They ought therefore to furnish themselves with pleasures of the mind, not ungenerous or illiberal, like those of Simonides, who said to those who reproached him with covetousness, that being by his years deprived of other pleasures, he recreated his old age with the only delight which remained, that of heaping up riches. But political life has in it pleasures exceeding great, and no less honorable, being such as it is probable the very Gods do only or at least chiefly enjoy themselves in; and these are the delights which proceed from doing good and performing what is honest and laudable. For if Nicias the painter took such pleasure in the work of his hands, that he often was fain to ask his servants whether he had washed or dined; and if Archimedes was so intent upon the table in which he drew his geometrical figures, that his attendants were obliged by force to pluck him from it and strip him of his clothes that they might anoint him, whilst he in the mean time drew new schemes on his anointed body; and if Canus the piper, whom you also know, was wont to say that men knew not how much more he delighted himself with his playing than he did others, for that then his hearers would rather demand of him than give him a reward; do we not thence conceive how great pleasures the virtues afford to those who practise them, from their honest actions and public-spirited works tending to the benefit of human society? They do not tickle or weaken, as do such sweet and gentle motions as are made on the flesh; for these indeed have a furious and unconstant itching, mixed with a feverish inflammation; whereas those which accompany the state is worker of, not like the golden plumes of Euripides, but like those celestial wings of Plato, elevate the soul which has received a greatness of courage and wisdom accompanied with joy. 6. Call to mind a little, I entreat you, those things you have so often heard. For Epaminondas indeed, being asked what was the most pleasant thing that ever befell him, answered, his having gained the victory at Leuctra whilst his father and mother were yet living. And Sylla, when, having freed Italy from civil wars, he came to Rome, could not the first night fetch the least wink of sleep, having his soul transported with excessive joy and content, as with a strong and mighty wind; and this he himself has written in his Commentaries. For be it indeed so, as Xenophon says, that there is no sound more pleasing than one’s own praises; yet there is no sight, remembrance, or consideration which gives a man so much satisfaction as the contemplation of his own actions, performed by him in offices of magistracy, and management of the state, in eminent and public places.