CHAPTER XIX: THE WILL AS VISION.
Paratum cor meum deus! paratum cor meum! [57] THE emperor demanded a senatorial decree for the erection of images in memory of the dead prince; that a golden one should be carried, together with the other images, in the great procession of the Circus, and the addition of the child's name to the Hymn of the Salian Priests: and so, stifling private grief, without further delay set forth for the war.
True kingship, as Plato, the old master of Aurelius, had understood it, was essentially of the nature of a service.

If so be, you can discover a mode of life more desirable than the being a king, for those who shall be kings; then, the true Ideal of the State will become a possibility; but not otherwise.

And if the life of Beatific Vision be indeed possible, if philosophy really "concludes in an ecstasy," affording full fruition to the entire nature of man; then, for certain elect souls at least, a mode of life will have been [58] discovered more desirable than to be a king.

By love or fear you might induce such persons to forgo their privilege; to take upon them the distasteful task of governing other men, or even of leading them to victory in battle.

But, by the very conditions of its tenure, their dominion would be wholly a ministry to others: they would have taken upon them-"the form of a servant": they would be reigning for the well-being of others rather than their own.