What we have here is a failure to communicate

An educated slave of Plutarch's who knew his master's treatise On freedom from anger (Peri aorgesias, usually referred to by its Latin title De cohinbenda ira) protested, while being flogged, that Plutarch was being inconsistent and giving in to the very fault he had reprobated. Plutarch was quite unabashed. Insisting he was perfectly calm, he invited the slave to continue the argument with him - in the same breath ordering the flogger to continue applying the lash.

- Geoffrey de Ste Croix, The Class Struggle In The Ancient Greek World