BOOK III. XXII. 32-36
the true nature of the good, to which it was born, and of the true nature of the evil, and of what is its own proper possession, and what is none of its own concern. And whenever some one of these things that are none of its own concern is in a bad way, it says, "Woe is me, for the Greeks are in danger."[1] Ah, miserable governing principle, the only thing neglected and uncared for! "They are going to perish, slain by the Trojans." But if the Trojans do not kill them, will they not die anyway? "Yes, but not all at once." What difference does it make, then? For if death is an evil, whether they die all at once, or die one at a time, it is equally an evil.[2] Nothing else is going to happen, is it, but the separation of the paltry body from the soul? "Nothing." And is the door closed for you, if the Greeks perish? Are you not permitted to die? "I am." Why, then, do you grieve? "Woe is me, a king, and holding the sceptre of Zeus!" A king does not become unfortunate any more than a god becomes unfortunate.[3] 35What are you, then? Truly a shepherd![4] for you wail as the shepherds do when a wolf carries off one of their sheep; and these men over whom you rule are sheep. But why did you come here[5] in the first
- ↑ Specifically alluding to the position of Agamemnon in the situation referred to above.
- ↑ This is a distinct over-statement of the case. Obviously it makes a great deal of difference for a State (and it is in his capacity as head of a State that Agamemnon is here appearing), whether its fighting men are killed all at once, or die one at a time in the course of nature.
- ↑ Presumably a king is expected to commit suicide before becoming "unfortunate," as suggested in § 34. If he survived under the circumstances here described, he certainly must be "unfortunate," at least as a man, in any ordinary sense of the term. Capps, however, thinks the meaning of Epictetus to be that a king qua king, that is, while really holding the sceptre of Zeus, is blessed of fortune. If "unfortunate" he is simply not such a king. This refinement would be similar to the well-known argument concerning the "ruler qua ruler," in the first book of Plato's Republic. The more common-sense view of the case is well expressed by the Scholiast on Homer's Odyssey XI. 438, thus: "A king is unfortunate when his subjects fare ill."
- ↑ Referring to the common Homeric designation of a ruler as the "shepherd of the folk."
- ↑ Capps proposes the novel view that ἤρχου is from ἄρχουαι, and "takes up ἀρχόμενοι [35] . . . Agamemnon, by allowing himself to be dominated by an ἀλλότριον πρᾶγμα, has become a subject, a sheep."
