XLVII. As soon as day broke, all the popular leaders, conscious of their guilt, left the city, with the exception of Herakleides and Theodotus, who went of their own accord and delivered themselves up to Dion, admitting that they had done wrong, and begging that he would treat them better than they had treated him. They pointed out, also, how much he would enhance the lustre of his other incomparable virtues by showing himself superior even in the matter of temper to those by whom he had been wronged, who now came before him admitting that in their rivalry with him they had been overcome by his virtue. When Herakleides and his companion thus threw themselves upon the mercy of Dion, his friends advised him not to spare such envious and malignant wretches, but to deliver up Herakleides to his soldiers, and thus to put an end to mob rule, an evil quite as pestilent as despotism itself. Dion, however, calmed their anger, observing that other generals spent most of their time in practising war and the use of arms; but that he, during his long sojourn in the Academy, had learned to subdue his passions, and to show himself superior to jealousy of his rivals. True greatness of mind, he said, could be better shown by forgiving those by whom one has been wronged, than by doing good to one's friends and benefactors; and he desired not so much to excel Herakleides in power and generalship, as in clemency and justice, the only qualities which are truly good: for our successes in war, even if won by ourselves alone, yet can only be won by the aid of Fortune. "If," he continued, "Herakleides be jealous, treacherous and base, that is no reason for Dion to stain his glory by yielding to his anger; for though to revenge a wrong is held to be less culpable than to commit one, yet both alike spring from the weakness of human nature: while even though a man be wicked, yet he is seldom so hopelessly depraved as not to be touched by one who repeatedly returns good for evil."