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← ExitStobaeus, Volume II

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Book II Chapter 7

Right Use and Regret

The person of understanding does everything well, continually employing his experience in the affairs of life wisely, with self-control, decorously, and in good order. The base person, inexperienced in right use, does everything badly, acting according to his disposition; he is easily swayed and beset by regret at every turn.⁴³⁵ Regret is distress over things done as errors of one’s own, an unhappy and divided passion of the soul. For to the extent that a person in regret is troubled by what has happened, he is indignant with himself as having caused it.⁴³⁶

Honor and the Reward of Virtue

Hence every base person is also without honor, being neither worthy of honor nor honorable. For they hold that honor is a reward, and a reward a prize for beneficent virtue. What has no share in virtue is therefore rightly called without honor.⁴³⁷

Exile and the City According to Nature

They also say that every base person is an exile, insofar as he is deprived of law and of the constitution appropriate by nature. For law, as we said, is virtuous, and likewise the city.⁴³⁸ Cleanthes too aptly put forward the following argument, in question form, about the city’s being virtuous: “⟨If⟩ a city is a structure for habitation, on taking refuge in which it is possible to give and receive justice, is a city not therefore something morally excellent? But a city is indeed such a dwelling place. Therefore a city is something morally excellent.”⁴³⁹

Three Senses of City

“City” is spoken of in three senses: as the dwelling place, as the community of human beings, and thirdly as both together. The city is called morally excellent in two senses: as the community of human beings and as the two together, because of the reference ⟨to⟩ its inhabitants.⁴⁴⁰

Rusticity and Wildness

They also say that every base person is rustic. For rusticity is inexperience of a city’s customs and laws, a condition to which every base person is subject.⁴⁴¹ He is also wild, being opposed to the conduct of life according to law, a beastlike and harmful human being.⁴⁴²

Tyrannical and Ungrateful

This same person is also untamed and tyrannical, disposed to act as a despot and, when opportunities arise, to do cruel, violent, and unlawful things.⁴⁴³ He is also ungrateful, being properly disposed neither toward returning a favor nor toward sharing, because he does nothing for the common good, in friendship, or in an unstudied manner.⁴⁴⁴

Love of Learning Listening and Exhortation

The base person is neither a lover of learning nor a lover of listening, because he has not even begun to prepare himself to receive right accounts, owing to the folly arising from distortion.⁴⁴⁵ No base person has been turned toward virtue or turns others toward it. For someone who has been turned toward it, or turns others, must be ready to practice philosophy, and someone ready must be unimpeded; ⟨but⟩ no foolish person is like this.⁴⁴⁶

Philosophy in Deeds

For readiness to practice philosophy belongs, not to someone who listens eagerly and takes notes on what philosophers say, but to someone ready to carry philosophy’s precepts into deeds and live according to them.⁴⁴⁷ No base person is like this, being already possessed by the beliefs of vice. For if a base person had been turned toward virtue, he would also have been turned away from vice. No one who possesses vice has been turned toward virtue, just as no one who is ill has been turned toward health. Only the wise person has been turned toward virtue, and only he can turn others; no foolish person can, for no foolish person lives according to the precepts ⟨of virtue⟩.⁴⁴⁸

Love of Talk and Love of Effort

He is not a lover of learning but rather a lover of talk, going only as far as superficial chatter and failing to confirm the account of virtue in deeds.⁴⁴⁹ Nor is any base person a lover of effort. For love of effort is a disposition to carry out what falls to one, without misgiving, through toil; no base person faces toil without misgiving.⁴⁵⁰

Assigning Virtue Its Due Worth

No base person assigns virtue its due worth. For such an assignment is a thing of moral excellence, being knowledge in accordance with which we judge something worth acquiring. Nothing of moral excellence falls to base people, so no base person makes an appraisal worthy of virtue.⁴⁵¹ For if a foolish person assigned virtue its due worth, to the extent that he honored it he would rid himself of vice.⁴⁵²

The Speech and Deeds of the Base

Every fool gladly keeps company with his own vice. For one must examine the account given by their deeds, rather than their outward speech, which is base. For their deeds expose them as impelled toward slavish, immoderate enjoyments rather than toward noble and worthy things.⁴⁵³

435.The source again locates doing well in the manner of using experience. Εὐμετάπτωτος describes being easily changed or swayed. Ἐγκρατῶς, “with self-control,” remains distinct from the earlier σωφρόνως, “temperately.” The generalized contrast is the account’s own, not a judgment about every skill possessed by an ordinary person.

436.Μεταμέλεια is classified as λύπη, distress, and thus as a passion in the account already given at II.7.10. The definition concerns distress at one’s own errors and anger against oneself. It does not expressly identify every recognition or correction of a past mistake with this passion. Στασιῶδες conveys inner division or conflict. Wachsmuth prints the reflexive αὑτοῦ in the definition.

437.Ἄτιμος, τιμῆς ἄξιος, and τίμιος form a linked series concerning honor, its desert, and honorable standing. “Without honor” preserves that relation without introducing the narrower legal meaning of civic disfranchisement. Wachsmuth prints εὐεργετικῆς, “beneficent,” qualifying virtue, despite recording an alternative εὐεργετικῶν in the apparatus.

438.The qualification “insofar as” gives the sense of exile: deprivation of law and the constitution appropriate by nature, rather than a statement that every base person has been physically expelled. Wachsmuth’s parenthetical reference to p. 96, line 10, is transferred here; see II.7.11d.6.

439.This difficult argument follows the printed οἰκητήριον, “dwelling place,” at both occurrences, and preserves the initial question and Heeren’s supplied εἰ, “if.” Wachsmuth records proposed δικαστήριον, “court of justice,” readings but does not adopt them in the text. Δίκην δοῦναι καὶ λαβεῖν is rendered “give and receive justice”; the expression includes being answerable to justice and obtaining redress. The moral sense of ἀστεῖον connects the argument to the following distinction between a city’s inhabitants and its physical site.

440.Σύστημα is an organized community or body of people, distinguished from the dwelling place. In the combined sense the moral description refers to the inhabitants; it does not make buildings virtuous. Wachsmuth supplies τὴν εἰς to complete “the reference to,” and records an indication of a gap after the final word. No missing continuation is invented. Source lettering next passes from 11i to 11k; no passage 11j has been omitted.

441.Ἀγροικία, “rusticity,” is defined through civic customs and laws, rather than by residence in the countryside. Wachsmuth prints Meineke’s relative ᾗ, “to which,” where the apparatus records ἢ, “or.” Its antecedent is rusticity, the condition to which the base person is subject.

442.The source distinguishes ἄγροικος, “rustic,” from ἄγριος, “wild,” and proceeds through opposition to lawful conduct to being beastlike and harmful. The preceding account defines law as right reason, II.7.11i.5. These are predicates of the ethical type described here, not a claim that rural inhabitants are inherently vicious.

443.Καιρῶν ἐπιλαμβανόμενον retains the qualification of seizing opportunities; the claim describes a disposition and its exercise when occasion offers. “Tyrannical” does not require the person to hold the office of tyrant.

444.Wachsmuth prints ἀμελετήτως, associated with lack of rehearsal or studied effort, although his apparatus records other readings and conjectures. “In an unstudied manner” understands it here as uncontrived action, alongside acting for the common good and in friendship. The interpretation is uncertain; the printed word has not been silently replaced by a conjecture meaning “carefully.” Μετάδοσις is sharing, distinct from returning a favor.

445.Φιλόλογος and φιλήκοος describe love of learning or discourse and love of listening. The qualification that follows concerns receptivity to right accounts, not mere enjoyment of speeches. The printed ὑπείκουσαν in the phrase about folly is difficult; Wachsmuth records several alternatives, including ἀκολουθοῦσαν, “following.” “Arising from distortion” expresses the apparent causal force of ἐκ τῆς διαστροφῆς, without treating the transmitted wording as secure.

446.Προτρέπειν is exhorting or turning someone toward virtue; the perfect προτετράφθαι expresses having been so turned. The source requires readiness to practice philosophy and then explains that readiness through deeds in the next paragraph. The supplied δέ remains bracketed as “but.”

447.Ὑπομνηματιζόμενον includes making notes or memoranda. The contrast is explicitly between eager reception of philosophical discourse and readiness to put its precepts into practice; the English preserves both parts.

448.The illness analogy uses an accomplished turning, expressed by the perfect τέτραπται, rather than merely wishing to become healthy. The argument sets its criterion by actual life according to virtue. Wachsmuth supplies ἀρετῆς to identify whose precepts conclude the paragraph; its English equivalent remains bracketed.

449.The reversal φιλόλογος / λογόφιλος turns “loving discourse” into “loving talk.” The explanation is practical: superficial speech does not establish the account of virtue through action. The English retains the repeated λόγος without turning the distinction into a criticism of literary study as such.

450.Φιλοπονία retains “love of effort,” as at II.7.5b2.5, where the corresponding definition calls it knowledge. Here it is a διάθεσις, disposition, and the text prints διὰ πόνου, “through toil.” The repeated ἀνυπόπτως, “without misgiving,” qualifies both the definition and the denial concerning the base.

451.Δόσις here concerns assigning or appraising worth, and the source calls it knowledge; it is not a material gift to virtue. The two phrases κατ’ ἀξίαν δόσιν and ἀξίαν … δόσιν are retained as assigning due worth and making an appraisal worthy of virtue. Compare the earlier difficult definition through κρίσις, “assessment,” at II.7.7f.2.

452.The condition is counterfactual and the extent clause, ἐφ’ ὅσον, remains explicit. The inference connects honoring virtue with putting vice away; it does not identify merely saying that virtue is valuable with the knowledge just defined.

453.Ἐξώφορος is the account brought outward in speech; the contrasting “account of deeds” is the evidence of conduct. The adjective φαῦλον remains “base,” following the print despite the apparatus’s suggestion of a word meaning deceptive or fabricated. Wachsmuth brackets καί for deletion before μή; the rejected word remains in the Greek and is omitted in the English. “Their deeds” makes the antecedent of τούτων explicit.