[45] Thus he secured the safety of the Persian empire. He himself, he felt sure, ran no danger from the massages of the conquered people; he saw they had no courage, no unity, and no discipline, and, moreover, not one of them could ever come near him, day or night. [46] But there were others whom he knew to be true warriors, who carried arms, and who held by one another, commanders of horse and foot, many of them men of spirit, confident, as he could plainly see, of their own power to rule, men who were in close touch with his own guards, and many of them in constant intercourse with himself; as indeed was essential if he was to make any use of them at all. It was from them that danger was to be feared; and that in a thousand ways. [47] How was he to guard against it? He rejected the idea of disarming them; he thought this unjust, and that it would lead to the dissolution of the empire. To refuse them admission into his presence, to show them his distrust, would be, he considered, a declaration of war. [48] But there was one method, he felt, worth all the rest, an honourable method and one that would secure his safety absolutely; to win their friendship if he could, and make them more devoted to himself than to each other. I will now endeavour to set forth the methods, so far as I conceive them, by which he gained their love. [C.2] In the first place he never lost an opportunity of showing kindliness wherever he could, convinced that just as it is not easy to love those who hate us, so it is scarcely possible to feel enmity for those who love us and wish us well. [2] So long as he had lacked the power to confer benefits by wealth, all he could do then was to show his personal care for his comrades and his soldiers, to labour in their behalf, manifest his joy in their good fortune and his sympathy in their sorrows, and try to win them in that way. But when the time came for the gifts of wealth, he realised that of all the kindnesses between man and man none come with a more natural grace than the gifts of meat and drink. [3] Accordingly he arranged that his table should be spread every day for many guests in exactly the same way as for himself; and all that was set before him, after he and his guests had dined, he would send out to his absent friends, in token of affection and remembrance. He would include those who had won his approval by their work on guard, or in attendance on himself, or in any other service, letting them see that no desire to please him could ever escape his eyes. [4] He would show the same honour to any servant he wished to praise; and he had all the food for them placed at his own board, believing this would win their fidelity, as it would a dog's. Or, if he wished some friend of his to be courted by the people, he would single him out for such gifts; even to this day the world will pay court to those who have dishes sent them from the Great King's table, thinking they must be in high favour at