Discourses - Book I   

preferable or life? I say "life." "Pain or pleasure?" I say
"pleasure." But if I do not take a part in the tragic acting, I
shall have my head struck off. Go then and take a part, but I will
not. "Why?" Because you consider yourself to be only one thread of
those which are in the tunic. Well then it was fitting for you to take
care how you should be like the rest of men, just as the thread has no
design to be anything superior to the other threads. But I wish to
be purple, that small part which is bright, and makes all the rest
appear graceful and beautiful. Why then do you tell me to make
myself like the many? and if I do, how shall I still be purple?
Priscus Helvidius also saw this, and acted conformably. For when
Vespasian sent and commanded him not to go into the senate, he
replied, "It is in your power not to allow me to be a member of the
senate, but so long as I am, I must go in." "Well, go in then," says
the emperor, "but say nothing." "Do not ask my opinion, and I will
be silent." "But I must ask your opinion." "And I must say what I
think right." "But if you do, I shall put you to death." "When then
did I tell you that I am immortal? You will do your part, and I will
do mine: it is your part to kill; it is mine to die, but not in
fear: yours to banish me; mine to depart without sorrow."
What good then did Priscus do, who was only a single person? And
what good does the purple do for the toga? Why, what else than this,
that it is conspicuous in the toga as purple, and is displayed also as
a fine example to all other things? But in such circumstances
another would have replied to Caesar who forbade him to enter the
senate, "I thank you for sparing me." But such a man Vespasian would
not even have forbidden to enter the senate, for he knew that he would
either sit there like an earthen vessel, or, if he spoke, he would say
what Caesar wished, and add even more.
In this way an athlete also acted who was in danger of dying
unless his private parts were amputated. His brother came to the
athlete, who was a philosopher, and said, "Come, brother, what are you
going to do? Shall we amputate this member and return to the
gymnasium?" But the athlete persisted in his resolution and died. When
some one asked Epictetus how he did this, as an athlete or a
philosopher, "As a man," Epictetus replied, "and a man who had been
proclaimed among the athletes at the Olympic games and had contended
in them, a man who had been familiar with such a place, and not merely
anointed in Baton's school. Another would have allowed even his head
to be cut off, if he could have lived without it. Such is that
regard to character which is so strong in those who have been
accustomed to introduce it of themselves and conjoined with other
things into their deliberations."
"Come, then, Epictetus, shave yourself." "If I am a philosopher,"
I answer, "I will not shave myself." "But I will take off your
head?" If that will do you any good, take it off.
Some person asked, "How then shall every man among us perceive
what is suitable to his character?" How, he replied, does the bull
alone, when the lion has attacked, discover his own powers and put
himself forward in defense of the whole herd? It is plain that with