be proclaimed the great and perfect citizen, and bear away the palm of virtue.  The same praise may be given about temperance and wisdom, and all other goods which may be imparted to others, as well as acquired by a man for himself; he who imparts them shall be honoured as the man of men, and he who is willing, yet is not able, may be allowed the second place; but he who is jealous and will not, if he can help, allow others to partake in a friendly way of any good, is deserving of blame:  the good, however, which he has, is not to be undervalued by us because it is possessed by him, but must be acquired by us also to the utmost of our power.  Let every man, then, freely strive for the prize of virtue, and let there be no envy.  For the unenvious nature increases the greatness of states—­he himself contends in the race, blasting the fair fame of no man; but the envious, who thinks that he ought to get the better by defaming others, is less energetic himself in the pursuit of true virtue, and reduces his rivals to despair by his unjust slanders of them.  And so he makes the whole city to enter the arena untrained in the practice of virtue, and diminishes her glory as far as in him lies.  Now every man should be valiant, but he should also be gentle.  From the cruel, or hardly curable, or altogether incurable acts of injustice done to him by others, a man can only escape by fighting and defending himself and conquering, and by never ceasing to punish them; and no man who is not of a noble spirit is able to accomplish this.  As to the actions of those who do evil, but whose evil is curable, in the first place, let us remember that the unjust man is not unjust of his own free will.  For no man of his own free will would choose to possess the greatest of evils, and least of all in the most honourable part of himself.  And the soul, as we said, is of a truth deemed by all men the most honourable.  In the soul, then, which is the most honourable part of him, no one, if he could help, would admit, or allow to continue the greatest of evils (compare Republic).  The unrighteous and vicious are always to be pitied in any case; and one can afford to forgive as well as pity him who is curable, and refrain and calm one’s anger, not getting into a passion, like a woman, and nursing ill-feeling.  But upon him who is incapable of reformation and wholly evil, the vials of our wrath should be poured out; wherefore I say that good men ought, when occasion demands, to be both gentle and passionate.

Of all evils the greatest is one which in the souls of most men is innate, and which a man is always excusing in himself and never correcting; I mean, what is expressed in the saying that ’Every man by nature is and ought to be his own friend.’  Whereas the excessive love of self is in reality the source to each man of all offences; for the lover is blinded about the beloved, so that he judges wrongly of the just, the good, and the honourable, and thinks that he ought always to prefer himself to the truth.