The PREFACE.

...to desire more than one’s own is a cruel and beast-like purpose original: [impro]bile, ferinumque est propositum plus suo habendi. So wild and unsociable a thing is greed original: "Covetousness". Aristotle seems to strongly blame those who, though they are unwilling to accept any King or Governor over themselves except for one who has the true right to rule, yet disregard both right and wrong when it comes to the government of foreigners.

Plutarch, Agesilaus

The Lacedaemonians the Spartans, says Plutarch, place the greatest part of honesty original: honestas, meaning moral integrity or honor in what profits their own country. They neither know nor learn any other law than what they think can increase the power of Sparta original: Jus aliud nec norunt, nec discunt, quam unde Spartam putant posse augeri.
The Lacedaemonians prefer public profit over honesty.

The Athenians give them a similar character in the writings of Thucydides: that among themselves and regarding their own civil laws, they were very just; but as for strangers, they considered everything pleasant to be honest and everything profitable to be just.
Which Pompey corrects.

Yet, when one of the Spartan kings declared that a commonwealth is happy when it is bounded by the sword and the spear, Pompey corrected him, saying, "Rather, that commonwealth is truly happy which is bounded on every side by justice." For this, he might also have cited the authority of another Spartan king, who preferred justice even over military skill prowess. He argued this because all military power ought to be regulated by justice; for if all men were just, there would be no need for valor.

Justice preferred over fortitude.

Even fortitude courage itself is defined by the Stoics as "valor contending for justice." When Agesilaus, in Plutarch, heard the Persian King called "The Great," he asked, "How is he greater than I, unless he is also more just?" original: Quomodo me major, nisi sit & justior?
And to be extended to all nations.

In the speech he gave to the Emperor Valens, Themistius elegantly discussed how kings should be qualified. He said that if Wisdom were to choose them, she would not choose those who think they are entrusted with the care of only one nation, but of all mankind. Such a ruler should not claim to be a friend only to the Macedonians or the Romans, but to all men and all nations everywhere. As Marcus Antoninus Emperor Marcus Aurelius once said of himself, "As I am Antoninus, my city and fatherland is Rome; as I am a man, it is the world" original: Civitas & Patria mihi est, ut Antonino, Roma; ut Homini, Mundus.
Porphyry, On Abstinence from Animal Food, Book 3.

Porphyry also says that a person guided by reason behaves harmlessly toward his own subjects, toward strangers, and indeed toward all men.
See Cyril against Julian, Book 6.

"By as much as he excels in reason, by so much is he more divine" original: Quanto ratione præstans, tanto Divinior. The very name of Minos a legendary King of Crete was hateful to future generations for no other reason than that he limited his justice to his own borders:

Even in war, some laws are in force.

Now, some have imagined that "In the midst of arms, the laws are silent" original: Inter Arma cessant Leges. This is so far from the truth that no war should be started except to pursue one’s legal rights, nor should any war, once started, be conducted outside the limits of justice and honesty. It was very well