 Cicero asks Piso to consider whether, even if one were to allow that a single misfortune might not affect the happiness of the virtuous, an accumulation of them would: could someone wracked by pain, disease, and other misfortunes plausibly be thought of as happy, let alone happiest? (5.84). Shrewdly turning against him the Aristotelian method of canvassing the views of both the many and the wise, to which Piso had appealed at 5.63 in support of his view of the supremacy of virtue, Cicero declares that ordinary folk would deny, and experts be unsure, that someone being tortured could be happy (5.85). Piso responds by giving a more worked-out ‘lexical’ account of the relation between virtue and the other goods, so as to underpin his view that virtue suffices for a happy (even if not for the happiest) life: the smallest amount of excellence of character is ranked ahead of all bodily goods; and no foul-but-pleasant action is better than any honourable-but-painful one (5.93). Virtue can thus be equated with happiness, while happiness can be enhanced through the addition of other goods (5.95).