35
But why need I take the time to speak in detail, especially when I can make clear in a word the truth about myself? For it will be acknowledged that I have never wronged any man; that, on the contrary, I have been of service to many more of my own citizens and of the Hellenes at large and have bestowed upon them both greater gifts than all who have ruled before me put together. And surely those who pride themselves on justice and who profess to be above considerations of money ought to be able to speak in such high terms of their own conduct.
36
And now on the subject of temperance, also, I have still more important things to recount. For, since I realized that all men are most jealous for their wives and children, being above all quick to resent offenses against them, and that wantonness in these relations is responsible for the greatest evils—many ere now, of princely rank as well as of private station, having lost their lives because of it—, I so strictly avoided all these grounds of offense that, from the time when I became king, no one can charge me with having approached any woman but my own wife.
