There
are some who think that while a despotic rule over others is the
greatest injustice, to exercise a constitutional rule over them,
even though not unjust, is a great impediment to a man's individual
wellbeing. Others take an opposite view; they maintain that the true
life of man is the practical and political, and that every virtue
admits of being practiced, quite as much by statesmen and rulers as by
private individuals. Others, again, are of opinion that arbitrary
and tyrannical rule alone consists with happiness; indeed, in some
states the entire aim both of the laws and of the constitution is to
give men despotic power over their neighbors. And, therefore, although
in most cities the laws may be said generally to be in a chaotic
state, still, if they aim at anything, they aim at the maintenance
of power: thus in Lacedaemon and Crete the system of education and the
greater part of the of the laws are framed with a view to war. And
in all nations which are able to gratify their ambition military power
is held in esteem, for example among the Scythians and Persians and
Thracians and Celts.
In some nations there are even laws tending to stimulate the warlike
virtues, as at Carthage, where we are told that men obtain the honor
of wearing as many armlets as they have served campaigns. There was
once a law in Macedonia that he who had not killed an enemy should
wear a halter, and among the Scythians no one who had not slain his
man was allowed to drink out of the cup which was handed round at a
certain feast.
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