(Accordingly, when you had gained a thorough knowledge of the Celts, you crossed to the other continent and were given sole command against the Parthians and Medes. There were already signs that a war was smouldering and would soon burst into flame. You therefore quickly learned how to deal with it, and, as though you took as model the hardness of your weapons, steeled yourself to bear the heat of the summer season. I have heard say that Alcibiades alone, among all the Greeks, was naturally so versatile that when he cast in his lot with the Spartans he copied the self‐ restraint of the Lacedaemonians, then in turn Theban and Thracian manners, and finally adopted Persian luxury. But Alcibiades, when he changed his country changed his character(62) too, and became so tainted with perversity and so ill‐conditioned that he was likely to lose utterly all that he was born to. You, however, thought it your duty to maintain your severity of life wherever you might be, and by hard work inuring your constitution to change, you easily bore the march inland from Galatia to Parthia, more easily in fact than a rich man who lives now here, now there, according to the season, would bear it if he were forced to encounter unseasonable weather. I think Heaven smiled on you and willed that you should govern the whole world, and so from the first trained you in virtue, and was your guide when you journeyed to all points, and showed you the bounds and limits of the whole empire, the character of each region, the vastness of your territory, the power of every race, the number of the cities, the characteristics of the masses, and above all the vast number of things that one who is bred to so great a kingship cannot afford to neglect. But I nearly forgot to mention the most important thing of all. From a boy you were taught to govern this great empire, but a better thing you learned, to be governed, submitting yourself to the authority that is the best in the world and the most just, that is to say nature and law. I mean that both as son and subject you obeyed your father. Indeed, had he been only your father or only your king, obedience was his due. Now what rearing and education for a king could one find in history better than this? Consider the Greeks. Not thus did the Spartans train the Heracleidae, though they are thought to have enjoyed the best form of government, that of their kings. As for the barbarians, not even the Carthaginians, though they were particularly well‐governed by their kings, chose the best method of training their future rulers. The moral discipline and the studies prescribed by their laws were pursued by all alike, as though the citizens were brothers, all destined both to govern and be governed, and in the matter of education they made no difference between their princes and the rest of the citizens. Yet surely it is foolish to demand superlative excellence from one’s rulers when one takes no pains to make them better than other men.