21.4
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.
21.5
He levied money on the Syracusans, and later, when he saw them lamenting and begging and protesting that they had none, he ordered a second levy, and this he did twice or thrice. Cf. Aristotle, Politics, v. ii., and the Aristotelian Oeconomica, ii. 20, and Polyaenus, Strategemata, v. 19. But when, after calling for still more, he heard that they laughed and jeered as they went about in the market-place, he ordered a halt in the proceeding; For now they really have nothing, said he, since they hold us in contempt.
21.6
When his mother, who was well on in years, wanted to get married, he said that he had the power to violate the laws of the State, but not the laws of Nature. Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Solon, chap. xx. (89 D).
21.7
While he punished relentlessly all other malefactors, he was very lenient with the footpads, so that the Syracusans should stop their dining and drinking together.