THE SCENE: The following fable puts forward the idea that the devil you know is preferable to a new devil, provided that the existing devil is already well-fed.
THE TEXT: Josephus mentions that Tiberius Caesar, when asked why the governors, of provinces remained so long in office, answered by a fable. “I have seen,” said he, ” an infirm man covered with ulcers, grievously tormented by a swarm of flies. When I was going to drive them away for him with a flap, he said to me, “The means by which you think to relieve me would, in effect, promote tenfold suffering. For by driving away the flies now saturated with my blood, I should afford an opportunity to those that were empty and hungry to supply their place. And who doubts that the biting of a hungry insect is not ten thousand times more painful than that of one completely gorged — unless the person attacked be stone, and not Flesh.” Application: My beloved, governors who are already enriched by plunder are less likely to continue their oppression than they who are poor and needy.
– Gesta Romanorum, 13th Century AD
[Image Credit: Temptations and Torments of St. Anthony by Michelangelo]
