overflowing wealth of your possessions; your horses, excellent for
breed and mettle; the choice beauty of your arms; the exquisite finery
of your wives; the gorgeous palaces in which you dwell, and these,
too, furnished with the costliest works of art; add to which the
throng of your retainers, courtiers, followers, not in number only but
accomplishments a most princely retinue; and lastly, but not least of
all, in your supreme ability at once to afflict your foes and benefit
your friends.

[1] Lit. "many among those reputed to be men." Cf. "Cyrop." V. v. 33;
"Hell." i. 24, "their hero"; and below, viii. 3. Aristoph. "Ach."
78, {oi barbaroi gar andras egountai monous} | {tous pleista
dunamenous phagein te kai piein}: "To the Barbarians 'tis the test
of manhood: there the great drinkers are the greatest men"
(Frere); id. "Knights," 179; "Clouds," 823; so Latin "vir." See
Holden ad loc.

[2] "Us lesser mortals."

To all which Hiero made answer: That the majority of men, Simonides,
should be deluded by the glamour of a despotism in no respect
astonishes me, since it is the very essence of the crowd, if I am not
mistaken, to rush wildly to conjecture touching the happiness or
wretchedness of people at first sight.

Now the nature of a tyrrany is such: it presents, nay flaunts, a show
of costliest possessions unfolded to the general gaze, which rivets
the attention;[3] but the real troubles in the souls of monarchs it
keeps concealed in those hid chambers where lie stowed away the
happiness and the unhappiness of mankind.