The doctrine of the post. A direct continuation of 7.44: the same Apology (28d–29a), 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 the image literally: 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 the Stoic "if life leaves me, I will keep only what is not shameful" and in 2.17 (philosophy keeps the δαίμων "unstained"). 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).