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When Demetrius took the Megarians’ city, he asked Stilpo if any of his possessions had been plundered. And Stilpo said, I saw no one carrying off my property. Virtue according to Moralia, 5 f; knowledge in the Life of Demetrius, ix. (893 a): οὐδένα γὰρ εἶδον ἐπιστάμαν ἀποφέροντα. And therefore when Fortune plunders and strips us of everything else, we have something within ourselves of the sort that Achaeans could never harry or plunder.Adapted from Homer, Il., v. 484. ThereforeThe following passage is citd in Stobaeus, vol. ii. p. 161 ed. Wachsmuth, as from Πλουτάρχου Περὶ φιλίας; but Patzig (Quaest. Plutarch., p. 34) is doubtless right in thinking that φιλίας is a scribal error for εὐθυμίας. we should not altogether debase and depreciate Nature in the belief that she has nothing strong, stable, and beyond the reach of Fortune, but, on the contrary, since we know that the corrupt and perishable part of man wherein he lies open to Fortune is small, and that we ourselves are masters of the better part, in which the greatest of our blessings are situated - right opinions and knowledge and the exercise of reason terminating in the acquisition of virtue, all of which have their being inalienable and indestructible - knowing all this, we should face the future undaunted and confident and say to Fortune what Socrates, Cf. Plato, Apology, 30 c-d; the same form of this statement with almost the same differences from Plato’s words is found in Epictetus, i. 29. 18, and the Encheiridion, liii. 4. when he was supposed to be replying to his accusers, was really saying to the jury, Anytus and Meletus are able to take away my life, but they cannot hurt me. Fortune, in fact, can encompass us with sickness, take away our possessions, slander us to people or despot; but she cannot make the good and valiant and high-souled man base or cowardly, mean, ignoble, or envious, nor can she deprive us of that disposition, the constant presence of which is of more help in facing life than is a pilot in facing the sea. For a pilot cannot calm a savage wave or a wind, nor can he find a harbour wherever he wishes at need, nor can he await the event confidently and without trembling; as long as he has not despaired, making use of his skill, With the mainsail dropped to the lower mast He flees from the murky sea, Cf. Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Graec. ², iii. p. 730, Edmonds, Lyra Graeca, iii. p. 474, or Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. ², p. 910, ades. 377. The text is quite uncertain, though Pohlenz’s interpretation seems better than any earlier one. Cf. also Moralia, 169 b, where the fragment is quoted in another form. whereas when the sea towers over him, he sits there quaking and trembling. But the disposition of the wise man yields the highest degree of calm to his bodily affections, destroying by means of self-control, temperate diet, and moderate exertion the conditions leading to disease; even if the beginning of some evil comes from without, he rides it out with light and well-furled sail, as AsclepiadesAsclepiades of Samos; Cf. Knox, Choliambica, p. 270, who rewrites the line. has it, just as one passes through a storm. But if some great unforeseen disaster comes upon him and masters him, the harbour is close at hand and he may swim away from his body, as from a leaky boat.Apparently by suicide: Cf. the admiration Plutarch expresses for Demosthenes’ suicide (Comp. Cic. and Dem., v. 888 c); but his position is quite different in the polemic against Epicurus, Moralia, 1103 e.
