Book 3
Of personal adornment.
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A certain young rhetorician coming to him with his hair too elaborately ornamented, and his dress very fine, Tell me, said Epictetus, whether you do not think some horses and dogs beautiful and so of all other animals.
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I do.
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Are some men, then, likewise beautiful, and others deformed?
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Certainly.
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Do we pronounce all these beautiful the same way, then, or each in some way peculiar to itself? You will judge of it by this; since we see a dog naturally formed for one thing, a horse for another, and a nightingale, for instance, for another, therefore, in general, it will be correct to pronounce each of them beautiful so far as it is developed suitably to its own nature; but since the nature of each is different, I think each of them must be beautiful in a different way. Is it not so?
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Agreed.
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Then what makes a dog beautiful makes a horse deformed, and what makes a horse beautiful makes a dog deformed, if their natures are different.
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So it seems.
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For, I suppose, what makes a good PancratiastThese are the names of combatants in the Olympic games. A Pancratiast was one who united the exercises of wrestling and boxing. A Pentathlete, one who contended on all the five games of Leaping, running, throwing the discus, darting, and wrestling.—C. makes no good wrestler, and a very ridiculous racer; and the very same person who appears well as a Pentathlete might make a very ill figure in wrestling.
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Very true.
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What, then, makes a man beautiful? Is it on the same principle that a dog or a horse is beautiful?
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The same. What is it, then, that makes a dog beautiful?
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That excellence which belongs to a dog.
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What a horse?
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The excellence of a horse.
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What a man? Must it not be the excellence belonging to a man? If, then, you would appear beautiful, young man, strive for human excellence.
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What is that?
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Consider whom you praise, when unbiassed by partiality; is it the honest or dishonest?
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The honest.
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The sober or the dissolute?
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The sober.
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The temperate or the intemperate?
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The temperate.
