Carthaginians whom he had taken in war; soon after he himself submitted
his hands to the chains of the vanquished. Then, thinkest thou that man
hath any power who cannot prevent another's being able to do to him what
he himself can do to others?

'Besides, if there were any element of natural and proper good in rank
and power, they would never come to the utterly bad, since opposites are
not wont to be associated. Nature brooks not the union of contraries.
So, seeing there is no doubt that wicked wretches are oftentimes set in
high places, it is also clear that things which suffer association with
the worst of men cannot be good in their own nature. Indeed, this
judgment may with some reason be passed concerning all the gifts of
fortune which fall so plentifully to all the most wicked. This ought
also to be considered here, I think: No one doubts a man to be brave in
whom he has observed a brave spirit residing. It is plain that one who
is endowed with speed is swift-footed. So also music makes men musical,
the healing art physicians, rhetoric public speakers. For each of these
has naturally its own proper working; there is no confusion with the
effects of contrary things--nay, even of itself it rejects what is
incompatible. And yet wealth cannot extinguish insatiable greed, nor has
power ever made him master of himself whom vicious lusts kept bound in
indissoluble fetters; dignity conferred on the wicked not only fails to
make them worthy, but contrarily reveals and displays their
unworthiness. Why does it so happen? Because ye take pleasure in calling
by false names things whose nature is quite incongruous thereto--by
names which are easily proved false by the very effects of the things
themselves; even so it is; these riches, that power, this dignity, are
none of them rightly so called. Finally, we may draw the same conclusion
concerning the whole sphere of Fortune, within which there is plainly
nothing to be truly desired, nothing of intrinsic excellence; for she