6
Just as I am able to punish those who disobey my orders, so I can be a benefactor to those who obey me.
7
Trust me, then, and you will have positions of authority in my government if you will renounce the ancestral tradition of your national life.
8
And enjoy your youth by adopting the Greek way of life and by changing your manner of living.
9
But if by disobedience you rouse my anger, you will compel me to destroy each and every one of you with dreadful punishments through tortures.
10
Therefore take pity on yourselves. Even I, your enemy, have compassion for your youth and handsome appearance.
11
Will you not consider this, that if you disobey, nothing remains for you but to die on the rack?"
12
When he had said these things, he ordered the instruments of torture to be brought forward so as to persuade them out of fear to eat the defiling food.
13
And when the guards had placed before them wheels and joint-dislocators, rack and hooks and catapults and caldrons, braziers and thumbscrews and iron claws and wedges and bellows, the tyrant resumed speaking:
14
"Be afraid, young fellows, and whatever justice you revere will be merciful to you when you transgress under compulsion."
15
But when they had heard the inducements and saw the dreadful devices, not only were they not afraid, but they also opposed the tyrant with their own philosophy, and by their right reasoning nullified his tyranny.
16
Let us consider, on the other hand, what arguments might have been used if some of them had been cowardly and unmanly. Would they not have been these?