Above all, innocence alone
Commands a kingdom of its own.
This kingdom needs no armed defense,
No horseman, nor that vain pretence
Of Parthian archers who, in flight,
Shoot arrows to prolong the fight.
It has no need of cannon balls
And guns to batter city walls.
To have no fear of anything,
To want not, is to be a king.
This is the kingdom every man
Gives to himself, as each man can.
Let others scale dominion’s slippery peak;
Peace and obscurity are all I seek. . .
Death’s terrors are for him who, too well known,
Will die a stranger to himself alone.
— Seneca, Thyestes (1st century A.D.) – translation by E.F. Watling
