ted to his hand,
My rage I scarce can keep within command.

XXII. But we see Ajax in Homer advancing to meet Hector in battle
cheerfully, without any of this boisterous wrath. For he had no sooner
taken up his arms, than the first step which he made inspired his
associates with joy, his enemies with fear: so that even Hector, as he is
represented by Homer,(98) trembling condemned himself for having
challenged him to fight. Yet these heroes conversed together, calmly and
quietly, before they engaged; nor did they show any anger or outrageous
behaviour during the combat. Nor do I imagine that Torquatus, the first
who obtained this surname, was in a rage when he plundered the Gaul of his
collar: or that Marcellus' courage at Clastidium was only owing to his
anger. I could almost swear, that Africanus, with whom we are better
acquainted, from our recollection of him being more recent, was no ways
inflamed by anger, when he covered Alienus Pelignus with his shield, and
drove his sword into the enemy's breast. There may be some doubt of L.
Brutus, whether he was not influenced by extraordinary hatred of the
tyrant, so as to attack Aruns with more than usual rashness; for I observe
that they mutually killed each other in close fight. Why, then, do you
call in the assistance of anger? would courage, unless it began to get
furious, lose its energy? What? do you imagine that Hercules, whom the
very courage which you would try to represent as anger raised to heaven,
was angry when he engaged the Erymanthian boar, or the Nemean lion? or was
Theseus in a passion when he seized on the horns of the Marathonian bull?
Take care how you make courage to depend in the least on rage. For anger
is altogether irrational, and that is not courage which is void of reason.

XXIII. We ought to hold all things here in contempt; death is to be looked
on with indifference; pains and labours must be considered as easily
supportable. And when these sentiments are established on judgment and
conviction, then will that stout and firm courage take place: unless you
attribute to anger whatever is done with vehemence, alacrity, and spirit.
To me, indeed, that very Scipio(99) who was chief priest, that favourer of
the saying of the Stoics, "that no private man could be a wise man," does
not seem to be angry with Tiberius Gracchus, even when he left the consul
in a hesitating frame of mind, and, though a private man himself,
commanded, with the authorit