Similarly,
when asked, "Who is free?" he replies, "The man who masters his own
self," with much the same tone of expressions as that of Solomon, "He
that is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he that ruleth his
spirit than he that taketh a city." Socrates was one of the great models
whom Epictetus constantly seats before him, and this is one of the
anecdotes which he relates about him with admiration. When Archelaus
sent a message to express the intention of making him rich, Socrates
bade the messenger inform him that at Athens four quarts of meal might
be bought for three halfpence, and the fountains flow with water. "If
then my existing possessions are insufficient for me, at any rate I am
sufficient for them, and so they too are sufficient for me. Do you not
see that Polus acted the part of Oedipus in his royal state with no less
beauty of voice than that of Oedipus in Colonos, a wanderer and beggar?
Shall then a noble man appear inferior to Polus, so as not to act well
every character imposed upon him by Divine Providence; and shall he not
imitate Ulysses, who even in rags was no less conspicuous than in the
curled nap of his purple cloak?"
Generally speaking, the view which Epictetus took of life is always
simple, and always consistent; it is a view which gave him consolation
among life's troubles, and strength to display some of its noblest
virtues, and it may be summed up in the following passages of his famous
_Manual_:--
"Remember," he says, "that you are an actor of just such a part as is
assigned you by the Poet of the play; of a short part, if the part be
short; of a long part, if it be long.
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