1'What follows, then? 1Are kings too not in the habit of killing? 1' Yes, but whenever the public good persuades them that it should be done; 1to tyrants savagery is dear. 1But a tyrant differs from a king in deeds, not in name; 1for Dionysius the elder may rightly and deservedly be preferred to many kings, and what prevents Lucius Sulla from being called a tyrant, whose killing was ended only by a lack of enemies? 2Granted that he stepped down from his dictatorship and returned to the toga, yet what tyrant ever drank human blood so greedily as he, who ordered seven thousand Roman citizens to be butchered, and who, sitting nearby at the temple of Bellona and hearing the outcry of so many thousands groaning under the sword, said to the terrified senate: 'Let us attend to business, conscript fathers; 2a handful of rebels are being put to death on my orders'?
3In this he did not lie; 3they seemed few to Sulla. 3But of Sulla presently, when we ask how one should be angry with enemies, especially if citizens, torn away from the same body, have passed over to the name of enemy; 3meanwhile, as I was saying, clemency brings it about that there is a great difference between a king and a tyrant, though both alike are fenced about with arms; 3but the one has arms which he uses to fortify peace, the other in order to suppress great hatreds by great fear, and not even the very hands to which he has entrusted himself does he look upon without anxiety.
4He is driven by contrary forces into contrary courses; 4for since he is hated because he is feared, he wants to be feared because he is hated, and he takes up that accursed line which has sent many headlong, 'Let them hate, so long as they fear', not knowing what madness arises when hatreds have grown beyond measure. 4For a moderate fear restrains minds, but one that is constant and sharp and threatens the utmost rouses even the prostrate to boldness and urges them to try everything. 5So a cord hung with feathers may keep wild beasts penned in; 5let a horseman attack the same beasts with spears from behind, and they will try to flee through the very things they had fled from, and will trample their terror underfoot.
5The fiercest courage is that which utmost necessity hammers out. 5Fear must leave something secure, and show far more hope than danger; 5otherwise, when a man who keeps quiet has as much to fear, he is glad to rush into dangers and to spend his life as if it were another's.