l choose, go to
the contest: if you do not you will behave like children, who at one
time play at wrestlers, another time as flute players, again as
gladiators, then as trumpeters, then as tragic actors. So you also will
be at one time an athlete, at another a gladiator, then a rhetorician,
then a philosopher, but with your whole soul you will be nothing at all;
but like an ape you imitate everything that you see, and one thing after
another pleases you. For you have not undertaken anything with
consideration, nor have you surveyed it well; but carelessly and with
cold desire. Thus some who have seen a philosopher and having heard one
speak, as Euphrates speaks--and who can speak as he does?--they wish to
be philosophers themselves also. My man, first of all consider what kind
of thing it is; and then examine your own nature, if you are able to
sustain the character. Do you wish to be a pentathlete or a wrestler?
Look at your arms, your thighs, examine your loins. For different men
are formed by nature for different things. Do you think that if you do
these things, you can eat in the same manner, drink in the same manner,
and in the same manner loathe certain things? You must pass sleepless
nights, endure toil, go away from your kinsmen, be despised by a slave,
in everything have the inferior part, in honor, in office, in the courts
of justice, in every little matter. Consider these things, if you would
exchange for them, freedom from passions, liberty, tranquillity. If not,
take care that, like little children, you be not now a philosopher, then
a servant of the publicani, then a rhetorician, then a procurator
(manager) for Caesar. These things are not consistent. You must be one
man, either good or bad. You must either cultivate your own ruling
faculty, or external things. You must either exercise your skill on
internal things or on external things; that is you must either maintain
the position of a philosopher or that of a common person.

XXX.

Duties are universally measured by relations ([Greek: tais schsesi]). Is
a man a father? The precept is to take care of him, to yield to him in
all things, to submit when he is reproachful, when he inflicts blows.
But suppose that he is a bad father. Were you then by nature made akin
to a good father? No; but to a father. Does a brother wrong you?
Maintain then your own position towards him, and do not examine what he
is doing, but what you must do that your will shall be con