The fourth kind of anxiety is that which is prone to mourning and melancholy, and which is constantly worrying itself.
[The next paragraph, "Esse autem angores," etc., is wholly unintelligible without the context.]
As an unskilful charioteer is dragged from his chariot, covered with dirt, bruised, and lacerated.
The excitements of men's minds are like a chariot, with horses harnessed to it; in the proper management of which, the chief duty of the driver consists in knowing his road: and if he keeps the road, then, however rapidly he proceeds, he will encounter no obstacles; but if he quits the proper track, then, although he may be going gently and slowly, he will either be perplexed on rugged ground, or fall over some steep place, or at least he will be carried where he has no need to go.[1]
XLII. * * * can be said.
Then Lælius said: I now see the sort of politician you require, on whom you would impose the office and task of government, which is what I wished to understand.
He must be an almost unique specimen, said Africanus, for the task which I set him comprises all others. He must never cease from cultivating and studying himself, that he may excite others to imitate him, and become, through the splendor of his talents and enterprises, a living mirror to his countrymen. For as in flutes and harps, and in all vocal performances, a certain unison and harmony must be preserved amidst the distinctive tones, which cannot be broken or violated without offending experienced ears; and as this concord and delicious harmony is produced by the exact gradation and modulation of dissimilar notes; even so, by means of the just apportionment of the highest, middle, and lower classes, the State is maintained in concord and peace by the harmonic subordination of its discordant elements: and thus, that which is by musicians called harmony in song answers and corresponds to what we call concord in the State—concord, the strongest and loveliest bond of security in every commonwealth, being always accompanied by justice and equity.
- ↑ This and other chapters printed in smaller type are generally presumed to be of doubtful authenticity.
