BOOK III. XI. 4-XII. 4
This, then, is what one should have ready to use in the case of a father: "I may not rightfully dishonour a father, not even if a worse man than art thou should come; for of Zeus, the God of Fathers,[1] are they all"; and so in the case of a brother: "For of Zeus, the God of Kindred, are they all." And similarly, in the other social relations, we shall find Zeus overseeing them all.
CHAPTER XII
Of training
We ought not to take our training in things that are unnatural or fantastic, since in that case we who profess to be philosophers will be no better than the mountebanks. For it is a hard thing also to walk a tight-rope, and not merely hard but dangerous too. Ought we also for this reason to practise walking a tight-rope, or setting up a palm, or throwing our arms about statues?[2] Not a bit of it. Not every difficult and dangerous thing is suitable for training, but only that which is conducive to success in achieving the object of our effort. And what is the object of our effort? To act without hindrance in choice and in aversion. And what does this mean? Neither to fail to get what we desire, nor to fall into what we would avoid. Toward this end, therefore, our
- ↑ For this aspect of Zeus see O. Gruppe, Griech. Mythol. etc., p. 1116; and especially A. B. Cook, Zeus (index).
- ↑ "Setting up a palm" may possibly mean climbing a pole with only the hands and the feet, like the climbers of palms, as Upton and Schweighäuser (after Bulinger) suggest. There was a "palm-bearer" (φοινεικοφόρος or σπαδεικοφόρος) connected with the gymnasium at Tegea in Arcadia (I.G. V. 2, Nos. 47, 48, 50, 53), who possibly had charge of the exercise referred to here, whatever its exact character may have been. As for embracing statues, Diogenes was said to have done that nude in cold weather, so as to harden himself. Diog. Laert. 6, 23.
