On Tranquillity of Mind (12)

Further, another matter which greatly interferes with tranquillity of mind is that we do not manage our impulses, as sailors do their sails, to correspond to our capacity; in our expectations we aim at things too great; then, when we fail, we blame our destiny and our fortune instead of our own folly. For he is not unfortunate who wishes to shoot with his plough and hunt the hare with his ox, nor does a malicious destiny oppose him who cannot capture deer or boar with fishing creels or drag-nets; it is through folly and stupidity that such men attempt the impossible. And self-love is chiefly to blame, which makes men eager to be first and to be victorious in everything and insatiably desirous of engaging in everything. For not only do men demand to be at the same time rich and learned and strong and convivial

spirits and good company, and friends of kings and magistrates of cities, but unless they shall also have dogs and horses and quails and cocks that can win prizes, they are disconsolate.

The elder Dionysius[*] was not content with being the greatest tyrant of his age, but because he could not sing verses better than the poet Philoxenus or get the better of Plato in dialectic, enraged and embittered, he cast Philoxenus into the stone-quarries, and, sending Plato to Aegina, sold him into slavery. Alexander[*] was not of this temper, but when Crison, the famous sprinter, ran a race with him and appeared to slacken his pace deliberately, Alexander was very indignant. And when the Homeric Achilles[*] had first said,

Of the bronze-clad Achaeans none is a match for me,

he did well to add,

In war; but in speaking others are better than I.

But when Megabyzus the Persian carne up to the studio of Apelles[*] and attempted to chatter about art, Apelles shut his mouth by saying, As long as you kept still, you seemed to be somebody because of your gold and purple; but now even these lads who grind the pigments are laughing at your nonsense.

But some think that the Stoics[*] are jesting when they hear that in their sect the wise man is termed not only prudent and just and brave, but also an

orator, a poet, a general, a rich man, and a king; and then they count themselves worthy of all these titles, and if they fail to get them, are vexed. Yet even among the gods different gods hold different powers: one bears the epithet War-like, another Prophetic, another Gain-bringing; and Zeus[*] dispatches Aphrodite to marriages and nuptial chambers, on the ground that she has no part in deeds of war.