[-23-] At the end of this speech of his Cicero rejoined:—­“There seems to you, then, to be no great evil in dishonor and exile and not living at home nor being with your friends, but instead being expelled with violence from your country, existing in a foreign land, and wandering about with the name of exile, causing laughter to your enemies and disgrace to your connections.”

“Not a trace of evil, so far as I can see,” declared Philiscus.  “There are two elements of which we are constituted,—­soul and body,—­and definite blessings and evils are given to each of the two by Nature herself.  Now if there should be any failure in these details, it might properly be considered hurtful and base, but if all should be right it would be advantageous rather.  This, at the outset, is your condition.  Those things which you mentioned, cases of dishonor among them, and everything else of the sort are disgraceful and evil only through law and a kind of notion, and work no injury to either body or soul.  What body could you cite that has fallen sick or perished and what spirit that has grown wickeder or even more ignorant through dishonor and exile and anything of that sort?  I see none.  And the reason is that no one of these accidents is by nature evil, just as neither honorable position nor residence in one’s country is by nature excellent, but whatever opinion each one of us holds about them, such they seem to be.  For instance, mankind do not universally apply the term ‘dishonor’ to the same conditions, but certain deeds which are reprehensible in some regions are praised in others and various actions honored by this people are punishable by that.  Some do not so much as know the name, nor the fact which it implies.  This is quite natural.  For whatever does not touch what belongs to man’s nature is thought to have no bearing upon him.  Just exactly as it would be most ridiculous, surely, if some judgment or decree were delivered that so-and-so is sick or so-and-so is base, so does the case stand regarding dishonor.

[-24-] “The same thing I find to be true in regard to exile.  Living abroad is somehow in a way dishonorable, so that if dishonor pure and simple contains no evil, surely an evil reputation can not be attached to exile either.  You know at any rate that many live abroad the longest possible time, some unwillingly and others willingly; and some even spend their whole life traveling about, just as if they were expelled from every place:  and yet they do not regard themselves as being injured in doing so.  It makes no difference whether a man does it voluntarily or not.  The person who trains unwillingly gets no less strong than he who is willing about it, and the person who navigates unwillingly obtains no less benefit than the other.  And as for this very element of unwillingness, I do not see how it can encounter a man of sense.  If the difference between being well and badly off is that some things we readily volunteer to do and others we are unwilling