Phocion.—For this action I praise him. It was, indeed, far more dangerous for a minister at Athens to violate that absurd and extravagant law than any of those of Solon. But though he restored our finances, he could not restore our lost virtue; he could not give that firm health, that vigour to the State, which is the result of pure morals, of strict order and civil discipline, of integrity in the old, and
obedience in the young. I therefore dreaded a conflict with the solid strength of Macedon, where corruption had yet made but a very small progress, and was happy that Demosthenes did not oblige me, against my own inclination, to be the general of such a people in such war.
Aristides.—I fear that your just contempt of the greater number of those who composed the democracy so disgusted you with this mode and form of government, that you were as averse to serve under it as others with less ability and virtue than you were desirous of obtruding themselves into its service. But though such a reluctance proceeds from a very noble cause, and seems agreeable to the dignity of a great mind in bad times, yet it is a fault against the highest of moral obligations—the love of our country. For, how unworthy soever individuals may be, the public is always respectable, always dear to the virtuous.
Phocion.—True; but no obligation can lie upon a citizen to seek a public charge when he foresees that his obtaining of it will be useless to his country. Would you have had me solicit the command of an army which I believed would be beaten?
Aristides.—It is not permitted to a State to despair of its safety till its utmost efforts have been made without success. If you had commanded the army at Chæronea you might possibly have changed the event of the day; but, if you had not, you would have died more honourably there than in a prison at Athens, betrayed by a vain confidence in the insecure friendship of a perfidious Macedonian.
DIALOGUE XXXII.
Marcus Aurelius Philosophus—Servius Tullius.
Servius Tullius.—Yes, Marcus, though I own you to have been the first of mankind in virtue and goodness—though, while you governed, Philosophy sat on the throne and
diffused the benign influences of her administration over the whole Roman Empire—yet as a king I might, perhaps, pretend to a merit even superior to yours.
Marcus Aurelius.—That philosophy you ascribe to me has taught me to feel my own defects, and to venerate the virtues of other men. Tell me, therefore, in what consisted the superiority of your merit as a king.