Seek it there, wretch, where your work lies. And where is your work? In desire and in aversion, that you may not be disappointed in your desire, and that you may not fall into that which you would avoid; in your pursuit and avoiding, that you commit no error; in assent and suspension of assent, that you be not deceived. The first things, and the most necessary, are those which I have named.[1] But if with trembling and lamentation you seek not to fall into that which you avoid, tell me how you are improving.
Do you then show me your improvement in these things? If I were talking to an athlete, I should say, Show me your shoulders; and then he might say, Here are my Halteres. You and your Halteres[2] look to that. I should reply, I wish to see the effect of the Halteres. So, when you say: Take the treatise on the active powers (ὁρμή), and see how I have studied it. I reply, Slave, I am not inquiring about this, but how you exercise pursuit and avoidance, desire and aversion, how you design and purpose and prepare yourself, whether conformably to nature or not. If conformably, give me evidence of it, and I will say that you are making progress: but if not conformably, be gone, and not only expound your books, but write such books yourself; and
- ↑ Compare iii. c. 2. The word is τόποι.
- ↑ Halteres are gymnastic instruments (Galen. i. De Sanitate tuenda; Martial, xiv. 49; Juvenal, vi. 420, and the Scholiast. Upton). Halteres is a Greek word, literally "leapers." They are said to have been masses of lead, used for exercise and in making jumps. The effect of such weights in taking a jump is well known to boys who have used them. A couple of bricks will serve the purpose, Martial says (xiv. 49):― Juvenal (vi. 421) writes of a woman who uses dumb-bells till she sweats, and is then rubbed dry by a man,
“Quid pereunt stulto fortes haltere lacerti?
Exercet melius vinea fossa viros.""Quum lassata gravi ceciderunt brachia massa."
(Macleane's Juvenal.)
As to the expression, Ὄψει σὺ, καὶ οἱ ἁλτῆρες, see Upton's note. It is also a Latin form: “Epicurus hoc viderit," Cicero, Acad. ii. c. 7; "haec fortuna viderit," Ad Attic. vi. 4. It occurs in M. Antoninus, viii. 41, v. 25; and in Acta Apostol. xviii. 15.
