will, Catulus, would not be a seemly thing for you." So Catulus felt ashamed, and went off in a rage. But see whether the answers of Agesilaus and Themistocles are not more modest and in better form.
Agesilaus, when he was asked by his father to pronounce sentence contrary to the law, said, "Father, I was taught by you even from my earliest years to obey the laws, so now I shall obey you and do nothing contrary to law." And Themistocles, when Simonides asked him to do something unjust, replied, "Neither would you be a good poet if your lines violated the laws of metre, nor should I be a good magistrate if I gave decisions contrary to law."
§ XVI. And yet it is not on account of want of metrical harmony in respect to the lyre, to borrow the words of Plato, that cities quarrel with cities and friends with friends, and do and suffer the worst woes, but on account of deviations[670] from law and justice. And yet some, who themselves pay great attention to melody and letters and measures, do not think it wrong for others to neglect what is right in magistracies and judicial sentences and business generally. One must therefore deal with them in the following manner. Does an orator ask a favour of you when you are acting as juryman, or a demagogue when you are sitting in council? Say you will grant his request if he first utter a solecism, or introduce a barbarism into his speech; he will refuse because of the shame that would attach itself to him; at any rate we see some that will not in a speech let two vowels come together. If again some illustrious and distinguished person importune you to something bad, bid him come into the market-place dancing or making wry faces, and if he refuse you will have an opportunity to speak, and ask him which is more disgraceful, to utter a solecism and make wry faces, or to violate the law and one's oath, and contrary to justice to do more for a bad than for a good man. Nicostratus the Argive, when Archidamus offered him a large sum of money and any Lacedæmonian bride he chose if he would deliver up Cromnum, said Archidamus could not be a descendant of Hercules, for he travelled about and killed evil-doers, whereas Archidamus tried to make evil-doers of the good. In like manner, if a man of good repute tries to force and importune us to something bad, let us tell him that he is acting in an ignoble way, and not as his birth and virtue would warrant.
§ XVII. But in the case of people of no repute you must see whether you can persuade the miser by your importunity to lend you money without a bond, or the proud man to yield you the better place, or the ambitious man to surrender some office to you when he might take it himself. For truly it would seem monstrous that, while such remain firm and inflexible and unmoveable in their vicious propensities, we who wish to be, and profess to be, men of honour and justice should be so little masters of ourselves as to abandon and betray virtue. For indeed, if those who importune us do it for glory and power, it is absurd that we should adorn and aggrandize others only to get infamy and a bad name ourselves; like unfair umpires in the public games, or like people voting only to ingratiate themselves, and so bestowing improperly offices and prizes[671] and glory on others, while they rob themselves of respect and fair fame. And if we see that the person who importunes us only does so for money, does it not occur to one that it is monstrous to be prodigal of one's own fame and reputation merely to make somebody else's purse heavier? Why the idea must occur to most people, they sin with their eyes open; like people who are urged hard to toss off big bumpers, and grunt and groan and make wry faces, but at last do as they are told.
§ XVIII. Such weakness of mind is like a temperament of body equally susceptible to heat and cold; for if such people are praised by those that importune them they are overcome and yield at once, whereas they are mortally afraid of the blame and suspicions of those whose desires they do not comply with. But we ought to be stout and resolute in either case, neither yielding to bullying nor cajolery. Thucydides indeed tells us, since envy necessarily follows ability, that "he is well advised who incurs envy in matters of the highest importance."[672] But we, thinking it difficult to escape envy, and seeing that it is altogether impossible not to incur blame or give offence to those we live with, shall be well advised if we prefer the hatred of the perverse to that of those who might justly find fault with us for having iniquitously served their turn. And indeed we ought to be on our guard against praise from those who importune us, which is sure to be altogether insincere, and not to resemble swine, readily allowing anyone that presses to make use of us from our pleasure at itching and tickling, and submitting ourselves to their will. For those that give their ears to flatterers differ not a whit from such as let themselves be tripped up at wrestling, only their overthrow and fall is more disgraceful; some forbearing hostility and reproof in the case of bad men, that they may be called merciful and humane and compassionate; and others on the contrary persuaded to take up unnecessary and dangerous animosities and charges by those who praise them as the only men, the only people that never flatter, and go so far as to entitle them their mouthpieces and voices. Accordingly Bio[673] compared such people to jars, that you could easily take by the ears and turn about at your will. Thus it is recorded that the sophist Alexinus in one of his lectures said a good many bad things about Stilpo the Megarian, but when one of those that were present said, "Why, he was speaking in your praise only the other day," he replied, "I don't doubt it; for he is the best and noblest of men." Menedemus on the contrary, having heard that Alexinus[674] frequently praised him, replied, "But I always censure him, for that man is bad who either praises a bad man or is blamed by a good." So inflexible and proof was he against such flattery, and master of that advice which Hercules in Antisthenes[675] gave, when he ordered his sons to be grateful to no one that praised them; which meant nothing else than that they should not be dumbfoundered at it, nor flatter again those who praised them. Very apt, I take it, was the remark of Pindar to one who told him that he praised him everywhere and to all persons, "I am greatly obliged to you, and will make your account true by my actions."
§ XIX. A useful precept in reference to all passions is especially valuable in the case of the bashful. When they have been overcome by this infirmity, and against their judgement have erred and been confounded, let them fix it in their memories, and, remembering the pain and grief it gave them, let them recall it to their mind and be on their guard for a very long time. For as travellers that have stumbled against a stone, or pilots that have been wrecked off a headland, if they remember these occurrences, not only dread and are on their guard continually on those spots, but also on all similar ones; so those that frequently remember the disgrace and injury that bashfulness brought them, and its sorrow and anguish, will in similar cases be on their guard against their weakness, and will not readily allow themselves to be subjugated by it again.
[636] Or _bashfulness_, _shamefacedness_, what the French call _mauvaise honte_.
[637] Shakespeare puts all this into one line: "Most subject is the fattest soil to weeds."--_2 Henry IV._, A. iv. Sc. iv.
[638] Or _girls_. [Greek: korê] means both a girl, and the pupil of the eye.
[639] So Wyttenbach.
[640] These lines are quoted again "On Moral Virtue," § vi.
[642] Euripides, "Bellerophon," Fragm., 313.
[643] Soph., Fragm., 736.
[644] Surely it is necessary to read [Greek: prodiaphthareisa tô akolastô].
[645] See Plato, "Charmides," 165 A.
[647] "Works and Days," 342.
[648] Reading with Wyttenbach, [Greek: mêd hypolabe pisteuein, dokounta].
[649] See Horace's very amusing "Satire," i. ix., on such tiresome fellows.
[650] [Greek: epitribô] is used in the same sense by [651] On such social pests see Juvenal, i. 1-14.
[652] See Pausanias, i. 2. Euripides left Athens about 409 B.C., and took up his abode for good in Macedonia at the court of Archelaus, where he died 406 B.C.
[653] For a drachma was only worth 6 obols, or 9¾_d._ of our money, nearly = Roman denarius.
[654] A talent was 6,000 drachmæ, or 36,000 obols, about £243 15_s._ of our money.
[656] Compare "On Education," § vii.
[657] Our "Out of the frying-pan into the fire." Cf.
"Incidit in Scyllam cupiens vitare Charybdim."
[658] By their having to borrow themselves.
[659] Fragm. 947.
[660] Or apophthegms, of which Plutarch and Lord Verulam have both left us collections.
[661] Thucydides, ii. 40. Pericles is the speaker.
[662] A slightly-changed line from Euripides' "Pirithous," Fragm. 591. Quoted correctly "On Abundance of Friends," § vii.
[664] "Works and Days," 371.
[665] Cf. Shakspere, "Hamlet," i. iii. 76.
[666] Euripides, "Medea," 1078.
[667] Our "Set a thief to catch a thief."
[668] Or strigil. See Otto Jahn's note on Persius, v.
126.
[669] "Forsitan illa quam nominat Pausanias, i.
27."--_Reiske._ [670] Literally "want of tune in." We cannot well keep up the metaphor. Compare with this passage, "That virtue may be taught," § ii.
[671] Literally "crowns."
[672] Thucydides, ii. 64. Pericles is the speaker.
Quoted again in "How one may discern a flatterer from a friend," § XXXV.
[673] "Est Bio Borysthenita, de quo vide Diog.
Laërt."--_Reiske._ [674] "De Alexino Eleo vide Diog. Laërt., ii. 109.
[675] Antisthenes wrote a book called "Hercules." See Diogenes Laertius, vi. 16.
ON RESTRAINING ANGER.
A DIALOGUE BETWEEN SYLLA AND FUNDANUS.
§ I. _Sylla._ Those painters, Fundanus, seem to me to do well who, before giving the finishing touches to their paintings, lay them by for a time and then revise them; because by taking their eyes off them for a time they gain by frequent inspection a new insight, and are more apt to detect minute differences, that continuous familiarity would have hidden. Now since a human being cannot so separate himself from himself for a time, and make a break in his continuity, and then approach himself again--and that is perhaps the chief reason why a man is a worse judge of himself than of others--the next best thing will be for a man to inspect his friends after an interval, and likewise offer himself to their scrutiny, not to see whether he has aged quickly, or whether his bodily condition is better or worse, but to examine his moral character, and see whether time has added any good quality, or removed any bad one.
On my return then to Rome after an absence of two years, and having been with you now five months, I am not at all surprised that there has been a great increase and growth in those good points which you formerly had owing to your admirable nature; but when I see how gentle and obedient to reason your former excessive impetuosity and hot temper has become, it cannot but occur to me to quote the line, "Ye gods, how much more mild is he become!"[676] And this mildness has not wrought in you sloth or weakness, but like cultivation of the soil it has produced a smoothness and depth fit for action, instead of the former impetuosity and vehemence. And so it is clear that your propensity to anger has not been effaced by any declining vigour or through some chance, but has been cured by good precepts. And indeed, for I will tell you the truth, when our friend Eros[677] reported this change in you to me, I suspected that owing to goodwill he bare witness not of the actual state of the case, but of what was becoming to all good and virtuous men, although, as you know, he can never be persuaded to depart from his real opinion to ingratiate himself with anyone. But now he is acquitted of false witness, and do you, as your journey gives you leisure, narrate to me the mode of cure you employed to make your temper so under control, so natural, gentle and obedient to reason.
_Fundanus._ Most friendly Sylla, take care that you do not in your goodwill and affection to me rest under any misconception of my real condition. For it is possible that Eros, not being able always himself to keep his temper in its place in the obedience that Homer speaks of,[678] but sometimes carried away by his hatred of what is bad, may think me grown milder than I really am, as in changes of the scale in music the lowest notes become the highest.
_Sylla._ Neither of these is the case, Fundanus, but oblige me by doing as I ask.
§ II. _Fundanus._ One of the excellent precepts then of Musonius that I remember, Sylla, is this, that those who wish to be well should diet themselves all their life long. For I do not think we must employ reason as a cure, as we do hellebore, by purging it out with the disease, but we must retain it in the soul, to restrain and govern the judgement. For the power of reason is not like physic, but wholesome food, which co-operates with good health in producing a good habit of body in those by whom it is taken. But admonition and reproof, when passion is at its height and swelling, does little or no good, but resembles very closely those strong-smelling substances, that are able to set on their legs again those that have fallen in epileptic fits, but cannot rid them of their disease. For although all other passions, even at the moment of their acme, do in some sort listen to reason and admit it into the soul, yet anger does not, for, as Melanthius says, "Fell things it does when it the mind unsettles," for it absolutely turns reason out of doors, and bolts it out, and, like those persons who burn themselves and houses together, it makes all the interior full of confusion and smoke and noise, so that what would be advantageous can neither be seen nor heard. And so an empty ship in a storm at open sea would sooner admit on board a pilot from without, than a man in a tempest of rage and anger would listen to another's advice, unless his own reason was first prepared to hearken. But as those who expect a siege get together and store up supplies, when they despair of relief from without, so ought we by all means to scour the country far and wide to derive aids against anger from philosophy, and store them up in the soul: for, when the time of need comes, we shall find it no easy task to import them. For either the soul doesn't hear what is said without because of the uproar, if it have not within its own reason (like a boatswain as it were) to receive at once and understand every exhortation; or if it does hear, it despises what is uttered mildly and gently, while it is exasperated by harsh censure. For anger being haughty and self-willed and hard to be worked upon by another, like a fortified tyranny, must have someone born and bred within it[679] to overthrow it.
§ III. Now long-continued anger, and frequent giving way to it, produces an evil disposition of soul, which people call irascibility, and which ends in passionateness, bitterness, and peevishness, whenever the mind becomes sore and vexed at trifles and querulous at everyday occurrences, like iron thin and beaten out too fine. But when the judgement checks and suppresses at once the rising anger, it not only cures the soul for the moment, but restores its tone and balance for the future. It has happened to myself indeed twice or thrice, when I strongly fought against anger, that I was in the same plight as the Thebans, who after they had once defeated the Lacedæmonians, whom they had hitherto thought invincible, never lost a battle against them again. I then felt confident that reason can win the victory. I saw also that anger is not only appeased by the sprinkling of cold water, as Aristotle attested, but is also extinguished by the action of fear; aye, and, as Homer tells us, anger has been cured and has melted away in the case of many by some sudden joy. So that I came to the conclusion that this passion is not incurable for those who wish to be cured. For it does not arise from great and important causes, but banter and joking, a laugh or a nod, and similar trifles make many angry, as Helen by addressing her niece, "Electra, maiden now for no short time,"[680] provoked her to reply, "Your wisdom blossoms late, since formerly You left your house in shame;"[681] and Callisthenes incensed Alexander, by saying, when a huge cup was brought to him, "I will not drink to Alexander till I shall require the help of Æsculapius."
§ IV. As then it is easy to put out a flame kindled in the hair of hares and in wicks and rubbish, but if it once gets hold of things solid and thick, it quickly destroys and consumes them, "raging amidst the lofty work of the carpenters," as Æschylus[682] says; so he that observes anger in its rise, and sees it gradually smoking and bursting forth into fire from some chatter or rubbishy scurrility, need have no great trouble with it, but can frequently smother it merely by silence and contempt. For as a person puts out a fire by bringing no fuel to it, so with respect to anger, he that does not in the beginning fan it, and stir up its rage in himself, keeps it off and destroys it. And so, though Hieronymus has given us many useful sayings and precepts, I am not pleased with his remark that there is no perception of anger in its birth, but only in its actual developement, so quick is it. For none of the passions when stirred up and set in motion has so palpable a birth and growth as anger. As indeed Homer skilfully shows us, where he represents Achilles as seized at once with grief, when word was brought him _of Patroclus' death_, in the line, "Thus spake he, and grief's dark cloud covered him;"[683] whereas he represents him as waxing angry with Agamemnon slowly, and as inflamed by his many words, which if either of them[684] had abstained from, their quarrel would not have attained such growth and magnitude.
And so Socrates, as often as he perceived any anger rising in him against any of his friends, "setting himself like some ocean promontory to break the violence of the waves," would lower his voice, and put on a smiling countenance, and give his eye a gentler expression, by inclining in the other direction and running counter to his passion, thus keeping himself from fall and defeat.
§ V. For the first way, my friend, to overcome anger, like the putting down of some tyrant, is not to obey or listen to it when it bids you speak loud, and look fierce, and beat yourself, but to remain quiet, and not to make the passion more intense, as one would a disease, by tossing about and crying out. In love affairs indeed, such things as revellings, and serenadings, and crowning the loved one's door with garlands, may indeed bring, some pleasant and elegant relief.
"I went, but asked not who or whose she was, I merely kissed her door-post. If that be A crime, I do plead guilty to the same."[685] In the case of mourners also giving up to weeping and wailing takes away with the tears much of the grief. But anger on the contrary is much more fanned by what angry persons do and say. It is best therefore to be calm, or to flee and hide ourselves and go to a haven of quiet, when we feel the fit of temper coming upon us as an epileptic fit, that we fall not, or rather fall not on others, for it is our friends that we fall upon most and most frequently. For we do not love all, nor envy all, nor fear all men; but nothing is untouched or unassailed by anger; for we are angry with friends and enemies, parents and children, aye, and with the gods, and beasts, and even things inanimate, as was Thamyris, "Breaking his gold-bound horn, breaking the music and Pandarus, who called down a curse upon himself, if he did not burn his bow "after breaking it with his hands."[687] And Xerxes inflicted stripes and blows on the sea, and sent letters to Mount Athos, "Divine Athos, whose top reaches heaven, put not in the way of my works stones large and difficult to deal with, or else I will hew thee down, and throw thee into the sea." For anger has many formidable aspects, and many ridiculous ones, so that of all the passions it is the most hated and despised. It will be well to consider both aspects.
§ VI. To begin then, whether my process was wrong or right I know not, but I began my cure of anger by noticing its effects in others, as the Lacedæmonians study the nature of drunkenness in the Helots. And in the first place, as Hippocrates tells us that disease is most dangerous in which the face of the patient is most unlike himself, so observing that people beside themselves with anger change their face, colour, walk, and voice, I formed an impression as it were of that aspect of passion, and was very disgusted with myself if ever I should appear so frightful and like one out of his mind to my friends and wife and daughters, not only wild and unlike oneself in appearance, but also with a voice savage and harsh, as I had noticed in some[688] of my acquaintance, who could neither preserve for anger their ordinary behaviour, or demeanour, or grace of language, or persuasiveness and gentleness in conversation.
Caius Gracchus, indeed, the orator, whose character was harsh and style of oratory impassioned, had a pitch-pipe made for him, such as musicians use to heighten or lower their voices by degrees, and this, when he was making a speech, a slave stood behind him and held, and used to give him a mild and gentle note on it, whereby he lowered his key, and removed from his voice the harsh and passionate element, charming and laying the heat of the orator, "As shepherds' wax-joined reed sounds musically With sleep provoking strain."[689] For myself if I had some elegant and sprightly companion, I should not be vexed at his showing me a looking-glass in my fits of anger, as they offer one to some after a bath to little useful end. For to behold oneself unnaturally distorted in countenance will condemn anger in no small degree. The poets playfully tell us that Athene when playing on the pipe was rebuked thus by a Satyr, "That look no way becomes you, take your armour, Lay down your pipes, and do compose your cheeks," and though she paid no attention to him, yet afterwards when she saw her face in a river, she felt vexed and threw her pipes away, although art had made melody a compensation for her unsightliness. And Marsyas, it seems, by a sort of mouthpiece forcibly repressed the violence of his breath, and tricked up and hid the contortion of his face, "Around his shaggy temples put bright gold, And o'er his open mouth thongs tied behind."
Now anger, that puffs up and distends the face so as to look ugly, utters a voice still more harsh and unpleasant, "Moving the mind's chords undisturbed before."
They say that the sea is cleansed when agitated by the winds it throws up tangle and seaweed; but the intemperate and bitter and vain words, which the mind throws up when the soul is agitated, defile the speakers of them first of all and fill them with infamy, as always having those thoughts within their bosom and being defiled with them, but only giving vent to them in anger. And so for a word which is, as Plato styles it, "a very small matter," they incur a most heavy punishment, for they get reputed to be enemies, and evil speakers, and malignant in disposition.
§ VII. Seeing and observing all this, it occurs to me to take it as a matter of fact, and record it for my own general use, that if it is good to keep the tongue soft and smooth in a fever, it is better to keep it so in anger. For if the tongue of people in a fever be unnatural, it is a bad sign, but not the cause of their malady; but the tongue of angry people, being rough and foul, and breaking out into unseemly speeches, produces insults that work irremediable mischief, and argue deep-rooted malevolence within. For wine drunk neat does not exhibit the soul in so ungovernable and hateful a condition as temper does: for the outbreaks of the one smack of laughter and fun, while those of the other are compounded with gall: and at a drinking-bout he that is silent is burdensome to the company and tiresome, whereas in anger nothing is more highly thought of than silence, as Sappho advises, "When anger's busy in the brain Thy idly-barking tongue restrain."
§ VIII. And not only does the consideration of all this naturally arise from observing ourselves in the moments of anger, but we cannot help seeing also the other properties of rage, how ignoble it is, how unmanly, how devoid of dignity and greatness of mind! And yet to most people its noise seems vigour, its threatening confidence, and its obstinacy force of character; some even not wisely entitle its savageness magnanimity, and its implacability firmness, and its morosity hatred of what is bad. For their actions and motions and whole demeanour argue great littleness and meanness, not only when they are fierce with little boys, and peevish with women, and think it right to treat dogs and horses and mules with harshness, as Otesiphon the pancratiast thought fit to kick back a mule that had kicked him, but even in the butcheries that tyrants commit their littleness of soul is apparent in their savageness, and their suffering in their action, so that they are like the bites of serpents, that, when they are burnt and smart with pain, violently thrust their venom on those that have hurt them. For as a swelling is produced in the flesh by a heavy blow, so in softest souls the inclination to hurt others gets its greater strength from greater weakness. Thus women are more prone to anger than men, and people ill than people well, and old men than men in their prime, and the unfortunate than the prosperous; the miser is most prone to anger with his steward, the glutton with his cook, the jealous man with his wife, the vain man when he is spoken ill of; and worst of all are those "men who are too eager in states for office, or to head a faction, a manifest sorrow," to borrow Pindar's words. So from the very great pain and suffering of the soul there arises mainly from weakness anger, which is not like the nerves of the soul, as some one defined it, but like its strainings and convulsions when it is excessively vehement in its thirst for revenge.
§ IX. Such bad examples as these were not pleasant to look at but necessary, but I shall now proceed to describe people who have been mild and easy in dealing with anger, conduct gratifying either to see or hear about, being utterly disgusted[690] with people who use such language as, "You have a man wronged: shall a man stand this?"
and, "Put your heel upon his neck, and dash his head against the ground," and other provoking expressions such as these, by which some not well have transferred anger from the woman's side of the house to the man's.
For manliness in all other respects seems to resemble justice, and to differ from it only in respect to gentleness, with which it has more affinities. For it sometimes happens to worse men to govern better ones, but to erect a trophy in the soul against anger (which Heraclitus says it is difficult to contend against, for whatever it wishes is bought at the price of the soul), is a proof of power so great and victorious as to be able to apply the judgement as if it were nerves and sinews to the passions. So I always try to collect and peruse the remarks on this subject not only of the philosophers, who foolish[691] people say had no gall in their composition, but still more of kings and tyrants. Such was the remark of Antigonus to his soldiers, when they were abusing him near his tent as if he were not listening, so he put his staff out, and said, "What's to do? can you not go rather farther off to run me down?" And when Arcadio the Achæan, who was always railing against Philip, and advising people to flee "Unto a country where they knew not Philip," visited Macedonia afterwards on some chance or other, the king's friends thought he ought to be punished and the matter not looked over; but Philip treated him kindly, and sent him presents and gifts, and afterwards bade inquiry to be made as to what sort of account of him Arcadio now gave to the Greeks; and when all testified that the fellow had become a wonderful praiser of the king, Philip said, "You see I knew how to cure him better than all of you." And at the Olympian games when there was defamation of Philip, and some of his suite said to him, that the Greeks ought to smart for it, because they railed against him when they were treated well by him, he replied, "What will they do then if they are treated badly by me?" Excellent also was the behaviour of Pisistratus to Thrasybulus, and of Porsena to Mucius, and of Magas to Philemon. As to Magas, after he had been publicly jeered at by Philemon in one of his comedies at the theatre in the following words, "Magas, the king hath written thee a letter, Unhappy Magas, since thou can'st not read," after having taken Philemon, who had been cast on shore by a storm at Parætonium, he commanded one of his soldiers only to touch his neck with the naked sword and then to go away quietly, and dismissed him, after sending him a ball and some dice as if he were a silly boy. And Ptolemy on one occasion, flouting a grammarian for his ignorance, asked him who was the father of Peleus, and he answered, "I will tell you, if you tell me first who was the father of Lagus." This was a jeer at the obscure birth of the king, and all his courtiers were indignant at it as an unpardonable liberty; but Ptolemy said, "If it is not kingly to take a flout, neither is it kingly to give one." And Alexander was more savage than usual in his behaviour to Callisthenes and Clitus. So Porus, when he was taken captive, begged Alexander to use him as a king. And on his inquiring, "What, nothing more?" he replied "No. For everything is included in being used as a king." So they call the king of the gods Milichius,[692] while they call Ares Maimactes;[693] and punishment and torture they assign to the Erinnyes and to demons, not to the gods or Olympus.
§ X. As then a certain person passed the following remark on Philip when he had razed Olynthus to the ground, "He certainly could not build such another city," so we may say to anger, "You can root up, and destroy, and throw down, but to raise up and save and spare and tolerate is the work of mildness and moderation, the work of a Camillus, a Metellus, an Aristides, a Socrates; but to sting and bite is to resemble the ant and horse-fly. For, indeed, when I consider revenge, I find its angry method to be for the most part ineffectual, since it spends itself in biting the lips and gnashing the teeth, and in vain attacks, and in railings coupled with foolish threats, and eventually resembles children running races, who from feebleness ridiculously tumble down before they reach the goal they are hastening to. So that speech of the Rhodian to a lictor of the Roman prætor who was shouting and talking insolently was not inapt, "It is no matter to me what you say, but what your master thinks."[694] And Sophocles, when he had introduced Neoptolemus and Eurypylus as armed for the battle, gives them this high commendation,[695] "They rushed into the midst of armed warriors," Some barbarians indeed poison their steel, but bravery has no need of gall, being dipped in reason, but rage and fury are not invincible but rotten. And so the Lacedæmonians by their pipes turn away the anger of their warriors, and sacrifice to the Muses before commencing battle, that reason may abide with them, and when they have routed a foe do not follow up the victory,[696] but relax their rage, which like small daggers they can easily take back. But anger kills myriads before it is glutted with revenge, as happened in the case of Cyrus and Pelopidas the Theban. But Agathocles bore mildly the revilings of those he was besieging, and when one of them cried out, "Potter, how are you going to get money to pay your mercenaries?" he replied laughingly, "Out of your town if I take it." And when some of those on the wall threw his ugliness into the teeth of Antigonus, he said to them, "I thought I was rather a handsome fellow." But after he had taken the town, he sold for slaves those that had flouted him, protesting that, if they insulted him again, he would bring the matter before their masters. I have noticed also that hunters and orators are very unsuccessful when they give way to anger.[697] And Aristotle tells us that the friends of Satyrus stopped up his ears with wax when he was to plead a cause, that he might not make any confusion in the case through rage at the abuse of his enemies. And does it not frequently happen with ourselves that a slave who has offended escapes punishment, because they abscond in fear of our threats and harsh words? What nurses then say to children, "Give up crying, and you shall have it," may usefully be applied to anger, thus, "Do not be in a hurry, or bawl out, or be vehement, and you will sooner and better get what you want." For a father, seeing his boy trying to cut or cleave something with a knife, takes the knife from him and does it himself: and similarly a person, taking revenge out of the hand of passion, does himself safely and usefully and without harm punish the person who deserves punishment, and not himself instead, as anger often does.
§ XI. Now though all the passions need such discipline as by exercise shall tame and subdue their unreasoning and disobedient elements, yet there is none which we ought to keep under by such discipline so much as the exhibition of anger to our servants. For neither envy, nor fear, nor rivalry come into play between them and us; but our frequent displays of anger to them, creating many offences and faults, make us to slip as if on slippery ground owing to our autocracy with our servants, which no one resists or prevents. For it is impossible to check irresponsible power so as never to break out under the influence of passion, unless one wields power with much meekness, and refuses to listen to the