I.2. On Keeping Your Character in Any Situation
This lecture answers a question most of us never pose out loud. At what price am I willing to sell myself? Epictetus argues that every person, whether they notice or not, has already set the price. The only question is whether the price is low or high.
For a reasoning creature, the only thing past bearing is what goes against reason. What is in line with reason can always be borne. Blows are not unbearable in themselves.
What do I mean? Let me explain.
The Spartans bear flogging, because they have learned that it is in line with reason. Is it not unbearable to hang oneself? When a person comes to feel that it is reasonable, though, he goes and hangs himself at once.
If we look carefully, we will see that nothing troubles a reasoning creature like the unreasonable, and nothing draws him like the reasonable.
The reasonable and the unreasonable, though, mean different things to different people. Good and evil, and useful and useless, differ from person to person too. That is the chief reason we need education, so we can learn to adjust our first ideas of reasonable and unreasonable to particular situations, and so be in harmony with nature.
In deciding what is reasonable and unreasonable, we not only weigh the value of outside things. Each of us also considers what is in keeping with his own character.
One man thinks it reasonable to do the lowest service for another. He looks only at this: if he refuses, he will be beaten and get no food, and if he does it, no harm will come to him. To another, it seems unbearable not only to do this service himself, but even to watch another do it.
If you ask me, "Should I do it or not?" I will tell you: getting food is worth more than going without it, and being flogged is worth less than escaping it. So, if you measure your affairs by this standard, go and do it.
"That makes me false to myself."
That is for you to weigh, not me. You are the one who knows yourself. You know how high you set your own worth, and at what price you are willing to sell yourself. People sell at different prices.
That is why Agrippinus, when Florus was wondering whether to go down to Nero's shows and perform in them himself, said to him, "Go down."
When Florus asked, "Why do you not go down yourself?" Agrippinus answered, "Because I do not even consider the question."
Once a person lowers himself to think about such matters, weighing outside things and calculating about them, he has almost forgotten his own character. What are you asking me? "Death or life?" I say life. "Pain or pleasure?" I say pleasure.
"If I do not act in the play, I will be beheaded." Go then, and act your play. I will not. "Why?" Because you count yourself as an ordinary thread in the tunic.
What follows from that? You think you ought to be like other men, just as one thread does not wish to be special among the rest. I want to be the purple, the touch of brilliance that gives distinction and beauty to the rest. Why do you tell me, "Be like the many"? If I am like them, I am no longer the purple.
Priscus Helvidius saw this and acted on it. When Vespasian sent word telling him not to come into the Senate, he answered, "You can forbid me to be a senator. As long as I am a senator, I must come in."
"Come in then, but be silent."
"Do not question me, and I will be silent."
"I am bound to question you."
"I am bound to say what seems right to me."
"If you say it, I will kill you."
"When did I ever tell you I was immortal? You will do your part, and I will do mine. It is yours to kill, mine to die without flinching. It is yours to banish, mine to go into exile without groaning."
What good, you ask, did Priscus do, being only one man? What good does the purple do to the garment? This much: being purple, it gives distinction and stands out as a fine example to the rest.
A certain athlete showed this same spirit. He was threatened with death if he did not submit to a cutting that would leave him unable to father children.
When his brother, who was a student of philosophy, came and said to him, "Brother, what will you do? Are we to let the knife do its work and still go back to the gymnasium?" he would not agree.
He bore his death instead.
Someone asked, "How did he do so, as an athlete or as a student of philosophy?" He did so as a man. As a man who had wrestled at Olympia and been called victor, one who had spent his days in such a place. Another man would have let even his head be cut off, if he could have lived without it.
That is what I mean by keeping your character. That is the power of character in those who have made a habit of carrying it into every question that comes up.
"Go to, Epictetus, have yourself shaved." If I am a student of philosophy, I say, "I will not be shaved." "Then I must behead you." Behead me, if it is better for you so.
Someone asked, "How can each of us discover what suits his character?"
When the lion comes near and the bull steps out alone to protect the herd, how does he find out what powers he has? Plainly, the awareness comes with the power. In the same way, anyone who has a power of this kind will know it.
Like the bull, the man of noble nature does not become noble all of a sudden. He must train through the winter, and prepare, and not lightly leap to meet things that do not concern him.
One thing, friend. See the price at which you sell your will.
If you do nothing else, do not sell your will cheap.
"The great, heroic style belongs to others, to men like Socrates." If this is our true nature, why do not all men show it, or many? Do all horses turn out swift? Are all dogs good at the scent?
"I have no natural gifts. Am I to make no effort for that reason?" Heaven forbid. Epictetus will not be better than Socrates. If only I am not worse, I am content.
I will never be a Milo, but I do not neglect my body. I will never be a Croesus, but I do not neglect my property. We do not give up our effort in any field because we expect not to come first.