Read "Xenophon: Hiero or Tyrannicus" by Leo Strauss online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
"You must not, Hiero, shrink from spending from your private possessions for the common good. For it seems to me that what a man as tyrant lays out for the city is spent more on what is necessary than what he lays out for his private [estate]. Let us examine each detail point by point.
First, which do you think would dignify you more, a house embellished at tremendous cost, or the whole city furnished with walls, temples, colonnades, market places, and harbors?