VIII. (35) Since on what other account can we imagine, that in every quarter of the habitable globe, the theatres are every day filled with incalculable myriads of spectators? For they, being wholly under the dominion of sounds and sights, and allowing their ears and their eyes to be carried away without any restraint, go in pursuit of harp-players and singers to the harp, and every description of effeminate and unmanly music; and, moreover, eagerly receiving dancers and every other kind of actors, because they place themselves and move in all kinds of effeminate positions and motions, they are continually by their applause exciting the factions of the theatre, never thinking either of the propriety of their own conduct or of that of the general body of the citizens; but, miserable as they are, upsetting all their own plan of life for the sake of their eyes and ears. (36) And there are others who are still more unfortunate and miserable than these men, who have released their sense of taste out of prison as it were; and that sense, immediately rushing, in an unrestrained manner, to every kind of meat and drink, selects from the things that are already prepared, and also cherishes an indiscriminate and insatiable hunger for what is not present. So that, even if the channels of the belly are filled, its ever unsatisfied appetites, raging and ravening around, continue to look and stalk about in every direction, lest there should any where be any fragment which has been overlooked, that it may swallow that up also like a devouring fire. (37) And this gluttony is followed by its usual natural attendant, an eagerness for the connections of the sexes, which brings in its train a strange frenzy, an unrestrainable madness and a most grievous fury; for, when men are oppressed by the indulgence of gluttony and delicate food, and by much unmixed wine and drunkenness, they are no longer able to restrain themselves, but hastening to amorous gratifications they revel and disturb the doors, until they are at last able to rest when they have drawn off the great violence of their passion. (38) On which account nature, as it would seem, has placed the organs of such connection beneath the belly, being previously aware that they do not delight in hunger, but that they follow upon satiety and then rise up to fulfil their peculiar operations.
IX. (39) Those, then, who permit the flock committed to their charge to satiate themselves all at once with all the things that they desire, we must call keepers of sheep; but those, on the contrary, we should entitle shepherds, who supply their flocks with only so much as is necessary and proper for them; cutting off and utterly rejecting all superfluous and useless extravagance and abundance, which is not less injurious than want and deficiency, and who guard with great prudence against the possibility of the flock becoming diseased through their want of care and indolence, praying that those diseases, which at times are liable to attack flocks from external causes, may not visit theirs. (40) And they take equal care that it may not straggle about at random and get scattered, holding out to them as an object of fear one who will chastise those who never obey reason, and inflicting continual punishment, moderate when applied to those who err only in such a degree as admits of a remedy, but very severe when laid upon those whose wickedness is uncurable; for though in its essence it may appear an abominable thing, nevertheless punishment is the greatest good to foolish persons, great as the remedies of the physician are to those who are ill in the body.
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