76 XXII. Panaetius praises Africanus for his integrity in public life. Why should he not? But Africanus had other and greater virtues. The boast of official integrity belongs not to that man alone but also to his times. When Paulus got possession of all the wealth of Macedon—and it was enormous—he brought into our treasury so much money[AY] that the spoils of a single general did away with the need for a tax on property in Rome for all time to come. But to his own house he brought nothing save the glory of an immortal name. Africanus emulated his father's example and was none the richer for his overthrow of Carthage. And what shall we say of Lucius Mummius, his colleague in the censorship? Was he one penny the richer when he had destroyed to its foundations the richest of cities? He preferred to adorn Italy rather than his own house. And yet by the adornment of Italy his own house was, as it seems to me, still more splendidly adorned.

77 There is, then, to bring the discussion back to the point from which it digressed, no vice more offensive than avarice, especially in men who stand foremost and hold the helm of state. For to exploit the state for selfish profit is not only immoral; it is criminal, infamous. And so the oracle, which the Pythian Apollo uttered, that "Sparta should not fall from any other cause than avarice," seems to be a prophecy not to the Lacedaemonians alone, but to all wealthy nations as well. They who direct the affairs of state, then, can win the good-will of the masses by no other means more easily than by self-restraint and self-denial.

78 But they who pose as friends of the people, and who for that reason either attempt to have agrarian laws passed, in order that the occupants may be driven out of their homes, or propose that money loaned should be remitted to the borrowers, are undermining the foundations of the commonwealth: first of all, they are destroying harmony, which cannot exist when money is taken away from one party and bestowed upon another; and second, they do away with equity, which is utterly subverted, if the rights of property are not respected. For, as I said above, it is the peculiar function of the state and the city to guarantee to every man the free and undisturbed control of his own particular property. 79 And yet, when it comes to measures so ruinous to public welfare, they do not gain even that popularity which they anticipate. For he who has been robbed of his property is their enemy; he to whom it has been turned over actually pretends that he had no wish to take it; and most of all, when his debts are cancelled, the debtor conceals his joy, for fear that he may be thought to have been insolvent; whereas the victim of the wrong both remembers it and shows his resentment openly. Thus even though they to whom property has been wrongfully awarded be more in number than they from whom it has been unjustly taken, they do not for that reason have more influence; for in such matters influence is measured not by numbers but by weight. And how is it fair that a man who never had any property should take possession of lands that had been occupied for many years or even generations, and that he who had them before should lose possession of them?

80 XXIII. Now, it was on account of just this sort of wrong-doing that the Spartans banished their ephor Lysander, and put their king Agis to death—an act without precedent in the history of Sparta. From that time on—and for the same reason—dissensions so serious ensued that tyrants arose, the nobles were sent into exile, and the state, though most admirably constituted, crumbled to pieces. Nor did it fall alone, but by the contagion of the ills that, starting in Lacedaemon, spread widely and more widely, it dragged the rest of Greece down to ruin. What shall we say of our own Gracchi, the sons of that famous Tiberius Gracchus and grandsons of Africanus? Was it not strife over the agrarian issue that caused their downfall and death?

81 Aratus of Sicyon, on the other hand, is justly praised. When his city had been kept for fifty years in the power of its tyrants, he came over from Argos to Sicyon, secretly entered the city and took it by surprise; he fell suddenly upon the tyrant Nicocles, recalled from banishment six hundred exiles who had been the wealthiest men of the city, and by his coming made his country free. But he found great difficulty in the matter of property and its occupancy; for he considered it most unjust, on the one hand, that those men should be left in want whom he had restored and of whose property others had taken possession; and he thought it hardly fair, on the other hand, that tenure of fifty years' standing should be disturbed. For in the course of that long period many of those estates had passed into innocent hands by right of inheritance, many by purchase, many by dower. He therefore decided that it would be wrong either to take the property away from the present incumbents or to let them keep it without compensation to its former possessors. 82 So, when he had come to the conclusion that he must have money to meet the situation, he announced that he meant to make a trip to Alexandria and gave orders that matters should remain as they were until his return. And so he went in haste to his friend Ptolemy, then upon the throne, the second king after the founding of Alexandria. To him he explained that he wished to restore constitutional liberty to his country and presented his case to him. And, being a man of the highest standing, he easily secured from that wealthy king assistance in the form of a large sum of money. And when he had returned with this to Sicyon, he called into counsel with him fifteen of the foremost men of the city. With them he investigated the cases both of those who were holding possession of other people's property and of those who had lost theirs. And he managed by a valuation of the properties to persuade some that it was more desirable to accept money and surrender their present holdings; others he convinced that it was more to their interest to take a fair price in cash for their lost estates than to try to recover possession of what had been their own. As a result, harmony was preserved, and all parties went their way without a word of complaint.

83 A great statesman, and worthy to have been born in our commonwealth! That is the right way to deal with one's fellow-citizens, and not, as we have already witnessed on two occasions, to plant the spear in the forum and knock down the property of citizens under the auctioneer's hammer. But yon Greek, like a wise and excellent man, thought that he must look out for the welfare of all. And this is the highest statesmanship and the soundest wisdom on the part of a good citizen, not to divide the interests of the citizens but to unite all on the basis of impartial justice. "Let them live in their neighbour's house rent-free."[AZ] Why so? In order that, when I have bought, built, kept up, and spent my money upon a place, you may without my consent enjoy what belongs to me? What else is that but to rob one man of what belongs to him and to give to another what does not belong to him? 84 And what is the meaning of an abolition of debts, except that you buy a farm with my money; that you have the farm, and I have not my money?

XXIV. We must, therefore, take measures that there shall be no indebtedness of a nature to endanger the public safety. It is a menace that can be averted in many ways; but should a serious debt be incurred, we are not to allow the rich to lose their property, while the debtors profit by what is their neighbour's. For there is nothing that upholds a government more powerfully than its credit; and it can have no credit, unless the payment of debts is enforced by law. Never were measures for the repudiation of debts more strenuously agitated than in my consulship. Men of every sort and rank attempted with arms and armies to force the project through. But I opposed them with such energy that this plague was wholly eradicated from the body politic. Indebtedness was never greater; debts were never liquidated more easily or more fully; for the hope of defrauding the creditor was cut off and payment was enforced by law. But the present victor, though vanquished then, still carried out his old design, when it was no longer of any personal advantage to him.[BA] So great was his passion for wrong-doing that the very doing of wrong was a joy to him for its own sake, even when there was no motive for it.

85 Those, then, whose office it is to look after the interests of the state will refrain from that form of liberality which robs one man to enrich another. |Administration of the courts in equity.| Above all, they will use their best endeavours that every one shall be protected in the possession of his own property by the fair administration of the law and the courts, that the poorer classes shall not be oppressed because of their helplessness, and that envy shall not stand in the way of the rich, to prevent them from keeping or recovering possession of what justly belongs to them; they must strive, too, by whatever means they can, in peace or in war, to advance the state in power, in territory, and in revenues.

Such service calls for great men; it was commonly rendered in the days of our ancestors; if men will perform duties such as these, they will win popularity and glory for themselves and at the same time render eminent service to the state.

86 Now, in this list of rules touching expediency, Antipater of Tyre, a Stoic philosopher who recently died at Athens, claims that two points were overlooked by Panaetius—the care of health and of property. I presume that the eminent philosopher overlooked these two items because they present no difficulty. At all events they are expedient. Although they are a matter of course, I will still say a few words on the subject. Individual health is preserved by studying one's own constitution, by observing what is good or bad for one, by constant self-control in supplying physical wants and comforts (but only to the extent necessary to self-preservation), by foregoing sensual pleasures, and finally, by the professional skill of those to whose science these matters belong.

87 As for property, it is a duty to make money, but only by honourable means; it is a duty also to save it and increase it by care and thrift. These principles Xenophon, a pupil of Socrates, has set forth most happily in his book entitled "Oeconomicus." When I was about your present age, I translated it from the Greek into Latin.

But this whole subject of acquiring money, investing money (I wish I could include also spending money) is more profitably discussed by certain worthy gentlemen on "Change" than could be done by any philosophers of any school. For all that, we must take cognizance of them; for they come fitly under the head of expediency, and that is the subject of the present book.

88 XXV. But it is often necessary to weigh one expediency against another;—for this, as I stated, is a fourth point overlooked by Panaetius. For not only are physical advantages regularly compared with outward advantages [and outward, with physical], but physical advantages are compared with one another, and outward with outward. Physical advantages are compared with outward advantages in some such way as this: one may ask whether it is more desirable to have health than wealth; [external advantages with physical, thus: whether it is better to have wealth than extraordinary bodily strength;] while the physical advantages may be weighed against one another, so that good health is preferred to sensual pleasure, strength to agility. Outward advantages also may be weighed against one another: glory, for example, may be preferred to riches, an income derived from city property to one derived from the farm. 89 To this class of comparisons belongs that famous saying of old Cato's: when he was asked what was the most profitable feature of an estate, he replied: "Raising cattle successfully." What next to that? "Raising cattle with fair success." And next? "Raising cattle with but slight success." And fourth? "Raising crops." And when his questioner said, "How about money-lending?" Cato replied: "How about murder?"

From this as well as from many other incidents we ought to realize that expediencies have often to be weighed against one another and that it is proper for us to add this fourth division in the discussion of moral duty.

Let us now pass on to the remaining problems.