BOOK IV. I. 84-87
do with you? For fear of things anticipated becomes pain when these things are present. And what will you any longer passionately seek? For you possess a harmonious and regulated desire for the things that are within the sphere of the moral purpose, as being excellent, and as being within your reach; and you desire nothing outside the sphere of the moral purpose, so as to give place to that other element of unreason, which pushes you along and is impetuous beyond all measure.
85Now when you face things in this fashion, what man can inspire fear in you any longer? For what has one human being about him that is calculated to inspire fear in another human being, in either his appearance, or conversation, or intercourse in general, any more than one horse, or dog, or bee inspires fear in another horse, or dog, or bee? Nay, it is things that inspire man with fear; and when one person is able to secure them for another, or to take them away, then he becomes capable of inspiring fear.
How, then, is a citadel destroyed?[1] Not by iron, nor by fire, but by judgements. For if we capture the citadel in the city, have we captured the citadel of fever also, have we captured that of pretty wenches also, in a word, the acropolis within us, and have we cast out the tyrants within us, whom we have lording it over each of us[2] every day, sometimes the same tyrants, and sometimes others? But here is where we must begin, and it is from this side that we must seize the acropolis and cast out the tyrants; we must yield up the paltry body, its members, the
- ↑ Probably a reference to some proverb, or well-known saying, like that of Alcaeus, "Valiant men are the tower of a city" (Smyth, Greek Melic Poets, frag. 15).—The citadel is the keep, or tower, from which a tyrant is represented as overawing a city.
- ↑ So Schweighäuser; but there is some uncertainty about the meaning of ἐφ᾽ ἑκάστοις, which Schegk, Wolf, and Upton take to refer to matters, or affairs (πράγματα, as in § 85).
