After the defeat at Pharsalus, Cato marched for days through the Libyan desert with what was left of the republican army. Water was rationed and the men were struggling. A scout found a small spring, scooped some water into his helmet and brought it to his commander, who needed it most. Cato took the helmet, held it up so the whole army could see, and poured the water into the sand. There was not enough for everyone, and as long as that was the case, he would not drink. None of the soldiers complained of thirst again.
The march took place in 47 BC, after Pompey had been defeated and killed and the remaining opponents of Caesar regrouped in North Africa. Cato led a column of tens of thousands through inhospitable country, and according to tradition he walked the entire way on foot and at the front. Plutarch tells the scene with the helmet; the poet Lucan later worked it into one of the best-known passages of his Pharsalia. This is the same Cato who earlier lost the consulship because he refused to buy votes, and who would die at Utica a few months later.
You are thirsty, you need it, and it has been offered to you. But the men behind you are watching.
Whether there was water, how long the march would last and whether they would make it: none of that lay with him. What did lie with him was whether he would make an exception for himself, and what he would thereby show his men. Note that the gesture gained them nothing: not one extra drop. What it gained was that nobody was thirsty alone anymore.
Where do you grant yourself an exception you would not grant someone else? And would you still take it if everyone were watching?
Yours, Not Yours · A Stoic practice ground · All cases · Questions or suggestions