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FUNDANUS. These base examples, to be sure, were not pleasant to observe, but merely unavoidable; but in discussing those who deal with transports of rage in a mild and gentle way I offer instances which are very beautiful both to hear and to witness, and I begin with a word of scorn for those who say, It was a man you wronged: should a man bear this?Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. 2, p. 912, ades. 382. and Trample him underfoot, tread on his neck, And bring him to the ground!Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Graec., iii. p. 694; Diehl, Anthologia Lyrica, i. p. 265; Edmonds, Elegy and Iambus, ii. p. 304: an anonymous tetrameter attributed by Meineke to Archilochus. and other provocative expressions, by using which some err in transferring anger from the women’s quarters to the men’s. For although courage gets along well with justice in all other respects, yet, as it seems to me, it fights for the possession of gentleness alone, as belonging rather to itself. But although cases do occur in which even baser men gain the mastery over their betters, yet to erect in the soul a trophy of victory over anger (which HeracleitusDiels, Frag. d. Vorsokratiker 2, i. p. 170, Frag. 85; cf. Life of Coriolanus, xxii. (224 c), and Moralia, 755 d. But Heracleitus’s meaning is probably that it is Love, not Anger, which it is difficult to contend against. says it is difficult to contend against: for whatever it wishes, it buys at the price of the soul) is proof of a great and victorious strength which possesses against the passions the weapons of its judgements, as in very truth its nerves and sinews.Perhaps a correction (as 457 c, supra) of Plato, Republic, 411 b (Cf. also Moralia, 449 f, supra).
