One line — one argument. An epigram-passage: a list of the worst kinds of people (λῃσταί — robbers, κίναιδοι — perverts, πατραλοῖαι — parricides, τύραννοι — tyrants) and a pointer to the "great" TERMpleasures (ἡλίκας ἡδονάς) in which they revelled. The governing discipline is desire: the revaluation of the worth of pleasure.

The argument from scoundrels. The classic Stoic move against hedonism: if TERMpleasure were a good, it could not fall in abundance to the most vicious. But scoundrels enjoy it most of all — therefore pleasure is not a good (DOGMAthe good is virtue alone). What is shared by the saint and the tyrant cannot be the thing worth living for. Pleasure is thereby moved into the class of the indifferent: not an evil in itself, but no measure of a worthy life either.

Parallels. Med. 5.10 (on the instability of human valuations); the doctrine of DOGMAthe sufficiency of virtue; cf. the Epicurean-Stoic dispute over the τέλος. In Epictetus and Seneca the same argument: a good cannot be shared by the sage and the debauchee (Sen. Ep. 76; Epict. Disc. 3.7).