BOOK IV. V. 33-VI. 1
shrewish? To the end that she might pour all the water she pleased over his head, and might trample underfoot the cake.[1] Yet what is that to me, if I regard these things as meaning nothing to me? But this control over the moral purpose is my true business, and in it neither shall a tyrant hinder me against my will, nor the multitude the single individual, nor the stronger man the weaker; for this has been given by God to each man as something that cannot be hindered. 35These are the judgements which produce love in the household, concord in the State, peace among the nations, make a man thankful toward God, confident at all times, on the ground that he is dealing with things not his own, with worthless things. We, however, although we are capable of writing and reading these things, and praising them when read, are nowhere near capable of being persuaded of them. Wherefore, the proverb about the Lacedaemonians,
Lions at home, but at Ephesus foxes,[2]
will fit us too: Lions in the school-room, foxes outside.
CHAPTER VI
To those who are vexed at being pitied
I am annoyed, says one, at being pitied.—Is it, then, some doing of yours that you are pitied, or the doing of those who show the pity? Or again; is it in your power to stop it?—It is, if I can show
- ↑ It was a present from Alcibiades. For the incidents here referred to see Seneca, De Constantia, 18, 5; Diogenes Laertius, 2, 36; Athenaeus, 5, 219 B and 14, 643 F; Aelian, Varia Historia, 11, 12.
- ↑ Because of their ill-success in Asia Minor. See also the scholium on Aristophanes, Pax, 1189.
