How to Rule an Empire and Get Away with It (The Siege, #2)

by K.J. Parker

But (he explained to me, when I objected) what the people want is something that looks at first sight like real life, but which actually turns out to be a fairy tale with virtue triumphant, evil utterly vanquished, a positive, uplifting message, a gutsy, kick-ass female lead and, if at all possible, unicorns.

It’s so much easier to tolerate your deadly enemies if you never see them from one year’s end to the next.

There are books on the subject. Can you believe that? Think about it. Either the book is no bloody good, in which case you follow its precepts and you and fifty thousand of your countrymen are slaughtered like geese at midwinter; or the book is true and authoritative and contains everything you need to know about the subject, in which case you follow its precepts and you and fifty thousand of your countrymen, see above, because the other side have read the same book and can predict your every move.

There are times when it’s good to claim the moral high ground; remarkably few of them, in my experience.

He says, if you want a pet with substandard intelligence and revolting habits, buy a dog.”

It was Lysimachus saying words he’d never have said in his life, but it was Lysimachus, you’d bet your life on it.

You’ve got the stalls: people with money, who wouldn’t be seen with you in the street, although if you’re a pretty girl they might condescend to have sex with you.

If you stopped to think about it you’d never do it, so don’t stop and think.

One man’s opinion is another man’s prejudice is another man’s bigotry. Have opinions, by all means, but keep the nasty things to yourself.

“It’s not like I’ve got much choice,” I said. “You haven’t.”

All the world’s a stage, according to Saloninus; that’s not actually true, but if you pretend it is, it helps, when you’re managing a fire.

(The world is full of idiots, and always has been. But sometimes I wonder why such a disproportionate quantity of them end up running other people’s lives.)

These things happen in war, so they tell me. I wouldn’t know. Also they told me that it was necessary, in order to strike terror into the enemy, which had been my idea. Define enemy; seven years ago, they were our friends, they were us. But there; identities change, don’t they, and we aren’t necessarily the same people we were seven years ago, or seven weeks, even.

Knowing something can be done is a great incentive to figuring out how, I guess;

Let’s get rid of this menace, once and for all is always wildly popular, because it appears to promise a solution and nobody will have to think hard about the real problem or do the things that actually need to be done; instead, just blot a few people out and move on. The crucial element is numbers. Kill several million, and inevitably you’re a monster. But if you restrict yourself to a relatively modest number, say one or two per cent of the population, fifty thousand people at the absolute maximum, you’re a statesman and a hero and the father of your country.

Moral: it’s amazing what people will stand for, if the government tell them to.

Hrabanus, on the other hand, was college-educated and knew all about maths and military architecture and stuff, and drew a whole load of exquisitely neat plans of the ditch, heavily annotated with numbers and figures. I don’t know if they helped at all, but they were very pretty to look at.