it fitting to allow some of them to continue publicly their outrageous
conduct.

"This is the way I advise you to treat people's offences, except the very
desperate cases: and you should honor even beyond the deserts of the deed
whatever they do rightly. In this way you can best make them refrain from
baser conduct by kindliness and cause them to aim at what is better by
liberality. Have no dread that either money or other means of rewarding
those who do well will ever fail you. I think those deserving of good
treatment will prove far fewer than the rewards, since you are lord of so
much land and sea. And fear not that any who are benefited will commit
some act of ingratitude. Nothing so captivates and conciliates any one,
be he foreigner or be he foe, as freedom from wrongs and likewise kindly
treatment.

[-35-] "This is the attitude which I urge you to assume toward others.
For your own part allow no extraordinary or overweening distinction to
be given you through word or deed by the senate or by anybody else. To
others honor which you confer lends adornment, but to your own self
nothing can be given that is greater than what you already have, and it
would arouse no little suspicion of failure in straightforwardness. None
of the ordinary people willingly approves of having any such distinction
voted to the man in power. As he receives everything of the kind
from himself, he not only obtains no praise for it but becomes a
laughing-stock instead. Any additional brilliance, then, you must create
for yourself by your good deeds. Never permit gold or silver images of
yourself to be made; they are not only costly, but they give rise to
plots and last but a brief time: you must build in the very hearts of
men others out of benefits conferred, which shall be both unalloyed and
undying. Again, do not ever allow a temple to be raised to yourself.
Large amounts of money are spent uselessly on such objects, which had
better be laid out upon necessary improvements. Great wealth is gathered
not so much by acquiring a great deal as by not spending a great deal.
Nor does a temple contribute anything to any one's glory. Excellence
raises many men to the level of the gods, but nobody ever yet was made a
god by show of hands. Hence if you are upright and rule well, the whole
earth will be your precinct, all cities your temple, all mankind your
statues. In their thoughts you will ever be enshrined and surrounded by
good repute. Those w