Advice About Keeping Well (9)

ZEUXIPPUS. As Demades used to say that the Athenians, who were for making war in season and out of season, never voted for peace save when wearing black, so we never give a thought to a plain and restrained way of living except when using enemas and poultices. But when we find ourselves in this plight we try hard to stifle the thought of our wrongdoings, setting ourselves against their remembrance, and, as is the way of most people who object to this or that air or this or that locality as insalubrious when they say that they dread travelling, we exclude our intemperance and self-indulgence from the cause of our illness. Nay, we should recall how Lysimachus [*] among the Getae was constrained by thirst to surrender himself and the army with him as prisoners of war, and afterwards as he drank cold water exclaimed, My God, for what a brief pleasure have I thrown away great prosperity! And in the same way we ought in our attacks of illness to remember that for a cold drink, an ill-timed bath, or a social party, we have spoiled many of our pleasures and have ruined many an honourable enterprise and delightful recreation. For the sting caused by such reflections keeps the memory raw, so that, like a scar that remains when the body is in health, it makes us more circumspect about our way of living. For the healthy body will not, to any immoderate extent, breed desires that are vehement, intractable, unwonted, and hard to dispossess; nay, we can boldly and confidently oppose the appetites which would fain go beyond all bounds and assault our enjoyments, knowing that their whining and whimpering is a trivial and childish manifestation, and that later, when the table is removed, they will cease repining and make no complaint nor feel themselves aggrieved, but, on the contrary, untainted and cheerful rather than dulled and nauseated by over-indulgence, await the morrow. The remark which Timotheus [*] made, the day after he had dined with Plato at the Academy on the simple fare of the scholar, is in point here: Those who dine with Plato, he said, get on pleasantly the next day also. And it is reported that Alexander said [*] when he discharged the chefs of Ada that he had better ones always to take with him — his night marches for breakfast, and for dinner his frugal breakfast.