The Scythian or Consul (32)

The fellow will certainly go on and say to me something like this: “Let us make a comparison, Lycinus, and posit a man who knows only the Stoic tenets, like this friend of yours, Hermotimus; he has never gone abroad to Plato’s country or stayed with Epicurus or in short with anyone else. Now, if he said that there was nothing in these many lands as beautiful or as true as the tenets and assertions of Stoicism, would you not with good reason think him bold in giving his opinion on all, and that when he knows only one, and has never put one foot outside Ethiopia?” What answer do you think I should give him?

This very true one, of course: that we do learn Stoicism very thoroughly indeed, since we think fit to pursue this branch of philosophy, but we are not unacquainted with what the others say. For our teacher explains all that to us as he goes along, and knocks it down with his own comments.