The doctrine of the post. A direct continuation of 7.44: the same Apology (28d), the same reply of Socrates. From the principle ("to look only to the just") to the image: wherever a man "has stationed himself, judging it best, or has been stationed by a commander" (αὑτὸν τάξῃ… ἢ ὑπ’ ἄρχοντος ταχθῇ), there he "must stay and face the danger" (μένοντα κινδυνεύειν). Socrates' military metaphor is no ornament: he appeals to his own steadfastness at Potidaea and Delium, and the philosopher's "post" (τάξις) is a god-given station of trial. The Stoics took over the image wholesale: life is a service, desertion the one disgrace. Cf. 03-05 (the soldier at his post, εὔλυτος, awaiting the "recall-signal" but not fleeing; the same Platonic doctrine of Phd. 62b) and 7.7 (the soldier at the storming of the wall).

The only quantity in the reckoning. The close inverts the ordinary book-keeping of fear: "taking nothing into the account (μηδὲν ὑπολογιζόμενον) — neither death nor anything else — ahead of the shameful (πρὸ τοῦ αἰσχροῦ)." The one genuine evil is αἰσχρόν, moral disgrace; death, pain, loss are quantities of zero weight beside it (DOGMAthe sufficiency of virtue). The same order of values is in 2.17 (philosophy keeps the δαίμων "free from outrage and harm"). Marcus copies out of Socrates the foundation of his own imperial duty: not to leave his post — neither on the Danube front nor on the throne. The governing discipline is action; the sustaining one, desire (not to count death among evils).