Volume 1 - Discourses - Books I - II - College of Stoic Philosophers

BOOK II. xxn, 18-24his interest and righteousness and what Is honourableand country and parents and friends, theyare all safe ;but if he puts his interest in onescale, and in the other friends and country andkinsmen and justice itself, all these latter are lostbecause they are outweighed by his interest. Forwhere one can say e< I " and ct mine," to that sidemust the creature perforce incline if ; they * are inthe flesh, there must the ruling power be ;if theyare in the moral purpose, there must it be if ; theyare in externals, there must it be. If, therefore,am Iwhere my moral purpose is, then, and then only,will I be the friend and son arid the father that Ishould be. For then this will be my interest tokeep my good faith, my self-respect, my forbearance,my abstinence, and my co-operation, and to maintainmy relations with other men. But if I putwhat is mine in one scale, and what is honourablein the other, then the statement of Epicurus assumesstrength, in which he declares that "the honourableis either nothing at all, or at best only what peoplehold in esteem/'It was through ignorance of this that the Atheniansand Lacedaemonians quarrelled, and the Thebanswith both of them, and the Great King with Greece,,and the Macedonians with both of them, and in ourdays the Romans with the Getae, and yet earlierthan any of these, what happened at Ilium was dueto this. Alexander was a guest of Menelaus, andifanyone had seen their friendly treatment of oneanother, he would have disbelieved any man whosaid they were not friends. But there was thrownin between them a morsel, a pretty woman, and towin her war arose. So now, when you see friends,399