our of its art.

15. Two alternatives then are before us. We must either follow the
precept of the Lacedaemonian Agesilaus, who had no confidence in his
personal appearance and refused to allow his portrait to be painted or
carved; or we must accept the universal custom of the rest of mankind
which welcomes portraiture both in sculpture and painting. In the
latter case, is there any reason for preferring to see one's portrait
moulded in marble rather than reflected in silver, in a painting
rather than in a mirror? Or do you regard it as disgraceful to pay
continual attention to one's own appearance? Is not Socrates said
actually to have urged his followers frequently to consider their
image in a glass, that so those of them that prided themselves on
their appearance might above all else take care that they did no
dishonour to the splendour of their body by the blackness of their
hearts; while those who regarded themselves as less than handsome in
personal appearance might take especial pains to conceal the meanness
of their body by the glory of their virtue? You see; the wisest man of
his day actually went so far as to use the mirror as an instrument of
moral discipline. Again, who is ignorant of the fact that Demosthenes,
the greatest master of the art of speaking, always practised pleading
before a mirror as though before a professor of rhetoric? When that
supreme orator had drained deep draughts of eloquence in the study of
Plato the philosopher, and had learned all that could be learned of
argumentation from the dialectician Eubulides, last of all he betook
himself to a mirror to learn perfection of delivery. Which do you
think should pay greatest attention to the decorousness of his
appearance in the delivery of a speech? The orator when he wrangles
with his opponent or the philosopher when he rebukes the vices of
mankind? The man who harangues for a brief space before an audience of
jurymen drawn by the chance of the lot, or he who is continually
discoursing with all mankind for audience? The man who is quarrelling
over the boundaries of lands, or he whose theme is the boundaries of
good and evil? Moreover there are other reasons why a philosopher
should look into a mirror. He is not always concerned with the
contemplation of his own likeness, he contemplates also the causes
which produce that likeness. Is Epicurus right when he asserts that
images proceed forth from us, as it were a kind of slough that
continual