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18“I do not mean by this that we must spare all wrongdoers without distinction, but that we must cut off the headstrong man, the meddlesome, the malicious, the trouble-maker, and the man within whom there is an incurable and persistent depravity, just as we treat the members of the body that are quite beyond all healing. 2In the case of the rest, however, whose errors, committed wilfully or otherwise, are due to youth or ignorance or misapprehension or some other adventitious circumstance, we should in some cases merely rebuke them with words, in others bring them to their senses by threats, and in still others apply some other form of moderate treatment, just as in the case of slaves, who commit now this and now that offence, all men impose greater penalties upon some and lesser upon others. 3Hence, so far as these political offenders are concerned, you may employ moderation without danger, punishing some by banishment, others by disfranchisement, still others by a pecuniary fine, and another class you may dispose of by placing some in confinement in the country and others in certain cities.
“Experience has shown that men are brought to their senses even by failing to obtain what they hoped for and by being disappointed in the object of their desires. 4Many men have been made better by having assigned to them at the spectacles seats which confer no honour, or by being appointed to posts to which disgrace attaches, and also by being offended or frightened in advance; and yet a man of high birth and spirit would sooner die than suffer such humiliation. 5By such means their plans for vengeance would be made no easier, but rather more difficult, of accomplishment, while we on our part should be able to avoid any reproach and also to live in security. As things are now, people think that we kill many through resentment, many through lust for their money, others through fear of their bravery and others actually through jealousy of their virtues. For no one finds it easy to believe that a ruler who possesses so great authority and power can be the object of plotting on the part of an unarmed person in private station, but some invent the motives I have mentioned, and still others assert that many false accusations come to our ears and that we give heed to many idle rumours as if they were true. 6Spies, they say, and eavesdroppers get hold of such rumours, and then—actuated sometimes by enmity and sometimes by resentment, in some cases because they have received money from the foes of their victims, in other cases because they have received none from the victims themselves—concoct many falsehoods, reporting not only that such and such persons have committed some outrage or are intending to commit it, but even that when so-and -so made such and such a remark, so-and -so heard it and was silent, a second person laughed, and a third burst into tears.
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