eat and sleep, such sleep as is the fashion of such men? why need we say how? for one can easily conjecture. Come, do you also tell your own way of passing the time which you desire, you who are an admirer of truth and of Socrates and Diogenes. What do you wish to do in Athens? the same (that others do), or something else? Why then do you call yourself a Stoic? Well, but they who falsely call themselves Roman citizens,[1] are severely punished; and should those, who falsely claim so great and reverend a thing and name, get off unpunished? or is this not possible, but the law divine and strong and inevitable is this, which exacts the severest punishments from those who commit the greatest crimes? For what does this law say? Let him who pretends to things which do not belong to him be a boaster, a vain-glorious man:[2] let him who disobeys the divine administration be base, and a slave; let him suffer grief, let him be envious, let him pity;[3] and in a word let him be unhappy and lament.
Well then; do you wish me to pay court to a certain person? to go to his doors?[4]—If reason requires this to be done for the sake of country, for the sake of kinsmen, for the sake of mankind, why should you not go? You are not ashamed to go to the doors of a shoemaker, when you are in want of shoes, nor to the door of a gardener, when you want lettuces; and are you ashamed to go to the doors of the rich when you want any thing?—Yes, for I have no awe of a shoemaker—Don't feel any awe of the rich—Nor
- ↑ Suetonius (Claudius, 25) says: 'Peregrinae conditionis homines vetuit usurpare Romana nomina, duntaxat gentilia. Civitatem Romanam usurpantes in campo Esquilino securi percussit.' Upton.
- ↑ This is a denunciation of the hypocrite.
- ↑ 'Pity' perhaps means that he will suffer the perturbation of pity, when he ought not to feel it. I am not sure about the exact meaning.
- ↑ 'What follows hath no connection with what immediately preceded; but belongs to the general subject of the chapter.' Mrs Carter.
'The person with whom Epictetus chiefly held this discourse, seems to have been instructed by his friends to pay his respects to some great man at Nicopolis (perhaps the procurator, iii. 4. 1) and to visit his house.' Schweig.
