(and according to Hippocrates, the most dangerous maladies are they that disfigure the countenance), with a roaring and terrible voice, very often against those that are but newly come from nurse, and there they are lamed and spoiled with blows, whilst our justice takes no cognisance of it, as if these maims and dislocations were not executed upon members of our commonwealth: 

         “Gratum est, quod patria; civem populoque dedisti,
          Si facis, ut patrix sit idoneus, utilis agris,
          Utilis et bellorum et pacis rebus agendis.”

["It is well when to thy country and the people thou hast given a citizen, provided thou make fit for his country’s service; useful to till the earth, useful in affairs of war and peace” —­Juvenal, Sat., xiv. 70.]

There is no passion that so much transports men from their right judgment as anger.  No one would demur upon punishing a judge with death who should condemn a criminal on the account of his own choler; why, then, should fathers and pedagogues be any more allowed to whip and chastise children in their anger?  ’Tis then no longer correction, but revenge.  Chastisement is instead of physic to children; and would we endure a physician who should be animated against and enraged at his patient?

We ourselves, to do well, should never lay a hand upon our servants whilst our anger lasts.  When the pulse beats, and we feel emotion in ourselves, let us defer the business; things will indeed appear otherwise to us when we are calm and cool.  ’Tis passion that then commands, ’tis passion that speaks, and not we.  Faults seen through passion appear much greater to us than they really are, as bodies do when seen through a mist.  He who is hungry uses meat; but he who will make use of chastisement should have neither hunger nor thirst to it.  And, moreover, chastisements that are inflicted with weight and discretion are much better received and with greater benefit by him who suffers; otherwise, he will not think himself justly condemned by a man transported with anger and fury, and will allege his master’s excessive passion, his inflamed countenance, his unwonted oaths, his emotion and precipitous rashness, for his own justification: 

              “Ora tument ira, nigrescunt sanguine venae,
               Lumina Gorgoneo saevius igne micant.”

["Their faces swell, their veins grow black with rage, and their
eyes sparkle with Gorgonian fire.”—­Ovid, De Art.  Amandi, iii. 503.]

Suetonius reports that Caius Rabirius having been condemned by Caesar, the thing that most prevailed upon the people (to whom he had appealed) to determine the cause in his favour, was the animosity and vehemence that Caesar had manifested in that sentence.