Plutarch Praecepta gerendae reipublicae 13

[13] Next after this comes the decision to be made concerning friends, and here we approve neither the idea of Themistocles nor that of Cleon. For Cleon, when he first decided to take up political life, brought his friends together and renounced his friendship with them as something which ofter weakens and perverts the right and just choice of policy in political life. But he would have done better if he had cast out from his soul avarice and love of strife and had cleansed himself of envy and malice; for the State needs, not men who have no friends or comrades, but good and self-controlled men. As it was, he drove away his friends, about him, as the comic poets say; and being rough and harsh to the better classes he in turn subjected himself to the multitude in order to win its favour, and making the basest and most unsound element of the people his associates against;he best. But Themistocles on the other hand, when someone said that he would govern well if he showed himself equally impartial to all, replied: May I never take my seat on such a throne that my friends shall not have more from me than those who are not my friends! He also was wrong; for he put the government under pledge to his friendship, subordinating the affairs of the community and the public to private favours and interests. And yet when Simonides asked for something that was not just, he said to him: Neither is he a good poet who sings contrary to metre, nor is he an equitable ruler who grants favours contrary to law. For truly it is an outrageous and abominable thing if a pilot selects sailors and a ship-captain selects a pilot and an architect chooses subordinates and handicraftsmen who will not spoil his work but will co-operate to perfect it, whereas the statesman, who is, as Pindar says, ⁴ the best of craftsmen and the maker of lawfulness and justice, does not immediately choose friends whose convictions are I ke his own, who will aid him and share his enthusiasm for what is noble, but rather those who are always wrongfully and by violent means trying to divert him to various other uses. Such a statesman will be found to be no better than a builder or a carpenter who through ignorance and error makes use of such squares and rulers and levels as are sure to make his work crooked. For friends are the living and thinking tools of the statesman, and he ought not to slip with them when they go wrong, but he must be on the watch that they do not err even through ignorance. In fact, it was this that disgraced Solon and brought him into disrepute among the citizens; for when he made up his mind to lighten debts and to introduce the Seisachtheia ⁵ (that was the nickname for the cancellation of debts), he told his friends about it, and they did a very wrong thing; they secretly borrowed a great deal of money before the law was published, and a little later, after its publication, they were found to have bought splendid houses and much land with the money they had borrowed, and Solon, who was wronged, was accused of sharing in their wrongdoing. Agesilaüs, too, showed himself very weak and poor-spirited in dealing with his friends’ solicitations and, like Pegasus in Euripides’ drama, and by too great eagerness in aiding them when in misfortunes he made himself seem like them in wrongdoing; for example, when Phoebidas was on trial for seizing the Cadmeia without orders, he got him off by saying that such things were bound to happen of their own accord; and when Sphodrias was being tried for an illegal and frightful act (for he had invaded Attica when the Athenians were friends and allies), he brought about his acquittal, being softened by the amorous pleadings of his son. And a note of his to a certain ruler is quoted as follows: If Nicias is innocent, let him go; if he is guilty, let him go for my sake; anyway, let him go. ⁷ But Phocion did not even appear in support of his son-in-law Charicles when he was accused in connexion with the Harpalus affair; he merely said: I made you my son-in-law for nothing but what is right and went away. And Timoleon of Corinth, ⁸ when he was unable either by instruction or by entreaty to make his brother give up his tyranny, joined with those who destroyed him. For a statesman ought, by stopping short of being a party to perjury, not to be a friend as far as the altar, ⁹ as Pericles once said, but only so far as conforms to any law, equity, or advantage the neglect of which leads to great public injury, as did the failure to punish Sphodrias and Phoebidas, for they did a great deal to make Sparta enter into the Leuctrian war. For the principles that govern a statesman’s conduct do not force him to act with severity against the moderate errors of his friends; on the contrary, they make it possible for him, after he has once made the chief public interests safe, out of his abundant resources to assist his friends, take his stand beside them, and help them out of their troubles. And there are also favours which arouse no ill-will, such as aiding a friend to gain an office, putting into his hands some honourable administrative function or some friendly foreign mission, for example one which includes honours to a ruler or negotiations with a State concerning friendship and concord; and if some public activity be laborious, but conspicuous and important, the statesman can first appoint himself to the post and then choose his friend as assistant, just as Diomedes did: And Odysseus again fittingly returns the compliment: For such concession to one’s friends adorns those who give praise no less than those who receive it; but self-conceit, says Plato, ¹² dwells with loneliness. Then, besides, a man ought to ascribe to his friends a share in his own good and kindly acts of favour; he should tell those who have been benefited to praise and show them affection as the originators and advisers of the favours. But base and absurd requests he should reject, not harshly but gently, informing the askers by way of consolation that the requests are not in accord with their own excellence and reputation. Epameinondas exemplifies this most admirably: after refusing to let the pedlar out of prison at Pelopidas’s request and then letting him out a little later when his mistress asked it, he said, Favours of that sort, Pelopidas, are fit for courtesans to receive, but not for generals. But Cato acted harshly and arbitrarily when he was quaestor, and Catulus the censor, one of his most intimate friends, asked for the acquittal of a man who was being tried, by saying: It is a disgrace that you, whose duty it is to train us young men to honourable conduct, have to be thrown out by our servants. For he might, while refusing the favour in fact, have avoided harshness and bitterness of speech, by producing the impression that the offensive quality of his action was not due to his own will, but was forced upon him by law and justice. There ai’e also in public life ways which are not dishonourable of helping friends who need money to acquire it; as, for example, when after the battle Themistocles saw a corpse wearing a golden bracelet and necklace, he himself passed it by, but turned to his friend and said, Take these things, for you are not, as I am, Themistocles. For the administration of affairs frequently gives the man in public life this sort of chance to help his friends; for not every man is a Menemachus. ¹³ Hand over to one friend a case at law which will bring in a good fee as advocate in a just cause, to another introduce a rich man who needs legal oversight and protection, and help another to get some profitable contract or lease. Epameinondas even told a friend to go to a certain rich man and ask for a talent, saying that it was he who bade him give it; and when the man who had been asked for it came and asked him the reason, he replied: Because this man is a good man and poor, but you are rich since you have appropriated much of the State’s wealth. And Xenophon ¹⁴ says that Agesilaiis delighted in enriching his friends, he being himself above money.