more, that they may not acquire more than themselves, they say that it is base and unjust to obtain a superiority, and that to endeavour to acquire more than others is to commit injustice. 86. For they are content, I think, if they, being weaker, have an equal portion. For this reason, therefore, by law it is said to be unjust and base to endeavour to possess more than the many, and they call this committing an injustice. But nature herself, I think, evinces, on the contrary, that it is just that the better should have more than the worse, and the more powerful than the weaker. And it is evident in many instances that it is so, both in other animals, and in whole cities and races of men, that the just is so settled that the superior should rule over the inferior, and possess more than they. For, with what justice did Xerxes make war upon Greece, or his father on the Scythians? or ten thousand other instances which one might adduce? But I think they do these things according to natural justice, and, by Jupiter, according to the law of nature; not, perhaps, according to that law which we have framed, taking the best and strongest amongst us from their youth, like lions, we tame them by incantations and juggleries, telling them that it is right to preserve equality, and that this is the beautiful and the just. 87. But, I think, if there should be a man found with sufficient natural power, having shaken off all these trammels, and broken through, and abandoned, and trampled under foot our written ordinances, and quackeries, and incantations, and laws contrary to nature, he, from being our slave, would rise up and prove himself our master; and then natural justice would shine forth. Pindar, too, appears to me to have declared what I now assert, in the ode in which he says that “law is the king of all, both mortals and immortals; and,” he adds, “he with most powerful hand makes use of might, calling it right; and this I infer from the deeds of Hercules, since _he drove away the oxen of Geryon_ unbought.” He speaks pretty much in this manner; for I do not remember the ode by heart. He says, then, that Hercules drove away the oxen of Geryon, without having either bought them, or received them as a gift, as if this were naturally just, that both oxen, and all other possessions, when the property of the worse and inferior, belong to the better and superior. Such, then, is the truth; and you will know that it is so, if, dismissing philosophy, you betake yourself to greater things. 88. For philosophy, Socrates, is an elegant thing, if one handles it moderately in youth; but if one dwells upon it longer then is becoming, it is the ruin of men. For if a man should have excellent abilities, and should study philosophy beyond the period of youth, he must necessarily become unskilled in all things in which he ought to be skilled, who desires to be a worthy, good, and distinguished man. For such men are unskilled in