BOOK I. XXVI. 9-15
banquet of his knowledge of hypothetical arguments, what else is he doing but trying to win the admiration of some senator sitting by his side? 10For there in Rome are found in truth the great resources, while the riches of Nicopolis look to them like mere child's-play.[1] Hence it is difficult there for a man to control his own external impressions, since the distracting influences at Rome are great. I know a certain man who clung in tears to the knees of Epaphroditus and said that he was in misery; for he had nothing left but a million and a half sesterces. What, then, did Epaphroditus do? Did he laugh at him as you are laughing? No; he only said, in a tone of amazement, "Poor man, how, then, did you manage to keep silence? How did you endure it?"
Once when he had disconcerted the student who was reading the hypothetical arguments, and the one who had set the other the passage to read laughed at him, Epictetus said to the latter, "You are laughing at yourself. You did not give the young man a preliminary training, nor discover whether he was able to follow these arguments, but you treat him merely as a reader. Why is it, then," he added, "that to a mind unable to follow a judgement upon a complex argument we entrust the assigning of praise or blame, or the passing of a judgement upon what is done well or ill? If such a person speaks ill of another, does the man in question pay any attention to him, or if he praises another, is the latter elated? when the one who is dispensing praise or blame is unable, in matters as trivial as these, to find the logical consequence? 15This, then, is a starting point in philosophy—a perception of the state of one's own governing principle[2]; for when once a man realizes
- ↑ i.e., in the simple life of Nicopolis it is easy to use philosophic doctrines to live by; in Rome the temptation is strong to use them for achieving social distinction.
- ↑ That is, the reason; compare note on I. 15, 4.
