An interesting story on the topic of anger from Michel de Montaigne’s essay On Anger.

“How often, if we are all worked up for some wrong reason and then offered some good defense or excuse, we are vexed against the truth and innocence itself. I can recall a marvelous example of this from Antiquity. Piso, A great man in every other way, noted for his virtue, was moved to anger against one of his soldiers. Because that soldier had returned after foraging and could give no account where he had left his comrade, Piso was convinced that he had murdered him and at once condemned him to death. When he was already on the gallows, along comes his lost comrade! At this the whole army was overjoyed and, after many a hug and embrace between the two men, the executioner brought both of them into the presence of Piso; All those who were there were expecting that Piso himself would be delighted. Quite the contrary: for, through embarrassment and vexation, his fury, which was still very powerful, suddenly redoubled and, by a quibble which his passion promptly furnished him with, he found three men guilty because one has been found innocent, and had all three of them executed: The first soldier because he was already sentenced to death; the second, the one who had gone missing, because he had caused the death of his comrade; the hangman for failing to obey orders.”