It is those men who occupy this middle place who are forced to undergo
the rapine and violence of depraved men, who resemble wild beasts.
Though the former are better than those whose violence they suffer,
they are, nevertheless, dominated by them because of inferiority in
other respects, lacking courage, or preparedness.[48] It would be no
more than a laughing matter if children who had strengthened their
bodies by exercise, while leaving their souls inviolate in ignorance,
should in physical struggle conquer those of their companions, who
had exercised neither body nor soul; if they stole their food or soft
clothing. No legislator could hinder the vanquished from bearing the
punishment of their cowardliness and effeminacy, if, neglecting the
gymnastic exercises which had been taught them, they did not, by their
inertia, effeminacy and laziness, fear becoming fattened sheep fit to
be the prey of wolves? They who commit this rapine and violence are
punished therefor first because they thereby become wolves and noxious
beasts, and later because (in this or some subsequent existence) they
necessarily undergo the consequences of their evil actions (as thought
Plato[49]). For men who here below have been evil do not die entirely
(when their soul is separated from their bodies). Now in the things
that are regulated by Nature and Reason, that which follows is always
the result of that which precedes; evil begets evil, just as good
begets good. But the arena of life differs from a gymnasium, where the
struggles are only games. Therefore, the above-mentioned children which
we divided into two classes, after having grown up in ignorance, must
prepare to fight, and take up arms, an display more energy than in the
exercises of the gymnasium. As some, however, are well armed, while the
others are not, the first must inevitably triumph. The divinity must
not fight for the cowardly; for the (cosmic) law decrees that in war
life is saved by valor, and not by prayers.[50] Nor is it by prayers
that the fruits of the earth are obtained; they are produced only by
labor. Nor can one have good health without taking care of it. If
the evil cultivate the earth better, we should not complain of their
reaping a better harvest.[51] Besides, in the ordinary conduct of life,
it is ridiculous to listen only to one's own caprice, doing nothing
that is prescribed by the divinities, limiting oneself exclusively to
demanding one's conservation, without carrying out any of the actions
on which (the divinities) willed that our preservation should depend.