“Ag. No, but my brother’s darling wife was carried away.
“Epict. And was not that a great blessing, to be deprived of a ‘darling wife’ who was an adulteress?
“Ag. Were we then to submit to be trampled on by the Trojans?
“Epict. Trojans? What are the Trojans? Wise or foolish? If wise, why make war against them? If foolish, why care for them?”
I doubt whether Epictetus quite carried his class with him on this occasion. He certainly did not carry me, though he went on consistently pouring out various statements of his theory. For the first time in my experience of his lectures, I began to feel that his reiterations were really tedious. My thoughts strayed. I found myself questioning whether my model soldier and philosopher, Artemidorus, could possibly accept this teaching. Would Trajan, I asked, have been so sure of beating Decebalus, if he had considered the disgrace of Rome a matter “independent of choice,” and therefore “nothing to him,” “neither good nor evil”?
From this reverie I was roused by a sudden transition—to a picture of a well-trained youth going forth to a conflict worthy of his mettle. And now, I thought, we shall have something more like the ideal of my first lecture, a Hercules or Diogenes, going about to help and heal. But perhaps Epictetus drew a distinction between a Diogenes and mere well-trained youths, mere beginners in philosophy. At all events, what followed was only a kind of catechism to prepare us against adversity, and especially against official oppression. “Whenever,” said he, “you are in the act of going into the judgment hall of one in authority, remember that there is also Another from above, taking note of what is going on, and that you must please Him rather than the authority on earth.” This catechism he threw into the form of a dialogue between the youth and God—whom he called “Another.”
“Another. Exile, prison, bonds, death, and disgrace—what used you to call these things in the Schools?
“Pupil. I? Things indifferent.
“Another. Well, then, what do you call them now? Can it be that they have changed?