Chapter VII
1. Zealous for evil things.—Epictetus must mean things which they know to be evil—evil things as evil. It was a Socratic doctrine which we find again alluded to in this chapter, that no evil is ever willingly or wittingly done.
2. A favorite theme of later Greek and of Roman comedy was the rivalship in love of a father and a son.
3. Admetus, husband of Alcestis, being told by an oracle that his wife must die if no one offered himself in her stead, thought to lay the obligation on his father, as being an old man with but few more years to live. The first verse quoted is from the Alcestis of Euripides; the second is not found in any extant version of that play.
4. Eteocles and Polyneices, sons of Œdipus, quarreled with each other about the inheritance of their father’s kingdom. Eteocles having gained possession of it, Polyneices brought up the famous seven kings, his allies, against Thebes, and fell in battle there by his brother’s hand, whom he also killed. The verses quoted are from the Phœnissæ of Euripides.
5. Schweighäuser interprets this passage to mean that these men occupy the public places as wild beasts do the mountains, to prey on others. If we might read ὡς τὰ θηρία for ὡς τὰ ὄρη, we should get a less obscure sense, “haunt the wilderness—I should say the public places—like wild beasts.” The passage is clearly corrupt somewhere.
6. Polyneices bribed Eriphyle with the gift of this necklace to persuade her unwilling husband to march with him against Thebes where he died.