[25] When he was now passing beyond the term of boyhood, his good sense became more active. He did not, as some, allow the lusts of adolescence to go unbridled, though the abundant resources which palaces provide supply numberless incentives to foster their flame. But he kept a tight hold on them with the reins, as it were, of temperance and self-control, and forcibly pulled them back from their forward course.
[26] And each of the other passions, which rage so furiously if left to themselves, he tamed and assuaged and reduced to mildness; and if they did but gently stir or flutter he provided for them heavier chastisement than any rebuke of words could give; and in general he watched the first directions and impulses of the soul as one would a restive horse, in fear lest they should run away with the reason which ought to rein them in, and thus cause universal chaos. For it is these impulses which cause both good and bad—good when they obey the guidance of reason, bad when they turn from their regular course into anarchy.
[27] Naturally, therefore, his associates and everyone else, struck with amazement at what they felt was a novel spectacle, considered earnestly what the mind which dwelt in his body like an image in its shrine could be, whether it was human or divine or a mixture of both, so utterly unlike was it to the majority, soaring above them and exalted to a grander height.
[28] For on his belly he bestowed no more than the necessary tributes which nature has appointed, and as for the pleasures that have their seat below, save for the lawful begetting of children, they passed altogether even out of his memory.
[29] And, in his desire to live to the soul alone and not to the body, he made a special practice of frugal contentment, and had an unparalleled scorn for a life of luxury. He exemplified his philosophical creed by his daily actions. His words expressed his feelings, and his actions accorded with his words, so that speech and life were in harmony, and thus through their mutual agreement were found to make melody together as on a musical intrument.
[30] Now, most men, if they feel a breath of prosperity ever so small upon them, make much ado of puffing and blowing, and boast themselves as bigger than meaner men, and miscall them offscourings and nuisances and cumberers of the earth and other suchlike names, as if they themselves had the permanence of their prosperity securely sealed in their possession, though even the morrow may find them no longer where they are.
[31] For nothing is more unstable than Fortune, who moves human affairs up and down on the draughtboard of life, and in a single day pulls down the lofty and exalts the lowly on high; and though they see and know full well that this is always happening, they nevertheless look down on their relations and friends and set at naught the laws under which they were born and bred, and subvert the ancestral customs to which no blame can justly attach, by adopting different modes of life, and, in their contentment with the present, lose all memory of the past.