congratulation like this comes from an external view, from a halo of arms and horses and the pomp of war, but the inward voice of emotion testifies against all this vain glory;
"A heavy fate is laid on me by Zeus The son of Cronos."[740]
And,
"Old man, I think your lot one to be envied, As that of any man who free from danger Passes his life unknown and in obscurity."[741]
By such reflections as these one may wean oneself from that discontent with one's fortune, which makes one's own condition look low and mean from too much admiring one's neighbour's.
§ xii. Another thing, which is a great hindrance to peace of mind, is not to proportion our desires to our means, but to carry too much sail, as it were, in our hopes of great things and then, if unsuccessful, to blame destiny and fortune, and not our own folly. For he is not unfortunate who wishes to shoot with a plough, or hunt the hare with an ox; nor has he an evil genius opposed to him, who does not catch deer with fishing nets, but merely is the dupe of his own stupidity and folly in attempting impossibilities. Self-love is mainly to blame, making people fond of being first and aspiring in all matters, and insatiably desirous to engage in everything. For people not only wish at one and the same time to be rich, and learned, and strong, and boon-companions, and agreeable, and friends of kings, and governors of cities, but they are also discontented if they have not dogs and horses and quails and cocks of the first quality. Dionysius the elder was not content with being the most powerful monarch of his times, but because he could not beat Philoxenus the poet in singing, or surpass Plato in dialectics, was so angry and exasperated that he put the one to work in his stone quarries, and sent the other to Ægina and sold him there. Alexander was of a different spirit, for when Crisso the famous runner ran a race with him, and seemed to let the king outrun him on purpose, he was greatly displeased. Good also was the spirit of Achilles in Homer, who, when he said,
"None of the Achæan warriors is a match For me in war,"
"Yet in the council hall Others there are who better are than me."[742]
And when Megabyzus the Persian visited the studio of Apelles, and began to chatter about art, Apelles stopped him and said, "While you kept silence you seemed to be somebody from your gold and purple, but now these lads that are grinding colours are laughing at your nonsense." But some who think the Stoics only talk idly, in styling their wise man not only prudent and just and brave but also orator and general and poet and rich man and king, yet claim for themselves all those titles, and are indignant if they do not get them. And yet even among the gods different functions are assigned to different personages; thus one is called the god of war, another the god of oracles, another the god of gain, and Aphrodite, as she has nothing to do with warlike affairs, is despatched by Zeus to marriages and bridals.