with, perverse and terrible, and afterwards became a mild and humane ruler. This instance may be an uncertain one, but we know of Gelon at any rate, and Hiero in Sicily, and Pisistratus son of Hippocrates, how they won power by wickedness, but all used [Sidenote: 552] it virtuously; came to rule through unlawful ways, but turned out fair and patriotic rulers; introduced the reign of law and of careful agriculture, found their subjects men of jest and gossip, and made them sober and industrious. Gelon, moreover, fought nobly at the head of his people, won a great battle against the Carthaginians, and refused them a peace when they sued for one, until he had bound them in a covenant to give up the practice of sacrificing their children to Cronus. Then, in Megalopolis, there was a tyrant Lydiadas, who changed [Sidenote: B] his ways in the actual course of his reign, and in disgust with his own injustice restored to the citizens their laws, and fell gloriously fighting for the country against its enemies. Suppose some one had slain Miltiades while tyrant in the Chersonese, as he first was, or had got a conviction for incest against Cimon, or had robbed Athens of Themistocles by a prosecution for his riotous passage through the market-place, as was done with Alcibiades later on, where would be our Marathons, our Eurymedons, that noble Artemisium, [Sidenote: C] _where Athens’ sons Set firm the shining base of Liberty?_[214] For great natures produce nothing petty; their vehemence and energy cannot rest for very intensity, they toss about on the surge before they settle into their solid and abiding character. As then one ignorant of husbandry would not welcome the prospect of a piece of land full of thick undergrowth and weeds, with many wild creatures on it, and streams of water, and deep mud; whereas, to one who has learned to use his senses and to discriminate, those very things suggest strength and fatness and everything that is good in the soil, so it is with great natures. They break out early into many strange bad growths, [Sidenote: D] out of which we, in our intolerance, think it our duty to cut away and stunt all that is rough and prickly; but the Judge who is better than we and who sees the good and generous crop to come, waits for Time, the fellow-worker with Reason and Virtue, and that ripeness whereby Nature yields the proper fruit.