difficult to escape envy, and seeing that it is altogether impossible not to incur blame or give offence to those we live with, shall be well advised if we prefer the hatred of the perverse to that of those who might justly find fault with us for having iniquitously served their turn. And indeed we ought to be on our guard against praise from those who importune us, which is sure to be altogether insincere, and not to resemble swine, readily allowing anyone that presses to make use of us from our pleasure at itching and tickling, and submitting ourselves to their will. For those that give their ears to flatterers differ not a whit from such as let themselves be tripped up at wrestling, only their overthrow and fall is more disgraceful; some forbearing hostility and reproof in the case of bad men, that they may be called merciful and humane and compassionate; and others on the contrary persuaded to take up unnecessary and dangerous animosities and charges by those who praise them as the only men, the only people that never flatter, and go so far as to entitle them their mouthpieces and voices. Accordingly Bio1 compared such people to jars, that you could easily take by the ears and turn about at your will. Thus it is recorded that the sophist Alexinus in one of his lectures said a good many bad things about Stilpo the Megarian, but when one of those that were present said, "Why, he was speaking in your praise only the other day," he replied, "I don't doubt it; for he is the best and noblest of men." Menedemus on the contrary, having heard that Alexinus frequently praised him, replied, "But I always censure him, for that man is bad who either praises a bad man or is blamed by a good." So inflexible and proof was he against such flattery, and master of that advice which Hercules in Antisthenes 3 gave, when he ordered his sons to be grateful to no one that praised them; which meant nothing else than that they should not be dumbfoundered at it, nor flatter again those who praised them. Very apt, I take it,

2

1 "Est Bio Borysthenita, de quo vide Diog. Laërt."—Reiske. 2" De Alexino Eleo vide Diog. Laërt., ii. 109. Nostri p. 1063, 3.”— Reiske.

3 Antisthenes wrote a book called Laertius, vi. 16.

"Hercules."

See Diogenes

was the remark of Pindar to one who told him that he praised him everywhere and to all persons, "I am greatly obliged to you, and will make your account true by my actions."

§ XIX. A useful precept in reference to all passions is especially valuable in the case of the bashful. When they have been overcome by this infirmity, and against their judgement have erred and been confounded, let them fix it in their memories, and, remembering the pain and grief it gave them, let them recall it to their mind and be on their guard for a very long time. For as travellers that have stumbled against a stone, or pilots that have been wrecked off a headland, if they remember these occurrences, not only dread and are on their guard continually on those spots, but also on all similar ones; so those that frequently remember the disgrace and injury that bashfulness brought them, and its sorrow and anguish, will in similar cases be on their guard against their weakness, and will not readily allow themselves to be subjugated by it again.

ON RESTRAINING ANGER.

A DIALOGUE BETWEEN SYLLA AND FUNDANUS.

§ 1. Sylla. Those painters, Fundanus, seem to me to do well who, before giving the finishing touches to their paintings, lay them by for a time and then revise them ; because by taking their eyes off them for a time they gain by frequent inspection a new insight, and are more apt to detect minute differences, that continuous familiarity would have hidden. Now since a human being cannot so separate himself from himself for a time, and make a break in his continuity, and then approach himself again—and that is perhaps the chief reason why a man is a worse judge of himself than of others—the next best thing will be for a man to inspect his friends after an interval, and likewise offer himself to their scrutiny, not to see whether he has aged quickly, or whether his bodily condition is better or

worse, but to examine his moral character, and see whether time has added any good quality, or removed any bad one. On my return then to Rome after an absence of two years, and having been with you now five months, I am not at all surprised that there has been a great increase and growth in those good points which you formerly had owing to your admirable nature; but when I see how gentle and obedient to reason your former excessive impetuosity and hot temper has become, it cannot but occur to me to quote the line,

66

Ye gods, how much more mild is he become!" 1 And this mildness has not wrought in you sloth or weakness, but like cultivation of the soil it has produced a smoothness and depth fit for action, instead of the former impetuosity and vehemence. And so it is clear that your propensity to anger has not been effaced by any declining vigour or through some chance, but has been cured by good precepts. And indeed, for I will tell you the truth, when our friend Eros reported this change in you to me, I suspected that owing to goodwill he bare witness not of the actual state of the case, but of what was becoming to all good and virtuous men, although, as you know, he can never be persuaded to depart from his real opinion to ingratiate himself with anyone. But now he is acquitted of false witness, and do you, as your journey gives you leisure, narrate to me the mode of cure you employed to make your temper so under control, so natural, gentle and obedient to reason.

Fundanus. Most friendly Sylla, take care that you do not in your goodwill and affection to me rest under any misconception of my real condition. For it is possible that Eros, not being able always himself to keep his temper in its place in the obedience that Homer speaks of,3 but sometimes carried away by his hatred of what is bad, may think me grown milder than I really am, as in changes of the scale in music the lowest notes become the highest.

Sylla. Neither of these is the case, Fundanus, but oblige me by doing as I ask.

1 Homer, "Iliad,” xxii. 373.

2 Alluded to again "On the tranquillity of the mind,” § i.

3 The allusion is to Homer's "Odyssey," xx. 23.

§ II. Fundanus. One of the excellent precepts then of Musonius that I remember, Sylla, is this, that those who wish to be well should diet themselves all their life long. For I do not think we must employ reason as a cure, as we do hellebore, by purging it out with the disease, but we must retain it in the soul, to restrain and govern the judgement. For the power of reason is not like physic, but wholesome food, which co-operates with good health in producing a good habit of body in those by whom it is taken. But admonition and reproof, when passion is at its height and swelling, does little or no good, but resembles very closely those strong-smelling substances, that are able to set on their legs again those that have fallen in epileptic fits, but cannot rid them of their disease. For although all other passions, even at the moment of their acme, do in some sort listen to reason and admit it into the soul, yet anger does not, for, as Melanthius says,

"Fell things it does when it the mind unsettles,”

for it absolutely turns reason out of doors, and bolts it out, and, like those persons who burn themselves and houses together, it makes all the interior full of confusion and smoke and noise, so that what would be advantageous can neither be seen nor heard. And so an empty ship in a storm at open sea would sooner admit on board a pilot from without, than a man in a tempest of rage and anger would listen to another's advice, unless his own reason was first prepared to hearken. But as those who expect a siege get together and store up supplies, when they despair of relief from without, so ought we by all means to scour the country far and wide to derive aids against anger from philosophy, and store them up in the soul: for, when the time of need comes, we shall find it no easy task to import them. For either the soul doesn't hear what is said without because of the uproar, if it have not within its own reason (like a boatswain as it were) to receive at once and understand every exhortation; or if it does hear, it despises what is uttered mildly and gently, while it is exasperated by harsh censure. For anger being haughty and selfwilled and hard to be worked upon by another, like a

fortified tyranny, must have someone born and bred within it to overthrow it.

III. Now long-continued anger, and frequent giving way to it, produces an evil disposition of soul, which people call irascibility, and which ends in passionateness, bitterness, and peevishness, whenever the mind becomes sore and vexed at trifles and querulous at everyday occurrences, like iron thin and beaten out too fine. But when the judgement checks and suppresses at once the rising anger, it not only cures the soul for the moment, but restores its tone and balance for the future. It has happened to myself indeed twice or thrice, when I strongly fought against anger, that I was in the same plight as the Thebans, who after they had once defeated the Lacedæmonians, whom they had hitherto thought invincible, never lost a battle against them again. I then felt confident that reason can win the victory. I saw also that anger is not only appeased by the sprinkling of cold water, as Aristotle attested, but is also extinguished by the action of fear; aye, and, as Homer tells us, anger has been cured and has melted away in the case of many by some sudden joy. So that I came to the conclusion that this passion is not incurable for those who I wish to be cured. For it does not arise from great and important causes, but banter and joking, a laugh or a nod, and similar trifles make many angry, as Helen by addressing her niece,

and Callisthenes incensed Alexander, by saying, when a huge cup was brought to him, "I will not drink to Alexander till I shall require the help of Esculapius."

SIV. As then it is easy to put out a flame kindled in the hair of hares and in wicks and rubbish, but if it once gets hold of things solid and thick, it quickly destroys and consumes them, "raging amidst the lofty work of the

1 Reading avrou with Reiske. 2 Euripides, "Orestes," 72.

Euripides, "Orestes," 99.