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Sec. XV. But if the person that importunes us be famous or a man of power, for such persons are very hard to move by entreaty or to get rid of when they come to sue for your vote and interest, it will not perhaps be easy or even necessary to behave as Cato, when quite a young man, did to Catulus. Catulus was in the highest repute at Rome, and at that time held the office of censor, and went to Cato, who then held the office of quaestor, and tried to beg off someone whom he had fined, and was urgent and even violent in his petitions, till Cato at last lost all patience, and said, “To have you, the censor, removed by my officers against your will, Catulus, would not be a seemly thing for you.” So Catulus felt ashamed, and went off in a rage. But see whether the answers of Agesilaus and Themistocles are not more modest and in better form. Agesilaus, when he was asked by his father to pronounce sentence contrary to the law, said, “Father, I was taught by you even from my earliest years to obey the laws, so now I shall obey you and do nothing contrary to law.” And Themistocles, when Simonides asked him to do something unjust, replied, “Neither would you be a good poet if your lines violated the laws of metre, nor should I be a good magistrate if I gave decisions contrary to law.”

Sec. XVI. And yet it is not on account of want of metrical harmony in respect to the lyre, to borrow the words of Plato, that cities quarrel with cities and friends with friends, and do and suffer the worst woes, but on account of deviations[670] from law and justice. And yet some, who themselves pay great attention to melody and letters and measures, do not think it wrong for others to neglect what is right in magistracies and judicial sentences and business generally. One must therefore deal with them in the following manner. Does an orator ask a favour of you when you are acting as juryman, or a demagogue when you are sitting in council? Say you will grant his request if he first utter a solecism, or introduce a barbarism into his speech; he will refuse because of the shame that would attach itself to him; at any rate we see some that will not in a speech let two vowels come together. If again some illustrious and distinguished person importune you to something bad, bid him come into the market-place dancing or making wry faces, and if he refuse you will have an opportunity to speak, and ask him which is more disgraceful, to utter a solecism and make wry faces, or to violate the law and one’s oath, and contrary to justice to do more for a bad than for a good man. Nicostratus the Argive, when Archidamus offered him a large sum of money and any Lacedaemonian bride he chose if he would deliver up Cromnum, said Archidamus could not be a descendant of Hercules, for he travelled about and killed evil-doers, whereas Archidamus tried to make evil-doers of the good. In like manner, if a man of good repute tries to force and importune us to something bad, let us tell him that he is acting in an ignoble way, and not as his birth and virtue would warrant.

Sec. XVII. But in the case of people of no repute you must see whether you can persuade the miser by your importunity to lend you money without a bond, or the proud man to yield you the better place, or the ambitious man to surrender some office to you when he might take it himself. For truly it would seem monstrous that, while such remain firm and inflexible and unmoveable in their vicious propensities, we who wish to be, and profess to be, men of honour and justice should be so little masters of ourselves as to abandon and betray virtue. For indeed, if those who importune us do it for glory and power, it is absurd that we should adorn and aggrandize others only to get infamy and a bad name ourselves; like unfair umpires in the public games, or like people voting only to ingratiate themselves, and so bestowing improperly offices and prizes[671] and glory on others, while they rob themselves of respect and fair fame. And if we see that the person who importunes us only does so for money, does it not occur to one that it is monstrous to be prodigal of one’s own fame and reputation merely to make somebody else’s purse heavier? Why the idea must occur to most people, they sin with their eyes open; like people who are urged hard to toss off big bumpers, and grunt and groan and make wry faces, but at last do as they are told.