Regum et imperatorum apophthegmata

Hiero, who succeeded Gelo as despot, used to say that not one of the persons who spoke frankly to him chose the wrong time.

He felt that those who divulged a secret committed a serious offence also against those to whom they divulged it; for we hate, not only those who divulge such things, but also those who hear what we do not wish them to hear.

On being reviled by someone for his offensive breath, he blamed his wife for never having told him about this; but she said, I supposed that all men smelled so. [*](Cf. Moralia 90 B, and Lucian, Hermotimus, 34. Aristotle tells the same story of Gelon according to Stobaeus, Florilegium, v. 83.)

In answer to Xenophanes of Colophon, who had said that he could hardly maintain two servants, Hiero said, But Homer, whom you disparage, maintains more than ten thousand, although he is dead.

He caused Epieharmus the comic poet to be punished because he made an indecent remark in the presence of his wife.

Dionysius the Elder, when the speakers who were to address the people were drawing by lot the letters of the alphabet to determine their order of speaking, drew the letter M; and in answer to the man who

When, at the beginning of his rule, he was being besieged as the result of a conspiracy against him among the citizens, his friends advised him to abdicate unless he wished to be overpowered and put to death. But, on seeing that an ox slaughtered by a cook fell instantly, he said, Is it not then distasteful that we, for fear of death which is so momentary, should forsake such a mighty sovereignty ? [*](Cf. Moralia, 783 C-D; Diodorus, xiv. 8; Aelian, Varia Historia, iv. 8; Polyaenus, v. 7.)

Learning that his son, to whom he was intending to bequeath his empire, had debauched the wife of a free citizen, he asked the young man, with some heat, what act of his father’s he knew of like that! And when the youth answered, None, for you did not have a despot for a father. Nor will you have a son, was the reply, unless you stop doing this sort of thing.

At another time he went into his son’s house, and, observing a vast number of gold and silver drinking-cups, he exclaimed, There is no despot in you, for with all the drinking-cups which you are always getting from me you have not made for yourself a single friend.