Break prestige down into stuff. The classic operation of EXERCISEdefinition (cf. 6.13): take "what underlies" (ὑποκειμένη ὕλη) each thing and call it by its bare name. The rotten base (σαπρόν): water, dust, little bones, grime. Then the unmasking of the costly: marble is the "callus of the earth" (πῶροι γῆς), gold and silver its "sediment" (ὑποστάθμαι), clothing mere hairs (τριχία), purple blood (αἷμα). Everything "valuable" shrinks to its matter.

And breath too. The series closes with the little breath (πνευμάτιον): it too is "another such thing" — TERMpassing from this into that (ἐκ τούτων εἰς ταῦτα μεταβάλλον). Even the vital principle is not exempt from the flux of matter. A gaze that strips a thing down to its ὕλη removes both the spell of price and the spell of permanence (cf. 9.14 ῥυπαρὰ τῇ ὕλῃ; 9.25 to part cause from matter). The governing discipline is assent.

Textual note. The tradition divides: πνευμάτιον ("the poor little breath", the diminutive — printed here, in keeping with the run of diminutives ὀστάρια, τριχία and with the triad of 2.2 σωμάτιον, πνευμάτιον, ἡγεμονικόν) against πνευματικόν ("the breath-like element", read by part of the editions). Long renders "that which is of the nature of breath", Rogovin "the vital force": both readings yield the same sense — the difference is stylistic, not doctrinal.