Genre and place in the book. A defining maxim of the sovereign power of the TERMruling part — the heart of the discipline of assent. It continues the theme of the governing reason from 06-05, but with a different emphasis: there the stress fell on self-transparency, here on self-determination and the power over how things appear.

Self-motion (ἑαυτὸ ἐγεῖρον καὶ τρέπον). The ruling part "rouses and turns itself" — it is reflexive and self-moving, not set in motion from outside. The source of its impulse (ὁρμή) is in itself; nothing external can either arouse or deflect it apart from its own assent.

Self-fashioning (ποιοῦν ἑαυτὸ οἷον ἂν θέλῃ). "It makes itself such as it wills." The ruling part moulds its own character — Stoic freedom in its purest form: a human being is what his rational instance makes of itself. Cf. Med. 11.1: "the rational soul… makes itself such as it chooses" (the same formula).

Power over appearance (φαίνεσθαι… οἷον αὐτὸ θέλει). The second power: "it makes everything that happens appear to itself such as it wills." This is not subjective caprice (the world does not become whatever one fancies) but the Stoic thesis about judgment: the ruling part assigns to what happens its evaluative qualification — "terrible" or "indifferent." What the impression of a thing is depends not on the thing but on assent: "everything is opinion (ὑπόληψις), and opinion is in your power; remove the opinion and you find calm" (Med. 12.22; 2.15). Because judgment is "up to us" (DOGMAwhat is in our power), this power over appearance is the very root of equanimity. (The text has φαίνεσθαι, not φαντασία, but it is the doctrine of the impression that is at work.)

Disciplines and parallels. The principal one is assent (the ruling part's power over its own judgments and over how things appear); the secondary is desire (the capacity to judge what happens so as to accept it — the root of ἀταραξία). Parallels: Med. 11.1 (the soul makes itself as it chooses); 12.22 and 2.15 (πάντα ὑπόληψις — all is opinion, and it is in our power); DOGMAthe division of what is and is not up to us — Epict. Ench. 1. The identity ἡγεμονικόν = the locus of freedom — SVF II 836.