CHAPTER III.

WHAT THINGS WE SHOULD EXCHANGE FOR OTHER THINGS.

KEEP this thought in readiness, when you lose any thing external, what you acquire in place of it; and if it be worth more, never say, I have had a loss; neither1 if you have got a horse in place of an ass, or an ox in place of a sheep, nor a good action in place of a bit of money, nor in place of idle talk such tranquillity as befits a man, nor in place of lewd talk if you have acquired modesty. If you remember this, you will always maintain your character such as it ought to be. But if you do not, consider that the times of opportunity are perishing, and that whatever pains you take about yourself, you are going to waste them all and overturn them. And it needs only a few things for the loss and overturning of all, namely a small deviation from reason. For the steerer of a ship to upset it, he has no need of the same means as he has need of for saving it but if he turns it a little to the wind, it is lost; and if he does not do this purposely, but has been neglecting his duty a little, the ship is lost. Something of the kind happens in this case also: if you only fall a nodding a little, all that you have up to this time collected is gone. Attend therefore to the appearances of things, and watch over them; for that which you have to preserve is no small matter, but it is modesty and fidelity and constancy, freedom from the affects, a state of mind undisturbed, freedom from fear, tranquillity, in a word liberty. For what will you sell these things? See what is the value of the things which you will obtain in exchange for these. But shall I not obtain any such thing for it? See, and if you do in return get that, see what you receive in place of it. I possess decency, he possesses a tribuneship: he possesses a praetorship, I possess modesty. But I do not make acclamations where it is not becoming: I will not stand up where I ought not; 3

1 See Schweig.'s note.

2 The text is obscure, and perhaps there is something wrong. Schweighaeuser has a long note on the passage.

3 He alludes to the factions in the theatres, iii. 4, 4; iv. 2-9. Upton

for I am free, and a friend of God, and so I obey him willingly. But I must not claim (seek) any thing else, neither body nor possession, nor magistracy, nor good report, nor in fact any thing. For he (God) does not allow me to claim (seek) them: for if he had chosen, he would have made them good for me; but he has not done so, and for this reason I cannot transgress his commands. Preserve that which is your own good in every thing; and as to every other thing, as it is permitted, and so far as to behave consistently with reason in respect to them, content with this only. If you do not, you will be unfortunate, you will fail in all things, you will be hindered, you will be impeded. These are the laws which have been sent from thence (from God); these are the orders. Of these laws a man ought to be an expositor, to these he ought to submit, not to those of Masurius and Cassius.5

CHAPTER IV.

TO THOSE WHO ARE DESIROUS OF PASSING LIFE IN

TRANQUILLITY,

REMEMBER that not only the desire of power and of riches makes us mean and subject to others, but even the desire of tranquillity, and of leisure, and of travelling abroad, and of learning. For to speak plainly, whatever the external thing may be, the value which we set upon it places us in subjection to others. What then is the difference between desiring to be a senator or not desiring to be one; what is the difference between desiring power or being content with a private station; what is the difference between saying, I am unhappy, I have nothing to do, but I am bound to my books as a corpse; or saying, I am unhappy, I have no leisure for reading? For as salutations and power are things external and independent of See i. 25. note 1; iv. 7. 17.

5 Masurius Sabinus was a great Roman jurisconsult in the times of Augustus and Tiberius. He is sometimes named Masurius only (Persius, v. 90). C. Cassius Longinus was also a jurist, and, it is said, a descendant of the Cassius, who was one of the murderers of the dic tator C. Caesar. He lived from the time of Tiberius to that of Vespasian.

1àσrаopoí. See this chapter further on.

the will, so is a book. For what purpose do you choose to read? Tell me. For if you only direct your purpose to being amused or learning something, you are a silly fellow and incapable of enduring labour. But if you refer reading to the proper end, what else is this than a tranquil and happy life (evorola)? But if reading does not secure for you a happy and tranquil life, what is the use of it? But it does secure this, the man replies, and for this reason I am vexed that I am deprived of it.-And what is this tranquil and happy life, which any man can impede, I do not say Caesar or Caesar's friend, but a crow, a piper, a fever, and thirty thousand other things? But a tranquil and happy life contains nothing so sure as continuity and freedom from obstacle. Now I am called to do something: I will go then with the purpose of observing the measures (rules) which I must keep,3 of acting with modesty, steadiness, without desire and aversion to things external; and then that I may attend to men, what they say, how they are moved;5 and this not with any bad disposition, or that I may have something to blame or to ridicule; but I turn to myself, and ask if I also commit the same faults. How then shall I

2 See Bishop Butler's remarks in the Preface to his Sermons vol. ii. He speaks of the idle way of reading and considering things: by this means, time even in solitude is happily got rid of without the pain of attention: neither is any part of it more put to the account of idleness, one can scarce forbear saying, is spent with less thought than great part of that which is spent in reading.'

Sed verae numerosque modosque ediscere vitae. Hor. Epp. ii. 2. 144. M. Antoninus, iii. 1.

The readers perhaps may grow tired with being so often told what they will find it very difficult to believe, That because externals are not in our power, they are nothing to us. But in excuse for this frequent repetition, it must be considered that the Stoics had reduced themselves to a necessity of dwelling on this consequence, extravagant as it is, by rejecting stronger aids. One cannot indeed avoid highly admiring the very few, who attempted to amend and exalt themselves on this foundation. No one perhaps ever carried the attempt so far in practice, and no one ever spoke so well in support of the argument as Epictetus. Yet, notwithstanding his great abilities and the force of his example, one finds him strongly complaining of the want of success; an one sees from this circumstance as well as from others in the Stoic writings, That virtue can not be maintained in the world without tho hope of a future reward.' Mrs. Carter.

Compare Horace, Sat. i. 4. 133: Neque enim cum lectulus etc.

cease to commit them? Formerly I also acted wrong, but now I do not: thanks to God.

Come, when you have done these things and have attended to them, have you done a worse act than when you have read a thousand verses or written as many? For when you eat, are you grieved because you are not reading? are you not satisfied with eating according to what you have learned by reading, and so with bathing and with exercise? Why then do you not act consistently in all things, both when you approach Caesar, and when you approach any person? If you maintain yourself free from perturbation, free from alarm, and steady; if you look rather at the things which are done and happen than are looked at yourself; if you do not envy those who are preferred before you; if surrounding circumstances (a) do not strike you with fear or admiration, what do you want? Books? How or for what purpose? for is not this (the reading of books) a preparation for life? and is not life itself (living) made up of certain other things than this? This is just as if an athlete should weep when he enters the stadium, because he is not being exercised outside of it. It was for this purpose that you used to practise exercise; for this purpose were used the haltéres (weights), the dust, the young men as antagonists; and do you seek for those things now when it is the time of action? This is just as if in the topic (matter) of assent when appearances present themselves, some of which can be comprehended, and some cannot be comprehended, we should not choose to distinguish them but should choose to read what has been written about comprehension (Karáληis).

What then is the reason of this? The reason is that we have never read for this purpose, we have never written for this purpose, so that we may in our actions use in a way conformable to nature the appearances presented to us; but we terminate in this, in learning what is said, and in being able to expound it to another, in resolving a syllogism, and in handling the hypothetical syllogism. For

7

See i. 4. note 5, iii. 15. 4; and i. 24. 1, i. 29. 34. The athletes were oiled, but they used to rub themselves with dust to be enabled to lay

hold of one another.

7 M. Antoninus, i. 17, thanks the Gods that he did not waste his time in the resolution of syllogisms.

this reason where our study (purpose) is, there alone is the impediment. Would you have by all means the things which are not in your power? Be prevented

then, be hindered, fail in your purpose. But if we read what is written about action (efforts, opun), not that we may see what is said about action, but that we may act well if we read what is said about desire and aversion (avoiding things), in order that we may neither fail in our desires, nor fall into that which we try to avoid; if we read what is said about duty (officium), in order that remembering the relations (of things to one another) we may do nothing irrationally nor contrary to these relations; we should not be vexed in being hindered as to our readings, but we should be satisfied with doing the acts which are conformable (to the relations), and we should be reckoning not what so far we have been accustomed to reckon: To-day I have read so many verses, I have written so many; but (we should say), To-day I have employed my action as it is taught by the philosophers; I have not employed my desire; I have used avoidance (ékkλíσe) only with respect to things which are within the power of my will; I have not been afraid of such a person, I have not been prevailed upon by the entreaties of another; I have exercised my patience, my abstinence, my co-operation with others; and so we should thank God for what we ought to thank him.

But now we do not know that we also in another way are like the many. Another man is afraid that he shall not have power: you are afraid that you will. Do not do so, my man; but as you ridicule him who is afraid that he shall not have power, so ridicule yourself also. For it makes no difference whether you are thirsty like a man who has a fever, or have a dread of water like a man who is mad. Or how will you still be able to say as Socrates did, If so it pleases God, so let it be? Do you think that Socrates if he had been eager to pass his leisure in the Lyceum or in the Academy and to discourse daily with the young men, would have readily served in military

• See iii. c. 2.

9 See Aulus Gellius xvii. 19, where he quotes Epictetus on what Gellius expresses by 'intolerantia' and 'incontinentia.' Compare M. Antoninus (v. 33) on the precept 'Avéxov and ’Añéxov.