Ambitious men find it difficult to preserve a spirit of fairness

When one begins to aspire to pre-eminence, it is difficult to preserve that spirit of fairness which is absolutely essential to justice. The result is that such men do not allow themselves to be constrained either by argument or by any public and lawful authority, but they only too often prove to be bribers and agitators in public life, seeking to obtain supreme power and to be superiors through force rather than equals through justice. Cicero quoting Plato. De Officiis. Book 1. Section 64.

Image: Septimius Severus and Caracalla by Jean-Baptiste Grueze, 1769 courtesy of The Louvre and Wikimedia Commons.