but I am of opinion that a prudent man should commit nothing to fortune, nor neglect anything, but should put some things in his wife's hands to manage, others in the hands of his servants, others in the hands of his friends, (as a governor has his stewards, and financiers, and controllers), while he himself superintends the most important and weighty matters. For as small writing strains the eyes, so small matters even more strain and bother people, and stir up their anger, which carries this evil habit to greater matters. Above all I thought that saying of Empedocles, "Fast from evil,"[708] a great and divine one, and I approved of those promises and vows as not ungraceful or unphilosophical, to abstain for a year from wine and Venus, honouring the deity by continence, or for a stated time to give up lying, taking great heed to ourselves to be truthful always whether in play or earnest. With these I compared my own vow, as no less pleasing to the gods and holy, first to abstain from anger for a few days, like spending days without drunkenness or even without wine at all, offering as it were wineless offerings of honey.[709] Then I tried for a month or two, and so in time made some progress in forbearance by earnest resolve, and by keeping myself courteous and without anger and using fair language, purifying myself from evil words and absurd actions, and from passion which for a little unlovely pleasure pays us with great mental disturbance and the bitterest repentance. In consequence of all this my experience, and the assistance of the deity, has made me form the view, that courtesy and gentleness and kindliness are not so agreeable, and pleasant, and delightful, to any of those we live with as to ourselves, that have those qualities.[710] [676] Homer, "Iliad," xxii. 373. [677] Alluded to again "On the tranquillity of the mind," Sec. i. [678] The allusion is to Homer's "Odyssey," xx. 23. [679] Reading [Greek: ex heautou] with Reiske. [680] Euripides, "Orestes," 72. [681] Euripides, "Orestes," 99. [682] Fragment 361. [683] Homer, "Iliad," xvii. 591. [684] The reading of the MSS. is [Greek: auton]. [685] Lines of Callimachus. [Greek: phlien] is the admirable emendation of Salmasius. [686] Sophocles, "Thamyras," Fragm. 232. [687] "Iliad," v. 214-216. [688] Reading [Greek: eniois], as Wyttenbach suggests. [689] Aeschylus, "Prometheus," 574, 575. [690] It will be seen I adopt the reading and punctuation of Xylander. [691] This is the reading of Reiske and Duebner. [692] That is _mild_. Zeus is so called, Pausanias, i. 37; ii. 9, 20. [693] That is, _fierce_, _furious_. It will be seen I adopt the suggestion of Reiske. [694] Literally "is silent about." It is like the saying about Von Moltke that he can be silent in six or seven languages. [695] Adopting Reiske's reading. [696] Compare Pausanias, iv. 8.