Between Heathenism and Christianity - College of Stoic Philosophers

Pindar says?
197
The Delay of the Deity
from drink and women, and by enjoining
the con
tinuous use of remedies and the exercise of the body
in gymnastics, scatter and eradicate the little germ
of a big disorder, before it had reached the serious
.stage? Forsooth, do not we admonish those who
are born of diseased fathers or mothers, to take heed
to themselves, and to be on their guard against
neglecting themselves, and forthwith to expel the
inbred evil while its germ is yet undeveloped, and
thus take the danger by
the forelock? "Most
assuredly," said they. "Then," replied I,
"we are
not doing an absurd but a necessary thing; not
something ridiculous but something useful, when we
recommend to the children of epileptics and hypo
chondriacs and gouty persons, physical exercise and
wholesome diet and medicaments, not because they
are sick, but to the end that they may not become
sick. The body that is born of an unsound body
does not need chastisement but medical treatment
and good regimen.
If anybody calls the interdiction
of pleasures and the imposition of toil and labor,
punishment, he does so because he is inept and
effeminate, and no attention need be paid to him.
Shall we say, then, that a body born of an unsound
body is worthy of care and attention, but the con
genital seeds of vice that germinate and spring up
in the young character, we are to let alone and wait
and dally, until the evil passions break forth openly,
show forth the malignant fruit of the heart, as