The lawyer and epistolarian Pliny the Younger, in his correspondence with a friend, vented his anger on the sycophantic atmosphere surrounding certain courts of his era. The centumviral courts—so called because they were composed of pools of one hundred men (centum viri)—were courts of equity dealing primarily with civil matters. Offended by the insolence and effrontery of the practitioners and advocates before the bar who had no respect for tradition and decency, Pliny writes:
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There is an anecdote found in Valerius Maximus (VI.2.10) that calls our attention to the difference between the respective powers of raw force and steady patience. A brutal consul named Cnaeus Carbo was threatening to put the city of Placentia under siege. He ordered a city magistrate named Marcus Castricius to give him hostages as part of his campaign of destruction.
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The political philosopher Ibn Zafar, in his masterful treatise Consolation for the Ruler During the Hostility of his Subjects, states as follows:
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The following tale is found in Ibn Zafar’s political treatise, The Consolation For The Ruler During The Hostility Of His Subjects. Because it is likely to unfamiliar to most readers, I will paraphrase it here.
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The philosopher Philo of Alexandria, in the second book of his treatise On Dreams (II.18.123), relates a story about a despotic governor of Egypt. “It is only a very short time ago,” he says, “that I knew a man of very high rank, one who was prefect and governor of Egypt, who, after he had taken it in his head to change our national institutions and customs…was compelling us to obey him, and to do other things contrary to our established custom.”
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We have previously discussed the Book of Kalila and Dimna in these pages. Its source material can be traced to the Indian classic The Panchatantra of Vishnu Sarma. And it is from this book that the following fable originates.
In this podcast we discuss some life advice offered by the medieval Arabic political theorist and philosopher Ibn Zafar in his treatise, Consolation of the Ruler Amid the Hostility of His Subjects. I’ve written several articles before about him that can be found on this site (use the search box in the upper right corner), and wanted to do a podcast about some of his life advice.
One of the primary virtues that Ibn Zafar believes a good leader should possess is the virtue of self-denial. In Arabic this word is زهد, or “renunciation” of worldly things. What he means by this is that no leader–or any other person, for that matter–can ever become truly great until he learns how to subordinate his desires in the face of higher purposes.
Ibn Zafar’s well of wisdom provides us with another fable to ponder. How the reader relates it to his or her own life experience, or to the world’s current events, will be up to him or her to decide. While the narrative below is my own, I have also included some of Ibn Zafar’s quotes (as translated by J. Kechichian and R. Dekmejian–with minor variations by me–in their excellent edition of the Sulwan Al-Muta’) as they appear at relevant points in the story.
The following tale is told by Ibn Zafar al-Siqilli (“The Sicilian”) in his political and ethical treatise سلوان المطاع في عدوان الأتباع (The Consolation of the Ruler in Dealing with His Subjects’ Hostility). The story’s purpose is to emphasize the importance that faith and endurance play in the fates of princes. We should note that Ibn Zafar does not advocate a passive resignation or inaction in the face of hardship. Instead he counsels us to do all we can to resolve our problems; but once one has exhausted his actionable remedies, he must submit himself to the workings of Fate. In this he is very much like the Stoic sages who preceded him by so many centuries.
Quintus Curtius 
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