Book 7
6
The same holds good of Self-restraint and Unrestraint. It is not surprising that a man should be overcome by violent and excessive pleasures or pains: indeed it is excusable if he succumbs after a struggle, like Philoctetes in Theodectes when bitten by the viper, or Kerkyon in the Alope of Karkinos, or as men who try to restrain their laughter explode in one great guffaw, as happened to Xenophantus.Seneca, De ira, 2.2, says that Xenophantus’s martial music made Alexander put out his hand to grasp his weapons (the story is told by Suidas of a Theban flute-player Timotheus, cf. Dryden, Alexander’s Feast) ; apparently Alexander’s music had a different effect on Xenophantus! But we are surprised when a man is overcome by pleasures and pains which most men are able to withstand, except when his failure to resist is due to some innate tendency, or to disease: instances of the former being the hereditary effeminacyHdt. 1.105, says that certain Scythians who robbed the temple of Uranian Aphrodite at Askalon were smitten with the feminine disease, which affected their descendants ever after; but Hippocrates, Περὶ ἀέρων22, describes effeminate symptoms prevalent among wealthy and high-born Scythians, due to being too much on horseback. of the royal family of Scythia, and the inferior endurance of the female sex as compared with the male.
7
People too fond of amusement are thought to be profligate, but really they are soft; for amusement is rest, and therefore a slackening of effort, and addiction to amusement is a form of excessive slackness.i.e., it is not an excessive proneness to pursue pleasure, and therefore is not profligacy.
