In most cases, however, monarchs or rulers show as little wisdom as a tasteless sculptor, who fancies that to represent a figure with a huge stride, strained muscles, and gaping mouth, is to make it appear massive and imposing. They imagine that [Sidenote: 780] an arrogant tone, harsh looks, short temper, and exclusiveness give them the true regal air of awe and majesty. In reality they are not a bit better than a colossal statue with the outward shape and form of a god or demigod, while the inside is a mass of earth, stone, or lead. Indeed, in the case of the statue, these heavy materials serve to keep it erect and prevent it from warping; whereas, with an unschooled governor or chief, the unreason within is often the cause of instability and collapse. [Sidenote: B] His foundation being out of plumb, the lofty power which he builds upon it is correspondingly unstable. Now it is only when the builder’s square is itself faultless in line and angle, that it can make other things true to line by adjustment to, and comparison with, itself. So a ruler must begin by acquiring rule within himself. Let him set his own soul straight, and make his own character firm, and then begin adjusting his subjects thereto. You cannot set upright, when you are falling; teach, when you are ignorant; discipline, when unruly; command, when disobedient; govern, when ungoverned. And yet it is a common error to suppose that the chief blessing of authority [Sidenote: C] is to be above authority. To the King of Persia every one was a slave except his own wife, the very person whose master he ought to have been.
By whom, then, is the ruler to be ruled? By the
_Law, Sovereign of mortals and immortals all_,
as Pindar says; not a law written outwardly in books or on wooden tables, but a living law of reason in himself, abiding with him, watching him, and never leaving his soul destitute of guidance. The King of Persia kept one chamberlain whose special function was to enter in the morning and say to him: ‘Rise, Sire, and attend to matters which Great Oromazdes [Sidenote: D] meant for your concern.’ The ruler who has learned wisdom and self-control hears the same voice of exhortation from within. It was a saying of Polemo that love is ‘_serving the Gods in the care and protection of the young_‘. With more truth it might be said that a ruler serves God in the care and protection of men, by dispensing, or safeguarding, the blessings which God gives to mankind.