There is so near an affinity betwixtangerandcruelty, that many people confound them; as ifcrueltywere only theexecutionofangerin the payment of arevenge: which holds in some cases, but not in others. There are a sort of men that take delight in the spilling of human blood, and in the death of those that never did them any injury, nor were ever so much suspected for it; as Apollodorus, Phalaris, Sinis, Procrustus, and others, that burnt men alive; whom we cannot so properly callangryasbrutal, forangerdoes necessarily presuppose an injury, eitherdone, orconceived, orfeared, but the other takespleasureintormenting, without so much as pretending anyprovocationto it, andkillsmerely forkilling sake. Theoriginalof thiscrueltyperhaps wasanger, which by frequentexerciseandcustom, has lost all sense ofhumanityandmercy, and they that are thus affected are so far from the countenance and appearance of men inanger, that they willlaugh,rejoice, andentertain themselveswith the mosthorrid spectacles, asracks,jails,gibbets, several sorts ofchainsandpunishments,dilacerationofmembers,stigmatizing, andwild beasts, with other exquisite inventions of torture; and yet, at last the cruelty itself is more horrid and odious thanthe means by which it works. It is a bestial madness tolovemischief; beside, that it iswomanishtorageandtear. A generous beast will scorn to do it when he has any thing at his mercy. It is a vice for wolves and tigers, and no lessabominableto theworldthandangerousto itself.
The Romans had theirmorningand theirmeridian spectacles. In theformer, they had their combats ofmenwithwild beasts; and in thelatter, themenfoughtone with another. “I went,” says our author, “the other day to themeridian spectacles, in hope of meeting somewhat of mirth and diversion to sweeten the humors of those that had been entertained with blood in themorning; but it proved otherwise, for, compared with this inhumanity, the former was a mercy. The whole business was only murder upon murder: the combatants fought naked, and every blow was a wound. They do not contend forvictory, but fordeath; and he that kills one man is to be killed by another. By wounds they are forced upon wounds which they take and give upon their barebreasts. Burn that rogue, they cryWhat! Is he afraid of his flesh? Do but see how sneakingly that rascal dies.Look to yourselves, my masters, and consider of it: who knows but this may come to be your own case?” Wicked examples seldom fail of coming home at last to the authors. To destroy asingleman may be dangerous; but to murder whole nations is only a moreglorious wickedness. Private avariceandrigorare condemned, butoppression, when it comes to beauthorizedby an act of state, and to be publiclycommanded, though particularly forbidden, becomes a point ofdignityandhonor. What a shame is it for men to interworry one another, when yet the fiercesteven of beasts are at peace with those of their own kind? This brutal fury puts philosophy itself to a stand. The drunkard, the glutton, the covetous, may be reduced; nay, and the mischief of it is that no vice keeps itself within its proper bounds. Luxury runs into avarice, and when the reverence of virtue is extinguished, men will stick at nothing that carries profit along with it; man’s blood is shed in wantonness—his death is a spectacle for entertainment, and his groans are music. When Alexander delivered up Lysimachus to a lion, how glad would he have been to have had nails and teeth to have devoured him himself: it would have too much derogated, he thought, from the dignity of his wrath, to have appointed amanfor the execution of his friend. Private cruelties, it is true, cannot do much mischief, but in princes they are a war against mankind.
C. Cæsar would commonly, forexerciseandpleasure, putsenatorsandRoman knightsto thetorture; andwhipseveral of them likeslaves, or put them todeathwith the most acutetorments, merely for the satisfaction of hiscruelty. That Cæsar that “wished the people of Rome had but one neck, that he might cut it off at one blow;”—it was the employment, the study, and the joy of his life. He would not so much as give the expiring leave to groan, but caused their mouths to be stopped with sponges, or for want of them, with rags of their own clothes, that they might not breathe out so much as their last agonies at liberty; or, perhaps, lest the tormented should speak something which the tormentor had no mind to hear. Nay, he was so impatient of delay, that he would frequently rise from supper to have men killed bytorch-light, as if his life anddeath had depended upon their dispatch before the next morning; to say nothing how manyfatherswere put to death in the same night with theirsons(which was a kind of mercy in the prevention of their mourning). And was not Sylla’s cruelty prodigious too, which was only stopped for want of enemies? He caused seven thousandcitizensof Rome to be slaughtered at once; and some of the senators being startled at their cries that were heard in thesenate-house, “Let us mind our business,” says Sylla; “this is nothing but a few mutineers that I have ordered to be sent out of the way.” Aglorious spectacle! says Hannibal, when he saw the trenches flowing with human blood; and if the rivers had run blood too, he would have liked it so much the better.
Among the famous and detestable speeches that are committed to memory, I know none worse than that impudent andtyrannical maxim, “Let them hate me, so they fear me;” not considering that those that are kept in obedience by fear, are both malicious and mercenary, and only wait for an opportunity to change their master. Beside that, whosoever is terrible to others is likewise afraid of himself. What is more ordinary than for a tyrant to be destroyed by his own guards? which is no more than the putting those crimes into practice which they learned of their masters. How many slaves have revenged themselves of their cruel oppressors, though they were sure to die for it! but when it comes once to apopular tyranny, whole nations conspire against it. For “whosoever threatens all, is in danger of all,” over and above, that the cruelty of the prince increases thenumberof his enemies, by destroying some of them; for itentails an hereditary hatred upon the friends and relations of those that are taken away. And then it has this misfortune, that a man must be wicked upon necessity; for there is no going back; so that he must betake himself to arms, and yet he lives in fear. He can neither trust to the faith of his friends, nor to the piety of his children; he both dreads death and wishes it; and becomes a greater terror to himself than he is to his people. Nay, if there were nothing else to make cruelty detestable, it were enough that it passes all bounds, both of custom and humanity; and is followed upon the heel with sword or poison. A private malice indeed does not move whole cities; but that which extends to all is every body’s mark. One sick person gives no great disturbance in a family; but when it comes to a depopulating plague, all people fly from it. And why should a prince expect any man to be good whom he has taught to be wicked?
But what if it weresafeto becruel? Were it not still a sad thing, the very state of such agovernment? Agovernmentthat bears the image of ataken city, where there is nothing butsorrow,trouble, andconfusion. Men dare not so much as trust themselves with their friends or with their pleasures. There is not any entertainment so innocent but it affords pretence of crime and danger. People are betrayed at theirtablesand in theircups, and drawn from the verytheatreto theprison. How horrid a madness is it to be stillragingandkilling; to have the rattling ofchainsalways in ourears; bloody spectaclesbefore oureyes; and to carryterroranddismaywherever we go! If we hadlionsandserpents, to rule over us, this would be the manner of theirgovernment, saving that they agree better among themselves. It passes for a mark of greatness to burn cities, and lay whole kingdoms waste; nor is it for the honor of a prince, to appoint this or that single man to be killed, unless they have wholetroops, or (sometimes)legions, to work upon. But it is not the spoils ofwarandbloody trophiesthat make a princeglorious, but thedivine powerof preservingunityandpeace. Ruinwithoutdistinctionis more properly the business of a generaldeluge, or aconflagration. Neither does a fierce and inexorableangerbecome thesupreme magistrate; “Greatness of mind is always meek and humble; but cruelty is a note and an effect of weakness, and brings down a governor to the level of a competitor.”