A dialogue essay by Plutarch on how to control anger, framed as Fundanus reporting Musonius's advice to Sulla.
De Cohibenda Ira ("On the Control of Anger") is one of the ethical essays collected in Plutarch's Moralia, cast as a dialogue between two speakers, Sulla and Fundanus. Sulla opens by comparing the essay's occasion to a painter setting a work aside and returning to it later with fresh eyes, and asks Fundanus to report what he has learned since their friend Eros praised Fundanus's progress in gentleness. Fundanus obliges, recalling first a saying of the Stoic teacher Musonius that those who mean to be saved must live under continual treatment, since anger, unlike other passions, resists any calming word once inflamed.
The bulk of the essay is Fundanus's first-person account of his own practical war against irascibility. He catalogues how anger builds from trivial triggers, describes techniques for catching it early (comparing himself to a sailor shortening sail before a storm), and assembles a rich collection of exempla: Socrates checking his temper, Gaius Gracchus using a pitch-pipe to calm his voice, Agathocles laughing off an insult during a siege, Phocion refusing to celebrate Alexander's rumored death prematurely, Arcesilaus's mild reaction to a bread-less dinner, and Plato's self-directed question "Am I not perhaps such a person myself?" Throughout, anger is diagnosed as rooted in a feeling of being despised or neglected, and as something that damages the angry person's own household, friendships, and judgment before it damages anyone else.
The essay matters as a specimen of practical Greco-Roman moral psychology contemporary with the world of the New Testament: it treats anger not as a a sin to be forgiven but as a habit to be diagnosed and retrained through vigilance, humor, and self-examination, closing with Empedocles's line about fasting from wickedness and a prayer for a temper free of wrath.
“I think painters do well, Fundanus, when they set their works aside for a time before finishing them and then examine them again”
— De Cohibenda Ira · read this chapter →
“those who intend to be saved must live continually under treatment”
— De Cohibenda Ira · read this chapter →
“Socrates, whenever he perceived himself being moved rather harshly against one of his friends, would”
— De Cohibenda Ira · read this chapter →
“the man who taught us to shoot with a bow did not forbid us to shoot, but only to miss”
— De Cohibenda Ira · read this chapter →
“Am I not perhaps such a person myself?”
— De Cohibenda Ira · read this chapter →
It is Plutarch's essay, part of the Moralia, on controlling anger, written as a dialogue in which Fundanus reports to Sulla the practical methods and historical examples he has used to tame his own irascible temper.
They are the two speakers in the dialogue: Sulla asks the questions and Fundanus, prompted by a friend's praise of his newfound gentleness, narrates the techniques he learned, largely from the Stoic Musonius, for managing anger.
Fundanus argues that anger in almost all people arises from a feeling of being despised or neglected, not from the objective seriousness of the offense, which is why trivial slights can provoke rage.
The essay recommends catching anger at its first stirrings, using humor and historical role models like Socrates and Agathocles, avoiding anger when jesting or judging, and repeatedly asking oneself Plato's question about one's own faults.
It draws heavily on Stoic material, especially sayings of Musonius Rufus, but Fundanus explicitly favors moderating and channeling anger over the strict Stoic goal of eliminating it entirely, giving the essay a more Peripatetic, moderate tone.
He strings together anecdotes about figures such as Gaius Gracchus, Phocion, Arcesilaus, Polemo, and Plato to illustrate calm responses to provocation, treating these as memorable models a reader can recall in the heat of anger.
Moralia: Ad Principem Ineruditum · Moralia: Adversus Colotem · Moralia: Amatoriae Narrationes · Moralia: Amatorius · Moralia: An Recte Dictum Sit Latenter Esse Vivendum · Moralia: An Seni Respublica Gerenda Sit · Moralia: An Virtus Doceri Possit · Moralia: An Vitiositas Ad Infelicitatem Sufficia · Moralia: Animine An Corporis Affectiones Sint Piores · Moralia: Apophthegmata Laconica · Moralia: Aquane An Ignis Sit Utilior · Moralia: Bruta Animalia Ratione Uti