s Seneca, in his book on Anger, "and I daily
plead my cause before myself, when the light has been taken away, and my
wife, who is now aware of my habit, has become silent; I carefully
consider in my heart the entire day, and take a deliberate estimate of
my deeds and words."

It was however the Stoic Attalus who seems to have had the main share in
the instruction of Seneca; and _his_ teaching did not involve any
practical results which the elder Seneca considered objectionable. He
tells us how he used to haunt the school of the eloquent philosopher,
being the first to enter and the last to leave it. "When I heard him
declaiming," he says, "against vice, and error, and the ills of life, I
often felt compassion for the human race, and believed my teacher to be
exalted above the ordinary stature of mankind. In Stoic fashion he used
to call himself a king; but to me his sovereignty seemed more than
royal, seeing that it was in his power to pass his judgments on kings
themselves. When he began to set forth the praises of poverty, and to
show how heavy and superfluous was the burden of all that exceeded the
ordinary wants of life, I often longed to leave school a poor man. When
he began to reprehend our pleasures, to praise a chaste body, a moderate
table, and a mind pure not from all unlawful but even from all
superfluous pleasures, it was my delight to set strict limits to all
voracity and gluttony. And these precepts, my Lucilius, have left some
permanent results; for I embraced them with impetuous eagerness, and
afterwards, when I entered upon a political career, I retained a few of
my good beginnings. In consequence of them, I have all my life long
renounced eating oysters and mushrooms, which do not satisfy hunger but
only sharpen appetite; for this reason I habitually abstain from
perfumes, because the sweetest perfume for the body is none at all: for
this reason I do without wines and baths. Other habits which I once
abandoned have come back to me, but in such a way that I merely
substitute moderation for abstinence, which perhaps is a still more
difficult task; since there are some things which it is easier for the
mind to cut away altogether than to enjoy in moderation. Attalus used to
recommend a hard couch in which the body could not sink; and, even in my
old age, I use one of such a kind that it leaves no impress of the
sleeper. I have told you these anecdotes to prove to you what eager
impulses our little schol