BOOKS OF THE MOMENT

THE WOES OF A DESPOT

[COPYRIGHT IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY THE

New York Times.] Xenophon. Scripts Minora. With an English Translation by E. C. Marchant ; The Scriptores Historiae Augustae. With an English Translation by David Magie, Ph.D. Vol. IL (in three volumes).

Frontinus. Stratagems ; Aqueducts. With an English Transla- tion by Charles E. Bennett. The Loeb Classical Library. (London : William Heinemann. New York : G. P. Putnam'a • Sons. 10s. net per vol.) ONE of the great advantages which the Loeb Classical Library confers upon mankind is that it enables us to drag forth treasures from what may well be called the scrap-heap of Greek and Roman literature. To most of us—even when we have bad what is called a classical education—the scrap-heap is full of moving and interesting things. If you turn it over,

as you can by means of the Loeb Library, you will find, like the small girl in the story, that quite a number of " perfectly

good cats " have been thrown upon it and that you may discover in the heap odd fragments of battered crowns and broken jewelry and gems which still shine to delight the eyes of lucky finders.

The last instalment of the Loeb Translations gives three ,excellent examples of what I mean. I will take first from the scrap-heap the Scripta Minora of Xenophon—a book of real treasure-trove. To the ordinary man Xenophon means the Anabasis and the Memorabilia, and possibly the Wconornica. ;Further than this very few people read, and yet, as is proved by the volume before us, there is a mine of delightful, amusing and stimulating things in the Hiero, in the Ways and 'Means (a shrewd piece of political economy for decadent or war-ruined States), and in The Art of Horsemanship—to choose only three out of the seven essays in the volume under consideration. Of the three I have chosen, the Hiero will seem most attractive at the present moment, for it is a disquisi- tion on what a certain number of careless-minded people are inclined to think a panacea for social and political evils—the rule of the enlightened despot, or, to be frank and personal, the rule of a man like Signor Mussolini, the autocratic care- taker of the Italian State. In Xenophon's day there were many such. He takes for example and analyses Hiero, the tyrant of Syracuse. Xenophon, like the ingenious Whig and Moderate that he was, states the political dangers and dis- advantages of despotism in a dialogue between Hiero and Simonides the poet, a visitor at the Syracusan court. Very slyly, the arguments against tyranny are put in the mouth of the tyrant, not of his literary interrogator. Simonides is inclined to think that an enlightened tyrant is not only able to confer benefits on the State, but enjoys a specially good time for himself. Hiero is instant to disabuse him of any such idea. His part, indeed, is to pour forth a catalogue of woes. He expounds at great length and with great ingenuity the sorrows of the unhappy autocrat, and shows how miserable is his position compared with that of the free citizen.

" I know you were born a private citizen," says the poet, " and are now a despot." As he has experienced both fortunes, he is just the man to compare the lives led by the two types of ,men. Simonides then hazards the suggestion that in any case the despot cannot be worse off than the private citizen, since he has the same physical structure as the private citizen, the same senses of taste, sight, and hearing. The only difference, indeed, is that the despot has far greater opportunities for enjoying the pleasures to be experienced by means of these organs of sense, and that his pains are, at the same time, very much fewer than those of the private citizen. Not a bit of it, replies Hiero. The despot has far fewer pleasures and many more pains. And then he proceeds to give his reasons, many of them very quaint and human, and highly characteristic of the Greek mind. In the first place, despots can have none of the pleasures of sight-seeing. The ordinary citizen can travel about and go to national festivals and see everything that is worth seeing : but the despot can do nothing of the kind. He dare not risk himself in a crowd, and his position at home tis too insecure to let him range abroad. Simonides counters with the reflection that at any rate fine shows and pleasures

of this kind come to tyrants even when they stay at home. " No they don't," says Hiero. Tyrants cannot even indulge in the pleasures of picking up antiquities cheap, for " the showmen," when they come to offer some trifle to the tyrant, " expect to leave the court in an hour with far more money than they get from the rest of the world in a lifetime." The notion that a despot finds society pleasant is still more gloomily dismissed. Just look at marriages, too I says Hiero. He cannot marry above him, which is a great source of pleasure and interest to the private man. " Unless a despot marries a foreign girl, he is bound to marry beneath him," and so the pleasure of marrying above him or of marrying an equal can never be his. " And whereas it is exceedingly pleasant to receive the atten- tions of the proudest of ladies, the attentions of slaves are quite unappreciated when shown, and any little shortcomings produce grievous outbursts of anger and annoyance." So goes on the tale of woe. But these outward and visible signs of autocratic discomfort are nothing, says Hiero, com- pared with the secret sorrows that infest the despot's soul. Peace is a great blessing to mankind, but very little of it falls to the share of the despot, he continues. On the other hand, in the great evil of war the despots receive the largest share of that evil. If the despot is defeated great is his loss ; but even if he conquers he may be worse off. For " all despots move everywhere as in an enemy's country." To private citizens a truce or peace brings rest from war ; " but despots are never at peace with the people subject to their despotism, and no truce can ever make a despot confident." In his home life the despot can never have the greatest of all joys—true friendship.

" The firmest friendships, I take it, are supposed to be those that unite parents to children, children to parents, wives to husbands, comrades to comrades. Now you will find, if you will but observe, that private citizens are, in fact, loved most deeply by these. But what of despots ? Many have slain their own children ; many have themselves been murdered by their children ; many brothers, partners in despotism, have perished by each other's hand ; many have been destroyed even by their own wives, aye, and by comrades whom they accounted their closest friends. Seeing, then, that they are so hated by those who are bound by natural ties and con- strained by custom to love them most, how are we to suppose that they are loved by any other being ? "

The tyrant can never be jovial :-

" Drink and sleep I avoid as a snare. To fear a crowd, and yet fear solitude, to fear to go unguarded, and yet fear the very men who guard you, to recoil from attendants unarmed and yet dislike to see them armed—surely, that is a cruel predicament ! And then, to trust foreigners more than citizens, strangers more than Greeks, to long to keep free men slaves, and yet be forced to make slaves free—do you not think that all these are sure tokens of a soul that is crushed with fear ? Fear, you know, is not only painful in itself by reason of its presence in the soul, but by haunting us even in our pleasures it spoils them utterly."

Next comes a very shrewd observation. The tyrant can never be really powerful in the matter of foreign affairs unless he can rest himself on a national army. If he does, the national army will end by destroying him. Therefore he has to keep the people unarmed and trust to mercenaries. But the man who trusts to mercenaries is always in their power. The tyrant has to dread his protectors and to put watchers to watch the watchers—a second line of guardians to guard him from the first set.

So far the dialogue is excellent ; but it ends in rather a babyish defence of the virtuous tyrant, which is put in the mouth of Simonides. He tries to persuade Hiero that if he would only be the benevolent despot all might go well. And then most characteristically comes in Xenophon's King Charles' head—the raising of a good cavalry force and the breeding of horses. Here, indeed, is a proof that the dialogue must be by Xenophon, for his position as a pious, evangelical

horsecoper is unique. Just listen to him in the following passage. After a wonderful dissertation upon public works and the adornment of a city, which one can imagine Louis Napoleon reading to Baron Hausmann, comes the exclamation, " And what about the breeding of chariot horses, commonly considered the noblest and grandest business in the world ? " But the despot is not to breed them for pleasure in his own private studs but should rather encourage the general breeding of good horses in the community. Xenophon, indeed, shows here how much he would have appreciated the reply of the old hunting squire who was asked to define a good man. He gave as the chief characteristic of such a person that he

always has " two or three likely young ones coming on in hisstable." True to type, Xenophon ends in a regular copybook exhortation to Hiero :-

"Take heart then, Hiero ; enrich your friends, for so you will enrich yourself. Exalt the state, for so you will deck yourself with power. . . . Account the fatherland your estate, the citizens your comrades, friends your own children, your sons possessions dear as life. And try to surpass all these in deeds of kindness. For if you out-do your friends in kindness, it is certain that your enemies will not be able to resist you."

I wish I could say something about the dialogue on " Ways and Means," for in certain ways it reads very much like good, common-sense post-War finance for the present day. Mixed up with the economics are very sound things about peace and the absurdity of thinking that war can ever be financially profitable.

Anyone who wants to see more about the art of despotism should turn to the new volume of the Scriptores Historiae Augustae. It is nothing like so good as the first volume,

partly because the writers are far less capable, and secondly, because they are dealing with degenerate and second-rate Emperors, not with people like Hadrian and the first Antonines. Still, anybody who wants to see what autocracy and despotism raised into a hereditary system is like when it gets to the dregs, could not do better than stir the cesspool of Elagabalus as set forth in this book.

To these, though it does not throw much light on the art of being a tyrant, I must add the very admirable piece of scrap-heap treasure contained in the two pamphlets of Frontinus, one on military stratagem, and the other on the aqueducts of Rome. Frontinus may be compared to those engineer officers of British and American armies who are ultimately turned into civilian administrators in the matter of public works, but who in early life had a pretty taste in the art of war. In the end the R.E. officer of whom I am speaking became a kind of super-plumber, for the Emperor Nerva invested him with the duties of Water Commissioner at Rome. This meant that he had under his hands the upkeep and repair

of-all the aqueducts that fed the great city.

One may presume that the De Aquis was a preliminary report written for his Department. In the preface to the said report he tells us how he insisted upon making himself personally acquainted with all the details of the works under his control. Then, with real zest, he enters into all the details of imperial plumbing, i.e., into descriptions of how the plumbers' raw material, water, comes into the city. It is delightful to see the man's enthusiasm and veneration for the great works under his care. He speaks of " Claudia," " Marcia," and " Julia " as if they were living people, and tells us their special characteristics and how they accomplished their great work. The tract should certainly be read by the

chairman and officials of theMetropolitan Water Board. When they see the illustrations showing the magnificence of the Roman aqueducts they will sigh to think that the modern system of pipes does not lend itself to such architectural triumphs. J. ST. LOE STRACHEY.