Orations

⁴⁰ His next task was to appease, and allay by magnanimous treatment, the opposition to himself: and that without any trace of flattery or servility, but in a most chivalrous and magnanimous way; with a view, not merely to present exigencies, but also to the fostering of future obedience. For, seeing that, while tenderness leads to laxity and slackness, severity gives rise to stubbornness and self-will, he was able to avoid the dangers of each course by a combination of both, blending his correction with consideration, and gentleness with firmness, influencing men in most cases principally by his conduct rather than by argument: not enslaving them by art, but winning them by good nature, and attracting them by the sparing use, rather than by the constant exercise, of his power.

And, most important of all, they were brought to recognize the superiority of his intellect and the inaccessibility of his virtue, to consider their only safety to consist in being on his side and under his command, their sole danger to be in opposition to him, and to think that to differ from him involved estrangement from God. Thus they willingly yielded and surrendered, submitting themselves, as if in a thunder-clap, and hastening to anticipate each other with their excuses, and exchange the intensity of their hostility for an equal intensity of goodwill, and advance in virtue, which they found to be the one really effective defence.

The few exceptions to this conduct were passed by and neglected, because their ill-nature was incurable, and they expended their powers in wearing out themselves, as rust consumes itself together with the iron on which it feeds.