Not but I know, before I reach his heart,
First on myself a wound he will impart.
I hate the man; enraged I fight, and straight
In action we had been, but that I wait
Till each his sword had fitted to his hand.
My rage I scarce can keep within command.
147XXII. But we see Ajax in Homer advancing to meet Hector in battle cheerfully, without any of this boisterous wrath. For he had no sooner taken up his arms than the first step which he made inspired his associates with joy, his enemies with fear; so that even Hector, as he is represented by Homer,[49] trembling, condemned himself for having challenged him to fight. Yet these heroes conversed together, calmly and quietly, before they engaged; nor did they show any anger or outrageous behavior during the combat. Nor do I imagine that Torquatus, the first who obtained this surname, was in a rage when he plundered the Gaul of his collar; or that Marcellus’s courage at Clastidium was only owing to his anger. I could almost swear that Africanus, with whom we are better acquainted, from our recollection of him being more recent, was noways inflamed by anger when he covered Alienus Pelignus with his shield, and drove his sword into the enemy’s breast. There may be some doubt of L. Brutus, whether he was not influenced by extraordinary hatred of the tyrant, so as to attack Aruns with more than usual rashness; for I observe that they mutually killed each other in close fight. Why, then, do you call in the assistance of anger? Would courage, unless it began to get 148furious, lose its energy? What! do you imagine that Hercules, whom the very courage which you would try to represent as anger raised to heaven, was angry when he engaged the Erymanthian boar, or the Nemæan lion? Or was Theseus in a passion when he seized on the horns of the Marathonian bull? Take care how you make courage to depend in the least on rage. For anger is altogether irrational, and that is not courage which is void of reason.
XXIII. We ought to hold all things here in contempt; death is to be looked on with indifference; pains and labors must be considered as easily supportable. And when these sentiments are established on judgment and conviction, then will that stout and firm courage take place; unless you attribute to anger whatever is done with vehemence, alacrity, and spirit. To me, indeed, that very Scipio[50] who was chief priest, that favorer of the saying of the Stoics, “That no private man could be a wise man,” does not seem to be angry with Tiberius Gracchus, even when he left the consul in a hesitating frame of mind, and, though a private man himself, commanded, with the authority of a consul, that all who meant well to the republic should follow him. I do not know whether I have done anything in the republic that has the appearance of courage; but if I have, I certainly did not do it in wrath. Doth anything come nearer madness than anger? And indeed Ennius has well defined it as the beginning of madness. The changing color, the alteration of our voice, the look of our eyes, our manner of fetching our breath, the little command we have over our words and actions, how little do all these things indicate a sound mind! What can make a worse appearance than Homer’s Achilles, or Agamemnon, during the quarrel? And as to Ajax, anger drove him into downright madness, and was the occasion of his death. Courage, therefore, does not want the assistance of anger; it is sufficiently provided, armed, and prepared of itself. We may as well say that drunkenness or madness is of service to courage, because those who 149are mad or drunk often do a great many things with unusual vehemence. Ajax was always brave; but still he was most brave when he was in that state of frenzy:
The greatest feat that Ajax e’er achieved
Was, when his single arm the Greeks relieved.