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And yet it is also highly conducive to tranquillity of mind to examine, if possible, oneself and one’s fortunes, but if that is not possible, to observe persons of inferior fortune, and not, as most people do, compare oneself with those who are superior; as, for example, those in prison account fortunate these who have been set free Cf. Teles, p. 43 ed. Hense.; and they, men born free; and free men, citizens; and citizens, in their turn, the rich; and the rich, satraps; and satraps, kings; and kings, the gods, scarcely stopping short of desiring the power to produce thunder and lightning. Thus, through being always conscious that they lack things which are beyond them, they are never grateful for what befits their station. I want no wealth of Gyges rich in gold, Nor have I ever envied him; I am Not jealous of gods’ works, nor love a great Kingdom: such things are far beyond my ken.Archilochus, Frag. 25 ed. Bergk and ed. Edmonds; Frag. 22 ed. Diehl. But he was a Thasian, one may say.Aristotle (Rhetoric, iii. 17. 1418 b 31) says that Archilochus (who long resided in Thasos) speaks, not in propria persona, but through the mouth of Charon the carpenter. Charon is, then, the Thasian, if we can believe that Plutarch drew the quotation directly from Archilochus, and not from a florilegium (aliter, Fowler, Harv. Stud., i. p. 144). Plutarch probably means that one nationality is no more exempt from this vice than another, but the argument is very oddly stated. Yet there are others, Chians, Galatians, or Bithynians, who are not content with whatever portion of either repute or power among their own fellow-countrymen has fallen to their lot, but weep because they do not wear the patrician shoe; yet if they do wear it, they weep because they are not yet Roman praetors; if they are praetors, because they are not consuls; and if consuls, because they were proclaimed, not first, but later.For the importance of being announced first in the renuntiatio, see, for example, Cicero, Pro Murena, viii. 18. What is this other than collecting excuses for ingratitude to Fortune in order to chastise and punish oneself? But he, at least, who has a mind filled with salutary thoughts, knowing that the sun looks down upon countless myriads of men, As many of us as win the fruit of the spacious earth,Simonides, Frag. 5 ed. Bergk, 4 ed. Diehl, 19 ed. Edmonds, verse 17; quoted again in Moralia, 485 c, infra, 743 f. if he be less famous or wealthy than some others, does not sit down in sorrow and dejection, but since he knows that he lives ten thousand times better and more suitably than tens of thousands in so great a number, he will go on his way praising his own guardian spirit and his life.
