Sold for Attendance
Someone is preferred before you at an entertainment, in courtesies, in confidential intercourse. You cannot rival others in externals without using the same means. How can he who will not haunt the door, will not attend, will not praise, have an equal share with him who does these things? Lettuces sell for an obulus. Another pays and takes them. You keep the coin. He has not gained an advantage over you. You have not been invited because you have not paid the price for which a supper is sold. It is sold for praise. It is sold for attendance. Give the value if it is for your advantage. If you will not pay and still want the supper, you are unreasonable. You have something in place of the supper: not to praise him whom you do not like to praise, and not to bear the insolence of his lackeys.
Key Insight
Exclusion often feels like theft. Epictetus invoices it. The seat was for sale. You declined the currency. What you kept is not a consolation prize. It is the obulus and a mouth that does not have to flatter a man you cannot stand.
“It is sold for praise; it is sold for attendance. Have you nothing, then, in place of the supper? Yes, indeed, you have—not to praise him whom you do not like to praise; not to bear the insolence of his lackeys.”Explore full theme analysis
