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26“With regard, then, to the senators and the knights, this is the advice I have to give you,—yes, and this also, that while they are still children they should attend the schools, and when they come out of childhood into youth they should turn their minds to horses and to arms, and have paid public teachers in each of these departments. 2In this way from their very boyhood they will have had both instruction and practice in all that they will themselves be required to do on reaching manhood, and will thus prove more serviceable to you for every undertaking. For the best ruler,—the ruler who is worth anything,—should not only perform himself all the duties which devolve upon him, but should make provision for the rest also, that they may become as excellent as possible. 3And this title can be yours, not if you allow them to do whatever they please and then censure those who err, but if, before any mistakes are made, you give them instruction in everything the practice of which will render them more useful both to themselves and to you, and if you afford nobody any excuse whatever, 4either wealth or nobility of birth or any other attribute of excellence, for affecting indolence or effeminacy or any other behaviour that is counterfeit. For many persons, fearing that, by reason of some such advantage, they may incur jealousy or danger, do many things that are unworthy of themselves, expecting by such behaviour to live in greater security. 5As a consequence, not only do they, on their part, become objects of pity as being victims of injustice in precisely this respect, that men believe that they are deprived of the opportunity of leading upright lives, but their ruler also, on his part, suffers not only a loss, in that he is robbed of men who might have been good, but also ill-repute, because he is blamed for the others’ condition. Therefore never permit this thing to happen, and have no fear, on the other hand, that anyone who has been reared and educated as I propose will ever venture upon a rebellion. 6On the contrary, it is the ignorant and licentious that you should suspect; for it is such persons who are easily influenced to do absolutely any and every thing, even the most disgraceful and outrageous, first toward themselves and then toward others, whereas those who have been well reared and educated do not deliberately do wrong to any one else and least of all to the one who has cared for their rearing and education. 7If, however, one of these does show himself wicked and ungrateful, you have merely to refuse to entrust him with any position of such a kind as will enable him to do any mischief; and if even so he rebels, let him be convicted and punished. You need not, I assure you, be afraid that anyone will blame you for this, provided that you carry out all my injunctions. 8For in taking vengeance on the wrongdoer you will be guilty of no sin, any more than the physician is who resorts to cautery and surgery; but all men will assuredly say that the offender has got his deserts, because, after partaking of the same rearing and education as the rest, he plotted against you.
“Let this be your procedure, then, in the case of the senators and the knights.
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