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So it is too with respect to Self-Control and the Imperfection of

it: if a man yields to pleasures or pains which are violent and

excessive it is no matter for wonder, but rather for allowance if

he made what resistance he could (instances are, Philoctetes in

Theodectes' drama when wounded by the viper; or Cercyon in the

Alope of Carcinus, or men who in trying to suppress laughter

burst into a loud continuous fit of it, as happened, you

remember, to Xenophantus), but it is a matter for wonder when a

man yields to and cannot contend against those pleasures or pains

which the common herd are able to resist; always supposing his

failure not to be owing to natural constitution or disease, I

mean, as the Scythian kings are constitutionally Soft, or the

natural difference between the sexes.