e is run is the reward
offered for running. Now, we have shown happiness to be that very good
for the sake of which all things are done. Absolute good, then, is
offered as the common prize, as it were, of all human actions. But,
truly, this is a reward from which it is impossible to separate the good
man, for one who is without good cannot properly be called good at all;
wherefore righteous dealing never misses its reward. Rage the wicked,
then, never so violently, the crown shall not fall from the head of the
wise, nor wither. Verily, other men's unrighteousness cannot pluck from
righteous souls their proper glory. Were the reward in which the soul of
the righteous delighteth received from without, then might it be taken
away by him who gave it, or some other; but since it is conferred by his
own righteousness, then only will he lose his prize when he has ceased
to be righteous. Lastly, since every prize is desired because it is
believed to be good, who can account him who possesses good to be
without reward? And what a prize, the fairest and grandest of all! For
remember the corollary which I chiefly insisted on a little while back,
and reason thus: Since absolute good is happiness, 'tis clear that all
the good must be happy for the very reason that they are good. But it
was agreed that those who are happy are gods. So, then, the prize of the
good is one which no time may impair, no man's power lessen, no man's
unrighteousness tarnish; 'tis very Godship. And this being so, the wise
man cannot doubt that punishment is inseparable from the bad. For since
good and bad, and likewise reward and punishment, are contraries, it
necessarily follows that, corresponding to all that we see accrue as
reward of the good, there is some penalty attached as punishment of
evil. As, then, righteousness itself is the reward of the righteous, so
wickedness itself is the punishment of the unrighteous. Now, no one who
is visited with punishment doubts that he is visited with evil.
Accordingly, if they were but willing to weigh their own case, could
_they_ think themselves free from punishment whom wickedness, worst of
all evils, has not only touched, but deeply tainted?

'See, also, from the opposite standpoint--the standpoint of the
good--what a penalty attends upon the wicked. Thou didst learn a little
since that whatever is is one, and that unity itself is good.
Accordingly, by this way of reckoning, whatever falls away from goodness
cea