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FUNDANUS. I observe also that both advocates and orators commit serious mistakes because of anger; and Aristotle Problemata, iii. 27 (875 a 34 ff.); cited by Stobaeus, iii. p. 551 ed. Hense. relates that the friends of Satyrus the Samian, when he was to plead, stopped up his ears with wax, that he might not spoil his case through temper at the insults of his enemies. And as for ourselves, does it not happen often that the punishment of a delinquent slave eludes our power? For slaves are made afraid by threatening words and run away. Cf. Seneca, De Ira, iii. 5. 4. The words, therefore, which nurses use with children, Stop crying and you shall have it! may, not without benefit, be applied to temper: Stop hurrying and shouting and making haste, and you shall have what you want better and more easily! For if a father sees his son trying to cut something in two or to make a notch in it with a knife, he takes the knife himself and does it; so likewise, if reason takes upon itself the punishment which temper would inflict, it chastises the person who deserves it safely and harmlessly and for that person’s good, and does not, as temper often does, punish itself instead. Cf. Xenophon, Hellenica, v. 3. 7.
