The Handbook of Epictetus
Handbook 32.3
Translated by Clint Miller
Go to divination as Socrates thought you should: only in cases where the entire question hangs on the outcome, and where neither reason nor any other skill gives you the means to see the matter through. So when it is your duty to share a danger with a friend or with your country, do not consult a diviner about whether to share it. Even if the diviner warns you that the omens are bad – meaning, clearly, death, or the maiming of some part of your body, or exile – reason still commands that even at that price you stand by your friend and share your country’s danger. So attend to the greater diviner, Pythian Apollo, who threw a man out of his temple for failing to help his friend while he was being murdered.
ἔρχου δὲ ἐπὶ τὸ μαντεύεσθαι, καθάπερ ἠξίου Σωκράτης, ἐφ’ ὧν ἡ πᾶσα σκέψις τὴν ἀναφορὰν εἰς τὴν ἔκβασιν ἔχει καὶ οὔτε ἐκ λόγου οὔτε ἐκ τέχνης τινὸς ἄλλης ἀφορμαὶ δίδονται πρὸς τὸ συνιδεῖν τὸ προκείμενον· ὥστε, ὅταν δεήσῃ συγκινδυνεῦσαι φίλῳ ἢ πατρίδι, μὴ μαντεύεσθαι, εἰ συγκινδυνευτέον. καὶ γὰρ ἂν προείπῃ σοι ὁ μάντις φαῦλα γεγονέναι τὰ ἱερά, δῆλον ὅτι θάνατος σημαίνεται ἢ πήρωσις μέρους τινὸς τοῦ σώματος ἢ φυγή· ἀλλ’ αἱρεῖ ὁ λόγος καὶ σὺν τούτοις παρίστασθαι τῷ φίλῳ καὶ τῇ πατρίδι συγκινδυνεύειν. τοιγαροῦν τῷ μείζονι μάντει πρόσεχε, τῷ Πυθίῳ, ὃς ἐξέβαλε τοῦ ναοῦ τὸν οὐ βοηθήσαντα ἀναιρουμένῳ τῷ φίλῳ.