Some such instruction should be given by the teacher to the youth of good natural parts. But what happens now? A corpse is your teacher and corpses are you. As soon as you have fed your fill to-day, you sit lamenting about the morrow, wherewithal you shall be fed. 20Slave, if you get it, you will have it; if you do not get it, you will depart; the door stands open. Why grieve? Where is there yet room for tears? What occasion longer for flattery? Why shall one man envy another? Why shall he admire those who have great possessions, or those who are stationed in places of power, especially if they be both strong and prone to anger? For what will they do to us? As for what they have power to do, we shall pay no heed thereto; as for the things we care about, over them they have no power. Who, then, will ever again be ruler over the man who is thus disposed?
How did Socrates feel with regard to these matters? Why, how else than as that man ought to feel who has been convinced that he is akin to the gods? "If you tell me now," says he, "'We will acquit you on these conditions, namely, that you will no longer engage in these discussions which you have conducted hitherto, nor trouble either the young or the old among us,' I will answer, 'You make yourselves ridiculous by thinking that, if your general had stationed me at any post, I ought to hold and maintain it and choose rather to die ten thousand times than to desert it, but if God has stationed us in some place and in some manner of life we ought to desert that.'"5 25This is what it means for a man to be in very truth a kinsman of the gods. We, however, think of ourselves as though we were mere bellies, entrails, and genitals, just because we have fear, because we have appetite, and we flatter those who have power to help us in these matters, and these same men we fear.
A certain man asked me to write to Rome in his behalf. Now he had met with what most men account misfortune: though he had formerly been eminent and wealthy, he had afterwards lost everything and was living here.6 And I wrote in humble terms in his behalf. But when he had read the letter he handed it back to me, and said, "I wanted your help, not your pity; my plight is not an evil one." So likewise Rufus was wont to say, to test me, "Your master7 is going to do such-and-such a thing to you." 30And when I would say in answer. "'Tis but the lot of man," he would reply. "What then? Am I to go on and petition him, when I can get the same result from you?"8 For, in fact, it is foolish and superfluous to try to obtain from another that which one can get from oneself. Since, therefore, I am able to get greatness of soul and nobility of character from myself, am I to get a farm, and money, or some office, from you? Far from it! I will not be so unaware of what I myself possess. But when a man is cowardly and abject, what else can one possibly do but write letters in his behalf as we do in behalf of a corpse: "Please to grant us the carcase of so-and-so and a pint of paltry blood?"9 For really, such a person is but a carcase and a pint of paltry blood, and nothing more. But if he were anything more he would perceive that one man is not unfortunate because of another.
Footnotes
1. The terms "Athenian," "Corinthian," etc., characterize citizens of a country, not merely of a locality, i.e., citizens of Attica or Corinthia. The "corner" in which one was born might have been Marathon, Rhamnus, Lechaeam, Tenea, or the like.
2. This seems to be a quotation from Poseidonius (Diogenes Laertius, VII. 138), but is also ascribed variously to the Stoics in general and especially to Chrysippus (see Diels, Doxographi Graeci, 464, 20 and 465, 15, comparing 20 f.).
3. Referring to himself.
4. There is less need of his urging them to regard themselves as sons of God than of preventing them, if they are convinced of this, from acting as if the life of the body were a thing to throw aside, and so committing suicide,—a practice which was defended by many Stoics.
5. A very free paraphrase of Plato, Apology, 29 C and 28 E.
6. At Nicopolis.
7. In his youth Epictetus had been a slave.
8. The thought seems to be: If the punishment can be humanly borne, I need not petition your master to remit it, for you have within yourself the power to endure it.
9. As when a friend might ask for the body of an executed criminal.
Chapter X.
To those who have set their hearts on preferment at Rome
If we philosophers had applied ourselves to our own work as zealously as the old men at Rome have applied themselves to the matters on which they have set their hearts, perhaps we too should be accomplishing something. I know a man older than myself who is now in charge of the grain supply1 at Rome. When he passed this place on his way back from exile, I recall what a tale he told as he inveighed against his former life and announced for the future that, when he had returned to Rome, he would devote himself solely to spending the remainder of his life in peace and quiet, "For how little is yet left to me!"—And I told him, "You will not do it, but when once you have caught no more than a whiff of Rome you will forget all this." And if also admission to court should be granted, I added that he would rejoice, thank God and push his way in.—"If you find me, Epictetus," said he, "putting so much as one foot inside the court, think of me what you will." 5Well, now, what did he do? Before he reached Rome, letters from Caesar met him; and as soon as he received them, he forgot all those resolutions of his, and ever since he has been piling up one property after another. I wish I could stand by his side now and remind him of the words that he uttered as he passed by here, and remark, "How much more clever a prophet I am than you!"
What then? Do I say that man is an animal made for inactivity?2 Far be it from me! But how can you say that we philosophers are not active in affairs? For example, to take myself first: as soon as day breaks I call to mind briefly what author I must read over.3 Then forthwith I say to myself: "And yet what difference does it really make to me how so-and-so reads? The first thing is that I get my sleep." Even so, in what are the occupations