202. Fortitude of
soul, then, is not an unimportant thing, nor is it cut off from the
other virtues, for it wages war in conjunction with the virtues, and
alone defends the beauty of all the virtues, and guards their powers of
discernment, and fights against all vices with implacable hate.
It is unconquerable as regards labours, brave to endure dangers, stern
as against pleasures, hardened against allurements, to which it knows
not how to lend an ear, nor, so to speak, to give a greeting. It
cares not for money, and flies from avarice as from a plague that
destroys all virtue. Cic. de
Off. I. 20, § 68. For nothing
is so much opposed to fortitude as when one allows oneself to be
overcome by gain. Often when the enemy is repulsed and the hosts
of the foe are turned to flight, has the warrior died miserably among
those whom he has laid low, whilst he is busy with the spoils of the
fallen; and the legions, whilst busy with their booty, have called back
upon them the enemy that had fled, and so have been robbed of their
triumph.