ταξίδευε λέει με ένα καλό του Φίλο Γορτύνιο απο τη Ρώμη προς Πέργαμο, και σε μια στάση στις Κεχριές ο Γορτύνιος ανακάλυψε ότι οι δούλοι του είχαν κάνει μαλακία με τα μπαγάζια, και έστειλαν κατα λάθος τα ρούχα του στην Αθήνα, και σαν οξύθυμος που ήταν, άρπαξε το ξίφος του που ήταν στη θήκη τους άνοιξε το κεφάλι. Σαν καλός κρητικός όμως, κατάλαβε το λάθος του και ζήτησε απ'τον Γαληνό να τον μαστιγώσει για την απρέπεια, το οποίο ο Γαληνός, αφού έβαλε τα γέλια, χρησιμοποίησε ως αφορμή για ένα φιλοσοφικό μάθημα: ποτέ δε βαράμε τους δούλους μας με το χέρι, γιατί δεν είναι σωστό να υποκύπτουμε στον θυμό
I wish to remind you of something which once happened to me , even if I have often spoken about this same incident. When I was returning home from Rome , I traveled together with a friend of mine from Gortyna in Crete. This friend was, in other respects, an estimable person because he was simple, friendly good, and anything but miserly. But he was so prone to anger that he used to assail his servants with his hands and even sometimes his feet, but far more frequently with a whip or any piece of wood that happened to be handy.
When we were in Corinth, we decided to send all our baggage and all the servants, except two, from Cenchreae to Athens by ship while he would hire a cart for our journey overland by way of Megara. Indeed, when w e had passed through Eleusis and were coming to the Thriasian Plain, he asked the servants (who were following the cart) about a piece of luggage, but they could give him no answer. He fell into a rage. Since he had nothing else with which to strike the young men , he picked up a good-sized sword in its scabbard and came down on the heads of both of them with the sword—scabbard and all. Nor did he bring down the flat side (for in this way he would have done no great damage) but struck with the cutting edge of the sword. The blade cut right through the scabbard and inflicted two very serious wounds on the heads of both—for he struck each of them twice. When he saw the blood pouring forth in abundant streams, he left us and quickly went off to Athens on foot for fear that one of the servants might die while he was still present. We got the wounded men safely to Athens.
But my Cretan friend heaped charges on his own head. He took me by the hand and led me to a house; he handed over his whip, stripped off his clothes, and bade me to flog him for what he had done while in the violent grip of his cursed anger—for that is what he called it. When I laughed (and this was a reasonable reaction)(), he fell on his knees and begged me to do what he asked. It was very clear that the more he kept importuning me and asking to be flogged, the more he was making me laugh.
When we had wasted enough time in begging and laughing, I promised him that I would flog him if he would himself grant me the one very small thing which I was going to ask. When he did promise, I urged him to pay attention to me while I had a few words to say to him, since this was my request. When he had promised that he would do so, I spoke to him at some length and admonished him that it was necessary to train the irascible element within us. This is the way, obviously, that I flogged him and not in the way he asked. After I had instructed him, I went away.
