he transfers to these things. "Where have I failed in the matters
pertaining to flattery?" "What have I done?" Anything like a free man,
anything like a noble-minded man? And if he finds anything of the
kind, he blames and accuses himself: "Why did you say this? Was it not
in your power to lie? Even the philosophers say that nothing hinders
us from telling a lie." But do you, if indeed you have cared about
nothing else except the proper use of appearances, as soon as you have
risen in the morning reflect, "What do I want in order to be free from
passion, and free from perturbation? What am I? Am I a poor body, a
piece of property, a thing of which something is said? I am none of
these. But what am I? I am a rational animal. What then is required of
me?" Reflect on your acts. "Where have I omitted the things which
conduce to happiness? What have I done which is either unfriendly or
unsocial? what have I not done as to these things which I ought to
have done?"
So great, then, being, the difference in desires, actions, wishes,
would you still have the same share with others in those things
about which you have not laboured, and they have laboured? Then are
you surprised if they pity you, and are you vexed? But they are not
vexed if you pity them. Why? Because they are convinced that they have
that which is good, and you are not convinced. For this reason you are
not satisfied with your own, but you desire that which they have:
but they are satisfied with their own, and do not desire what you
have: since, if you were really convinced that with respect to what is
good, it is you who are the possessor of it and that they have
missed it, you would not even have thought of what they say about you.

CHAPTER 7

On freedom from fear

What makes the tyrant formidable? "The guards," you say, "and
their swords, and the men of the bedchamber and those who exclude them
who would enter." Why, then, if you bring a boy to the tyrant when
he is with his guards, is he not afraid; or is it because the child
does not understand these things? If, then, any man does understand
what guards are and that they have swords, and comes to the tyrant for
this very purpose because he wishes to die on account of some
circumstance and seeks to die easily by the hand of another, is he
afraid of the guards? "No, for he wishes for the thing which makes the
guards formidable." If, then, neither any man wishing to die nor to
live by all means, but only as it may be permitted, approaches the
tyrant, what hinders him from approaching the tyrant without fear?
"Nothing." If, then, a man has the same opinion about his property
as the man whom I have instanced has about his body; and also about
his children and his wife, and in a word is so affected by some
madness or despair that he cares not whether he possesses them or not,
but like children who are playing, with shells care about the play,
but do not trouble themselves about the shells, so he too has set no
value on the materials, but values the pleasure that he has with