Page:Discourses of Epictetus volume 2 Oldfather 1928.djvu/285

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BOOK IV. I. 87-91

faculties, property, reputation, offices, honours, children, brothers, friends—count all these things as alien to us. And if the tyrants he thrown out of the spot, why should I any longer raze the fortifications of the citadel, on my own account, at least? For what harm does it do me by standing? Why should I go on and throw out the tyrant's bodyguard? For where do I feel them? Their rods, their spears, and their swords they are directing against others. But I have never been hindered in the exercise of my will, nor have I ever been subjected to compulsion against my will.^[1] And how is this possible? I have submitted my freedom of choice unto God. He wills that I shall have fever; it is my will too. He wills that I should choose something; it is my will too. He wills that I should desire something; it is my will too. He wills that I should get something; it is my wish too. He does not will it; I do not wish it. ⁹⁰Therefore, it is my will to die; therefore, it is my will to be tortured on the rack. Who can hinder me any longer against my own views, or put compulsion upon me? That is no more possible in my case than it would be with Zeus.

This is the way also with the more cautious among travellers. A man has heard that the road which he is taking is infested with robbers; he does not venture to set forth alone, but he waits for a company, either that of an ambassador, or of a quaestor, or of a proconsul, and when he has attached

↑ The metaphor in this passage is complicated. I take it to mean, using wealth as a convenient example, something like this: The tyrant is a false judgement (δόγμα) about wealth; the acropolis and the bodyguard are wealth itself, which is dangerous only so long as the false judgement prevails. Once that is overthrown, actual wealth itself need not be destroyed, at least for the man who is freed from the false judgement about it, because wealth as such has no longer any power over him. Other people may be menaced by it, but every man has a ready means of defence, which is to secure a correct judgement about the thing itself. Many matters or affairs (πράγματα) like death and disease cannot, in any event, be destroyed. It is vain labour to try to destroy the things themselves, when it is only the false judgements that are dangerous, and these any man can himself overcome.

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[1] The metaphor in this passage is complicated. I take it to mean, using wealth as a convenient example, something like this: The tyrant is a false judgement (δόγμα) about wealth; the acropolis and the bodyguard are wealth itself, which is dangerous only so long as the false judgement prevails. Once that is overthrown, actual wealth itself need not be destroyed, at least for the man who is freed from the false judgement about it, because wealth as such has no longer any power over him. Other people may be menaced by it, but every man has a ready means of defence, which is to secure a correct judgement about the thing itself. Many matters or affairs (πράγματα) like death and disease cannot, in any event, be destroyed. It is vain labour to try to destroy the things themselves, when it is only the false judgements that are dangerous, and these any man can himself overcome.

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