Of all the emotions that palpitate the breast of man, none is so potentially destructive as anger.  It comes in many flavors and varieties; but the common thread running through all of them is a ruinous loss of control that renders a man incapable of exercising rational judgment. 

Cicero believed rage to be a subcategory of lust.  And there is a certain logic to this, when one considers this definitional passage from his Tusculan Disputations:

The subcategories that fall under the heading of lust are defined as follows.  Rage is the lust to punish someone believed to have caused a harm.  Irascibility is anger that flares up and presents itself, and which is called in Greek thumosis.  Hate is long-standing anger.  Enmity is anger looking for a chance for revenge.  Discord is a more resentful anger formed on one’s deepest heart and soul.  [Tusc. Disp. IV.9]

Nothing good has ever come from decisions taken in anger, for the same reason that one cannot navigate an obstacle course while wearing a blindfold.  For anger deprives us of our senses, and closes the mind to an awareness of perils.  How this is so, will be illustrated by the following historical example, which is found in Xenophon’s Hellenica (V.3).

Teleutias was a Greek military commander and the brother of Spartan king Agesilaus II.  He was active during a conflict known to us as the Corinthian War, which took place from about 395 to 387 B.C.  This war saw Sparta arrayed against a coalition of city states—including Thebes, Athens, Corinth, and Argos—which sought to put an end to Spartan domination of Greece.  On one occasion, Teleutias was engaged in military operations near the city of Olynthus.  He saw a detachment of Olynthian cavalry ride out from the city and boldly cross a nearby river.  “When Teleutias saw them,” says Xenophon, “he was enraged at their audacity and at once ordered Tlemonidas, the commander of the peltasts, to charge them at the double.” 

The word peltast, for those who are not familiar with the term, describes a kind of light infantry.  When the Olynthian cavalry saw the peltasts charging them, they calmly moved back across the river.  But the peltasts foolishly continued to pursue the enemy cavalry across the river, as if they had already won a battle and were chasing an enemy in flight.  This turned out to be a mistake.  The Olynthian cavalry turned around and charged the exhausted peltasts, killing about a hundred of them, including their commander Tlemonidas. 

Teleutias, watching this drama from a distance, became consumed with rage.  He picked up his weapons and ordered his hoplites to follow him directly into battle.  In so doing, he compounded the disastrous error he had already made, and sealed his own fate.  The historian Xenophon, who was a capable and prudent commander in his own right, here notes that “Now it has often happened before that, when a pursuit is pressed too close to a city wall, the pursuers have a hard time getting back again.”  So it turned out to be in this case.  Teleutias and his men had rushed precipitously into battle against the Olynthian cavalry, and, in their fury, came too close to the city walls.  Soon showers of missiles and stones were raining down on them. 

Teleutias and his tired men were forced back, and began to lose their discipline as they tried to protect themselves from the projectiles coming from the city walls.  Their unit integrity began to suffer.  And it was just at this time that the Olynthian cavalry, supported by some infantry, chose to launch a counterattack against Teleutias and his Spartans.  The disorganized and exhausted Spartan line broke, and the Olynthians routed them; Teleutias himself perished in the fighting.  His whole army then broke into flight, and scattered in various directions.  The Olynthians pursued them, killing a great many and, in Xenophon’s words, “putting an end to this army as an effective force.”  Thus Teleutias’s rash decision to attack, grounded in anger, and brought ruin on both himself and his army.  And here Xenophon has this to say:

In my opinion, however, disasters such as these teach men this lesson with regard to anger:  one ought not to punish even a slave in anger; for masters who have lost their tempers often do more harm to themselves than they inflict.  But in dealing with enemies it is utterly and entirely wrong to launch an attack under the influence of anger and without deliberation.  Anger does not look ahead, whereas deliberation is just as concerned with avoiding harm to oneself as with inflicting it on the enemy. [V.3.7; trans. by Rex Warner] 

And so there we have it:  anger does not look ahead.  Anger deprives us of our awareness of consequences; we become so consumed with emotion that we fail to see the perilous shoals towards which our ship is directly headed.  Only maturity and experience can really teach us this lesson.  I recall many times in my own life and career, when I have said or done things under the influence of anger; and without exception, I have regretted every instance.  Your anger is the greatest gift you can give your enemies.

This is one of the reasons why training in character and morals is so essential. Such training equips us with the tools to keep our passions firmly in check. Knowledge is of little use unless it is wedded to restraint and discipline, for fires unchecked by embankments and walls soon blaze out of control. When we are under the influence of rage—which, as Cicero rightly notes, is a form of lust—we must immediately stop, and take time to deliberate.  We must collect our thoughts, breathe deeply, and step back from the situation for a few moments.  Some words and actions cannot be taken back.  Events set into motion under the influence of rage can take on a life of their own, and their denouement will never be to our advantage.

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Read more about rage, anger, and other destructive emotions in the new, annotated translation of Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations.