There is so near an affinity betwixt _anger_ and _cruelty_, that many people confound them; as if _cruelty_ were only the _execution_ of _anger_ in the payment of a _revenge_: 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 call _angry_ as _brutal_, for _anger_ does necessarily presuppose an injury, either _done_, or _conceived_, or _feared_, but the other takes _pleasure_ in _tormenting_, without so much as pretending any _provocation_ to it, and _kills_ merely for _killing sake_. The _original_ of this _cruelty_ perhaps was _anger_, which by frequent _exercise_ and _custom_, has lost all sense of _humanity_ and _mercy_, and they that are thus affected are so far from the countenance and appearance of men in _anger_, that they will _laugh_, _rejoice_, and _entertain themselves_ with the most _horrid spectacles_, as _racks_, _jails_, _gibbets_, several sorts of _chains_ and _punishments_, _dilaceration_ of _members_, _stigmatizing_, and _wild beasts_, with other exquisite inventions of torture; and yet, at last the cruelty itself is more horrid and odious than the means by which it works. It is a bestial madness to _love_ mischief; beside, that it is _womanish_ to _rage_ and _tear_. 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 less _abominable_ to the _world_ than _dangerous_ to itself.
The Romans had their _morning_ and their _meridian spectacles_. In the _former_, they had their combats of _men_ with _wild beasts_; and in the _latter_, the _men_ fought _one with another_. “I went,” says our author, “the other day to the _meridian spectacles_, in hope of meeting somewhat of mirth and diversion to sweeten the humors of those that had been entertained with blood in the _morning_; 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 for _victory_, but for _death_; 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 bare _breasts. Burn that rogue_, they cry _What! 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 a _single_ man may be dangerous; but to murder whole nations is only a more _glorious wickedness. Private avarice_ and _rigor_ are condemned, but _oppression_, when it comes to be _authorized_ by an act of state, and to be publicly _commanded_, though particularly forbidden, becomes a point of _dignity_ and _honor_. What a shame is it for men to interworry one another, when yet the fiercest even 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 a _man_ for 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, for _exercise_ and _pleasure_, put _senators_ and _Roman knights_ to the _torture_; and _whip_ several of them like _slaves_, or put them to _death_ with the most acute _torments_, merely for the satisfaction of his _cruelty_. 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 by _torch-light_, as if his life and death had depended upon their dispatch before the next morning; to say nothing how many _fathers_ were put to death in the same night with their _sons_ (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 thousand _citizens_ of Rome to be slaughtered at once; and some of the senators being startled at their cries that were heard in the _senate-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.” A _glorious 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 and _tyrannical 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 a _popular 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 the _number_ of his enemies, by destroying some of them; for it entails 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 were _safe_ to be _cruel_? Were it not still a sad thing, the very state of such a _government_? A _government_ that bears the image of a _taken city_, where there is nothing but _sorrow_, _trouble_, and _confusion_. 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 their _tables_ and in their _cups_, and drawn from the very _theatre_ to the _prison_. How horrid a madness is it to be still _raging_ and _killing_; to have the rattling of _chains_ always in our _ears; bloody spectacles_ before our _eyes_; and to carry _terror_ and _dismay_ wherever we go! If we had _lions_ and _serpents_, to rule over us, this would be the manner of their _government_, 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 whole _troops_, or (sometimes) _legions_, to work upon. But it is not the spoils of _war_ and _bloody trophies_ that make a prince _glorious_, but the _divine power_ of preserving _unity_ and _peace. Ruin_ without _distinction_ is more properly the business of a general _deluge_, or a _conflagration_. Neither does a fierce and inexorable _anger_ become the _supreme 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.”
