§ 1. Saint Thomas, Summa theologiae II-II, Question 114, Article 1, refers affability, which the Greeks name εὐπροσηγορίαν, to the virtue of justice. Under this I also place courtesy, humanity, εὐτραπελίαν, and φιλανθρωπίαν, which are nearly the same virtues, or certainly very closely neighboring ones. Affability holds the mean between contentious quarrels and flatteries. For it so moderates fellowship and friendship by words and deeds that, through its humanity, it delights others becomingly and for a good end. Courtesy, or urbanity, which the Greeks call εὐτραπελίαν, moderates severity or moroseness, and excessive relaxation, which they are accustomed to call buffoonery, and which the Apostle also condemns by the name εὐτραπελίαν. For nothing is more difficult than to hold the measure in courtesy and urbanity.
Humanity, according to the custom of speech, is accustomed to embrace all those things. In Sermon VIII On the Words of the Apostle, Saint Augustine calls him humane who shows himself a human being, and especially one who receives a human being as a guest. Φιλανθρωπία, or humanity, is a certain benevolence common toward all human beings, implanted by nature and the force of society. Those who have put it off, like that Timon μισάνθρωπος, “the misanthrope,” must be regarded as beasts—and all the more so, the more they extend deadly hatreds to the whole race. But we are now treating the humanity which is displayed by signs, words, and deeds, in which a prince ought to excel. For humane men cherish every class of human beings and repel injury from all, even from the lowly and from slaves. This also, as Aristotle admonishes, causes our spirit to be moved by the suffering of guilty men when they are tortured and torn, although you do not pity them. If this virtue has driven firm roots in the spirit, it will easily disclose itself toward others. I called it a virtue because Aristotle so teaches in his little book On Virtues, referring the pretence of humanity to injustice.
But it is enough for me that my prince should φιλανθρωπεύεσθαι, “practice humanity,” showing himself benign, courteous, and affable toward everyone—as an ornament of virtue. “Humanity,” says Seneca, Epistle LXXXVIII, “forbids one to be haughty toward one’s associates; it forbids one to be avaricious. In words, deeds, and affections it shows itself courteous and accessible to all. It considers no evil another’s. But it especially loves its own good when that good is going to become a good for someone else.” Such a man will in no way be ἄμουσος, ἀγροδίαιτος, ἀπρόσιτος: he will appear unskilled, rustic, and difficult of access neither to his own people nor to strangers.
§ 2. Among these morose men I place those whom Seneca judges to foster a delicate kind of irascibility. They are δυσάρεστοι, “hard to please”; and therefore, since many things are done by many persons before them, while very many displease them, they must turn out bitter, harsh, irritable, rabid, clamorous, and rough. Let no senator of this kind in the senate-house, nor any prince in his court, when he is inhuman and, as the Greeks say, ἀπάνθρωπος, persuade himself that he has any human being as a friend. All services are unwelcome if courtesy is absent; all gifts are poisoned by the inhumanity of the giver. At the summit of command harshness of words is atrocious. Even when kings command arduous things, let their words be gentle.
§ 3. One objection is customarily made: authority and majesty, which those who think it beautiful to form Timons, Stoics, and Scythians out of princes suppose are brought into contempt by affability and courtesy. Authority does not lie in roughness and moroseness, but hatred does. Since everyone hates this in a prince, and concerning it they speak with one another against the prince, I do not see what authority it procures for him. Do you suppose that man possesses authority against whom this is cast:
σοὶ δέ τις ἐν στήθεσσιν ἀκήλητος νόος ἐστίν;
Odyssey κ.
But in your breast there is an implacable mind.
That majesty belongs to the Cyclops, who was:
Accessible to none in countenance, nor affable to any in speech.
I would never wish the man who presides over human beings to put off humanity. Let the prince be sparing in words, stern in countenance, a strict exactor of duties. Thus he will be revered. This is well done, but let all those things in their proper place be seasoned with much sweetness; let men know that benignity is natural to the prince, and severity extorted by the vices of others. Those who make use of an inhuman prince do what mountebanks do, who lead lions, bears, or similar wild beasts about for gain at public spectacles. First, they never do anything except for their own advantage, nothing for the prince’s good, for they do not love him. Next, they never entrust themselves and their own possessions to him, for they rightly hold his savage disposition in suspicion. It follows from this that they place greater trust in another prince.
The first and principal fruit of humanity is that men procure friends for themselves. There are those who prefer a prince who speaks courteously to one who gives haughtily. Caelius preferred to be consulted by Caesar rather than gilded by him.
Indulgence especially captures minds with its right hand; harshness bears hatred and savage wars. We hate the hawk because it always lives in arms, and wolves accustomed to go against the fearful flock. But the swallow is free from plots against human beings because it is gentle, and the bird of Chaonia has towers which it may inhabit.
The man who joined the highest courtesy to the highest eloquence, Cicero, did not fail to know this; he would never have attained the consulship except through courteous and flattering eloquence. “It is difficult to say,” he writes in Book II of On Duties, “how greatly courtesy and affability of speech conciliate the spirits of human beings.” There also survive letters of Philip to Alexander, of Antipater to Cassander, and of Antigonus to Philip—three most prudent kings—in which they command them to attract the spirits of the multitude to benevolence by benign speech and to soothe soldiers by flattering discourse. This is more powerful even than lavish largesse. “What companions more fitting for liberality,” says Valerius, Book V, Chapter I, “could I give than humanity and clemency? For they seek the same kind of praise: the first of these is displayed in want, the next amid occupation, the third in doubtful fortune. And although you do not know which one you should approve most, nevertheless the commendation of that one whose name was sought from the human being himself seems to run ahead.”
He then proceeds to relate examples of humanity, or rather of humane liberality. Among the rest, distinguished is the deed which Alexander, mindful of his father Philip’s precepts, accomplished. While Alexander traversed all nations in his tireless course, in a certain place, when oppressed by a winter storm, he noticed a Macedonian soldier, already exhausted by old age, stupefied by excessive cold, while he himself sat in a raised seat near the fire. Having made an assessment not of fortune but of the age of each, he descended, and with those hands by which he had crushed the power of Darius he placed the body doubled up by cold in his own seat, saying that what among the Persians would have been capital—occupying the royal throne—would be salutary for him.
§ 4. If that king’s other deeds had been similar, neither would so many plots have surrounded him, nor would Babylonian poison have taken away from him the fruit of so many victories. What of Quintus Aelius Tubero? Did he not draw upon himself rejection and disgrace by the inhumanity of his deed? Valerius, Book VII, Chapter V: “Quintus Aelius Tubero, when asked by Quintus Fabius Maximus—who was giving a banquet to the people in the name of his uncle Publius Africanus—to furnish the dining room, covered Punic couches with kidskins and set out Samian ware in place of silver vessels. By the ugliness of this affair he so offended everyone that, although he was otherwise regarded as an outstanding man and had descended into the Campus as a candidate in the praetorian elections, supported by Lucius Paulus his grandfather and Publius Africanus his maternal uncle, he departed from it marked by rejection. For just as they always approved continence in private, so in public the greatest care was taken for splendor. Therefore the state, believing that not merely the number present at one banquet but the whole state had lain upon those little skins, avenged the shame of the feast by its votes.”
§ 5. Store also in your spirit what happened to Scipio Nasica. The affair is related thus by Valerius: “Publius Scipio Nasica, the most illustrious light of power in the toga, he who as consul declared war upon Jugurtha, who received with most holy hands the Idaean Mother as she migrated from her Phrygian seat to our altars and hearths, who suppressed many pestilential seditions by the strength of his authority, under whose leadership the Senate gloried for several years—when as a young man he sought the curule aedileship and, in the manner of candidates, grasped rather firmly the hand of a certain man hardened by rustic labor, he asked him by way of a joke whether he was accustomed to walk upon his hands. This saying, taken up by those standing around, flowed out to the people and brought about Scipio’s rejection. For all the rural tribes, judging that their poverty had been reproached by him, unsheathed their anger against his insulting urbanity.”
Therefore golden is the precept of that most prudent governor and bishop, Ambrose, in Book II of Duties, Chapter VII: “Goodness,” he says, “is popular and welcome to all, and nothing so easily glides into human senses. If it is aided by gentleness of manners, accessibility of spirit, moderation of command, affability of speech, honor in words, a patient interchange of discourse, and the grace of modesty, it is incredible how greatly it advances toward the accumulation of affection. For we read not only in private persons, but even in kings themselves, how greatly
the ease of flattering affability has profited, or how greatly pride and swelling of words have harmed, so that they shook kingdoms themselves and dissolved power.”
He then adds two illustrious examples. The first is of Moses. “How great were the insults,” he says, “inflicted by the people of God which Moses swallowed; and although the Lord wished to punish the insolent, he nevertheless frequently offered himself for the people, so that he might withdraw the plebs from divine indignation. With what gentle discourse after their injuries did he address the people; he consoled them in their labors, soothed them by oracles, cherished them by works; and although he spoke steadfastly with God, nevertheless he was accustomed to address human beings with a humble and pleasing appellation.”
The second is of King David. “What of his imitator, holy David, chosen out of all to govern the plebs? How gentle and flattering, humble in spirit, diligent in heart, accessible in speech. Before his reign he offered himself for all; as king he placed his own military service on an equality with all and shared the labor: brave in battle, gentle in command, patient under abuse, more ready to bear injuries than to repay them. Therefore he was so dear to all that, when a young man, he was sought for the kingship even against his will and, though resisting, was compelled; when an old man, he was asked by his people not to take part in battle, because all preferred to be endangered for him rather than that he be endangered for all. Thus by gratuitous services he had bound the plebs to himself.”
Humane men, therefore, attend others with benevolence, assistance, and dangers themselves; against rough men they cast this:
Ἀλλ’ ἤτοι κεῖνον μὲν ἐάσομεν, ἤ κεν ἴῃσιν, ἦ κε μένῃ.
But let us leave that morose man alone, whether he goes or remains.
For the punishment of inhumanity is ready at hand: solitude, and the mockery of all who do not need their aid. The morose man is hated by his own people, but by strangers he is both hated and mocked. The authority of Scripture is also at hand for us here. “A sweet word,” says Scripture, Ecclesiasticus 6:5, “multiplies friends and mollifies enemies. And a gracious tongue abounds in a good man.”
Cato, with immense haughtiness, refused to hear Eumenes. Nicomedes, unmindful of royal dignity, put on the cap and professed himself a freedman of the Roman people.
§ 6. The second good of humanity, therefore, is the reconciliation of enemies. It was said to Rehoboam with good counsel, 3 Kings 12:7: “If today you obey this people, and serve them, and yield to their petition, and speak gentle words to them, they will be your servants all their days.” But he alienated them from himself by roughness. Much more prudently, when a Roman commander could restrain his mutinous soldiery neither by force nor by authority, he called them “Quirites”; by this humanity he made them obedient.
Alexander the Great dispelled, by humanity alone, the supreme danger in which he was placed. The conspirators had assembled; that night had been appointed for the crime. But when he went out and addressed the conspirators rather flatteringly—men whom he supposed had increased their watches for his protection and honor—by that courtesy he moved one of them to make a disclosure. Courtesy shining forth from serenity of countenance also brought safety to Augustus. Thus Suetonius: “Whether in conversation or silent, his countenance was so tranquil and serene that one of the leading men of the Gauls confessed among his own people that he had been restrained and softened by it, so that he did not, as he had intended, when admitted nearer under the pretence of conversation during the passage of the Alps, thrust Augustus over a precipice.”
§ 7. Am I mistaken, or is it from that unvarying humanity that today the title “Serenity” is bestowed upon the greatest kings? For humanity is in the countenance as much as in words. Serenity of countenance therefore furnished authority to a man for whom savageness and a centaur-like gloom would have been ruinous.
Let gentle words be joined to benignity of spirit and serenity of brow; for, as a queen used to say with manly prudence, silken words ought to be employed by kings. The wisest of kings instructs us excellently, Ecclesiasticus 18:15: “Son, in good things do not give a complaint, and in every gift do not give the sadness of an evil word. Will not dew cool heat? So too a word is better than a gift.”
§ 8. Lest anyone wonder, let him look at those who attempt to seize a tyranny, for they accomplish more by flatteries than by gifts. Look at Absalom, courteously saluting all, hearing their cases, embracing them, and thus enticing their spirits by an appearance of humanity, so that they preferred a parricidal son to David, their liberator and most just and brave king. Prince, I admonish you: boldly emulate Absalom for the good of the commonwealth. By a pretence of humanity he was preparing to destroy his parent and brothers and to oppress the people by tyranny; do you, by true humanity, keep spirits so bound and constrained that another’s pretence does not cast you into danger.
By what did William of Nassau draw the Belgians, a most cultivated nation whose principal gift is courtesy, away from Spanish rule more than by the affability and humanity which he opposed, to its discredit, to Spanish gravity? Imitate him, whoever rules peoples, and especially you senators of cities and men of patrician blood. The greatest kings have gone before with a great example. Caesar had learned to address nearly every one of his soldiers by name. Nor was any commander loved by his soldiers for so long and so steadfastly. Antoninus the Philosopher calmly gave his right hand to those who approached and barred no one from access. Hadrian dealt most pleasantly and civilly even with the humblest citizens. Let a Christian prince do this more sincerely, to whom it is said, “Make yourself affable to the congregation of the poor,” Ecclesiasticus 4:7. For those whom he addresses, and those whom he despises, are members of Christ; Christ does not disdain to call them brothers. He ought to please those whom he commands if he desires them to be ready and brave for commands. Above all, as Antalcidas replied when asked, he pleases human beings who speaks the most pleasant things.
§ 9. How greatly this virtue of which I treat avails either for preserving or for overthrowing the commonwealth the voice of nature teaches. For all men, even kings and great men, when they are in danger, turn to humanity and courtesy. When the outcome of battles is doubtful, when spirits waver, they employ humanity alone. Therefore, if in the greatest dangers affability can sustain a tottering commonwealth and can even raise one that has fallen, who denies that it can thus be preserved? What was more abject than Pompey’s party after the battle of Pharsalus, after Pompey’s murder commanded by a boy king? Yet Cato raised it up, not by gifts—for he had been conquered and was an exile—but by soothing the spirits of the soldiers through humanity and binding them to himself, while he goes before, while he shows how to endure labors rather than teaches it. He stands while the camp-follower drinks. Nor throughout that whole journey could it be discerned whether he was commander or soldier, except that he was the first to undertake the greatest share of labors and dangers.
§ 10. Three things in particular must be guarded against in the courtesy of governors. First, let him not furnish easy access to the wicked, for that accessibility is not the accessibility of a modest prince but the prostitution of supreme power. Andronicus always furnished access to flute-players and harlots. The kings of the Chinese associate only with eunuchs and concubines. By that relaxation or flattery the life of the subjects is dissolved. I therefore seek a prince such as Paul the Deacon describes Valentinian in Book XI. He says that Valentinian was of an acute disposition, becoming in countenance, grave in spirit, most cultivated in speech,
although sparing in speaking; severe and vehement in punishing crimes; industrious in business; patient in adversities; most hostile to criminals; temperate in food and drink; most friendly to those excelling in virtue and to religious men; so that by everyone’s judgment he was said to be most similar in character to Emperor Aurelian. For what honor will a noble man judge to have been furnished him by the prince’s accessibility if he observes that the same access always lies open to infamous persons and Jews?
Therefore let the prince’s virtue profit all, but not the wicked except for their correction. For it is necessary that a prince be held in hatred by the good if they understand him to be the friend of the wicked. Alexander Severus carefully guarded against both, as Lampridius is the authority in his life: “When Septimius Arabianus, notorious for the crime of thefts and already set free under Heliogabalus, had come among the senators to salute the prince, he exclaimed: ‘O divine powers, O Jupiter, O immortal gods! Arabianus not only lives but even comes into the Senate. Perhaps he also hopes for something from me; he judges me to be so foolish, so stupid.’ He was saluted by name, that is, ‘Hail, Alexander.’ If anyone bowed his head or said anything too flatteringly, he was either cast aside as a flatterer, if the quality of his station permitted, or was mocked with immense laughter if his dignity could not be subjected to a graver injury. When saluted, he offered a seat to all senators; and indeed he admitted to the salutation none but honorable men and men of good reputation.”
§ 11. The second is that by excessive accessibility he not come too near to flattery and blunt the force of command. Excessive familiarity is not to be borne even in a father. Gravity must be retained, self-seeking must be removed. “Gravity shines forth pleasantly when haughtiness has been removed,” said a good poet and the best senator. Nor is the proverb empty, but taken from experience:
Καλὸν φύει καρπὸν οἱ σεμνοὶ τρόποι.
Splendor and gravity of character bear the most beautiful fruits. Through mere familiarity with excessively flattering masters, fear grows obsolete among slaves. It is as harmful for them not to fear as it is hard to obey a cruel master. Flattering men grow cheap through association.
§ 12. The third is that by accessibility and courtesy he not prostitute his fidelity: let him not promise things which he does not intend to discharge. Vespasian gave counsel altogether most badly for his reputation and, if he had lived longer, for his safety. For when many petitioned, he himself, rich in promises, promised everything; when asked the cause, he replied, “It is not becoming that anyone depart sorrowful from Caesar.” The utterance is more splendid than prudent, and therefore neither true nor useful to the prince. Neither frugality nor the treasury suffices for so many expenditures and disbursements as are demanded by the desires of many thousands. Therefore he cannot satisfy all; for this reason he must not promise to all.
For when something has been promised by the princely voice, they think it is owed. When they perceive that they have been mocked by a joyful countenance, or held in suspense, they conceive the gravest indignation and judge themselves to have been affected by an injury if the benefit has been denied. And although what was wickedly sought is deservedly denied, nevertheless, after it has been promised, if it is not given, they accuse the prince’s fidelity. For it belonged to prudence to examine the justice of the requests before the promises. Otherwise the prince is judged to have promised either rashly or fraudulently. Thus no one will depart joyful from him; for however much he promises mountains of gold, nevertheless, since he has so often deceived, he will not create trust. There is no need to explain how shameful it is, after flattering indications of a beneficent will and after fidelity has been bound by a promise, still to doubt the prince’s intention, since even private and slender men count this dishonorable for themselves. And so Vespasian was hated, and after he had deceived a few no one thereafter trusted him.
§ 13. What certain princes possess is not courtesy but pusillanimity, so that they think it kingly to promise many things but to prevent them from being granted through administrators. He promises abundantly to the petitioner, takes care that letters be written, and entrusts execution to the satrap or quaestor; meanwhile, either the form of the letters or the manner of the mandate is such that the ministers understand that the man is being led on by an empty hope and has received words. In this matter, indeed, there are many offenses: the prince’s fidelity is prostituted; the immense hatred of the man who is exposed to mockery is contracted without cause; authority grows cheap among the officials. For they never trust his countenance, never his words, by which they have experienced so many men led into deceit. At last they are also indignant that they are ministers of most mendacious courtesy; and they rightly foretell that they themselves will be remunerated not with wealth or dignities but with the benevolence of words. This is to be mocked by one’s own prince.
Therefore let the prince’s courtesy be honorable, grave, and faithful. By this he will lead where he wishes—not wild beasts, like Orpheus, nor stones, like Amphion, but human beings following of their own accord. And with the easiest labor he will gather the most abundant fruits.
It belongs especially to humanity to hear everyone. Law 6, π; law Adducis, title On Appeals. Antonius Perezius says well: “If a prince denies an audience to the people, neither do the people furnish him their spirit.” Demetrius wickedly cast the petitions of suppliants into the river in their presence.