Roman History, 52.35

Cassius Dio  translated by Earnest Cary

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35“As regards your subjects, then, you should so conduct yourself, in my opinion. So far as you yourself are concerned, permit no exceptional or prodigal distinction to be given you, through word or deed, either by the senate or by any one else. 2For whereas the honour which you confer upon others lends glory to them, yet nothing can be given to you that is greater than what you already possess, and, besides, no little suspicion of insincerity would attach to its giving. No subject, you see, is ever supposed to vote any such distinction to his ruler of his own free will, and since all such honours as a ruler receives he must receive from himself, he not only wins no commendation for the honour but becomes a laughing-stock besides. 3You must therefore depend upon your good deeds to provide for you any additional splendour. And you should never permit gold or silver images of yourself to be made, for they are not only costly but also invite destruction and last only a brief time; but rather by your benefactions fashion other images in the hearts of your people, images which will never tarnish or perish. 4Neither should you ever permit the raising of a temple to you; for the expenditure of vast sums of money on such objects is sheer waste. This money would better be used for necessary objects; for wealth which is really wealth is gathered, not so much by getting largely, as by saving largely. Then, again, from temples comes no enhancement of one’s glory. 5For it is virtue that raises many men to the level of gods, and no man ever became a god by popular vote. Hence, if you are upright as a man and honourable as a ruler, the whole earth will be your hallowed precinct, all cities your temples, and all men your statues, since within their thoughts you will ever be enshrined and glorified. 6As for those, on the contrary, who administer their realms in any other way, such honours not only do not lend holiness to them, even though shrines are set apart for them in all their cities, but even bring a greater reproach upon them, becoming, as it were, trophies of their baseness and memorials of their injustice; for the longer these temples last, the longer abides the memory of their infamy.

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