Moral essays. With an English translation by J.W. Basore

;ON ANGER, II. VII. 2-^^II. 3profligates — men who are happy in being such.Nowhere will he turn his eyes without finding somethingto move them to indignation. He \n\\ give outif he forces himself to be angry ever}' time occasionrequires. All these thousands hurrj-ing to the forumat break of day—how base their cases, and howmuch baser are their advocates ! One assails hisfather's will, which it were more fitting that herespect ; another arraigns his mother at the bar ;another comes as an informer of the very crime inwhich he is more openly the culprit ; the judge,too, is chosen who will condemn the same deedsthat he himself has committed, and the crowd, misledby the fine voice of a pleader,^ shows favour toa wicked cause.But why recount all the different t}-pes ? When-,ever you^aee-jtheforum, with its thronging multitude,and the polling-places filled with all the gatheredconcourse, and the great Circus where the largestpart of the populace displays itself, you may be surethat just as many vices are gathered there as men._^Aroong those whom^ymTsee in civilian garb there isno peace ; for a slight reward any one of them canbe led to compass the destruction of another ; ngone makes gain save by another's loss 3 the prosperousthey hate, the unprosperous they despisesuperiors they loathe, and to inferiors are loathsome ;they are goaded on by opposite desires ; they desirefor the sake of some httle pleasure or plunder tosee the whole world lost. They hve as though theywere in a gladiatorial school—those with whom theyeat, they likewise fight. It is a community of wildbeasts, only~thaTbeasts are gentle toward each otherand reirion from tearing their own kind, while men181