drop from his lips.""Lo! in this are kings discreet;
That, in their judgment-hall, they from th' oppress'd
Turn back the tide of ills, retrieving wrongs
With mild accost of soothing eloquence."C. A. Elton's translation, v. 112. sqq. 122 sqq.
