(I fear that it is beyond my powers to describe the magnificence of your outlay for other purposes, nor will I risk being tedious by staying now to count up the sums you bestowed on cities that had long been destitute. For whereas, in the time of your predecessors, they lacked the necessaries of life, they have all become rich through you, and the general prosperity of each city increases the welfare of every private household in it. But it is proper that I should mention your gifts to private persons, and give you the title of a generous and open‐handed Emperor; for since there were many who long ago had lost their property, because, in some cases justly, in others unjustly, their ancestral estates had suffered loss, you had no sooner come into power, than like a just judge you set right in the latter cases the errors committed by men in the past, and restored them to the control of their property, while in the former cases you were a kindly arbiter, and granted that they should recover what they had lost, thinking that to have suffered so long was punishment enough. Then you lavished large sums from your privy purse, and increased the reputation for wealth of many who even in the past had prided themselves on their large incomes. But why should I remind you of all this and seem to waste time over trifles? Especially as it must be obvious to all that no king except Alexander the son of Philip was ever known to bestow such splendid presents on his friends. Indeed some kings have thought that the wealth of their friends gave more grounds for suspicion and alarm than did the resources of their enemies, while others were jealous of the aristocrats among their subjects, and therefore persecuted the well‐born in every possible way, or even exterminated their houses, and thus were responsible for the public disasters of their cities and, in private life, for the most infamous crimes. There were some who went so far as to envy mere physical advantages, such as health or good looks, or good condition. And as for a virtuous character among their subjects, they could not bear even to hear of it, but counted it a crime like murder or theft or treason to appear to lay claim to virtue. But perhaps someone will say, and with truth, that these were the actions and practices not of genuine kings but of base and contemptible tyrants. Nay, but that other malady which has been known to attack not only those who were irrational, but some even who were just and mild, I mean the tendency to quarrel with friends who were too prosperous and to wish to humble them and deprive them of their rightful possessions, who I ask has ever dared so much as to mention such conduct in your case? Yet such, they say, was the treatment that Cyrus the Persian, the king’s son‐in‐law, received from his kinsman,(196) who could not brook the honour in which Cyrus was held by the common people, and Agesilaus also is well known to have resented the honours paid to Lysander by the Ionians.)