Miscellanies in Prose and Verse

a direct eye, and suffers no change in her countenance, whether calamity or prosperity is presented to her view. Hence, the wise man loses nothing of which he will perceive the loss; for he is in the possession of virtue, from which he can never be driven; and he uses everything else as something different from his proper good. But who would be moved by the loss of that which is foreign to his concerns? If, therefore, an injury cannot hurt any of those things which are the property of a wise man, because they are safe through virtue, an injury cannot be done to a wise man. Demetrius, who was surnamed Poliarcetes*, had taken Megara, and Stilpo the philosopher being asked by him whether he had lost anything—"Nothing," said he, "for all that is mine is with me." Yet his inheritance was a part of the plunder, and the enemy had ravished his daughters and captured his country. But he shook off victory from the conqueror and testified that, though the city was taken, he himself was not only unconquered, but without loss; for he had with him true goods, upon which no hand can be laid. Whatever may be dissipated and plundered, he did not consider as his own, but as something adventitious, and which follows the nod of fortune; and hence he did not love it as his proper good.