1In general, those who are going to be in charge of the state should hold to two precepts of Plato: one, that they so protect the interests of the citizens that whatever they do they refer to that, forgetting their own advantage; the other, that they care for the whole body of the state, lest, while they protect some one part, they abandon the rest. 1For, like a guardianship, the stewardship of the state must be conducted for the benefit of those who have been entrusted to it, not of those to whom it has been entrusted. 1But those who look after one part of the citizens and neglect another bring into the state a most ruinous thing, sedition and discord; 1from which it comes about that some seem to be men of the people, others partisans of all the best men, and few seem to belong to everyone.
86Hence the great discords among the Athenians, and in our own state not only seditions but also ruinous civil wars; 86these a serious and brave citizen, one worthy of leadership in the state, will shun and hate; he will give himself wholly to the state, will not pursue wealth or power, and will protect the whole of it in such a way as to look after everyone; 86nor indeed will he bring anyone into hatred or ill will by false charges, and altogether he will cling so firmly to justice and honour that, so long as he preserves them, he will give any offence, however grave, and meet death rather than abandon the principles I have described.
87Utterly wretched is ambition and the struggle for office, about which there is an excellent passage in the same Plato: 'those who contended among themselves as to which of them should govern the state behaved just as if sailors were to fight over which of them should be the one to steer.' 87He also teaches that 'we should consider those to be adversaries who bear arms against us, not those who wish to protect the state according to their own judgement,' such as was the disagreement, without bitterness, between Publius Africanus and Quintus Metellus. 88Nor indeed should we listen to those who think that one ought to be fiercely angry with one's enemies, and who judge this to be the mark of a great-spirited and brave man; 88for nothing is more praiseworthy, nothing more worthy of a great and distinguished man, than readiness to be appeased and clemency.
88Among free peoples, indeed, and where there is equality before the law, one must also practise affability and what is called loftiness of mind, so that, if we grow angry with those who approach us at the wrong time or make shameless requests, we do not fall into a useless and hateful peevishness. 88And yet mildness and clemency are to be approved only so far as severity is still applied for the sake of the state, for without it a state cannot be governed. 88But all punishment and reproof ought to be free of insult, and should be directed not to the advantage of the man who punishes someone or rebukes him with words, but to the advantage of the state.
89We must also take care that the punishment is not greater than the fault, and that some are not punished for the same reasons for which others are not even called to account. 89But anger above all must be kept out of punishing; 89for one who comes to inflict punishment in anger will never keep that mean which lies between too much and too little, which the Peripatetics approve, and rightly approve, if only they did not praise irascibility and say that it was given by nature for a useful purpose. 89But anger is to be rejected in every circumstance, and we should hope that those who preside over the state may be like the laws, which are led to punish not by anger but by equity.