s])
without impediment.

I am superior to you, for my father is a man of consular rank. Another
says, I have been a tribune, but you have not. If we were horses, would
you say, My father was swifter? I have much barley and fodder, or
elegant neck ornaments. If then you were saying this, I said, Be it so:
let us run then. Well, is there nothing in a man such as running in a
horse, by which it will be known which is superior and inferior? Is
there not modesty ([Greek: aidos]), fidelity, justice? Show yourself
superior in these, that you may be superior as a man. If you tell me
that you can kick violently, I also will say to you, that you are proud
of that which is the act of an ass.

* * * * *

THAT WE OUGHT TO PROCEED WITH CIRCUMSPECTION TO EVERYTHING.[Footnote:
Compare Encheiridion, 29.]--In every act consider what precedes and what
follows, and then proceed to the act. If you do not consider, you will
at first begin with spirit, since you have not thought at all of the
things which follow; but afterwards when some consequences have shown
themselves, you will basely desist (from that which you have begun).--I
wish to conquer at the Olympic games.--(And I too, by the gods; for it
is a fine thing.) But consider here what precedes and what follows; and
then, if it is for your good, undertake the thing. You must act
according to rules, follow strict diet, abstain from delicacies,
exercise yourself by compulsion at fixed times, in heat, in cold; drink
no cold water, nor wine, when there is opportunity of drinking it. In a
word, you must surrender yourself to the trainer, as you do to a
physician. Next in the contest, you must be covered with sand, sometimes
dislocate a hand, sprain an ankle, swallow a quantity of dust, be
scourged with the whip; and after undergoing all this, you must
sometimes be conquered. After reckoning all these things, if you have
still an inclination, go to the athletic practice. If you do not reckon
them, observe you will behave like children who at one time play as
wrestlers, then as gladiators, then blow a trumpet, then act a tragedy,
when they have seen and admired such things. So you also do: you are at
one time a wrestler (athlete), then a gladiator, then a philosopher,
then a rhetorician; but with your whole soul you are nothing: like the
ape you imitate all that you see; and always one thing after another
pleases you, but that which becomes familiar displeases