BOOK II. IV. 8-V. 2
the common property of the invited guests; but when portions have been assigned, if it so pleases you, approach and snatch up the portion of the guest who reclines at your side, steal it secretly, or slip in your hand and glut your greed, and if you cannot tear off a piece of the meat, get your fingers greasy and lick them. A fine companion you would make at a feast, and a dinner-guest worthy of Socrates![1] Come now, is not the theatre the common property of the citizens? When, therefore, they are seated there, go, if it so pleases you, and throw someone of them out of his seat. 10In the same way women also are by nature common property. But when the law-giver, like a host at a banquet, has apportioned them, are you not willing like the rest to look for your own portion instead of filching away and glutting your greed upon that which is another's? "But I am a scholar and understand Archedemus."[2] Very well then, understand Archedemus and be an adulterer and faithless and a wolf or an ape instead of a man; for what is there to prevent you?
CHAPTER V
How are magnanimity and carefulness compatible?
Materials are indifferent, but the use which we make of them is not a matter of indifference. How, therefore, shall a man maintain steadfastness and peace of mind, and at the same time the careful spirit and that which is neither reckless nor negligent? If he imitates those who play at dice.
- ↑ The reference is probably to the Symposia by Plato and Xenophon.
- ↑ Possibly the Stoic philosopher of Tarsus (Plut. de Exil. 14), but more likely the rhetorician who commented upon a portion of Aristotle's Rhetoric (Quintilian, III. 6. 31 and 33), if these be really different persons, which is not entirely certain.
