# CXXIII explained — Short Works

> Chapter companion for Short Works by Epictetus.

## What happens

A brief analogy compares the role of physicians for the sick to the role of laws for those who have been wronged, positioning laws as the remedy for injustice.

## Themes in this chapter

### Social Duty and Relationship

The excerpt implicitly highlights the function of laws within society as a protective and corrective mechanism for maintaining social order and justice, a core aspect of social duty.

## Key lines

> As to the sick physicians are as saviours, so to those also who are wronged are the laws.

Just as doctors are the rescuers of the ill, the laws are the rescuers of those who have been treated unjustly.

_This simple analogy establishes the law as the societal institution designed to heal the injury of wrongdoing._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/epictetus_short_works_se/chapters/cxxiii
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/epictetus_short_works_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/epictetus_short_works_se/chapters