soled? Will you not stretch out your neck as Lateranus' did at Rome when Nero ordered him to be beheaded? For when he had stretched out his neck, and received a feeble blow, which made him draw it in for a moment, he stretched it out again. And a little before, when he was visited by Epaphroditus," Nero's freedman, who asked him about the cause of offence which he had given, he said, “If I choose to tell anything, I will tell your master." What then should a man have in readiness in such cir cumstances? What else than this? What is mine, and what is not mine and what is permitted to me, and what is not permitted to me. I must die. Must I then die lamenting? I must be put in chains. Must I then also lament? I must go into exile. Does any man then hiuder me from going with smiles and cheerfulness and contentment? Tell me the secret which you possess. I will not, for this is in my power. But I will put you in chains." Man, what are you talking about? Me in chains? You may fetter my leg, but my will 10 not even Zeus himself can overpower. I will throw you into prison. My poor body, you mean. I will cut your head off. When then have I told you that my head alone cannot be cut off? These are the things which philosophers should meditate on, which they should write daily, in which they should exercise themselves. Thrasea" used to say, I would rather be killed to-day Plautius Lateranus, consul-elect, was charged with being engaged in Piso's conspiracy against Nero. He was hurried to execution without being allowed to see his children; and though the tribune who executed him was privy to the plot, Lateranus said nothing. (Tacit. Ann. xv. 49, 60.) · Epaphroditus was a freedman of Nero, and once the master of Epictetus. He was Nero's secretary. One good act is recorded of him he helped Nero to kill himself, and for this act he was killed by Domitian (Suetonius, Domitian, c. 14). This is an imitation of a passage in the Bacchao of Euripides (v. 492, &c.), which is also imitated by Horace (Epp. i. 16). 10 poaipeσis. It is sometimes rendered by the Latin propositum or by voluntas, the will. "Thrasca Paetus, a Stoic philosopher, who was ordered in Nero's time to put himself to death (Tacit Anu. xvi. 21-35). He was the husband of Arria,whose mother Arria, the wife of Caccina Paetus, say to than banished to-morrow. What then did Rufus 12 him? If you choose death as the heavier misfortune, how great is the folly of your choice? lighter, who has given you the choice? study to be content with that which has you? But if, as the Will you not been given to What then did Agrippinus 13 say? He said, "I am not a hindrance to myself." When it was reported to him that his trial was going on in the Senate, he said, "I hope it may turn out well; but it is the fifth hour of the day' -this was the time when he was used to exercise himself and then take the cold bath-"let us go and take our exercise." After he had taken his exercise, one comes and tells him, You have been condemned. To banishment, he replies, or to death? To banishment. What about my property? It is not taken from you. Let us go to Aricia then, 14 he said, and dine. This it is to have studied what a man ought to study; to have mado desire, aversion, free from hindrance, and free from all that a man would avoid. I must die. If now, I am ready to die. If, after a short time, I now dine because it is the dinner-hour; after this I will then die. How? Like a man who gives up 16 what belongs to another. in the time of the Emperor Claudius, heroically showed her husband the way to die (Plinius, Letters, iii. 16.) Martial has immortalised the elder Arria in a famous epigram (i. 14) :— "When Arria to her Paetus gave the sword, Which her own hand from her chaste bosom drew, 13 C. Musonius Rufus, a Tuscan by birth, of equestrian rank, a philosopher and Stoic (Tacit. Hist. iii. 81). 13 Paconius Agrippinus was condemned in Nero's time. The charge against him was that he inherited his father's hatred of the head of the Roman state (Tacit. Ann. xvi. 28). The father of Agrippinus had been put to death under Tiberius (Suetonius, Tib. c. 61). "Aricia, about twenty Roman miles from Rome, on the Via Appia (Horace, Sat. i. 5, 1):— “Egressum magna me excepit Aricia Roma." 15 Epictetus, Encheiridion, c. 11: "Never say on the occasion of anything, I have lost it,' but say, 'I have returned it.'" CHAPTER II. HOW A MAN ON EVERY OCCASION OAN (MAINTAIN HIS PROPER CHARACTER. To the rational animal only is the irrational intolerable; but that which is rational is tolerable. Blows are not naturally intolerable. How is that? See how the Lacedaemonians' endure whipping when they have learned that whipping is consistent with reason. To hang yourself is not intolerable. When then you have the opinion that it is rational, you go and hang yourself. In short, if we observe, we shall find that the animal man is pained by nothing so much as by that which is irrational; aud, on the contrary, attracted to nothing so much as to that which is rational. But the rational and the irrational appear such in a different way to different persons, just as the good and the bad, the profitable and the unprofitable. For this reason, particularly, we need disciplína, in order to learn how to adapt the preconception of the rational and the irrational to the several things conformably to nature. But in order to determine the rational and the irrational, we use not only the estimates of external things, but we consider also The Spartan boys used to be whipped at the altar of Artemis Orthia till blood flowed abundantly, and sometimes till death; but they never uttered even a groan (Cicero, Tuscul. ii. 14; v. 27). 44 The preconception (wpóλnyis) is thus defined by the Stoics: oti δὴ ἡ πρόληψις ἔννοια φυσικὴ τῶν καθ' ὅλου (Diogenes Laert. vii.). “ Wo name Anticipation all knowledge, by which I can à priori know and determine that which belongs to empirical knowledge, and without doubt this is the sense in which Epicurus used his expression póAnkis” (Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, p. 152, 7th ed.). Ho adds: But since thero is something in appearances which never can be known à priori, and which consequently constitutes the difference between empirical knowledge and knowledge à priori, that is, sensation (as the material of observation), it follows that this sensation is specially that which cannot be anticipated (it cannot be a póλmis). On the other hand, we could name the pure determinations in space and time, both in respect to form and magnitude, anticipations of the appearances, because these determinations represent à priori whatever may be presented to us à posteriori in experience." See also p. 8, &a what is appropriate to each person. For to one man it is consistent with reason to hold a chamber pot for another, and to look to this only, that if he does not hold it, he will receive stripes, and he will not receive his food: but if he shall hold the pot, he will not suffer anything hard or disagreeable. But to another man not only does the holding of a chamber pot appear intolerable for himself, but intolerable also for him to allow anothor to do this office for him. If then you ask me whether you should hold the chamber pot or not, I shall say to you that the receiving of food is worth more than the not receiving of it, and the being scourged is a greater indignity than not being scourged; so that if you measure your interests by these things, go and hold the chamber pot. "But this," you say, "would not be worthy of me." Well then, it is you who must introduce this consideration into the inquiry, not I; for it is you who know yourself, how much you are worth to yourself, and at what price you sell yourself; for men sell themselves at various prices. For this reason, when Florus was deliberating whether he should go down to Nero's spectacles, and also perform in them himself, Agrippinus said to him, Go down: and when Florus asked Agrippinus, Why do not you go down? Agrippinus replied, Because I do not even deliberate about the matter. For he who has once brought himself to deliberate about such mattors, and to (calculate the value of external things, comes very near to those who have forgotten their own character. For why do you ask me the question, whether death is preferable or life? I say life. Pain or plousure? I say pleasure. But if I do not take a part in the tragic acting, I shall have my head struck off. Go then and take a part, but I will not. Why? Because you consider yourself to be only one thread of those which are in the tunic. Well then it was fitting for you to take care how you should be like the rest of men, just as the thread has no design to be anything Nero was passionately fond of scenic representations, and used to induce the descendants of noble families, whose poverty made them consent, to appear on the stage (Tacitus, Annals, xiv. 14; Suetonius, Nero, o. 21). superior to the other threads. But I wish to be purple, that small part which is bright, and makes all the rest appear graceful and beautiful. Why then do you tell me to make myself like the many? and if I do, how shall I still be purple ? Priscus Helvidius also saw this, and acted conformably. For when Vespasian sent and commanded him not to go into the senate, he replied, "It is in your power not to allow me to be a member of the senate, but so long as I am, I must go in.' Well, go in then, says the emperor, but say nothing. Do not ask my opinion, and I will be silent. But I must ask your opinion. And I must say what I think right. But if you do, I shall put you to death. When then did I tell you that I am immortal? You will do your part, and I will do mine: it is your part to kill; it is mine to die, but not in fear: yours to banish me; mine to depart without sorrow. What good then did Priscus do, who was only a single person? And what good does the purple do for the toga? Why, what else than this, that it is conspicuous in the toga as purple, and is displayed also as a fine example to all other things? But in such circumstances another would have replied to Caesar who forbade him to enter the senate, I thank you for sparing me. But such a man Vespasian would not even have forbidden to enter the senate, for he knew that he would either sit there like an earthen vessel, or, if he spoke, he would say what Caesar wished, and add even more. • The “purple” is the broad purple border on the toga named the toga praetexta, worn by certain Roman magistrates and some others, aud by senators, it is said, on certain days (Cic. Phil. ii. 43). Helvidius Priscus, a Roman senator and a philosopher, is commended by Tacitus (Hist. iv. 4, 5) as an honest man: "He followed the philosophers who considered those things only to be good which are virtuous, those only to be bad which are foul; and he reckoned power, rank, and all other things which are external to the mind as neither good nor bad." Vespasian, probably in a fit of passion, being provoked by Helvidius, ordered him to be put to death, and then revoked tho order when it was too late (Suetonius, Vespasianus, c. 15). |