ul against anger (which Heraclitus says
it is difficult to contend against, for whatever it wishes is bought at
the price of the soul), is a proof of power so great and victorious as
to be able to apply the judgement as if it were nerves and sinews to the
passions. So I always try to collect and peruse the remarks on this
subject not only of the philosophers, who foolish[691] people say had no
gall in their composition, but still more of kings and tyrants. Such was
the remark of Antigonus to his soldiers, when they were abusing him near
his tent as if he were not listening, so he put his staff out, and said,
"What's to do? can you not go rather farther off to run me down?" And
when Arcadio the Achaean, who was always railing against Philip, and
advising people to flee

"Unto a country where they knew not Philip,"

visited Macedonia afterwards on some chance or other, the king's friends
thought he ought to be punished and the matter not looked over; but
Philip treated him kindly, and sent him presents and gifts, and
afterwards bade inquiry to be made as to what sort of account of him
Arcadio now gave to the Greeks; and when all testified that the fellow
had become a wonderful praiser of the king, Philip said, "You see I knew
how to cure him better than all of you." And at the Olympian games when
there was defamation of Philip, and some of his suite said to him, that
the Greeks ought to smart for it, because they railed against him when
they were treated well by him, he replied, "What will they do then if
they are treated badly by me?" Excellent also was the behaviour of
Pisistratus to Thrasybulus, and of Porsena to Mucius, and of Magas to
Philemon. As to Magas, after he had been publicly jeered at by Philemon
in one of his comedies at the theatre in the following words,

"Magas, the king hath written thee a letter,
Unhappy Magas, since thou can'st not read,"

after having taken Philemon, who had been cast on shore by a storm at
Paraetonium, he commanded one of his soldiers only to touch his neck with
the naked sword and then to go away quietly, and dismissed him, after
sending him a ball and some dice as if he were a silly boy. And Ptolemy
on one occasion, flouting a grammarian for his ignorance, asked him who
was the father of Peleus, and he answered, "I will tell you, if you tell
me first who was the father of Lagus." This was a jeer at the obscure
birth of the king, and all his courtiers were indignant at it