Part 46

For a drachma was only worth 6 obols, or 93/4d. of our money, nearly = Roman denarius.

A talent was 6,000 drachmae, or 36,000 obols, about L243 15s. of our money.

"Olynth." iii. p. 33, Sec. 19.

Compare "On Education," Sec. vii.

Our "Out of the frying-pan into the fire." Cf. "Incidit in Scyllam cupiens vitare Charybdim."

By their having to borrow themselves.

Fragm. 947.

Or apophthegms, of which Plutarch and Lord Verulam have both left us collections.

Thucydides, ii. 40. Pericles is the speaker.

A slightly-changed line from Euripides' "Pirithous," Fragm. 591. Quoted correctly "On Abundance of Friends," Sec. vii.

"Zenonis discipulus."--Reiske.

"Works and Days," 371.

Cf. Shakspere, "Hamlet," i. iii. 76.

Euripides, "Medea," 1078.

Our "Set a thief to catch a thief."

Or strigil. See Otto Jahn's note on Persius, v. 126.

"Forsitan illa quam nominat Pausanias, i. 27."--Reiske.

Literally "want of tune in." We cannot well keep up the metaphor. Compare with this passage, "That virtue may be taught," Sec. ii.

Literally "crowns."

Thucydides, ii. 64. Pericles is the speaker. Quoted again in "How one may discern a flatterer from a friend," Sec. XXXV.

"Est Bio Borysthenita, de quo vide Diog. Laert."--Reiske.

"De Alexino Eleo vide Diog. Laert., ii. 109. Nostri p. 1063, 3."--Reiske.

Antisthenes wrote a book called "Hercules." See Diogenes Laertius, vi. 16.

ON RESTRAINING ANGER.

A DIALOGUE BETWEEN SYLLA AND FUNDANUS.

Sec. I. Sylla. Those painters, Fundanus, seem to me to do well who, before giving the finishing touches to their paintings, lay them by for a time and then revise them; because by taking their eyes off them for a time they gain by frequent inspection a new insight, and are more apt to detect minute differences, that continuous familiarity would have hidden. Now since a human being cannot so separate himself from himself for a time, and make a break in his continuity, and then approach himself again--and that is perhaps the chief reason why a man is a worse judge of himself than of others--the next best thing will be for a man to inspect his friends after an interval, and likewise offer himself to their scrutiny, not to see whether he has aged quickly, or whether his bodily condition is better or worse, but to examine his moral character, and see whether time has added any good quality, or removed any bad one. On my return then to Rome after an absence of two years, and having been with you now five months, I am not at all surprised that there has been a great increase and growth in those good points which you formerly had owing to your admirable nature; but when I see how gentle and obedient to reason your former excessive impetuosity and hot temper has become, it cannot but occur to me to quote the line,

"Ye gods, how much more mild is he become!"

And this mildness has not wrought in you sloth or weakness, but like cultivation of the soil it has produced a smoothness and depth fit for action, instead of the former impetuosity and vehemence. And so it is clear that your propensity to anger has not been effaced by any declining vigour or through some chance, but has been cured by good precepts. And indeed, for I will tell you the truth, when our friend Eros reported this change in you to me, I suspected that owing to goodwill he bare witness not of the actual state of the case, but of what was becoming to all good and virtuous men, although, as you know, he can never be persuaded to depart from his real opinion to ingratiate himself with anyone. But now he is acquitted of false witness, and do you, as your journey gives you leisure, narrate to me the mode of cure you employed to make your temper so under control, so natural, gentle and obedient to reason.