part of a
man, but of a slave, who indeed had better die than live; since when he
is wronged and trampled upon, he is unable to help himself, or any other
about whom he cares. The reason, as I conceive, is that the makers of
laws are the majority who are weak; and they make laws and distribute
praises and censures with a view to themselves and to their own
interests; and they terrify the stronger sort of men, and those who
are able to get the better of them, in order that they may not get the
better of them; and they say, that dishonesty is shameful and unjust;
meaning, by the word injustice, the desire of a man to have more than
his neighbours; for knowing their own inferiority, I suspect that they
are too glad of equality. And therefore the endeavour to have more
than the many, is conventionally said to be shameful and unjust, and is
called injustice (compare Republic), whereas nature herself intimates
that it is just for the better to have more than the worse, the more
powerful than the weaker; and in many ways she shows, among men as well
as among animals, and indeed among whole cities and races, that justice
consists in the superior ruling over and having more than the inferior.
For on what principle of justice did Xerxes invade Hellas, or his father
the Scythians? (not to speak of numberless other examples). Nay, but
these are the men who act according to nature; yes, by Heaven, and
according to the law of nature: not, perhaps, according to that
artificial law, which we invent and impose upon our fellows, of whom we
take the best and strongest from their youth upwards, and tame them like
young lions,--charming them with the sound of the voice, and saying to
them, that with equality they must be content, and that the equal is
the honourable and the just. But if there were a man who had sufficient
force, he would shake off and break through, and escape from all this;
he would trample under foot all our formulas and spells and charms, and
all our laws which are against nature: the slave would rise in rebellion
and be lord over us, and the light of natural justice would shine forth.
And this I take to be the sentiment of Pindar, when he says in his poem,
that

'Law is the king of all, of mortals as well as of immortals;'

this, as he says,

'Makes might to be right, doing violence with highest hand; as I infer
from the deeds of Heracles, for without buying them--' (Fragm. Incert.
151 (Bockh).) --I do not remember t