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15To this Augustus replied: “But, wife, I, too, am aware that no high position is ever free from envy and treachery, and least of all a monarchy. 2Indeed, we should be equals of the gods if we had not troubles and cares and fears beyond all men in private station. But precisely this is what causes my grief,—that this is inevitably so and that no remedy for it can be found.”
3“Yet,” said Livia, “since some men are so constituted as to want to do wrong in any event, let us guard against them. We have many soldiers who protect us, some arrayed against foreign foes and others about your person, and also a large retinue, so that by their help we may live in security both at home and abroad.”
4“I do not need to state,” Augustus answered and said, “that many men on many occasions have perished at the hands of their immediate associates. For monarchies have this most serious disadvantage in addition to all the rest, that we have not only our enemies to fear, as have other men, but also our friends. 5And a far greater number of rulers have been plotted against by such persons than by those who have no connexion with them at all, inasmuch as his friends are with the ruler both day and night, when he takes his exercise, when he sleeps, and when he takes the food and drink which they have prepared. For the ruler labours under this special disadvantage as regards his friends, that, although he can protect himself from his enemies by arraying his friends against them, there is no corresponding ally on whom he may rely to protect him from these very friends. 6Consequently we rulers find it to be true at all times, that whereas solitude is dreadful, company also is dreadful, that whereas unprotectedness is terrifying, the very men who protect us are most terrifying, and that whereas our enemies are difficult to deal with, our friends are still more difficult. 7‘Friends,’ I say, for friends they must all be called, even if they are not friends. And even if one should find loyal friends, still one could by no means so completely trust them as to associate with them with a sincere, untroubled, and unsuspecting heart. This situation, then, and the necessity of taking measures to protect ourselves against the other group of plotters, combine to make our position utterly dreadful. For to be always under the necessity of taking vengeance and inflicting punishments is a source of great sorrow, to good men at least.”
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