Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/255

Rh to quarrel, and enter into debate; but as it were in a balance, to look jointly together, on whether side right and equity doth encline and bend, and so soon as ever we can, to put matters in question to the arbitrament and judgment of some good and indifferent persons, to purge and make clear all, before they are grown so far as that they have gotten a stain or tincture of cankered malice, which afterwards will never be washed or scoured out: which done, we are to imitate the Pythagoreans, who being neither joined in kindred or consanguinity, nor yet allied by affinity, but the scholars in one school, and the fellows of one and the same discipline, if peradventure at any time they were so far carried away with choler, that they fell to interchange reproachful and reviling taunts, yet before the sun was gone down they would shake hands, kiss, and embrace one another, be reconciled, and become good friends again. For like as if there be a fever, occasioned by a botch or rising in the share, there is no danger thereof, but if when the said botch is gone, the fever still continue, then it seemeth to be a malady proceeding from some more inward, secret, and deeper cause; even so the variance between two brethren, when it ceaseth together with the deciding of a business, we must think dependeth upon the same business and upon nothing else, but if the difference remain still when the controversy is ended, surely then it was but a colourable pretence thereof, and there was within some root of secret malice which caused it.

And here in this place it would serve our purpose very well to hear the manner of proceeding in the decision of a controversy between two brethren of a barbarous nation, and the same not for some little parcel of land, nor about poor slaves or silly sheep, but for no less than the kingdom of Persia: for after the death of Darius, some of the Persians would have had Ariamenes to succeed and wear the crown, as being the eldest son of the king late deceased; others again stood earnestly for Xerxes, as well for that he had to his mother Atossa, the daughter of that great Cyrus, as because he was begotten by Darius when he was crowned king. Ariamenes then came down out of Media to claim his right; not in arms, as one that minded to make war, but simply and peaceably, attended only with his ordinary train and retinue, minding to enter upon the kingdom by justice and order of law. Xerxes in the meanwhile, and before his brother came, being present in place, ruled as king and exercised all hose fvmctions that appertained thereto: his brother was no ooner arrived but he took willingly the diadem or royal frontlet