BOOK III. XXIV. 105-111
mortal."[1] For that is what you will say, and again, "I knew that I was mortal," "I knew that I was likely to leave home," "I knew that I was liable to banishment," "I knew that I might be sent off" to prison." And in the next place, if you reflect with yourself and look for the quarter from which the happening comes, immediately you will be reminded of the principle: "It comes from the quarter of the things that are outside the sphere of the moral purpose, that are not mine own; what, then, is it to me?" Then comes the most decisive consideration: "Who was it that has sent the order?" Our Prince, or our General, the State, or the law of the State? "Give it to me, then, for I must always obey the law in every particular." Later on, when your imagination bites you (for this is something you cannot control), fight against it with your reason, beat it down, do not allow it to grow strong, or to take the next step and draw all the pictures it wants, in the way it wants to do. If you are at Gyara, don't picture the style of life at Rome, and all the relaxations a man had who was living there, as well as all that he might have upon his return; but since you have been stationed there, you ought to strive to live manfully at Gyara, as beseems the man whose life is spent in Gyara. And again, if you are in Rome, don't picture the style of life at Athens, but make your life in Rome the one object of your study and practice.
110Then, in the place of all the other relaxations, introduce that which comes from the consciousness that you are obedient to God, and that you are playing the part of the good and excellent man, not ostensibly but in reality. For what a fine thing it
- ↑ Variously attributed to Solon (Diogenes Laertius, 2, 13), Anaxagoras (Cicero, Tusc. 3, 30; Diogenes Laertius, 2, 13), or Xenophon (Diogenes Laertius, 2. 13 and 55). Compare also Seneca, De Consol. ad Polyb. 11, 2, and Hierocles on the Golden Verses of Pythagoras, chap. 11 (p. 439 a, Mullach).
