MINOR DIALOGUES TOGETHER WITH THE DIALOGUE ON CLEMENCY


  _TRANSLATED BY_ AUBREY STEWART, M.A.  LATE FELLOW OF TRINITY
  COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE


  LONDON — GEORGE BELL AND SONS, YORK STREET COVENT GARDEN 1889


  CHISWICK PRESS :—C. WHITTINGHAM AND CO., TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY
  LANE




PREFACE.

I can say little by way of preface to Seneca’s “Minor Dialogues”
which I have not already expressed in my preface to “De Beneficiis,”
except that the “Minor Dialogues” seem to me to be composed in a
gloomier key than either the “De Beneficiis” or “De Clementia,” and
probably were written at a time when the author had already begun
to experience the ingratitude of his imperial pupil. Some of the
Dialogues are dated from Corsica, Seneca’s place of exile, which
he seems to have found peculiarly uncomfortable, although he remarks
that there are people who live there from choice. Nevertheless,
mournful as they are in tone, these Dialogues have a certain value,
because they teach us what was meant by Stoic philosophy in the
time of the Twelve Caesars. I have only to add that the value of
my work has been materially enhanced by the kindness of the Rev.
Professor J. E. B. Mayor, who has been good enough to read and
correct almost all the proof sheets of this volume.

AUBREY STEWART.  _London,_ 1889.




CONTENTS.

                                 PAGE
Of Providence                       1
On the Firmness of the Wise Man    22
Of Anger.  I.                      48
    "      II.                     76
    "      III.                   115
Of Consolation. To Marcia         162
Of a Happy Life                   204
Of Leisure                        240
Of Peace of Mind                  250
Of the Shortness of Life          288
Of Consolation.  To Helvia        320
    "            To Polybius      353
Of Clemency.  I.                  380
    "         II.                 415




{1}

THE FIRST BOOK OF THE DIALOGUES OF L. ANNAEUS SENECA, ADDRESSED TO
LUCILIUS.

“WHY, WHEN A PROVIDENCE EXISTS, ANY MISFORTUNES BEFALL GOOD MEN;”
OR, “OF PROVIDENCE”


I. You have asked me, Lucilius, why, if the world be ruled by
providence, so many evils befall good men? The answer to this would
be more conveniently given in the course of this work, after we
have proved that providence governs the universe, and that God is
amongst us: but, since you wish me to deal with one point apart
from the whole, and to answer one replication before the main action
has been decided, I will do what is not difficult, and plead the
cause of the gods. At the present time it is superfluous to point
out that it is not without some guardian that so great a work
maintains its position, that the assemblage and movements of the
stars do not depend upon accidental impulses, or that objects whose
motion is regulated by chance often fall into confusion and soon
stumble, whereas this swift and safe movement goes on, governed by
eternal law, bearing with it so many things both on sea and land,
so many most brilliant lights shining in order in the skies; that
this regularity does not belong to matter moving at random, and
that particles brought together by chance could not {2} arrange
themselves with such art as to make the heaviest weight, that of
the earth, remain unmoved, and behold the flight of the heavens as
they hasten round it, to make the seas pour into the valleys and
so temper the climate of the land, without any sensible increase
from the rivers which flow into them, or to cause huge growths to
proceed from minute seeds. Even those phenomena which appear to be
confused and irregular, I mean showers of rain and clouds, the rush
of lightning from the heavens, fire that pours from the riven peaks
of mountains, quakings of the trembling earth, and everything else
which is produced on earth by the unquiet element in the universe,
do not come to pass without reason, though they do so suddenly: but
they also have their causes, as also have those things which excite
our wonder by the strangeness of their position, such as warm springs
amidst the waves of the sea, and new islands that spring up in the
wide ocean. Moreover, any one who has watched how the shore is laid
bare by the retreat of the sea into itself, and how within a short
time it is again covered, will believe that it is in obedience to
some hidden law of change that the waves are at one time contracted
and driven inwards, at another burst forth and regain their bed
with a strong current, since all the while they wax in regular
proportion, and come up at their appointed day and hour greater or
less, according as the moon, at whose pleasure the ocean flows,
draws them. Let these matters be set aside for discussion at their
own proper season, but I, since you do not doubt the existence of
providence but complain of it, will on that account more readily
reconcile you to gods who are most excellent to excellent men: for
indeed the nature of things does not ever permit good to be injured
by good. Between good men and the gods there is a friendship which
is brought about by virtue— friendship do I say? nay, rather
relationship and likeness, since the good man differs from a god
in time alone, {3} being his pupil and rival and true offspring,
whom his glorious parent trains more severely than other men,
insisting sternly on virtuous conduct, just as strict fathers do.
When therefore you see men who are good and acceptable to the gods
toiling, sweating, painfully struggling upwards, while bad men run
riot and are steeped in pleasures, reflect that modesty pleases us
in our sons, and forwardness in our house-born slave-boys; that the
former are held in check by a somewhat stern rule, whereas the
boldness of the latter is encouraged. Be thou sure that God acts
in like manner: He does not pet the good man: He tries him, hardens
him, and fits him for Himself.

II. Why do many things turn out badly for good men? Why, no evil
can befall a good man: contraries cannot combine. Just as so many
rivers, so many showers of rain from the clouds, such a number of
medicinal springs, do not alter the taste of the sea, indeed, do
not so much as soften it, so the pressure of adversity does not
affect the mind of a brave man; for the mind of a brave man maintains
its balance and throws its own complexion over all that takes place,
because it is more powerful than any external circumstances. I do
not say that he does not feel them, but he conquers them, and on
occasion calmly and tranquilly rises superior to their attacks,
holding all misfortunes to be trials of his own firmness. Yet who
is there who, provided he be a man and have honourable ambition,
does not long for due employment, and is not eager to do his duty
in spite of danger? Is there any hard-working man to whom idleness
is not a punishment? We see athletes, who study only their bodily
strength, engage in contests with the strongest of men, and insist
that those who train them for the arena should put out their whole
strength when practising with them: they endure blows and maltreatment,
and, if they cannot find any single person who is their match, they
engage with several at once: their {4} strength and courage droop
without an antagonist: they can only prove how great and how mighty
it is by proving how much they can endure. You should know that
good men ought to act in like manner, so as not to fear troubles
and difficulties, nor to lament their hard fate, to take in good
part whatever befalls them, and force it to become a blessing to
them. It does not matter what you bear, but how you bear it. Do you
not see how differently fathers and mothers indulge their children?
how the former urge them to begin their tasks betimes, will not
suffer them to be idle even on holidays, and exercise them till
they perspire, and sometimes till they shed tears—while their mothers
want to cuddle them in their laps, and keep them out of the sun,
and never wish them to be vexed, or to cry, or to work. God bears
a fatherly mind towards good men, and loves them in a manly spirit.
“Let them,” says He, “be exercised by labours, sufferings, and
losses, that so they may gather true strength.” Those who are
surfeited with ease break down not only with labour, but with mere
motion and by their own weight. Unbroken prosperity cannot bear a
single blow; but he who has waged an unceasing strife with his
misfortunes has gained a thicker skin by his sufferings, yields to
no disaster, and even though he fall yet fights on his knee. Do you
wonder that God, who so loves the good, who would have them attain
the highest goodness and pre-eminence, should appoint fortune to
be their adversary? I should not be surprised if the gods sometimes
experience a wish to behold great men struggling with some misfortune.
We sometimes are delighted when a youth of steady courage receives
on his spear the wild beast that attacks him; or when he meets the
charge of a lion without flinching; and the more eminent the man
is who acts thus,[1] the more {5} attractive is the sight: yet these
are not matters which can attract the attention of the gods, but
are mere pastime and diversions of human frivolity. Behold a sight
worthy to be viewed by a god interested in his own work, behold a
pair[2] worthy of a god, a brave man matched with evil fortune,
especially if he himself has given the challenge. I say, I do not
know what nobler spectacle Jupiter could find on earth, should he
turn his eyes thither, than that of Cato, after his party had more
than once been defeated, still standing upright amid the ruins of
the commonwealth. Quoth he, “What though all be fallen into one
man’s power, though the land be guarded by his legions, the sea by
his fleets, though Caesar’s soldiers beset the city gate? Cato has
a way out of it: with one hand he will open a wide path to freedom;
his sword, which he has borne unstained by disgrace and innocent
of crime even in a civil war, will still perform good and noble
deeds; it will give to Cato that freedom which it could not give
to his country. Begin, my soul, the work which thou so long hast
contemplated, snatch thyself away from the world of man. Already
Petreius and Juba have met and fallen, each slain by the other’s
hand—a brave and noble compact with fate, yet not one befitting my
greatness: it is as disgraceful for Cato to beg his death of any
one as it would be for him to beg his life.”

It is clear to me that the gods must have looked on with great joy,
while that man, his own most ruthless avenger, took thought for the
safety of others and arranged the escape of those who departed,
while even on his last night he pursued his studies, while he drove
the sword into his sacred breast, while he tore forth his vitals
and laid his hand upon that most holy life which was unworthy to
be defiled by steel. This, I am inclined to think, was the reason
that {6} his wound was not well-aimed and mortal: the gods were not
satisfied with seeing Cato die once: his courage was kept in action
and recalled to the stage, that it might display itself in a more
difficult part: for it needs a greater mind to return a second time
to death. How could they fail to view their pupil with interest
when leaving his life by such a noble and memorable departure? Men
are raised to the level of the gods by a death which is admired
even by those who fear them.

III. However, as my argument proceeds, I shall prove that what
appear to be evils are not so; for the present I say this, that
what you call hard measure, misfortunes, and things against which
we ought to pray, are really to the advantage, firstly, of those
to whom they happen, and secondly, of all mankind, for whom the
gods care more than for individuals; and next, that these evils
befall them with their own good will, and that men deserve to endure
misfortunes, if they are unwilling to receive them. To this I shall
add, that misfortunes proceed thus by destiny, and that they befall
good men by the same law which makes them good. After this, I shall
prevail upon you never to pity any good man; for though he may be
called unhappy, he cannot be so.

Of all these propositions that which I have stated first appears
the most difficult to prove. I mean, that the things which we dread
and shudder at are to the advantage of those to whom they happen.
“Is it,” say you, “to their advantage to be driven into exile, to
be brought to want, to carry out to burial their children and wife,
to be publicly disgraced, to lose their health?” Yes! if you are
surprised at these being to any man’s advantage, you will also be
surprised at any man being benefited by the knife and cautery, or
by hunger and thirst as well. Yet if you consider that some men,
in order to be cured, have their bones scraped, and pieces of them
extracted, that their veins are pulled out {7} and that some have
limbs cut off, which could not remain in their place without ruin
to the whole body, you will allow me to prove to you this also,
that some misfortunes are for the good of those to whom they happen,
just as much, by Hercules, as some things which are praised and
sought after are harmful to those who enjoy them like indigestions
and drunkenness and other matters which kill us through pleasure.
Among many grand sayings of our Demetrius is this, which I have but
just heard, and which still rings and thrills in my ears: “No one,”
said he, “seems to me more unhappy than the man whom no misfortune
has ever befallen.” He never has had an opportunity of testing
himself; though everything has happened to him according to his
wish, nay, even before he has formed a wish, yet the gods have
judged him unfavourably; he has never been deemed worthy to conquer
ill fortune, which avoids the greatest cowards, as though it said,
“Why should I take that man for my antagonist? He will straightway
lay down his arms: I shall not need all my strength against him:
he will be put to flight by a mere menace: he dares not even face
me; let me look around for some other with whom I may fight hand
to hand: I blush to join battle with one who is prepared to be
beaten.” A gladiator deems it a disgrace to be matched with an
inferior, and knows that to win without danger is to win without
glory. Just so Fortune; she seeks out the bravest to match herself
with, passes over some with disdain, and makes for the most unyielding
and upright of men, to exert her strength against them. She tried
Mucius fire, Fabricius by poverty, Rutilius by exile, Regulus by
torture, Socrates by poison, Cato by death: it is ill fortune alone
that discovers these glorious examples. Was Mucius unhappy, because
he grasped the enemy’s fire with his right hand, and of his own
accord paid the penalty of his mistake? because he overcame the
King with his hand when it was burned, though he could {8} not when
it held a sword? Would he have been happier, if he had warmed his
hand in his mistress’s bosom? Was Fabricius unhappy, because when
the state could spare him, he dug his own land? because he waged
war against riches as keenly as against Pyrrhus? because he supped
beside his hearth off the very roots and herbs which he himself,
though an old man, and one who had enjoyed a triumph, had grubbed
up while clearing his field of weeds? What then? would he have been
happier if he had gorged himself with fishes from distant shores,
and birds caught in foreign lands? if he had roused the torpor of
his queasy stomach with shellfish from the upper and the lower sea?
if he had piled a great heap of fruits round game of the first head,
which many huntsmen had been killed in capturing? Was Rutilius
unhappy, because those who condemned him will have to plead their
cause for all ages? because he endured the loss of his country more
composedly than that of his banishment? because he was the only man
who refused anything to Sulla the dictator, and when recalled from
exile all but went further away and banished himself still more.
“Let those,” said he, “whom thy fortunate reign catches at Rome,
see to the Forum drenched with blood,[3] and the heads of Senators
above the Pool of Servilius—the place where the victims of Sulla’s
proscriptions were stripped—the bands of assassins roaming at large
through the city, and many thousands of Roman citizens slaughtered
in one place, after, nay, by means of a promise of quarter. Let
those who are unable to go into exile behold these things.” Well!
is Lucius Sulla happy, because when he comes down into the Forum
room is made for him with sword-strokes, because he allows the heads
of consulars to be shown to him, and counts out the price of blood
through the quaestor and the state exchequer? {9} And this, this
was the man who passed the Lex Cornelia! Let us now come to Regulus:
what injury did fortune do him when she made him an example of good
faith, an example of endurance? They pierce his skin with nails:
wherever he leans his weary body, it rests on a wound; his eyes are
fixed for ever open; the greater his sufferings, the greater is his
glory. Would you know how far he is from regretting that he valued
his honour at such a price? heal his wounds and send him again into
the senate-house; he will give the same advice. So, then, you think
Maecenas a happier man, who when troubled by love, and weeping at
the daily repulses of his ill-natured wife, sought for sleep by
listening to distant strains of music? Though he drug himself with
wine, divert himself with the sound of falling waters, and distract
his troubled thoughts with a thousand pleasures, yet Maecenas will
no more sleep on his down cushions than Regulus on the rack. Yet
it consoles the latter that he suffers for the sake of honour, and
he looks away from his torments to their cause: whilst the other,
jaded with pleasures and sick with over-enjoyment, is more hurt by
the cause of his sufferings than by the sufferings themselves. Vice
has not so utterly taken possession of the human race that, if men
were allowed to choose their destiny, there can be any doubt but
that more would choose to be Reguluses than to be Maecenases: or
if there were any one who dared to say that he would prefer to be
born Maecenas than Regulus that man, whether he says so or not,
would rather have been Terentia (than Cicero).

Do you consider Socrates to have been badly used, because he took
that draught which the state assigned to him as though it were a
charm to make him immortal, and argued about death until death
itself? Was he ill treated, because his blood froze and the current
of his veins gradually stopped as the chill of death crept over
them? How much more is this man to be envied than he who is {10}
served on precious stones, whose drink a creature trained to every
vice, a eunuch or much the same, cools with snow in a golden cup?
Such men as these bring up again all that they drink, in misery and
disgust at the taste of their own bile, while Socrates cheerfully
and willingly drains his poison. As for Cato, enough has been said,
and all men must agree that the highest happiness was reached by
one who was chosen by Nature herself as worthy to contend with all
her terrors: “The enmity,” says she, “of the powerful is grievous,
therefore let him be opposed at once by Pompeius, Caesar, and
Crassus: it is grievous, when a candidate for public offices, to
be defeated by one’s inferiors; therefore let him be defeated by
Vatinius: it is grievous to take part in civil wars, therefore let
him fight in every part of the world for the good cause with equal
obstinacy and ill-luck: it is grievous to lay hands upon one’s self,
therefore let him do so. What shall I gain by this? That all men
may know that these things, which I have deemed Cato worthy to
undergo, are not real evils.”

IV. Prosperity comes to the mob, and to low-minded men as well as
to great ones; but it is the privilege of great men alone to send
under the yoke[4] the disasters and terrors of mortal life: whereas
to be always prosperous, and to pass through life without a twinge
of mental distress, is to remain ignorant of one half of nature.
You are a great man; but how am I to know it, if fortune gives you
no opportunity of showing your virtue? You have entered the arena
of the Olympic games, but no one {11} else has done so: you have
the crown, but not the victory: I do not congratulate you as I would
a brave man, but as one who has obtained a consulship or praetorship.
You have gained dignity. I may say the same of a good man, if
troublesome circumstances have never given him a single opportunity
of displaying the strength of his mind. I think you unhappy because
you never have been unhappy: you have passed through your life
without meeting an antagonist: no one will know your powers, not
even you yourself. For a man cannot know himself without a trial:
no one ever learnt what he could do without putting himself to the
test; for which reason many have of their own free will exposed
themselves to misfortunes which no longer came in their way, and
have sought for an opportunity of making their virtue, which otherwise
would have been lost in darkness, shine before the world. Great
men, I say, often rejoice at crosses of fortune just as brave
soldiers do at wars. I remember to have heard Triumphus, who was a
gladiator[5] in the reign of Tiberius Caesar, complaining about the
scarcity of prizes; “What a glorious time,” said he, “is past.”
Valour is greedy of danger, and thinks only of whither it strives
to go, not of what it will suffer, since even what it will suffer
is part of its glory. Soldiers pride themselves on their wounds,
they joyously display their blood flowing over their breastplate.[6]
Though those who return unwounded from battle may have done as
bravely, yet he who returns wounded is more admired. God, I say,
favours those whom He wishes to enjoy the greatest honours, whenever
He affords them the means of performing some exploit with spirit
and courage, something which is not easily to be accomplished: you
can judge of a pilot in a storm, of a soldier in a battle. How can
I know with {12} how great a spirit you could endure poverty, if
you overflow with riches? How can I tell with how great firmness
you could bear up against disgrace, dishonour, and public hatred,
if you grow old to the sound of applause, if popular favour cannot
be alienated from you, and seems to flow to you by the natural bent
of men’s minds? How can I know how calmly you would endure to be
childless, if you see all your children around you? I have heard
what you said when you were consoling others: then I should have
seen whether you could have consoled yourself, whether you could
have forbidden yourself to grieve. Do not, I beg you, dread those
things which the immortal gods apply to our minds like spurs:
misfortune is virtue’s opportunity. Those men may justly be called
unhappy who are stupified with excess of enjoyment, whom sluggish
contentment keeps as it were becalmed in a quiet sea: whatever
befalls them will come strange to them. Misfortunes press hardest
on those who are unacquainted with them: the yoke feels heavy to
the tender neck. The recruit turns pale at the thought of a wound:
the veteran, who knows that he has often won the victory after
losing blood, looks boldly at his own flowing gore. In like manner
God hardens, reviews, and exercises those whom He tests and loves:
those whom He seems to indulge and spare, He is keeping out of
condition to meet their coming misfortunes: for you are mistaken
if you suppose that any one is exempt from misfortune: he who has
long prospered will have his share some day; those who seem to have
been spared them have only had them put off. Why does God afflict
the best of men with ill-health, or sorrow, or other troubles?
Because in the army the most hazardous services are assigned to the
bravest soldiers: a general sends his choicest troops to attack the
enemy in a midnight ambuscade, to reconnoitre his line of march,
or to drive the hostile garrisons from their strong places. No one
of these {13} men says as he begins his march, “The general has
dealt hardly with me,” but “He has judged well of me.” Let those
who are bidden to suffer what makes the weak and cowardly weep, say
likewise, “God has thought us worthy subjects on whom to try how
much suffering human nature can endure.” Avoid luxury, avoid
effeminate enjoyment, by which men’s minds are softened, and in
which, unless something occurs to remind them of the common lot of
humanity, they lie unconscious, as though plunged in continual
drunkenness. He whom glazed windows have always guarded from the
wind, whose feet are warmed by constantly renewed fomentations,
whose dining-room is heated by hot air beneath the floor and spread
through the walls, cannot meet the gentlest breeze without danger.
While all excesses are hurtful, excess of comfort is the most hurtful
of all; it affects the brain; it leads men’s minds into vain
imaginings; it spreads a thick cloud over the boundaries of truth
and falsehood. Is it not better, with virtue by one’s side, to
endure continual misfortune, than to burst with an endless surfeit
of good things? It is the overloaded stomach that is rent asunder:
death treats starvation more gently. The gods deal with good men
according to the same rule as schoolmasters with their pupils, who
exact most labour from those of whom they have the surest hopes.
Do you imagine that the Lacedaemonians, who test the mettle of their
children by public flogging, do not love them? Their own fathers
call upon them to endure the strokes of the rod bravely, and when
they are torn and half dead, ask them to offer their wounded skin
to receive fresh wounds. Why then should we wonder if God tries
noble spirits severely? There can be no easy proof of virtue. Fortune
lashes and mangles us: well, let us endure it: it is not cruelty,
it is a struggle, in which the oftener we engage the braver we shall
become. The strongest part of the {14} body is that which is exercised
by the most frequent use: we must entrust ourselves to fortune to
be hardened by her against herself: by degrees she will make us a
match for herself. Familiarity with danger leads us to despise it.
Thus the bodies of sailors are hardened by endurance of the sea,
and the hands of farmers by work; the arms of soldiers are powerful
to hurl darts, the legs of runners are active: that part of each
man which he exercises is the strongest: so by endurance the mind
becomes able to despise the power of misfortunes. You may see what
endurance might effect in us if you observe what labour does among
tribes that are naked and rendered stronger by want. Look at all
the nations that dwell beyond the Roman Empire: I mean the Germans
and all the nomad tribes that war against us along the Danube. They
suffer from eternal winter, and a dismal climate, the barren soil
grudges them sustenance, they keep off the rain with leaves or
thatch, they bound across frozen marshes, and hunt wild beasts for
food. Do you think them unhappy? There is no unhappiness in what
use has made part of one’s nature: by degrees men find pleasure in
doing what they were first driven to do by necessity. They have no
homes and no resting-places save those which weariness appoints
them for the day; their food, though coarse, yet must be sought
with their own hands; the harshness of the climate is terrible, and
their bodies are unclothed. This, which you think a hardship, is
the mode of life of all these races: how then can you wonder at
good men being shaken, in order that they may be strengthened? No
tree which the wind does not often blow against is firm and strong;
for it is stiffened by the very act of being shaken, and plants its
roots more securely: those which grow in a sheltered valley are
brittle: and so it is to the advantage of good men, and causes them
to be undismayed, that they should live much {15} amidst alarms,
and learn to bear with patience what is not evil save to him who
endures it ill.

V. Add to this that it is to the advantage of every one that the
best men should, so to speak, be on active service and perform
labours: God has the same purpose as the wise man, that is, to prove
that the things which the herd covets and dreads are neither good
nor bad in themselves. If, however, He only bestows them upon good
men, it will be evident that they are good things, and bad, if He
only inflicts them upon bad men. Blindness would be execrable if
no one lost his eyes except those who deserve to have them pulled
out; therefore let Appius and Metellus be doomed to darkness. Riches
are not a good thing: therefore let Elius the pander possess them,
that men who have consecrated money in the temple, may see the same
in the brothel: for by no means can God discredit objects of desire
so effectually as by bestowing them upon the worst of men, and
removing them from the best. “But,” you say, “it is unjust that a
good man should be enfeebled, or transfixed, or chained, while bad
men swagger at large with a whole skin.” What! is it not unjust
that brave men should bear arms, pass the night in camps, and stand
on guard along the rampart with their wounds still bandaged, while
within the city eunuchs and professional profligates live at their
ease? what? is it not unjust that maidens of the highest birth
should be roused at night to perform Divine service, while fallen
women enjoy the soundest sleep? Labour calls for the best man: the
senate often passes the whole day in debate, while at the same time
every scoundrel either amuses his leisure in the Campus Martius,
or lurks in a tavern, or passes his time in some pleasant society.
The same thing happens in this great commonwealth (of the world):
good men labour, spend and are spent, and that too of their own
free will; they are not dragged along by fortune, but follow {16}
her and take equal steps with her; if they knew how, they would
outstrip her. I remember, also, to have heard this spirited saying
of that stoutest-hearted of men, Demetrius. “Ye immortal Gods,”
said he, “the only complaint which I have to make of you is that
you did not make your will known to me earlier; for then I would
sooner have gone into that state of life to which I now have been
called. Do you wish to take my children? it was for you that I
brought them up. Do you wish to take some part of my body? take it:
it is no great thing that I am offering you, I shall soon have done
with the whole of it. Do you wish for my life? why should I hesitate
to return to you what you gave me? whatever you ask you shall receive
with my good will: nay, I would rather give it than be forced to
hand it over to you: what need had you to take away what you did?
you might have received it from me: yet even as it is you cannot
take anything from me, because you cannot rob a man unless he
resists.”

I am constrained to nothing, I suffer nothing against my will, nor
am I God’s slave, but his willing follower, and so much the more
because I know that everything is ordained and proceeds according
to a law that endures for ever. The fates guide us, and the length
of every man’s days is decided at the first hour of his birth: every
cause depends upon some earlier cause: one long chain of destiny
decides all things, public or private. Wherefore, everything must
be patiently endured, because events do not fall in our way, as we
imagine, but come by a regular law. It has long ago been settled
at what you should rejoice and at what you should weep, and although
the lives of individual men appear to differ from one another in a
great variety of particulars, yet the sum total comes to one and
the same thing: we soon perish, and the gifts which we receive soon
perish. Why, then, should we be angry? why should we lament? we are
prepared for our fate: let nature deal {17} as she will with her
own bodies; let us be cheerful whatever befalls, and stoutly reflect
that it is not anything of our own that perishes. What is the duty
of a good man? to submit himself to fate: it is a great consolation
to be swept away together with the entire universe: whatever law
is laid upon us that thus we must live and thus we must die, is
laid upon the gods also: one unchangeable stream bears along men
and gods alike: the creator and ruler of the universe himself,
though he has given laws to the fates, yet is guided by them: he
always obeys, he only once commanded. “But why was God so unjust
in His distribution of fate, as to assign poverty, wounds, and
untimely deaths to good men?” The workman cannot alter his materials:
this is their nature. Some qualities cannot be separated from some
others: they cling together; are indivisible. Dull minds, tending
to sleep or to a waking state exactly like sleep, are composed of
sluggish elements: it requires stronger stuff to form a man meriting
careful description. His course will not be straightforward; he
must go upwards and downwards, be tossed about, and guide his vessel
through troubled waters: he must make his way in spite of fortune:
he will meet with much that is hard which he must soften, much that
is rough that he must make smooth. Fire tries gold, misfortune tries
brave men. See how high virtue has to climb: you may be sure that
it has no safe path to tread.

    “Steep is the path at first: the steeds, though strong, Fresh
    from their rest, can hardly crawl along; The middle part lies
    through the topmost sky, Whence oft, as I the earth and sea
    descry, I shudder, terrors through my bosom thrill.  The ending
    of the path is sheer down hill, And needs the careful guidance
    of the rein, For ever when I sink beneath the main, {18} Old
    Tethys trembles in her depths  below Lest headlong down upon
    her I should  go.”[7]

When the spirited youth heard this, he said, “I have no fault to
find with the road: I will mount it, it is worth while to go through
these places, even though one fall.” His father did not cease from
trying to scare his brave spirit with terrors:—

    “Then, too, that thou may’st hold thy course aright, And neither
    turn aside to left nor right.  Straight through the Bull’s fell
    horns thy path must go.  Through the fierce Lion, and the
    Archer’s bow.”

After this Phaethon says:—

    “Harness the chariot which you yield to me,

I am encouraged by these things with which you think to scare me:
I long to stand where the Sun himself trembles to stand.” It is the
part of grovellers and cowards to follow the safe track; courage
loves a lofty path.

VI. “Yet, why does God permit evil to happen to good men?” He does
not permit it: he takes away from them all evils, such as crimes
and scandalous wickedness, daring thoughts, grasping schemes, blind
lusts, and avarice coveting its neighbour’s goods. He protects and
saves them. Does any one besides this demand that God should look
after the baggage of good men also? Why, they themselves leave the
care of this to God: they scorn external accessories. Democritus
forswore riches, holding them to be a burden to a virtuous mind:
what wonder then, if God permits that to happen to a good man, which
a good man sometimes chooses should happen to himself? Good men,
you say, lose their children: why should they not, since sometimes
they even put them to death? They are banished: why should they not
be, since sometimes they {19} leave their country of their own free
will, never to return? They are slain: why not, since sometimes
they choose to lay violent hands on themselves? Why do they suffer
certain miseries? it is that they may teach others how to do so.
They are born as patterns. Conceive, therefore, that God says:—“You,
who have chosen righteousness, what complaint can you make of me?
I have encompassed other men with unreal good things, and have
deceived their inane minds as it were by a long and misleading
dream: I have bedecked them with gold, silver, and ivory, but within
them there is no good thing. Those men whom you regard as fortunate,
if you could see, not their outward show, but their hidden life,
are really unhappy, mean, and base, ornamented on the outside like
the walls of their houses: that good fortune of theirs is not sound
and genuine: it is only a veneer, and that a thin one. As long,
therefore, as they can stand upright and display themselves as they
choose, they shine and impose upon one; when something occurs to
shake and unmask them, we see how deep and real a rottenness was
hidden by that factitious magnificence. To you I have given sure
and lasting good things, which become greater and better the more
one turns them over and views them on every side: I have granted
to you to scorn danger, to disdain passion. You do not shine
outwardly, all your good qualities are turned inwards; even so does
the world neglect what lies without it, and rejoices in the
contemplation of itself. I have placed every good thing within your
own breasts: it is your good fortune not to need any good fortune.
‘Yet many things befall you which are sad, dreadful, hard to be
borne.’ Well, as I have not been able to remove these from your
path, I have given your minds strength to combat all: bear them
bravely. In this you can surpass God himself; He is beyond suffering
evil: you are above it. Despise poverty; no man lives as poor as
he was born: {20} despise pain; either it will cease or you will
cease: despise death; it either ends you or takes you elsewhere:
despise fortune; I have given her no weapon that can reach the mind.
Above all, I have taken care that no one should hold you captive
against your will: the way of escape lies open before you: if you
do not choose to fight, you may fly. For this reason, of all those
matters which I have deemed essential for you, I have made nothing
easier for you than to die. I have set man’s life as it were on a
mountain side: it soon slips down.[8] Do but watch, and you will
see how short and how ready a path leads to freedom. I have not
imposed such long delays upon those who quit the world as upon those
who enter it: were it not so, fortune would hold a wide dominion
over you, if a man died as slowly as he is born. Let all time, let
every place teach you, how simple it is to renounce nature, and to
fling back her gifts to her: before the altar itself and during the
solemn rites of sacrifice, while life is being prayed for, learn
how to die. Fat oxen fall dead with a tiny wound; a blow from a
man’s hand fells animals of great strength: the sutures of the neck
are severed by a thin blade, and when the joint which connects the
head and neck is cut, all that great mass falls. The breath of life
is not deep seated, {21} nor only to be let forth by steel—the
vitals need not be searched throughout by plunging a sword among
them to the hilt: death lies near the surface, I have not appointed
any particular spot for these blows—the body may be pierced wherever
you please. That very act which is called dying, by which the breath
of life leaves the body, is too short for you to be able to estimate
its quickness: whether a knot crushes the windpipe, or water stops
your breathing: whether you fall headlong from a height and perish
upon the hard ground below, or a mouthful of fire checks the drawing
of your breath—whatever it is, it acts swiftly. Do you not blush
to spend so long a time in dreading what takes so short a time to
do?”


[1] _honestior_ opposed to the gladiator—the loftier the station
of the combatant. The Gracchus of Juvenal, Sat. ii. and viii.,
illustrates, the passage.

[2] _par_, a technical term in the language of sport (_worthy_ of
such a spectator).

[3] _viderint_—Let them see to it: it is no matter of mine.

[4] That is, to triumph over. “Two spears were set upright ... and
a third was fastened across them at the top; and through this gateway
the vanquished army marched out, as a token that they had been
conquered in war, and owed their lives to the enemy’s mercy. It was
no peculiar insult devised for this occasion, but a common usage,
so far as appears, in similar cases; like the modern ceremony of
piling arms when a garrison or army surrender themselves as prisoners
of war.”— Arnold’s _History of Rome_, ch. xxxi.

[5] He was a “mirmillo,” a kind of gladiator who was armed with a
Gaulish helmet.

[6] _e lorica_.

[7] The lines occur in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, ii. 63. Phoebus is
telling Phaethon how to drive the chariot of the Sun.

[8] Compare Walter Scott: “All. . . . must have felt that but for
the dictates of religion, or the natural recoil of the mind from
the idea of dissolution, there have been times when they would have
been willing to throw away life as a child does a broken toy. I am
sure I know one who has often felt so. O God! what are we?—Lords
of nature?—Why, a tile drops from a house-top, which an elephant
would not feel more than a sheet of pasteboard, and there lies his
lordship. Or something of inconceivably minute origin, the pressure
of a bone, or the inflammation of a particle of the brain takes
place, and the emblem of the Deity destroys himself or some one
else. We hold our health and our reason on terms slighter than any
one would desire, were it in their choice, to hold an Irish
cabin.”—Lockhart’s _Life of Sir Walter Scott_, vol. vii., p. 11.




{22}

THE SECOND BOOK OF THE DIALOGUES OF L. ANNAEUS SENECA, ADDRESSED
TO SERENUS.

“THAT THE WISE MAN CAN NEITHER RECEIVE INJURY NOR INSULT,” OR, AN
ESSAY ON THE FIRMNESS OF THE WISE MAN.


I. I might truly say, Serenus, that there is as wide a difference
between the Stoics and the other sects of philosophers as there is
between men and women, since each class contributes an equal share
to human society, but the one is born to command, the other to obey.
The other philosophers deal with us gently and coaxingly, just as
our accustomed family physicians usually do with our bodies, treating
them not by the best and shortest method, but by that which we allow
them to employ; whereas the Stoics adopt a manly course, and do not
care about its appearing attractive to those who are entering upon
it, but that it should as quickly as possible take us out of the
world, and lead us to that lofty eminence which is so far beyond
the scope of any missile weapon that it is above the reach of Fortune
herself. “But the way by which we are asked to climb is steep and
uneven.” What then? Can heights be reached by a level path? Yet
they are not so sheer and precipitous as some think. It is only the
first part that {23} has rocks and cliffs and no apparent outlet,
just as many hills seen from a long way off appear abruptly steep
and joined together, because the distance deceives our sight, and
then, as we draw nearer, those very hills which our mistaken eyes
had made into one gradually unfold themselves, those parts which
seemed precipitous from afar assume a gently sloping outline. When
just now mention was made of Marcus Cato, you whose mind revolts
at injustice were indignant at Cato’s own age having so little
understood him, at its having allotted a place below Vatinius to
one who towered above both Caesar and Pompeius; it seemed shameful
to you, that when he spoke against some law in the Forum his toga
was torn from him, and that he was hustled through the hands of a
mutinous mob from the Rostra as far as the arch of Fabius, enduring
all the bad language, spitting, and other insults of the frantic
rabble.

II. I then answered, that you had good cause to be anxious on behalf
of the commonwealth, which Publius Clodius on the one side, Vatinius
and all the greatest scoundrels on the other, were putting up for
sale, and, carried away by their blind covetousness, did not
understand that when they sold it they themselves were sold with
it; I bade you have no fears on behalf of Cato himself, because the
wise man can neither receive injury nor insult, and it is more
certain that the immortal gods have given Cato as a pattern of a
wise man to us, than that they gave Ulysses or Hercules to the
earlier ages; for these our Stoics have declared were wise men,
unconquered by labours, despisers of pleasure, and superior to all
terrors. Cato did not slay wild beasts, whose pursuit belongs to
huntsmen and countrymen, nor did he exterminate fabulous creatures
with fire and sword, or live in times when it was possible to believe
that the heavens could be supported on the shoulders of one man.
In an age which had thrown {24} off its belief in antiquated
superstitions, and had carried material knowledge to its highest
point, he had to struggle against that many-headed monster, ambition,
against that boundless lust for power which the whole world divided
among three men could not satisfy. He alone withstood the vices of
a worn-out State, sinking into ruin through its own bulk; he upheld
the falling commonwealth as far as it could be upheld by one man’s
hand, until at last his support was withdrawn, and he shared the
crash which he had so long averted, and perished together with that
from which it was impious to separate him—for Cato did not outlive
freedom, nor did freedom outlive Cato. Think you that the people
could do any wrong to such a man when they tore away his praetorship
or his toga? when they bespattered his sacred head with the rinsings
of their mouths? The wise man is safe, and no injury or insult can
touch him.

III. I think I see your excited and boiling temper. You are preparing
to exclaim: “These are the things which take away all weight from
your maxims; you promise great matters, such as I should not even
wish for, let alone believe to be possible, and then, after all
your brave words, though you say that the wise man is not poor, you
admit that he often is in want of servants, shelter, and food. You
say that the wise man is not mad, yet you admit that he sometimes
loses his reason, talks nonsense, and is driven to the wildest
actions by the stress of his disorder. When you say that the wise
man cannot be a slave, you do not deny that he will be sold, carry
out orders, and perform menial services at the bidding of his master;
so, for all your proud looks, you come down to the level of every
one else, and merely call things by different names. Consequently,
I suspect that something of this kind lurks behind this maxim, which
at first sight appears so beautiful and noble, ‘that the wise man
can neither receive {25} injury nor insult.’ It makes a great deal
of difference whether you declare that the wise man is beyond feeling
resentment, or beyond receiving injury; for if you say that he will
bear it calmly, he has no special privilege in that, for he has
developed a very common quality, and one which is learned by long
endurance of wrong itself, namely, patience. If you declare that
he can never receive an injury, that is, that no one will attempt
to do him one, then I will throw up all my occupations in life and
become a Stoic.”

It has not been my object to decorate the wise man with mere imaginary
verbal honours, but to raise him to a position where no injury will
be permitted to reach him. “What? will there be no one to tease
him, to try to wrong him?” There is nothing on earth so sacred as
not to be liable to sacrilege; yet holy things exist on high none
the less because there are men who strike at a greatness which is
far above themselves, though with no hope of reaching it. The
invulnerable is not that which is never struck, but that which is
never wounded. In this class I will show you the wise man. Can we
doubt that the strength which is never overcome in fight is more
to be relied on than that which is never challenged, seeing that
untested power is untrustworthy, whereas that solidity which hurls
back all attacks is deservedly regarded as the most trustworthy of
all? In like manner you may know that the wise man, if no injury
hurts him, is of a higher type than if none is offered to him, and
I should call him a brave man whom war does not subdue and the
violence of the enemy does not alarm, not him who enjoys luxurious
ease amid a slothful people. I say, then, that such a wise man is
invulnerable against all injury; it matters not, therefore, how
many darts be hurled at him, since he can be pierced by none of
them. Just as the hardness of some stones is impervious to steel,
and adamant can neither be cut, {26} broken, or ground, but blunts
all instruments used upon it; just as some things cannot be destroyed
by fire, but when encircled by flame still retain their hardness
and shape; just as some tall projecting cliffs break the waves of
the sea, and though lashed by them through many centuries, yet show
no traces of their rage; even so the mind of the wise man is firm,
and gathers so much strength, that it is as safe from injury as any
of those things which I have mentioned.

IV. “What then? Will there be no one who will try to do an injury
to the wise man?” Yes, some one will try, but the injury will not
reach him; for he is separated from the contact of his inferiors
by so wide a distance that no evil impulse can retain its power of
harm until it reaches him. Even when powerful men, raised to positions
of high authority, and strong in the obedience of their dependents,
strive to injure him, all their darts fall as far short of his
wisdom as those which are shot upwards by bowstrings or catapults,
which, although they rise so high as to pass out of sight, yet fall
back again without reaching the heavens. Why, do you suppose that
when that stupid king[1] clouded the daylight with the multitude
of his darts, that any arrow of them all went into the sun? or that
when he flung his chains into the deep, that he was able to reach
Neptune? Just as sacred things escape from the hands of men, and
no injury is done to the godhead by those who destroy temples and
melt down images, so whoever attempts to treat the wise man with
impertinence, insolence, or scorn, does so in vain. “It would be
better,” say you, “if no one wished to do so.” You are expressing
a wish that the whole human race were inoffensive, which may hardly
be; moreover, those who would gain by such wrongs not being done
are those who would do them, not he who could not suffer from them
even if they were done; nay, I {27} know not whether wisdom is not
best displayed by calmness in the midst of annoyances, just as the
greatest proof of a general’s strength in arms and men consists in
his quietness and confidence in the midst of an enemy’s country.

V. If you think fit, my Serenus, let us distinguish between injury
and insult. The former is naturally the more grievous, the latter
less important, and grievous only to the thin-skinned, since it
angers men but does not wound them. Yet such is the weakness of
men’s minds, that many think that there is nothing more bitter than
insult; thus you will find slaves who prefer to be flogged to being
slapped, and who think stripes and death more endurable than insulting
words. To such a pitch of absurdity have we come that we suffer not
only from pain, but from the idea of pain, like children, who are
terror-stricken by darkness, misshapen masks, and distorted faces,
and whose tears flow at hearing names unpleasing to their ears, at
the movement of our fingers, and other things which they ignorantly
shrink from with a sort of mistaken spasm. The object which injury
proposes to itself is to do evil to some one. Now wisdom leaves no
room for evil; to it, the only evil is baseness, which cannot enter
into the place already occupied by virtue and honour. If, therefore,
there can be no injury without evil, and no evil without baseness,
and baseness cannot find any place with a man who is already filled
with honour, it follows that no injury can reach the wise man: for
if injury be the endurance of some evil, and the wise man can endure
no evil, it follows that no injury takes effect upon the wise man.
All injury implies a making less of that which it affects, and no
one can sustain an injury without some loss either of his dignity,
or of some part of his body, or of some of the things external to
ourselves; but the wise man can lose nothing. He has invested
everything in himself, has entrusted nothing to fortune, has his
property in safety, {28} and is content with virtue, which does not
need casual accessories, and therefore can neither be increased or
diminished; for virtue, as having attained to the highest position,
has no room for addition to herself, and fortune can take nothing
away save what she gave. Now fortune does not give virtue; therefore
she does not take it away. Virtue is free, inviolable, not to be
moved, not to be shaken, and so hardened against misfortunes that
she cannot be bent, let alone overcome by them. She looks unfalteringly
on while tortures are being prepared for her; she makes no change
of countenance, whether misery or pleasure be offered to her. The
wise man therefore can lose nothing of whose loss he will be sensible,
for he is the property of virtue alone, from whom he never can be
taken away. He enjoys all other things at the good pleasure of
fortune; but who is grieved at the loss of what is not his own? If
injury can hurt none of those things which are the peculiar property
of the wise man, because while his virtue is safe they are safe,
then it is impossible that an injury should be done to a wise man.
Demetrius, who was surnamed Poliorcetes, took Megara, and the
philosopher Stilbo, when asked by him whether he had lost anything,
answered, “No, I carry all my property about me.” Yet his inheritance
had been given up to pillage, his daughters had been outraged by
the enemy, his country had fallen under a foreign dominion, and it
was the king, enthroned on high, surrounded by the spears of his
victorious troops, who put this question to him; yet he struck the
victory out of the king’s hands, and proved that, though the city
was taken, he himself was not only unconquered but unharmed, for
he bore with him those true goods which no one can lay hands upon.
What was being plundered and carried away hither and thither he did
not consider to be his own, but to be merely things which come and
go at the caprice of fortune; therefore he had not loved them as
his own, for {29} the possession of all things which come from
without is slippery and insecure.

VI. Consider now, whether any thief, or false accuser, or headstrong
neighbour, or rich man enjoying the power conferred by a childless
old age, could do any injury to this man, from whom neither war nor
an enemy whose profession was the noble art of battering city walls
could take away anything. Amid the flash of swords on all sides,
and the riot of the plundering soldiery, amid the flames and blood
and ruin of the fallen city, amid the crash of temples falling upon
their gods, one man was at peace. You need not therefore account
that a reckless boast, for which I will give you a surety, if my
words goes for nothing. Indeed, you would hardly believe so much
constancy or such greatness of mind to belong to any man; but here
a man comes forward to prove that you have no reason for doubting
that one who is but of human birth can raise himself above human
necessities, can tranquilly behold pains, losses, diseases, wounds,
and great natural convulsions roaring around him, can bear adversity
with calm and prosperity with moderation, neither yielding to the
former nor trusting to the latter, that he can remain the same amid
all varieties of fortune, and think nothing to be his own save
himself, and himself too only as regards his better part. “Behold,”
says he, “I am here to prove to you that although, under the direction
of that destroyer of so many cities, walls may be shaken by the
stroke of the ram, lofty towers may be suddenly brought low by
galleries and hidden mines, and mounds arise so high as to rival
the highest citadel, yet that no siege engines can be discovered
which can shake a well-established mind. I have just crept from
amid the ruins of my house, and with conflagrations blazing all
around I have escaped from the flames through blood. What fate has
befallen my daughters, whether a worse one than that of their
country, I {30} know not. Alone and elderly, and seeing everything
around me in the hands of the enemy, still I declare that my property
is whole and untouched. I have, I hold whatever of mine I have ever
had. There is no reason for you to suppose me conquered and yourself
my conqueror. It is your fortune which has overcome mine. As for
those fleeting possessions which change their owners, I know not
where they are; what belongs to myself is with me, and ever will
be. I see rich men who have lost their estates; lustful men who
have lost their loves, the courtesans whom they cherished at the
cost of much shame; ambitious men who have lost the senate, the law
courts, the places set apart for the public display of men’s vices;
usurers who have lost their account-books, in which avarice vainly
enjoyed an unreal wealth; but I possess everything whole and
uninjured. Leave me, and go and ask those who are weeping and
lamenting over the loss of their money, who are offering their bare
breasts to drawn swords in its defence, or who are fleeing from the
enemy with weighty pockets.” See then, Serenus, that the perfect
man, full of human and divine virtues, can lose nothing; his goods
are surrounded by strong and impassable walls. You cannot compare
with them the walls of Babylon, which Alexander entered, nor the
fortifications of Carthage and Numantia, won by one and the same
hand,[2] nor the Capitol and citadel of Rome, which are branded
with the marks of the victors’ insults; the ramparts which protect
the wise man are safe from fire and hostile invasion; they afford
no passage; they are lofty, impregnable, divine.

VII. You have no cause for saying, as you are wont to do, that this
wise man of ours[3] is nowhere to be found; we do not invent him
as an unreal glory of the human race, or conceive a mighty shadow
of an untruth, but we have displayed and will display him just as
we sketch him, though {31} he may perhaps be uncommon, and only one
appears at long intervals; for what is great and transcends the
common ordinary type is not often produced; but this very Marcus
Cato himself, the mention of whom started this discussion, was a
man who I fancy even surpassed our model. Moreover, that which hurts
must be stronger than that which is hurt. Now wickedness is not
stronger than virtue; therefore the wise man cannot be hurt. Only
the bad attempt to injure the good. Good men are at peace among
themselves; bad ones are equally mischievous to the good and to one
another. If a man cannot be hurt by one weaker than himself, and a
bad man be weaker than a good one, and the good have no injury to
dread, except from one unlike themselves; then, no injury takes
effect upon the wise man; for by this time I need not remind you
that no one save the wise man is good.

“If,” says our adversary, “Socrates was unjustly condemned, he
received an injury.” At this point it is needful for us to bear in
mind that it is possible for some one to do an injury to me, and
yet for me not to receive it, as if any one were to steal something
from my country-house and leave it in my town-house, that man would
commit a theft, yet I should lose nothing. A man may become
mischievous, and yet do no actual mischief: if a man lies with his
own wife as if she were a stranger, he will commit adultery, but
his wife will not; if a man gives me poison and the poison lose its
strength when mixed with food, that man, by administering the poison,
has made himself a criminal, even though he has done no hurt. A man
is no less a brigand because his sword becomes entangled in his
victim’s clothes and misses its mark. All crimes, as far as concerns
their criminality, are completed before the actual deed is accomplished.
Some crimes are of such a nature and bound by such conditions that
the first part can take place without the second. {32} though the
second cannot take place without the first. I will endeavour to
explain these words: I can move my feet and yet not run; but I
cannot run without moving my feet. I can be in the water without
swimming; but if I swim, I cannot help being in the water. The
matter of which we are treating is of this character: if I have
received an injury, it is necessary that some one must have done
it to me; but if an injury has been done me, it is not necessary
that I should have received one; for many circumstances may intervene
to avert the injury, as, for example, some chance may strike the
hand that is aiming at us, and the dart, after it has been thrown,
may swerve aside. So injuries of all kinds may by certain circumstances
be thrown back and intercepted in mid-course, so that they may be
done and yet not received.

VIII. Moreover, justice can suffer nothing unjust, because contraries
cannot co-exist; but an injury can only be done unjustly, therefore
an injury cannot be done to the wise man. Nor need you wonder at
no one being able to do him an injury; for no one can do him any
good service either. The wise man lacks nothing which he can accept
by way of a present, and the bad man can bestow nothing that is
worthy of the wise man’s acceptance; for he must possess it before
he can bestow it, and he possesses nothing which the wise man would
rejoice to have handed over to him. Consequently, no one can do
either harm or good to the wise man, because divine things neither
want help nor are capable of being hurt; and the wise man is near,
indeed very near to the gods, being like a god in every respect
save that he is mortal. As he presses forward and makes his way
towards the life that is sublime, well-ordered, without fear,
proceeding in a regular and harmonious course, tranquil, beneficent,
made for the good of mankind, useful both to itself and to others,
he will neither long nor weep for anything that is grovelling. He
who, trusting to {33} reason, passes through human affairs with
godlike mind, has no quarter from which he can receive injury. Do
you suppose that I mean merely from no man? He cannot receive an
injury even from fortune, which, whenever she contends with virtue,
always retires beaten. If we accept with an undisturbed and tranquil
mind that greatest terror of all, beyond which the angry laws and
the most cruel masters have nothing to threaten us with, in which
fortune’s dominion is contained—if we know that death is not an
evil, and therefore is not an injury either, we shall much more
easily endure the other things, such as losses, pains, disgraces,
changes of abode, bereavements, and partings, which do not overwhelm
the wise man even if they all befall him at once, much less does
he grieve at them when they assail him separately. And if he bears
the injuries of fortune calmly, how much more will he bear those
of powerful men, whom he knows to be the hands of fortune.

IX. He therefore endures everything in the same spirit with which
he endures the cold of winter and the severities of climate, fevers,
diseases, and other chance accidents, nor does he entertain so high
an opinion of any man as to suppose that he acts of set purpose,
which belongs to the wise man alone. All other men have no plans,
but only plots and deceits and irregular impulses of mind, which
he reckons the same as pure accident; now, what depends upon pure
accident cannot rage around us designedly. He reflects, also, that
the largest sources of injury are to be found in those things by
means of which danger is sought for against us, as, for example,
by a suborned accuser, or a false charge, or by the stirring up
against us of the anger of great men, and the other forms of the
brigandage of civilized life. Another common type of injury is when
a man loses some profit or prize for which he has long been angling;
when an inheritance which he {34} has spent great pains to render
his own is left to some one else, or the favour of some noble house,
through which he makes great gain, is taken from him. The wise man
escapes all this, since he knows not what it is to live for hope
or for fear. Add to this, that no one receives an injury unmoved,
but is disturbed by the feeling of it. Now, the man free from
mistakes has no disturbance; he is master of himself, enjoying a
deep and tranquil repose of mind; for if an injury reaches him it
moves and rouses him. But the wise man is without anger, which is
caused by the appearance of injury, and he could not be free from
anger unless he were also free from injury, which he knows cannot
be done to him; hence it is that he is so upright and cheerful,
hence he is elate with constant joy. So far, however, is he from
shrinking from the encounter either of circumstances or of men,
that he makes use of injury itself to make trial of himself and
test his own virtue. Let us, I beseech you, show favour to this
thesis and listen with impartial ears and minds while the wise man
is being made exempt from injury; for nothing is thereby taken away
from your insolence, your greediest lusts, your blind rashness and
pride; it is without prejudice to your vices that this freedom is
sought for the wise man; we do not strive to prevent your doing an
injury, but to enable him to sink all injuries beneath himself and
protect himself from them by his own greatness of mind. So in the
sacred games many have won the victory by patiently enduring the
blows of their adversaries and so wearying them out. Think that the
wise man belongs to this class, that of men who, by long and faithful
practice, have acquired strength to endure and tire out all the
violence of their enemies.

X. Since we have now discussed the first part of our subject, let
us pass on to the second, in which we will prove by arguments, some
of which are our own, but {35} which for the most part are Stoic
commonplaces, that the wise man cannot be insulted. There is a
lesser form of injury, which we must complain of rather than avenge,
which the laws also have considered not to deserve any special
punishment. This passion is produced by a meanness of mind which
shrinks at any act or deed which treats it with disrespect. “He did
not admit me to his house to-day, although he admitted others; he
either turned haughtily away or openly laughed when I spoke;” or,
“he placed me at dinner, not on the middle couch (the place of
honour), but on the lowest one;” and other matters of the same sort,
which I can call nothing but the whinings of a queasy spirit. These
matters chiefly affect the luxuriously-nurtured and prosperous; for
those who are pressed by worse evils have no time to notice such
things as these. Through excessive idleness, dispositions naturally
weak and womanish and prone to indulge in fancies through want of
real injuries are disturbed at these things, the greater part of
which arise from misunderstanding. He therefore who is affected by
insult shows that he possesses neither sense nor trustfulness; for
he considers it certain that he is scorned, and this vexation affects
him with a certain sense of degradation, as he effaces himself and
takes a lower room; whereas the wise man is scorned by no one, for
he knows his own greatness, gives himself to understand that he
allows no one to have such power over him, and as for all of what
I should not so much call distress as uneasiness of mind, he does
not overcome it, but never so much as feels it. Some other things
strike the wise man, though they may not shake his principles, such
as bodily pain and weakness, the loss of friends and children, and
the ruin of his country in war-time. I do not say that the wise man
does not feel these, for we do not ascribe to him the hardness of
stone or iron; there is no virtue but is conscious of its own
endurance. What then does he? He receives some {36} blows, but when
he has received them he rises superior to them, heals them, and
brings them to an end; these more trivial things he does not even
feel, nor does he make use of his accustomed fortitude in the
endurance of evil against them, but either takes no notice of them
or considers them to deserve to be laughed at.

XI. Besides this, as most insults proceed from those who are haughty
and arrogant and bear their prosperity ill, he has something wherewith
to repel this haughty passion, namely, that noblest of all the
virtues, magnanimity, which passes over everything of that kind as
like unreal apparitions in dreams and visions of the night, which
have nothing in them substantial or true. At the same time he
reflects that all men are too low to venture to look down upon what
is so far above them. The Latin word _contumelia_ is derived from
the word _contempt_, because no one does that injury to another
unless he regards him with contempt; and no one can treat his elders
and betters with contempt, even though he does what contemptuous
persons are wont to do; for children strike their parents’ faces,
infants rumple and tear their mother’s hair, and spit upon her and
expose what should be covered before her, and do not shrink from
using dirty language; yet we do not call any of these things
contemptuous. And why? Because he who does it is not able to show
contempt. For the same reason the scurrilous raillery of our slaves
against their masters amuses us, as their boldness only gains licence
to exercise itself at the expense of the guests if they begin with
the master; and the more contemptible and the more an object of
derision each one of them is, the greater licence he gives his
tongue. Some buy forward slave-boys for this purpose, cultivate
their scurrility and send them to school that they may vent
premeditated libels, which we do not call insults, but smart sayings;
yet what madness, at one time to be amused and at another to be
affronted by the same thing, {37} and to call a phrase an outrage
when spoken by a friend, and an amusing piece of raillery when used
by a slave-boy!

XII. In the same spirit in which we deal with boys, the wise man
deals with all those whose childhood still endures after their youth
is past and their hair is grey. What do men profit by age when their
mind has all the faults of childhood and their defects are intensified
by time? when they differ from children only in the size and
appearance of their bodies, and are just as unsteady and capricious,
eager for pleasure without discrimination, timorous and quiet through
fear rather than through natural disposition? One cannot say that
such men differ from children because the latter are greedy for
knuckle-bones and nuts and coppers, while the former are greedy for
gold and silver and cities; because the latter play amongst themselves
at being magistrates, and imitate the purple-edged robe of state,
the lictors’ axes, and the judgment-seat, while the former play
with the same things in earnest in the Campus Martius and the courts
of justice; because the latter pile up the sand on the seashore
into the likeness of houses, and the former, with an air of being
engaged in important business, employ themselves in piling up stones
and walls and roofs until they have turned what was intended for
the protection of the body into a danger to it? Children and those
more advanced in age both make the same mistake, but the latter
deal with different and more important things; the wise man,
therefore, is quite justified in treating the affronts which he
receives from such men as jokes: and sometimes he corrects them,
as he would children, by pain and punishment, not because he has
received an injury, but because they have done one and in order
that they may do so no more. Thus we break in animals with stripes,
yet we are not angry with them when they refuse to carry their
rider, but curb them in order that pain may overcome {38} their
obstinacy. Now, therefore, you know the answer to the question which
was put to us, “Why, if the wise man receives neither injury nor
insult, he punishes those who do these things?” He does not revenge
himself, but corrects them.

XIII. What, then, is there to prevent your believing this strength
of mind to belong to the wise man, when you can see the same thing
existing in others, though not from the same cause?—for what physician
is angry with a crazy patient? who takes to heart the curses of a
fever-stricken one who is denied cold water? The wise man retains
in his dealings with all men this same habit of mind which the
physician adopts in dealing with his patients, whose parts of shame
he does not scorn to handle should they need treatment, nor yet to
look at their solid and liquid evacuations, nor to endure their
reproaches when frenzied by disease. The wise man knows that all
those who strut about in purple-edged togas,[4] healthy and embrowned,
are brain-sick people, whom he regards as sick and full of follies.
He is not, therefore, angry, should they in their sickness presume
to bear themselves somewhat impertinently towards their physician,
and in the same spirit as that in which he sets no value upon their
titles of honour, he will set but little value upon their acts of
disrespect to himself. He will not rise in his own esteem if a
beggar pays his court to him, and he will not think it an affront
if one of the dregs of the people does not return his greeting. So
also he will not admire himself even if many rich men admire him;
for he knows that they differ in no respect from beggars—nay, are
even more wretched than they; for {39} beggars want but a little,
whereas rich men want a great deal. Again, he will not be moved if
the King of the Medes, or Attalus, King of Asia, passes by him in
silence with a scornful air when he offers his greeting; for he
knows that such a man’s position has nothing to render it more
enviable than that of the man whose duty it is in some great household
to keep the sick and mad servants in order. Shall I be put out if
one of those who do business at the temple of Castor, buying and
selling worthless slaves, does not return my salute, a man whose
shops are crowded with throngs of the worst of bondmen? I trow not;
for what good can there be in a man who owns none but bad men? As
the wise man is indifferent to the courtesy or incivility of such
a man, so is he to that of a king. “You own,” says he, “the Parthians
and Bactrians, but they are men whom you keep in order by fear,
they are people whose possession forbids you to unstring the bow,
they are fierce enemies, on sale, and eagerly looking out for a new
master.” He will not, then, be moved by an insult from any man for
though all men differ one from another, yet the wise man regards
them all as alike on account of their equal folly; for should he
once lower himself to the point of being affected by either injury
or insult, he could never feel safe afterwards, and safety is the
especial advantage of the wise man, and he will not be guilty of
showing respect to the man who has done him an injury by admitting
that he has received one, because it necessarily follows that he
who is disquieted at any one’s scorn would value that person’s
admiration.

XIV. Such madness possesses some men that they imagine it possible
for an affront to be put upon them by a woman. What matters it who
she may be, how many slaves bear her litter, how heavily her ears
are laden, how soft her seat? she is always the same thoughtless
creature, and unless she possesses acquired knowledge and {40} much
learning, she is fierce and passionate in her desires. Some are
annoyed at being jostled by a heater of curling-tongs, and call the
reluctance of a great man’s porter to open the door, the pride of
his nomenclator,[5] or the disdainfulness of his chamberlain,
insults. O! what laughter is to be got out of such things, with
what amusement the mind may be filled when it contrasts the frantic
follies of others with its own peace! “How then? will the wise man
not approach doors which are kept by a surly porter?” Nay, if any
need calls him thither, he will make trial of him, however fierce
he may be, will tame him as one tames a dog by offering it food,
and will not be enraged at having to expend entrance-money, reflecting
that on certain bridges also one has to pay toll; in like fashion
he will pay his fee to whoever farms this revenue of letting in
visitors, for he knows that men are wont to buy whatever is offered
for sale.[6] A man shows a poor spirit if he is pleased with himself
for having answered the porter cavalierly, broken his staff, forced
his way into his master’s presence, and demanded a whipping for
him. He who strives with a man makes himself that man’s rival, and
must be on equal terms with him before he can overcome him. But
what will the wise man do when he receives a cuff? He will do as
Cato did when he was struck in the face; he did not flare up and
revenge the outrage, he did not even pardon it, but ignored it,
showing more magnanimity in not acknowledging it than if he had
forgiven it. We will not dwell long upon this point; for who is
there who knows not that none of those things which are thought to
be good or evil are looked upon by the wise man and by mankind in
general in the same manner? He does not regard what all men think
low or wretched; he does not follow the people’s track, but as the
{41} stars move in a path opposite to that of the earth, so he
proceeds contrary to the prejudices of all.

XV. Cease then to say, “Will not the wise man, then, receive an
injury if he be beaten, if his eye be knocked out? will he not
receive an insult if he be hooted through the Forum by the foul
voices of ruffians? if at a court banquet he be bidden to leave the
table and eat with slaves appointed to degrading duties? if he be
forced to endure anything else that can be thought of that would
gall a high spirit?” However many or however severe these crosses
may be, they will all be of the same kind; and if small ones do not
affect him, neither will greater ones; if a few do not affect him,
neither will more. It is from your own weakness that you form your
idea of his colossal mind, and when you have thought how much you
yourselves could endure to suffer, you place the limit of the wise
man’s endurance a little way beyond that. But his virtue has placed
him in another region of the universe which has nothing in common
with you. Seek out sufferings and all things hard to be borne,
repulsive to be heard or seen; he will not be overwhelmed by their
combination, and will bear all just as he bears each one of them.
He who says that the wise man can bear this and cannot bear that,
and restrains his magnanimity within certain limits, does wrong;
for Fortune overcomes us unless she is entirely overcome. Think not
that this is mere Stoic austerity. Epicurus, whom you adopt as the
patron of your laziness, and who, you imagine, always taught what
was soft and slothful and conducive to pleasure, said, “Fortune
seldom stands in a wise man’s way.” How near he came to a manly
sentiment! Do thou dare to speak more boldly, and clear her out of
the way altogether! This is the house of the wise man—narrow,
unadorned, without bustle and splendour, the threshold guarded by
no porters who marshal the crowd of visitors with a haughtiness
proportionate to their bribes—but For {42} tune cannot cross this
open and unguarded threshold. She knows that there is no room for
her where there is nothing of hers.

XVI. Now if even Epicurus, who made more concessions to the body
than any one, takes a spirited tone with regard to injuries, what
can appear beyond belief or beyond the scope of human nature amongst
us Stoics? He says that injuries may be endured by the wise man,
we say that they do not exist for him. Nor is there any reason why
you should declare this to be repugnant to nature. We do not deny
that it is an unpleasant thing to be beaten or struck, or to lose
one of our limbs, but we say that none of these things are injuries.
We do not take away from them the feeling of pain, but the name of
“injury,” which cannot be received while our virtue is unimpaired.
We shall see which of the two is nearest the truth; each of them
agree in despising injury. You ask what difference there is between
them? All that there is between two very brave gladiators, one of
whom conceals his wound and holds his ground, while the other turns
round to the shouting populace, gives them to understand that his
wound is nothing, and does not permit them to interfere on his
behalf. You need not think that it is any great thing about which
we differ; the whole gist of the matter, that which alone concerns
you, is what both schools of philosophy urge you to do, namely, to
despise injuries and insults, which I may call the shadows and
outlines of injuries, to despise which does not need a wise man,
but merely a sensible one, who can say to himself, “Do these things
befall me deservedly or undeservedly? If deservedly, it is not an
insult, but a judicial sentence; if undeservedly, then he who does
injustice ought to blush, not I. And what is this which is called
an insult? Some one has made a joke about the baldness of my head,
the weakness of my eyes, the thinness of my legs, the shortness of
my stature; what insult is there in {43} telling me that which every
one sees? We laugh when _tête-à-tête_ at the same thing at which
we are indignant when it is said before a crowd, and we do not allow
others the privilege of saying what we ourselves are wont to say
about ourselves; we are amused at decorous jests, but are angry if
they are carried too far.”

XVII. Chrysippus says that a man was enraged because some one called
him a sea-sheep; we have seen Fidus Cornelius, the son-in-law of
Ovidius Naso, weeping in the Senate-house because Corbulo called
him a plucked ostrich; his command of his countenance did not fail
him at other abusive charges, which damaged his character and way
of life; at this ridiculous saying he burst into tears. So deplorable
is the weakness of men’s minds when reason no longer guides them.
What of our taking offence if any one imitates our talk, our walk,
or apes any defect of our person or our pronunciation? as if they
would become more notorious by another’s imitation than by our doing
them ourselves. Some are unwilling to hear about their age and grey
hairs, and all the rest of what men pray to arrive at. The reproach
of poverty agonizes some men, and whoever conceals it makes it a
reproach to himself; and therefore if you of your own accord are
the first to acknowledge it, you cut the ground from under the feet
of those who would sneer and politely insult you; no one is laughed
at who begins by laughing at himself. Tradition tells us that
Vatinius, a man born both to be laughed at and hated, was a witty
and clever jester. He made many jokes about his feet and his short
neck, and thus escaped the sarcasms of Cicero above all, and of his
other enemies, of whom he had more than he had diseases. If he, who
through constant abuse had forgotten how to blush, could do this
by sheer brazenness, why should not he who has made some progress
in the education of a gentleman and the study of philosophy? Besides,
it is a sort of revenge to spoil a man’s {44} enjoyment of the
insult he has offered to us; such men say, “Dear me, I suppose he
did not understand it.” Thus the success of an insult lies in the
sensitiveness and rage of the victim; hereafter the insulter will
sometimes meet his match; some one will be found to revenge you
also.

XVIII. Gaius Caesar, among the other vices with which he overflowed,
was possessed by a strange insolent passion for marking every one
with some note of ridicule, he himself being the most tempting
subject for derision; so ugly was the paleness which proved him
mad, so savage the glare of the eyes which lurked under his old
woman’s brow, so hideous his misshapen head, bald and dotted about
with a few cherished hairs; besides the neck set thick with bristles,
his thin legs, his monstrous feet. It would be endless were I to
mention all the insults which he heaped upon his parents and
ancestors, and people of every class of life. I will mention those
which brought him to ruin. An especial friend of his was Asiaticus
Valerius, a proud-spirited man and one hardly likely to put up with
another’s insults quietly. At a drinking bout, that is, a public
assembly, Gaius, at the top of his voice, reproached this man with
the way his wife behaved in bed. Good gods! that a man should hear
that the emperor knew this, and that he, the emperor, should describe
his adultery and his disappointment to the lady’s husband, I do not
say to a man of consular rank and his own friend. Chaerea, on the
other hand, the military tribune, had a voice not befitting his
prowess, feeble in sound, and somewhat suspicious unless you knew
his achievements. When he asked for the watchword Gaius at one time
gave him “Venus,” and at another “Priapus,” and by various means
reproached the man-at-arms with effeminate vice; while he himself
was dressed in transparent clothes, wearing sandals and jewellery.
Thus he forced him to use his sword, that he might not have to ask
for the watchword oftener; it was Chaerea who {45} first of all the
conspirators raised his hand, who cut through the middle of Caligula’s
neck with one blow. After that, many swords, belonging to men who
had public or private injuries to avenge, were thrust into his body,
but he first showed himself a man who seemed least like one. The
same Gaius construed everything as an insult (since those who are
most eager to offer affronts are least able to endure them). He was
angry with Herennius Macer for having greeted him as Gaius—nor did
the chief centurion of triarii get off scot-free for having saluted
him as Caligula; having been born in the camp and brought up as the
child of the legions, he had been wont to be called by this name,
nor was there any by which he was better known to the troops, but
by this time he held “Caligula” to be a reproach and a dishonour.
Let wounded spirits, then, console themselves with this reflexion,
that, even though our easy temper may have neglected to revenge
itself, nevertheless that there will be some one who will punish
the impertinent, proud, and insulting man, for these are vices which
he never confines to one victim or one single offensive act. Let
us look at the examples of those men whose endurance we admire, as,
for instance, that of Socrates, who took in good part the published
and acted jibes of the comedians upon himself, and laughed no less
than he did when he was drenched with dirty water by his wife
Xanthippe. Antisthenes was reproached with his mother being a
barbarian and a Thracian; he answered that the mother of the gods,
too, came from Mount Ida.

XIX. We ought not to engage in quarrels and wrangling; we ought to
betake ourselves far away and to disregard everything of this kind
which thoughtless people do (indeed thoughtless people alone do
it), and to set equal value upon the honours and the reproaches of
the mob; we ought not to be hurt by the one or to be pleased by the
other. Otherwise we shall neglect many essential points, shall
desert our {46} duty both to the state and in private life through
excessive fear of insults or weariness of them, and sometimes we
shall even miss what would do us good, while tortured by this
womanish pain at hearing something not to our mind. Sometimes, too,
when enraged with powerful men we shall expose this failing by our
reckless freedom of speech; yet it is not freedom to suffer nothing—we
are mistaken—freedom consists in raising one’s mind superior to
injuries and becoming a person whose pleasures come from himself
alone, in separating oneself from external circumstances that one
may not have to lead a disturbed life in fear of the laughter and
tongues of all men; for if any man can offer an insult, who is there
who cannot? The wise man and the would-be wise man will apply
different remedies to this; for it is only those whose philosophical
education is incomplete, and who still guide themselves by public
opinion, who would suppose that they ought to spend their lives in
the midst of insults and injuries; yet all things happen in a more
endurable fashion to men who are prepared for them. The nobler a
man is by birth, by reputation, or by inheritance, the more bravely
he should bear himself, remembering that the tallest men stand in
the front rank in battle. As for insults, offensive language, marks
of disgrace, and such-like disfigurements, he ought to bear them
as he would bear the shouts of the enemy, and darts or stones flung
from a distance, which rattle upon his helmet without causing a
wound; while he should look upon injuries as wounds, some received
on his armour and others on his body, which, he endures without
falling or even leaving his place in the ranks. Even though you be
hard pressed and violently attacked by the enemy, still it is base
to give way; hold the post assigned to you by nature. You ask, what
this post is? it is that of being a man. The wise man has another
help, of the opposite kind to this; you are hard at work, while he
has already won the victory. Do not {47} quarrel with your own good
advantage, and, until you shall have made your way to the truth,
keep alive this hope in your minds, be willing to receive the news
of a better life, and encourage it by your admiration and your
prayers; it is to the interest of the commonwealth of mankind that
there should be some one who is unconquered, some one against whom
fortune has no power.


[1] Xerxes.

[2] Scipio.

[3] The Stoics.

[4] Seneca here speaks of men wearing the toga as officials,
contrasted with the mass of Roman citizens, among whom the wearing
of the toga was already falling into disuse in the time of Augustus.
See Macrob., “Sat.,” vi. 5 extr., and Suetonius, “Life of Octavius,”
40, where the author mentions that Augustus used sarcastically to
apply the verse, Virg., ‘Aen.,’ i. 282, to the Romans of his day.

[5] See note, “De Beneficiis,” vi. 33.

[6] Gertz reads ‘decet emere venalia,’ ‘there is no harm in buying
what is for sale.’




{48}

THE THIRD BOOK OF THE DIALOGUES OF L. ANNAEUS SENECA, ADDRESSED TO
NOVATUS.

OF ANGER.

Book I.


You have demanded of me, Novatus, that I should write how anger may
be soothed, and it appears to me that you are right in feeling
especial fear of this passion, which is above all others hideous
and wild: for the others have some alloy of peace and quiet, but
this consists wholly in action and the impulse of grief, raging
with an utterly inhuman lust for arms, blood and tortures, careless
of itself provided it hurts another, rushing upon the very point
of the sword, and greedy for revenge even when it drags the avenger
to ruin with itself. Some of the wisest of men have in consequence
of this called anger a short madness: for it is equally devoid of
self control, regardless of decorum, forgetful of kinship, obstinately
engrossed in whatever it begins to do, deaf to reason and advice,
excited by trifling causes, awkward at perceiving what is true and
just, and very like a falling rock which breaks itself to pieces
upon the very thing which it crushes. That you may know that they
whom anger possesses are not sane, look at their appearance; for
as there are distinct symptoms which mark madmen, such as a bold
and menacing air, a gloomy {49} brow, a stern face, a hurried walk,
restless hands, changed colour, quick and strongly-drawn breathing;
the signs of angry men, too, are the same: their eyes blaze and
sparkle, their whole face is a deep red with the blood which boils
up from the bottom of their heart, their lips quiver, their teeth
are set, their hair bristles and stands on end, their breath is
laboured and hissing; their joints crack as they twist them about,
they groan, bellow, and burst into scarcely intelligible talk, they
often clap their hands together and stamp on the ground with their
feet, and their whole body is highly-strung and plays those tricks
which mark a distraught mind, so as to furnish an ugly and shocking
picture of self-perversion and excitement. You cannot tell whether
this vice is more execrable or more disgusting. Other vices can be
concealed and cherished in secret; anger shows itself openly and
appears in the countenance, and the greater it is, the more plainly
it boils forth. Do you not see how in all animals certain signs
appear before they proceed to mischief, and how their entire bodies
put off their usual quiet appearance and stir up their ferocity?
Boars foam at the mouth and sharpen their teeth by rubbing them
against trees, bulls toss their horns in the air and scatter the
sand with blows of their feet, lions growl, the necks of enraged
snakes swell, mad dogs have a sullen look—there is no animal so
hateful and venomous by nature that it does not, when seized by
anger, show additional fierceness. I know well that the other
passions, can hardly be concealed, and that lust, fear, and boldness
give signs of their presence and may be discovered beforehand, for
there is no one of the stronger passions that does not affect the
countenance: what then is the difference between them and anger?
Why, that the other passions are visible, but that this is conspicuous.

II. Next, if you choose to view its results and the mischief that
it does, no plague has cost the human race {50} more dear: you will
see slaughterings and poisonings, accusations and counter-accusations,
sacking of cities, ruin of whole peoples, the persons of princes
sold into slavery by auction, torches applied to roofs, and fires
not merely confined within city-walls but making whole tracts of
country glow with hostile flame. See the foundations of the most
celebrated cities hardly now to be discerned; they were ruined by
anger. See deserts extending for many miles without an inhabitant:
they have been desolated by anger. See all the chiefs whom tradition
mentions as instances of ill fate; anger stabbed one of them in his
bed, struck down another, though he was protected by the sacred
rights of hospitality, tore another to pieces in the very home of
the laws and in sight of the crowded forum, bade one shed his own
blood by the parricide hand of his son, another to have his royal
throat cut by the hand of a slave, another to stretch out his limbs
on the cross: and hitherto I am speaking merely of individual cases.
What, if you were to pass from the consideration of those single
men against whom anger has broken out to view whole assemblies cut
down by the sword, the people butchered by the soldiery let loose
upon it, and whole nations condemned to death in one common ruin .
. . .[1] as though by {51} men who either freed themselves from our
charge or despised our authority? Why, wherefore is the people angry
with gladiators, and so unjust as to think itself wronged if they
do not die cheerfully? It thinks itself scorned, and by looks,
gestures, and excitement turns itself from a mere spectator into
an adversary. Everything of this sort is not anger, but the semblance
of anger, like that of boys who want to beat the ground when they
have fallen upon it, and who often do not even know why they are
angry, but are merely angry without any reason or having received
any injury, yet not without some semblance of injury received, or
without some wish to exact a penalty for it. Thus they are deceived
by the likeness of blows, and are appeased by the pretended tears
of those who deprecate their wrath, and thus an unreal grief is
healed by an unreal revenge.

III. “We often are angry,” says our adversary, “not with men who
have hurt us, but with men who are going to hurt us: so you may be
sure that anger is not born of injury.” It is true that we are angry
with those who are going to hurt us, but they do already hurt us
in intention, and one who is going to do an injury is already doing
it. “The weakest of men,” argues he, “are often angry with the most
powerful: so you may be sure that anger is not a desire to punish
their antagonist—for men do not desire to punish him when they
cannot hope to do so.” In the first place, I spoke of a desire to
inflict punishment, not a power to do so: now men desire even what
they cannot obtain. In the next place, no one is so low in station
as not to be able to hope to inflict punishment even upon the
greatest of men: we all are powerful for mischief. {52} Aristotle’s
definition differs little from mine: for he declares anger to be a
desire to repay suffering. It would be a long task to examine the
differences between his definition and mine: it may be urged against
both of them that wild beasts become angry without being excited
by injury, and without any idea of punishing others or requiting
them with pain: for, even though they do these things, these are
not what they aim at doing. We must admit, however, that neither
wild beasts nor any other creature except man is subject to anger:
for, whilst anger is the foe of reason, it nevertheless does not
arise in any place where reason cannot dwell. Wild beasts have
impulses, fury, cruelty, combativeness: they have not anger any
more than they have luxury: yet they indulge in some pleasures with
less self-control than human beings. Do not believe the poet who
says:

    “The boar his wrath forgets, the stag forgets the hounds.  The
    bear forgets how ’midst the herd he leaped with frantic bounds.”[2]

When he speaks of beasts being angry he means that they are excited,
roused up: for indeed they know no more how to be angry than they
know how to pardon. Dumb creatures have not human feelings, but
have certain impulses which resemble them: for if it were not so,
if they could feel love and hate, they would likewise be capable
of friendship and enmity, of disagreement and agreement. Some traces
of these qualities exist even in them, though properly all of them,
whether good or bad, belong to the human breast alone. To no creature
besides man has been given wisdom, foresight, industry, and reflexion.
To animals not only human virtues but even human vices are forbidden:
their whole constitution, mental and bodily, is unlike that of human
beings: in them the royal[3] and {53} leading principle is drawn
from another source, as, for instance, they possess a voice, yet
not a clear one, but indistinct and incapable of forming words: a
tongue, but one which is fettered and not sufficiently nimble for
complex movements: so, too, they possess intellect, the greatest
attribute of all, but in a rough and inexact condition. It is,
consequently, able to grasp those visions and semblances which rouse
it to action, but only in a cloudy and indistinct fashion. It follows
from this that their impulses and outbreaks are violent, and that
they do not feel fear, anxieties, grief, or anger, but some semblances
of these feelings: wherefore they quickly drop them and adopt the
converse of them: they graze after showing the most vehement rage
and terror, and after frantic bellowing and plunging they straightway
sink into quiet sleep.

IV. What anger is has been sufficiently explained. The difference
between it and irascibility is evident: it is the same as that
between a drunken man and a drunkard; between a frightened man and
a coward. It is possible for an angry man not to be irascible; an
irascible man may sometimes not be angry. I shall omit the other
varieties of anger, which the Greeks distinguish by various names,
because we have no distinctive words for them in our language,
although we call men bitter, and harsh, and also peevish, frantic,
clamorous, surly, and fierce: all of which are different forms of
irascibility. Among these you may class sulkiness, a refined form
of irascibility; for there are some sorts of anger which go no
further than noise, while some are as lasting as they are common:
some are fierce in deed, but inclined to be sparing of words: some
expend themselves in bitter words and curses: some do not go beyond
complaining and turning one’s back: some are great, deep-seated,
and brood within a man: there are a thousand other forms of a
multiform evil.

V. We have now finished our enquiry as to what anger {54} is, whether
it exists in any other creature besides man, what the difference
is between it and irascibility, and how many forms it possesses.
Let us now enquire whether anger be in accordance with nature, and
whether it be useful and worth entertaining in some measure.

Whether it be according to nature will become evident if we consider
man’s nature, than which what is more gentle while it is in its
proper condition? Yet what is more cruel than anger? What is more
affectionate to others than man? Yet what is more savage against
them than anger? Mankind is born for mutual assistance, anger for
mutual ruin: the former loves society, the latter estrangement. The
one loves to do good, the other to do harm; the one to help even
strangers, the other to attack even its dearest friends. The one
is ready even to sacrifice itself for the good of others, the other
to plunge into peril provided it drags others with it. Who, then,
can be more ignorant of nature than he who classes this cruel and
hurtful vice as belonging to her best and most polished work? Anger,
as we have said, is eager to punish; and that such a desire should
exist in man’s peaceful breast is least of all according to his
nature; for human life is founded on benefits and harmony, and is
bound together into an alliance for the common help of all, not by
terror, but by love towards one another.

VI. “What, then? Is not correction sometimes necessary?” Of course
it is; but with discretion, not with anger; for it does not injure,
but heals under the guise of injury. We char crooked spearshafts
to straighten them, and force them by driving in wedges, not in
order to break them, but to take the bends out of them; and, in
like manner, by applying pain to the body or mind we correct
dispositions which have been rendered crooked by vice. So the
physician at first, when dealing with slight disorders, tries not
to make much change in his patient’s daily habits, to regulate {55}
his food, drink, and exercise, and to improve his health merely by
altering the order in which he takes them. The next step is to see
whether an alteration in their amount will be of service. If neither
alteration of the order or of the amount is of use, he cuts off
some and reduces others. If even this does not answer, he forbids
food, and disburdens the body by fasting. If milder remedies have
proved useless he opens a vein; if the extremities are injuring the
body and infecting it with disease he lays his hands upon the limbs;
yet none of his treatment is considered harsh if its result is to
give health. Similarly, it is the duty of the chief administrator
of the laws, or the ruler of a state, to correct ill-disposed men,
as long as he is able, with words, and even with gentle ones, that
he may persuade them to do what they ought, inspire them with a
love of honour and justice, and cause them to hate vice and set
store upon virtue. He must then pass on to severer language, still
confining himself to advising and reprimanding; last of all he must
betake himself to punishments, yet still making them slight and
temporary. He ought to assign extreme punishments only to extreme
crimes, that no one may die unless it be even to the criminal’s own
advantage that he should die. He will differ from the physician in
one point alone; for whereas physicians render it easy to die for
those to whom they cannot grant the boon of life, he will drive the
condemned out of life with ignominy and disgrace, not because he
takes pleasure in any man’s being punished, for the wise man is far
from such inhuman ferocity, but that they may be a warning to all
men, and that, since they would not be useful when alive, the state
may at any rate profit by their death. Man’s nature is not, therefore,
desirous of inflicting punishment; neither, therefore, is anger in
accordance with man’s nature, because that is desirous of inflicting
punishment. I will also adduce Plato’s argument—for what harm is
there in using {56} other men’s arguments, so far as they are on
our side? “A good man,” says he, “does not do any hurt: it is only
punishment which hurts. Punishment, therefore, does not accord with
a good man: wherefore anger does not do so either, because punishment
and anger accord one with another. If a good man takes no pleasure
in punishment, he will also take no pleasure in that state of mind
to which punishment gives pleasure: consequently anger is not natural
to man.”

VII. May it not be that, although anger be not natural, it may be
right to adopt it, because it often proves useful? It rouses the
spirit and excites it; and courage does nothing grand in war without
it, unless its flame be supplied from this source; this is the goad
which stirs up bold men and sends them to encounter perils. Some
therefore consider it to be best to control anger, not to banish
it utterly, but to cut off its extravagances, and force it to keep
within useful bounds, so as to retain that part of it without which
action will become languid and all strength and activity of mind
will die away.

In the first place, it is easier to banish dangerous passions than
to rule them; it is easier not to admit them than to keep them in
order when admitted; for when they have established themselves in
possession of the mind they are more powerful than the lawful ruler,
and will in no wise permit themselves to be weakened or abridged.
In the next place, Reason herself, who holds the reins, is only
strong while she remains apart from the passions; if she mixes and
befouls herself with them she becomes no longer able to restrain
those whom she might once have cleared out of her path; for the
mind, when once excited and shaken up, goes whither the passions
drive it. There are certain things whose beginnings lie in our own
power, but which, when developed, drag us along by their own force
and leave us no retreat. Those who have flung themselves over a
precipice {57} have no control over their movements, nor can they
stop or slacken their pace when once started, for their own headlong
and irremediable rashness has left no room for either reflexion or
remorse, and they cannot help going to lengths which they might
have avoided. So, also, the mind, when it has abandoned itself to
anger, love, or any other passion, is unable to check itself: its
own weight and the downward tendency of vices must needs carry the
man off and hurl him into the lowest depth.

VIII. The best plan is to reject straightway the first incentives
to anger, to resist its very beginnings, and to take care not to
be betrayed into it: for if once it begins to carry us away, it is
hard to get back again into a healthy condition, because reason
goes for nothing when once passion has been admitted to the mind,
and has by our own free will been given a certain authority, it
will for the future do as much as it chooses, not only as much as
you will allow it. The enemy, I repeat, must be met and driven back
at the outermost frontier-line: for when he has once entered the
city and passed its gates, he will not allow his prisoners to set
bounds to his victory. The mind does not stand apart and view its
passions from without, so as not to permit them to advance further
than they ought, but it is itself changed into a passion, and is
therefore unable to check what once was useful and wholesome strength,
now that it has become degenerate and misapplied: for passion and
reason, as I said before, have not distinct and separate provinces,
but consist of the changes of the mind itself for better or for
worse. How then can reason recover itself when it is conquered and
held down by vices, when it has given way to anger? or how can it
extricate itself from a confused mixture, the greater part of which
consists of the lower qualities? “But,” argues our adversary, “some
men when in anger control themselves.” Do they so far control
themselves that they do nothing which anger dictates, or some {58}
what? If they do nothing thereof, it becomes evident that anger is
not essential to the conduct of affairs, although your sect advocated
it as possessing greater strength than reason . . . . Finally, I
ask, is anger stronger or weaker than reason? If stronger, how can
reason impose any check upon it, since it is only the less powerful
that obey: if weaker, then reason is competent to effect its ends
without anger, and does not need the help of a less powerful quality.
“But some angry men remain consistent and control themselves.” When
do they do so? It is when their anger is disappearing and leaving
them of its own accord, not when it was red-hot, for then it was
more powerful than they. What then? do not men, even in the height
of their anger, sometimes let their enemies go whole and unhurt,
and refrain from injuring them? “They do: but when do they do so?
It is when one passion overpowers another, and either fear or greed
gets the upper hand for a while. On such occasions, it is not thanks
to reason that anger is stilled, but owing to an untrustworthy and
fleeting truce between the passions.

IX. In the next place, anger has nothing useful in itself, and does
not rouse up the mind to warlike deeds: for a virtue, being
self-sufficient, never needs the assistance of a vice: whenever it
needs an impetuous effort, it does not become angry, but rises to
the occasion, and excites or soothes itself as far as it deems
requisite, just as the machines which hurl darts may be twisted to
a greater or lesser degree of tension at the manager’s pleasure.
“Anger,” says Aristotle, “is necessary, nor can any fight be won
without it, unless it fills the mind, and kindles up the spirit.
It must, however, be made use of, not as a general, but as a soldier,”
Now this is untrue; for if it listens to reason and follows whither
reason leads, it is no longer anger, whose characteristic is
obstinacy: if, again, it is disobedient and will not be quiet when
ordered, but is carried away by its own {59} wilful and headstrong
spirit, it is then as useless an aid to the mind as a soldier who
disregards the sounding of the retreat would be to a general. If,
therefore, anger allows limits to be imposed upon it, it must be
called by some other name, and ceases to be anger, which I understand
to be unbridled and unmanageable: and if it does not allow limits
to be imposed upon it, it is harmful and not to be counted among
aids: wherefore either anger is not anger, or it is useless: for
if any man demands the infliction of punishment, not because he is
eager for the punishment itself, but because it is right to inflict
it, he ought not to be counted as an angry man: that will be the
useful soldier, who knows how to obey orders: the passions cannot
obey any more than they can command.

X. For this cause reason will never call to its aid blind and fierce
impulses, over whom she herself possesses no authority, and which
she never can restrain save by setting against them similar and
equally powerful passions, as for example, fear against anger, anger
against sloth, greed against timidity. May virtue never come to
such a pass, that reason should fly for aid to vices! The mind can
find no safe repose there, it must needs be shaken and tempest-tossed
if it be safe only because of its own defects, if it cannot be brave
without anger, diligent without greed, quiet without fear: such is
the despotism under which a man must live if he becomes the slave
of a passion. Are you not ashamed to put virtues under the patronage
of vices? Then, too, reason ceases to have any power if she can do
nothing without passion, and begins to be equal and like unto
passion; for what difference is there between them if passion without
reason be as rash as reason without passion is helpless? They are
both on the same level, if one cannot exist without the other. Yet
who could endure that passion should be made equal to reason? “Then,”
says our adversary, “passion is useful, provided it be moderate.”
{60} Nay, only if it be useful by nature: but if it be disobedient
to authority and reason, al that we gain by its moderation is that
the less there is of it, the less harm it does: wherefore a moderate
passion is nothing but a moderate evil.

XI. “But,” argues he, “against our enemies anger is necessary.” In
no case is it less necessary; since our attacks ought not to be
disorderly, but regulated and under control. What, indeed, is it
except anger, so ruinous to itself, that overthrows barbarians, who
have so much more bodily strength than we, and are so much better
able to endure fatigue? Gladiators, too, protect themselves by
skill, but expose themselves to wounds when they are angry. Moreover,
of what use is anger, when the same end can be arrived at by reason?
Do you suppose that a hunter is angry with the beasts he kills? Yet
he meets them when they attack him, and follows them when they flee
from him, all of which is managed by reason without anger. When so
many thousands of Cimbri and Teutones poured over the Alps, what
was it that caused them to perish so completely, that no messenger,
only common rumour, carried the news of that great defeat to their
homes, except that with them anger stood in the place of courage?
and anger, although sometimes it overthrows and breaks to pieces
whatever it meets, yet is more often its own destruction. Who can
be braver than the Germans? who charge more boldly? who have more
love of arms, among which they are born and bred, for which alone
they care, to the neglect of everything else? Who can be more
hardened to undergo every hardship, since a large part of them have
no store of clothing for the body, no shelter from the continual
rigour of the climate: yet Spaniards and Gauls, and even the unwarlike
races of Asia and Syria cut them down before the main legion comes
within sight, nothing but their own irascibility exposing them to
death. Give but intelligence to those {61} minds, and discipline
to those bodies of theirs, which now are ignorant of vicious
refinements, luxury, and wealth,—to say nothing more, we should
certainly be obliged to go back to the ancient Roman habits of life.
By what did Fabius restore the shattered forces of the state, except
by knowing how to delay and spin out time, which angry men know not
how to do? The empire, which then was at its last gasp, would have
perished if Fabius had been as daring as anger urged him to be: but
he took thought about the condition of affairs, and after counting
his force, no part of which could be lost without everything being
lost with it, he laid aside thoughts of grief and revenge, turning
his sole attention to what was profitable and to making the most
of his opportunities, and conquered his anger before he conquered
Hannibal. What did Scipio do? Did he not leave behind Hannibal and
the Carthaginian army, and all with whom he had a right to be angry,
and carry over the war into Africa with such deliberation that he
made his enemies think him luxurious and lazy? What did the second
Scipio do? Did he not remain a long, long time before Numantia, and
bear with calmness the reproach to himself and to his country that
Numantia took longer to conquer than Carthage? By blockading and
investing his enemies, he brought them to such straits that they
perished by their own swords. Anger, therefore, is not useful even
in wars or battles: for it is prone to rashness, and while trying
to bring others into danger, does not guard itself against danger.
The most trustworthy virtue is that which long and carefully considers
itself, controls itself, and slowly and deliberately brings itself
to the front.

XII. “What, then,” asks our adversary, “is a good man not to be
angry if he sees his father murdered or his mother outraged?” No,
he will not be angry, but will avenge them, or protect them. Why
do you fear that {62} filial piety will not prove a sufficient spur
to him even without anger? You may as well say—“What then? When a
good man sees his father or his son being cut down, I suppose he
will not weep or faint,” as we see women do whenever any trifling
rumour of danger reaches them. The good man will do his duty without
disturbance or fear, and he will perform the duty of a good man,
so as to do nothing unworthy of a man. My father will be murdered:
then I will defend him: he has been slain, then I will avenge him,
not because I am grieved, but because it is my duty. “Good men are
made angry by injuries done to their friends.” When you say this,
Theophrastus, you seek to throw discredit upon more manly maxims;
you leave the judge and appeal to the mob: because every one is
angry when such things befall his own friends, you suppose that men
will decide that it is their duty to do what they do: for as a rule
every man considers a passion which he recognises to be a righteous
one. But he does the same thing if the hot water is not ready for
his drink, if a glass be broken, or his shoe splashed with mud. It
is not filial piety, but weakness of mind that produces this anger,
as children weep when they lose their parents, just as they do when
they lose their toys. To feel anger on behalf of one’s friends does
not show a loving, but a weak mind: it is admirable and worthy
conduct to stand forth as the defender of one’s parents, children,
friends, and countrymen, at the call of duty itself, acting of one’s
own free will, forming a deliberate judgment, and looking forward
to the future, not in an impulsive, frenzied fashion. No passion
is more eager for revenge than anger, and for that very reason it
is unapt to obtain it: being over hasty and frantic, like almost
all desires, it hinders itself in the attainment of its own object,
and therefore has never been useful either in peace or war: for it
makes peace like war, and when in arms forgets that Mars belongs
{63} to neither side, and falls into the power of the enemy, because
it is not in its own. In the next place, vices ought not to be
received into common use because on some occasions they have effected
somewhat: for so also fevers are good for certain kinds of ill-health,
but nevertheless it is better to be altogether free from them: it
is a hateful mode of cure to owe one’s health to disease. Similarly,
although anger, like poison, or falling headlong, or being shipwrecked,
may have unexpectedly done good, yet it ought not on that account
to be classed as wholesome, for poisons have often proved good for
the health.

XIII. Moreover, qualities which we ought to possess become better
and more desirable the more extensive they are: if justice is a
good thing, no one will say that it would be better if any part
were subtracted from it; if bravery is a good thing, no one would
wish it to be in any way curtailed: consequently the greater anger
is, the better it is, for who ever objected to a good thing being
increased? But it is not expedient that anger should be increased:
therefore it is not expedient that it should exist at all, for that
which grows bad by increase cannot be a good thing. “Anger is
useful,” says our adversary, “because it makes men more ready to
fight.” According to that mode of reasoning, then, drunkenness also
is a good thing, for it makes men insolent and daring, and many use
their weapons better when the worse for liquor: nay, according to
that reasoning, also, you may call frenzy and madness essential to
strength, because madness often makes men stronger. Why, does not
fear often by the rule of contraries make men bolder, and does not
the terror of death rouse up even arrant cowards to join battle?
Yet anger, drunkenness, fear, and the like, are base and temporary
incitements to action, and can furnish no arms to virtue, which has
no need of vices, although they may at times be of some little
assistance to sluggish and cowardly minds. {64} No man becomes
braver through anger, except one who without anger would not have
been brave at all: anger does not therefore come to assist courage,
but to take its place. What are we to say to the argument that, if
anger were a good thing it would attach itself to all the best men?
Yet the most irascible of creatures are infants, old men, and sick
people. Every weakling is naturally prone to complaint.

XIV. It is impossible, says Theophrastus, for a good man not to be
angry with bad men. By this reasoning, the better a man is, the
more irascible he will be: yet will he not rather be more tranquil,
more free from passions, and hating no one: indeed, what reason has
he for hating sinners, since it is error that leads them into such
crimes? now it does not become a sensible man to hate the erring,
since if so he will hate himself: let him think how many things he
does contrary to good morals, how much of what he has done stands
in need of pardon, and he will soon become angry with himself also,
for no righteous judge pronounces a different judgment in his own
case and in that of others. No one, I affirm, will be found who can
acquit himself. Every one when he calls himself innocent looks
rather to external witnesses than to his own conscience. How much
more philanthropic it is to deal with the erring in a gentle and
fatherly spirit, and to call them into the right course instead of
hunting them down? When a man is wandering about our fields because
he has lost his way, it is better to place him on the right path
than to drive him away.

XV. The sinner ought, therefore, to be corrected both by warning
and by force, both by gentle and harsh means, and may be made a
better man both towards himself and others by chastisement, but not
by anger: for who is angry with the patient whose wounds he is
tending? “But they cannot be corrected, and there is nothing in
them that is {65} gentle or that admits of good hope.” Then let
them be removed from mortal society, if they are likely to deprave
every one with whom they come in contact, and let them cease to be
bad men in the only way in which they can: yet let this be done
without hatred: for what reason have I for hating the man to whom
I am doing the greatest good, since I am rescuing him from himself?
Does a man hate his own limbs when he cuts them off? That is not
an act of anger, but a lamentable method of healing. We knock mad
dogs on the head, we slaughter fierce and savage bulls, and we doom
scabby sheep to the knife, lest they should infect our flocks: we
destroy monstrous births, and we also drown our children if they
are born weakly or unnaturally formed; to separate what is useless
from what is sound is an act, not of anger, but of reason. Nothing
becomes one who inflicts punishment less than anger, because the
punishment has all the more power to work reformation if the sentence
be pronounced with deliberate judgment. This is why Socrates said
to the slave, “I would strike you, were I not angry.” He put off
the correction of the slave to a calmer season; at the moment, he
corrected himself. Who can boast that he has his passions, under
control, when Socrates did not dare to trust himself to his anger?

XVI. We do not, therefore, need an angry chastiser to punish the
erring and wicked: for since anger is a crime of the mind, it is
not right that sins should be punished by sin. “What! am I not to
be angry with a robber, or a poisoner?” No: for I am not angry with
myself when I bleed myself. I apply all kinds of punishment as
remedies. You are as yet only in the first stage of error, and do
not go wrong seriously, although you do so often: then I will try
to amend you by a reprimand given first in private and then in
public.[4] You, again, have gone {66} too far to be restored to
virtue by words alone; you must be kept in order by disgrace. For
the next, some stronger measure is required, something that he can
feel must be branded upon him; you, sir, shall be sent into exile
and to a desert place. The next man’s thorough villany needs harsher
remedies: chains and public imprisonment must be applied to him.
You, lastly, have an incurably vicious mind, and add crime to crime:
you have come to such a pass, that you are not influenced by the
arguments which are never wanting to recommend evil, but sin itself
is to you a sufficient reason for sinning: you have so steeped your
whole heart in wickedness, that wickedness cannot be taken from you
without bringing your heart with it. Wretched man! you have long
sought to die; we will do you good service, we will take away that
madness from which you suffer, and to you who have so long lived a
misery to yourself and to others, we will give the only good thing
which remains, that is, death. Why should I be angry with a man
just when I am doing him good: sometimes the truest form of compassion
is to put a man to death. If I were a skilled and learned physician,
and were to enter a hospital, or a rich[5] man’s house, I should
not have prescribed the same treatment for all the patients who
were suffering from various diseases. I see different kinds of vice
in the vast number of different minds, and am called in to heal the
whole body of citizens: let us seek for the remedies proper for
each disease. This man may be cured by his own sense of honour,
that one by travel, that one by pain, that one by want, that one
by the sword. If, therefore, it becomes my duty as a magistrate to
put on black[6] robes, and summon an assembly by the sound of a
{67} trumpet,[7] I shall walk to the seat of judgment not in a rage
or in a hostile spirit, but with the countenance of a judge; I shall
pronounce the formal sentence in a grave and gentle rather than a
furious voice, and shall bid them proceed {68} sternly, yet not
angrily. Even when I command a criminal to be beheaded, when I sew
a parricide up in a sack, when I send a man to be punished by
military law, when I fling a traitor or public enemy down the
Tarpeian Rock, I shall be free from anger, and shall look and feel
just as though I were crushing snakes and other venomous creatures.
“Anger is necessary to enable us to punish.” What? do you think
that the law is angry with men whom it does not know, whom it has
never seen, who it hopes will never exist? We ought, therefore, to
adopt the law’s frame of mind, which does not become angry, but
merely defines offences: for, if it is right for a good man to be
angry at wicked crimes, it will also be right for him to be moved
with envy at the prosperity of wicked men: what, indeed, is more
scandalous than that in some cases the very men, for whose deserts
no fortune could be found bad enough, should flourish and actually
be the spoiled children of success? Yet he will see their affluence
without envy, just as he sees their crimes without anger: a good
judge condemns wrongful acts, but does not hate them. “What then?
when the wise man is dealing with something of this kind, will his
mind not be affected by it and become excited beyond its usual
wont?” I admit that it will: he will experience a slight and trifling
emotion; for, as Zeno says, “Even in the mind of the wise man, a
scar remains after the wound is quite healed.” He will, therefore,
feel certain hints and semblances of passions; but he will be free
from the passions themselves.

XVII. Aristotle says that “certain passions, if one makes a proper
use of them, act as arms”: which would be true if, like weapons of
war, they could be taken up or laid aside at the pleasure of their
wielder. These arms, which Aristotle assigns to virtue, fight of
their own accord, do not wait to be seized by the hand, and possess
a man instead of being possessed by him. We have no need of {69}
external weapons, nature has equipped us sufficiently by giving us
reason. She has bestowed this weapon upon us, which is strong,
imperishable, and obedient to our will, not uncertain or capable
of being turned against its master. Reason suffices by itself not
merely to take thought for the future, but to manage our affairs:[8]
what, then, can be more foolish than for reason to beg anger for
protection, that is, for what is certain to beg of what is uncertain?
what is trustworthy of what is faithless? what is whole of what is
sick? What, indeed? since reason is far more powerful by itself
even in performing those operations in which the help of anger seems
especially needful: for when reason has decided that a particular
thing should be done, she perseveres in doing it; not being able
to find anything better than herself to exchange with. She, therefore,
abides by her purpose when it has once been formed; whereas anger
is often overcome by pity: for it possesses no firm strength, but
merely swells like an empty bladder, and makes a violent beginning,
just like the winds which rise from the earth and are caused by
rivers and marshes, which blow furiously without any continuance:
anger begins with a mighty rush, and then falls away, becoming
fatigued too soon: that which but lately thought of nothing but
cruelty and novel forms of torture, is become quite softened and
gentle when the time comes for punishment to be inflicted. Passion
soon cools, whereas reason is always consistent: yet even in cases
where anger has continued to burn, it often happens that although
there may be many who deserve to die, yet after the death of two
or three it ceases to slay. Its first onset is fierce, just as the
teeth of snakes when first roused from their lair are venomous, but
become harmless after repeated bites have exhausted their poison.
Consequently those who are {70} equally guilty are not equally
punished, and often he who has done less is punished more, because
he fell in the way of anger when it was fresher. It is altogether
irregular; at one time it runs into undue excess, at another it
falls short of its duty: for it indulges its own feelings and gives
sentence according to its caprices, will not listen to evidence,
allows the defence no opportunity of being heard, clings to what
it has wrongly assumed, and will not suffer its opinion to be wrested
from it, even when it is a mistaken one.

XVIII. Reason gives each side time to plead; moreover, she herself
demands adjournment, that she may have sufficient scope for the
discovery of the truth; whereas anger is in a hurry: reason wishes
to give a just decision; anger wishes its decision to be thought
just: reason looks no further than the matter in hand; anger is
excited by empty matters hovering on the outskirts of the case: it
is irritated by anything approaching to a confident demeanour, a
loud voice, an unrestrained speech, dainty apparel, high-flown
pleading, or popularity with the public. It often condemns a man
because it dislikes his patron; it loves and maintains error even
when truth is staring it in the face. It hates to be proved wrong,
and thinks it more honourable to persevere in a mistaken line of
conduct than to retract it. I remember Gnaeus Piso, a man who was
free from many vices, yet of a perverse disposition, and one who
mistook harshness for consistency. In his anger he ordered a soldier
to be led off to execution because he had returned from furlough
without his comrade, as though he must have murdered him if he could
not show him. When the man asked for time for search, he would not
grant it: the condemned man was brought outside the rampart, and
was just offering his neck to the axe, when suddenly there appeared
his comrade who was thought to be slain. Hereupon the centurion in
charge of the execution bade the guardsman sheathe his sword, and
led the condemned {71} man back to Piso, to restore to him the
innocence which Fortune had restored to the soldier. They were led
into his presence by their fellow soldiers amid the great joy of
the whole camp, embracing one another and accompanied by a vast
crowd. Piso mounted the tribunal in a fury and ordered them both
to be executed, both him who had not murdered and him who had not
been slain. What could be more unworthy than this? Because one was
proved to be innocent, two perished. Piso even added a third: for
he actually ordered the centurion, who had brought back the condemned
man, to be put to death. Three men were set up to die in the same
place because one was innocent. O, how clever is anger at inventing
reasons for its frenzy! “You,” it says, “I order to be executed,
because you have been condemned to death: you, because you have
been the cause of your comrade’s condemnation, and you, because
when ordered to put him to death you disobeyed your general.” He
discovered the means of charging them with three crimes, because
he could find no crime in them.

XIX. Irascibility, I say, has this fault—it is loth to be ruled:
it is angry with the truth itself, if it comes to light against its
will: it assails those whom it has marked for its victims with
shouting and riotous noise and gesticulation of the entire body,
together with reproaches and curses. Not thus does reason act: but
if it must be so, she silently and quietly wipes out whole households,
destroys entire families of the enemies of the state, together with
their wives and children, throws down their very dwellings, levels
them with the ground, and roots out the names of those who are the
foes of liberty. This she does without grinding her teeth or shaking
her head, or doing anything unbecoming to a judge, whose countenance
ought to be especially calm and composed at the time when he is
pronouncing an important sentence. “What need is there,” asks
Hieronymus, “for you to bite your own lips when you want to strike
some one?” What {72} would he have said, had he seen a proconsul
leap down from the tribunal, snatch the fasces from the lictor, and
tear his own clothes because those of others were not torn as fast
as he wished. Why need you upset the table, throw down the drinking
cups, knock yourself against the columns, tear your hair, smite
your thigh and your breast? How vehement do you suppose anger to
be, if it thus turns back upon itself, because it cannot find vent
on another as fast as it wishes? Such men, therefore, are held back
by the bystanders and are begged to become reconciled with themselves.
But he who while free from anger assigns to each man the penalty
which he deserves, does none of these things. He often lets a man
go after detecting his crime, if his penitence for what he has done
gives good hope for the future, if he perceives that the man’s
wickedness is not deeply rooted in his mind, but is only, as the
saying is, skin-deep. He will grant impunity in cases where it will
hurt neither the receiver nor the giver. In some cases he will
punish great crimes more leniently than lesser ones, if the former
were the result of momentary impulse, not of cruelty, while the
latter were instinct with secret, underhand, long-practised craftiness.
The same fault, committed by two separate men, will not be visited
by him with the same penalty, if the one was guilty of it through
carelessness, the other with a premeditated intention of doing
mischief. In all dealing with crime he will remember that the one
form of punishment is meant to make bad men better, and the other
to put them out of the way. In either case he will look to the
future, not to the past: for, as Plato says, “no wise man punishes
any one because he has sinned, but that he may sin no more: for
what is past cannot be recalled, but what is to come may be checked.”
Those, too, whom he wishes to make examples of the ill success of
wickedness, he executes publicly, not merely in order that they
themselves may die, but that by dying they {73} may deter others
from doing likewise. You see how free from any mental disturbance
a man ought to be who has to weigh and consider all this, when he
deals with a matter which ought to be handled with the utmost care,
I mean, the power of life and death. The sword of justice is
ill-placed in the hands of an angry man.

XX. Neither ought it to be believed that anger contributes anything
to magnanimity: what it gives is not magnanimity but vain glory.
The increase which disease produces in bodies swollen with morbid
humours is not healthy growth, but bloated corpulence. All those
whose madness raises them above human considerations, believe
themselves to be inspired with high and sublime ideas; but there
is no solid ground beneath, and what is built without foundation
is liable to collapse in ruin. Anger has no ground to stand upon,
and does not rise from a firm and enduring foundation, but is a
windy, empty quality, as far removed from true magnanimity as
fool-hardiness from courage, boastfulness from confidence, gloom
from austerity, cruelty from strictness. There is, I say, a great
difference between a lofty and a proud mind: anger brings about
nothing grand or beautiful. On the other hand, to be constantly
irritated seems to me to be the part of a languid and unhappy mind,
conscious of its own feebleness, like folk with diseased bodies
covered with sores, who cry out at the lightest touch. Anger,
therefore, is a vice which for the most part affects women and
children. “Yet it affects men also.” Because many men, too, have
womanish or childish intellects. “But what are we to say? do not
some words fall from angry men which appear to flow from a great
mind?” Yes, to those who know not what true greatness is: as, for
example, that foul and hateful saying, “Let them hate me, provided
they fear me,” which you may be sure was written in Sulla’s time.
I know not which was the worse of the two things he wished {74}
for, that he might be hated or that he might be feared. It occurs
to his mind that some day people will curse him, plot against him,
crush him: what prayer does he add to this? May all the gods curse
him—for discovering a cure for hate so worthy of it. “Let them
hate.” How? “Provided they obey me?” No! “Provided they approve of
me?” No! How then? “Provided they fear me!” I would not even be
loved upon such terms. Do you imagine that this was a very spirited
saying? You are wrong: this is not greatness, but monstrosity. You
should not believe the words of angry men, whose speech is very
loud and menacing, while their mind within them is as timid as
possible: nor need you suppose that the most eloquent of men, Titus
Livius, was right in describing somebody as being “of a great rather
than a good disposition.” The things cannot be separated: he must
either be good or else he cannot be great, because I take greatness
of mind to mean that it is unshaken, sound throughout, firm and
uniform to its very foundation; such as cannot exist in evil
dispositions. Such dispositions may be terrible, frantic, and
destructive, but cannot possess greatness; because greatness rests
upon goodness, and owes its strength to it. “Yet by speech, action,
and all outward show they will make one think them great.” True,
they will say something which you may think shows a great spirit,
like Gaius Caesar, who when angry with heaven because it interfered
with his ballet-dancers, whom he imitated more carefully than he
attended to them when they acted, and because it frightened his
revels by its thunders, surely ill-directed,[9] challenged Jove to
fight, and that to the death, shouting the Homeric verse:—

    “Carry me off, or I will carry thee!”

{75} How great was his madness! He must have believed either that
he could not be hurt even by Jupiter himself, or that he could hurt
even Jupiter itself. I imagine that this saying of his had no small
weight in nerving the minds of the conspirators for their task: for
it seemed to be the height of endurance to bear one who could not
bear Jupiter.

XXI. There is therefore nothing great or noble in anger, even when
it seems to be powerful and to contemn both gods and men alike. Any
one who thinks that anger produces greatness of mind, would think
that luxury produces it: such a man wishes to rest on ivory, to be
clothed with purple, and roofed with gold; to remove lands, embank
seas, hasten the course of rivers, suspend woods in the air. He
would think that avarice shows greatness of mind: for the avaricious
man broods over heaps of gold and silver, treats whole provinces
as merely fields on his estate, and has larger tracts of country
under the charge of single bailiffs than those which consuls once
drew lots to administer. He would think that lust shows greatness
of mind: for the lustful man swims across straits, castrates troops
of boys, and puts himself within reach of the swords of injured
husbands with complete scorn of death. Ambition, too, he would think
shows greatness of mind: for the ambitious man is not content with
office once a year, but, if possible, would fill the calendar of
dignities with his name alone, and cover the whole world with his
titles. It matters nothing to what heights or lengths these passions
may proceed: they are narrow, pitiable, grovelling. Virtue alone
is lofty and sublime, nor is anything great which is not at the
same time tranquil.


[1] Here a leaf or more has been lost, including the fragment cited
in Lactantius, _De ira dei_, 17 “Ira est eupiditas,” &c. The entire
passage is:—“But the Stoics did not perceive that there is a
difference between right and wrong; that there is just and unjust
anger: and as they could find no remedy for it, they wished to
extirpate it. The Peripatetics, on the other hand, declared that
it ought not to be destroyed, but restrained. These I have sufficiently
answered in the sixth book of my ‘Institutiones.’ It is clear that
the philosophers did not comprehend the reason of anger, from the
definitions of it which Seneca has enumerated in the books ‘On
Anger’ which he has written. ‘Anger,’ he says, ‘is the desire of
avenging an injury.’ Others, as Posidonius says, call it ‘a desire
to punish one by whom you think that you have been unjustly injured,’
Some have defined it thus, ‘Anger is an impulse of the mind to
injure him who either has injured you or has sought to injure you.’
Aristotle’s definition differs but little from our own. He says,
‘that anger is a desire to repay suffering,’” etc.

[2] Ovid, “Met.” vii. 545-6.

[3] τὸ ἡγεμονικὸν of the Stoics.

[4] The gospel rule. Matt, xviii. 15.

[5] _Divitis_ (where there might be an army of slaves).

[6] “Lorsque le Préteur devoit prononcer la sentence d’un coupable,
il se depouilloit de la robe pretexte, et se revêtoit alors d’une
simple tunique, ou d’une autre robe, presque usée, et d’un blanc
sale (_sordida_) ou d’un gris très foncé tirant sur le noir (_toga
pulla_), telle qu’en portoient à Rome le peuple et les pauvres
(_pullaque paupertas_). Dans les jours solemnelles et marqués par
un deuil public, les Senateurs quittoient le laticlave, et les
Magistrats la pretexte. La pourpre, la hache, les faisceaux, aucun
de ces signes extérieurs de leur dignité ne les distinguoient alors
des autres citoyens: _sine insignibus Magistratus_. Mais ce n’étoit
pas seulement pendant le temps ou la ville étoit plongée dans le
deuil et dans I’affliction, que les magistrats s’habilloient comme
le peuple (_sordidam vestem induebant_); ils en usoient de même
lorsqu’ils devoient condamner à mort un citoyen. C’est dans ces
tristes circonstances qu’ils quittoient la prétexte et prenoient
la robe de deuil _perversam vestem_. (No doubt “inside out.”—J. E.
B. M.) ”On pourroit supposer avec assez de vraisemblance que par
cette expression, Séneque a voulu faire allusion à ce changement .
. . . . Peut-être les Magistrats qui devoient juger à mort un
citoyen, portoient ils aussi leur robe renversée, ou la jettoient
ils de travers ou confusément sur leurs épaules, pour mieux peindre
par ce desordre le trouble de leur esprit. Si cette conjecture est
vraie, comme je serais assez porté à croire, l’expression _perversa
vestis_ dont Séneque s’est servi ici, indiqueroit plus d’un simple
changement d’habit,” &c, (La Grange’s translation of Seneca, edited
by J, A. Naigeon. Paris, 1778.)

[7] “Ceci fait allusion à une coutume que Caius Gracchus prétend
avoir été pratiquée de tout tems à Rome, ‘Lorsqu’un citoyen,” dit
il, “avoit un procès criminel qui alloit à la mort, s’il refusoit
d’obéir aux sommations qui lui étoient faites; le jour qu’on devoit
le juger, en envoyoit des le matin à la porte de sa maison un
Officier I’appeller au son de la trompette, et jamais avant que
cette cérémonie eût été observée, les Juges ne donneroient leur
voix contre lui: tant ces hommes sages,’ ajoute ce hardi Tribun,
‘avoient de retenue et de precaution dans leurs jugements, quand
il s’agissoit de la vie d’un citoyen.’”

“C’étoit de même au son de la trompette que l’on convoquoit le
peuple, lorsqu’on devoit faire mourir un citoyen, afin qu’il fût
témoin de ce triste spectacle, et que la supplice du coupable pût
lui servir d’exemple. Tacite dit qu’un Astrologue, nommé P. Marcius,
fût exécuté, selon l’ancien usage, hors de la porte Esquiline, en
presence du peuple Romain que les Consuls firent convoquer au son
de la trompette.” (Tac. Ann. II. 32.) L. Grom.

[8] _I.e._ not only for counsel but for action.

[9] _Prorsus parum certis_ (_i.e._, the thunderbolts missed their
aim in not striking him dead).




{76}

THE FOURTH BOOK OF THE DIALOGUES OF L. ANNAEUS SENECA, ADDRESSED
TO NOVATUS.

OF ANGER.

Book II.


My first book, Novatus, had a more abundant subject: for carriages
roll easily down hill:[1] now we must proceed to drier matters. The
question before us is whether anger arises from deliberate choice
or from impulse, that is, whether it acts of its own accord or like
the greater part of those passions which spring up within us without
our knowledge. It is necessary for our debate to stoop to the
consideration of these matters, in order that it may afterwards be
able to rise to loftier themes; for likewise in our bodies the parts
which are first set in order are the bones, sinews, and joints,
which are by no means fair to see, albeit they are the foundation
of our frame and essential to its life: next to them come the parts
of which all beauty of face and appearance consists; and after
these, colour, which above all else charms the eye, is applied last
of all, when the rest of the body is complete. There is no doubt
that anger is roused by the appearance of an injury {77} being done:
but the question before us is, whether anger straightway follows
the appearance, and springs up without assistance from the mind,
or whether it is roused with the sympathy of the mind. Our (the
Stoics’) opinion is, that anger can venture upon nothing by itself,
without the approval of mind: for to conceive the idea of a wrong
having been done, to long to avenge it, and to join the two
propositions, that we ought not to have been injured and that it
is our duty to avenge our injuries, cannot belong to a mere impulse
which is excited without our consent. That impulse is a simple act;
this is a complex one, and composed of several parts. The man
understands something to have happened: he becomes indignant thereat:
he condemns the deed; and he avenges it. All these things cannot
be done without his mind agreeing to those matters which touched
him.

II. Whither, say you, does this inquiry tend? That we may know what
anger is: for if it springs up against our will, it never will yield
to reason: because all the motions which take place without our
volition are beyond our control and unavoidable, such as shivering
when cold water is poured over us, or shrinking when we are touched
in certain places. Men’s hair rises up at bad news, their faces
blush at indecent words, and they are seized with dizziness when
looking down a precipice; and as it is not in our power to prevent
any of these things, no reasoning can prevent their taking place.
But anger can be put to flight by wise maxims; for it is a voluntary
defect of the mind, and not one of those things which are evolved
by the conditions of human life, and which, therefore, may happen
even to the wisest of us. Among these and in the first place must
be ranked that thrill of the mind which seizes us at the thought
of wrongdoing. We feel this even when witnessing the mimic scenes
of the stage, or when reading about things that happened long ago.
We often {78} feel angry with Clodius for banishing Cicero, and
with Antonius for murdering him. Who is not indignant with the wars
of Marius, the proscriptions of Sulla? who is not enraged against
Theodotus and Achillas and the boy king who dared to commit a more
than boyish crime?[2] Sometimes songs excite us, and quickened
rhythm and the martial noise of trumpets; so, too, shocking pictures
and the dreadful sight of tortures, however well deserved, affect
our minds. Hence it is that we smile when others are smiling, that
a crowd of mourners makes us sad, and that we take a glowing interest
in another’s battles; all of which feelings are not anger, any more
than that which clouds our brow at the sight of a stage shipwreck
is sadness, or what we feel, when we read how Hannibal after Cannae
beset the walls of Rome, can be called fear. All these are emotions
of minds which are loth to be moved, and are not passions, but
rudiments which may grow into passions. So, too, a soldier starts
at the sound of a trumpet, although he may be dressed as a civilian
and in the midst of a profound peace, and camp horses prick up their
ears at the clash of arms. It is said that Alexander, when Xenophantus
was singing, laid his hand upon his weapons.

III. None of these things which casually influence the mind deserve
to be called passions: the mind, if I may so express it, rather
suffers passions to act upon itself than forms them. A passion,
therefore, consists not in being affected by the sights which are
presented to us, but in giving way to our feelings and following
up these chance promptings: for whoever imagines that paleness,
bursting into tears, lustful feelings, deep sighs, sudden flashes
of the eyes, and so forth, are signs of passion and betray the {79}
state of the mind, is mistaken, and does not understand that these
are merely impulses of the body. Consequently, the bravest of men
often turns pale while he is putting on his armour; when the signal
for battle is given, the knees of the boldest soldier shake for a
moment; the heart even of a great general leaps into his mouth just
before the lines clash together, and the hands and feet even of the
most eloquent orator grow stiff and cold while he is preparing to
begin his speech. Anger must not merely move, but break out of
bounds, being an impulse: now, no impulse can take place without
the consent of the mind: for it cannot be that we should deal with
revenge and punishment without the mind being cognisant of them. A
man may think himself injured, may wish to avenge his wrongs, and
then may be persuaded by some reason or other to give up his intention
and calm down: I do not call that anger, it is an emotion of the
mind which is under the control of reason. Anger is that which goes
beyond reason and carries her away with it: wherefore the first
confusion of a man’s mind when struck by what seems an injury is
no more anger than the apparent injury itself: it is the subsequent
mad rush, which not only receives the impression of the apparent
injury, but acts upon it as true, that is anger, being an exciting
of the mind to revenge, which proceeds from choice and deliberate
resolve. There never has been any doubt that fear produces flight,
and anger a rush forward; consider, therefore, whether you suppose
that anything can be either sought or avoided without the participation
of the mind.

IV. Furthermore, that you may know in what manner passions begin
and swell and gain spirit, learn that the first emotion is involuntary,
and is, as it were, a preparation for a passion, and a threatening
of one. The next is combined with a wish, though not an obstinate
one, as, for example, “It is my duty to avenge myself, because I
have been injured,” {80} or “It is right that this man should be
punished, because he has committed a crime.” The third emotion is
already beyond our control, because it overrides reason, and wishes
to avenge itself, not if it be its duty, but whether or no. We are
not able by means of reason to escape from that first impression
on the mind, any more than we can escape from those things which
we have mentioned as occurring to the body: we cannot prevent other
people’s yawns temping us to yawn:[3] we cannot help winking when
fingers are suddenly darted at our eyes. Reason is unable to overcome
these habits, which perhaps might be weakened by practice and
constant watchfulness: they differ from an emotion which is brought
into existence and brought to an end by a deliberate mental act.

V. We must also enquire whether those whose cruelty knows no bounds,
and who delight in shedding human blood, are angry when they kill
people from whom they have received no injury, and who they themselves
do not think have done them any injury; such as were Apollodorus
or Phalaris. This is not anger, it is ferocity: for it does not do
hurt because it has received injury: but is even willing to receive
injury, provided it may do hurt. It does not long to inflict stripes
and mangle bodies to avenge its wrongs, but for its own pleasure.
What then are we to say? This evil takes its rise from anger; for
anger, after it has by long use and indulgence made a man forget
mercy, and driven all feelings of human fellowship from his mind,
passes finally into cruelty. Such men therefore laugh, rejoice,
enjoy themselves greatly, and are as unlike as possible in countenance
to angry men, since cruelty is their relaxation. It is said that
when Hannibal saw a trench full of human blood, he exclaimed, “O,
what {81} a beauteous sight!” How much more beautiful would he have
thought it, if it had filled a river or a lake? Why should we wonder
that you should be charmed with this sight above all others, you
who were born in bloodshed and brought up amid slaughter from a
child? Fortune will follow you and favour your cruelty for twenty
years, and will display to you everywhere the sight that you love.
You will behold it both at Trasumene and at Cannae, and lastly at
your own city of Carthage. Volesus, who not long ago, under the
Emperor Augustus, was proconsul of Asia Minor, after he had one day
beheaded three hundred persons, strutted out among the corpses with
a haughty air, as though he had performed some grand and notable
exploit, and exclaimed in Greek, “What a kingly action!” What would
this man have done, had he been really a king? This was not anger,
but a greater and an incurable disease.

VI. “Virtue,” argues our adversary, “ought to be angry with what
is base, just as she approves of what is honourable.” What should
we think if he said that virtue ought to be both mean and great;
yet this is what he means, when he wants her to be raised and
lowered, because joy at a good action is grand and glorious, while
anger at another’s sin is base and befits a narrow mind: and virtue
will never be guilty of imitating vice while she is repressing it;
she considers anger to deserve punishment for itself, since it often
is even more criminal than the faults which which it is angry. To
rejoice and be glad is the proper and natural function of virtue:
it is as much beneath her dignity to be angry, as to mourn: now,
sorrow is the companion of anger, and all anger ends in sorrow,
either from remorse or from failure. Secondly, if it be the part
of the wise man to be angry with sins, he will be more angry the
greater they are, and will often be angry: from which it follows
that the wise man will not only be angry but irascible. {82} Yet
if we do not believe that great and frequent anger can find any
place in the wise man’s mind, why should we not set him altogether
free from this passion? for there can be no limit, if he ought to
be angry in proportion to what every man does: because he will
either be unjust if he is equally angry at unequal crimes, or he
will be the most irascible of men, if he blazes into wrath as often
as crimes deserve his anger.

VII. What, too, can be more unworthy of the wise man, than that his
passions should depend upon the wickedness of others? If so, the
great Socrates will no longer be able to return home with the same
expression of countenance with which he set out. Moreover, if it
be the duty of the wise man to be angry at base deeds, and to be
excited and saddened at crimes, then is there nothing more unhappy
than the wise man, for all his life will be spent in anger and
grief. What moment will there be at which he will not see something
deserving of blame? whenever he leaves his house, he will be obliged
to walk among men who are criminals, misers, spendthrifts, profligates,
and who are happy in being so: he can turn his eyes in no direction
without their finding something to shock them. He will faint, if
he demands anger from himself as often as reason calls for it. All
these thousands who are hurrying to the law courts at break of day,
how base are their causes, and how much baser their advocates? One
impugns his father’s will, when he would have done better to deserve
it; another appears as the accuser of his mother; a third comes to
inform against a man for committing the very crime of which he
himself is yet more notoriously guilty. The judge, too, is chosen
to condemn men for doing what he himself has done, and the audience
takes the wrong side, led astray by the fine voice of the pleader.

VIII. Why need I dwell upon individual cases? Be assured, when you
see the Forum crowded with a multitude, {83} the Saepta[4] swarming
with people, or the great Circus, in which the greater part of the
people find room to show themselves at once, that among them there
are as many vices as there are men. Among those whom you see in the
garb of peace there is no peace: for a small profit any one of them
will attempt the ruin of another: no one can gain anything save by
another’s loss. They hate the fortunate and despise the unfortunate:
they grudgingly endure the great, and oppress the small: they are
fired by divers lusts: they would wreck everything for the sake of
a little pleasure or plunder: they live as though they were in a
school of gladiators, fighting with the same people with whom they
live: it is like a society of wild beasts, save that beasts are
tame with one another, and refrain from biting their own species,
whereas men tear one another, and gorge themselves upon one another.
They differ from dumb animals in this alone, that the latter are
tame with those who feed them, whereas the rage of the former preys
on those very persons by whom they were brought up.

IX. The wise man will never cease to be angry, if he once begins,
so full is every place of vices and crimes. More evil is done than
can be healed by punishment: men seem engaged in a vast race of
wickedness. Every day there is greater eagerness to sin, less
modesty. Throwing aside all reverence for what is better and more
just, lust rushes whithersoever it thinks fit, and crimes are no
longer committed by stealth, they take place before our eyes, and
wickedness has become so general and gained such a footing in
everyone’s breast that innocence is no longer rare, but no longer
exists. Do men break the law singly, or a few at a time? Nay, they
rise in all quarters at once, as though obeying some universal
signal, to wipe out the boundaries of right and wrong.

{84}

    “Host is not safe from guest, Father-in-law from son; but seldom
    love Exists ’twixt brothers; wives long to destroy Their husbands,
    husbands long to slay their wives, Stepmothers deadly aconite
    prepare And child-heirs wonder when their sires will die.”

And how small a part of men’s crimes are these! The poet[5] has not
described one people divided into two hostile camps, parents and
children enrolled on opposite sides, Rome set on fire by the hand
of a Roman, troops of fierce horsemen scouring the country to track
out the hiding-places of the proscribed, wells defiled with poison,
plagues created by human hands, trenches dug by children round their
beleaguered parents, crowded prisons, conflagrations that consume
whole cities, gloomy tyrannies, secret plots to establish despotisms
and ruin peoples, and men glorying in those deeds which, as long
as it was possible to repress them, were counted as crimes—I mean
rape, debauchery, and lust . . . . . Add to these, public acts of
national bad faith, broken treaties, everything that cannot defend
itself carried off as plunder by the stronger, knaveries, thefts,
frauds, and disownings of debt such as three of our present law-courts
would not suffice to deal with. If you want the wise man to be as
angry as the atrocity of men’s crimes requires, he must not merely
be angry, but must go mad with rage.

X. You will rather think that we should not be angry with people’s
faults; for what shall we say of one who is angry with those who
stumble in the dark, or with deaf people who cannot hear his orders,
or with children, because they forget their duty and interest
themselves in the games and silly jokes of their companions? What
shall we say if you choose to be angry {85} with weaklings for being
sick, for growing old, or becoming fatigued? Among the other
misfortunes of humanity is this, that men’s intellects are confused,
and they not only cannot help going wrong, but love to go wrong.
To avoid being angry with individuals, you must pardon the whole
mass, you must grant forgiveness to the entire human race. If you
are angry with young and old men because they do wrong, you will
be angry with infants also, for they soon will do wrong. Does any
one become angry with children, who are too young to comprehend
distinctions? Yet, to be a human being is a greater and a better
excuse than to be a child. Thus are we born, as creatures liable
to as many disorders of the mind as of the body; not dull and
slow-witted, but making a bad use of our keenness of wit, and leading
one another into vice by our example. He who follows others who
have started before him on the wrong road is surely excusable for
having wandered on[6] the highway. A general’s severity may be shown
in the case of individual deserters; but where a whole army deserts,
it must needs be pardoned. What is it that puts a stop to the wise
man’s anger? It is the number of sinners. He perceives how unjust
and how dangerous it is to be angry with vices which all men share.
Heraclitcus, whenever he came out of doors and beheld around him
such a number of men who were living wretchedly, nay, rather perishing
wretchedly, used to weep: he pitied all those who met him joyous
and happy. He was of a gentle but too weak disposition: and he
himself was one of those for whom he ought to have wept. Democritus,
on the other hand, is said never to have appeared in public without
laughing; so little did men’s serious occupations appear serious
to him. What room is there for anger? Everything ought either to
move us to tears or to laughter. The wise man will not be angry
with {86} sinners. Why not? Because he knows that no one is born
wise, but becomes so: he knows that very few wise men are produced
in any age, because he thoroughly understands the circumstances of
human life. Now, no sane man is angry with nature: for what should
we say if a man chose to be surprised that fruit did not hang on
the thickets of a forest, or to wonder at bushes and thorns not
being covered with some useful berry? No one is angry when nature
excuses a defect. The wise man, therefore, being tranquil, and
dealing candidly with mistakes, not an enemy to but an improver of
sinners, will go abroad every day in the following frame of mind:—”Many
men will meet me who are drunkards, lustful, ungrateful, greedy,
and excited by the frenzy of ambition.” He will view all these as
benignly as a physician does his patients. When a man’s ship leaks
freely through its opened seams, does he become angry with the
sailors or the ship itself? No; instead of that, he tries to remedy
it: he shuts out some water, bales out some other, closes all the
holes that he can see, and by ceaseless labour counteracts those
which are out of sight and which let water into the hold; nor does
he relax his efforts because as much water as he pumps out runs in
again. We need a long-breathed struggle against permanent and
prolific evils; not, indeed, to quell them, but merely to prevent
their overpowering us.

XI. “Anger,” says our opponent, “is useful, because it avoids
contempt, and because it frightens bad men.” Now, in the first
place, if anger is strong in proportion to its threats, it is hateful
for the same reason that it is terrible: and it is more dangerous
to be hated than to be despised. If, again, it is without strength,
it is much more exposed to contempt, and cannot avoid ridicule; for
what is more flat than anger when it breaks out into meaningless
ravings? Moreover, because some things are somewhat terrible, they
are not on that account desirable: nor does wisdom wish it {87} to
be said of the wise man, as it is of a wild beast, that the fear
which he inspires is as a weapon to him. Why, do we not fear fever,
gout, consuming ulcers? and is there, for that reason, any good in
them? nay; on the other hand, they are all despised and thought to
be foul and base, and are for this very reason feared. So, too,
anger is in itself hideous and by no means to be feared; yet it is
feared by many, just as a hideous mask is feared by children. How
can we answer the fact that terror always works back to him who
inspired it, and that no one is feared who is himself at peace? At
this point it is well that you should remember that verse of Laberius,
which, when pronounced in the theatre during the height of the civil
war, caught the fancy of the whole people as though it expressed
the national feeling:—

    “He must fear many, whom so many fear.”

Thus has nature ordained, that whatever becomes great by causing
fear to others is not free from fear itself. How disturbed lions
are at the faintest noises! How excited those fiercest of beasts
become at strange shadows, voices, or smells! Whatever is a terror
to others, fears for itself. There can be no reason, therefore, for
any wise man to wish to be feared, and no one need think that anger
is anything great because it strikes terror, since even the most
despicable things are feared, as, for example, noxious vermin whose
bite is venomous: and since a string set with feathers stops the
largest herds of wild beasts and guides them into traps, it is no
wonder that from its effect it should be named a “Scarer.”[7] Foolish
creatures are frightened by foolish things: the movement of chariots
and the sight of their wheels turning round drives lions back into
their cage: elephants are frightened at the cries of pigs: and so
also we fear anger just as children fear the dark, or wild {88}
beasts fear red feathers: it has in itself nothing solid or valiant,
but it affects feeble minds.

XII. “Wickedness,” says our adversary, “must be removed from the
system of nature, if you wish to remove anger: neither of which
things can be done.” In the first place, it is possible for a man
not to be cold, although according to the system of nature it may
be winter-time, nor yet to suffer from heat, although it be summer
according to the almanac. He may be protected against the inclement
time of the year by dwelling in a favoured spot, or he may have so
trained his body to endurance that it feels neither heat nor cold.
Next, reverse this saying:—You must remove anger from your mind
before you can take virtue into the same, because vices and virtues
cannot combine, and none can at the same time be both an angry man
and a good man, any more than he can be both sick and well. “It is
not possible,” says he, “to remove anger altogether from the mind,
nor does human nature admit of it.” Yet there is nothing so hard
and difficult that the mind of man cannot overcome it, and with
which unremitting study will not render him familiar, nor are there
any passions so fierce and independent that they cannot be tamed
by discipline. The mind can carry out whatever orders it gives
itself: some have succeeded in never smiling: some have forbidden
themselves wine, sexual intercourse, or even drink of all kinds.
Some, who are satisfied with short hours of rest, have learned to
watch for long periods without weariness. Men have learned to run
upon the thinnest ropes even when slanting, to carry huge burdens,
scarcely within the compass of human strength, or to dive to enormous
depths and suffer themselves to remain under the sea without any
chance of drawing breath. There are a thousand other instances in
which application has conquered all obstacles, and proved that
nothing which the mind has set itself to endure is difficult. The
men whom I {89} have just mentioned gain either no reward or one
that is unworthy of their unwearied application; for what great
thing does a man gain by applying his intellect to walking upon a
tight rope? or to placing great burdens upon his shoulders? or to
keeping sleep from his eyes? or to reaching the bottom of the sea?
and yet their patient labour brings all these things to pass for a
trifling reward. Shall not we then call in the aid of patience, we
whom such a prize awaits, the unbroken calm of a happy life? How
great a blessing is it to escape from anger, that chief of all
evils, and therewith from frenzy, ferocity, cruelty, and madness,
its attendants?

XIII. There is no reason why we should seek to defend such a passion
as this or excuse its excesses by declaring it to be either useful
or unavoidable. What vice, indeed, is without its defenders? yet
this is no reason why you should declare anger to be ineradicable.
The evils from which we suffer are curable, and since we were born
with a natural bias towards good, nature herself will help us if
we try to amend our lives. Nor is the path to virtue steep and
rough, as some think it to be: it may be reached on level ground.
This is no untrue tale which I come to tell you: the road to happiness
is easy; do you only enter upon it with good luck and the good help
of the gods themselves. It is much harder to do what you are doing.
What is more restful than a mind at peace, and what more toilsome
than anger? What is more at leisure than clemency, what fuller of
business than cruelty? Modesty keeps holiday while vice is overwhelmed
with work. In fine, the culture of any of the virtues is easy, while
vices require a great expense. Anger ought to be removed from our
minds: even those who say that it ought to be kept low admit this
to some extent: let it be got rid of altogether; there is nothing
to be gained by it. Without it we can more easily and more justly
put an end {90} to crime, punish bad men, and amend their lives.
The wise man will do his duty in all things without the help of any
evil passion, and will use no auxiliaries which require watching
narrowly lest they get beyond his control.

XIV. Anger, then, must never become a habit with us, but we may
sometimes affect to be angry when we wish to rouse up the dull minds
of those whom we address, just as we rouse up horses who are slow
at starting with goads and firebrands. We must sometimes apply fear
to persons upon whom reason makes no impression: yet to be angry
is of no more use than to grieve or to be afraid. “What? do not
circumstances arise which provoke us to anger?” Yes: but at those
times above all others we ought to choke down our wrath. Nor is it
difficult to conquer our spirit, seeing that athletes, who devote
their whole attention to the basest parts of themselves, nevertheless
are able to endure blows and pain, in order to exhaust the strength
of the striker, and do not strike when anger bids them, but when
opportunity invites them. It is said that Pyrrhus, the most celebrated
trainer for gymnastic contests, used habitually to impress upon his
pupils not to lose their tempers: for anger spoils their science,
and thinks only how it can hurt: so that often reason counsels
patience while anger counsels revenge, and we, who might have
survived our first misfortunes, are exposed to worse ones. Some
have been driven into exile by their impatience of a single
contemptuous word, have been plunged into the deepest miseries
because they would not endure the most trifling wrong in silence,
and have brought upon themselves the yoke of slavery because they
were too proud to give up the least part of their entire liberty.

XV. “That you may be sure,” says our opponent, “that anger has in
it something noble, pray look at the free nations, such as the
Germans and Scythians, who are especially prone to anger.” The
reason of this is that stout {91} and daring intellects are liable
to anger before they are tamed by discipline; for some passions
engraft themselves upon the better class of dispositions only, just
as good land, even when waste, grows strong brushwood, and the trees
are tall which stand upon a fertile soil. In like manner, dispositions
which are naturally bold produce irritability, and, being hot and
fiery, have no mean or trivial qualities, but their energy is
misdirected, as happens with all those who without training come
to the front by their natural advantages alone, whose minds, unless
they be brought under control, degenerate from a courageous temper
into habits of rashness and reckless daring. “What? are not milder
spirits linked with gentler vices, such as tenderness of heart,
love, and bashfulness?” Yes, and therefore I can often point out
to you a good disposition by its own faults: yet their being the
proofs of a superior nature does not prevent their being vices.
Moreover, all those nations which are free because they are wild,
like lions or wolves, cannot command any more than they can obey:
for the strength of their intellect is not civilized, but fierce
and unmanageable: now, no one is able to rule unless he is also
able to be ruled. Consequently, the empire of the world has almost
always remained in the hands of those nations who enjoy a milder
climate. Those who dwell near the frozen north have uncivilized
tempers—

    “Just on the model of their native skies,”

as the poet has it.

XVI. Those animals, urges our opponent, are held to be the most
generous who have large capacity for anger. He is mistaken when he
holds up creatures who act from impulse instead of reason as patterns
for men to follow, because in man reason takes the place of impulse.
Yet even with animals, all do not alike profit by the same thing.
Anger is of use to lions, timidity to stags, boldness {92} to hawks,
flight to doves. What if I declare that it is not even true that
the best animals are the most prone to anger? I may suppose that
wild beasts, who gain their food by rapine, are better the angrier
they are; but I should praise oxen and horses who obey the rein for
their patience. What reason, however, have you for referring mankind
to such wretched models, when you have the universe and God, whom
he alone of animals imitates because he alone comprehends Him? “The
most irritable men,” says he, “are thought to be the most straightforward
of all.” Yes, because they are compared with swindlers and sharpers,
and appear to be simple because they are outspoken. I should not
call such men simple, but heedless. We give this title of “simple”
to all fools, gluttons, spendthrifts, and men whose vices lie on
the surface.

XVII. “An orator,” says our opponent, “sometimes speaks better,
when he is angry.” Not so, but when he pretends to be angry: for
so also actors bring down the house by their playing, not when they
are really angry, but when they act the angry man well: and in like
manner, in addressing a jury or a popular assembly, or in any other
position in which the minds of others have to be influenced at our
pleasure, we must ourselves pretend to feel anger, fear, or pity
before we can make others feel them, and often the pretence of
passion will do what the passion itself could not have done. “The
mind which does not feel anger,” says he, “is feeble.” True, if it
has nothing stronger than anger to support it. A man ought to be
neither robber nor victim, neither tender-hearted nor cruel. The
former belongs to an over-weak mind, the latter to an over-hard
one. Let the wise man be moderate, and when things have to be done
somewhat briskly, let him call force, not anger, to his aid.

XVIII. Now that we have discussed the questions propounded concerning
anger, let us pass on to the consideration {93} of its remedies.
These, I imagine, are two-fold: the one class preventing our becoming
angry, the other preventing our doing wrong when we are angry. As
with the body we adopt a certain regimen to keep ourselves in health,
and use different rules to bring back health when lost, so likewise
we must repel anger in one fashion and quench it in another. That
we may avoid it, certain general rules of conduct which apply to
all men’s lives must be impressed upon us. We may divide these into
such as are of use during the education of the young and in after-life.

Education ought to be carried on with the greatest and most salutary
assiduity: for it is easy to mould minds while they are still tender,
but it is difficult to uproot vices which have grown up with
ourselves.

XIX. A hot mind is naturally the most prone to anger: for as there
are four elements,[8] consisting of fire, air, earth, and water,
so there are powers corresponding and equivalent to each of these,
namely, hot, cold, dry, and moist. Now the mixture of the elements
is the cause of the diversities of lands and of animals, of bodies
and of character, and our dispositions incline to one or the other
of these according as the strength of each element prevails in us.
Hence it is that we call some regions wet or dry, warm or cold. The
same distinctions apply likewise to animals and mankind; it makes
a great difference how much moisture or heat a man contains; his
character will partake of whichever element has the largest share
in him. A warm temper of mind will make men prone to anger; for
fire is full of movement and vigour; a mixture of {94} coldness
makes men cowards, for cold is sluggish and contracted. Because of
this, some of our Stoics think that anger is excited in our breasts
by the boiling of the blood round the heart: indeed, that place is
assigned to anger for no other reason than because the breast is
the warmest part of the whole body. Those who have more moisture
in them become angry by slow degrees, because they have no heat
ready at hand, but it has to be obtained by movement; wherefore the
anger of women and children is sharp rather than strong, and arises
on lighter provocation. At dry times of life anger is violent and
powerful, yet without increase, and adding little to itself, because
as heat dies away cold takes its place. Old men are testy and full
of complaints, as also are sick people and convalescents, and all
whose store of heat has been consumed by weariness or loss of blood.
Those who are wasted by thirst or hunger are in the same condition,
as also are those whose frame is naturally bloodless and faints
from want of generous diet. Wine kindles anger, because it increases
heat; according to each man’s disposition, some fly into a passion
when they are heavily drunk, some when they are slightly drunk: nor
is there any other reason than this why yellow-haired, ruddy-complexioned
people should be excessively passionate, seeing that they are
naturally of the colour which others put on during anger; for their
blood is hot and easily set in motion.

XX. But just as nature makes some men prone to anger, so there are
many other causes which have the same power as nature. Some are
brought into this condition by disease or bodily injury, others by
hard work, long watching, nights of anxiety, ardent longings, and
love: and everything else which is hurtful to the body or the spirit
inclines the distempered mind to find fault. All these, however,
are but the beginning and causes of anger. Habit of mind has very
great power, and, if it be harsh, increases the {95} disorder. As
for nature, it is difficult to alter it, nor may we change the
mixture of the elements which was formed once for all at our birth:
yet knowledge will be so far of service, that we should keep wine
out of the reach of hot-tempered men, which Plato thinks ought also
to be forbidden to boys, so that fire be not made fiercer. Neither
should such men be over-fed: for if so, their bodies will swell,
and their minds will swell with them. Such men ought to take exercise,
stopping short, however, of fatigue, in order that their natural
heat may be abated, but not exhausted, and their excess of fiery
spirit may be worked off. Games also will be useful: for moderate
pleasure relieves the mind and brings it to a proper balance. With
those temperaments which incline to moisture, or dryness and
stiffness, there is no danger of anger, but there is fear of greater
vices, such as cowardice, moroseness, despair, and suspiciousness:
such dispositions therefore ought to be softened, comforted, and
restored to cheerfulness: and since we must make use of different
remedies for anger and for sullenness, and these two vices require
not only unlike, but absolutely opposite modes of treatment, let
us always attack that one of them which is gaining the mastery.

XXI. It is, I assure you, of the greatest service to boys that they
should be soundly brought up, yet to regulate their education is
difficult, because it is our duty to be careful neither to cherish
a habit of anger in them, nor to blunt the edge of their spirit.
This needs careful watching, for both qualities, both those which
are to be encouraged, and those which are to be checked, are fed
by the same things; and even a careful watcher may be deceived by
their likeness. A boy’s spirit is increased by freedom and depressed
by slavery: it rises when praised, and is led to conceive great
expectations of itself: yet this same treatment produces arrogance
and quickness of temper: we must {96} therefore guide him between
these two extremes, using the curb at one time and the spur at
another. He must undergo no servile or degrading treatment; he never
must beg abjectly for anything, nor must he gain anything by begging;
let him rather receive it for his own sake, for his past good
behaviour, or for his promises of future good conduct. In contests
with his comrades we ought not to allow him to become sulky or fly
into a passion: let us see that he be on friendly terms with those
whom he contends with, so that in the struggle itself he may learn
to wish not to hurt his antagonist but to conquer him: whenever he
has gained the day or done something praiseworthy, we should allow
him to enjoy his victory, but not to rush into transports of delight:
for joy leads to exultation, and exultation leads to swaggering and
excessive self-esteem, We ought to allow him some relaxation, yet
not yield him up to laziness and sloth, and we ought to keep him
far beyond the reach of luxury, for nothing makes children more
prone to anger than a soft and fond bringing-up, so that the more
only children are indulged, and the more liberty is given to orphans,
the more they are corrupted. He to whom nothing is ever denied,
will not be able to endure a rebuff, whose anxious mother always
wipes away his tears, whose _paedagogus_[9] is made to pay for his
shortcomings. Do you not observe how a man’s anger becomes more
violent as he rises in station? This shows itself especially in
those who are rich and noble, or in great place, when the favouring
gale has roused all the most empty and trivial passions of their
minds. Prosperity fosters anger, when a man’s proud ears are
surrounded by a mob of flatterers, saying, “That man answer you!
you do not act according to your dignity, you lower yourself.” And
so forth, with all the language which can hardly be resisted even
by healthy and originally well-principled {97} minds. Flattery,
then, must be kept well out of the way of children. Let a child
hear the truth, and sometimes fear it: let him always reverence it.
Let him rise in the presence of his elders. Let him obtain nothing
by flying into a passion: let him be given when he is quiet what
was refused him when he cried for it: let him behold, but not make
use of his father’s wealth: let him be reproved for what he does
wrong. It will be advantageous to furnish boys with even-tempered
teachers and _paedagogi_: what is soft and unformed clings to what
is near, and takes its shape: the habits of young men reproduce
those of their nurses and _paedagogi_. Once, a boy who was brought
up in Plato’s house went home to his parents, and, on seeing his
father shouting with passion, said, “I never saw any one at Plato’s
house act like that.” I doubt not that he learned to imitate his
father sooner than he learned to imitate Plato. Above all, let his
food be scanty, his dress not costly, and of the same fashion as
that of his comrades: if you begin by putting him on a level with
many others, he will not be angry when some one is compared with
him.

XXII. These precepts, however, apply to our children: in ourselves
the accident of birth and our education no longer admits of either
mistakes or advice; we must deal with what follows. Now we ought
to fight against the first causes of evil: the cause of anger is
the belief that we are injured; this belief, therefore, should not
be lightly entertained. We ought not to fly into a rage even when
the injury appears to be open and distinct: for some false things
bear the semblance of truth. We should always allow some time to
elapse, for time discloses the truth. Let not our ears be easily
lent to calumnious talk: let us know and be on our guard against
this fault of human nature, that we are willing to believe what we
are unwilling to listen to, and that we become angry before we have
formed our opinion. What shall I say? we are influenced {98} not
merely by calumnies but by suspicions, and at the very look and
smile of others we may fly into a rage with innocent persons because
we put the worst construction upon it. We ought, therefore, to plead
the cause of the absent against ourselves, and to keep our anger
in abeyance: for a punishment which has been postponed may yet be
inflicted, but when once inflicted cannot be recalled.

XXIII. Every one knows the story of the tyrannicide who, being
caught before he had accomplished his task, and being tortured by
Hippias to make him betray his accomplices, named the friends of
the tyrant who stood around, and every one to whom he knew the
tyrant’s safety was especially dear. As the tyrant ordered each man
to be slain as he was named, at last the man, being asked if any
one else remained, said, “You remain alone, for I have left no one
else alive to whom you are dear.” Anger had made the tyrant lend
his assistance to the tyrant-slayer, and cut down his guards with
his own sword. How far more spirited was Alexander, who after reading
his mother’s letter warning him to beware of poison from his physician
Philip, nevertheless drank undismayed the medicine which Philip
gave him! He felt more confidence in his friend: he deserved that
his friend should be innocent, and deserved that his conduct should
make him innocent. I praise Alexander’s doing this all the more
because he was above all men prone to anger; but the rarer moderation
is among kings, the more it deserves to be praised. The great Gaius
Caesar, who proved such a merciful conqueror in the civil war, did
the same thing; he burned a packet of letters addressed to Gnaeus
Pompeius by persons who had been thought to be either neutrals or
on the other side. Though he was never violent in his anger, yet
he preferred to put it out of his power to be angry: he thought
that the kindest way to pardon each of them was not to know what
his offence had been.

{99}

XXIV. Readiness to believe what we hear causes very great mischief;
we ought often not even to listen, because in some cases it is
better to be deceived than to suspect deceit. We ought to free our
minds of suspicion and mistrust, those most untrustworthy causes
of anger. “This man’s greeting was far from civil; that one would
not receive my kiss; one cut short a story I had begun to tell;
another did not ask me to dinner; another seemed to view me with
aversion.” Suspicion will never lack grounds: what we want is
straightforwardness, and a kindly interpretation of things. Let us
believe nothing unless it forces itself upon our sight and is
unmistakable, and let us reprove ourselves for being too ready to
believe, as often as our suspicions prove to be groundless: for
this discipline will render us habitually slow to believe what we
hear.

XXV. Another consequence of this will be, that we shall not be
exasperated by the slightest and most contemptible trifles. It is
mere madness to be put out of temper because a slave is not quick,
because the water we are going to drink is lukewarm, or because our
couch is disarranged or our table carelessly laid. A man must be
in a miserably bad state of health if he shrinks from a gentle
breath of wind; his eyes must be diseased if they are distressed
by the sight of white clothing; he must be broken down with debauchery
if he feels pain at seeing another man work. It is said that there
was one Mindyrides, a citizen of Sybaris, who one day seeing a man
digging and vigorously brandishing a mattock, complained that the
sight made him weary, and forbade the man to work where he could
see him. The same man complained that he had suffered from the
rose-leaves upon which he lay being folded double. When pleasures
have corrupted both the body and the mind, nothing seems endurable,
not indeed because it is hard, but because he who has to bear it
{100} is soft: for why should we be driven to frenzy by any one’s
coughing and sneezing, or by a fly not being driven away with
sufficient care, or by a dog’s hanging about us, or a key dropping
from a careless servant’s hand? Will one whose ears are agonised
by the noise of a bench being dragged along the floor be able to
endure with unruffled mind the rude language of party strife, and
the abuse which speakers in the forum or the senate house heap upon
their opponents? Will he who is angry with his slave for icing his
drink badly, be able to endure hunger, or the thirst of a long march
in summer? Nothing, therefore, nourishes anger more than excessive
and dissatisfied luxury: the mind ought to be hardened by rough
treatment, so as not to feel any blow that is not severe.

XXVI. We are angry, either with those who can, or with those who
cannot do us an injury. To the latter class belong some inanimate
things, such as a book, which we often throw away when it is written
in letters too small for us to read, or tear up when it is full of
mistakes, or clothes which we destroy because we do not like them.
How foolish to be angry with such things as these, which neither
deserve nor feel our anger! “But of course it is their makers who
really affront us.” I answer that, in the first place, we often
become angry before making this distinction clear in our minds, and
secondly, perhaps even the makers might put forward some reasonable
excuses: one of them, it may be, could not make them any better
than he did, and it is not through any disrespect to you that he
was unskilled in his trade: another may have done his work so without
any intention of insulting you: and, finally, what can be more crazy
than to discharge upon things the ill-feeling which one has accumulated
against persons? Yet as it is the act of a madman to be angry with
inanimate objects, so also is it to be angry with dumb animals,
which can do us no wrong because they are not able to form a {101}
purpose; and we cannot call anything a wrong unless it be done
intentionally. They are, therefore, able to hurt us, just as a sword
or a stone may do so, but they are not able to do us a wrong. Yet
some men think themselves insulted when the same horses which are
docile with one rider are restive with another, as though it were
through their deliberate choice, and not through habit and cleverness
of handling that some horses are more easily managed by some men
than by others. And as it is foolish to be angry with them, so it
is to be angry with children, and with men who have little more
sense than children: for all these sins, before a just judge,
ignorance would be as effective an excuse as innocence.

XXVII. There are some things which are unable to hurt us, and whose
power is exclusively beneficial and salutary, as, for example, the
immortal gods, who neither wish nor are able to do harm: for their
temperament is naturally gentle and tranquil, and no more likely
to wrong others than to wrong themselves. Foolish people who know
not the truth hold them answerable for storms at sea, excessive
rain, and long winters, whereas all the while these phenomena by
which we suffer or profit take place without any reference whatever
to us: it is not for our sake that the universe causes summer and
winter to succeed one another; these have a law of their own,
according to which their divine functions are performed. We think
too much of ourselves, when we imagine that we are worthy to have
such prodigious revolutions effected for our sake: so, then, none
of these things take place in order to do us an injury, nay, on the
contrary, they all tend to our benefit. I have said that there are
some things which cannot hurt us, and some which would not. To the
latter class belong good men in authority, good parents, teachers,
and judges whose punishments ought to be submitted to by us in the
same spirit in which we {102} undergo the surgeon’s knife, abstinence
from food, and such like things which hurt us for our benefit.
Suppose that we are being punished; let us think not only of what
we suffer, but of what we have done: let us sit in judgement on our
past life. Provided we are willing to tell ourselves the truth, we
shall certainly decide that our crimes deserve a harder measure
than they have received.

XXVIII. If we desire to be impartial judges of all that takes place,
we must first convince ourselves of this, that no one of us is
faultless: for it is from this that most of our indignation proceeds.
“I have not sinned, I have done no wrong.” Say, rather, you do not
admit that you have done any wrong. We are infuriated at being
reproved, either by reprimand or actual chastisement, although we
are sinning at that very time, by adding insolence and obstinacy
to our wrong-doings. Who is there that can declare himself to have
broken no laws? Even if there be such a man, what a stinted innocence
it is, merely to be innocent by the letter of the law. How much
further do the rules of duty extend than those of the law! how many
things which are not to be found in the statute book, are demanded
by filial feeling, kindness, generosity, equity, and honour? Yet
we are not able to warrant ourselves even to come under that first
narrowest definition of innocence: we have done what was wrong,
thought what was wrong, wished for what was wrong, and encouraged
what was wrong: in some cases we have only remained innocent because
we did not succeed. When we think of this, let us deal more justly
with sinners, and believe that those who scold us are right: in any
case let us not be angry with ourselves (for with whom shall we not
be angry, if we are angry even with our own selves?), and least of
all with the gods: for whatever we suffer befalls us not by any
ordinance of theirs but of the common law of all flesh. “But diseases
and pains attack us.” Well, people who live in a crazy {103} dwelling
must have some way of escape from it. Some one will be said to have
spoken ill of you: think whether you did not first speak ill of
him: think of how many persons you have yourself spoken ill. Let
us not, I say, suppose that others are doing us a wrong, but are
repaying one which we have done them, that some are acting with
good intentions, some under compulsion, some in ignorance, and let
us believe that even he who does so intentionally and knowingly did
not wrong us merely for the sake of wronging us, but was led into
doing so by the attraction of saying something witty, or did whatever
he did, not out of any spite against us, but because he himself
could not succeed unless he pushed us back. We are often offended
by flattery even while it is being lavished upon us: yet whoever
recalls to his mind how often he himself has been the victim of
undeserved suspicion, how often fortune has given his true service
an appearance of wrong-doing, how many persons he has begun by
hating and ended by loving, will be able to keep himself from
becoming angry straightway, especially if he silently says to himself
when each offence is committed: “I have done this very thing myself.”
Where, however, will you find so impartial a judge? The same man
who lusts after everyone’s wife, and thinks that a woman’s belonging
to someone else is a sufficient reason for adoring her, will not
allow any one else to look at his own wife. No man expects such
exact fidelity as a traitor: the perjurer himself takes vengeance
of him who breaks his word: the pettifogging lawyer is most indignant
at an action being brought against him: the man who is reckless of
his own chastity cannot endure any attempt upon that of his slaves.
We have other men’s vices before our eyes, and our own behind our
backs: hence it is that a father, who is worse than his son, blames
the latter for giving extravagant feasts,[10] and disapproves of
{104} the least sign of luxury in another, although he was wont to
set no bounds to it in his own case; hence it is that despots are
angry with homicides, and thefts are punished by those who despoil
temples. A great part of mankind is not angry with sins, but with
sinners. Regard to our own selves[11] will make us more moderate,
if we inquire of ourselves:—have we ever committed any crime of
this sort? have we ever fallen into this kind of error? is it for
our interest that we should condemn this conduct?

XXIX. The greatest remedy for anger is delay: beg anger to grant
you this at the first, not in order that it may pardon the offence,
but that it may form a right judgment about it: if it delays, it
will come to an end. Do not attempt to quell it all at once, for
its first impulses are fierce; by plucking away its parts we shall
remove the whole. We are made angry by some things which we learn
at second-hand, and by some which we ourselves hear or see. Now,
we ought to be slow to believe what is told us. Many tell lies in
order to deceive us, and many because they are themselves deceived.
Some seek to win our favour by false accusations, and invent wrongs
in order that they may appear angry at our having suffered them.
One man lies out of spite, that he may set trusting friends at
variance; some because they are suspicious,[12] and wish to see
sport, and watch from a safe distance those whom they have set by
the ears. If you were about to give sentence in court about ever
so small a sum of money, you would take nothing as proved without
a witness, and a witness would count for nothing except on his oath.
You would allow both sides to be heard: you would allow them time:
you would not despatch the matter at one sitting, because the oftener
it is handled the more distinctly the truth appears. And do you
condemn your friend off-hand? {105} Are you angry with him before
you hear his story, before you have cross-examined him, before he
can know either who is his accuser or with what he is charged. Why
then, just now, in the case which you just tried, did you hear what
was said on both sides? This very man who has informed against your
friend, will say no more if he be obliged to prove what he says.
“You need not,” says he, “bring me forward as a witness; if I am
brought forward I shall deny what I have said; unless you excuse
me from appearing I shall never tell you anything.” At the same
time he spurs you on and withdraws himself from the strife and
battle. The man who will tell you nothing save in secret hardly
tells you anything at all. What can be more unjust than to believe
in secret, and to be angry openly?

XXX. Some offences we ourselves witness: in these cases let us
examine the disposition and purpose of the offender. Perhaps he is
a child; let us pardon his youth, he knows not whether he is doing
wrong: or he is a father; he has either rendered such great services,
as to have won the right even to wrong us—or perhaps this very act
which offends us is his chief merit: or a woman; well, she made a
mistake. The man did it because he was ordered to do it. Who but
an unjust person can be angry with what is done under compulsion?
You had hurt him: well, there is no wrong in suffering the pain
which you have been the first to inflict. Suppose that your opponent
is a judge; then you ought to take his opinion rather than your
own: or that he is a king; then, if he punishes the guilty, yield
to him because he is just, and if he punishes the innocent, yield
to him because he is powerful. Suppose that it is a dumb animal or
as stupid as a dumb animal: then, if you are angry with it, you
will make yourself like it. Suppose that it is a disease or a
misfortune; it will take less effect upon you if you bear it quietly:
or that it is a god; then you waste your time by being angry with
him as much {106} as if you prayed him to be angry with some one
else. Is it a good man who has wronged you? do not believe it: is
it a bad one? do not be surprised at this; he will pay to some one
else the penalty which he owes to you—indeed, by his sin he has
already punished himself.

XXXI. There are, as I have stated, two cases which produce anger:
first, when we appear to have received an injury, about which enough
has been said, and, secondly, when we appear to have been treated
unjustly: this must now be discussed. Men think some things unjust
because they ought not to suffer them, and some because they did
not expect to suffer them: we think what is unexpected is beneath
our deserts. Consequently, we are especially excited at what befalls
us contrary to our hope and expectation: and this is why we are
irritated at the smallest trifles in our own domestic affairs, and
why we call our friends’ carelessness deliberate injury. How is it,
then, asks our opponent, that we are angered by the injuries inflicted
by our enemies? It is because we did not expect those particular
injuries, or, at any rate, not on so extensive a scale. This is
caused by our excessive self-love: we think that we ought to remain
uninjured even by our enemies: every man bears within his breast
the mind of a despot, and is willing to commit excesses, but unwilling
to submit to them. Thus it is either ignorance or arrogance that
makes us angry: ignorance of common facts; for what is there to
wonder at in bad men committing evil deeds? what novelty is there
in your enemy hurting you, your friend quarrelling with you, your
son going wrong, or your servant doing amiss? Fabius was wont to
say that the most shameful excuse a general could make was “I did
not think.” I think it the most shameful excuse that a man can make.
Think of everything, expect everything: even with men of good
character something queer will crop up; human nature produces minds
that are treacherous, ungrateful, greedy, and impious: when you are
considering what any {107} man’s morals may be, think what those
of mankind are. When you are especially enjoying yourself, be
especially on your guard: when everything seems to you to be peaceful,
be sure that mischief is not absent, but only asleep. Always believe
that something will occur to offend you. A pilot never spreads all
his canvas abroad so confidently as not to keep his tackle for
shortening sail ready for use. Think, above all, how base and hateful
is the power of doing mischief, and how unnatural in man, by whose
kindness even fierce animals are rendered tame. See how bulls yield
their necks to the yoke, how elephants[13] allow boys and women to
dance on their backs unhurt, how snakes glide harmlessly over our
bosoms and among our drinking-cups, how within their dens bears and
lions submit to be handled with complacent mouths, and wild beasts
fawn upon their master: let us blush to have exchanged habits with
wild beasts. It is a crime to injure one’s country: so it is,
therefore, to injure any of our countrymen, for he is a part of our
country; if the whole be sacred, the parts must be sacred too.
Therefore it is also a crime to injure any man: for he is your
fellow-citizen in a larger state. What, if the hands were to wish
to hurt the feet? or the eyes to hurt the hands? As all the limbs
act in unison, because it is the interest of the whole body to keep
each one of them safe, so men should spare one another, because
they are born for society. The bond of society, however, cannot
exist unless it guards and loves all its members. We should not
even destroy vipers and water-snakes and other creatures whose teeth
and claws are dangerous, if we were able to tame them as we do other
animals, or to prevent their being a peril to us: neither ought we,
therefore, to hurt a man because he has done wrong, but lest he
should do wrong, and our punishment should always look to the future,
and never to the past, because it is inflicted in a spirit of
precaution, not of anger: for if everyone {108} who has a crooked
and vicious disposition were to be punished, no one would escape
punishment.

XXXII. “But anger possesses a certain pleasure of its own, and it
is sweet to pay back the pain you have suffered.” Not at all; it
is not honourable to requite injuries by injuries, in the same way
as it is to repay benefits by benefits. In the latter case it is a
shame to be conquered; in the former it is a shame to conquer.
Revenge and retaliation are words which men use and even think to
be righteous, yet they do not greatly differ from wrong-doing,
except in the order in which they are done: he who renders pain for
pain has more excuse for his sin; that is all. Some one who did not
know Marcus Cato struck him in the public bath in his ignorance,
for who would knowingly have done him an injury? Afterwards when
he was apologizing, Cato replied, “I do not remember being struck.”
He thought it better to ignore the insult than to revenge it. You
ask, “Did no harm befall that man for his insolence?” No, but rather
much good; he made the acquaintance of Cato. It is the part of a
great mind to despise wrongs done to it; the most contemptuous form
of revenge is not to deem one’s adversary worth taking vengeance
upon. Many have taken small injuries much more seriously to heart
than they need, by revenging them: that man is great and noble who
like a large wild animal hears unmoved the tiny curs that bark at
him.

XXXIII. “We are treated,” says our opponent, “with more respect if
we revenge our injuries.” If we make use of revenge merely as a
remedy, let us use it without anger, and not regard revenge as
pleasant, but as useful: yet often it is better to pretend not to
have received an injury than to avenge it. The wrongs of the powerful
must not only be borne, but borne with a cheerful countenance: they
will repeat the wrong if they think they have inflicted it. This
is the worst trait of minds rendered arrogant by {109} prosperity,
they hate those whom they have injured. Every one knows the saying
of the old courtier, who, when some one asked him how he had achieved
the rare distinction of living at court till he reached old age,
replied, “By receiving wrongs and returning thanks for them.” It
is often so far from expedient to avenge our wrongs, that it will
not do even to admit them. Gaius Caesar, offended at the smart
clothes and well-dressed hair of the son of Pastor, a distinguished
Roman knight, sent him to prison. When the father begged that his
son might suffer no harm, Caius, as if reminded by this to put him
to death, ordered him to be executed, yet, in order to mitigate his
brutality to the father, invited him that very day to dinner. Pastor
came with a countenance which betrayed no illwill. Caesar pledged
him in a glass of wine, and set a man to watch him. The wretched
creature went through his part, feeling as though he were drinking
his son’s blood: the emperor sent him some perfume and a garland,
and gave orders to watch whether he used them: he did so. On the
very day on which he had buried, nay, on which he had not even
buried his son, he sat down as one of a hundred guests, and, old
and gouty as he was, drank to an extent which would have been hardly
decent on a child’s birthday; he shed no tear the while; he did not
permit his grief to betray itself by the slightest sign; he dined
just as though his entreaties had gained his son’s life. You ask
me why he did so? he had another son. What did Priam do in the
Iliad? Did he not conceal his wrath and embrace the knees of Achilles?
did he not raise to his lips that death-dealing hand, stained with
the blood of his son, and sup with his slayer? True! but there were
no perfumes and garlands, and his fierce enemy encouraged him with
many soothing words to eat, not to drain huge goblets with a guard
standing over him to see that he did it. Had he only feared for
himself, the father would have treated the {110} tyrant with scorn:
but love for his son quenched his anger: he deserved the emperor’s
permission to leave the banquet and gather up the bones of his son:
but, meanwhile, that kindly and polite youth the emperor would not
even permit him to do this, but tormented the old man with frequent
invitations to drink, advising him thereby to lighten his sorrows.
He, on the other hand, appeared to be in good spirits, and to have
forgotten what had been done that day: he would have lost his second
son had he proved an unacceptable guest to the murderer of his
eldest.

XXXIV. We must, therefore, refrain from anger, whether he who
provokes us be on a level with ourselves, or above us, or below us.
A contest with one’s equal is of uncertain issue, with one’s superior
is folly, and with one’s inferior is contemptible. It is the part
of a mean and wretched man to turn and bite one’s biter: even mice
and ants show their teeth if you put your hand to them, and all
feeble creatures think that they are hurt if they are touched. It
will make us milder tempered to call to mind any services which he
with whom we are angry may have done us, and to let his deserts
balance his offence. Let us also reflect, how much credit the tale
of our forgiveness will confer upon us, how many men may be made
into valuable friends by forgiveness. One of the lessons which
Sulla’s cruelty teaches us is not to be angry with the children of
our enemies, whether they be public or private; for he drove the
sons of the proscribed into exile. Nothing is more unjust than that
any one should inherit the quarrels of his father. Whenever we are
loth to pardon any one, let us think whether it would be to our
advantage that all men should be inexorable. He who refuses to
pardon, how often has he begged it for himself? how often has he
grovelled at the feet of those whom he spurns from his own? How can
we gain more glory than by turning anger {111} into friendship?
what more faithful allies has the Roman people than those who have
been its most unyielding enemies? where would the empire be to-day,
had not a wise foresight united the conquered and the conquerors?
If any one is angry with you, meet his anger by returning benefits
for it: a quarrel which is only taken up on one side falls to the
ground: it takes two men to fight. But[14] suppose that there is
an angry struggle on both sides, even then, he is the better man
who first gives way; the winner is the real loser. He struck you;
well then, do you fall back: if you strike him in turn you will
give him both an opportunity and an excuse for striking you again:
you will not be able to withdraw yourself from the struggle when
you please.

XXXV. Does any one wish to strike his enemy so hard, as to leave
his own hand in the wound, and not to be able to recover his balance
after the blow? yet such a weapon is anger: it is scarcely possible
to draw it back. We are careful to choose for ourselves light
weapons, handy and manageable swords: shall we not avoid these
clumsy, unwieldy,[15] and never-to-be-recalled impulses of the mind?
The only swiftness of which men approve is that which, when bidden,
checks itself and proceeds no further, and which can be guided, and
reduced from a run to a walk: we know that the sinews are diseased
when they move against our will. A man must be either aged or weakly
who runs when he wants to walk: let us think that those are the
most powerful and the soundest operations of our minds, which act
under our own control, not at their own caprice. Nothing, however,
will be of so much service as to consider, first, the hideousness,
and, secondly, the danger of anger. No passion bears a more troubled
aspect: it befouls the fairest face, makes fierce the expression
which before was peaceful. From the angry “all grace has fled;”
{112} though their clothing may be fashionable, they will trail it
on the ground and take no heed of their appearance; though their
hair be smoothed down in a comely manner by nature or art, yet it
will bristle up in sympathy with their mind. The veins become
swollen, the breast will be shaken by quick breathing, the man’s
neck will be swelled as he roars forth his frantic talk: then, too,
his limbs will tremble, his hands will be restless, his whole body
will sway hither and thither. What, think you, must be the state
of his mind within him, when its appearance without is so shocking?
how far more dreadful a countenance he bears within his own breast,
how far keener pride, how much more violent rage, which will burst
him unless it finds some vent? Let us paint anger looking like those
who are dripping with the blood of foemen or savage beasts, or those
who are just about to slaughter them—like those monsters of the
nether world fabled by the poet to be girt with serpents and breathing
flame, when they sally forth from hell, most frightful to behold,
in order that they may kindle wars, stir up strife between nations,
and overthrow peace; let us paint her eyes glowing with fire, her
voice hissing, roaring, grating, and making worse sounds if worse
there be, while she brandishes weapons in both hands, for she cares
not to protect herself, gloomy, stained with blood, covered with
scars and livid with her own blows, reeling like a maniac, wrapped
in a thick cloud, dashing hither and thither, spreading desolation
and panic, loathed by every one and by herself above all, willing,
if otherwise she cannot hurt her foe, to overthrow alike earth,
sea, and heaven, harmful and hateful at the same time. Or, if we
are to see her, let her be such as our poets have described her—

    “There with her blood-stained scourge Bellona fights.  And
    Discord in her riven robe  delights,”[16]

{113} or, if possible, let some even more dreadful aspect be invented
for this dreadful passion.

XXXVI. Some angry people, as Sextius remarks, have been benefited
by looking at the glass: they have been struck by so great an
alteration in their own appearance: they have been, as it were,
brought into their own presence and have not recognized themselves:
yet how small a part of the real hideousness of anger did that
reflected image in the mirror reproduce? Could the mind be displayed
or made to appear through any substance, we should be confounded
when we beheld how black and stained, how agitated, distorted, and
swollen it looked: even at present it is very ugly when seen through
all the screens of blood, bones, and so forth: what would it be,
were it displayed uncovered? You say, that you do not believe that
any one was ever scared out of anger by a mirror: and why not?
Because when he came to the mirror to change his mind, he had changed
it already: to angry men no face looks fairer than one that is
fierce and savage and such as they wish to look like. We ought
rather to consider, how many men anger itself has injured. Some in
their excessive heat have burst their veins; some by straining their
voices beyond their strength have vomited blood, or have injured
their sight by too violently injecting humours into their eyes, and
have fallen sick when the fit passed off. No way leads more swiftly
to madness: many have, consequently, remained always in the frenzy
of anger, and, having once lost their reason, have never recovered
it. Ajax was driven mad by anger, and driven to suicide by madness.
Men, frantic with rage, call upon heaven to slay their children,
to reduce themselves to poverty, and to ruin their houses, and yet
declare that they are not either angry or insane. Enemies to their
best friends, dangerous to their nearest and dearest, regardless
of the laws save where they injure, swayed by the smallest trifles,
unwilling to lend their ears {114} to the advice or the services
of their friends, they do everything by main force, and are ready
either to fight with their swords or to throw themselves upon them,
for the greatest of all evils, and one which surpasses all vices,
has gained possession of them. Other passions gain a footing in the
mind by slow degrees: anger’s conquest is sudden and complete, and,
moreover, it makes all other passions subservient to itself. It
conquers the warmest love: men have thrust swords through the bodies
of those whom they loved, and have slain those in whose arms they
have lain. Avarice, that sternest and most rigid of passions, is
trampled underfoot by anger, which forces it to squander its carefully
collected wealth and set fire to its house and all its property in
one heap. Why, has not even the ambitious man been known to fling
away the most highly valued ensigns of rank, and to refuse high
office when it was offered to him? There is no passion over which
anger does not bear absolute rule.


[1] “_Vehiculorum ridicule Koch_,” says Gertz, justly, “_vitiorum_
makes excellent sense.”—J. E. B. M.

[2] The murder of Pompeius, B.C. 48. Achillas and Theodotus acted
under the nominal orders of Ptolemy XII., Cleopatra’s brother, then
about seventeen years of age.

[3] See “De Clem.” ii. 6, 4, I emended many years ago ένὸς χανόντος
με ΤΕΣΧΗΚεν into ἐ. χ., με ΤΑΚΕΧΗΝεν ἄτερος: “when one has yawned,
the other yawns.”—J. E. B. M.

[4] The voting-place in the Campus Martius.

[5] Ovid, Metamorphoses, i., 144, sqq. The same lines are quoted
in the essay on Benefits, v. 15.

[6] _I.e._, he can plead that he kept the beaten track.

[7] De Clem. i. 12, 5.

[8] Compare Shakespeare, “Julius Caesar,” Act v. Sc. 5:—

    “His life was gentle, and the elements So mixed in him, that
    nature might stand up And say to all the world, _this was a
    man!_”

See Mr. Aldis Wright’s note upon the passage.

[9] _Paedagogus_ was a slave who accompanied a boy to school, &c.,
to keep him out of mischief; he did not teach him anything.

[10] _Tempestiva_, beginning before the usual hour.

[11] Fear of self-condemnation.

[12] Lipsius conjectures _supprocax_, mischievous.

[13] I have adopted the transposition of Haase and Koch.

[14] I adopt Vahlen’s reading. See his Preface, p. viii., ed, Jenae,
1879.

[15] I read _onerosos_ with Vahlen, See his Preface, p, viii., ed,
Jenae, 1879.

[16] The lines are from Virgil, Aen. viii. 702, but are inaccurately
quoted.




{115}

THE FIFTH BOOK OF THE DIALOGUES OF L. ANNAEUS SENECA, ADDRESSED TO
NOVATUS.

OF ANGER.

Book III.


I. We will now, my Novatus, attempt to do that which you so especially
long to do, that is, to drive out anger from our minds, or at all
events to curb it and restrain its impulses. This may sometimes be
done openly and without concealment, when we are only suffering
from a slight attack of this mischief, and at other times it must
be done secretly, when our anger is excessively hot, and when every
obstacle thrown in its way increases it and makes it blaze higher.
It is important to know how great and how fresh its strength may
be, and whether it can be driven forcibly back and suppressed, or
whether we must give way to it until its first storm blow over,
lest it sweep away with it our remedies themselves. We must deal
with each case according to each man’s character: some yield to
entreaties, others are rendered arrogant and masterful by submission:
we may frighten some men out of their anger, while some may be
turned from their purpose by reproaches, some by acknowledging
oneself to be in the wrong, some by shame, and some by delay, a
tardy remedy for a hasty disorder, which we ought only to use when
all others have failed: {116} for other passions admit of having
their case put off, and may be healed at a later time; but the eager
and self-destructive violence of anger does not grow up by slow
degrees, but reaches its full height as soon as it begins. Nor does
it, like other vices, merely disturb men’s minds, but it takes them
away, and torments them till they are incapable of restraining
themselves and eager for the common ruin of all men, nor does it
rage merely against its object, but against every obstacle which
it encounters on its way. The other vices move our minds; anger
hurls them headlong. If we are not able to withstand our passions,
yet at any rate our passions ought to stand firm: but anger grows
more and more powerful, like lightning flashes or hurricanes, or
any other things which cannot stop themselves because they do not
proceed along, but fall from above. Other vices affect our judgment,
anger affects our sanity: others come in mild attacks and grow
unnoticed, but men’s minds plunge abruptly into anger. There is no
passion that is more frantic, more destructive to its own self; it
is arrogant if successful, and frantic if it fails. Even when
defeated it does not grow weary, but if chance places its foe beyond
its reach, it turns its teeth against itself. Its intensity is in
no way regulated by its origin: for it rises to the greatest heights
from the most trivial beginnings.

II. It passes over no time of life; no race of men is exempt from
it: some nations have been saved from the knowledge of luxury by
the blessing of poverty; some through their active and wandering
habits have escaped from sloth; those whose manners are unpolished
and whose life is rustic know not chicanery and fraud and all the
evils to which the courts of law give birth: but there is no race
which is not excited by anger, which is equally powerful with Greeks
and barbarians, and is just as ruinous among law-abiding folk as
among those whose only law is that of the {117} stronger. Finally,
the other passions seize upon individuals; anger is the only one
which sometimes possesses a whole state. No entire people ever fell
madly in love with a woman, nor did any nation ever set its affections
altogether upon gain and profit. Ambition attacks single individuals;
ungovernable rage is the only passion that affects nations. People
often fly into a passion by troops; men and women, old men and boys,
princes and populace all act alike, and the whole multitude, after
being excited by a very few words, outdoes even its exciter: men
betake themselves straightway to fire and sword, and proclaim a war
against their neighbours or wage one against their countrymen. Whole
houses are burned with the entire families which they contain, and
he who but lately was honoured for his popular eloquence now finds
that his speech moves people to rage. Legions aim their darts at
their commander; the whole populace quarrels with the nobles; the
senate, without waiting for troops to be levied or appointing a
general, hastily chooses leaders, for its anger chases well-born
men through the houses of Rome, and puts them to death with its own
hand. Ambassadors are outraged, the law of nations violated, and
an unnatural madness seizes the state. Without allowing time for
the general excitement to subside, fleets are straightway launched
and laden with a hastily enrolled soldiery. Without organization,
without taking any auspices, the populace rushes into the field
guided only by its own anger, snatches up whatever comes first to
hand by way of arms, and then atones by a great defeat for the
reckless audacity of its anger. This is usually the fate of savage
nations when they plunge into war: as soon as their easily excited
minds are roused by the appearance of wrong having been done them,
they straightway hasten forth, and, guided only by their wounded
feelings, fall like an avalanche upon our legions, without either
discipline, fear, or precaution, and wilfully seeking for danger.
They {118} delight in being struck, in pressing forward to meet the
blow, writhing their bodies along the weapon, and perishing by a
wound which they themselves make.

III. “No doubt,” you say, “anger is very powerful and ruinous: point
out, therefore, how it may be cured.” Yet, as I stated in my former
books, Aristotle stands forth in defence of anger, and forbids it
to be uprooted, saying that it is the spur of virtue, and that when
it is taken away, our minds become weaponless, and slow to attempt
great exploits. It is therefore essential to prove its unseemliness
and ferocity, and to place distinctly before our eyes how monstrous
a thing it is that one man should rage against another, with what
frantic violence he rushes to destroy alike himself and his foe,
and overthrows those very things whose fall he himself must share.
What, then? can any one call this man sane, who, as though caught
up by a hurricane, does not go but is driven, and is the slave of
a senseless disorder? He does not commit to another the duty of
revenging him, but himself exacts it, raging alike in thought and
deed, butchering those who are dearest to him, and for whose loss
he himself will ere long weep. Will any one give this passion as
an assistant and companion to virtue, although it disturbs calm
reason, without which virtue can do nothing? The strength which a
sick man owes to a paroxysm of disease is neither lasting nor
wholesome, and is strong only to its own destruction. You need not,
therefore, imagine that I am wasting time over a useless task in
defaming anger, as though men had not made up their minds about it,
when there is some one, and he, too, an illustrious philosopher,
who assigns it services to perform, and speaks of it as useful and
supplying energy for battles, for the management of business, and
indeed for everything which requires to be conducted with spirit.
Lest it should delude any one into thinking that on certain occasions
and in certain positions it may be useful, we must show its {119}
unbridled and frenzied madness, we must restore to it its attributes,
the rack, the cord, the dungeon, and the cross, the fires lighted
round men’s buried bodies, the hook[1] that drags both living men
and corpses, the different kinds of fetters, and of punishments,
the mutilations of limbs, the branding of the forehead, the dens
of savage beasts. Anger should be represented as standing among
these her instruments, growling in an ominous and terrible fashion,
herself more shocking than any of the means by which she gives vent
to her fury.

IV. There may be some doubt about the others, but at any rate no
passion has a worse look. We have described the angry man’s appearance
in our former books, how sharp and keen he looks, at one time pale
as his blood is driven inwards and backwards, at another with all
the heat and fire of his body directed to his face, making it
reddish-coloured as if stained with blood, his eyes now restless
and starting out of his head, now set motionless in one fixed gaze.
Add to this his teeth, which gnash against one another, as though
he wished to eat somebody, with exactly the sound of a wild boar
sharpening his tusks: add also the cracking of his joints, the
involuntary wringing of his hands, the frequent slaps he deals
himself on the chest, his hurried breathing and deep-drawn sighs,
his reeling body, his abrupt broken speech, and his trembling lips,
which sometimes he draws tight as he hisses some curse through them.
By Hercules, no wild beast, neither when tortured by hunger, or
with a weapon struck through its vitals, not even when it gathers
its last breath to bite its slayer, looks so shocking as a man
raging with anger. Listen, if you have leisure, to his words {120}
and threats: how dreadful is the language of his agonized mind!
Would not every man wish to lay aside anger when he sees that it
begins by injuring himself? When men employ anger as the most
powerful of agents, consider it to be a proof of power, and reckon
a speedy revenge among the greatest blessings of great prosperity,
would you not wish me to warn them that he who is the slave of his
own anger is not powerful, nor even free? Would you not wish me to
warn all the more industrious and circumspect of men, that while
other evil passions assail the base, anger gradually obtains dominion
over the minds even of learned and in other respects sensible men?
So true is that, that some declare anger to be a proof of
straight-forwardness, and it is commonly believed that the best-natured
people are prone to it.

V. You ask me, whither does all this tend? To prove, I answer, that
no one should imagine himself to be safe from anger, seeing that
it rouses up even those who are naturally gentle and quiet to commit
savage and violent acts. As strength of body and assiduous care of
the health avail nothing against a pestilence, which attacks the
strong and weak alike, so also steady and good-humoured people are
just as liable to attacks of anger as those of unsettled character,
and in the case of the former it is both more to be ashamed of and
more to be feared, because it makes a greater alteration in their
habits. Now as the first thing is not to be angry, the second to
lay aside our anger, and the third to be able to heal the anger of
others as well as our own, I will set forth first how we may avoid
falling into anger; next, how we may set ourselves free from it,
and, lastly, how we may restrain an angry man, appease his wrath,
and bring him back to his right mind. We shall succeed in avoiding
anger, if from time to time we lay before our minds all the vices
connected with anger, and estimate it at its real value: it must
be prosecuted {121} before us and convicted: its evils must be
thoroughly investigated and exposed. That we may see what it is,
let it be compared with the worst vices. Avarice scrapes together
and amasses riches for some better man to use: anger spends money;
few can indulge in it for nothing. How many slaves an angry master
drives to run away or to commit suicide! how much more he loses by
his anger than the value of what he originally became angry about!
Anger brings grief to a father, divorce to a husband, hatred to a
magistrate, failure to a candidate for office. It is worse than
luxury, because luxury enjoys its own pleasure, while anger enjoys
another’s pain. It is worse than either spitefulness or envy; for
they wish that some one may become unhappy, while anger wishes to
make him so: they are pleased when evil befalls one by accident,
but anger cannot wait upon Fortune; it desires to injure its victim
personally, and is not satisfied merely with his being injured.
Nothing is more dangerous than jealousy: it is produced by anger.
Nothing is more ruinous than war: it is the outcome of powerful
men’s anger; and even the anger of humble private persons, though
without arms or armies, is nevertheless war. Moreover, even if we
pass over its immediate consequences, such as heavy losses, treacherous
plots, and the constant anxiety produced by strife, anger pays a
penalty at the same moment that it exacts one: it forswears human
feelings. The latter urge us to love, anger urges us to hatred: the
latter bid us do men good, anger bids us do them harm. Add to this
that, although its rage arises from an excessive self-respect and
appears to show high spirit, it really is contemptible and mean:
for a man must be inferior to one by whom he thinks himself despised,
whereas the truly great mind, which takes a true estimate of its
own value, does not revenge an insult because it does not feel it.
As weapons rebound from a hard surface, and solid substances hurt
{122} those who strike them, so also no insult can make a really
great mind sensible of its presence, being weaker than that against
which it is aimed. How far more glorious is it to throw back all
wrongs and insults from oneself, like one wearing armour of proof
against all weapons, for revenge is an admission that we have been
hurt. That cannot be a great mind which is disturbed by injury. He
who has hurt you must be either stronger or weaker than yourself.
If he be weaker, spare him: if he be stronger, spare yourself.

VI. There is no greater proof of magnanimity than that nothing which
befalls you should be able to move you to anger. The higher region
of the universe, being more excellently ordered and near to the
stars, is never gathered into clouds, driven about by storms, or
whirled round by cyclones: it is free from all disturbance: the
lightnings flash in the region below it. In like manner a lofty
mind, always placid and dwelling in a serene atmosphere, restraining
within itself all the impulses from which anger springs, is modest,
commands respect, and remains calm and collected: none of which
qualities will you find in an angry man: for who, when under the
influence of grief and rage, does not first get rid of bashfulness?
who, when excited and confused and about to attack some one, does
not fling away any habits of shamefacedness he may have possessed?
what angry man attends to the number or routine of his duties? who
uses moderate language? who keeps any part of his body quiet? who
can guide himself when in full career? We shall find much profit
in that sound maxim of Democritus which defines peace of mind to
consist in not labouring much, or too much for our strength, either
in public or private matters. A man’s day, if he is engaged in many
various occupations, never passes so happily that no man or no thing
should give rise to some offence which makes the mind ripe for
anger. Just as when one hurries through the crowded parts of the
city {123} one cannot help jostling many people, and one cannot
help slipping at one place, being hindered at another, and splashed
at another, so when one’s life is spent in disconnected pursuits
and wanderings, one must meet with many troubles and many accusations.
One man deceives our hopes, another delays their fulfilment, another
destroys them: our projects do not proceed according to our intention.
No one is so favoured by Fortune as to find her always on his side
if he tempts her often: and from this it follows that he who sees
several enterprises turn out contrary to his wishes becomes
dissatisfied with both men and things, and on the slightest provocation
flies into a rage with people, with undertakings, with places, with
fortune, or with himself. In order, therefore, that the mind may
be at peace, it ought not to be hurried hither and thither, nor,
as I said before, wearied by labour at great matters, or matters
whose attainment is beyond its strength. It is easy to fit one’s
shoulder to a light burden, and to shift it from one side to the
other without dropping it: but we have difficulty in bearing the
burdens which others’ hands lay upon us, and when overweighted by
them we fling them off upon our neighbours. Even when we do stand
upright under our load, we nevertheless reel beneath a weight which
is beyond our strength.

VII. Be assured that the same rule applies both to public and private
life: simple and manageable undertakings proceed according to the
pleasure of the person in charge of them, but enormous ones, beyond
his capacity to manage, are not easily undertaken. When he has got
them to administer, they hinder him, and press hard upon him, and
just as he thinks that success is within his grasp, they collapse,
and carry him with them: thus it comes about that a man’s wishes
are often disappointed if he does not apply himself to easy tasks,
yet wishes that the tasks which he undertakes may be easy. Whenever
you would attempt anything, first {124} form an estimate both of
your own powers, of the extent of the matter which you are undertaking,
and of the means by which you are to accomplish it: for if you have
to abandon your work when it is half done, the disappointment will
sour your temper. In such cases, it makes a difference whether one
is of an ardent or of a cold and unenterprising temperament: for
failure will rouse a generous spirit to anger, and will move a
sluggish and dull one to sorrow. Let our undertakings, therefore,
be neither petty nor yet presumptuous and reckless: let our hopes
not range far from home: let us attempt nothing which if we succeed
will make us astonished at our success.

VIII. Since we know not how to endure an injury, let us take care
not to receive one: we should live with the quietest and easiest-tempered
persons, not with anxious or with sullen ones: for our own habits
are copied from those with whom we associate, and just as some
bodily diseases are communicated by touch, so also the mind transfers
its vices to its neighbours. A drunkard leads even those who reproach
him to grow fond of wine: profligate society will, if permitted,
impair the morals even of robust-minded men: avarice infects those
nearest it with its poison. Virtues do the same thing in the opposite
direction, and improve all those with whom they are brought in
contact: it is as good for one of unsettled principles to associate
with better men than himself as for an invalid to live in a warm
country with a healthy climate. You will understand how much may
be effected this way, if you observe how even wild beasts grow tame
by dwelling among us, and how no animal, however ferocious, continues
to be wild, if it has long been accustomed to human companionship:
all its savageness becomes softened, and amid peaceful scenes is
gradually forgotten. We must add to this, that the man who lives
with quiet people is not only improved by their example, but also
by the fact that he finds no reason for anger and does not practise
his {125} vice: it will, therefore, be his duty to avoid all those
who he knows will excite his anger. You ask, who these are: many
will bring about the same thing by various means; a proud man will
offend you by his disdain, a talkative man by his abuse, an impudent
man by his insults, a spiteful man by his malice, a quarrelsome man
by his wrangling, a braggart and liar by his vain-gloriousness: you
will not endure to be feared by a suspicious man, conquered by an
obstinate one, or scorned by an ultra-refined one: Choose
straightforward, good-natured, steady people, who will not provoke
your wrath, and will bear with it. Those whose dispositions are
yielding, polite and suave, will be of even greater service, provided
they do not flatter, for excessive obsequiousness irritates
bad-tempered men. One of my own friends was a good man indeed, but
too prone to anger, and it was as dangerous to flatter him as to
curse him. Caelius the orator, it is well known, was the worst-tempered
man possible. It is said that once he was dining in his own chamber
with an especially long-suffering client, but had great difficulty
when thrown thus into a man’s society to avoid quarrelling with
him. The other thought it best to agree to whatever he said, and
to play second fiddle, but Caelius could not bear his obsequious
agreement, and exclaimed, “Do contradict me in something, that there
may be two of us!” Yet even he, who was angry at not being angry,
soon recovered his temper, because he had no one to fight with. If,
then, we are conscious of an irascible disposition, let us especially
choose for our friends those who will look and speak as we do: they
will pamper us and lead us into a bad habit of listening to nothing
that does not please us, but it will be good to give our anger
respite and repose. Even those who are naturally crabbed and wild
will yield to caresses: no creature continues either angry or
frightened if you pat him. Whenever a controversy seems likely to
be longer or more keenly disputed than usual, let us check its first
beginnings, before it gathers strength. {126} A dispute nourishes
itself as it proceeds, and takes hold of those who plunge too deeply
into it: it is easier to stand aloof than to extricate oneself from
a struggle.

IX. Irascible men ought not to meddle with the more serious class
of occupations, or, at any rate, ought to stop short of weariness
in the pursuit of them; their mind ought not to be engaged upon
hard subjects, but handed over to pleasing arts: let it be softened
by reading poetry, and interested by legendary history: let it be
treated with luxury and refinement. Pythagoras used to calm his
troubled spirit by playing upon the lyre: and who does not know
that trumpets and clarions are irritants, just as some airs are
lullabies and soothe the mind? Green is good for wearied eyes, and
some colours are grateful to weak sight, while the brightness of
others is painful to it. In the same way cheerful pursuits soothe
unhealthy minds. We must avoid law courts, pleadings, verdicts, and
everything else that aggravates our fault, and we ought no less to
avoid bodily weariness; for it exhausts all that is quiet and gentle
in us, and rouses bitterness. For this reason those who cannot trust
their digestion, when they are about to transact business of
importance always allay their bile with food, for it is peculiarly
irritated by fatigue, either because it draws the vital heat into
the middle of the body, and injures the blood and stops its circulation
by the clogging of the veins, or else because the worn-out and
weakened body reacts upon the mind: this is certainly the reason
why those who are broken by ill-health or age are more irascible
than other men. Hunger also and thirst should be avoided for the
same reason; they exasperate and irritate men’s minds: it is an old
saying that “a weary man is quarrelsome “: and so also is a hungry
or a thirsty man, or one who is suffering from any cause whatever:
for just as sores pain one at the slightest touch, and afterwards
even at the fear of being touched, so an unsound mind takes offence
at the slightest things, so that even a {127} greeting, a letter,
a speech, or a question, provokes some men to anger.

X. That which is diseased can never bear to be handled without
complaining: it is best, therefore, to apply remedies to oneself
as soon as we feel that anything is wrong, to allow oneself as
little licence as possible in speech, and to restrain one’s
impetuosity: now it is easy to detect the first growth of our
passions: the symptoms precede the disorder. Just as the signs of
storms and rain come before the storms themselves, so there are
certain forerunners of anger, love, and all the storms which torment
our minds. Those who suffer from epilepsy know that the fit is
coming on if their extremities become cold, their sight fails, their
sinews tremble, their memory deserts them, and their head swims:
they accordingly check the growing disorder by applying the usual
remedies: they try to prevent the loss of their senses by smelling
or tasting some drug; they battle against cold and stiffness of
limbs by hot fomentations; or, if all remedies fail, they retire
apart, and faint where no one sees them fall. It is useful for a
man to understand his disease, and to break its strength before it
becomes developed. Let us see what it is that especially irritates
us. Some men take offence at insulting words, others at deeds: one
wishes his pedigree, another his person, to be treated with respect.
This man wishes to be considered especially fashionable, that man
to be thought especially learned: one cannot bear pride, another
cannot bear obstinacy. One thinks it beneath him to be angry with
his slaves, another is cruel at home, but gentle abroad. One imagines
that he is proposed for office because he is unpopular, another
thinks himself insulted because he is not proposed. People do not
all take offence in the same way; you ought then to know what your
own weak point is, that you may guard it with especial care.

XI. It is better not to see or to hear everything: many causes of
offence may pass by us, most of which are disregarded {128} by the
man who ignores them. Would you not be irascible? then be not
inquisitive. He who seeks to know what is said about him, who digs
up spiteful tales even if they were told in secret, is himself the
destroyer of his own peace of mind. Some stories may be so construed
as to appear to be insults: wherefore it is best to put some aside,
to laugh at others, and to pardon others. There are many ways in
which anger may be checked; most things may be turned into jest.
It is said that Socrates when he was given a box on the ear, merely
said that it was a pity a man could not tell when he ought to wear
his helmet out walking. It does not so much matter how an injury
is done, as how it is borne; and I do not see how moderation can
be hard to practise, when I know that even despots, though success
and impunity combine to swell their pride, have sometimes restrained
their natural ferocity. At any rate, tradition informs us that once,
when a guest in his cups bitterly reproached Pisistratus, the despot
of Athens, for his cruelty, many of those present offered to lay
hands on the traitor, and one said one thing and one another to
kindle his wrath, he bore it coolly, and replied to those who were
egging him on, that he was no more angry with the man than he should
be with one who ran against him blindfold.

XII. A large part of mankind manufacture their own grievances either
by entertaining unfounded suspicions or by exaggerating trifles.
Anger often comes to us, but we often go to it. It ought never to
be sent for: even when it falls in our way it ought to be flung
aside. No one says to himself, “I myself have done or might have
done this very thing which I am angry with another for doing.” No
one considers the intention of the doer, but merely the thing done:
yet we ought to think about him, and whether he did it intentionally
or accidentally, under compulsion or under a mistake, whether he
did it out of hatred for us, or to gain something for himself,
whether he did it to please himself {129} or to serve a friend. In
some cases the age, in others the worldly fortunes of the culprit
may render it humane or advantageous to bear with him and put up
with what he has done. Let us put ourselves in the place of him
with whom we are angry: at present an overweening conceit of our
own importance makes us prone to anger, and we are quite willing
to do to others what we cannot endure should be done to ourselves.
No one will postpone his anger: yet delay is the best remedy for
it, because it allows its first glow to subside, and gives time for
the cloud which darkens the mind either to disperse or at any rate
to become less dense. Of these wrongs which drive you frantic, some
will grow lighter after an interval, not of a day, but even of an
hour: some will vanish altogether. Even if you gain nothing by your
adjournment, still what you do after it will appear to be the result
of mature deliberation, not of anger. If you want to find out the
truth about anything, commit the task to time: nothing can be
accurately discerned at a time of disturbance. Plato, when angry
with his slave, could not prevail upon himself to wait, but straightway
ordered him to take off his shirt and present his shoulders to the
blows which he meant to give him with his own hand: then, when he
perceived that he was angry, he stopped the hand which he had raised
in the air, and stood like one in act to strike. Being asked by a
friend who happened to come in, what he was doing, he answered: “I
am making an angry man expiate his crime.” He retained the posture
of one about to give way to passion, as if struck with astonishment
at its being so degrading to a philosopher, forgetting the slave,
because he had found another still more deserving of punishment.
He therefore denied himself the exercise of authority over his own
household, and once, being rather angry at some fault, said,
“Speusippus, will you please to correct that slave with stripes;
for I am in a rage.” He would not strike him, for the very reason
for which another man would have struck him. “I am in a rage,” said
{130} he; “I should beat him more than I ought: I should take more
pleasure than I ought in doing so: let not that slave fall into the
power of one who is not in his own power.” Can any one wish to grant
the power of revenge to an angry man, when Plato himself gave up
his own right to exercise it? While you are angry, you ought not
to be allowed to do anything. “Why?” do you ask? Because when you
are angry there is nothing that you do not wish to be allowed to
do.

XIII. Fight hard with yourself and if you cannot conquer anger, do
not let it conquer you: you have begun to get the better of it if
it does not show itself, if it is not given vent. Let us conceal
its symptoms, and as far as possible keep it secret and hidden. It
will give us great trouble to do this, for it is eager to burst
forth, to kindle our eyes and to transform our face; but if we allow
it to show itself in our outward appearance, it is our master. Let
it rather be locked in the innermost recesses of our breast, and
be borne by us, not bear us: nay, let us replace all its symptoms
by their opposites; let us make our countenance more composed than
usual, our voice milder, our step slower. Our inward thoughts
gradually become influenced by our outward demeanour. With Socrates
it was a sign of anger when he lowered his voice, and became sparing
of speech; it was evident at such times that he was exercising
restraint over himself. His friends, consequently, used to detect
him acting thus, and convict him of being angry; nor was he displeased
at being charged with concealment of anger; indeed, how could he
help being glad that many men should perceive his anger, yet that
none should feel it? they would however, have felt it had not he
granted to his friends the same right of criticizing his own conduct
which he himself assumed over theirs. How much more needful is it
for us to do this? let us beg all our best friends to give us their
opinion with the greatest freedom at the very time when we can bear
it least, and never to be compliant with us {131} when we are angry.
While we are in our right senses, while we are under our own control,
let us call for help against so powerful an evil, and one which we
regard with such unjust favour. Those who cannot carry their wine
discreetly, and fear to be betrayed into some rash and insolent
act, give their slaves orders to take them away from the banquet
when they are drunk; those who know by experience how unreasonable
they are when sick give orders that no one is to obey them when
they are in ill health. It is best to prepare obstacles beforehand
for vices which are known, and above all things so to tranquilize
our mind that it may bear the most sudden and violent shocks either
without feeling anger, or, if anger be provoked by the extent of
some unexpected wrong, that it may bury it deep, and not betray its
wound. That it is possible to do this will be seen, if I quote a
few of an abundance of examples, from which we may learn both how
much evil there is in anger, when it exercises entire dominion over
men in supreme power, and how completely it can control itself when
overawed by fear.

XIV. King Cambyses[2] was excessively addicted to wine. Praexaspes
was the only one of his closest friends who advised him to drink
more sparingly, pointing out how shameful a thing drunkenness was
in a king, upon whom all eyes and ears were fixed. Cambyses answered,
“That you may know that I never lose command of myself, I will
presently prove to you that both my eyes and my hands are fit for
service after I have been drinking.” Hereupon he drank more freely
than usual, using larger cups, and when heavy and besotted with
wine ordered his reprover’s son to go beyond the threshold and stand
there with his left hand raised above his head; then he bent his
bow and pierced the youth’s heart, at which he had said that he
aimed. He {132} then had his breast cut open, showed the arrow
sticking exactly into the heart, and, looking at the boy’s father,
asked whether his hand was not steady enough. He replied, that
Apollo himself could not have taken better aim. God confound such
a man, a slave in mind, if not in station! He actually praised an
act which he ought not to have endured to witness. He thought that
the breast of his son being torn assunder, and his heart quivering
with its wound, gave him an opportunity of making a complimentary
speech. He ought to have raised a dispute with him about his success,
and have called for another shot, that the king might be pleased
to prove upon the person of the father that his hand was even
steadier than when he shot the son. What a savage king! what a
worthy mark for all his follower’s arrows! Yet though we curse him
for making his banquet end in cruelty and death, still it was worse
to praise that arrow-shot than to shoot it. We shall see hereafter
how a father ought to bear himself when standing over the corpse
of his son, whose murder he had both caused and witnessed: the
matter which we are now discussing, has been proved, I mean, that
anger can be suppressed. He did not curse the king, he did not so
much as let fall a single inauspicious word, though he felt his own
heart as deeply wounded as that of his son. He may be said to have
done well in choking down his words; for though he might have spoken
as an angry man, yet he could not have expressed what he felt as a
father. He may, I repeat, be thought to have behaved with greater
wisdom on that occasion than when he tried to regulate the drink
of one who was better employed in drinking wine than in drinking
blood, and who granted men peace while his hands were busy with the
winecup. He, therefore, added one more to the number of those who
have shown to their bitter cost how little kings care for their
friends’ good advice.

{133}

XV. I have no doubt that Harpagus must have given some such advice
to the king of the Persians and of himself, in anger at which the
king placed Harpagus’s own children before him on the dinner-table
for him to eat, and asked him from time to time, whether he liked
the seasoning. Then, when he saw that he was satiated with his own
misery, he ordered their heads to be brought to him, and asked him
how he liked his entertainment. The wretched man did not lose his
readiness of speech; his face did not change. “Every kind of dinner,”
said he, “is pleasant at the king’s table.” What did he gain by
this obsequiousness? He avoided being invited a second time to
dinner, to eat what was left of them. I do not forbid a father to
blame the act of his king, or to seek for some revenge worthy of
so bloodthirsty a monster, but in the meanwhile I gather from the
tale this fact, that even the anger which arises from unheard of
outrages can be concealed, and forced into using language which is
the very reverse of its meaning. This way of curbing anger is
necessary, at least for those who have chosen this sort of life and
who are admitted to dine at a king’s table; this is how they must
eat and drink, this is how they must answer, and how they must laugh
at their own deaths. Whether life is worth having at such a price,
we shall see hereafter; that is another question. Let us not console
so sorry a crew, or encourage them to submit to the orders of their
butchers; let us point out that however slavish a man’s condition
may be, there is always a path to liberty open to him, unless his
mind be diseased. It is a man’s own fault if he suffers, when by
putting an end to himself he can put an end to his misery. To him
whose king aimed arrows at the breasts of his friends, and to him
whose master gorged fathers with the hearts of their children, I
would say “Madman, why do you groan? for what are you waiting? for
some enemy to avenge you by the destruction of your {134} entire
nation, or for some powerful king to arrive from a distant land?
Wherever you turn your eyes you may see an end to your woes. Do you
see that precipice? down that lies the road to liberty; do you see
that sea? that river? that well? Liberty sits at the bottom of them.
Do you see that tree? stunted, blighted, dried up though it be, yet
liberty hangs from its branches. Do you see your own throat, your
own neck, your own heart? they are so many ways of escape from
slavery. Are these modes which I point out too laborious, and needing
much strength and courage? do you ask what path leads to liberty?
I answer, any vein[3] in your body.

XVI. As long, however, as we find nothing in our life so unbearable
as to drive us to suicide, let us, in whatever position we may be,
set anger far from us: it is destructive to those who are its slaves.
All its rage turns to its own misery, and authority becomes all the
more irksome the more obstinately it is resisted. It is like a wild
animal whose struggles only pull the noose by which it is caught
tighter; or like birds who, while flurriedly trying to shake
themselves free, smear birdlime on to all their feathers. No yoke
is so grievous as not to hurt him who struggles against it more
than him who yields to it: the only way to alleviate great evils
is to endure them and to submit to do what they compel. This control
of our passions, and especially of this mad and unbridled passion
of anger, is useful to subjects, but still more useful to kings.
All is lost when a man’s position enables him to carry out whatever
anger prompts him to do; nor can power long endure if it be exercised
to the injury of many, for it becomes endangered as soon as common
fear draws together those who bewail themselves separately. Many
kings, therefore, have fallen victims, some to single individuals,
others to entire peoples, {135} who have been forced by general
indignation to make one man the minister of their wrath. Yet many
kings have indulged their anger as though it were a privilege of
royalty, like Darius, who, after the dethronement of the Magian,
was the first ruler of the Persians and of the greater part of the
East: for when he declared war[4] against the Scythians who bordered
on the empire of the East, Oeobazus, an aged noble, begged that one
of his three sons might be left at home to comfort his father, and
that the king might be satisfied with the services of two of them.
Darius promised him more than he asked for, saying that he would
allow all three to remain at home, and flung their dead bodies
before their father’s eyes. He would have been harsh, had he taken
them all to the war with him. How much more good-natured was
Xerxes,[5] who, when Pythias, the father of five sons, begged for
one to be excused from service, permitted him to choose which he
wished for. He then tore the son whom the father had chosen into
two halves, placed one on each side of the road, and, as it were,
purified his army by means of this propitiatory victim. He therefore
had the end which he deserved, being defeated, and his army scattered
far and wide in utter rout, while he in the midst of it walked among
the corpses of his soldiers, seeing on all sides the signs of his
own overthrow.

XVII. So ferocious in their anger were those kings who had no
learning, no tincture of polite literature: now I will show you
King Alexander (the Great), fresh from the lap of Aristotle, who
with his own hand while at table stabbed Clitus, his dearest friend,
who had been brought up with him, because he did not flatter him
enough, and was too slow in transforming himself from a free man
and a Macedonian into a Persian slave. Indeed he shut up {136}
Lysimachus,[6] who was no less his friend than Clitus, in a cage
with a lion; yet did this make Lysimachus, who escaped by some happy
chance from the lion’s teeth, any gentler when he became a king?
Why, he mutilated his own friend, Telesphorus the Rhodian, cutting
off his nose and ears, and kept him for a long while in a den, like
some new and strange animal, after the hideousness of his hacked
and disfigured face had made him no longer appear to be human,
assisted by starvation and the squalid filth of a body left to
wallow in its own dung! Besides this, his hands and knees, which
the narrowness of his abode forced him to use instead of his feet,
became hard and callous, while his sides were covered with sores
by rubbing against the walls, so that his appearance was no less
shocking than frightful, and his punishment turned him into so
monstrous a creature that he was not even pitied. Yet, however
unlike a man he was who suffered this, even more unlike was he who
inflicted it.

XVIII. Would to heaven that such savagery had contented itself with
foreign examples, and that barbarity in anger and punishment had
not been imported with other outlandish vices into our Roman manners!
Marcus Marius, to whom the people erected a statue in every street,
to whom they made offerings of incense and wine, had, by the command
of Lucius Sulla, his legs broken, his eyes pulled out, his hands
cut off, and his whole body gradually torn to pieces limb by limb,
as if Sulla killed him as many times as he wounded him. Who was it
who carried out Sulla’s orders? who but Catiline, already practising
his hands in every sort of wickedness? He tore him to pieces before
the tomb of Quintus Catulus, an unwelcome burden to the ashes of
that gentlest of men, above which one who was no doubt a criminal,
yet nevertheless {137} the idol of the people, and who was not
undeserving of love, although men loved him beyond all reason, was
forced to shed his blood drop by drop. Though Marius deserved such
tortures, yet it was worthy of Sulla to order them, and of Catiline
to execute them; but it was unworthy of the State to be stabbed by
the swords of her enemy and her avenger alike. Why do I pry into
ancient history? quite lately Gaius Caesar flogged and tortured
Sextus Papinius, whose father was a consular, Betilienus Bassus,
his own quaestor, and several others, both senators and knights,
on the same day, not to carry out any judicial inquiry, but merely
to amuse himself. Indeed, so impatient was he of any delay in
receiving the pleasure which his monstrous cruelty never delayed
in asking, that when walking with some ladies and senators in his
mother’s gardens, along the walk between the colonnade and the
river, he struck off some of their heads by lamplight. What did he
fear? what public or private danger could one night threaten him
with? how very small a favour it would have been to wait until
morning, and not to kill the Roman people’s senators in his slippers?

XIX. It is to the purpose that we should know how haughtily his
cruelty was exercised, although some one might suppose that we are
wandering from the subject and embarking on a digression; but this
digression is itself connected with unusual outbursts of anger. He
beat senators with rods; he did it so often that he made men able
to say, “It is the custom.” He tortured them with all the most
dismal engines in the world, with the cord, the boots, the rack,
the fire, and the sight of his own face. Even to this we may answer,
“To tear three senators to pieces with stripes and fire like criminal
slaves was no such great crime for one who had thoughts of butchering
the entire Senate, who was wont to wish that the Roman people had
but one neck, that he might concentrate {138} into one day and one
blow all the wickedness which he divided among so many places and
times. Was there ever anything so unheard-of as an execution in the
night-time? Highway robbery seeks for the shelter of darkness, but
the more public an execution is, the more power it has as an example
and lesson. Here I shall be met by: “This, which you are so surprised
at, was the daily habit of that monster; this was what he lived
for, watched for, sat up at night for.” Certainly one could find
no one else who would have ordered all those whom he condemned to
death to have their mouths closed by a sponge being fastened in
them, that they might not have the power even of uttering a sound.
What dying man was ever forbidden to groan? He feared that the last
agony might find too free a voice, that he might hear what would
displease him. He knew, moreover, that there were countless crimes,
with which none but a dying man would dare to reproach him. When
sponges were not forthcoming, he ordered the wretched men’s clothes
to be torn up, and the rags stuffed into their mouths. What savagery
was this? Let a man draw his last breath: give room for his soul
to escape through: let it not be forced to leave the body through
a wound. It becomes tedious to add to this that in the same night
he sent centurions to the houses of the executed men and made an
end of their fathers also, that is to say, being a compassionate-minded
man, he set them free from sorrow: for it is not my intention to
describe the ferocity of Gaius, but the ferocity of anger, which
does not merely vent its rage upon individuals, but rends in pieces
whole nations, and even lashes cities, rivers, and things which
have no sense of pain.

XX. Thus, the king of the Persians cut off the noses of a whole
nation in Syria, wherefore the place is called Rhinocolura. Do you
think that he was merciful, because he did not cut their heads off
altogether? no, he was delighted at {139} having invented a new
kind of punishment. Something of the same kind would have befallen
the Aethiopians,[7] who on account of their prodigiously long lives
are called Macrobiotae; for, because they did not receive slavery
with hands uplifted to heaven in thankfulness, and sent an embassy
which used independent, or what kings call insulting language,
Cambyses became wild with rage, and, without any store of provisions,
or any knowledge of the roads, started with all his fighting men
through an arid and trackless waste, where during the first day’s
march the necessaries of life failed, and the country itself furnished
nothing, being barren and uncultivated, and untrodden by the foot
of man. At first the tenderest parts of leaves and shoots of trees
relieved their hunger, then hides softened by fire, and anything
else that their extremity drove them to use as food. When as they
proceeded neither roots nor herbs were to be found in the sand, and
they found a wilderness destitute even of animal life, they chose
each tenth man by lot and made of him a meal which was more cruel
than hunger. Rage still drove the king madly forwards, until after
he had lost one part of his army and eaten another he began to fear
that he also might be called upon to draw the lot for his life;
then at last he gave the order for retreat. Yet all the while his
well-bred hawks were not sacrificed, and the means of feasting were
carried for him on camels, while his soldiers were drawing lots for
who should miserably perish, and who should yet more miserably live.

XXI. This man was angry with an unknown and inoffensive nation,
which nevertheless was able to feel his wrath; but Cyrus[8] was
angry with a river. When hurrying to besiege Babylon, since in
making war it is above all things important to seize one’s opportunity,
he tried to ford the wide-spread river Gyndes, which it is hardly
safe to {140} attempt even when the river has been dried up by the
summer heat and is at its lowest. Here one of the white horses which
drew the royal chariot was washed away, and his loss moved the king
to such violent rage, that he swore to reduce the river which had
carried off his royal retinue to so low an ebb that even women
should walk across it and trample upon it. He thereupon devoted all
the resources of his army to this object, and remained working until
by cutting one hundred and eighty channels across the bed of the
river he divided it into three hundred and sixty brooks, and left
the bed dry, the waters flowing through other channels. Thus he
lost time, which is very important in great operations, and lost,
also, the soldiers’ courage, which was broken by useless labour,
and the opportunity of falling upon his enemy unprepared, while he
was waging against the river the war which he had declared against
his foes. This frenzy, for what else can you call it, has befallen
Romans also, for G. Caesar destroyed a most beautiful villa at
Herculaneum because his mother was once imprisoned in it, and has
thus made the place notorious by its misfortune; for while it stood,
we used to sail past it without noticing it, but now people inquire
why it is in ruins.

XXII. These should be regarded as examples to be avoided, and what
I am about to relate, on the contrary, to be followed, being examples
of gentle and lenient conduct in men who both had reasons for anger
and power to avenge themselves. What could have been easier than
for Antigonus to order those two common soldiers to be executed who
leaned against their king’s tent while doing what all men especially
love to do, and run the greatest danger by doing, I mean while they
spoke evil of their king. Antigonus heard all they said, as was
likely, since there was only a piece of cloth between the speakers
and the listener, who gently raised it, and said “Go a little {141}
further off, for fear the king should hear you.” He also on one
night, hearing some of his soldiers invoking everything that was
evil upon their king for having brought them along that road and
into that impassable mud, went to those who were in the greatest
difficulties, and having extricated them without their knowing who
was their helper, said, “Now curse Antigonus, by whose fault you
have fallen into this trouble, but bless the man who has brought
you out of this slough.” This same Antigonus bore the abuse of his
enemies as good-naturedly as that of his countrymen; thus when he
was besieging some Greeks in a little fort, and they, despising
their enemy through their confidence in the strength of their
position, cut many jokes upon the ugliness of Antigonus, at one
time mocking him for his shortness of stature, at another for his
broken nose, he answered, “I rejoice, and expect some good fortune
because I have a Silenus in my camp.” After he had conquered these
witty folk by hunger, his treatment of them was to form regiments
of those who were fit for service, and sell the rest by public
auction; nor would he, said he, have done this had it not been
better that men who had such evil tongues should be under the control
of a master.

XXIII. This man’s grandson[9] was Alexander, who used to hurl his
lance at his guests, who, of the two friends which I have mentioned
above, exposed one to the rage of a wild beast, and the other to
his own; yet of these two men, he who was exposed to the lion
survived. He did not derive this vice from his grandfather, nor
even from his father; for it was an especial virtue of Philip’s to
endure insults patiently, and was a great safeguard of his kingdom.
Demochares, who was surnamed Parrhesiastes on account of his unbridled
and impudent tongue, came on an embassy to him with other ambassadors
from Athens. After graciously {142} listening to what they had to
say, Philip said to them, “Tell me, what can I do that will please
the Athenians? “Demochares took him up, and answered, “Hang yourself.”
All the bystanders expressed their indignation at so brutal an
answer, but Philip bade them be silent, and let this Thersites
depart safe and sound. “But do you,” said he, “you other ambassadors,
tell the Athenians that those who say such things are much more
arrogant than those who hear them without revenging themselves.”

The late Emperor Augustus also did and said many memorable things,
which prove that he was not under the dominion of anger. Timagenes,
the historical writer, made some remarks upon him, his wife, and
his whole family: nor did his jests fall to the ground, for nothing
spreads more widely or is more in people’s mouths than reckless
wit. Caesar often warned him to be less audacious in his talk, and
as he continued to offend, forbade him his house. Timagenes after
this passed the later years of his life as the guest of Asinius
Pollio, and was the favourite of the whole city: the closing of
Caesar’s door did not close any other door against him. He read
aloud the history which he wrote after this, but burned the books
which contained the doings of Augustus Caesar. He was at enmity
with Caesar, but yet no one feared to be his friend, no one shrank
from him as though he were blasted by lightning: although he fell
from so high a place, yet some one was found to catch him in his
lap. Caesar, I say, bore this with patience, and was not even
irritated by the historian’s having laid violent hands upon his own
glories and acts: he never complained of the man who afforded his
enemy shelter, but merely said to Asinius Pollio “You are keeping
a wild beast:” then, when the other would have excused his conduct,
he stopped him, and said “Enjoy, my Pollio, enjoy his friendship.”
When Pollio said, “If you order me, Caesar, I will straightway
forbid him my house,” he {143} answered, “Do you think that I am
likely to do this, after having made you friends again?” for formerly
Pollio had been angry with Timagenes, and ceased to be angry with
him for no other reason than that Caesar began to be so.

XXIV. Let every one, then, say to himself, whenever he is provoked,
“Am I more powerful than Philip? yet he allowed a man to curse him
with impunity. Have I more authority in my own house than the Emperor
Augustus possessed throughout the world? yet he was satisfied with
leaving the society of his maligner. Why should I make my slave
atone by stripes and manacles for having answered me too loudly or
having put on a stubborn look, or muttered something which I did
not catch? Who am I, that it should be a crime to shock my ears?
Many men have forgiven their enemies: shall I not forgive men for
being lazy, careless, and gossipping?” We ought to plead age as an
excuse for children, sex for women, freedom for a stranger, familiarity
for a house-servant. Is this his first offence? think how long he
has been acceptable. Has he often done wrong, and in many other
cases? then let us continue to bear what we have borne so long. Is
he a friend? then he did not intend to do it. Is he an enemy? then
in doing it he did his duty. If he be a sensible man, let us believe
his excuses; if a fool, let us grant him pardon; whatever he may
be, let us say to ourselves on his behalf, that even the wisest of
men are often in fault, that no one is so alert that his carefulness
never betrays itself, that no one is of so ripe a judgment that his
serious mind cannot be goaded by circumstances into some hotheaded
action, that, in fine, no one, however much he may fear to give
offence, can help doing so even while he tries to avoid it.

XXV. As it is a consolation to a humble man in trouble that the
greatest are subject to reverses of fortune, and a man weeps more
calmly over his dead son in the corner of {144} his hovel if he
sees a piteous[10] funeral proceed out of the palace as well; so
one bears injury or insult more calmly if one remembers that no
power is so great as to be above the reach of harm. Indeed, if even
the wisest do wrong, who cannot plead a good excuse for his faults?
Let us look back upon our own youth, and think how often we then
were too slothful in our duty, too impudent in our speech, too
intemperate in our cups. Is anyone angry? then let us give him
enough time to reflect upon what he has done, and he will correct
his own self. But suppose he ought to pay the penalty of his deeds:
well, that is no reason why we should act as he does. It canot be
doubted that he who regards his tormentor with contempt raises
himself above the common herd and looks down upon them from a loftier
position: it is the property of true magnanimity not to feel the
blows which it may receive. So does a huge wild beast turn slowly
and gaze at yelping curs: so does the wave dash in vain against a
great cliff. The man who is not angry remains unshaken by injury:
he who is angry has been moved by it. He, however, whom I have
described as being placed too high for any mischief to reach him,
holds as it were the highest good in his arms: he can reply, not
only to any man, but to fortune herself: “Do what you will, you are
too feeble to disturb my serenity: this is forbidden by reason, to
whom I have entrusted the guidance of my life: to become angry would
do me more harm than your violence can do me. ‘More harm?’ say you.
Yes, certainly: I know how much injury you have done me, but I
cannot tell to what excesses anger might not carry me.”

XXVI. You say, “I cannot endure it: injuries are hard to bear.” You
lie; for how can any one not be able to bear injury, if he can bear
to be angry? Besides, what you {145} intend to do is to endure both
injury and anger. Why do you bear with the delirium of a sick man,
or the ravings of a madman, or the impudent blows of a child?
Because, of course, they evidently do not know what they are doing:
if a man be not responsible for his actions, what does it matter
by what malady he became so: the plea of ignorance holds equally
good in every case. “What then?” say you, “shall he not be punished?”
He will be, even supposing that you do not wish it: for the greatest
punishment for having done harm is the sense of having done it, and
no one is more severely punished than he who is given over to the
punishment of remorse. In the next place, we ought to consider the
whole state of mankind, in order to pass a just judgment on all the
occurrences of life: for it is unjust to blame individuals for a
vice which is common to all. The colour of an Aethiop is not
remarkable amongst his own people, nor is any man in Germany ashamed
of red hair rolled into a knot. You cannot call anything peculiar
or disgraceful in a particular man if it is the general characteristic
of his nation. Now, the cases which I have quoted are defended only
by the usage of one out-of-the-way quarter of the world: see now,
how far more deserving of pardon those crimes are which are spread
abroad among all mankind. We all are hasty and careless, we all are
untrustworthy, dissatisfied, and ambitious: nay, why do I try to
hide our common wickedness by a too partial description? we all are
bad. Every one of us therefore will find in his own breast the vice
which he blames in another. Why do you remark how pale this man,
or how lean that man is? there is a general pestilence. Let us
therefore be more gentle one to another: we are bad men, living
among bad men: there is only one thing which can afford us peace,
and that is to agree to forgive one another. “This man has already
injured me,” say you, “and I have not yet injured him.” No, but you
have probably injured some one else, and you will injure {146} him
some day. Do not form your judgment by one hour, or one day: consider
the whole tendency of your mind: even though you have done no evil,
yet you are capable of doing it.

XXVII. How far better is it to heal an injury than to avenge it?
Revenge takes up much time, and throws itself in the way of many
injuries while it is smarting under one. We all retain our anger
longer than we feel our hurt: how far better it were to take the
opposite course and not meet one mischief by another. Would any one
think himself to be in his perfect mind if he were to return kicks
to a mule or bites to a dog?” These creatures,” you say, “know not
that they are doing wrong.” Then, in the first place, what an unjust
judge you must be if a man has less chance of gaining your forgiveness
than a beast! Secondly, if animals are protected from your anger
by their want of reason, you ought to treat all foolish men in the
like manner: for if a man has that mental darkness which excuses
all the wrong-doings of dumb animals, what difference does it make
if in other respects he be unlike a dumb animal? He has sinned.
Well, is this the first time, or will this be the last time? Why,
you should not believe him even if he said, “Never will I do so
again.” He will sin, and another will sin against him, and all his
life he will wallow in wickedness. Savagery must be met by kindness:
we ought to use, to a man in anger, the argument which is so effective
with one in grief, that is, “Shall you leave off this at some time,
or never? If you will do so at some time, how better is it that you
should abandon anger than that anger should abandon you? Or, will
this excitement never leave you? Do you see to what an unquiet life
you condemn yourself? for what will be the life of one who is always
swelling with rage?” Add to this, that after you have worked yourself
up into a rage, and have from time to time renewed the causes of
your {147} excitement, yet your anger will depart from you of its
own accord, and time will sap its strength: how much better then
is it that it should be overcome by you than by itself?

XXVIII. If you are angry, you will quarrel first with this man, and
then with that: first with slaves, then with freedmen: first with
parents, then with children: first with acquaintances, then with
strangers: for there are grounds for anger in every case, unless
your mind steps in and intercedes with you: your frenzy will drag
you from one place to another, and from thence to elsewhere, your
madness will constantly meet with newly-occurring irritants, and
will never depart from you. Tell me, miserable man, what time you
will have for loving? O, what good time you are wasting on an evil
thing! How much better it would be to win friends, and disarm
enemies: to serve the state, or to busy oneself with one’s private
affairs, rather than to cast about for what harm you can do to
somebody, what wound you can inflict either upon his social position,
his fortune, or his person, although you cannot succeed in doing
so without a struggle and risk to yourself, even if your antagonist
be inferior to you. Even supposing that he were handed over to you
in chains, and that you were at liberty to torture him as much as
you please, yet even then excessive violence in striking a blow
often causes us to dislocate a joint, or entangles a sinew in the
teeth which it has broken. Anger makes many men cripples, or invalids,
even when it meets with an unresisting victim: and besides this,
no creature is so weak that it can be destroyed without any danger
to its destroyer: sometimes grief, sometimes chance, puts the weakest
on a level with the strongest. What shall we say of the fact that
the greater part of the things which enrage us are insults, not
injuries? It makes a great difference whether a man thwarts my
wishes or merely fails to carry them out, whether he robs me or
does not give me anything: yet we count it all the same whether a
{148} man takes anything from us or refuses to give anything to us,
whether he extinguishes our hope or defers it, whether his object
be to hinder us or to help himself, whether he acts out of love for
some one or out of hatred for us. Some men are bound to oppose us
not only on the ground of justice, but of honour: one is defending
his father, another his brother, another his country, another his
friend: yet we do not forgive men for doing what we should blame
them for not doing; nay, though one can hardly believe it, we often
think well of an act, and ill of the man who did it. But, by Hercules,
a great and just man looks with respect at the bravest of his
enemies, and the most obstinate defender of his freedom and his
country, and wishes that he had such a man for his own countryman
and soldier.

XXIX. It is shameful to hate him whom you praise: but how much more
shameful is it to hate a man for something for which he deserves
to be pitied? If a prisoner of war, who has suddenly been reduced
to the condition of a slave, still retains some remnants of liberty,
and does not run nimbly to perform foul and toilsome tasks, if,
having grown slothful by long rest, he cannot run fast enough to
keep pace with his master’s horse or carriage, if sleep overpowers
him when weary with many days and nights of watching, if he refuses
to undertake farm work, or does not do it heartily when brought
away from the idleness of city service and put to hard labour, we
ought to make a distinction between whether a man cannot or will
not do it: we should pardon many slaves, if we began to judge them
before we began to be angry with them: as it is, however, we obey
our first impulse, and then, although we may prove to have been
excited about mere trifles, yet we continue to be angry, lest we
should seem to have begun to be angry without cause; and, most
unjust of all, the injustice of our anger makes us persist in it
all the more; for we {149} nurse it and inflame it, as though to
be violently angry proved our anger to be just.

XXX. How much better is it to observe how trifling, how inoffensive
are the first beginnings of anger? You will see that men are subject
to the same influences as dumb animals: we are put out by trumpery,
futile matters. Bulls are excited by red colour, the asp raises its
head at a shadow, bears or lions are irritated at the shaking of a
rag, and all creatures who are naturally fierce and wild are alarmed
at trifles. The same thing befalls men both of restless and of
sluggish disposition; they are seized by suspicions, sometimes to
such an extent that they call slight benefits injuries: and these
form the most common and certainly the most bitter subject for
anger: for we become angry with our dearest friends for having
bestowed less upon us than we expected, and less than others have
received from them: yet there is a remedy at hand for both these
grievances. Has he favoured our rival more than ourselves? then let
us enjoy what we have without making any comparisons. A man will
never be well off to whom it is a torture to see any one better off
than himself. Have I less than I hoped for? well, perhaps I hoped
for more than I ought. This it is against which we ought to be
especially on our guard: from hence arises the most destructive
anger, sparing nothing, not even the holiest. The Emperor Julius
was not stabbed by so many enemies as by friends whose insatiable
hopes he had not satisfied. He was willing enough to do so, for no
one ever made a more generous use of victory, of whose fruits he
kept nothing for himself save the power of distributing them; but
how could he glut such unconscionable appetites, when each man
coveted as much as any one man could possess? This was why he saw
his fellow-soldiers standing round his chair with drawn swords,
Tillius Cimber, though he had a short time before been the keenest
defender of his party, {150} and others who only became Pompeians
after Pompeius was dead. This it is which has turned the arms of
kings against them, and made their trustiest followers meditate the
death of him for whom and before whom[11] they once would have been
glad to die.

XXXI. No man is satisfied with his own lot if he fixes his attention
on that of another: and this leads to our being angry even with the
gods, because somebody precedes us, though we forget of how many
we take precedence, and that when a man envies few people, he must
be followed in the background by a huge crowd of people who envy
him. Yet so churlish is human nature, that, however much men may
have received, they think themselves wronged if they are able to
receive still more. “He gave me the praetorship. Yes, but I had
hoped for the consulship. He bestowed the twelve axes upon me: true,
but he did not make me a regular[12] consul. He allowed me to give
my name to the year, but he did not help me to the priesthood. I
have been elected a member of the college: but why only of one? He
has bestowed upon me every honour that the state affords: yes, but
he has added nothing to my private fortune. What he gave me he was
obliged to give to somebody: he brought out nothing from his own
pocket.” Rather than speak thus, thank him for what you have received:
wait for the rest, and be thankful that you are not yet too full
to contain more: there is a pleasure in having something left to
hope for. Are you preferred to every one? then rejoice at holding
the first place in the thoughts of your friend. Or are many others
preferred before you? then think how many more are below you than
there are {151} above you. Do you ask, what is your greatest fault?
It is, that you keep your accounts wrongly: you set a high value
upon what you give, and a low one upon what you receive.

XXXII. Let different qualities in different people keep us from
quarrelling with them: let us fear to be angry with some, feel
ashamed of being angry with others, and disdain to be angry with
others. We do a fine thing, indeed, when we send a wretched slave
to the workhouse! Why are we in such a hurry to flog him at once,
to break his legs straightway? we shall not lose our boasted power
if we defer its exercise. Let us wait for the time when we ourselves
can give orders: at present we speak under constraint from anger.
When it has passed away we shall see what amount of damage has been
done; for this is what we are especially liable to make mistakes
about: we use the sword, and capital punishment, and we appoint
chains, imprisonment, and starvation to punish a crime which deserves
only flogging with a light scourge. “In what way,” say you, “do you
bid us look at those things by which we think ourselves injured,
that we may see how paltry, pitiful, and childish they are?” Of all
things I would charge you to take to yourself a magnanimous spirit,
and behold how low and sordid all these matters are about which we
squabble and run to and fro till we are out of breath; to any one
who entertains any lofty and magnificent ideas, they are not worthy
of a thought.

XXXIII. The greatest hullabaloo is about money: this it is which
wearies out the law-courts, sows strife between father and son,
concocts poisons, and gives swords to murderers just as to soldiers:
it is stained with our blood: on account of it husbands and wives
wrangle all night long, crowds press round the bench of magistrates,
kings rage and plunder, and overthrow communities which it has taken
the labour of centuries to build, that they may seek for gold and
{152} silver in the ashes of their cities. Do you like to look at
your money-bags lying in the corner? it is for these that men shout
till their eyes start from their heads, that the law-courts ring
with the din of trials, and that jurymen brought from great distances
sit to decide which man’s covetousness is the more equitable. What
shall we say if it be not even for a bag of money, but for a handful
of coppers or a shilling scored up by a slave that some old man,
soon to die without an heir, bursts with rage? what if it be an
invalid money-lender whose feet are distorted by the gout, and who
can no longer use his hands to count with, who calls for his interest
of one thousandth a month,[13] and by his sureties demands his pence
even during the paroxysms of his disease? If you were to bring to
me all the money from all our mines, which we are at this moment
sinking, if you were to bring to-night all that is concealed in
hoards, where avarice returns money to the earth from whence it
came, and pity that it ever was dug out—all that mass I should not
think worthy to cause a wrinkle on the brow of a good man. What
ridicule those things deserve which bring tears into our eyes!

XXXIV. Come now, let us enumerate the other causes of anger: they
are food, drink, and the showy apparatus connected with them, words,
insults, disrespectful movements of the body, suspicions, obstinate
cattle, lazy slaves, and spiteful construction put upon other men’s
words, so that even the gift of language to mankind becomes reckoned
among the wrongs of nature. Believe me, the things which cause us
such great heat are trifles, the sort of things that children fight
and squabble over: there is nothing serious, nothing important in
all that we do with such gloomy faces. It is, I repeat, the setting
a great value on trifles that is the cause of your anger and madness.
This {153} man wanted to rob me of my inheritance, that one has
brought a charge against me before persons[14] whom I had long
courted with great expectations, that one has coveted my mistress.
A wish for the same things, which ought to have been a bond of
friendship, becomes a source of quarrels and hatred. A narrow path
causes quarrels among those who pass up and down it; a wide and
broadly spread road may be used by whole tribes without jostling.
Those objects of desire of yours cause strife and disputes among
those who covet the same things, because they are petty, and cannot
be given to one man without being taken away from another.

XXXV. You are indignant at being answered back by your slave, your
freedman, your wife, or your client: and then you complain of the
state having lost the freedom which you have destroyed in your own
house: then again if he is silent when you question him, you call
it sullen obstinacy. Let him both speak and be silent, and laugh
too. “In the presence of his master?” you ask. Nay, say rather “in
the presence of the house-father.” Why do you shout? why do you
storm? why do you in the middle of dinner call for a whip, because
the slaves are talking, because a crowd as large as a public meeting
is not as silent as the wilderness? You have ears, not merely that
you may listen to musical sounds, softly and sweetly drawn out and
harmonized: you ought to hear laughter and weeping, coaxing and
quarrelling, joy and sorrow, the human voice and the roaring and
barking of animals. Miserable one! why do you shudder at the noise
of a slave, at the rattling of brass or the banging of a door? you
cannot help hearing the thunder, however refined you may be. You
may apply these remarks about your ears with equal truth to your
eyes, which are just as dainty, if they have been badly schooled:
they are shocked at stains and {154} dirt, at silver plate which
is not sufficiently bright, or at a pool whose water is not clear
down to the bottom. Those same eyes which can only endure to see
the most variegated marble, and that which has just been scoured
bright, which will look at no table whose wood is not marked with
a network of veining, and which at home are loth to tread upon
anything that is not more precious than gold, will, when out of
doors, gaze most calmly upon rough and miry paths, will see unmoved
that the greater number of persons that meet them are shabbily
dressed, and that the walls of the houses are rotten, full of cracks,
and uneven. What, then, can be the reason that they are not distressed
out of doors by sights which would shock them in their own home,
unless it be that their temper is placid and long-suffering in one
case, sulky and fault-finding in the other?

XXXVI. All our senses should be educated into strength: they are
naturally able to endure much, provided that the spirit forbears
to spoil them. The spirit ought to be brought up for examination
daily. It was the custom of Sextius when the day was over, and he
had betaken himself to rest, to inquire of his spirit: “What bad
habit of yours have you cured to-day? what vice have you checked?
in what respect are you better?” Anger will cease, and become more
gentle, if it knows that every day it will have to appear before
the judgment seat. What can be more admirable than this fashion of
discussing the whole of the day’s events? how sweet is the sleep
which follows this self-examination? how calm, how sound, and
careless is it when our spirit has either received praise or
reprimand, and when our secret inquisitor and censor has made his
report about our morals? I make use of this privilege, and daily
plead my cause before myself: when the lamp is taken out of my
sight, and my wife, who knows my habit, has ceased to talk, I pass
the whole day in review before myself, and repeat all that I have
said and done: I conceal nothing {155} from myself, and omit nothing:
for why should I be afraid of any of my shortcomings, when it is
in my power to say, “I pardon you this time: see that you never do
that any more? In that dispute you spoke too contentiously: do not
for the future argue with ignorant people: those who have never
been taught are unwilling to learn. You reprimanded that man with
more freedom than you ought, and consequently you have offended him
instead of amending his ways: in dealing with other cases of the
kind, you should look carefully, not only to the truth of what you
say, but also whether the person to whom you speak can bear to be
told the truth.” A good man delights in receiving advice: all the
worst men are the most impatient of guidance.

XXXVII. At the dinner-table some jokes and sayings intended to give
you pain have been directed against you: avoid feasting with low
people. Those who are not modest even when sober become much more
recklessly impudent after drinking. You have seen your friend in a
rage with the porter of some lawyer or rich man, because he has
sent him back when about to enter, and you yourself on behalf of
your friend have been in a rage with the meanest of slaves. Would
you then be angry with a chained housedog? Why, even he, after a
long bout of barking, becomes gentle if you offer him food. So draw
back and smile; for the moment your porter fancies himself to be
somebody, because he guards a door which is beset by a crowd of
litigants; for the moment he who sits within is prosperous and
happy, and thinks that a street-door through which it is hard to
gain entrance is the mark of a rich and powerful man; he knows not
that the hardest door of all to open is that of the prison. Be
prepared to submit to much. Is any one surprised at being cold in
winter? at being sick at sea? or at being jostled in the street?
The mind is strong enough to bear those evils for which it is
prepared. When {156} you are not given a sufficiently distinguished
place at table you have begun to be angry with your fellow-guests,
with your host, and with him who is preferred above you. Idiot!
What difference can it make what part of the couch you rest upon?
Can a cushion give you honour or take it away? You have looked
askance at somebody because he has spoken slightingly of your
talents; will you apply this rule to yourself? If so, Ennius, whose
poetry you do not care for, would have hated you. Hortensius, if
you had found fault with his speeches, would have quarrelled with
you, and Cicero, if you had laughed at his poetry, would have been
your enemy. A candidate for office, will you resent men’s votes?

XXXVIII. Some one has offered you an insult? Not a greater one,
probably, than was offered to the Stoic philosopher Diogenes, in
whose face an insolent young man spat just when he was lecturing
upon anger. He bore it mildly and wisely. “I am not angry,” said
he, “but I am not sure that I ought not to be angry.” Yet how much
better did our Cato behave? When he was pleading, one Lentulus,
whom our fathers remember as a demagogue and passionate man, spat
all the phlegm he could muster upon his forehead. Cato wiped his
face, and said, “Lentulus, I shall declare to all the world that
men are mistaken when they say that you are wanting in cheek.”

XXXIX. We have now succeeded, my Novatus, in properly regulating
our own minds: they either do not feel anger or are above it: let
us next see how we may soothe the wrath of others, for we do not
only wish to be whole, but to heal.

You should not attempt to allay the first burst of anger by words:
it is deaf and frantic: we must give it scope; our remedies will
only be effective when it slackens. We do not meddle with men’s
eyes when they are swollen, because we should only irritate their
hard stiffness by {157} touching them, nor do we try to cure other
diseases when at their height: the best treatment in the first stage
of illness is rest. “Of how very little value,” say you, “is your
remedy, if it appeases anger which is subsiding of its own accord?”
In the first place, I answer, it makes it end quicker: in the next,
it prevents a relapse. It can render harmless even the violent
impulse which it dares not soothe: it will put out of the way all
weapons which might be used for revenge: it will pretend to be
angry, in order that its advice may have more weight as coming from
an assistant and comrade in grief. It will invent delays, and
postpone immediate punishment while a greater one is being sought
for: it will use every artifice to give the man a respite from his
frenzy. If his anger be unusually strong, it will inspire him with
some irresistible feeling of shame or of fear: if weak, it will
make use of conversation on amusing or novel subjects, and by playing
upon his curiosity lead him to forget his passion. We are told that
a physician, who was forced to cure the king’s daughter, and could
not without using the knife, conveyed a lancet to her swollen breast
concealed under the sponge with which he was fomenting it. The same
girl, who would have shrunk from the remedy if he had applied it
openly, bore the pain because she did not expect it. Some diseases
can only be cured by deceit.

XL. To one class of men you will say, “Beware, lest your anger give
pleasure to your foes:” to the other, “Beware lest your greatness
of mind and the reputation it bears among most people for strength
become impaired. I myself, by Hercules, am scandalized at your
treatment and am grieved beyond measure, but we must wait for a
proper opportunity. He shall pay for what he has done; be well
assured of that: when you are able you shall return it to him with
interest.” To reprove a man when he is angry is to add to his anger
by being angry oneself. You {158} should approach him in different
ways and in a compliant fashion, unless perchance you be so great
a personage that you can quash his anger, as the Emperor Augustus
did when he was dining with Vedius Pollio.[15] One of the slaves
had broken a crystal goblet of his: Vedius ordered him to be led
away to die, and that too in no common fashion: he ordered him to
be thrown to feed the muraenae, some of which fish, of great size,
he kept in a tank. Who would not think that he did this out of
luxury? but it was out of cruelty. The boy slipped through the hands
of those who tried to seize him, and flung himself at Caesar’s feet
in order to beg for nothing more than that he might die in some
different way, and not be eaten. Caesar was shocked at this novel
form of cruelty, and ordered him to be let go, and, in his place,
all the crystal ware which he saw before him to be broken, and the
tank to be filled up. This was the proper way for Caesar to reprove
his friend: he made a good use of his power. What are you, that
when at dinner you order men to be put to death, and mangled by an
unheard-of form of torture? Are a man’s bowels to be torn asunder
because your cup is broken? You must think a great deal of yourself,
if even when the emperor is present you order men to be executed.

XLI. If any one’s power is so great that he can treat anger with
the tone of a superior let him crush it out of existence, but only
if it be of the kind of which I have just spoken, fierce, inhuman,
bloodthirsty, and incurable save by fear of something more powerful
than itself . . . . . . . . let us give the mind that peace which
is given by constant meditation upon wholesome maxims, by good
actions, and by a mind directed to the pursuit of honour alone. Let
us set our own conscience fully at rest, but make no efforts to
gain credit for ourselves: so long as we {159} deserve well, let
us be satisfied, even if we should be ill spoken of. “But the common
herd admires spirited actions, and bold men are held in honour,
while quiet ones are thought to be indolent.” True, at first sight
they may appear to be so: but as soon as the even tenor of their
life proves that this quietude arises not from dullness but from
peace of mind, then that same populace respects and reverences them.
There is, then, nothing useful in that hideous and destructive
passion of anger, but on the contrary, every kind of evil, fire and
sword. Anger tramples self-restraint underfoot, steeps its hands
in slaughter, scatters abroad the limbs of its children: it leaves
no place unsoiled by crime, it has no thoughts of glory, no fears
of disgrace, and when once anger has hardened into hatred, no
amendment is possible.

XLII. Let us be free from this evil, let us clear our minds of it,
and extirpate root and branch a passion which grows again wherever
the smallest particle of it finds a resting-place. Let us not
moderate anger, but get rid of it altogether: what can moderation
have to do with an evil habit? We shall succeed in doing this, if
only we exert ourselves. Nothing will be of greater service than
to bear in mind that we are mortal: let each man say to himself and
to his neighbour, “Why should we, as though we were born to live
for ever, waste our tiny span of life in declaring anger against
any one? why should days, which we might spend in honourable
enjoyment, be misapplied in grieving and torturing others? Life is
a matter which does not admit of waste, and we have no spare time
to throw away. Why do we rush into the fray? why do we go out of
our way to seek disputes? why do we, forgetful of the weakness of
our nature, undertake mighty feuds, and, frail though we be, summon
up all our strength to cut down other men? Ere long, fever or some
other bodily ailment will make us unable to carry on this warfare
of {160} hatred which we so implacably wage: death will soon part
the most vigorous pair of combatants. Why do we make disturbances
and spend our lives in rioting? fate hangs over our heads, scores
up to our account the days as they pass, and is ever drawing nearer
and nearer. The time which you have marked for the death of another
perhaps includes your own.”

XLIII. Instead of acting thus, why do you not rather draw together
what there is of your short life, and keep it peaceful for others
and for yourself? why do you not rather make yourself beloved by
every one while you live, and regretted by every one when you die?
Why do you wish to tame that man’s pride, because he takes too lofty
a tone with you? why do you try with all your might to crush that
other who snaps and snarls at you, a low and contemptible wretch,
but spiteful and offensive to his betters? Master, why are you angry
with your slave? Slave, why are you angry with your master? Client,
why are you angry with your patron? Patron, why are you angry with
your client? Wait but a little while. See, here comes death, who
will make you all equals. We often see at a morning performance in
the arena a battle between a bull and a bear, fastened together,
in which the victor, after he has torn the other to pieces, is
himself slain. We do just the same thing: we worry some one who is
connected with us, although the end of both victor and vanquished
is at hand, and that soon. Let us rather pass the little remnant
of our lives in peace and quiet: may no one loathe us when we lie
dead. A quarrel is often brought to an end by a cry of “Fire!” in
the neighbourhood, and the appearance of a wild beast parts the
highwayman from the traveller: men have no leisure to battle with
minor evils when menaced by some overpowering terror. What have we
to do with fighting and ambuscades? do you want anything more than
death to befall {161} him with whom you are angry? well, even though
you sit quiet, he will be sure to die. You waste your pains: you
want to do what is certain to be done. You say, “I do not wish
necessarily to kill him, but to punish him by exile, or public
disgrace, or loss of property.” I can more easily pardon one who
wishes to give his enemy a wound than one who wishes to give him a
blister: for the latter is not only bad, but petty-minded. Whether
you are thinking of extreme or slighter punishments, how very short
is the time during which either your victim is tortured or you enjoy
an evil pleasure in another’s pain? This breath that we hold so
dear will soon leave us: in the meantime, while we draw it, while
we live among human beings, let us practise humanity: let us not
be a terror or a danger to any one. Let us keep our tempers in spite
of losses, wrongs, abuse or sarcasm, and let us endure with magnanimity
our shortlived troubles: while we are considering what is due to
ourselves, as the saying is, and worrying ourselves, death will be
upon us.


[1] The hook alluded to was fastened to the neck of condemned
criminals, and by it they were dragged to the Tiber. Also the bodies
of dead gladiators were thus dragged out of the arena. The hook by
which the dead bull is drawn away at a modern Spanish bull-fight
is probably a survival of this custom.

[2] Hdt. iii, 34, 35,

[3] Seneca’s own death, by opening his veins, gives a melancholy
interest to this passage.

[4] Hdt. iv. 84.

[5] Hdt. vii. 38, 39.

[6] Plut. Dem. 27.

[7] Hdt. iii. 17, _sqq._

[8] Hdt. i. 189, 190.

[9] A mistake: Antigonus (Monophthalmus) was one of Alexander’s
generals.

[10] _Acerbum_ = ἄωρυν; the funeral of one who has been cut off in
the flower of his youth.

[11] In point of time.

[12] _Consul ordinarius_, a regular consul, one who administered
in office from the first of January, in opposition to _consul
suffectus_, one chosen in the course of the year in the place of
one who had died. The consul ordinarius gave his name to the year.

[13] It seems inconceivable that so small an interest, 1 1/5 per
cent, per an., can be meant.

[14] _Captatis_, Madvig. Adv. II. 394.

[15] See “On Clemency,” i. 18, 2.




{162}

THE SIXTH BOOK OF THE DIALOGUES OF L. ANNAEUS SENECA, ADDRESSED TO
MARCIA.

OF CONSOLATION.


I. Did I not know, Marcia, that you have as little of a woman’s
weakness of mind as of her other vices, and that your life was
regarded as a pattern of antique virtue, I should not have dared
to combat your grief, which is one that many men fondly nurse and
embrace, nor should I have conceived the hope of persuading you to
hold fortune blameless, having to plead for her at such an unfavorable
time, before so partial a judge, and against such an odious charge.
I derive confidence, however, from the proved strength of your mind,
and your virtue, which has been proved by a severe test. All men
know how well you behaved towards your father, whom you loved as
dearly as your children in all respects, save that you did not wish
him to survive you: indeed, for all that I know you may have wished
that also: for great affection ventures to break some of the golden
rules of life. You did all that lay in your power to avert the death
of your father, Aulus Cremutius Cordus;[1] but when it became clear
that, surrounded as he was by the myrmidons of Sejanus, there was
no other way of escape from slavery, you did not {163} indeed approve
of his resolution, but gave up all attempts to oppose it; you shed
tears openly, and choked down your sobs, yet did not screen them
behind a smiling face; and you did all this in the present century,
when not to be unnatural towards one’s parents is considered the
height of filial affection. When the changes of our times gave you
an opportunity, you restored to the use of man that genius of your
father for which he had suffered, and made him in real truth immortal
by publishing as an eternal memorial of him those books which that
bravest of men had written with his own blood. You have done a great
service to Roman literature: a large part of Cordus’s books had
been burned; a great service to posterity, who will receive a true
account of events, which cost its author so dear; and a great service
to himself, whose memory flourishes and ever will flourish, as long
as men set any value upon the facts of Roman history, as long as
any one lives who wishes to review the deeds of our fathers, to
know what a true Roman was like—one who still remained unconquered
when all other necks were broken in to receive the yoke of Sejanus,
one who was free in every thought, feeling, and act. By Hercules,
the state would have sustained a great loss if you had not brought
him forth from the oblivion to which his two splendid qualities,
eloquence and independence, had consigned him: he is now read, is
popular, is received into men’s hands and bosoms, and fears no old
age: but as for those who butchered him, before long men will cease
to speak even of their crimes, the only things by which they are
remembered. This greatness of mind in you has forbidden me to take
into consideration your sex or your face, still clouded by the
sorrow by which so many years ago it was suddenly overcast. See; I
shall do nothing underhand, nor try to steal away your sorrows: I
have reminded you of old hurts, and to prove that your present wound
may be healed, I have {164} shown you the scar of one which was
equally severe. Let others use soft measures and caresses; I have
determined to do battle with your grief, and I will dry those weary
and exhausted eyes, which already, to tell you the truth, are weeping
more from habit than from sorrow. I will effect this cure, if
possible, with your goodwill: if you disapprove of my efforts, or
dislike them, then you must continue to hug and fondle the grief
which you have adopted as the survivor of your son. What, I pray
you, is to be the end of it? All means have been tried in vain: the
consolations of your friends, who are weary of offering them, and
the influence of great men who are related to you: literature, a
taste which your father enjoyed and which you have inherited from
him, now finds your ears closed, and affords you but a futile
consolation, which scarcely engages your thoughts for a moment.
Even time itself, nature’s greatest remedy, which quiets the most
bitter grief, loses its power with you alone. Three years have
already passed, and still your grief has lost none of its first
poignancy, but renews and strengthens itself day by day, and has
now dwelt so long with you that it has acquired a domicile in your
mind, and actually thinks that it would be base to leave it. All
vices sink into our whole being, if we do not crush them before
they gain a footing; and in like manner these sad, pitiable, and
discordant feelings end by feeding upon their own bitterness, until
the unhappy mind takes a sort of morbid delight in grief. I should
have liked, therefore, to have attempted to effect this cure in the
earliest stages of the disorder, before its force was fully developed;
it might have been checked by milder remedies, but now that it has
been confirmed by time it cannot be beaten without a hard struggle.
In like manner, wounds heal easily when the blood is fresh upon
them: they can then be cleared out and brought to the surface, and
admit of being probed by the finger: when disease {165} has turned
them into malignant ulcers, their cure is more difficult. I cannot
now influence so strong a grief by polite and mild measures: it
must be broken down by force.

II. I am aware that all who wish to give any one advice begin with
precepts, and end with examples: but it is sometimes useful to alter
this fashion, for we must deal differently with different people.
Some are guided by reason, others must be confronted with authority
and the names of celebrated persons, whose brilliancy dazzles their
mind and destroys their power of free judgment. I will place before
your eyes two of the greatest examples belonging to your sex and
your century: one, that of a woman who allowed herself to be entirely
carried away by grief; the other, one who, though afflicted by a
like misfortune, and an even greater loss, yet did not allow her
sorrows to reign over her for a very long time, but quickly restored
her mind to its accustomed frame. Octavia and Livia, the former
Augustus’s sister, the latter his wife, both lost their sons when
they were young men, and when they were certain of succeeding to
the throne. Octavia lost Marcellus, whom both his father-in-law and
his uncle had begun to depend upon, and to place upon his shoulders
the weight of the empire—a young man of keen intelligence and firm
character, frugal and moderate in his desires to an extent which
deserved especial admiration in one so young and so wealthy, strong
to endure labour, averse to indulgence, and able to bear whatever
burden his uncle might choose to lay, or I may say to pile upon his
shoulders. Augustus had well chosen him as a foundation, for he
would not have given way under any weight, however excessive. His
mother never ceased to weep and sob during her whole life, never
endured to listen to wholesome advice, never even allowed her
thoughts to be diverted from her sorrow. She remained during her
whole life just as she was during the funeral, with all the {166}
strength of her mind intently fixed upon one subject. I do not say
that she lacked the courage to shake off her grief, but she refused
to be comforted, thought that it would be a second bereavement to
lose her tears, and would not have any portrait of her darling son,
nor allow any allusion to be made to him. She hated all mothers,
and raged against Livia with especial fury, because it seemed as
though the brilliant prospect once in store for her own child was
now transferred to Livia’s son. Passing all her days in darkened
rooms and alone, not conversing even with her brother, she refused
to accept the poems which were composed in memory of Marcellus, and
all the other honours paid him by literature, and closed her ears
against all consolation. She lived buried and hidden from view,
neglecting her accustomed duties, and actually angry with the
excessive splendour of her brother’s prosperity, in which she shared.
Though surrounded by her children and grandchildren, she would not
lay aside her mourning garb, though by retaining it she seemed to
put a slight upon all her relations, in thinking herself bereaved
in spite of their being alive.

III. Livia lost her son Drusus, who would have been a great emperor,
and was already a great general: he had marched far into Germany,
and had planted the Roman standards in places where the very existence
of the Romans was hardly known. He died on the march, his very foes
treating him with respect, observing a reciprocal truce, and not
having the heart to wish for what would do them most service. In
addition to his dying thus in his country’s service, great sorrow
for him was expressed by the citizens, the provinces, and the whole
of Italy, through which his corpse was attended by the people of
the free towns and colonies, who poured out to perform the last sad
offices to him, till it reached Rome in a procession which resembled
a triumph. His mother was not permitted to {167} receive his last
kiss and gather the last fond words from his dying lips: she followed
the relics of her Drusus on their long journey, though every one
of the funeral pyres with which all Italy was glowing seemed to
renew her grief, as though she had lost him so many times. When,
however, she at last laid him in the tomb, she left her sorrow there
with him, and grieved no more than was becoming to a Caesar or due
to a son. She did not cease to make frequent mention of the name
of her Drusus, to set up his portrait in all places, both public
and private, and to speak of him and listen while others spoke of
him with the greatest pleasure: she lived with his memory; which
none can embrace and consort with who has made it painful to
himself.[2] Choose, therefore, which of these two examples you think
the more commendable: if you prefer to follow the former, you will
remove yourself from the number of the living; you will shun the
sight both of other people’s children and of your own, and even of
him whose loss you deplore; you will be looked upon by mothers as
an omen of evil; you will refuse to take part in honourable,
permissible pleasures, thinking them unbecoming for one so afflicted;
you will be loth to linger above ground, and will be especially
angry with your age, because it will not straightway bring your
life abruptly to an end. I here put the best construction on what
is really most contemptible and foreign to your character. I mean
that you will show yourself unwilling to live, and unable to die.
If, on the other hand, showing a milder and better regulated spirit,
you try to follow the example of the latter most exalted lady, you
will not be in misery, nor will you wear your life out with suffering.
Plague on it! what madness this is, to punish one’s self because
one is unfortunate, and not to lessen, but to increase one’s ills!
You ought to display, in this {168} matter also, that decent behaviour
and modesty which has characterised all your life: for there is
such a thing as self-restraint in grief also. You will show more
respect for the youth himself, who well deserves that it should
make you glad to speak and think of him, if you make him able to
meet his mother with a cheerful countenance, even as he was wont
to do when alive.

IV. I will not invite you to practise the sterner kind of maxims,
nor bid you bear the lot of humanity with more than human philosophy;
neither will I attempt to dry a mother’s eyes on the very day of
her son’s burial. I will appear with you before an arbitrator: the
matter upon which we shall join issue is, whether grief ought to
be deep or unceasing. I doubt not that you will prefer the example
of Julia Augusta, who was your intimate friend: she invites you to
follow her method: she, in her first paroxysm, when grief is
especially keen and hard to bear, betook herself for consolation
to Areus, her husband’s teacher in philosophy, and declared that
this did her much good; more good than the thought of the Roman
people, whom she was unwilling to sadden by her mourning; more than
Augustus, who, staggering under the loss of one of his two chief
supporters, ought not to be yet more bowed down by the sorrow of
his relatives; more even than her son Tiberius, whose affection
during that untimely burial of one for whom whole nations wept made
her feel that she had only lost one member of her family. This was,
I imagine, his introduction to and grounding in philosophy of a
woman peculiarly tenacious of her own opinion:—“Even to the present
day, Julia, as far as I can tell—and I was your husband’s constant
companion, and knew not only what all men were allowed to know, but
all the most secret thoughts of your hearts— you have been careful
that no one should find anything to blame in your conduct; not only
in matters of importance, {169} but even in trifles you have taken
pains to do nothing which you could wish common fame, that most
frank judge of the acts of princes, to overlook. Nothing, I think,
is more admirable than that those who are in high places should
pardon many shortcomings in others, and have to ask it for none of
their own. So also in this matter of mourning you ought to act up
to your maxim of doing nothing which you could wish undone, or done
otherwise.

V. “In the next place, I pray and beseech you not to be self-willed
and beyond the management of your friends. You must be aware that
none of them know how to behave, whether to mention Drusus in your
presence or not, as they neither wish to wrong a noble youth by
forgetting him, nor to hurt you by speaking of him. When we leave
you and assemble together by ourselves, we talk freely about his
sayings and doings, treating them with the respect which they
deserve: in your presence deep silence is observed about him, and
thus you lose that greatest of pleasures, the hearing the praises
of your son, which I doubt not you would be willing to hand down
to all future ages, had you the means of so doing, even at the cost
of your own life. Wherefore endure to listen to, nay, encourage
conversation of which he is the subject, and let your ears be open
to the name and memory of your son. You ought not to consider this
painful, like those who in such a case think that part of their
misfortune consists in listening to consolation. As it is, you have
altogether run into the other extreme, and, forgetting the better
aspects of your lot, look only upon its worse side: you pay no
attention to the pleasure you have had in your son’s society and
your joyful meetings with him, the sweet caresses of his babyhood,
the progress of his education: you fix all your attention upon that
last scene of all: and to this, as though it were not shocking
enough, you add every horror you can. Do not, I implore you, take
a perverse pride in appearing {170} the most unhappy of women: and
reflect also that there is no great credit in behaving bravely in
times of prosperity, when life glides easily with a favouring
current: neither does a calm sea and fair wind display the art of
the pilot: some foul weather is wanted to prove his courage. Like
him, then, do not give way, but rather plant yourself firmly, and
endure whatever burden may fall upon you from above, scared though
you may have been at the first roar of the tempest. There is nothing
that fastens such a reproach[3] on Fortune as resignation.” After
this he points out to her the son who is yet alive: he points out
grandchildren from the lost one.

VI. It is your trouble, Marcia, which has been dealt with here: it
is beside your couch of mourning that Areus has been sitting: change
the characters, and it is you whom he has been consoling. But, on
the other hand, Marcia, suppose that you have sustained a greater
loss than ever mother did before you: see, I am not soothing you
or making light of your misfortune: if fate can be overcome by
tears, let us bring tears to bear upon it: let every day be passed
in mourning, every night be spent in sorrow instead of sleep: let
your breast be torn by your own hands, your very face attacked by
them, and every kind of cruelty be practised by your grief, if it
will profit you. But if the dead cannot be brought back to life,
however much we may beat our breasts, if destiny remains fixed and
immoveable for ever, not to be changed by any sorrow, however great,
and death does not loose his hold of anything that he once has taken
away, then let our futile grief be brought to an end. Let us, then,
steer our own course, and no longer allow ourselves to be driven
to leeward by the force of our misfortune. He is a sorry pilot who
lets the waves wring his rudder from his grasp, who leaves the sails
to fly loose, and abandons the ship to the storm: but he who {171}
boldly grasps the helm and clings to it until the sea closes over
him, deserves praise even though he be shipwrecked.

VII. “But,” say you, “sorrow for the loss of one’s own children is
natural.” Who denies it? provided it be reasonable? for we cannot
help feeling a pang, and the stoutest-hearted of us are cast down
not only at the death of those dearest to us, but even when they
leave us on a journey. Nevertheless, the mourning which public
opinion enjoins is more than nature insists upon. Observe how intense
and yet how brief are the sorrows of dumb animals: we hear a cow
lowing for one or two days, nor do mares pursue their wild and
senseless gallops for longer: wild beasts after they have tracked
their lost cubs throughout the forest, and often visited their
plundered dens, quench their rage within a short space of time.
Birds circle round their empty nests with loud and piteous cries,
yet almost immediately resume their ordinary flight in silence; nor
does any creature spend long periods in sorrowing for the loss of
its offspring, except man, who encourages his own grief, the measure
of which depends not upon his sufferings, but upon his will. You
may know that to be utterly broken down by grief is not natural,
by observing that the same bereavement inflicts a deeper wound upon
women than upon men, upon savages than upon civilised and cultivated
persons, upon the unlearned than upon the learned: yet those passions
which derive their force from nature are equally powerful in all
men: therefore it is clear that a passion of varying strength cannot
be a natural one. Fire will burn all people equally, male and female,
of every rank and every age: steel will exhibit its cutting power
on all bodies alike: and why? Because these things derive their
strength from nature, which makes no distinction of persons. Poverty,
grief, and ambition,[4] are {172} felt differently by different
people, according as they are influenced by habit: a rooted prejudice
about the terrors of these things, though they are not really to
be feared, makes a man weak and unable to endure them.

VIII. Moreover, that which depends upon nature is not weakened by
delay, but grief is gradually effaced by time. However obstinate
it may be, though it be daily renewed and be exasperated by all
attempts to soothe it, yet even this becomes weakened by time, which
is the most efficient means of taming its fierceness. You, Marcia,
have still a mighty sorrow abiding with you, nevertheless it already
appears to have become blunted: it is obstinate and enduring, but
not so acute as it was at first: and this also will be taken from
you piecemeal by succeeding years. Whenever you are engaged in other
pursuits your mind will be relieved from its burden: at present you
keep watch over yourself to prevent this. Yet there is a great
difference between allowing and forcing yourself to grieve. How
much more in accordance with your cultivated taste it would be to
put an end to your mourning instead of looking for the end to come,
and not to wait for the day when your sorrow shall cease against
your will: dismiss it of your own accord.

IX. “Why then,” you ask, “do we show such persistence in mourning
for our friends, if it be not nature that bids us do so?” It is
because we never expect that any evil will befall ourselves before
it comes, we will not be taught by seeing the misfortunes of others
that they are the common inheritance of all men, but imagine that
the path which we have begun to tread is free from them and less
beset by dangers than that of other people. How many funerals pass
our houses? yet we do not think of death. How many untimely deaths?
we think only of our son’s coming of age, of his service in the
army, or of his succession to his father’s estate. How many rich
men suddenly {173} sink into poverty before our very eyes, without
its ever occurring to our minds that our own wealth is exposed to
exactly the same risks? When, therefore, misfortune befalls us, we
cannot help collapsing all the more completely, because we are
struck as it were unawares: a blow which has long been foreseen
falls much less heavily upon us. Do you wish to know how completely
exposed you are to every stroke of fate, and that the same shafts
which have transfixed others are whirling around yourself? then
imagine that you are mounting without sufficient armour to assault
some city wall or some strong and lofty position manned by a great
host, expect a wound, and suppose that all those stones, arrows,
and darts which fill the upper air are aimed at your body: whenever
any one falls at your side or behind your back, exclaim, “Fortune,
you will not outwit me, or catch me confident and heedless: I know
what you are preparing to do: you have struck down another, but you
aimed at me.” Who ever looks upon his own affairs as though he were
at the point of death? which of us ever dares to think about
banishment, want, or mourning? who, if advised to meditate upon
these subjects, would not reject the idea like an evil omen, and
bid it depart from him and alight on the heads of his enemies, or
even on that of his untimely adviser? “I never thought it would
happen!” How can you think that anything will not happen, when you
know that it may happen to many men, and has happened to many? That
is a noble verse, and worthy of a nobler source than the stage:—

    “What one hath suffered may befall us all.”

That man has lost his children: you may lose yours. That man has
been convicted: your innocence is in peril. We are deceived and
weakened by this delusion, when we suffer what we never foresaw
that we possibly could suffer: but by looking forward to the coming
of our sorrows we take the sting out of them when they come.

{174}

X. My Marcia, all these adventitious circumstances which glitter
around us, such as children, office in the state, wealth, large
halls, vestibules crowded with clients seeking vainly for admittance,
a noble name, a well-born or beautiful wife, and every other thing
which depends entirely upon uncertain and changeful fortune, are
but furniture which is not our own, but entrusted to us on loan:
none of these things are given to us outright: the stage of our
lives is adorned with properties gathered from various sources, and
soon to be returned to their several owners: some of them will be
taken away on the first day, some on the second, and but few will
remain till the end. We have, therefore, no grounds for regarding
ourselves with complacency, as though the things which surround us
were our own: they are only borrowed: we have the use and enjoyment
of them for a time regulated by the lender, who controls his own
gift: it is our duty always to be able to lay our hands upon what
has been lent us with no fixed date for its return, and to restore
it when called upon without a murmur: the most detestable kind of
debtor is he who rails at his creditor. Hence all our relatives,
both those who by the order of their birth we hope will outlive
ourselves, and those who themselves most properly wish to die before
us, ought to be loved by us as persons whom we cannot be sure of
having with us for ever, nor even for long. We ought frequently to
remind ourselves that we must love the things of this life as we
would what is shortly to leave us, or indeed in the very act of
leaving us. Whatever gift Fortune bestows upon a man, let him think
while he enjoys it, that it will prove as fickle as the goddess
from whom it came. Snatch what pleasure you can from your children,
allow your children in their turn to take pleasure in your society,
and drain every pleasure to the dregs without any delay. We cannot
reckon on to-night, nay, I have allowed too long a delay, {175} we
cannot reckon on this hour: we must make haste: the enemy presses
on behind us: soon that society of yours will be broken up, that
pleasant company will be taken by assault and dispersed. Pillage
is the universal law: unhappy creatures, know you not that life is
but a flight? If you grieve for the death of your son, the fault
lies with the time when he was born, for at his birth he was told
that death was his doom: it is the law under which he was born, the
fate which has pursued him ever since he left his mother’s womb.
We have come under the dominion of Fortune, and a harsh and
unconquerable dominion it is: at her caprice we must suffer all
things whether we deserve them or not. She maltreats our bodies
with anger, insult, and cruelty: some she burns, the fire being
sometimes applied as a punishment and sometimes as a remedy: some
she imprisons, allowing it to be done at one time by our enemies,
at another by our countrymen: she tosses others naked on the changeful
seas, and after their struggle with the waves will not even cast
them out upon the sand or the shore, but will entomb them in the
belly of some huge sea-monster: she wears away others to a skeleton
by divers kinds of disease, and keeps them long in suspense between
life and death: she is as capricious in her rewards and punishments
as a fickle, whimsical, and careless mistress is with those of her
slaves.

XI. Why need we weep over parts of our life? the whole of it calls
for tears: new miseries assail us before we have freed ourselves
from the old ones. You, therefore, who allow them to trouble you
to an unreasonable extent ought especially to restrain yourselves,
and to muster all the powers of the human breast to combat your
fears and your pains. Moreover, what forgetfulness of your own
position and that of mankind is this? You were born a mortal, and
you have given birth to mortals: yourself a weak and fragile body,
liable to all diseases, can you have hoped to {176} produce anything
strong and lasting from such unstable materials? Your son has died:
in other words he has reached that goal towards which those whom
you regard as more fortunate than your offspring are still hastening:
this is the point towards which move at different rates all the
crowds which are squabbling in the law courts, sitting in the
theatres, praying in the temples. Those whom you love and those
whom you despise will both be made equal in the same ashes. This
is the meaning of that command, KNOW THYSELF, which is written on
the shrine of the Pythian oracle. What is man? a potter’s vessel,
to be broken by the slightest shake or toss: it requires no great
storm to rend you asunder: you fall to pieces wherever you strike.
What is man? a weakly and frail body, naked, without any natural
protection, dependent on the help of others, exposed to all the
scorn of Fortune; even when his muscles are well trained he is the
prey and the food of the first wild beast he meets, formed of weak
and unstable substances, fair in outward feature, but unable to
endure cold, heat, or labour, and yet falling to ruin if kept in
sloth and idleness, fearing his very victuals, for he is starved
if he has them not, and bursts if he has too much. He cannot be
kept safe without anxious care, his breath only stays in the body
on sufferance, and has no real hold upon it; he starts at every
sudden danger, every loud and unexpected noise that reaches his
ears. Ever a cause of anxiety to ourselves, diseased and useless
as we are, can we be surprised at the death of a creature which can
be killed by a single hiccup? Is it a great undertaking to put an
end to us? why, smells, tastes, fatigue and want of sleep, food and
drink, and the very necessaries of life, are mortal. Whithersoever
he moves he straightway becomes conscious of his weakness, not being
able to bear all climates, falling sick after drinking strange
water, breathing an air to which he is not accustomed, or {177}
from other causes and reasons of the most trifling kind, frail,
sickly, entering upon his life with weeping: yet nevertheless what
a disturbance this despicable creature makes! what ideas it conceives,
forgetting its lowly condition! It exercises its mind upon matters
which are immortal and eternal, and arranges the affairs of its
grandchildren and great-grandchildren, while death surprises it in
the midst of its far-reaching schemes, and what we call old age is
but the round of a very few years.

XII. Supposing that your sorrow has any method at all, is it your
own sufferings or those of him who is gone that it has in view? Why
do you grieve over your lost son? is it because you have received
no pleasure from him, or because you would have received more had
he lived longer? If you answer that you have received no pleasure
from him you make your loss more endurable: for men miss less when
lost what has given them no enjoyment or gladness. If, again, you
admit that you have received much pleasure, it is your duty not to
complain of that part which you have lost, but to return thanks for
that which you have enjoyed. His rearing alone ought to have brought
you a sufficient return for your labours, for it can hardly be that
those who take the greatest pains to rear puppies, birds, and such
like paltry objects of amusement derive a certain pleasure from the
sight and touch and fawning caresses of these dumb creatures, and
yet that those who rear children should not find their reward in
doing so. Thus, even though his industry may have gained nothing
for you, his carefulness may have saved nothing for you, his foresight
may have given you no advice, yet you found sufficient reward in
having owned him and loved him. “But,” say you, “it might have
lasted longer.” True, but you have been better dealt with than if
you had never had a son, for, supposing you were given your choice,
which is the better lot, to be happy for a short time or not at
all? {178} It is better to enjoy pleasures which soon leave us than
to enjoy none at all. Which, again, would you choose? to have had
one who was a disgrace to you, and who merely filled the position
and owned the name of your son, or one of such noble character as
your son’s was? a youth who soon grew discreet and dutiful, soon
became a husband and a father, soon became eager for public honours,
and soon obtained the priesthood, winning his way to all these
admirable things with equally admirable speed. It falls to scarcely
any one’s lot to enjoy great prosperity, and also to enjoy it for
a long time: only a dull kind of happiness can last for long and
accompany us to the end of our lives. The immortal gods, who did
not intend to give you a son for long, gave you one who was straightway
what another would have required long training to become. You cannot
even say that you have been specially marked by the gods for
misfortune because you have had no pleasure in your son. Look at
any company of people, whether they be known to you or not: everywhere
you will see some who have endured greater misfortunes than your
own. Great generals and princes have undergone like bereavements:
mythology tells us that the gods themselves are not exempt from
them, its aim, I suppose, being to lighten our sorrow at death by
the thought that even deities are subject to it. Look around, I
repeat, at every one: you cannot mention any house so miserable as
not to find comfort in the fact of another being yet more miserable.
I do not, by Hercules, think so ill of your principles as to suppose
that you would bear your sorrow more lightly were I to show you an
enormous company of mourners: that is a spiteful sort of consolation
which we derive from the number of our fellow-sufferers: nevertheless
I will quote some instances, not indeed in order to teach you that
this often befalls men, for it is absurd to multiply examples of
man’s mortality, but to let you know that there have {179} been
many who have lightened their misfortunes by patient endurance of
them. I will begin with the luckiest man of all. Lucius Sulla lost
his son, yet this did not impair either the spitefulness or the
brilliant valour which he displayed at the expense of his enemies
and his countrymen alike, nor did it make him appear to have assumed
his well-known title untruly that he did so after his son’s death,
fearing neither the hatred of men, by whose sufferings that excessive
prosperity of his was purchased, nor the ill-will of the gods, to
whom it was a reproach that Sulla should be so truly The Fortunate.
What, however, Sulla’s real character was may pass among questions
still undecided: even his enemies will admit that he took up arms
with honour, and laid them aside with honour: his example proves
the point at issue, that an evil which befalls even the most
prosperous cannot be one of the first magnitude.

XIII. That Greece cannot boast unduly of that father who, being in
the act of offering sacrifice when he heard the news of his son’s
death, merely ordered the flute-player to be silent, and removed
the garland from his head, but accomplished all the rest of the
ceremony in due form, is due to a Roman, Pulvillus the high priest.
When he was in the act of holding the doorpost[5] and dedicating
the Capitol the news of his son’s death was brought to him. He
pretended not to hear it, and pronounced the form of words proper
for the high priest on such an occasion, without his prayer being
interrupted by a single groan, begging that Jupiter would show
himself gracious, at the very instant that he heard his son’s name
mentioned as dead. Do you imagine that this man’s mourning knew no
end, if the first day and the first shook could not drive him,
though a father, away {180} from the public altar of the state, or
cause him to mar the ceremony of dedication by words of ill omen?
Worthy, indeed, of the most exalted priesthood was he who ceased
not to revere the gods even when they were angry. Yet he, after he
had gone home, filled his eyes with tears, said a few words of
lamentation, and performed the rites with which it was then customary
to honour the dead, resumed the expression of countenance which he
had worn in the Capitol.

Paulus,[6] about the time of his magnificent triumph, in which he
drove Perses in chains before his car, gave two of his sons to be
adopted into other families, and buried those whom he had kept for
himself. What, think you, must those whom he kept have been, when
Scipio was one of those whom he gave away? It was not without emotion
that the Roman people looked upon Paulus’s empty chariot:[7]
nevertheless he made a speech to them, and returned thanks to the
gods for having granted his prayer: for he had prayed that, if any
offering to Nemesis were due in consequence of the stupendous victory
which he had won, it might be paid at his own expense rather than
at that of his country. Do you see how magnanimously he bore his
loss? he even congratulated himself on being left childless, though
who had more to suffer by such a change? he lost at once his
comforters and his helpers. Yet Perses did not have the pleasure
of seeing Paulus look sorrowful.

XIV. Why should I lead you on through the endless {181} series of
great men and pick out the unhappy ones, as though it were not more
difficult to find happy ones? for how few households have remained
possessed of all their members until the end? what one is there
that has not suffered some loss? Take any one year you please and
name the consuls for it: if you like, that of[8] Lucius Bibulus and
Gaius Caesar; you will see that, though these colleagues were each
other’s bitterest enemies, yet their fortunes agreed. Lucius Bibulus,
a man more remarkable for goodness than for strength of character,
had both his sons murdered at the same time, and even insulted by
the Egyptian soldiery, so that the agent of his bereavement was as
much a subject for tears as the bereavement itself. Nevertheless
Bibulus, who during the whole of his year of office had remained
hidden in his house, to cast reproach upon his colleague Caesar on
the day following that upon which he heard of both his sons’ deaths,
came forth and went through the routine business of his magistracy.
Who could devote less than one day to mourning for two sons? Thus
soon did he end his mourning for his children, although he had
mourned a whole year for his consulship. Gaius Caesar, after having
traversed Britain, and not allowed even the ocean to set bounds to
his successes, heard of the death of his daughter, which hurried
on the crisis of affairs. Already Gnaeus Pompeius stood before his
eyes, a man who would ill endure that any one besides himself should
become a great power in the state, and one who was likely to place
a check upon his advancement, which he had regarded as onerous even
when each gained by the other’s rise: yet within three days’ time
he resumed his duties as general, and conquered his grief as quickly
as he was wont to conquer everything else.

XV. Why need I remind you of the deaths of the other {182} Caesars,
whom fortune appears to me sometimes to have outraged in order that
even by their deaths they might be useful to mankind, by proving
that not even they, although they were styled “sons of gods,” and
“fathers of gods to come,” could exercise the same power over their
own fortunes which they did over those of others? The Emperor
Augustus lost his children and his grandchildren, and after all the
family of Caesar had perished was obliged to prop his empty house
by adopting a son: yet he bore his losses as bravely as though he
were already personally concerned in the honour of the gods, and
as though it were especially to his interest that no one should
complain of the injustice of Heaven. Tiberius Caesar lost both the
son whom he begot and the son whom he adopted, yet he himself
pronounced a panegyric upon his son from the Rostra, and stood in
full view of the corpse, which merely had a curtain on one side to
prevent the eyes of the high priest resting upon the dead body, and
did not change his countenance, though all the Romans wept: he gave
Sejanus, who stood by his side, a proof of how patiently he could
endure the loss of his relatives. See you not what numbers of most
eminent men there have been, none of whom have been spared by this
blight which prostrates us all: men, too, adorned with every grace
of character, and every distinction that public or private life can
confer. It appears as though this plague moved in a regular orbit,
and spread ruin and desolation among us all without distinction of
persons, all being alike its prey. Bid any number of individuals
tell you the story of their lives: you will find that all have paid
some penalty for being born.

XVI. I know what you will say, “You quote men as examples: you
forget that it is a woman that you are trying to console.” Yet who
would say that nature has dealt grudgingly with the minds of women,
and stunted their virtues? Believe me, they have the same intellectual
power as men, {183} and the same capacity for honourable and generous
action. If trained to do so, they are just as able to endure sorrow
or labour. Ye good gods, do I say this in that very city in which
Lucretia and Brutus removed the yoke of kings from the necks of the
Romans? We owe liberty to Brutus, but we owe Brutus to Lucretia—in
which Cloelia, for the sublime courage with which she scorned both
the enemy and the river, has been almost reckoned as a man. The
statue of Cloelia, mounted on horseback, in that busiest of
thoroughfares, the Sacred Way, continually reproaches the youth of
the present day, who never mount anything but a cushioned seat in
a carriage, with journeying in such a fashion through that very
city in which we have enrolled even women among our knights. If you
wish me to point out to you examples of women who have bravely
endured the loss of their children, I shall not go far afield to
search for them: in one family I can quote two Cornelias, one the
daughter of Scipio, and the mother of the Gracchi, who made
acknowledgment of the birth of her twelve children by burying them
all: nor was it so hard to do this in the case of the others, whose
birth and death were alike unknown to the public, but she beheld
the murdered and unburied corpses of both Tiberius Gracchus and
Gaius Gracchus, whom even those who will not call them good must
admit were great men. Yet to those who tried to console her and
called her unfortunate, she answered, “I shall never cease to call
myself happy, because I am the mother of the Gracchi.” Cornelia,
the wife of Livius Drusus, lost by the hands of an unknown assassin
a young son of great distinction, who was treading in the footsteps
of the Gracchi, and was murdered in his own house just when he had
so many bills half way through the process of becoming law:
nevertheless she bore the untimely and unavenged death of her son
with as lofty a spirit as he had shown in carrying his laws. Will
you not, Marcia, forgive fortune because she has not refrained {184}
from striking you with the darts with which she launched at the
Scipios, and the mothers and daughters of the Scipios, and with
which she has attacked the Caesars themselves? Life is full of
misfortunes; our path is beset with them: no one can make a long
peace, nay, scarcely an armistice with fortune. You, Marcia, have
borne four children: now they say that no dart which is hurled into
a close column of soldiers can fail to hit one,—ought you then to
wonder at not having been able to lead along such a company without
exciting the ill-will of Fortune, or suffering loss at her hands?
“But,” say you, “Fortune has treated me unfairly, for she not only
has bereaved me of my son, but chose my best beloved to deprive me
of.” Yet you never can say that you have been wronged, if you divide
the stakes equally with an antagonist who is stronger than yourself:
Fortune has left you two daughters, and their children: she has not
even taken away altogether him who you now mourn for, forgetful of
his elder brother: you have two daughters by him, who if you support
them ill will prove great burdens, but if well, great comforts to
you. You ought to prevail upon yourself, when you see them, to let
them remind you of your son, and not of your grief. When a husbandman’s
trees have either been torn up, roots and all, by the wind, or
broken off short by the force of a hurricane, he takes care of what
is left of their stock, straightway plants seeds or cuttings in the
place of those which he has lost, and in a moment—for time is as
swift in repairing losses as in causing them—more flourishing trees
are growing than were there before. Take, then, in the place of
your Metilius these his two daughters, and by their twofold consolation
lighten your single sorrow. True, human nature is so constituted
as to love nothing so much as what it has lost, and our yearning
after those who have been taken from us makes us judge unfairly of
those who are left to us: nevertheless, if you choose to reckon up
how merciful {185} Fortune has been to you even in her anger, you
will feel that you have more than enough to console you. Look at
all your grandchildren, and your two daughters: and say also,
Marcia:—“I should indeed be cast down, if everyone’s fortune followed
his deserts, and if no evil ever befel good men: but as it is I
perceive that no distinction is made, and that the bad and the good
are both harassed alike.”

XVII. “Still, it is a sad thing to lose a young man whom you have
brought up, just as he was becoming a defence and a pride both to
his mother and to his country.” No one denies that it is sad: but
it is the common lot of mortals. You were born to lose others, to
be lost, to hope, to fear, to destroy your own peace and that of
others, to fear and yet to long for death, and, worst of all, never
to know what your real position is. If you were about to journey
to Syracuse, and some one were to say:—“Learn beforehand all the
discomforts, and all the pleasures of your coming voyage, and then
set sail. The sights which you will enjoy will be as follows: first,
you will see the island itself, now separated from Italy by a narrow
strait, but which, we know, once formed part of the mainland. The
sea suddenly broke through, and

    ‘Sever’d Sicilia from the western shore.’[9]

Next, as you will be able to sail close to Charybdis, of which the
poets have sung, you will see that greediest of whirlpools, quite
smooth if no south wind be blowing, but whenever there is a gale
from that quarter, sucking down ships into a huge and deep abyss.
You will see the fountain of Arethusa, so famed in song, with its
waters bright and pellucid to the very bottom, and pouring forth
an icy stream which it either finds on the spot or else plunges it
under ground, conveys it thither as a separate river beneath so
many seas, free from any mixture of less pure water, and {186} there
brings it again to the surface. You will see a harbour which is
more sheltered than all the others in the world, whether they be
natural or improved by human art for the protection of shipping;
so safe, that even the most violent storms are powerless to disturb
it. You will see the place where the power of Athens was broken,
where that natural prison, hewn deep among precipices of rock,
received so many thousands of captives: you will see the great city
itself, occupying a wider site than many capitals, an extremely
warm resort in winter, where not a single day passes without sunshine:
but when you have observed all this, you must remember that the
advantages of its winter climate are counterbalanced by a hot and
pestilential summer: that here will be the tyrant Dionysius, the
destroyer of freedom, of justice, and of law, who is greedy of power
even after conversing with Plato, and of life even after he has
been exiled; that he will burn some, flog others, and behead others
for slight offences; that he will exercise his lust upon both sexes
. . . . . You have now heard all that can attract you thither, all
that can deter you from going: now, then, either set sail or remain
at home!” If, after this declaration, anybody were to say that he
wished to go to Syracuse, he could blame no one but himself for
what befel him there, because he would not stumble upon it unknowingly,
but would have gone thither fully aware of what was before him. To
everyone Nature says: “I do not deceive any person. If you choose
to have children, they may be handsome, or they may be deformed;
perhaps they will be born dumb. One of them may perhaps prove the
saviour of his country, or perhaps its betrayer. You need not despair
of their being raised to such honour that for their sake no one
will dare to speak evil of you: yet remember that they may reach
such a pitch of infamy as themselves to become curses to you. There
is nothing to prevent their performing the {187} last offices for
you, and your panegyric being spoken by your children: but hold
yourself prepared nevertheless to place a son as boy, man, or
greybeard, upon the funeral pyre: for years have nothing to do with
the matter, since every sort of funeral in which a parent buries
his child must alike be untimely.[10] If you still choose to rear
children, after I have explained these conditions to you, you render
yourself incapable of blaming the gods, for they never guaranteed
anything to you.”

XVIII. You may make this simile apply to your whole entrance into
life. I have explained to you what attractions and what drawbacks
there would be if you were thinking of going to Syracuse: now suppose
that I were to come and give you advice when you were going to be
born. “You are about,” I should say, “to enter a city of which both
gods and men are citizens, a city which contains the whole universe,
which is bound by irrevocable and eternal laws, and wherein the
heavenly bodies run their unwearied courses: you will see therein
innumerable twinkling stars, and the sun, whose single light pervades
every place, who by his daily course marks the times of day and
night, and by his yearly course makes a more equal division between
summer and winter. You will see his place taken by night by the
moon, who borrows at her meetings with her brother a gentle and
softer light, and who at one time is invisible, at another hangs
full-faced above the earth, ever waxing and waning, each phase
unlike the last. You will see five stars, moving in the opposite
direction to the others, stemming the whirl of the skies towards
the West: on the slightest motions of these depend the fortunes of
nations, and according as the aspect of the planets is auspicious
or malignant, the greatest empires rise and fall: you will see with
wonder the gathering clouds, the falling showers, the {188} zigzag
lightning, the crashing together of the heavens. When, sated with
the wonders above, you turn your eyes towards the earth, they will
be met by objects of a different yet equally admirable aspect: on
one side a boundless expanse of open plains, on another the towering
peaks of lofty and snow-clad mountains: the downward course of
rivers, some streams running eastward, some westward from the same
source: the woods which wave even on the mountain tops, the vast
forests with all the creatures that dwell therein, and the confused
harmony of the birds: the variously-placed cities, the nations which
natural obstacles keep secluded from the world, some of whom withdraw
themselves to lofty mountains, while others dwell in fear and
trembling on the sloping banks of rivers: the crops which are
assisted by cultivation, and the trees which bear fruit even without
it: the rivers that flow gently through the meadows, the lovely
bays and shores that curve inwards to form harbours: the countless
islands scattered over the main, which break and spangle the seas.
What of the brilliancy of stones and gems, the gold that rolls amid
the sands of rushing streams, the heaven-born fires that burst forth
from the midst of the earth and even front the midst of the sea;
the ocean itself, that binds land to land, dividing the nations by
its threefold indentations, and boiling up with mighty rage? Swimming
upon its waves, making them disturbed and swelling without wind,
you will see animals exceeding the size of any that belong to the
land, some clumsy and requiring others to guide their movements,
some swift and moving faster than the utmost efforts of rowers,
some of them that drink in the waters and blow them out again to
the great perils of those who sail near them: you will see here
ships seeking for unknown lands: you will see that man’s audacity
leaves nothing unattempted, and you will yourself be both a witness
and a sharer in great {189} attempts. You will both learn and teach
the arts by which men’s lives are supplied with necessaries, are
adorned, and are ruled: but in this same place there will be a
thousand pestilences fatal to both body and mind, there will be
wars and highway robberies, poisonings and shipwrecks, extremes of
climate and excesses of body, untimely griefs for our dearest ones,
and death for ourselves, of which we cannot tell whether it will
be easy or by torture at the hands of the executioner. Now consider
and weigh carefully in your own mind which you would choose. If you
wish to enjoy these blessings you must pass through these pains.
Do you answer that you choose to live? ‘Of course.’ Nay, I thought
you would not enter upon that of which the least diminution causes
pain. Live, then, as has been agreed on. You say, “No one has asked
my opinion.” Our parents’ opinion was taken about us, when, knowing
what the conditions of life are, they brought us into it.

XIX. But, to come to topics of consolation, in the first place
consider if you please to what our remedies must be applied, and
next, in what way. It is regret for the absence of his loved one
which causes a mourner to grieve: yet it is clear that this in
itself is bearable enough; for we do not weep at their being absent
or intending to be absent during their lifetime, although when they
leave our sight we have no more pleasure in them. What tortures us,
therefore, is an idea. Now every evil is just as great as we consider
it to be: we have, therefore, the remedy in our own hands. Let us
suppose that they are on a journey, and let us deceive ourselves:
we have sent them away, or, rather, we have sent them on in advance
to a place whither we shall soon follow them.[11] Besides this,
mourners are wont to suffer from the thought, “I shall {190} have
no one to protect me, no one to avenge me when I am scorned.” To
use a very disreputable but very true mode of consolation, I may
say that in our country the loss of children bestows more influence
than it takes away, and loneliness, which used to bring the aged
to ruin, now makes them so powerful that some old men have pretended
to pick quarrels with their sons, have disowned their own children,
and have made themselves childless by their own act. I know what
you will say: “My own losses do not grieve me:” and indeed a man
does not deserve to be consoled if he is sorry for his son’s death
as he would be for that of a slave, who is capable of seeing anything
in his son beyond his son’s self. What then, Marcia, is it that
grieves you? is it that your son has died, or that he did not live
long? If it be his having died, then you ought always to have
grieved, for you always knew that he would die. Reflect that the
dead suffer no evils, that all those stories which make us dread
the nether world are mere fables, that he who dies need fear no
darkness, no prison, no blazing streams of fire, no river of Lethe,
no judgment seat before which he must appear, and that Death is
such utter freedom that, he need fear no more despots. All that is
a phantasy of the poets, who have terrified us without a cause.
Death is a release from and an end of all pains: beyond it our
sufferings cannot extend: it restores us to the peaceful rest in
which we lay before we were born. If any one pities the dead, he
ought also to pity those who have not been born. Death is neither
a good nor a bad thing, for that alone which is something can be a
good or a bad thing: but that which is nothing, and reduces all
things to nothing, does not hand us over to either fortune, because
good and bad require some material to work upon. Fortune cannot
take hold of that which Nature has let go, nor can a man be unhappy
if he is nothing. Your son has passed beyond the border of the {191}
country where men are forced to labour; he has reached deep and
everlasting peace. He feels no fear of want, no anxiety about his
riches, no stings of lust that tears the heart in guise of pleasure:
he knows no envy of another’s prosperity, he is not crushed by the
weight of his own; even his chaste ears are not wounded by any
ribaldry: he is menaced by no disaster, either to his country or
to himself. He does not hang, full of anxiety, upon the issue of
events, to reap even greater uncertainty as his reward: he has at
last taken up a position from which nothing can dislodge him, where
nothing can make him afraid.

XX. O how little do men understand their own misery, that they do
not praise and look forward to death as the best discovery of Nature,
whether because it hedges in happiness, or because it drives away
misery: because it puts an end to the sated weariness of old age,
cuts down youth in its bloom while still full of hope of better
things, or calls home childhood before the harsher stages of life
are reached: it is the end of all men, a relief to many, a desire
to some, and it treats none so well as those to whom it comes before
they call for it. Death frees the slave though his master wills it
not, it lightens the captive’s chains: it leads out of prison those
whom headstrong power has forbidden to quit it: it points out to
exiles, whose minds and eyes are ever turned towards their own
country, that it makes no difference under what people’s soil one
lies. When Fortune has unjustly divided the common stock, and has
given over one man to another, though they were born with equal
rights. Death makes them all equal. After Death no one acts any
more at another’s bidding: in death no man suffers any more from
the sense of his low position. It is open to all: it was what your
father, Marcia, longed for: it is this, I say, that renders it no
misery to be born, which enables me to face the threatenings of
misfortune without quailing, and to keep {192} my mind unharmed and
able to command itself. I have a last appeal. I see before me crosses
not all alike, but differently made by different peoples: some hang
a man head downwards, some force a stick upwards through his groin,
some stretch out his arms on a forked gibbet. I see cords, scourges,
and instruments of torture for each limb and each joint: but I see
Death also. There are bloodthirsty enemies, there are overbearing
fellow-countrymen, but where they are there I see Death also. Slavery
is not grievous if a man can gain his freedom by one step as soon
as he becomes tired of thraldom. Life, it is thanks to Death that
I hold thee so dear. Think how great a blessing is a timely death,
how many have been injured by living longer than they ought. If
sickness had carried off that glory and support of the empire,
Gnaeus Pompeius, at Naples, he would have died the undoubted head
of the Roman people, but as it was, a short extension of time cast
him down from his pinnacle of fame: he beheld his legions slaughtered
before his eyes: and what a sad relic of that battle, in which the
Senate formed the first line, was the survival of the general. He
saw his Egyptian butcher, and offered his body, hallowed by so many
victories, to a guardsman’s sword, although even had he been unhurt,
he would have regretted his safety: for what could have been more
infamous than that a Pompeius should owe his life to the clemency
of a king? If Marcus Cicero had fallen at the time when he avoided
those daggers which Catiline aimed equally at him and at his country,
he might have died as the saviour of the commonwealth which he had
set free: if his death had even followed upon that of his daughter,
he might have died happy. He would not then have seen swords drawn
for the slaughter of Roman citizens, the goods of the murdered
divided among the murderers that men might pay from their own purse
the price of their {193} own blood, the public auction of the
consul’s spoil in the civil war, the public letting out of murder
to be done, brigandage, war, pillage, hosts of Catilines. Would it
not have been a good thing for Marcus Cato if the sea had swallowed
him up when he was returning from Cyprus after sequestrating the
king’s hereditary possessions, even if that very money which he was
bringing to pay the soldiers in the civil war had been lost with
him? He certainly would have been able to boast that no one would
dare to do wrong in the presence of Cato: as it was, the extension
of his life for a very few more years forced one who was born for
personal and political freedom to flee from Caesar and to become
Pompeius’s follower. Premature death therefore did him no evil:
indeed, it put an end to the power of any evil to hurt him.

XXI. “Yet,” say you, “he perished too soon and untimely.” In the
first place, suppose that he had lived to extreme old age: let him
continue alive to the extreme limits of human existence: how much
is it after all? Born for a very brief space of time, we regard
this life as an inn which we are soon to quit that it may be made
ready for the coming guest. Do I speak of our lives, which we know
roll away incredibly fast? Reckon up the centuries of cities: you
will find that even those which boast of their antiquity have not
existed for long. All human works are brief and fleeting; they take
up no part whatever of infinite time. Tried by the standard of the
universe, we regard this earth of ours, with all its cities, nations,
rivers, and sea-board as a mere point: our life occupies less than
a point when compared with all time, the measure of which exceeds
that of the world, for indeed the world is contained many times in
it. Of what importance, then, can it be to lengthen that which,
however much you add to it, will never be much more than nothing?
We can only make our lives long by one expedient, that is, by being
{194} satisfied with their length: you may tell me of long-lived
men, whose length of days has been celebrated by tradition, you may
assign a hundred and ten years apiece to them: yet when you allow
your mind to conceive the idea of eternity, there will be no
difference between the shortest and the longest life, if you compare
the time during which any one has been alive with that during which
he has not been alive. In the next place, when he died his life was
complete: he had lived as long as he needed to live: there was
nothing left for him to accomplish. All men do not grow old at the
same age, nor indeed do all animals: some are wearied out by life
at fourteen years of age, and what is only the first stage of life
with man is their extreme limit of longevity. To each man a varying
length of days has been assigned: no one dies before his time,
because he was not destined to live any longer than he did. Everyone’s
end is fixed, and will always remain where it has been placed:
neither industry nor favour will move it on any further. Believe,
then, that you lost him by advice: he took all that was his own,

    “And reached the goal allotted to his life,”

so you need not burden yourself with the thought, “He might have
lived longer.” His life has not been cut short, nor does chance
ever cut short our years: every man receives as much as was promised
to him: the Fates go their own way, and neither add anything nor
take away anything from what they have once promised. Prayers and
endeavours are all in vain: each man will have as much life as his
first day placed to his credit: from the time when he first saw the
light he has entered on the path that leads to death, and is drawing
nearer to his doom: those same years which were added to his youth
were subtracted from his life. We all fall into this mistake of
supposing that it is only old men, already in the decline of life,
who are drawing {195} near to death, whereas our first infancy, our
youth, indeed every time of life leads thither. The Fates ply their
own work: they take from us the consciousness of our death, and,
the better to conceal its approaches, death lurks under the very
names we give to life: infancy changes into boyhood, maturity
swallows up the boy, old age the man; these stages themselves, if
you reckon them properly, are so many losses.

XXII. Do you complain, Marcia, that your son did not live as long
as he might have done? How do you know that it was to his advantage
to live longer? whether his interest was not served by this death?
Whom can you find at the present time whose fortunes are grounded
on such sure foundations that they have nothing to fear in the
future? All human affairs are evanescent and perishable, nor is any
part of our life so frail and liable to accident as that which we
especially enjoy. We ought, therefore, to pray for death when our
fortune is at its best, because so great is the uncertainty and
turmoil in which we live, that we can be sure of nothing but what
is past. Think of your son’s handsome person, which you had guarded
in perfect purity among all the temptations of a voluptuous capital.
Who could have undertaken to keep that clear of all diseases, so
that it might preserve its beauty of form unimpaired even to old
age? Think of the many taints of the mind: for fine dispositions
do not always continue to their life’s end to make good the promise
of their youth, but have often broken down: either extravagance,
all the more shameful for being indulged in late in life, takes
possession of men and makes their well-begun lives end in disgrace,
or they devote their entire thoughts to the eating-house and the
belly, and they become interested in nothing save what they shall
eat and what they shall drink. Add to this conflagrations, falling
houses, shipwrecks, the agonizing operations of surgeons, who cut
{196} pieces of bone out of men’s living bodies, plunge their whole
hands into their entrails, and inflict more than one kind of pain
to effect the cure of shameful diseases. After these comes exile;
your son was not more innocent than Rutilius: imprisonment; he was
not wiser than Socrates: the piercing of one’s breast by a
self-inflicted wound; he was not of holier life than Cato. When you
look at these examples, you will perceive that nature deals very
kindly with those whom she puts speedily in a place of safety because
there awaited them the payment of some such price as this for their
lives. Nothing is so deceptive, nothing is so treacherous as human
life; by Hercules, were it not given to men before they could form
an opinion, no one would take it. Not to be born, therefore, is the
happiest lot of all, and the nearest thing to this, I imagine, is
that we should soon finish our strife here and be restored again
to our former rest. Recall to your mind that time, so painful to
you, during which Sejanus handed over your father as a present to
his client Satrius Secundus: he was angry with him about something
or other which he had said with too great freedom, because he was
not able to keep silence and see Sejanus climbing up to take his
seat upon our necks, which would have been bad enough had he been
placed there by his master. He was decreed the honour of a statue,
to be set up in the theatre of Pompeius, which had been burned down
and was being restored by Caesar. Cordus exclaimed that “Now the
theatre was really destroyed.” What then? should he not burst with
spite at a Sejanus being set up over the ashes of Gnaeus Pompeius,
at a faithless soldier being commemorated within the memorial of a
consummate commander? The inscription was put up:[12] and those
keen-scented {197} hounds whom Sejanus used to feed on human blood,
to make them tame towards himself and fierce to all the world beside,
began to bay around their victim and even to make premature snaps
at him. What was he to do? If he chose to live, he must gain the
consent of Sejanus; if to die, he must gain that of his daughter;
and neither of them could have been persuaded to grant it: he
therefore determined to deceive his daughter, and having taken a
bath in order to weaken himself still further, he retired to his
bed-chamber on the pretence of taking a meal there. After dismissing
his slaves he threw some of the food out of the window, that he
might appear to have eaten it: then he took no supper, making the
excuse that he had already had enough food in his chamber. This he
continued to do on the second and the third day: the fourth betrayed
his condition by his bodily weakness; so, embracing you, “My dearest
daughter,” said he, “from whom I have never throughout your whole
life concealed aught but this, I have begun my journey towards
death, and have already travelled half-way thither. You cannot and
you ought not to call me back.” So saying he ordered all light to
be excluded from the room and shut himself up in the darkness. When
his determination became known there was a general feeling of
pleasure at the prey being snatched out of the jaws of those ravening
wolves. His prosecutors, at the instance of Sejanus, went to the
judgment-seat of the consuls, complained that Cordus was dying, and
begged the consuls to interpose to prevent his doing what they
themselves had driven him to do; so true was it that Cordus appeared
to them to be escaping: an important matter was at stake, namely,
whether the accused should lose the right to die. While this point
was being debated, and the prosecutors were going to attend the
court a second time, he had set himself free from them. Do you see,
Marcia, how suddenly evil days come upon a man? {198} and do you
weep because one of your family could not avoid dying? one of your
family was within a very little of not being allowed to die.

XXIII. Besides the fact that everything that is future is uncertain,
and the only certainty is that it is more likely to turn out ill
than well, our spirits find the path to the Gods above easiest when
it is soon allowed to leave the society of mankind, because it has
then contracted fewest impurities to weigh it down: if set free
before they become hardened worldlings, before earthly things have
sunk too deep into them, they fly all the more lightly back to the
place from whence they came, and all the more easily wash away the
stains and defilements which they may have contracted. Great minds
never love to linger long in the body: they are eager to burst its
bonds and escape from it, they chafe at the narrowness of their
prison, having been wont to wander through space, and from aloft
in the upper air to look down with contempt upon human affairs.
Hence it is that Plato declares that the wise man’s mind is entirely
given up to death, longs for it, contemplates it, and through his
eagerness for it is always striving after things which lie beyond
this life. Why, Marcia, when you saw him while yet young displaying
the wisdom of age, with a mind that could rise superior to all
sensual enjoyments, faultless and without a blemish, able to win
riches without greediness, public office without ambition, pleasure
without extravagance, did you suppose it would long be your lot to
keep him safe by your side? Whatever has arrived at perfection, is
ripe for dissolution. Consummate virtue flees away and betakes
itself out of our sight, and those things which come to maturity
in the first stage of their being do not wait for the last. The
brighter a fire glows, the sooner it goes out: it lasts longer when
it is made up with bad and slowly burning fuel, and shows a dull
light through a cloud of smoke: its being poorly fed {199} makes
it linger all the longer. So also the more brilliant men’s minds,
the shorter lived they are: for when there is no room for further
growth, the end is near. Fabianus tells us, what our parents
themselves have seen, that there was at Rome a boy of gigantic
stature, exceeding that of a man: but he soon died, and every
sensible person always said that he would soon die, for he could
not live to reach the age which he had assumed before it was due.
So it is: too complete maturity is a proof that destruction is near,
and the end approaches when growth is over.

XXIV. Begin to reckon his age, not by years, but by virtues: he
lived long enough. He was left as a ward in the care of guardians
up to his fourteenth year, and never passed out of that of his
mother: when he had a household of his own he was loth to leave
yours, and continued to dwell under his mother’s roof, though few
sons can endure to live under their father’s. Though a youth whose
height, beauty, and vigour of body destined him for the army, yet
he refused to serve, that he might not be separated from you.
Consider, Marcia, how seldom mothers who live in separate houses
see their children: consider how they lose and pass in anxiety all
those years during which they have sons in the army, and you will
see that this time, none of which you lost, was of considerable
extent: he never went out of your sight: it was under your eyes
that he applied himself to the cultivation of an admirable intellect
and one which would have rivalled that of his grandfather, had it
not been hindered by shyness, which has concealed many men’s
accomplishments: though a youth of unusual beauty, and living among
such throngs of women who made it their business to seduce men, he
gratified the wishes of none of them, and when the effrontery of
some led them so far as actually to tempt him, he blushed as deeply
at having found favour in their eyes as though he had been guilty.
By this holiness of life he caused himself, while yet quite a {200}
boy, to be thought worthy of the priesthood, which no doubt he owed
to his mother’s influence; but even his mother’s influence would
have had no weight if the candidate for whom it was exerted had
been unfit for the post. Dwell upon these virtues, and nurse your
son as it were in your lap: now he is more at leisure to respond
to your caresses, he has nothing to call him away from you, he will
never be an anxiety or a sorrow to you. You have grieved at the
only grief so good a son could cause you: all else is beyond the
power of fortune to harm, and is full of pleasure, if only you know
how to make use of your son, if you do but know what his most
precious quality was. It is merely the outward semblance of your
son that has perished, his likeness, and that not a very good one;
he himself is immortal, and is now in a far better state, set free
from the burden of all that was not his own, and left simply by
himself: all this apparatus which you see about us of bones and
sinews, this covering of skin, this face, these our servants the
hands, and all the rest of our environment, are but chains and
darkness to the soul: they overwhelm it, choke it, corrupt it, fill
it with false ideas, and keep it at a distance from its own true
sphere: it has to struggle continually against this burden of the
flesh, lest it be dragged down and sunk by it. It ever strives to
rise up again to the place from whence it was sent down on earth:
there eternal rest awaits it, there it will behold what is pure and
clear, in place of what is foul and turbid.

XXV. You need not, therefore, hasten to the burial-place of your
son: that which lies there is but the worst part of him and that
which gave him most trouble, only bones and ashes, which are no
more parts of him than clothes or other coverings of his body. He
is complete, and without leaving any part of himself behind on earth
has taken wing and gone away altogether: he has tarried a brief
space above us while his soul was being cleansed {201} and purified
from the vices and rust which all mortal lives must contract, and
from thence he will rise to the high heavens and join the souls of
the blessed: a saintly company will welcome him thither,—Scipios
and Catos; and among the rest of those who have held life cheap and
set themselves free, thanks to death, albeit all there are alike
akin, your father, Marcia, will embrace his grandson as he rejoices
in the unwonted light, will teach him the motion of the stars which
are so near to them, and introduce him with joy into all the secrets
of nature, not by guesswork but by real knowledge. Even as a stranger
is grateful to one who shows him the way about an unknown city, so
is a searcher after the causes of what he sees in the heavens to
one of his own family who can explain them to him. He will delight
in gazing deep down upon the earth, for it is a delight to look
from aloft at what one has left below. Bear yourself, therefore,
Marcia, as though you were placed before the eyes of your father
and your son, yet not such as you knew them, but far loftier beings,
placed in a higher sphere. Blush, then, to do any mean or common
action, or to weep for those your relatives who have been changed
for the better. Free to roam through the open, boundless realms of
the everliving universe, they are not hindered in their course by
intervening seas, lofty mountains, impassable valleys, or the
treacherous fiats of the Syrtes: they find a level path everywhere,
are swift and ready of motion, and are permeated in their turn by
the stars and dwell together with them.

XXVI. Imagine then, Marcia, that your father, whose influence over
you was as great as yours over your son, no longer in that frame
of mind in which he deplored the civil wars, or in which he for
ever proscribed those who would have proscribed him, but in a mood
as much more joyful as his abode now is higher than of old, is
saying, as {202} he looks down from the height of heaven, “My
daughter, why does this sorrow possess you for so long? why do you
live in such ignorance of the truth, as to think that your son has
been unfairly dealt with because he has returned to his ancestors
in his prime, without decay of body or mind, leaving his family
flourishing? Do you not know with what storms Fortune unsettles
everything? how she proves kind and compliant to none save to those
who have the fewest possible dealings with her? Need I remind you
of kings who would have been the happiest of mortals had death
sooner withdrawn them from the ruin which was approaching them? or
of Roman generals, whose greatness, had but a few years been taken
from their lives, would have wanted nothing to render it complete?
or of men of the highest distinction and noblest birth who have
calmly offered their necks to the stroke of a soldier’s sword? Look
at your father and your grandfather: the former fell into the hands
of a foreign murderer: I allowed no man to take any liberties with
me, and by abstinence from food showed that my spirit was as great
as my writings had represented it. Why, then, should that member
of our household who died most happily of all be mourned in it the
longest? We have all assembled together, and, not being plunged in
utter darkness, we see that with you on earth there is nothing to
be wished for, nothing grand or magnificent, but all is mean, sad,
anxious, and hardly receives a fractional part of the clear light
in which we dwell. I need not say that here are no frantic charges
of rival armies, no fleets shattering one another, no parricides,
actual or meditated, no courts where men babble over lawsuits for
days together, here is nothing underhand, all hearts and minds are
open and unveiled, our life is public and known to all, and that
we command a view of all time and of things to come. I used to take
pleasure in compiling the history of what took place in one century
among {203} a few people in the most out-of-the-way corner of the
world: here I enjoy the spectacle of all the centuries, the whole
chain of events from age to age as long as years have been. I may
view kingdoms when they rise and when they fall, and behold the
ruin of cities and the new channels made by the sea. If it will be
any consolation to you in your bereavement to know that it is the
common lot of all, be assured that nothing will continue to stand
in the place in which it now stands, but that time will lay everything
low and bear it away with itself: it will sport, not only with
men—for how small a part are they of the dominion of Fortune? —but
with districts, provinces, quarters of the world: it will efface
entire mountains, and in other places will pile new rocks on high:
it will dry up seas, change the course of rivers, destroy the
intercourse of nation with nation, and break up the communion and
fellowship of the human race: in other regions it will swallow up
cities by opening vast chasms in the earth, will shake them with
earthquakes, will breathe forth pestilence from the nether world,
cover all habitable ground with inundations and destroy every
creature in the flooded world, or burn up all mortals by a huge
conflagration. When the time shall arrive for the world to be brought
to an end, that it may begin its life anew, all the forces of nature
will perish in conflict with one another, the stars will be dashed
together, and all the lights which now gleam in regular order in
various parts of the sky will then blaze in one fire with all their
fuel burning at once. Then we also, the souls of the blest and the
heirs of eternal life, whenever God thinks fit to reconstruct the
universe, when all things are settling down again, we also, being
a small accessory to the universal wreck,[13] shall be changed into
our old elements. Happy is your son, Marcia, in that he already
knows this.”


[1] See Merivale’s “History of the Romans under the Empire,” ch.
xlv.

[2] If it is a pain to dwell upon the thought of lost friends, of
course you do not continually refresh the memory of them by speaking
of them.

[3] See my note on _invidiam facere alicui_ in Juv. 15.—J. E. B.
Mayor.

[4] Koch declares that this cannot be the true reading, and suggests
_deminutio_, ‘degradation.’

[5] This seems to have been part of the ceremony of dedication.
Pulvillus was dedicating the Temple of Jupiter in the Capitol. See
Livy, ii. 8; Cic. Pro Domo, paragraph cxxi.

[6] Lucius Aemilius Paullus conquered Perses, the last King of
Macedonia, B.C. 168.

[7] “For he had four sons, two, as has been already related, adopted
into other families, Scipio and Fabius; and two others, who were
still children, by his second wife, who lived in his own house. Of
these, one died five days before Aemilius’s triumph, at the age of
fourteen, and the other, twelve years old, died three days after
it: so that there was no Roman that did not grieve for him,”
&c.—Plutarch, “Life of Aemilius,” ch. xxxv.

[8] A. U. C. 695, B.C 59.

[9] Virg. Ae. III. 418.

[10] See Mayor’s note on Juv. i., and above, c. 16, §4.

[11] Lipsius points out that this idea is borrowed from the comic
poet Antiphanes. See Meineke’s “Comic Fragments,” p. 3.

[12] This I believe to be the meaning of the text, but Koch reasonably
conjectures that the true reading is “editur subscriptio,” “an
indictment was made out against him.” See “On Benefits,” iii. 26.

[13] _Ruinae_; Koch’s _urinae_ is a misprint.




{204}

THE SEVENTH BOOK OF THE DIALOGUES OF L. ANNAEUS SENECA, ADDRESSED
TO GALLIO.

OF A HAPPY LIFE.


I. All men, brother Gallio, wish to live happily, but are dull at
perceiving exactly what it is that makes life happy: and so far is
it from being easy to attain to happiness that the more eagerly a
man struggles to reach it the further he departs from it, if he
takes the wrong road; for, since this leads in the opposite direction,
his very swiftness carries him all the further away. We must therefore
first define clearly what it is at which we aim: next we must
consider by what path we may most speedily reach it, for on our
journey itself, provided it be made in the right direction, we shall
learn how much progress we have made each day, and how much nearer
we are to the goal towards which our natural desires urge us. But
as long as we wander at random, not following any guide except the
shouts and discordant clamours of those who invite us to proceed
in different directions, our short life will be wasted in useless
roamings, even if we labour both day and night to get a good
understanding. Let us not therefore decide whither we must tend,
and by what path, without the advice of some experienced person who
has explored the region which we are about to enter, because this
{205} journey is not subject to the same conditions as others; for
in them some distinctly understood track and inquiries made of the
natives make it impossible for us to go wrong, but here the most
beaten and frequented tracks are those which lead us most astray.
Nothing, therefore, is more important than that we should not, like
sheep, follow the flock that has gone before us, and thus proceed
not whither we ought, but whither the rest are going. Now nothing
gets us into greater troubles than our subservience to common rumour,
and our habit of thinking that those things are best which are most
generally received as such, of taking many counterfeits for truly
good things, and of living not by reason but by imitation of others.
This is the cause of those great heaps into which men rush till
they are piled one upon another. In a great crush of people, when
the crowd presses upon itself, no one can fall without drawing some
one else down upon him, and those who go before cause the destruction
of those who follow them. You may observe the same thing in human
life: no one can merely go wrong by himself, but he must become
both the cause and adviser of another’s wrongdoing. It is harmful
to follow the march of those who go before us, and since every one
had rather believe another than form his own opinion, we never pass
a deliberate judgment upon life, but some traditional error always
entangles us and brings us to ruin, and we perish because we follow
other men’s examples: we should be cured of this if we were to
disengage ourselves from the herd; but as it is, the mob is ready
to fight against reason in defence of its own mistake. Consequently
the same thing happens as at elections, where, when the fickle
breeze of popular favour has veered round, those who have been
chosen consuls and praetors are viewed with admiration by the very
men who made them so. That we should all approve and disapprove of
the same things is the end of every {206} decision which is given
according to the voice of the majority.

II. When we are considering a happy life, you cannot answer me as
though after a division of the House, “This view has most supporters;”
because for that very reason it is the worse of the two: matters
do not stand so well with mankind that the majority should prefer
the better course: the more people do a thing the worse it is likely
to be. Let us therefore inquire, not what is most commonly done,
but what is best for us to do, and what will establish us in the
possession of undying happiness, not what is approved of by the
vulgar, the worst possible exponents of truth. By “the vulgar” I
mean both those who wear woollen cloaks and those who wear crowns;[1]
for I do not regard the colour of the clothes with which they are
covered: I do not trust my eyes to tell me what a man is: I have a
better and more trustworthy light by which I can distinguish what
is true from what is false: let the mind find out what is good for
the mind. If a man ever allows his mind some breathing space and
has leisure for communing with himself, what truths he will confess
to himself, after having been put to the torture by his own self!
He will say, “Whatever I have hitherto done I wish were undone:
when I think over what I have said, I envy dumb people: whatever I
have longed for seems to have been what my enemies would pray might
befall me: good heaven, how far more endurable what I have feared
seems to be than what I have lusted after. I have been at enmity
with many men, and have changed my dislike of them into friendship,
if friendship can exist between bad men: yet I have not yet become
reconciled to myself. I have striven with all my strength to raise
myself above the {207} common herd, and to make myself remarkable
for some talent: what have I effected save to make myself a mark
for the arrows of my enemies, and show those who hate me where to
wound me? Do you see those who praise your eloquence, who covet
your wealth, who court your favour, or who vaunt your power? All
these either are, or, which comes to the same thing, may be your
enemies: the number of those who envy you is as great as that of
those who admire you; why do I not rather seek for some good thing
which I can use and feel, not one which I can show? these good
things which men gaze at in wonder, which they crowd to see, which
one points out to another with speechless admiration, are outwardly
brilliant, but within are miseries to those who possess them.”

III. Let us seek for some blessing, which does not merely look fine,
but is sound and good throughout alike, and most beautiful in the
parts which are least seen: let us unearth this. It is not far
distant from us; it can be discovered: all that is necessary is to
know whither to stretch out your hand: but, as it is, we behave as
though we were in the dark, and reach out beyond what is nearest
to us, striking as we do so against the very things that we want.
However, that I may not draw you into digressions, I will pass over
the opinions of other philosophers, because it would take a long
time to state and confute them all: take ours. When, however, I say
“ours,” I do not bind myself to any one of the chiefs of the Stoic
school, for I too have a right to form my own opinion. I shall,
therefore, follow the authority of some of them, but shall ask some
others to discriminate their meaning:[2] perhaps, when after having
{208} reported all their opinions, I am asked for my own, I shall
impugn none of my predecessors’ decisions, and shall say, “I will
also add somewhat to them.” Meanwhile I follow nature, which is a
point upon which every one of the Stoic philosophers are agreed:
true wisdom consists in not departing from nature and in moulding
our conduct according to her laws and model. A happy life, therefore,
is one which is in accordance with its own nature, and cannot be
brought about unless in the first place the mind be sound and remain
so without interruption, and next, be bold and vigorous, enduring
all things with most admirable courage, suited to the times in which
it lives, careful of the body and its appurtenances, yet not
troublesomely careful. It must also set due value upon all the
things which adorn our lives, without over-estimating any one of
them, and must be able to enjoy the bounty of Fortune without
becoming her slave. You understand without my mentioning it that
an unbroken calm and freedom ensue, when we have driven away all
those things which either excite us or alarm us: for in the place
of sensual pleasures and those slight perishable matters which are
connected with the basest crimes, we thus gain an immense, unchangeable,
equable joy, together with peace, calmness and greatness of mind,
and kindliness: for all savageness is a sign of weakness.

IV. Our highest good may also be defined otherwise, that is to say,
the same idea may be expressed in different language. Just as the
same army may at one time be extended more widely, at another
contracted into a smaller compass, and may either be curved towards
the wings by a depression in the line of the centre, or drawn up
in a straight line, while, in whatever figure it be arrayed, its
{209} strength and loyalty remain unchanged; so also our definition
of the highest good may in some cases be expressed diffusely and
at great length, while in others it is put into a short and concise
form. Thus, it will come to the same thing, if I say “The highest
good is a mind which despises the accidents of fortune, and takes
pleasure in virtue”: or, “It is an unconquerable strength of mind,
knowing the world well, gentle in its dealings, showing great
courtesy and consideration for those with whom it is brought into
contact.” Or we may choose to define it by calling that man happy
who knows good and bad only in the form of good or bad minds: who
worships honour, and is satisfied with his own virtue, who is neither
puffed up by good fortune nor cast down by evil fortune, who knows
no other good than that which he is able to bestow upon himself,
whose real pleasure lies in despising pleasures. If you choose to
pursue this digression further, you can put this same idea into
many other forms, without impairing or weakening its meaning: for
what prevents our saying that a happy life consists in a mind which
is free, upright, undaunted, and steadfast, beyond the influence
of fear or desire, which thinks nothing good except honour, and
nothing bad except shame, and regards everything else as a mass of
mean details which can neither add anything to nor take anything
away from the happiness of life, but which come and go without
either increasing or diminishing the highest good? A man of these
principles, whether he will or no, must be accompanied by a continual
cheerfulness, a high happiness, which comes indeed from on high
because he delights in what he has, and desires no greater pleasures
than those which his home affords. Is he not right in allowing these
to turn the scale against petty, ridiculous, and shortlived movements
of his wretched body? on the day on which he becomes proof against
pleasure he also becomes proof against pain. See, on the other hand,
how {210} evil and guilty a slavery the man is forced to serve who
is dominated in turn by pleasures and pains, those most untrustworthy
and passionate of masters. We must, therefore, escape from them
into freedom. This nothing will bestow upon us save contempt of
Fortune: but if we attain to this, then there will dawn upon us
those invaluable blessings, the repose of a mind that is at rest
in a safe haven, its lofty imaginings, its great and steady delight
at casting out errors and learning to know the truth, its courtesy,
and its cheerfulness, in all of which we shall take delight, not
regarding them as good things, but as proceeding from the proper
good of man.

V. Since I have begun to make my definitions without a too strict
adherence to the letter, a man may be called “happy” who, thanks
to reason, has ceased either to hope or to fear: but rocks also
feel neither fear nor sadness, nor do cattle, yet no one would call
those things happy which cannot comprehend what happiness is. With
them you may class men whose dull nature and want of self-knowledge
reduces them to the level of cattle, mere animals: there is no
difference between the one and the other, because the latter have
no reason, while the former have only a corrupted form of it, crooked
and cunning to their own hurt. For no one can be styled happy who
is beyond the influence of truth: and consequently a happy life is
unchangeable, and is founded upon a true and trustworthy discernment;
for the mind is uncontaminated and freed from all evils only when
it is able to escape not merely from wounds but also from scratches,
when it will always be able to maintain the position which it has
taken up, and defend it even against the angry assaults of Fortune:
for with regard to sensual pleasures, though they were to surround
one on every side, and use every means of assault, trying to win
over the mind by caresses and making trial of every conceivable
stratagem to attract either our entire selves or {211} our separate
parts, yet what mortal that retains any traces of human origin would
wish to be tickled day and night, and, neglecting his mind, to
devote himself to bodily enjoyments?

VI. “But,” says our adversary, “the mind also will have pleasures
of its own.” Let it have them, then, and let it sit in judgment
over luxury and pleasures; let it indulge itself to the full in all
those matters which give sensual delights: then let it look back
upon what it enjoyed before, and with all those faded sensualities
fresh in its memory let it rejoice and look eagerly forward to those
other pleasures which it experienced long ago, and intends to
experience again, and while the body lies in helpless repletion in
the present, let it send its thoughts onward towards the future,
and take stock of its hopes: all this will make it appear, in my
opinion, yet more wretched, because it is insanity to choose evil
instead of good: now no insane person can be happy, and no one can
be sane if he regards what is injurious as the highest good and
strives to obtain it. The happy man, therefore, is he who can make
a right judgment in all things: he is happy who in his present
circumstances, whatever they may be, is satisfied and on friendly
terms with the conditions of his life. That man is happy, whose
reason recommends to him the whole posture of his affairs.

VII. Even those very people who declare the highest good to be in
the belly, see what a dishonourable position they have assigned to
it: and therefore they say that pleasure cannot be parted from
virtue, and that no one can either live honourably without living
cheerfully, nor yet live cheerfully without living honourably. I
do not see how these very different matters can have any connexion
with one another. What is there, I pray you, to prevent virtue
existing apart from pleasure? of course the reason is that all good
things derive their origin from virtue, and therefore even those
things which you cherish and seek for {212} come originally from
its roots. Yet, if they were entirely inseparable, we should not
see some things to be pleasant, but not honourable, and others most
honourable indeed, but hard and only to be attained by suffering.
Add to this, that pleasure visits the basest lives, but virtue
cannot co-exist with an evil life; yet some unhappy people are not
without pleasure, nay, it is owing to pleasure itself that they are
unhappy; and this could not take place if pleasure had any connexion
with virtue, whereas virtue is often without pleasure, and never
stands in need of it. Why do you put together two things which are
unlike and even incompatible one with another? virtue is a lofty
quality, sublime, royal, unconquerable, untiring: pleasure is low,
slavish, weakly, perishable; its haunts and homes are the brothel
and the tavern. You will meet virtue in the temple, the market-place,
the senate house, manning the walls, covered with dust, sunburnt,
horny-handed: you will find pleasure skulking out of sight, seeking
for shady nooks at the public baths, hot chambers, and places which
dread the visits of the aedile, soft, effeminate, reeking of wine
and perfumes, pale or perhaps painted and made up with cosmetics.
The highest good is immortal: it knows no ending, and does not admit
of either satiety or regret: for a right-thinking mind never alters
or becomes hateful to itself, nor do the best things ever undergo
any change: but pleasure dies at the very moment when it charms us
most: it has no great scope, and therefore it soon cloys and wearies
us, and fades away as soon as its first impulse is over: indeed,
we cannot depend upon anything whose nature is to change. Consequently
it is not even possible that there should be any solid substance
in that which comes and goes so swiftly, and which perishes by the
very exercise of its own functions, for it arrives at a point at
which it ceases to be, and even while it is beginning always keeps
its end in view.

{213}

VIII. What answer are we to make to the reflexion that pleasure
belongs to good and bad men alike, and that bad men take as much
delight in their shame as good men in noble things? This was why
the ancients bade us lead the highest, not the most pleasant life,
in order that pleasure might not be the guide but the companion of
a right-thinking and honourable mind; for it is Nature whom we ought
to make our guide: let our reason watch her, and be advised by her.
To live happily, then, is the same thing as to live according to
Nature: what this may be, I will explain. If we guard the endowments
of the body and the advantages of nature with care and fearlessness,
as things soon to depart and given to us only for a day; if we do
not fall under their dominion, nor allow ourselves to become the
slaves of what is no part of our own being; if we assign to all
bodily pleasures and external delights the same position which is
held by auxiliaries and light-armed troops in a camp; if we make
them our servants, not our masters—then and then only are they of
value to our minds. A man should be unbiassed and not to be conquered
by external things: he ought to admire himself alone, to feel
confidence in his own spirit, and so to order his life as to be
ready alike for good or for bad fortune. Let not his confidence be
without knowledge, nor his knowledge without steadfastness: let him
always abide by what he has once determined, and let there be no
erasure in his doctrines. It will be understood, even though I
append it not, that such a man will be tranquil and composed in his
demeanour, high-minded and courteous in his actions. Let reason be
encouraged by the senses to seek for the truth, and draw its first
principles from thence: indeed it has no other base of operations
or place from which to start in pursuit of truth: it must fall back
upon itself. Even the all-embracing universe and God who is its
guide extends himself forth into outward things, and yet altogether
returns from all sides back to {214} himself. Let our mind do the
same thing: when, following its bodily senses it has by means of
them sent itself forth into the things of the outward world, let
it remain still their master and its own. By this means we shall
obtain a strength and an ability which are united and allied together,
and shall derive from it that reason which never halts between two
opinions, nor is dull in forming its perceptions, beliefs, or
convictions. Such a mind, when it has ranged itself in order, made
its various parts agree together, and, if I may so express myself,
harmonized them, has attained to the highest good: for it has nothing
evil or hazardous remaining, nothing to shake it or make it stumble:
it will do everything under the guidance of its own will, and nothing
unexpected will befal it, but whatever may be done by it will turn
out well, and that, too, readily and easily, without the doer having
recourse to any underhand devices: for slow and hesitating action
are the signs of discord and want of settled purpose. You may, then,
boldly declare that the highest good is singleness of mind: for
where agreement and unity are, there must the virtues be: it is the
vices that are at war one with another.

IX. “But,” says our adversary, “you yourself only practise virtue
because you hope to obtain some pleasure from it.” In the first
place, even though virtue may afford us pleasure, still we do not
seek after her on that account: for she does not bestow this, but
bestows this to boot, nor is this the end for which she labours,
but her labour wins this also, although it be directed to another
end. As in a tilled-field, when ploughed for corn, some flowers are
found amongst it, and yet, though these posies may charm the eye,
all this labour was not spent in order to produce them—the man who
sowed the field had another object in view, he gained this over and
above it—so pleasure is not the reward or the cause of virtue, but
comes in addition to it; nor do we choose virtue because she gives
us pleasure, but {215} she gives us pleasure also if we choose her.
The highest good lies in the act of choosing her, and in the attitude
of the noblest minds, which when once it has fulfilled its function
and established itself within its own limits has attained to the
highest good, and needs nothing more: for there is nothing outside
of the whole, any more than there is anything beyond the end. You
are mistaken, therefore, when you ask me what it is on account of
which I seek after virtue: for you are seeking for something above
the highest. Do you ask what I seek from virtue? I answer. Herself:
for she has nothing better; she is her own reward. Does this not
appear great enough, when I tell you that the highest good is an
unyielding strength of mind, wisdom, magnanimity, sound judgment,
freedom, harmony, beauty? Do you still ask me for something greater,
of which these may be regarded as the attributes? Why do you talk
of pleasures to me? I am seeking to find what is good for man, not
for his belly; why, cattle and whales have larger ones than he.

X. “You purposely misunderstand what I say,” says he, “for I too
say that no one can live pleasantly unless he lives honorably also,
and this cannot be the case with dumb animals who measure the extent
of their happiness by that of their food. I loudly and publicly
proclaim that what I call a pleasant life cannot exist without the
addition of virtue.” Yet who does not know that the greatest fools
drink the deepest of those pleasures of yours? or that vice is full
of enjoyments, and that the mind itself suggests to itself many
perverted, vicious forms of pleasure?—in the first place arrogance,
excessive self-esteem, swaggering precedence over other men, a
shortsighted, nay, a blind devotion to his own interests, dissolute
luxury, excessive delight springing from the most trifling and
childish causes, and also talkativeness, pride that takes a pleasure
in insulting others, sloth, and the decay of a dull mind which goes
to sleep over itself. All these are dissipated by virtue, which
plucks a {216} man by the ear, and measures the value of pleasures
before she permits them to be used; nor does she set much store by
those which she allows to pass current, for she merely allows their
use, and her cheerfulness is not due to her use of them, but to her
moderation in using them. “Yet when moderation lessens pleasure,
it impairs the highest good.” You devote yourself to pleasures, I
check them; you indulge in pleasure, I use it; you think that it
is the highest good, I do not even think it to be good: for the
sake of pleasure I do nothing, you do everything.

XI. When I say that I do nothing for the sake of pleasure, I allude
to that wise man, whom alone you admit to be capable of pleasure:
now I do not call a man wise who is overcome by anything, let alone
by pleasure: yet, if engrossed by pleasure, how will he resist toil,
danger, want, and all the ills which surround and threaten the life
of man? How will he bear the sight of death or of pain? How will
he endure the tumult of the world, and make head against so many
most active foes, if he be conquered by so effeminate an antagonist?
He will do whatever pleasure advises him: well, do you not see how
many things it will advise him to do? “It will not,” says our
adversary, “be able to give him any bad advice, because it is
combined with virtue?” Again, do you not see what a poor kind of
highest good that must be which requires a guardian to ensure its
being good at all? and how is virtue to rule pleasure if she follows
it, seeing that to follow is the duty of a subordinate, to rule
that of a commander? do you put that which commands in the background?
According to your school, virtue has the dignified office of
preliminary taster of pleasures. We shall, however, see whether
virtue still remains virtue among those who treat her with such
contempt, for if she leaves her proper station she can no longer
keep her proper name: in the meanwhile, to keep to the point, I
will show you many men beset by pleasures, {217} men upon whom
Fortune has showered all her gifts, whom you must needs admit to
be bad men. Look at Nomentanus and Apicius, who digest all the good
things, as they call them, of the sea and land, and review upon
their tables the whole animal kingdom. Look at them as they lie on
beds of roses gloating over their banquet, delighting their ears
with music, their eyes with exhibitions, their palates with flavours:
their whole bodies are titillated with soft and soothing applications,
and lest even their nostrils should be idle, the very place in
which, they solemnize[3] the rites of luxury is scented with various
perfumes. You will say that these men live in the midst of pleasures.
Yet they are ill at ease, because they take pleasure in what is not
good.

XII. “They are ill at ease,” replies he, “because many things arise
which distract their thoughts, and their minds are disquieted by
conflicting opinions.” I admit that this is true: still these very
men, foolish, inconsistent, and certain to feel remorse as they
are, do nevertheless receive great pleasure, and we must allow that
in so doing they are as far from feeling any trouble as they are
from forming a right judgment, and that, as is the case with many
people, they are possessed by a merry madness, and laugh while they
rave. The pleasures of wise men, on the other hand, are mild,
decorous, verging on dulness, kept under restraint and scarcely
noticeable, and are neither invited to come nor received with honour
when they come of their own accord, nor are they welcomed with any
delight by those whom they visit, who mix them up with their lives
and fill up empty spaces with them, like an amusing farce in the
intervals of serious business. Let them no longer, then, join
incongruous matters together, or connect pleasure with {218} virtue,
a mistake whereby they court the worst of men. The reckless profligate,
always in liquor and belching out the fumes of wine, believes that
he lives with virtue, because he knows that he lives with pleasure,
for he hears it said that pleasure cannot exist apart from virtue;
consequently he dubs his vices with the title of wisdom and parades
all that he ought to conceal. So, men are not encouraged by Epicurus
to run riot, but the vicious hide their excesses in the lap of
philosophy, and flock to the schools in which they hear the praises
of pleasure. They do not consider how sober and temperate—for so,
by Hercules, I believe it to be—that “pleasure” of Epicurus is, but
they rush at his mere name, seeking to obtain some protection and
cloak for their vices. They lose, therefore, the one virtue which
their evil life possessed, that of being ashamed of doing wrong:
for they praise what they used to blush at, and boast of their
vices. Thus modesty can never reassert itself, when shameful idleness
is dignified with an honourable name. The reason why that praise
which your school lavishes upon pleasure is so hurtful, is because
the honourable part of its teaching passes unnoticed, but the
degrading part is seen by all.

XIII. I myself believe, though my Stoic comrades would be unwilling
to hear me say so, that the teaching of Epicurus was upright and
holy, and even, if you examine it narrowly, stern: for this much
talked of pleasure is reduced to a very narrow compass, and he bids
pleasure submit to the same law which we bid virtue do—I mean, to
obey nature. Luxury, however, is not satisfied with what is enough
for nature. What is the consequence? Whoever thinks that happiness
consists in lazy sloth, and alternations of gluttony and profligacy,
requires a good patron for a bad action, and when he has become an
Epicurean, having been led to do so by the attractive name of that
school, he follows, not the pleasure which he there hears {219}
spoken of, but that which he brought thither with him, and, haying
learned to think that his vices coincide with the maxims of that
philosophy, he indulges in them no longer timidly and in dark
corners, but boldly in the face of day. I will not, therefore, like
most of our school, say that the sect of Epicurus is the teacher
of crime, but what I say is: it is ill spoken of, it has a bad
reputation, and yet it does not deserve it. “Who can know this
without having been admitted to its inner mysteries?” Its very
outside gives opportunity for scandal, and encourages men’s baser
desires: it is like a brave man dressed in a woman’s gown: your
chastity is assured, your manhood is safe, your body is submitted
to nothing disgraceful, but your hand holds a drum (like a priest
of Cybele). Choose, then, some honourable superscription for your
school, some writing which shall in itself arouse the mind: that
which at present stands over your door has been invented by the
vices. He who ranges himself on the side of virtue gives thereby a
proof of a noble disposition: he who follows pleasure appears to
be weakly, worn out, degrading his manhood, likely to fall into
infamous vices unless someone discriminates his pleasures for him,
so that he may know which remain within the bounds of natural desire,
which are frantic and boundless, and become all the more insatiable
the more they are satisfied. But come! let virtue lead the way:
then every step will be safe. Too much pleasure is hurtful: but
with virtue we need fear no excess of any kind, because moderation
is contained in virtue herself. That which is injured by its own
extent cannot be a good thing: besides, what better guide can there
be than reason for beings endowed with a reasoning nature? so if
this combination pleases you, if you are willing to proceed to a
happy life thus accompanied, let virtue lead the way, let pleasure
follow and hang about the body like a shadow: it is the part of a
mind incapable of great things to hand {220} over virtue, the highest
of all qualities, as a handmaid to pleasure.

XIV. Let virtue lead the way and bear the standard: we shall have
pleasure for all that, but we shall be her masters and controllers;
she may win some concessions from us, but will not force us to do
anything. On the contrary, those who have permitted pleasure to
lead the van, have neither one nor the other: for they lose virtue
altogether, and yet they do not possess pleasure, but are possessed
by it, and are either tortured by its absence or choked by its
excess, being wretched if deserted by it, and yet more wretched if
overwhelmed by it, like those who are caught in the shoals of the
Syrtes and at one time are left on dry ground and at another tossed
on the flowing waves. This arises from an exaggerated want of
self-control, and a hidden love of evil: for it is dangerous for
one who seeks after evil instead of good to attain his object. As
we hunt wild beasts with toil and peril, and even when they are
caught find them an anxious possession, for they often tear their
keepers to pieces, even so are great pleasures: they turn out to
be great evils and take their owners prisoner. The more numerous
and the greater they are, the more inferior and the slave of more
masters does that man become whom the vulgar call a happy man. I
may even press this analogy further: as the man who tracks wild
animals to their lairs, and who sets great store on—

    “Seeking with snares the wandering brutes to noose,”

and

    “Making their hounds the spacious glade surround,”

that he may follow their tracks, neglects far more desirable things,
and leaves many duties unfulfilled, so he who pursues pleasure
postpones everything to it, disregards that first essential, liberty,
and sacrifices it to his belly; nor does he buy pleasure for himself,
but sells himself to pleasure.

{221}

XV. “But what,” asks our adversary, “is there to hinder virtue and
pleasure being combined together, and a highest good being thus
formed, so that honour and pleasure may be the same thing?” Because
nothing except what is honourable can form a part of honour, and
the highest good would lose its purity if it were to see within
itself anything unlike its own better part. Even the joy which
arises from virtue, although it be a good thing, yet is not a part
of absolute good, any more than cheerfulness or peace of mind, which
are indeed good things, but which merely follow the highest good,
and do not contribute to its perfection, although they are generated
by the noblest causes. Whoever on the other hand forms an alliance,
and that, too, a one-sided one, between virtue and pleasure, clogs
whatever strength the one may possess by the weakness of the other,
and sends liberty under the yoke, for liberty can only remain
unconquered as long as she knows nothing more valuable than herself:
for he begins to need the help of Fortune, which is the most utter
slavery: his life becomes anxious, full of suspicion, timorous,
fearful of accidents, waiting in agony for critical moments of time.
You do not afford virtue a solid immoveable base if you bid it stand
on what is unsteady: and what can be so unsteady as dependence on
mere chance, and the vicissitudes of the body and of those things
which act on the body? How can such a man obey God and receive
everything which comes to pass in a cheerful spirit, never complaining
of fate, and putting a good construction upon everything that befalls
him, if he be agitated by the petty pin-pricks of pleasures and
pains? A man cannot be a good protector of his country, a good
avenger of her wrongs, or a good defender of his friends, if he be
inclined to pleasures. Let the highest good, then, rise to that
height from whence no force can dislodge it, whither neither pain
can ascend, nor hope, nor fear, nor anything else that can {222}
impair the authority of the “highest good.” Thither virtue alone
can make her way: by her aid that hill must be climbed: she will
bravely stand her ground and endure whatever may befal her not only
resignedly, but even willingly: she will know that all hard times
come in obedience to natural laws, and like a good soldier she will
bear wounds, count scars, and when transfixed and dying will yet
adore the general for whom she falls: she will bear in mind the old
maxim “Follow God.” On the other hand, he who grumbles and complains
and bemoans himself is nevertheless forcibly obliged to obey orders,
and is dragged away, however much against his will, to carry them
out: yet what madness is it to be dragged rather than to follow?
as great, by Hercules, as it is folly and ignorance of one’s true
position to grieve because one has not got something or because
something has caused us rough treatment, or to be surprised or
indignant at those ills which befall good men as well as bad ones,
I mean diseases, deaths, illnesses, and the other cross accidents
of human life. Let us bear with magnanimity whatever the system of
the universe makes it needful for us to bear: we are all bound by
this oath: “To bear the ills of mortal life, and to submit with a
good grace to what we cannot avoid.” We have been born into a
monarchy: our liberty is to obey God.

XVI. True happiness, therefore, consists in virtue: and what will
this virtue bid you do? Not to think anything bad or good which is
connected neither with virtue nor with wickedness: and in the next
place, both to endure unmoved the assaults of evil, and, as far as
is right, to form a god out of what is good. What reward does she
promise you for this campaign? an enormous one, and one that raises
you to the level of the gods: you shall be subject to no restraint
and to no want; you shall be free, safe, unhurt; you shall fail in
nothing that you attempt; you shall be debarred from nothing;
everything shall turn out according {223} to your wish; no misfortune
shall befal you; nothing shall happen to you except what you expect
and hope for. “What! does virtue alone suffice to make you happy?”
why, of course, consummate and god-like virtue such as this not
only suffices, but more than suffices: for when a man is placed
beyond the reach of any desire, what can he possibly lack? if all
that he needs is concentred in himself, how can he require anything
from without? He, however, who is only on the road to virtue,
although he may have made great progress along it, nevertheless
needs some favour from fortune while he is still struggling among
mere human interests, while he is untying that knot, and all the
bonds which bind him to mortality. What, then, is the difference
between them? it is that some are tied more or less tightly by these
bonds, and some have even tied themselves with them as well; whereas
he who has made progress towards the upper regions and raised himself
upwards drags a looser chain, and though not yet free, is yet as
good as free.

XVII. If, therefore, any one of those dogs who yelp at philosophy
were to say, as they are wont to do, “Why, then, do you talk so
much more bravely than you live? why do you check your words in the
presence of your superiors, and consider money to be a necessary
implement? why are you disturbed when you sustain losses, and weep
on hearing of the death of your wife or your friend? why do you pay
regard to common rumour, and feel annoyed by calumnious gossip? why
is your estate more elaborately kept than its natural use requires?
why do you not dine according to your own maxims? why is your
furniture smarter than it need be? why do you drink wine that is
older than yourself? why are your grounds laid out? why do you plant
trees which afford nothing except shade? why does your wife wear
in her ears the price of a rich man’s house? why are your children
at school dressed in costly {224} clothes? why is it a science to
wait upon you at table? why is your silver plate not set down anyhow
or at random, but skilfully disposed in regular order, with a
superintendent to preside over the carving of the viands?” Add to
this, if you like, the questions “Why do you own property beyond
the seas? why do you own more than you know of? it is a shame to
you not to know your slaves by sight: for you must be very neglectful
of them if you only own a few, or very extravagant if you have too
many for your memory to retain.” I will add some reproaches afterwards,
and will bring more accusations against myself than you think of:
for the present I will make you the following answer. “I am not a
wise man, and I will not be one in order to feed your spite: so do
not require me to be on a level with the best of men, but merely
to be better than the worst: I am satisfied, if every day I take
away something from my vices and correct my faults. I have not
arrived at perfect soundness of mind, indeed, I never shall arrive
at it: I compound palliatives rather than remedies for my gout, and
am satisfied if it comes at rarer intervals and does not shoot so
painfully. Compared with your feet, which are lame, I am a racer.”
I make this speech, not on my own behalf, for I am steeped in vices
of every kind, but on behalf of one who has made some progress in
virtue.

XVIII. “You talk one way,” objects our adversary, “and live another.”
You most spiteful of creatures, you who always show the bitterest
hatred to the best of men, this reproach was flung at Plato, at
Epicurus, at Zeno: for all these declared how they ought to live,
not how they did live. I speak of virtue, not of myself, and when
I blame vices, I blame my own first of all: when I have the power,
I shall live as I ought to do: spite, however deeply steeped in
venom, shall not keep me back from what is best: that poison itself
with which you bespatter others, with which you choke yourselves,
shall not hinder me from continuing {225} to praise that life which
I do not, indeed, lead, but which I know I ought to lead, from
loving virtue and from following after her, albeit a long way behind
her and with halting gait. Am I to expect that evil speaking will
respect anything, seeing that it respected neither Rutilius nor
Cato? Will any one care about being thought too rich by men for
whom Diogenes the Cynic was not poor enough? That most energetic
philosopher fought against all the desires of the body, and was
poorer even than the other Cynics, in that besides haying given up
possessing anything he had also given up asking for anything: yet
they reproached him for not being sufficiently in want: as though
forsooth it were poverty, not virtue, of which he professed knowledge.

XIX. They say that Diodorus, the Epicurean philosopher, who within
these last few days put an end to his life with his own hand, did
not act according to the precepts of Epicurus, in cutting his throat:
some choose to regard this act as the result of madness, others of
recklessness; he, meanwhile, happy and filled with the consciousness
of his own goodness, has borne testimony to himself by his manner
of departing from life, has commended the repose of a life spent
at anchor in a safe harbour, and has said what you do not like to
hear, because you too ought to do it:

    “I’ve lived, I’ve run the race which Fortune set me.”

You argue about the life and death of another, and yelp at the name
of men whom some peculiarly noble quality has rendered great, just
as tiny curs do at the approach of strangers: for it is to your
interest that no one should appear to be good, as if virtue in
another were a reproach to all your crimes. You enviously compare
the glories of others with your own dirty actions, and do not
understand how greatly to your disadvantage it is to venture to do
so: for if they who follow after virtue be greedy, lustful, {226}
and fond of power, what must you be, who hate the very name of
virtue? You say that no one acts up to his professions, or lives
according to the standard which he sets up in his discourses: what
wonder, seeing that the words which they speak are brave, gigantic,
and able to weather all the storms which wreck mankind, whereas
they themselves are struggling to tear themselves away from crosses
into which each one of you is driving his own nail. Yet men who are
crucified hang from one single pole, but these who punish themselves
are divided between as many crosses as they have lusts, but yet are
given to evil speaking, and are so magnificent in their contempt
of the vices of others that I should suppose that they had none of
their own, were it not that some criminals when on the gibbet spit
upon the spectators.

XX. “Philosophers do not carry into effect all that they teach.”
No; but they effect much good by their teaching, by the noble
thoughts which they conceive in their minds: would, indeed, that
they could act up to their talk: what could be happier than they
would be? but in the meanwhile you have no right to despise good
sayings and hearts full of good thoughts. Men deserve praise for
engaging in profitable studies, even though they stop short of
producing any results. Why need we wonder if those who begin to
climb a steep path do not succeed in ascending it very high? yet,
if you be a man, look with respect on those who attempt great things,
even though they fall. It is the act of a generous spirit to
proportion its efforts not to its own strength but to that of human
nature, to entertain lofty aims, and to conceive plans which are
too vast to be carried into execution even by those who are endowed
with gigantic intellects, who appoint for themselves the following
rules: I will look upon death or upon a comedy with the same
expression of countenance: I will submit to labours, however great
they may be, supporting {227} the strength of my body by that of
my mind: I will despise riches when I have them as much as when I
have them not; if they be elsewhere I will not be more gloomy, if
they sparkle around me I will not be more lively than I should
otherwise be: whether Fortune comes or goes I will take no notice
of her: I will view all lands as though they belong to me, and my
own as though they belonged to all mankind: I will so live as to
remember that I was born for others, and will thank Nature on this
account: for in what fashion could she have done better for me? she
has given me alone to all, and all to me alone. Whatever I may
possess, I will neither hoard it greedily nor squander it recklessly.
I will think that I have no possessions so real as those which I
have given away to deserving people: I will not reckon benefits by
their magnitude or number, or by anything except the value set upon
them by the receiver: I never will consider a gift to be a large
one if it be bestowed upon a worthy object. I will do nothing because
of public opinion, but everything because of conscience: whenever
I do anything alone by myself I will believe that the eyes of the
Roman people are upon me while I do it. In eating and drinking my
object shall be to quench the desires of Nature, not to fill and
empty my belly. I will be agreeable with my friends, gentle and
mild to my foes: I will grant pardon before I am asked for it, and
will meet the wishes of honourable men half way: I will bear in
mind that the world is my native city, that its governors are the
gods, and that they stand above and around me, criticizing whatever
I do or say. Whenever either Nature demands my breath again, or
reason bids me dismiss it, I will quit this life, calling all to
witness that I have loved a good conscience, and good pursuits;
that no one’s freedom, my own least of all, has been impaired through
me.” He who sets up these as the rules of his life will soar aloft
and strive to make his way to the gods: of a truth, even though he
fails, yet he {228}

    “Fails in a high emprise.”[4]

But you, who hate both virtue and those who practise it, do nothing
at which we need be surprised, for sickly lights cannot bear the
sun, nocturnal creatures avoid the brightness of day, and at its
first dawning become bewildered and all betake themselves to their
dens together: creatures that fear the light hide themselves in
crevices. So croak away, and exercise your miserable tongues in
reproaching good men: open wide your jaws, bite hard: you will break
many teeth before you make any impression.

XXI. “But how is it that this man studies philosophy and nevertheless
lives the life of a rich man? Why does he say that wealth ought to
be despised and yet possess it? that life should be despised, and
yet live? that health should be despised, and yet guard it with the
utmost care, and wish it to be as good as possible? Does he consider
banishment to be an empty name, and say, “What evil is there in
changing one country for another?” and yet, if permitted, does he
not grow old in his native land? does he declare that there is no
difference between a longer and a shorter time, and yet, if he be
not prevented, lengthen out his life and flourish in a green old
age?” His answer is, that these things ought to be despised, not
that he should not possess them, but that he should not possess
them with fear and trembling: he does not drive them away from him,
but when they leave him he follows after them unconcernedly. Where,
indeed, can fortune invest riches more securely than in a place
from whence they can always be recovered without any squabble with
their trustee? Marcus Cato, when he was praising Curius and Coruncanius
and that century in which the possession of a few small silver coins
were an offence which was punished by the Censor, himself owned
four million sesterces; a less fortune no {229} doubt, than that
of Crassus, but larger than of Cato the Censor. If the amounts be
compared, he had outstripped his great-grandfather further than he
himself was outdone by Crassus, and if still greater riches had
fallen to his lot, he would not have spurned them: for the wise man
does not think himself unworthy of any chance presents: he does not
love riches, but he prefers to have them; he does not receive them
into his spirit, but only into his house: nor does he cast away
from him what he already possesses, but keeps them, and is willing
that his virtue should receive a larger subject-matter for its
exercise.

XXII. Who can doubt, however, that the wise man, if he is rich, has
a wider field for the development of his powers than if he is poor,
seeing that in the latter case the only virtue which he can display
is that of neither being perverted nor crushed by his poverty,
whereas if he has riches, he will have a wide field for the exhibition
of temperance, generosity, laboriousness, methodical arrangement,
and grandeur. The wise man will not despise himself, however short
of stature he may be, but nevertheless he will wish to be tall:
even though he be feeble and one-eyed he may be in good health, yet
he would prefer to have bodily strength, and that too, while he
knows all the while that he has something which is even more powerful:
he will endure illness, and will hope for good health: for some
things, though they may be trifles compared with the sum total, and
though they may be taken away without destroying the chief good,
yet add somewhat to that constant cheerfulness which arises from
virtue. Riches encourage and brighten up such a man just as a sailor
is delighted at a favourable wind that bears him on his way, or as
people feel pleasure at a fine day or at a sunny spot in the cold
weather. What wise man, I mean of our school, whose only good is
virtue, can deny that even these matters which we call neither good
nor bad have in themselves a {230} certain value, and that some of
them are preferable to others? to some of them we show a certain
amount of respect, and to some a great deal. Do not, then, make any
mistake: riches belong to the class of desirable things. “Why then,”
say you, “do you laugh at me, since you place them in the same
position that I do?” Do you wish to know how different the position
is in which we place them? If my riches leave me, they will carry
away with them nothing except themselves: you will be bewildered
and will seem to be left without yourself if they should pass away
from you: with me riches occupy a certain place, but with you they
occupy the highest place of all. In fine, my riches belong to me,
you belong to your riches.

XXIII. Cease, then, forbidding philosophers to possess money: no
one has condemned wisdom to poverty. The philosopher may own ample
wealth, but will not own wealth that which has been torn from
another, or which is stained with another’s blood: his must be
obtained without wronging any man, and without its being won by
base means; it must be alike honourably come by and honourably
spent, and must be such as spite alone could shake its head at.
Raise it to whatever figure you please, it will still be an honourable
possession, if, while it includes much which every man would like
to call his own, there be nothing which any one can say is his own.
Such a man will not forfeit his right to the favour of Fortune, and
will neither boast of his inheritance nor blush for it if it was
honourably acquired: yet he will have something to boast of, if he
throw his house open, let all his countrymen come among his property,
and say, “If any one recognizes here anything belonging to him, let
him take it.” What a great man, how excellently rich will he be,
if after this speech he possesses as much as he had before! I say,
then, that if he can safely and confidently submit his accounts to
the scrutiny of the people, and no one can find {231} in them any
item upon which he can lay hands, such a man may boldly and
unconcealedly enjoy his riches. The wise man will not allow a single
ill-won penny to cross his threshold: yet he will not refuse or
close his door against great riches, if they are the gift of fortune
and the product of virtue: what reason has he for grudging them
good quarters: let them come and be his guests: he will neither
brag of them nor hide them away: the one is the part of a silly,
the other of a cowardly and paltry spirit, which, as it were, muffles
up a good thing in its lap. Neither will he, as I said before, turn
them out of his house: for what will he say? will he say, “You are
useless,” or “I do not know how to use riches?” As he is capable
of performing a journey upon his own feet, but yet would prefer to
mount a carriage, just so he will be capable of being poor, yet
will wish to be rich; he will own wealth, but will view it as an
uncertain possession which will some day fly away from him. He will
not allow it to be a burden either to himself or to any one else:
he will give it—why do you prick up your ears? why do you open your
pockets?—he will give it either to good men or to those whom it may
make into good men. He will give it after having taken the utmost
pains to choose those who are fittest to receive it, as becomes one
who bears in mind that he ought to give an account of what he spends
as well as of what he receives. He will give for good and commendable
reasons, for a gift ill bestowed counts as a shameful loss: he will
have an easily opened pocket, but not one with a hole in it, so
that much may be taken out of it, yet nothing may fall out of it.

XXIV. He who believes giving to be an easy matter, is mistaken: it
offers very great difficulties, if we bestow our bounty rationally,
and do not scatter it impulsively and at random. I do this man a
service, I requite a good turn done me by that one: I help this
other, because I pity him: this man, again, I teach to be no fit
object for poverty to {232} hold down or degrade. I shall not give
some men anything, although they are in want, because, even if I
do give to them they will still be in want: I shall proffer my
bounty to some, and shall forcibly thrust it upon others: I cannot
be neglecting my own interests while I am doing this: at no time
do I make more people in my debt than when I am giving things away.
“What?” say you, “do you give that you may receive again?” At any
rate I do not give that I may throw my bounty away: what I give
should be so placed that although I cannot ask for its return, yet
it may be given back to me. A benefit should be invested in the
same manner as a treasure buried deep in the earth, which you would
not dig up unless actually obliged. Why, what opportunities of
conferring benefits the mere house of a rich man affords? for who
considers generous behaviour due only to those who wear the toga?
Nature bids me do good to mankind—what difference does it make
whether they be slaves or freemen, free-born or emancipated, whether
their freedom be legally acquired or betowed by arrangement among
friends? Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity
for a benefit: consequently, money may be distributed even within
one’s own threshold, and a field may be found there for the practice
of freehandedness, which is not so called because it is our duty
towards free men, but because it takes its rise in a free-born mind.
In the case of the wise man, this never falls upon base and unworthy
recipients, and never becomes so exhausted as not, whenever it finds
a worthy object, to flow as if its store was undiminished. You have,
therefore, no grounds for misunderstanding the honourable, brave,
and spirited language which you hear from those who are studying
wisdom: and first of all observe this, that a student of wisdom is
not the same thing as a man who has made himself perfect in wisdom.
The former will say to you, “In my talk I express the most admirable
sentiments, {233} yet I am still weltering amid countless ills.
You must not force me to act up to my rules: at the present time I
am forming myself, moulding my character, and striving to rise
myself to the height of a great example. If I should ever succeed
in carrying out all that I have set myself to accomplish, you may
then demand that my words and deeds should correspond,” But he who
has reached the summit of human perfection will deal otherwise with
you, and will say, “In the first place, you have no business to
allow yourself to sit in judgment upon your betters:” I have already
obtained one proof of my righteousness in having become an object
of dislike to bad men: however, to make you a rational answer, which
I grudge to no man, listen to what I declare, and at what price I
value all things. Riches, I say, are not a good thing; for if they
were, they would make men good: now since that which is found even
among bad men cannot be termed good, I do not allow them to be
called so: nevertheless I admit that they are desirable and useful
and contribute great comforts to our lives.

XXV. Learn, then, since we both agree that they are desirable, what
my reason is amongst counting them among good things, and in what
respects I should behave differently to you if I possessed them.
Place me as master in the house of a very rich man: place me where
gold and silver plate is used for the commonest purposes; I shall
not think more of myself because of things which even though they
are in my house are yet no part of me. Take me away to the wooden
bridge[5] and put me down there among the beggars: I shall not
despise myself because I am sitting among those who hold out their
hands for alms: for what can the lack of a piece of bread matter
to one {234} who does not lack the power of dying? Well, then? I
prefer the magnificent house to the beggar’s bridge. Place me among
magnificent furniture and all the appliances of luxury: I shall not
think myself any happier because my cloak is soft, because my guests
rest upon purple. Change the scene: I shall be no more miserable
if my weary head rests upon a bundle of hay, if I lie upon a cushion
from the circus, with all the stuffing on the point of coming out
through its patches of threadbare cloth. Well, then? I prefer, as
far as my feelings go, to show myself in public dressed in woollen
and in robes of office, rather than with naked or half-covered
shoulders: I should like every day’s business to turn out just as
I wish it to do, and new congratulations to be constantly following
upon the former ones: yet I will not pride myself upon this: change
all this good fortune for its opposite, let my spirit be distracted
by losses, grief, various kinds of attacks: let no hour pass without
some dispute: I shall not on this account, though beset by the
greatest miseries, call myself the most miserable of beings, nor
shall I curse any particular day, for I have taken care to have no
unlucky days. What, then, is the upshot of all this? it is that I
prefer to have to regulate joys than to stifle sorrows. The great
Socrates would say the same thing to you. “Make me,” he would say,
“the conqueror of all nations: let the voluptuous car of Bacchus
bear me in triumph to Thebes from the rising of the sun: let the
kings of the Persians receive laws from me: yet I shall feel myself
to be a man at the very moment when all around salute me as a God.
Straightway connect this lofty height with a headlong fall into
misfortune: let me be placed upon a foreign chariot that I may grace
the triumph of a proud and savage conqueror: I will follow another’s
car with no more humility than I showed when I stood in my own.
What then? In spite of all this, I had rather be a conqueror than
a captive. I despise the whole {235} dominion of Fortune, but still,
if I were given my choice, I would choose its better parts. I shall
make whatever befals me become a good thing, but I prefer that what
befals me should be comfortable and pleasant and unlikely to cause
me annoyance: for you need not suppose that any virtue exists without
labour, but some virtues need spurs, while others need the curb.
As we have to check our body on a downward path, and to urge it to
climb a steep one; so also the path of some virtues leads down hill,
that of others uphill. Can we doubt that patience, courage, constancy,
and all the other virtues which have to meet strong opposition, and
to trample Fortune under their feet, are climbing, struggling,
winning their way up a steep ascent? Why! is it not equally evident
that generosity, moderation, and gentleness glide easily downhill?
With the latter we must hold in our spirit, lest it run away with
us: with the former we must urge and spur it on. We ought, therefore,
to apply these energetic, combative virtues to poverty, and to
riches those other more thrifty ones which trip lightly along, and
merely support their own weight. This being the distinction between
them, I would rather have to deal with those which I could practise
in comparative quiet, than those of which one can only make trial
through blood and sweat. “Wherefore,” says the sage, “I do not talk
one way and live another: but you do not rightly understand what I
say: the sound of my words alone reaches your ears, you do not try
to find out their meaning.”

XXVI. “What difference, then, is there between me, who am a fool,
and you, who are a wise man?” “All the difference in the world: for
riches are slaves in the house of a wise man, but masters in that
of a fool. You accustom yourself to them and cling to them as if
somebody had promised that they should be yours for ever, but a
wise man never thinks so much about poverty as when he is surrounded
by riches. No general ever trusts so implicitly in {236} the
maintenance of peace as not to make himself ready for a war, which,
though it may not actually be waged, has nevertheless been declared;
you are rendered over-proud by a fine house, as though it could
never be burned or fall down, and your heads are turned by riches
as though they were beyond the reach of all dangers and were so
great that Fortune has not sufficient strength to swallow them up.
You sit idly playing with your wealth and do not foresee the perils
in store for it, as savages generally do when besieged, for, not
understanding the use of siege artillery, they look on idly at the
labours of the besiegers and do not understand the object of the
machines which they are putting together at a distance: and this
is exactly what happens to you: you go to sleep over your property,
and never reflect how many misfortunes loom menacingly around you
on all sides, and soon will plunder you of costly spoils, but if
one takes away riches from the wise man, one leaves him still in
possession of all that is his: for he lives happy in the present,
and without fear for the future. The great Socrates, or any one
else who had the same superiority to and power to withstand the
things of this life, would say, ‘I have no more fixed principle
than that of not altering the course of my life to suit your
prejudices: you may pour your accustomed talk upon me from all
sides: I shall not think that you are abusing me, but that you are
merely wailing like poor little babies.’” This is what the man will
say who possesses wisdom, whose mind, being free from vices, bids
him reproach others, not because he hates them, but in order to
improve them: and to this he will add, “Your opinion of me affects
me with pain, not for my own sake but for yours, because to hate
perfection and to assail virtue is in itself a resignation of all
hope of doing well. You do me no harm; neither do men harm the gods
when they overthrow their altars: but it is clear that your intention
is an evil one and that you will wish to do harm even {237} where
you are not able. I bear with your prating in the same spirit in
which Jupiter, best and greatest, bears with the idle tales of the
poets, one of whom represents him with wings, another with horns,
another as an adulterer staying out all night, another is dealing
harshly with the gods, another as unjust to men, another as the
seducer of noble youths whom he carries off by force, and those,
too, his own relatives, another as a parricide and the conqueror
of another’s kingdom, and that his father’s. The only result of
such tales is that men feel less shame at committing sin if they
believe the gods to be guilty of such actions. But although this
conduct of yours does not hurt me, yet, for your own sakes, I advise
you, respect virtue: believe those who having long followed her cry
aloud that what they follow is a thing of might, and daily appears
mightier. Reverence her as you would the gods, and reverence her
followers as you would the priests of the gods: and whenever any
mention of sacred writings is made, _favete linguis_, favour us
with silence: this word is not derived, as most people imagine,
from _favour_, but commands silence, that divine service may be
performed without being interrupted by any words of evil omen. It
is much more necessary that you should be ordered to do this, in
order that whenever utterance is made by that oracle, you may listen
to it with attention and in silence. Whenever any one beats a
sistrum,[6] pretending to do so by divine command, any proficient
in grazing his own skin covers his arms and shoulders with blood
from light cuts, any one crawls on his knees howling along the
street, or any old man clad in linen comes forth in daylight with
a lamp and laurel branch and cries out that one of the gods is
angry, you crowd round him and listen to his words, and each increases
the {238} other’s wonderment by declaring him to be divinely inspired.

XXVII. Behold! from that prison of his, which by entering he cleansed
from shame and rendered more honourable than any senate house,
Socrates addresses you, saying: “What is this madness of yours?
what is this disposition, at war alike with gods and men, which
leads you to calumniate virtue and to outrage holiness with malicious
accusations? Praise good men, if you are able: if not, pass them
by in silence: if indeed you take pleasure in this offensive
abusiveness, fall foul of one another: for when you rave against
Heaven, I do not say that you commit sacrilege, but you waste your
time. I once afforded Aristophanes with the subject of a jest: since
then all the crew of comic poets have made me a mark for their
envenomed wit: my virtue has been made to shine more brightly by
the very blows which have been aimed at it, for it is to its advantage
to be brought before the public and exposed to temptation, nor do
any people understand its greatness more than those who by their
assaults have made trial of its strength. The hardness of flint is
known to none so well as to those who strike it. I offer myself to
all attacks, like some lonely rock in a shallow sea, which the waves
never cease to beat upon from whatever quarter they may come, but
which they cannot thereby move from its place nor yet wear away,
for however many years they may unceasingly dash against it. Bound
upon me, rush upon me, I will overcome you by enduring your onset:
whatever strikes against that which is firm and unconquerable merely
injures itself by its own violence. Wherefore, seek some soft and
yielding object to pierce with your darts. But have you leisure to
peer into other men’s evil deeds and to sit in judgment upon anybody?
to ask how it is that this philosopher has so roomy a house, or
that one so good a dinner? Do you look at other people’s pimples
while you {239} yourselves are covered with countless ulcers? This
is as though one who was eaten up by the mange were to point with
scorn at the moles and warts on the bodies of the handsomest men.
Reproach Plato with having sought for money, reproach Aristotle
with having obtained it, Democritus with having disregarded it,
Epicurus with having spent it: cast Phaedrus and Alcibiades in my
own teeth, you who reach the height of enjoyment whenever you get
an opportunity of imitating our vices! Why do you not rather cast
your eyes around yourselves at the ills which tear you to pieces
on every side, some attacking you from without, some burning in
your own bosoms? However little you know your own place, mankind
has not yet come to such a pass that you can have leisure to wag
your tongues to the reproach of your betters.

XXVIII. This you do not understand, and you bear a countenance which
does not befit your condition, like many men who sit in the circus
or the theatre without having learned that their home is already
in mourning: but I, looking forward from a lofty standpoint, can
see what storms are either threatening you, and will burst in
torrents upon you somewhat later, or are close upon you and on the
point of sweeping away all that you possess. Why, though you are
hardly aware of it, is there not a whirling hurricane at this moment
spinning round and confusing your minds, making them seek and avoid
the very same things, now raising them aloft and now dashing them
below? . . . . . .”


[1] Lipsius’s conjecture, “those who are dressed in white as well
as those who are dressed in coloured clothes,’ alluding to the white
robes of candidates for office, seems reasonable.

[2] The Latin words are literally “to divide” their vote, that is,
“to separate things of different kinds comprised in a single vote
so that they might be voted for separately.”—Andrews.

Séneque fait allusion ici à une coutume pratiquée dans les assemblées
du Sénat; et il nous I’explique lui-même ailleurs d’un manière très
claire: “Si quelqu’un dans le Sénat,” dit il, “ouvre un avis, dont
une partie me convienne, je le somme de la detacher du reste, et
j’y adhère.”—_Ep_. 21, La Grange.

[3] _Parentatur_ seems to mean where an offering is made to luxury—
where they sacrifice to luxury. Perfumes were used at funerals.
Lipsius suggests that these feasts were like funerals because the
guests were carried away from them dead drunk.

[4] The quotation is from the epitaph on Phaeton.—See _Ovid_, Met.
II, 327.

[5] The “Pons Sublicius,” or “pile bridge,” was built over the Tiber
by Ancus Martius, one of the early kings of Rome, and was always
kept in repair out of a superstitious feeling.

[6] _Sistrum_. A metallic rattle used by the Egyptians in celebrating
the rites of Isis, &c.—Andrews.




{240}

THE EIGHTH BOOK OF THE DIALOGUES OF L. ANNAEUS SENECA, ADDRESSED
TO SERENUS.

OF LEISURE.


I. . . . . why do they with great unanimity recommend vices to us?
even though we attempt nothing else that would do us good, yet
retirement in itself will be beneficial to us: we shall be better
men when taken singly—and if so, what an advantage it will be to
retire into the society of the best of men, and to choose some
example by which we may guide our lives! This cannot be done without
leisure: with leisure we can carry out that which we have once for
all decided to be best, when there is no one to interfere with us
and with the help of the mob pervert our as yet feeble judgment:
with leisure only can life, which we distract by aiming at the most
incompatible objects, flow on in a single gentle stream. Indeed,
the worst of our various ills is that we change our very vices, and
so we have not even the advantage of dealing with a well-known form
of evil: we take pleasure first in one and then in another, and
are, besides, troubled by the fact that our opinions are not only
wrong, but lightly formed; we toss as it were on waves, and clutch
at one thing after another: we let go what we just now sought for,
and {241} strive to recover what we have let go. We oscillate between
desire and remorse, for we depend entirely upon the opinions of
others, and it is that which many people praise and seek after, not
that which deserves to be praised and sought after, which we consider
to be best. Nor do we take any heed of whether our road be good or
bad in itself, but we value it by the number of footprints upon it,
among which there are none of any who have returned. You will say
to me, “Seneca, what are you doing? do you desert your party? I am
sure that our Stoic philosophers say we must be in motion up to the
very end of our life, we will never cease to labour for the general
good; to help individual people, and when stricken in years to
afford assistance even to our enemies. We are the sect that gives
no discharge for any number of years’ service, and in the words of
the most eloquent of poets:—

    ‘We wear the helmet when our locks are grey.’[1]

We are they who are so far from indulging in any leisure until we
die, that if circumstances permit it, we do not allow ourselves to
be at leisure even when we are dying. Why do you preach the maxims
of Epicurus in the very headquarters of Zeno? nay, if you are ashamed
of your party, why do you not go openly altogether over to the enemy
rather than betray your own side?” I will answer this question
straightway: What more can you wish than that I should imitate my
leaders? What then follows? I shall go whither they lead me, not
whither they send me.

II. Now I will prove to you that I am not deserting the {242} tenets
of the Stoics: for they themselves have not deserted them: and yet
I should be able to plead a very good excuse even if I did follow,
not their precepts, but their examples. I shall divide what I am
about to say into two parts: first, that a man may from the very
beginning of his life give himself up entirely to the contemplation
of truth; secondly, that a man when he has already completed his
term of service, has the best of rights, that of his shattered
health, to do this, and that he may then apply his mind to other
studies after the manner of the Vestal virgins, who allot different
duties to different years, first learn how to perform the sacred
rites, and when they have learned them teach others.

III. I will show that this is approved of by the Stoics also, not
that I have laid any commandment upon myself to do nothing contrary
to the teaching of Zeno and Chrysippus, but because the matter
itself allows me to follow the precepts of those men; for if one
always follows the precepts of one man, one ceases to be a debater
and becomes a partizan. Would that all things were already known,
that truth were unveiled and recognized, and that none of our
doctrines required modification! but as it is we have to seek for
truth in the company of the very men who teach it. The two sects
of Epicureans and Stoics differ widely in most respects, and on
this point among the rest, nevertheless, each of them consigns us
to leisure, although by a different road. Epicurus says, “The wise
man will not take part in politics, except upon some special
occasion;” Zeno says, “The wise man will take part in politics,
unless prevented by some special circumstance.” The one makes it
his aim in life to seek for leisure, the other seeks it only when
he has reasons for so doing: but this word “reasons” has a wide
signification. If the state is so rotten as to be past helping, if
evil has entire dominion over it, the wise man will not labour in
vain or waste his strength in unprofitable {243} efforts. Should
he be deficient in influence or bodily strength, if the state refuse
to submit to his guidance, if his health stand in the way, then he
will not attempt a journey for which he is unfit, just as he would
not put to sea in a worn-out ship, or enlist in the army if he were
an invalid. Consequently, one who has not yet suffered either in
health or fortune has the right, before encountering any storms,
to establish himself in safety, and thenceforth to devote himself
to honourable industry and inviolate leisure, and the service of
those virtues which can be practised even by those who pass the
quietest of lives. The duty of a man is to be useful to his fellow-men;
if possible, to be useful to many of them; failing this, to be
useful to a few; failing this, to be useful to his neighbours, and,
failing them, to himself: for when he helps others, he advances the
general interests of mankind. Just as he who makes himself a worse
man does harm not only to himself but to all those to whom he might
have done good if he had made himself a better one, so he who
deserves well of himself does good to others by the very fact that
he is preparing what will be of service to them.

IV. Let us grasp the fact that there are two republics, one vast
and truly “public,” which contains alike gods and men, in which we
do not take account of this or that nook of land, but make the
boundaries of our state reach as far as the rays of the sun: and
another to which we have been assigned by the accident of birth.
This may be that of the Athenians or Carthaginians, or of any other
city which does not belong to all men but to some especial ones.
Some men serve both of these states, the greater and the lesser,
at the same time; some serve only the lesser, some only the greater.
We can serve the greater commonwealth even when we are at leisure;
indeed I am not sure that we cannot serve it better when we are at
leisure to inquire into what virtue is, and whether it be one or
many: {244} whether it be nature or art that makes men good: whether
that which contains the earth and sea and all that in them is be
one, or whether God has placed therein many bodies of the same
species: whether that out of which all things are made be continuous
and solid, or containing interstices and alternate empty and full
spaces: whether God idly looks on at His handiwork, or directs its
course: whether He is without and around the world, or whether He
pervades its entire surface: whether the world be immortal, or
doomed to decay and belonging to the class of things which are born
only for a time? What service does he who meditates upon these
questions render to God? He prevents these His great works having
no one to witness them.

V. We have a habit of saying that the highest good is to live
according to nature: now nature has produced us for both purposes,
for contemplation and for action. Let us now prove what we said
before: nay, who will not think this proved if he bethinks himself
how great a passion he has for discovering the unknown? how vehemently
his curiosity is roused by every kind of romantic tale. Some men
make long voyages and undergo the toils of journeying to distant
lands for no reward except that of discovering something hidden and
remote. This is what draws people to public shows, and causes them
to pry into everything that is closed, to puzzle out everything
that is secret, to clear up points of antiquity, and to listen to
tales of the customs of savage nations. Nature has bestowed upon
us an inquiring disposition, and being well aware of her own skill
and beauty, has produced us to be spectators of her vast works,
because she would lose all the fruits of her labour if she were to
exhibit such vast and noble works of such complex construction, so
bright and beautiful in so many ways, to solitude alone. That you
may be sure that she wishes to be gazed upon, not merely looked at,
see what a place she has assigned to us: she has placed us in {245}
the middle of herself and given us a prospect all around. She has
not only set man erect upon his feet, but also with a view to making
it easy for him to watch the heavens, she has raised his head on
high and connected it with a pliant neck, in order that he might
follow the course of the stars from their rising to their setting,
and move his face round with the whole heaven. Moreover, by carrying
six constellations across the sky by day, and six by night, she
displays every part of herself in such a manner that by what she
brings before man’s eyes she renders him eager to see the rest also.
For we have not beheld all things, nor yet the true extent of them,
but our eyesight does but open to itself the right path for research,
and lay the foundation, from which our speculations may pass from
what is obvious to what is less known, and find out something more
ancient than the world itself, from whence those stars came forth:
inquire what was the condition of the universe before each of its
elements were separated from the general mass: on what principle
its confused and blended parts were divided: who assigned their
places to things, whether it was by their own nature that what was
heavy sunk downwards, and what was light flew upwards, or whether
besides the stress and weight of bodies some higher power gave laws
to each of them: whether that greatest proof that the spirit of man
is divine be true, the theory, namely, that some parts and as it
were sparks of the stars have fallen down upon earth and stuck there
in a foreign substance. Our thought bursts through the battlements
of heaven, and is not satisfied with knowing only what is shown to
us: “I investigate,” it says, “that which lies without the world,
whether it be a bottomless abyss, or whether it also is confined
within boundaries of its own: what the appearance of the things
outside may be, whether they be shapeless and vague, extending
equally in every direction, or whether they also are arranged {246}
in a certain kind of order: whether they are connected with this
world of ours, or are widely separated from it and welter about in
empty space: whether they consist of distinct atoms, of which
everything that is and that is to be, is made, or whether their
substance is uninterrupted and all of it capable of change: whether
the elements are naturally opposed to one another, or whether they
are not at variance, but work towards the same end by different
means.” Since man was born for such speculations as these, consider
how short a time he has been given for them, even supposing that
he makes good his claims to the whole of it, allows no part of it
to be wrested from him through good nature, or to slip away from
him through carelessness; though he watches over all his hours with
most miserly care, though he live to the extreme confines of human
existence, and though misfortune take nothing away from what Nature
bestowed upon him, even then man is too mortal for the comprehension
of immortality. I live according to Nature, therefore, if I give
myself entirely up to her, and if I admire and reverence her. Nature,
however, intended me to do both, to practise both contemplation and
action: and I do both, because even contemplation is not devoid of
action.

VI. “But,” say you, “it makes a difference whether you adopt the
contemplative life for the sake of your own pleasure, demanding
nothing from it save unbroken contemplation without any result: for
such a life is a sweet one and has attractions of its own.” To this
I answer you: It makes just as much difference in what spirit you
lead the life of a public man, whether you are never at rest, and
never set apart any time during which you may turn your eyes away
from the things of earth to those of Heaven. It is by no means
desirable that one should merely strive to accumulate property
without any love of virtue, or do nothing but hard work without any
cultivation of the {247} intellect, for these things ought to be
combined and blended together; and, similarly, virtue placed in
leisure without action is but an incomplete and feeble good thing,
because she never displays what she has learned. Who can deny that
she ought to test her progress in actual work, and not merely think
what ought to be done, but also sometimes use her hands as well as
her head, and bring her conceptions into actual being? But if the
wise man be quite willing to act thus, if it be the things to be
done, not the man to do them that are wanting, will you not then
allow him to live to himself? What is the wise man’s purpose in
devoting himself to leisure? He knows that in leisure as well as
in action he will accomplish something by which he will be of service
to posterity. Our school at any rate declares that Zeno and Chrysippus
have done greater things than they would have done had they been
in command of armies, or filled high offices, or passed laws: which
latter indeed they did pass, though not for one single state, but
for the whole human race. How then can it be unbecoming to a good
man to enjoy a leisure such as this, by whose means he gives laws
to ages to come, and addresses himself not to a few persons but to
all men of all nations, both now and hereafter? To sum up the matter,
I ask you whether Cleanthes, Chrysippus, and Zeno lived in accordance
with their doctrine? I am sure that you will answer that they lived
in the manner in which they taught that men ought to live: yet no
one of them governed a state. “They had not,” you reply, “the amount
of property or social position which as a rule enables people to
take part in public affairs.” Yet for all that they did not live
an idle life: they found the means of making their retirement more
useful to mankind than the perspirings and runnings to and fro of
other men: wherefore these persons are thought to have done great
things, in spite of their having done nothing of a public character.

{248}

VII. Morever, there are three kinds of life, and it is a stock
question which of the three is the best: the first is devoted to
pleasure, the second to contemplation, the third to action. First,
let us lay aside all disputatiousness and bitterness of feeling,
which, as we have stated, causes those whose paths in life are
different to hate one another beyond all hope of reconciliation,
and let us see whether all these three do not come to the same
thing, although under different names: for neither he who decides
for pleasure is without contemplation, nor is he who gives himself
up to contemplation without pleasure: nor yet is he, whose life is
devoted to action, without contemplation. “It makes,” you say, “all
the difference in the world, whether a thing is one’s main object
in life, or whether it be merely an appendage to some other object.”
I admit that the difference is considerable, nevertheless the one
does not exist apart from the other: the one man cannot live in
contemplation without action, nor can the other act without
contemplation: and even the third, of whom we all agree in having
a bad opinion, does not approve of passive pleasure, but of that
which he establishes for himself by means of reason: even this
pleasure-seeking sect itself, therefore, practises action also. Of
course it does, since Epicurus himself says that at times he would
abandon pleasure and actually seek for pain, if he became likely
to be surfeited with pleasure, or if he thought that by enduring a
slight pain he might avoid a greater one. With what purpose do I
state this? To prove that all men are fond of contemplation. Some
make it the object of their lives: to us it is an anchorage, but
not a harbour.

VIII. Add to this that, according to the doctrine of Chrysippus, a
man may live at leisure: I do not say that he ought to endure
leisure, but that he ought to choose it. Our Stoics say that the
wise man would not take part in the government of any state. What
difference does it {249} make by what path the wise man arrives at
leisure, whether it be because the state is wanting to him, or he
is wanting to the state? If the state is to be wanting to all wise
men (and it always will be found wanting by refined thinkers), I
ask you, to what state should the wise man betake himself; to that
of the Athenians, in which Socrates is condemned to death, and from
which Aristotle goes into exile lest he should be condemned to
death? where virtues are borne down by jealousy? You will tell me
that no wise man would join such a state. Shall then the wise man
go to the commonwealth of the Carthaginians, where faction never
ceases to rage, and liberty is the foe of all the best men, where
justice and goodness are held of no account, where enemies are
treated with inhuman cruelty and natives are treated like enemies:
he will flee from this state also. If I were to discuss each one
separately, I should not be able to find one which the wise man
could endure, or which could endure the wise man. Now if such a
state as we have dreamed of cannot be found on earth, it follows
that leisure is necessary for every one, because the one thing which
might be preferred to leisure is nowhere to be found. If any one
says that to sail is the best of things, and then says that we ought
not to sail in a sea in which shipwrecks were common occurrences,
and where sudden storms often arise which drive the pilot back from
his course, I should imagine that this man, while speaking in praise
of sailing, was really forbidding me to unmoor my ship . . . .


[1] Virg. “Aen.” ix. 612. Compare Sir Walter Scott, “Lay of the
Last Minstrel,” canto iv.:—

    “And still, in age, he spurned at rest, And still his brows the
    helmet pressed.  Albeit the blanched locks below Were white as
    Dinlay’s spotless snow,” &c.




{250}

THE NINTH BOOK OF THE DIALOGUES OF L. ANNAEUS SENECA, ADDRESSED TO
SERENUS.

OF PEACE OF MIND.


I. [_Serenus._]

When I examine myself, Seneca, some vices appear on the surface,
and so that I can lay my hands upon them, while others are less
distinct and harder to reach, and some are not always present, but
recur at intervals: and these I should call the most troublesome,
being like a roving enemy that assails one when he sees his
opportunity, and who will neither let one stand on one’s guard as
in war, nor yet take one’s rest without fear as in peace. The
position in which I find myself more especially (for why should I
not tell you the truth as I would to a physician), is that of neither
being thoroughly set free from the vices which I fear and hate, nor
yet quite in bondage to them: my state of mind, though not the worst
possible, is a particularly discontented and sulky one: I am neither
ill nor well, It is of no use for you to tell me that all virtues
are weakly at the outset, and that they acquire strength and solidity
by time, for I am well aware that even those which do but help our
outward show, such as grandeur, a reputation for eloquence, and
everything that appeals to others, gain power by time. Both those
which {251} afford us real strength and those which do but trick
us out in a more attractive form, require long years before they
gradually are adapted to us by time. But I fear that custom, which
confirms most things, implants this vice more and more deeply in
me. Long acquaintance with both good and bad people leads one to
esteem them all alike. What this state of weakness really is, when
the mind halts between two opinions without any strong inclination
towards either good or evil, I shall be better able to show you
piecemeal than all at once. I will tell you what befalls me, you
must find out the name of the disease. I have to confess the greatest
possible love of thrift: I do not care for a bed with gorgeous
hangings, nor for clothes brought out of a chest, or pressed under
weights and made glossy by frequent manglings, but for common and
cheap ones, that require no care either to keep them or to put them
on. For food I do not want what needs whole troops of servants to
prepare it and admire it, nor what is ordered many days before and
served up by many hands, but something handy and easily come at,
with nothing far-fetched or costly about it, to be had in every
part of the world, burdensome neither to one’s fortune nor one’s
body, not likely to go out of the body by the same path by which
it came in. I like[1] a rough and unpolished homebred servant, I
like my servant born in my house: I like my country-bred father’s
heavy silver plate stamped with no maker’s name: I do not want a
table that is beauteous with dappled spots, or known to all the
town by the number of fashionable people to whom it has successively
belonged, but one which stands merely for use, and which causes no
guest’s eye to dwell upon it with pleasure or to kindle at it with
envy. While I am well satisfied with this, I am reminded of the
clothes of a certain schoolboy, dressed with no ordinary care and
splendour, of slaves bedecked with gold and a whole regiment {252}
of glittering attendants. I think of houses too, where one treads
on precious stones, and where valuables lie about in every corner,
where the very roof is brilliantly painted, and a whole nation
attends and accompanies an inheritance on the road to ruin. What
shall I say of waters, transparent to the very bottom, which flow
round the guests, and banquets worthy of the theatre in which they
take place? Coming as I do from a long course of dull thrift, I
find myself surrounded by the most brilliant luxury, which echoes
around me on every side: my sight becomes a little dazzled by it:
I can lift up my heart against it more easily than my eyes. When I
return from seeing it I am a sadder, though not a worse man, I
cannot walk amid my own paltry possessions with so lofty a step as
before, and silently there steals over me a feeling of vexation,
and a doubt whether that way of life may not be better than mine.
None of these things alter my principles, yet all of them disturb
me. At one time I would obey the maxims of our school and plunge
into public life, I would obtain office and become consul, not
because the purple robe and lictor’s axes attract me, but in order
that I may be able to be of use to my friends, my relatives, to all
my countrymen, and indeed to all mankind. Ready and determined, I
follow the advice of Zeno, Cleanthes, and Chrysippus, all of whom
bid one take part in public affairs, though none of them ever did
so himself: and then, as soon as something disturbs my mind, which
is not used to receiving shocks, as soon as something occurs which
is either disgraceful, such as often occurs in all men’s lives, or
which does not proceed quite easily, or when subjects of very little
importance require me to devote a great deal of time to them, I go
back to my life of leisure, and, just as even tired cattle go faster
when they are going home, I wish to retire and pass my life within
the walls of my house. “No one,” I say, “that will give me no
compensation worth such a loss shall ever {253} rob me of a day.
Let my mind be contained within itself and improve itself: let it
take no part with other men’s affairs, and do nothing which depends
on the approval of others: let me enjoy a tranquillity undisturbed
by either public or private troubles.” But whenever my spirit is
roused by reading some brave words, or some noble example spurs me
into action, I want to rush into the law courts, to place my voice
at one man’s disposal, my services at another’s, and to try to help
him even though I may not succeed, or to quell the pride of some
lawyer who is puffed up by ill-deserved success: but I think, by
Hercules, that in philosophical speculation it is better to view
things as they are, and to speak of them on their own account, and
as for words, to trust to things for them, and to let one’s speech
simply follow whither they lead. “Why do you want to construct a
fabric that will endure for ages? Do you not wish to do this in
order that posterity may talk of you: yet you were born to die, and
a silent death is the least wretched. Write something therefore in
a simple style, merely to pass the time, for your own use, and not
for publication. Less labour is needed when one does not look beyond
the present.” Then again, when the mind is elevated by the greatness
of its thoughts, it becomes ostentatious in its use of words, the
loftier its aspirations, the more loftily it desires to express
them, and its speech rises to the dignity of its subject. At such
times I forget my mild and moderate determination and soar higher
than is my wont, using a language that is not my own. Not to multiply
examples, I am in all things attended by this weakness of a
well-meaning mind, to whose level I fear that I shall be gradually
brought down, or, what is even more worrying, that I may always
hang as though about to fall, and that there may be more the matter
with me than I myself perceive: for we take a friendly view of our
own private affairs, and partiality always obscures our judgment.
{254} I fancy that many men would have arrived at wisdom had they
not believed themselves to have arrived there already, had they not
purposely deceived themselves as to some parts of their character,
and passed by others with their eyes shut: for you have no grounds
for supposing that other people’s flattery is more ruinous to us
than our own. Who dares to tell himself the truth? Who is there,
by however large a troop of caressing courtiers he may be surrounded,
who in spite of them is not his own greatest flatterer? I beg you,
therefore, if you have any remedy by which you could stop this
vacillation of mine, to deem me worthy to owe my peace of mind to
you. I am well aware that these oscillations of mind are not perilous
and that they threaten me with no serious disorder: to express what
I complain of by an exact simile, I am not suffering from a storm,
but from sea-sickness. Take from me, then, this evil, whatever it
may be, and help one who is in distress within sight of land.

II. [_Seneca._] I have long been silently asking myself, my friend
Serenus, to what I should liken such a condition of mind, and I
find that nothing more closely resembles it than the conduct of
those who, after having recovered from a long and serious illness,
occasionally experience slight touches and twinges, and, although
they have passed through the final stages of the disease, yet have
suspicions that it has not left them, and though in perfect health
yet hold out their pulse to be felt by the physician, and whenever
they feel warm suspect that the fever is returning. Such men,
Serenus, are not unhealthy, but they are not accustomed to being
healthy; just as even a quiet sea or lake nevertheless displays a
certain amount of ripple when its waters are subsiding after a
storm. What you need, therefore, is, not any of those harsher
remedies to which allusion has been made, not that you should in
some cases check yourself, in others be angry with yourself, in
{255} others sternly reproach yourself, but that you should adopt
that which comes last in the list, have confidence in yourself, and
believe that you are proceeding on the right path, without being
led aside by the numerous divergent tracks of wanderers which cross
it in every direction, some of them circling about the right path
itself. What you desire, to be undisturbed, is a great thing, nay,
the greatest thing of all, and one which raises a man almost to the
level of a god. The Greeks call this calm steadiness of mind
_euthymia_, and Democritus’s treatise upon it is excellently written:
I call it peace of mind: for there is no necessity for translating
so exactly as to copy the words of the Greek idiom: the essential
point is to mark the matter under discussion by a name which ought
to have the same meaning as its Greek name, though perhaps not the
same form. What we are seeking, then, is how the mind may always
pursue a steady, unruffled course, may be pleased with itself, and
look with pleasure upon its surroundings, and experience no
interruption of this joy, but abide in a peaceful condition without
being ever either elated or depressed: this will be “peace of mind.”
Let us now consider in a general way how it may be attained: then
you may apply as much as you choose of the universal remedy to your
own case. Meanwhile we must drag to light the entire disease, and
then each one will recognize his own part of it: at the same time
you will understand how much less you suffer by your self-depreciation
than those who are bound by some showy declaration which they have
made, and are oppressed by some grand title of honour, so that shame
rather than their own free will forces them to keep up the pretence.
The same thing applies both to those who suffer from fickleness and
continual changes of purpose, who always are fondest of what they
have given up, and those who merely yawn and dawdle: add to these
those who, like bad sleepers, turn from side to {256} side, and
settle themselves first in one manner and then in another, until
at last they find rest through sheer weariness: in forming the
habits of their lives they often end by adopting some to which they
are not kept by any dislike of change, but in the practice of which
old age, which is slow to alter, has caught them living: add also
those who are by no means fickle, yet who must thank their dulness,
not their consistency for being so, and who go on living not in the
way they wish, but in the way they have begun to live. There are
other special forms of this disease without number, but it has but
one effect, that of making people dissatisfied with themselves.
This arises from a distemperature of mind and from desires which
one is afraid to express or unable to fulfil, when men either dare
not attempt as much as they wish to do, or fail in their efforts
and depend entirely upon hope: such people are always fickle and
changeable, which is a necessary consequence of living in a state
of suspense: they take any way to arrive at their ends, and teach
and force themselves to use both dishonourable and difficult means
to do so, so that when their toil has been in vain they are made
wretched by the disgrace of failure, and do not regret having longed
for what was wrong, but having longed for it in vain. They then
begin to feel sorry for what they have done, and afraid to begin
again, and their mind falls by degrees into a state of endless
vacillation, because they can neither command nor obey their passions,
of hesitation, because their life cannot properly develope itself,
and of decay, as the mind becomes stupefied by disappointments. All
these symptoms become aggravated when their dislike of a laborious
misery has driven them to idleness and to secret studies, which are
unendurable to a mind eager to take part in public affairs, desirous
of action and naturally restless, because, of course, it finds too
few resources within itself: when therefore it loses the amusement
which business itself affords to busy {257} men, it cannot endure
home, loneliness, or the walls of a room, and regards itself with
dislike when left to itself. Hence arises that weariness and
dissatisfaction with oneself, that tossing to and fro of a mind
which can nowhere find rest, that unhappy and unwilling endurance
of enforced leisure. In all cases where one feels ashamed to confess
the real cause of one’s suffering, and where modesty leads one to
drive one’s sufferings inward, the desires pent up in a little space
without any vent choke one another. Hence comes melancholy and
drooping of spirit, and a thousand waverings of the unsteadfast
mind, which is held in suspense by unfulfilled hopes, and saddened
by disappointed ones: hence comes the state of mind of those who
loathe their idleness, complain that they have nothing to do, and
view the progress of others with the bitterest jealousy: for an
unhappy sloth favours the growth of envy, and men who cannot succeed
themselves wish every one else to be ruined. This dislike of other
men’s progress and despair of one’s own produces a mind angered
against fortune, addicted to complaining of the age in which it
lives, to retiring into corners and brooding over its misery, until
it becomes sick and weary of itself: for the human mind is naturally
nimble and apt at movement: it delights in every opportunity of
excitement and forgetfulness of itself, and the worse a man’s
disposition the more he delights in this, because he likes to wear
himself out with busy action, just as some sores long for the hands
that injure them and delight in being touched, and the foul itch
enjoys anything that scratches it. Similarly I assure you that these
minds, over which desires have spread like evil ulcers, take pleasure
in toils and troubles, for there are some things which please our
body while at the same time they give it a certain amount of pain,
such as turning oneself over and changing one’s side before it is
wearied, or cooling oneself in one position after another. It is
like Homer’s Achilles, {258} lying first upon its face, then upon
its back, placing itself in various attitudes, and, as sick people
are wont, enduring none of them for long, and using changes as
though they were remedies. Hence men undertake aimless wanderings,
travel along distant shores, and at one time at sea, at another by
land, try to soothe that fickleness of disposition which always is
dissatisfied with the present. “Now let us make for Campania: now
I am sick of rich cultivation: let us see wild regions, let us
thread the passes of Bruttii and Lucania: yet amid this wilderness
one wants something of beauty to relieve our pampered eyes after
so long dwelling on savage wastes: let us seek Tarentum with its
famous harbour, its mild winter climate, and its district, rich
enough to support even the great hordes of ancient times. Let us
now return to town: our ears have too long missed its shouts and
noise: it would be pleasant also to enjoy the sight of human
bloodshed.” Thus one journey succeeds another, and one sight is
changed for another. As Lucretius says:—

    “Thus every mortal from himself doth flee;”

but what does he gain by so doing if he does not escape from himself?
he follows himself and weighs himself down by his own most burdensome
companionship. We must understand, therefore, that what we suffer
from is not the fault of the places but of ourselves: we are weak
when there is anything to be endured, and cannot support either
labour or pleasure, either one’s own business or any one else’s for
long. This has driven some men to death, because by frequently
altering their purpose they were always brought back to the same
point, and had left themselves no room for anything new. They had
become sick of life and of the world itself, and as all indulgences
palled upon them they began to ask themselves the question, “How
long are we to go on doing the same thing?”

{259}

III. You ask me what I think we had better make use of to help us
to support this ennui. “The best thing,” as Athenodorus says, “is
to occupy oneself with business with the management of affairs of
state and the duties of a citizen: for as some pass the day in
exercising themselves in the sun and in taking care of their bodily
health, and athletes find it most useful to spend the greater part
of their time in feeding up the muscles and strength to whose
cultivation they have devoted their lives; so too for you who are
training your mind to take part in the struggles of political life,
it is far more honourable to be thus at work than to be idle. He
whose object is to be of service to his countrymen and to all
mortals, exercises himself and does good at the same time when he
is engrossed in business and is working to the best of his ability
both in the interests of the public and of private men. But,”
continues he, “because innocence is hardly safe among such furious
ambitions and so many men who turn one aside from the right path,
and it is always sure to meet with more hindrance than help, we
ought to withdraw ourselves from the forum and from public life,
and a great mind even in a private station can find room wherein
to expand freely. Confinement in dens restrains the springs of lions
and wild creatures, but this does not apply to human beings, who
often effect the most important works in retirement. Let a man,
however, withdraw himself only in such a fashion that wherever he
spends his leisure his wish may still be to benefit individual men
and mankind alike, both with his intellect, his voice, and his
advice. The man that does good service to the state is not only he
who brings forward candidates for public office, defends accused
persons, and gives his vote on questions of peace and war, but he
who encourages young men in well-doing, who supplies the present
dearth of good teachers by instilling into their minds the principles
of virtue, who seizes and holds back those who {260} are rushing
wildly in pursuit of riches and luxury, and, if he does nothing
else, at least checks their course—such a man does service to the
public though in a private station. Which does the most good, he
who decides between foreigners and citizens (as praetor peregrinus),
or, as praetor urbanus, pronounces sentence to the suitors in his
court at his assistant’s dictation, or he who shows them what is
meant by justice, filial feeling, endurance, courage, contempt of
death and knowledge of the gods, and how much a man is helped by a
good conscience? If then you transfer to philosophy the time which
you take away from the public service, you will not be a deserter
or have refused to perform your proper task. A soldier is not merely
one who stands in the ranks and defends the right or the left wing
of the army, but he also who guards the gates—a service which,
though less dangerous, is no sinecure—who keeps watch, and takes
charge of the arsenal: though all these are bloodless duties, yet
they count as military service. As soon as you have devoted yourself
to philosophy, you will have overcome all disgust at life: you will
not wish for darkness because you are weary of the light, nor will
you be a trouble to yourself and useless to others: you will acquire
many friends, and all the best men will be attracted towards you:
for virtue, in however obscure a position, cannot be hidden, but
gives signs of its presence: any one who is worthy will trace it
out by its footsteps: but if we give up all society, turn our backs
upon the whole human race, and live communing with ourselves alone,
this solitude without any interesting occupation will lead to a
want of something to do: we shall begin to build up and to pull
down, to dam out the sea, to cause waters to flow through natural
obstacles, and generally to make a bad disposal of the time which
Nature has given us to spend: some of us use it grudgingly, others
wastefully; some of us spend it so that we can show a profit and
loss account, {261} others so that they have no assets remaining:
than which nothing can be more shameful. Often a man who is very
old in years has nothing beyond his age by which he can prove that
he has lived a long time.”

IV. To me, my dearest Serenus, Athenodorus seems to have yielded
too completely to the times, to have fled too soon: I will not deny
that sometimes one must retire, but one ought to retire slowly, at
a foot’s pace, without losing one’s ensigns or one’s honour as a
soldier: those who make terms with arms in their hands are more
respected by their enemies and more safe in their hands. This is
what I think ought to be done by virtue and by one who practises
virtue: if Fortune get the upper hand and deprive him of the power
of action, let him not straightway turn his back to the enemy, throw
away his arms, and run away seeking for a hiding-place, as if there
were any place whither Fortune could not pursue him, but let him
be more sparing in his acceptance of public office, and after due
deliberation discover some means by which he can be of use to the
state. He is not able to serve in the army: then let him become a
candidate for civic honours: must he live in a private station?
then let him be an advocate: is he condemned to keep silence? then
let him help his countrymen with silent counsel. Is it dangerous
for him even to enter the forum? then let him prove himself a good
comrade, a faithful friend, a sober guest in people’s houses, at
public shows, and at wine-parties. Suppose that he has lost the
status of a citizen; then let him exercise that of a man: our reason
for magnanimously refusing to confine ourselves within the walls
of one city, for having gone forth to enjoy intercourse with all
lands and for professing ourselves to be citizens of the world is
that we may thus obtain a wider theatre on which to display our
virtue. Is the bench of judges closed to you, are you forbidden to
address the people from the hustings, or to be a candidate at
elections? {262} then turn your eyes away from Rome, and see what
a wide extent of territory, what a number of nations present
themselves before you. Thus, it is never possible for so many outlets
to be closed against your ambition that more will not remain open
to it: but see whether the whole prohibition does not arise from
your own fault. You do not choose to direct the affairs of the state
except as consul or prytanis[2] or meddix[3] or sufes:[4] what
should we say if you refused to serve in the army save as general
or military tribune? Even though others may form the first line,
and your lot may have placed you among the veterans of the third,
do your duty there with your voice, encouragement, example, and
spirit: even though a man’s hands be cut off, he may find means to
help his side in a battle, if he stands his ground and cheers on
his comrades. Do something of that sort yourself: if Fortune removes
you from the front rank, stand your ground nevertheless and cheer
on your comrades, and if somebody stops your mouth, stand nevertheless
and help your side in silence. The services of a good citizen are
never thrown away: he does good by being heard and seen, by his
expression, his gestures, his silent determination, and his very
walk. As some remedies benefit us by their smell as well as by their
their taste and touch, so virtue even when concealed and at a
distance sheds usefulness around. Whether she moves at her ease and
enjoys her just rights, or can only appear abroad on sufferance and
is forced to shorten sail to the tempest, whether it be unemployed,
silent, and pent up in a narrow lodging, or openly displayed, in
whatever guise she may appear, she always does good. What? do you
think that the example of one who can rest nobly has no value? It
is by far the best plan, therefore, to mingle {263} leisure with
business, whenever chance impediments or the state of public affairs
forbid one’s leading an active life: for one is never so cut off
from all pursuits as to find no room left for honourable action.

V. Could you anywhere find a [more] miserable city than that of
Athens when it was being torn to pieces by the thirty tyrants? they
slew thirteen hundred citizens, all the best men, and did not leave
off because they had done so, but their cruelty became stimulated
by exercise. In the city which possessed that most reverend tribunal,
the Court of the Areopagus, which possessed a Senate, and a popular
assembly which was like a Senate, there met daily a wretched crew
of butchers, and the unhappy Senate House was crowded with tyrants.
A state, in which there were so many tyrants that they would have
been enough to form a bodyguard for one, might surely have rested
from the struggle; it seemed impossible for men’s minds even to
conceive hopes of recovering their liberty, nor could they see any
room for a remedy for such a mass of evil: for whence could the
unhappy state obtain all the Harmodiuses it would need to slay so
many tyrants? Yet Socrates was in the midst of the city, and consoled
its mourning Fathers, encouraged those who despaired of the republic,
by his reproaches brought rich men, who feared that their wealth
would be their ruin, to a tardy repentance of their avarice, and
moved about as a great example to those who wished to imitate him,
because he walked a free man in the midst of thirty masters. However,
Athens herself put him to death in prison, and Freedom herself could
not endure the freedom of one who had treated a whole band of tyrants
with scorn: you may know, therefore, that even in an oppressed state
a wise man can find an opportunity for bringing himself to the
front, and that in a prosperous and flourishing one wanton insolence,
jealousy, and a thousand other cowardly vices bear sway. We ought,
{264} therefore, to expand or contract ourselves according as the
state presents itself to us, or as Fortune offers us opportunities:
but in any case we ought to move and not to become frozen still by
fear: nay, he is the best man who, though peril menaces him on every
side and arms and chains beset his path, nevertheless neither impairs
nor conceals his virtue: for to keep oneself safe does not mean to
bury oneself. I think that Curius Dentatus spoke truly when he said
that he would rather be dead than alive: the worst evil of all is
to leave the ranks of the living before one dies: yet it is your
duty, if you happen to live in an age when it is not easy to serve
the state, to devote more time to leisure and to literature. Thus,
just as though you were making a perilous voyage, you may from time
to time put into harbour, and set yourself free from public business
without waiting for it to do so.

VI. We ought, however, first to examine our own selves, next the
business which we propose to transact, next those for whose sake
or in whose company we transact it.

It is above all things necessary to form a true estimate of oneself,
because as a rule we think that we can do more than we are able:
one man is led too far through confidence in his eloquence, another
demands more from his estate than it can produce, another burdens
a weakly body with some toilsome duty. Some men are too shamefaced
for the conduct of public affairs, which require an unblushing
front: some men’s obstinate pride renders them unfit for courts:
some cannot control their anger, and break into unguarded language
on the slightest provocation: some cannot rein in their wit or
resist making risky jokes: for all these men leisure is better than
employment: a bold, haughty and impatient nature ought to avoid
anything that may lead it to use a freedom of speech which will
bring it to ruin. Next we must form an estimate of the matter which
we mean to deal with, and compare our strength {265} with the deed
we are about to attempt: for the bearer ought always to be more
powerful than his load: indeed, loads which are too heavy for their
bearer must of necessity crush him: some affairs also are not so
important in themselves as they are prolific and lead to much more
business, which employments, as they involve us in new and various
forms of work, ought to be refused. Neither should you engage in
anything from which you are not free to retreat: apply yourself to
something which you can finish, or at any rate can hope to finish:
you had better not meddle with those operations which grow in
importance, while they are being transacted, and which will not
stop where you intended them to stop.

VII. In all cases one should be careful in one’s choice of men, and
see whether they be worthy of our bestowing a part of our life upon
them, or whether we shall waste our own time and theirs also: for
some even consider us to be in their debt because of our services
to them. Athenodorus said that “he would not so much as dine with
a man who would not be grateful to him for doing so”: meaning, I
imagine, that much less would he go to dinner with those who
recompense the services of their friends by their table, and regard
courses of dishes as donatives, as if they overate themselves to
do honour to others. Take away from these men their witnesses and
spectators: they will take no pleasure in solitary gluttony. You
must decide whether your disposition is better suited for vigorous
action or for tranquil speculation and contemplation, and you must
adopt whichever the bent of your genius inclines you for. Isocrates
laid hands upon Ephorus and led him away from the forum, thinking
that he would be more usefully employed in compiling chronicles;
for no good is done by forcing one’s mind to engage in uncongenial
work: it is vain to struggle against Nature. Yet nothing delights
the mind so much as faithful and pleasant friendship: what a {266}
blessing it is when there is one whose breast is ready to receive
all your secrets with safety, whose knowledge of your actions you
fear less than your own conscience, whose conversation removes your
anxieties, whose advice assists your plans, whose cheerfulness
dispels your gloom, whose very sight delights you! We should choose
for our friends men who are, as far as possible, free from strong
desires: for vices are contagious, and pass from a man to his
neighbour, and injure those who touch them. As, therefore, in times
of pestilence we have to be careful not to sit near people who are
infected and in whom the disease is raging, because by so doing,
we shall run into danger and catch the plague from their very breath;
so, too, in choosing our friends’ dispositions, we must take care
to select those who are as far as may be unspotted by the world;
for the way to breed disease is to mix what is sound with what is
rotten. Yet I do not advise you to follow after or draw to yourself
no one except a wise man: for where will you find him whom for so
many centuries we have sought in vain? in the place of the best
possible man take him who is least bad. You would hardly find any
time that would have enabled you to make a happier choice than if
you could have sought for a good man from among the Platos and
Xenophons and the rest of the produce of the brood of Socrates, or
if you had been permitted to choose one from the age of Cato: an
age which bore many men worthy to be born in Cato’s time (just as
it also bore many men worse than were ever known before, planners
of the blackest crimes: for it needed both classes in order to make
Cato understood: it wanted both good men, that he might win their
approbation, and bad men, against whom he could prove his strength):
but at the present day, when there is such a dearth of good men,
you must be less squeamish in your choice. Above all, however, avoid
dismal men who grumble at whatever happens, and find something to
complain {267} of in everything. Though he may continue loyal and
friendly towards you, still one’s peace of mind is destroyed by a
comrade whose mind is soured and who meets every incident with a
groan.

VIII. Let us now pass on to the consideration of property, that
most fertile source of human sorrows: for if you compare all the
other ills from which we suffer—deaths, sicknesses, fears, regrets,
endurance of pains and labours— with those miseries which our money
inflicts upon us, the latter will far outweigh all the others.
Reflect, then, how much less a grief it is never to have had any
money than to have lost it: we shall thus understand that the less
poverty has to lose, the less torment it has with which to afflict
us: for you are mistaken if you suppose that the rich bear their
losses with greater spirit than the poor: a wound causes the same
amount of pain to the greatest and the smallest body. It was a neat
saying of Bion’s, “that it hurts bald men as much as hairy men to
have their hairs pulled out”: you may be assured that the same thing
is true of rich and poor people, that their suffering is equal: for
their money clings to both classes, and cannot be torn away without
their feeling it: yet it is more endurable, as I have said, and
easier not to gain property than to lose it, and therefore you will
find that those upon whom Fortune has never smiled are more cheerful
than those whom she has deserted. Diogenes, a man of infinite spirit,
perceived this, and made it impossible that anything should be taken
from him. Call this security from loss poverty, want, necessity,
or any contemptuous name you please: I shall consider such a man
to be happy, unless you find me another who can lose nothing. If I
am not mistaken, it is a royal attribute among so many misers,
sharpers, and robbers, to be the one man who cannot be injured. If
any one doubts the happiness of Diogenes, he would doubt whether
the position of the immortal gods was one of sufficient happiness.
{268} because they have no farms or gardens, no valuable estates
let to strange tenants, and no large loans in the money market. Are
you not ashamed of yourself, you who gaze upon riches with astonished
admiration? Look upon the universe: you will see the gods quite
bare of property, and possessing nothing though they give everything.
Do you think that this man who has stripped himself of all fortuitous
accessories is a pauper, or one like to the immortal gods? Do you
call Demetrius, Pompeius’s freedman, a happier man, he who was not
ashamed to be richer than Pompeius, who was daily furnished with a
list of the number of his slaves, as a general is with that of his
army, though he had long deserved that all his riches should consist
of a pair of underlings, and a roomier cell than the other slaves?
But Diogenes’s only slave ran away from him, and when he was pointed
out to Diogenes, he did not think him worth fetching back. “It is
a shame,” he said, “that Manes should be able to live without
Diogenes, and that Diogenes should not be able to live without
Manes.” He seems to me to have said, “Fortune, mind your own business:
Diogenes has nothing left that belongs to you. Did my slave run
away? nay, he went away from me as a free man.” A household of
slaves requires food and clothing: the bellies of so many hungry
creatures have to be filled: we must buy raiment for them, we must
watch their most thievish hands, and we must make use of the services
of people who weep and execrate us. How far happier is he who is
indebted to no man for anything except for what he can deprive
himself of with the greatest ease! Since we, however, have not such
strength of mind as this, we ought at any rate to diminish the
extent of our property, in order to be less exposed to the assaults
of fortune: those men whose bodies can be within the shelter of
their armour, are more fitted for war than those whose huge size
everywhere extends beyond {269} it, and exposes them to wounds: the
best amount of property to have is that which is enough to keep us
from poverty, and which yet is not far removed from it.

IX. We shall be pleased with this measure of wealth if we have
previously taken pleasure in thrift, without which no riches are
sufficient, and with which none are insufficient, especially as the
remedy is always at hand, and poverty itself by calling in the aid
of thrift can convert itself into riches. Let us accustom ourselves
to set aside mere outward show, and to measure things by their uses,
not by their ornamental trappings: let our hunger be tamed by food,
our thirst quenched by drinking, our lust confined within needful
bounds; let us learn to use our limbs, and to arrange our dress and
way of life according to what was approved of by our ancestors, not
in imitation of new-fangled models: let us learn to increase our
continence, to repress luxury, to set bounds to our pride, to assuage
our anger, to look upon poverty without prejudice, to practise
thrift, albeit many are ashamed to do so, to apply cheap remedies
to the wants of nature, to keep all undisciplined hopes and aspirations
as it were under lock and key, and to make it our business to get
our riches from ourselves and not from Fortune. We never can so
thoroughly defeat the vast diversity and malignity of misfortune
with which we are threatened as not to feel the weight of many gusts
if we offer a large spread of canvas to the wind: we must draw our
affairs into a small compass, to make the darts of Fortune of no
avail. For this reason, sometimes slight mishaps have turned into
remedies, and more serious disorders have been healed by slighter
ones. When the mind pays no attention to good advice, and cannot
be brought to its senses by milder measures, why should we not think
that its interests are being served by poverty, disgrace, or financial
ruin being applied to it? one evil is balanced by another. Let us
then teach ourselves to be able to {270} dine without all Rome to
look on, to be the slaves of fewer slaves, to get clothes which
fulfil their original purpose, and to live in a smaller house. The
inner curve is the one to take, not only in running races and in
the contests of the circus, but also in the race of life; even
literary pursuits, the most becoming thing for a gentleman to spend
money upon, are only justifiable as long as they are kept within
bounds. What is the use of possessing numberless books and libraries,
whose titles their owner can hardly read through in a lifetime? A
student is overwhelmed by such a mass, not instructed, and it is
much better to devote yourself to a few writers than to skim through
many. Forty thousand books were burned at Alexandria: some would
have praised this library as a most noble memorial of royal wealth,
like Titus Livius, who says that it was “a splendid result of the
taste and attentive care of the kings.”[5] It had nothing to do
with taste or care, but was a piece of learned luxury, nay, not
even learned, since they amassed it, not for the sake of learning,
but to make a show, like many men who know less about letters than
a slave is expected to know, and who uses his books not to help him
in his studies but to ornament his dining-room. Let a man, then,
obtain as many books as he wants, but none for show. “It is more
respectable,” say you, “to spend one’s money on such books than on
vases of Corinthian brass and paintings.” Not so: everything that
is carried to excess is wrong. What excuses can you find for a man
who is eager to buy bookcases of ivory and citrus wood, to collect
the works of unknown or discredited authors, and who sits yawning
{271} amid so many thousands of books, whose backs and titles please
him more than any other part of them? Thus in the houses of the
laziest of men you will see the works of all the orators and
historians stacked upon book-shelves reaching right up to the
ceiling. At the present day a library has become as necessary an
appendage to a house as a hot and cold bath. I would excuse them
straightway if they really were carried away by an excessive zeal
for literature; but as it is, these costly works of sacred genius,
with all the illustrations that adorn them, are merely bought for
display and to serve as wall-furniture.

X. Suppose, however, that your life has become full of trouble, and
that without knowing what you were doing you have fallen into some
snare which either public or private Fortune has set for you, and
that you can neither untie it nor break it: then remember that
fettered men suffer much at first from the burdens and clogs upon
their legs: afterwards, when they have made up their minds not to
fret themselves about them, but to endure them, necessity teaches
them to bear them bravely, and habit to bear them easily. In every
station of life you will find amusements, relaxations, and enjoyments;
that is, provided you be willing to make light of evils rather than
to hate them. Knowing to what sorrows we were born, there is nothing
for which Nature more deserves our thanks than for having invented
habit as an alleviation of misfortune, which soon accustoms us to
the severest evils. No one could hold out against misfortune if it
permanently exercised the same force as at its first onset. We are
all chained to Fortune: some men’s chain is loose and made of gold,
that of others is tight and of meaner metal: but what difference
does this make? we are all included in the same captivity, and even
those who have bound us are bound themselves, unless you think that
a chain on the left side is lighter to bear: one man may be bound
by public {272} office, another by wealth: some have to bear the
weight of illustrious, some of humble birth: some are subject to
the commands of others, some only to their own: some are kept in
one place by being banished thither, others by being elected to the
priesthood. All life is slavery: let each man therefore reconcile
himself to his lot, complain of it as little as possible, and lay
hold of whatever good lies within his reach. No condition can be
so wretched that an impartial mind can find no compensations in it.
Small sites, if ingeniously divided, may be made use of for many
different purposes, and arrangement will render ever so narrow a
room habitable. Call good sense to your aid against difficulties:
it is possible to soften what is harsh, to widen what is too narrow,
and to make heavy burdens press less severely upon one who bears
them skilfully. Moreover, we ought not to allow our desires to
wander far afield, but we must make them confine themselves to our
immediate neighbourhood, since they will not endure to be altogether
locked up. We must leave alone things which either cannot come to
pass or can only be effected with difficulty, and follow after such
things as are near at hand and within reach of our hopes, always
remembering that all things are equally unimportant, and that though
they have a different outward appearance, they are all alike empty
within. Neither let us envy those who are in high places: the heights
which look lofty to us are steep and rugged. Again, those whom
unkind fate has placed in critical situations will be safer if they
show as little pride in their proud position as may be, and do all
they are able to bring down their fortunes to the level of other
men’s. There are many who must needs cling to their high pinnacle
of power, because they cannot descend from it save by falling
headlong: yet they assure us that their greatest burden is being
obliged to be burdensome to others, and that they are nailed to
their lofty post rather than raised to it: let {273} them then, by
dispensing justice, clemency, and kindness with an open and liberal
hand, provide themselves with assistance to break their fall, and
looking forward to this maintain their position more hopefully. Yet
nothing sets us free from these alternations of hope and fear so
well as always fixing some limit to our successes, and not allowing
Fortune to choose when to stop our career, but to halt of our own
accord long before we apparently need do so. By acting thus certain
desires will rouse up our spirits, and yet being confined within
bounds, will not lead us to embark on vast and vague enterprises.

XI. These remarks of mine apply only to imperfect, commonplace, and
unsound natures, not to the wise man, who needs not to walk with
timid and cautious gait: for he has such confidence in himself that
he does not hesitate to go directly in the teeth of Fortune, and
never will give way to her. Nor indeed has he any reason for fearing
her, for he counts not only chattels, property, and high office,
but even his body, his eyes, his hands, and everything whose use
makes life dearer to us, nay, even his very self, to be things whose
possession is uncertain; he lives as though he had borrowed them,
and is ready to return them cheerfully whenever they are claimed.
Yet he does not hold himself cheap, because he knows that he is not
his own, but performs all his duties as carefully and prudently as
a pious and scrupulous man would take care of property left in his
charge as trustee. When he is bidden to give them up, he will not
complain of Fortune, but will say, “I thank you for what I have had
possession of: I have managed your property so as largely to increase
it, but since you order me, I give it back to you and return it
willingly and thankfully. If you still wish me to own anything of
yours, I will keep it for you: if you have other views, I restore
into your hands and make restitution of all my wrought and coined
silver, my house and my {274} household. Should Nature recall what
she previously entrusted us with, let us say to her also: ‘Take
back my spirit, which is better than when you gave it me: I do not
shuffle or hang back. Of my own free will I am ready to return what
you gave me before I could think: take me away,’” What hardship can
there be in returning to the place from whence one came? a man
cannot live well if he knows not how to die well. We must, therefore,
take away from this commodity its original value, and count the
breath of life as a cheap matter. “We dislike gladiators,” says
Cicero, “if they are eager to save their lives by any means whatever:
but we look favourably upon them if they are openly reckless of
them,” You may be sure that the same thing occurs with us: we often
die because we are afraid of death. Fortune, which regards our lives
as a show in the arena for her own enjoyment, says, “Why should I
spare you, base and cowardly creature that you are? you will be
pierced and hacked with all the more wounds because you know not
how to offer your throat to the knife: whereas you, who receive the
stroke without drawing away your neck or putting up your hands to
stop it, shall both live longer and die more quickly,” He who fears
death will never act as becomes a living man: but he who knows that
this fate was laid upon him as soon as he was conceived will live
according to it, and by this strength of mind will gain this further
advantage, that nothing can befal him unexpectedly: for by looking
forward to everything which can happen as though it would happen
to him, he takes the sting out of all evils, which can make no
difference to those who expect it and are prepared to meet it: evil
only comes hard upon those who have lived without giving it a thought
and whose attention has been exclusively directed to happiness.
Disease, captivity, disaster, conflagration, are none of them
unexpected: I always knew with what disorderly company {275} Nature
had associated me. The dead have often been wailed for in my
neighbourhood: the torch and taper have often been borne past my
door before the bier of one who has died before his time: the crash
of falling buildings has often resounded by my side: night has
snatched away many of those with whom I have become intimate in the
forum, the Senate-house, and in society, and has sundered the hands
which were joined in friendship: ought I to be surprised if the
dangers which have always been circling around me at last assail
me? How large a part of mankind never think of storms when about
to set sail? I shall never be ashamed to quote a good saying because
it comes from a bad author. Publilius, who was a more powerful
writer than any of our other playwrights, whether comic or tragic,
whenever he chose to rise above farcical absurdities and speeches
addressed to the gallery, among many other verses too noble even
for tragedy, let alone for comedy, has this one:—

    “What one hath suffered may befall us all.”

If a man takes this into his inmost heart and looks upon all the
misfortunes of other men, of which there is always a great plenty,
in this spirit, remembering that there is nothing to prevent their
coming upon him also, he will arm himself against them long before
they attack him. It is too late to school the mind to endurance of
peril after peril has come. “I did not think this would happen,”
and “Would you ever have believed that this would have happened?”
say you. But why should it not? Where are the riches after which
want, hunger, and beggary do not follow? what office is there whose
purple robe, augur’s staff, and patrician reins have not as their
accompaniment rags and banishment, the brand of infamy, a thousand
disgraces, and utter reprobation? what kingdom is there for which
ruin, trampling under foot, a tyrant and a {276} butcher are not
ready at hand? nor are these matters divided by long periods of
time, but there is but the space of an hour between sitting on the
throne ourselves and clasping the knees of some one else as suppliants.
Know then that every station of life is transitory, and that what
has ever happened to anybody may happen to you also. You are wealthy:
are you wealthier than Pompeius?[6] Yet when Gaius,[7] his old
relative and new host, opened Caesar’s house to him in order that
he might close his own, he lacked both bread and water: though he
owned so many rivers which both rose and discharged themselves
within his dominions, yet he had to beg for drops of water: he
perished of hunger and thirst in the palace of his relative, while
his heir was contracting for a public funeral for one who was in
want of food. You have filled public offices: were they either as
important, as unlooked for, or as all-embracing as those of Sejanus?
Yet on the day on which the Senate disgraced him, the people tore
him to pieces: the executioner[8] could find no part left large
enough to drag to the Tiber, of one upon whom gods and men had
showered all that could be given to man. You are a king: I will not
bid you go to Croesus for an example, he who while yet alive saw
his funeral pile both lighted and extinguished, being made to outlive
not only his kingdom but even his own death, nor to Jugurtha, whom
the people of Rome beheld as a captive within the year in which
they had feared him. We have seen Ptolemaeus King of Africa, and
Mithridates King of Armenia, under the charge of Gaius’s[9] guards:
the former was sent into exile, the latter chose it in order to
make his {277} exile more honourable. Among such continual topsy-turvy
changes, unless you expect that whatever can happen will happen to
you, you give adversity power against you, a power which can be
destroyed by any one who looks at it beforehand.

XII. The next point to these will be to take care that we do not
labour for what is vain, or labour in vain: that is to say, neither
to desire what we are not able to obtain, nor yet, having obtained
our desire too late, and after much toil to discover the folly of
our wishes: in other words, that our labour may not be without
result, and that the result may not be unworthy of our labour: for
as a rule sadness arises from one of these two things, either from
want of success or from being ashamed of having succeeded. We must
limit the running to and fro which most men practise, rambling about
houses, theatres, and market-places. They mind other men’s business,
and always seem as though they themselves had something to do. If
you ask one of them as he comes out of his own door, “Whither are
you going?” he will answer, “By Hercules, I do not know: but I shall
see some people and do something.” They wander purposelessly seeking
for something to do, and do, not what they have made up their minds
to do, but what has casually fallen in their way. They move uselessly
and without any plan, just like ants crawling over bushes, which
creep up to the top and then down to the bottom again without gaining
anything. Many men spend their lives in exactly the same fashion,
which one may call a state of restless indolence. You would pity
some of them when you see them running as if their house was on
fire: they actually jostle all whom they meet, and hurry along
themselves and others with them, though all the while they are going
to salute some one who will not return their greeting, or to attend
the funeral of some one whom they did not know: they are going to
hear the verdict on one {278} who often goes to law, or to see the
wedding of one who often gets married: they will follow a man’s
litter, and in some places will even carry it: afterwards returning
home weary with idleness, they swear that they themselves do not
know why they went out, or where they have been, and on the following
day they will wander through the same round again. Let all your
work, therefore, have some purpose, and keep some object in view:
these restless people are not made restless by labour, but are
driven out of their minds by mistaken ideas: for even they do not
put themselves in motion without any hope: they are excited by the
outward appearance of something, and their crazy mind cannot see
its futility. In the same way every one of those who walk out to
swell the crowd in the streets, is led round the city by worthless
and empty reasons; the dawn drives him forth, although he has nothing
to do, and after he has pushed his way into many men’s doors, and
saluted their nomenclators one after the other, and been turned
away from many others, he finds that the most difficult person of
all to find at home is himself. From this evil habit comes that
worst of all vices, talebearing and prying into public and private
secrets, and the knowledge of many things which it is neither safe
to tell nor safe to listen to.

XIII. It was, I imagine, following out this principle that Democritis
taught that “he who would live at peace must not do much business
either public or private,” referring of course to unnecessary
business: for if there be any necessity for it we ought to transact
not only much but endless business, both public and private; in
cases, however, where no solemn duty invites us to act, we had
better keep ourselves quiet: for he who does many things often puts
himself in Fortune’s power, and it is safest not to tempt her often,
but always to remember her existence, and never to promise oneself
anything on her security. I will set sail unless anything happens
to prevent me, I shall {279} be praetor, if nothing hinders me, my
financial operations will succeed, unless anything goes wrong with
them. This is why we say that nothing befals the wise man which he
did not expect—we do not make him exempt from the chances of human
life, but from its mistakes, nor does everything happen to him as
he wished it would, but as he thought it would: now his first thought
was that his purpose might meet with some resistance, and the pain
of disappointed wishes must affect a man’s mind less severely if
he has not been at all events confident of success.

XIV. Moreover, we ought to cultivate an easy temper, and not become
over fond of the lot which fate has assigned to us, but transfer
ourselves to whatever other condition chance may lead us to, and
fear no alteration, either in our purposes or our position in life,
provided that we do not become subject to caprice, which of all
vices is the most hostile to repose: for obstinacy, from which
Fortune often wrings some concession, must needs be anxious and
unhappy, but caprice, which can never restrain itself, must be more
so. Both of these qualities, both that of altering nothing, and
that of being dissatisfied with everything, are energies to repose.
The mind ought in all cases to be called away from the contemplation
of external things to that of itself: let it confide in itself,
rejoice in itself, admire its own works; avoid as far as may be
those of others, and devote itself to itself; let it not feel losses,
and put a good construction even upon misfortunes. Zeno, the chief
of our school, when he heard the news of a shipwreck, in which all
his property had been lost, remarked, “Fortune bids me follow
philosophy in lighter marching order.” A tyrant threatened Theodorus
with death, and even with want of burial. “You are able to please
yourself,” he answered, “my half pint of blood is in your power:
for, as for burial, what a fool you must be if you suppose that I
care whether I rot above ground or under it.” Julius {280} Kanus,
a man of peculiar greatness, whom even the fact of his having been
born in this century does not prevent our admiring, had a long
dispute with Gaius, and when as he was going away that Phalaris of
a man said to him, “That you may not delude yourself with any foolish
hopes, I have ordered you to be executed,” he answered, “I thank
you, most excellent prince.” I am not sure what he meant: for many
ways of explaining his conduct occur to me. Did he wish to be
reproachful, and to show him how great his cruelty must be if death
became a kindness? or did he upbraid him with his accustomed insanity?
for even those whose children were put to death, and whose goods
were confiscated, used to thank him: or was it that he willingly
received death, regarding it as freedom? Whatever he meant, it was
a magnanimous answer. Some one may say, “After this Gaius might
have let him live.” Kanus had no fear of this: the good faith with
which Gaius carried out such orders as these was well known. Will
you believe that he passed the ten intervening days before his
execution without the slightest despondency? it is marvellous how
that man spoke and acted, and how peaceful he was. He was playing
at draughts when the centurion in charge of a number of those who
where going to be executed bade him join them: on the summons he
counted his men and said to his companion, “Mind you do not tell a
lie after my death, and say that you won;” then, turning to the
centurion, he said “You will bear me witness that I am one man ahead
of him.” Do you think that Kanus played upon that draught-board?
nay, he played with it. His friends were sad at being about to lose
so great a man: “Why,” asked he, “are you sorrowful? you are enquiring
whether our souls are immortal, but I shall presently know.” Nor
did he up to the very end cease his search after truth, and raised
arguments upon the subject of his own death. His own teacher of
philosophy accompanied him, and they {281} were not far from the
hill on which the daily sacrifice to Caesar our god was offered,
when he said, “What are you thinking of now, Kanus? or what are
your ideas?” “I have decided,” answered Kanus, “at that most
swiftly-passing moment of all to watch whether the spirit will be
conscious of the act of leaving the body.” He promised, too, that
if he made any discoveries, he would come round to his friends and
tell them what the condition of the souls of the departed might be.
Here was peace in the very midst of the storm: here was a soul
worthy of eternal life, which used its own fate as a proof of truth,
which when at the last step of life experimented upon his fleeting
breath, and did not merely continue to learn until he died, but
learned something even from death itself. No man has carried the
life of a philosopher further. I will not hastily leave the subject
of a great man, and one who deserves to be spoken of with respect:
I will hand thee down to all posterity, thou most noble heart, chief
among the many victims of Gaius.

XV. Yet we gain nothing by getting rid of all personal causes of
sadness, for sometimes we are possessed by hatred of the human race.
When you reflect how rare simplicity is, how unknown innocence, how
seldom faith is kept, unless it be to our advantage, when you
remember such numbers of successful crimes, so many equally hateful
losses and gains of lust, and ambition so impatient even of its own
natural limits that it is willing to purchase distinction by baseness,
the mind seems as it were cast into darkness, and shadows rise
before it as though the virtues were all overthrown and we were no
longer allowed to hope to possess them or benefited by their
possession. We ought therefore to bring ourselves into such a state
of mind that all the vices of the vulgar may not appear hateful to
us, but merely ridiculous, and we should imitate Democritus rather
than Heraclitus. The latter of these, whenever be {282} appeared
in public, used to weep, the former to laugh: the one thought all
human doings to be follies, the other thought them to be miseries.
We must take a higher view of all things, and bear with them more
easily: it better becomes a man to scoff at life than to lament
over it. Add to this that he who laughs at the human race deserves
better of it than he who mourns for it, for the former leaves it
some good hopes of improvement, while the latter stupidly weeps
over what he has given up all hopes of mending. He who after surveying
the universe cannot control his laughter shows, too, a greater mind
than he who cannot restrain his tears, because his mind is only
affected in the slightest possible degree, and he does not think
that any part of all this apparatus is either important, or serious,
or unhappy. As for the several causes which render us happy or
sorrowful, let every one describe them for himself, and learn the
truth of Bion’s saying, “That all the doings of men were very like
what he began with, and that there is nothing in their lives which
is more holy or decent than their conception.” Yet it is better to
accept public morals and human vices calmly without bursting into
either laughter or tears; for to be hurt by the sufferings of others
is to be for ever miserable, while to enjoy the sufferings of others
is an inhuman pleasure, just as it is a useless piece of humanity
to weep and pull a long face because some one is burying his son.
In one’s own misfortunes, also, one ought so to conduct oneself as
to bestow upon them just as much sorrow as reason, not as much as
custom requires: for many shed tears in order to show them, and
whenever no one is looking at them their eyes are dry, but they
think it disgraceful not to weep when every one does so. So deeply
has this evil of being guided by the opinion of others taken root
in us, that even grief, the simplest of all emotions, begins to be
counterfeited.

{283}

XVI. There comes now a part of our subject which is wont with good
cause to make one sad and anxious: I mean when good men come to bad
ends; when Socrates is forced to die in prison, Rutilius to live
in exile, Pompeius and Cicero to offer their necks to the swords
of their own followers, when the great Cato, that living image of
virtue, falls upon his sword and rips up both himself and the
republic, one cannot help being grieved that Fortune should bestow
her gifts so unjustly: what, too, can a good man hope to obtain
when he sees the best of men meeting with the worst fates. Well,
but see how each of them endured his fate, and if they endured it
bravely, long in your heart for courage as great as theirs; if they
died in a womanish and cowardly manner, nothing was lost: either
they deserved that you should admire their courage, or else they
did not deserve that you should wish to imitate their cowardice:
for what can be more shameful than that the greatest men should die
so bravely as to make people cowards. Let us praise one who deserves
such constant praises, and say, “The braver you are the happier you
are! You have escaped from all accidents, jealousies, diseases: you
have escaped from prison: the gods have not thought you worthy of
ill-fortune, but have thought that fortune no longer deserved to
have any power over you”: but when any one shrinks back in the hour
of death and looks longingly at life, we must lay hands upon him.
I will never weep for a man who dies cheerfully, nor for one who
dies weeping: the former wipes away my tears, the latter by his
tears makes himself unworthy that any should be shed for him. Shall
I weep for Hercules because he was burned alive, or for Regulus
because he was pierced by so many nails, or for Cato because he
tore open his wounds a second time? All these men discovered how
at the cost of a small portion of time they might obtain immortality,
and by their deaths gained eternal life.

{284}

XVII. It also proves a fertile source of troubles if you take pains
to conceal your feelings and never show yourself to any one
undisguised, but, as many men do, live an artificial life, in order
to impose upon others: for the constant watching of himself becomes
a torment to a man, and he dreads being caught doing something at
variance with his usual habits, and, indeed, we never can be at our
ease if we imagine that every one who looks at us is weighing our
real value: for many things occur which strip people of their
disguise, however reluctantly they may part with it, and even if
all this trouble about oneself is successful, still life is neither
happy nor safe when one always has to wear a mask. But what pleasure
there is in that honest straight-forwardness which is its own
ornament, and which conceals no part of its character? Yet even
this life, which hides nothing from any one runs some risk of being
despised; for there are people who disdain whatever they come close
to: but there is no danger of virtue’s becoming contemptible when
she is brought near our eyes, and it is better to be scorned for
one’s simplicity than to bear the burden of unceasing hypocrisy.
Still, we must observe moderation in this matter, for there is a
great difference between living simply and living slovenly. Moreover,
we ought to retire a great deal into ourselves: for association
with persons unlike ourselves upsets all that we had arranged,
rouses the passions which were at rest, and rubs into a sore any
weak or imperfectly healed place in our minds. Nevertheless we ought
to mix up these two things, and to pass our lives alternately in
solitude and among throngs of people; for the former will make us
long for the society of mankind, the latter for that of ourselves,
and the one will counteract the other: solitude will cure us when
we are sick of crowds, and crowds will cure us when we are sick of
solitude. Neither ought we always to keep the mind strained to the
{285} same pitch, but it ought sometimes to be relaxed by amusement.
Socrates did not blush to play with little boys, Cato used to refresh
his mind with wine after he had wearied it with application to
affairs of state, and Scipio would move his triumphal and soldierly
limbs to the sound of music, not with a feeble and halting gait,
as is the fashion now-a-days, when we sway in our very walk with
more than womanly weakness, but dancing as men were wont in the
days of old on sportive and festal occasions, with manly bounds,
thinking it no harm to be seen so doing even by their enemies. Men’s
minds ought to have relaxation: they rise up better and more vigorous
after rest. We must not force crops from rich fields, for an unbroken
course of heavy crops will soon exhaust their fertility, and so
also the liveliness of our minds will be destroyed by unceasing
labour, but they will recover their strength after a short period
of rest and relief: for continuous toil produces a sort of numbness
and sluggishness. Men would not be so eager for this, if play and
amusement did not possess natural attractions for them, although
constant indulgence in them takes away all gravity and all strength
from the mind: for sleep, also, is necessary for our refreshment,
yet if you prolong it for days and nights together it will become
death. There is a great difference between slackening your hold of
a thing and letting it go. The founders of our laws appointed
festivals, in order that men might be publicly encouraged to be
cheerful, and they thought it necessary to vary our labours with
amusements, and, as I said before, some great men have been wont
to give themselves a certain number of holidays in every month, and
some divided every day into play-time and work-time. Thus, I remember
that great orator Asinius Pollio would not attend to any business
after the tenth hour: he would not even read letters after that
time for fear some new {286} trouble should arise, but in those two
hours[10] used to get rid of the weariness which he had contracted
during the whole day. Some rest in the middle of the day, and reserve
some light occupation for the afternoon. Our ancestors, too, forbade
any new motion to be made in the Senate after the tenth hour.
Soldiers divide their watches, and those who have just returned
from active service are allowed to sleep the whole night undisturbed.
We must humour our minds and grant them rest from time to time,
which acts upon them like food, and restores their strength. It
does good also to take walks out of doors, that our spirits may be
raised and refreshed by the open air and fresh breeze: sometimes
we gain strength by driving in a carriage, by travel, by change of
air, or by social meals and a more generous allowance of wine: at
times we ought to drink even to intoxication, not so as to drown,
but merely to dip ourselves in wine: for wine washes away troubles
and dislodges them from the depths of the mind, and acts as a remedy
to sorrow as it does to some diseases. The inventor of wine is
called Liber, not from the licence which he gives to our tongues,
but because he liberates the mind from the bondage of cares, and
emancipates it, animates it, and renders it more daring in all that
it attempts. Yet moderation is wholesome both in freedom and in
wine. It is believed that Solon and Arcesilaus used to drink deep.
Cato is reproached with drunkenness: but whoever casts this in his
teeth will find it easier to turn his reproach into a commendation
than to prove that Cato did anything wrong: however, we ought not
to do it often, for fear the mind should contract evil habits,
though it ought sometimes to be forced into frolic and frankness,
and to cast off dull sobriety for a while. If we believe the Greek
poet, “it is sometimes pleasant to be mad”; again, Plato always
{287} knocked in vain at the door of poetry when he was sober; or,
if we trust Aristotle, no great genius has ever been without a touch
of insanity. The mind cannot use lofty language, above that of the
common herd, unless it be excited. When it has spurned aside the
commonplace environments of custom, and rises sublime, instinct
with sacred fire, then alone can it chant a song too grand for
mortal lips: as long as it continues to dwell within itself it
cannot rise to any pitch of splendour: it must break away from the
beaten track, and lash itself to frenzy, till it gnaws the curb and
rushes away bearing up its rider to heights whither it would fear
to climb when alone.

I have now, my beloved Serenus, given you an account of what things
can preserve peace of mind, what things can restore it to us, what
can arrest the vices which secretly undermine it: yet be assured,
that none of these is strong enough to enable us to retain so
fleeting a blessing, unless we watch over our vacillating mind with
intense and unremitting care.


[1] Cf. Juv. ii. 150.

[2] The chief magistrate of the Greeks.

[3] The chief magistrate of the Oscans.

[4] The chief magistrate of the Carthaginians.

[5] “Livy himself styled the Alexandrian library _elegantiae regum
curaeque egregium opus_: a liberal encomium, for which he is pertly
criticised by the narrow stoicism of Seneca (Tranq., ch. ix.), whose
wisdom, on this occasion, deviates into nonsense.”—Gibbon, “Decline
and Fall,” ch. li, note.

[6] Haase reads _Ptolemaeus_.

[7] Caligula.

[8] It was the duty of the executioner to fasten a hook to the neck
of condemned criminals, by which they were dragged to the Tiber.

[9] Caligula.

[10] The Romans reckoned twelve hours from sunrise to sunset. These
“two hours” were therefore the two last of the day.




{288}

THE TENTH BOOK OF THE DIALOGUES OF L. ANNAEUS SENECA, ADDRESSED TO
PAULINUS.[1]

OF THE SHORTNESS OF LIFE.


I. The greater part of mankind, my Paulinus, complains of the
unkindness of Nature, because we are born only for a short space
of time, and that this allotted period of life runs away so swiftly,
nay so hurriedly, that with but few exceptions men’s life comes to
an end just as they are preparing to enjoy it: nor is it only the
common herd and the ignorant vulgar who mourn over this universal
misfortune, as they consider it to be: this reflection has wrung
complaints even from great men. Hence comes that well-known saying
of physicians, that art is long but life is short: hence arose that
quarrel, so unbefitting a sage, which Aristotle picked with Nature,
because she had indulged animals with such length of days that some
of them lived for ten or fifteen centuries, while man, although
born for many and such great exploits, had the term of his existence
cut so much shorter. We do not have a very short time assigned to
us, but we lose a great deal of it: life is long enough to carry
out the most important projects: we {289} have an ample portion,
if we do but arrange the whole of it aright: but when it all runs
to waste through luxury and carelessness, when it is not devoted
to any good purpose, then at the last we are forced to feel that
it is all over, although we never noticed how it glided away. Thus
it is: we do not receive a short life, but we make it a short one,
and we are not poor in days, but wasteful of them. When great and
kinglike riches fall into the hands of a bad master, they are
dispersed straightway, but even a moderate fortune, when bestowed
upon a wise guardian, increases by use: and in like manner our life
has great opportunities for one who knows how to dispose of it to
the best advantage.

II. Why do we complain of Nature? she has dealt kindly with us.
Life is long enough, if you know how to use it. One man is possessed
by an avarice which nothing can satisfy, another by a laborious
diligence in doing what is totally useless: another is sodden by
wine: another is benumbed by sloth: one man is exhausted by an
ambition which makes him court the good will of others[2]: another,
through his eagerness as a merchant, is led to visit every land and
every sea by the hope of gain: some are plagued by the love of
soldiering, and are always either endangering other men’s lives or
in trembling for their own: some wear away their lives in that
voluntary slavery, the unrequited service of great men: many are
occupied either in laying claim to other men’s fortune or in
complaining of their own: a great number have no settled purpose,
and are tossed from one new scheme to another by a rambling,
inconsistent, dissatisfied, fickle habit of mind: some care for no
object sufficiently to try to attain it, but lie lazily yawning
until their fate comes upon them: so that I cannot {290} doubt the
truth of that verse which the greatest of poets has dressed in the
guise of an oracular response—

    “We live a small part only of our lives.”

But all duration is time, not life: vices press upon us and surround
us on every side, and do not permit us to regain our feet, or to
raise our eyes and gaze upon truth, but when we are down keep us
prostrate and chained to low desires. Men who are in this condition
are never allowed to come to themselves: if ever by chance they
obtain any rest, they roll to and fro like the deep sea, which
heaves and tosses after a gale, and they never have any respite
from their lusts. Do you suppose that I speak of those whose ills
are notorious? Nay, look at those whose prosperity all men run to
see: they are choked by their own good things. To how many men do
riches prove a heavy burden? how many men’s eloquence and continual
desire to display their own cleverness has cost them their lives?[3]
how many are sallow with constant sensual indulgence? how many have
no freedom left them by the tribe of clients that surges around
them? Look through all these, from the lowest to the highest:—this
man calls his friends to support him, this one is present in court,
this one is the defendant, this one pleads for him, this one is on
the jury: but no one lays claim to his own self, every one wastes
his time over some one else. Investigate those men, whose names are
in every one’s mouth: you will find that they bear just the same
marks: A is devoted to B, and B to C: no one belongs to himself.
Moreover some men are full of most irrational anger: they complain
of the insolence of their chiefs, because they have not granted
them an audience when they wished for it; as if a man had any right
to complain of being so haughtily shut out by another, when he never
has {291} leisure to give his own conscience a hearing. This chief
of yours, whoever he is, though he may look at you in an offensive
manner, still will some day look at you, open his ears to your
words, and give you a seat by his side: but you never design to
look upon yourself, to listen to your own grievances. You ought
not, then, to claim these services from another, especially since
while you yourself were doing so, you did not wish for an interview
with another man, but were not able to obtain one with yourself.[4]

III. Were all the brightest intellects of all time to employ
themselves on this one subject, they never could sufficiently express
their wonder at this blindness of men’s minds: men will not allow
any one to establish himself upon their estates, and upon the most
trifling dispute about the measuring of boundaries, they betake
themselves to stones and cudgels: yet they allow others to encroach
upon {292} their lives, nay, they themselves actually lead others
in to take possession of them. You cannot find any one who wants
to distribute his money; yet among how many people does every one
distribute his life? men covetously guard their property from waste,
but when it comes to waste of time, they are most prodigal of that
of which it would become them to be sparing. Let us take one of the
elders, and say to him, “We perceive that you have arrived at the
extreme limits of human life: you are in your hundredth year, or
even older. Come now, reckon up your whole life in black and white:
tell us how much of your time has been spent upon your creditors,
how much on your mistress, how much on your king, how much on your
clients, how much in quarrelling with your wife, how much in keeping
your slaves in order, how much in running up and down the city on
business. Add to this the diseases which we bring upon us with our
own hands, and the time which has laid idle without any use having
been made of it; you will see that you have not lived as many years
as you count. Look back in your memory and see how often you have
been consistent in your projects, how many days passed as you
intended them to do when you were at your own disposal, how often
you did not change colour and your spirit did not quail, how much
work you have done in so long a time, how many people have without
your knowledge stolen parts of your life from you, how much you
have lost, how large a part has been taken up by useless grief,
foolish gladness, greedy desire, or polite conversation; how little
of yourself is left to you: you will then perceive that you will
die prematurely.” What, then, is the reason of this? It is that
people live as though they would live for ever: you never remember
your human frailty; you never notice how much of your time has
already gone by: you spend it as though you had an abundant and
overflowing store of it, though all the while that day which you
devote {293} to some man or to some thing is perhaps your last. You
fear everything, like mortals as you are, and yet you desire
everything as if you were immortals. You will hear many men say,
“After my fiftieth year I will give myself up to leisure: my sixtieth
shall be my last year of public office”: and what guarantee have
you that your life will last any longer? who will let all this go
on just as you have arranged it? are you not ashamed to reserve
only the leavings of your life for yourself, and appoint for the
enjoyment of your own right mind only that time which you cannot
devote to any business? How late it is to begin life just when we
have to be leaving it! What a foolish forgetfulness of our mortality,
to put off wholesome counsels until our fiftieth or sixtieth year,
and to choose that our lives shall begin at a point which few of
us ever reach.

IV. You will find that the most powerful and highly-placed men let
fall phrases in which they long for leisure, praise it, and prefer
it to all the blessings which they enjoy. Sometimes they would fain
descend from their lofty pedestal, if it could be safely done: for
Fortune collapses by its own weight, without any shock or interference
from without. The late Emperor Augustus, upon whom the gods bestowed
more blessings than on any one else, never ceased to pray for rest
and exemption from the troubles of empire: he used to enliven his
labours with this sweet, though unreal consolation, that he would
some day live for himself alone. In a letter which he addressed to
the Senate, after promising that his rest shall not be devoid of
dignity nor discreditable to his former glories, I find the following
words:—”These things, however, it is more honourable to do than to
promise: but my eagerness for that time, so earnestly longed for,
has led me to derive a certain pleasure from speaking about it,
though the reality is still far distant.”[5] He thought leisure so
important, that though {294} he could not actually enjoy it, yet
he did so by anticipation and by thinking about it. He, who saw
everything depending upon himself alone, who swayed the fortunes
of men and of nations, thought that his happiest day would be that
on which he laid aside his greatness. He knew by experience how
much labour was involved in that glory that shone through all lands,
and how much secret anxiety was concealed within it: he had been
forced to assert his rights by war, first with his countrymen, next
with his colleagues, and lastly with his own relations, and had
shed blood both by sea and by land: after marching his troops under
arms through Macedonia, Sicily, Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, and almost
all the countries of the world, when they were weary with slaughtering
Romans he had directed them against a foreign foe. While he was
pacifying the Alpine regions, and subduing the enemies whom he found
in the midst of the Roman empire, while he was extending its
boundaries beyond the Rhine, the Euphrates, and the Danube, at Rome
itself the swords of Murena, Caepio, Lepidus, Egnatius, and others
were being sharpened to slay him. Scarcely had he escaped from their
plot, when his already failing age was terrified by his daughter
and all the noble youths who were pledged to her cause by adultery
with her by way of oath of fidelity. Then there was Paulus and
Antonius’s mistress, a second time to be {295} feared by Rome: and
when he had cut out these ulcers from his very limbs, others grew
in their place: the empire, like a body overloaded with blood, was
always breaking out somewhere. For this reason he longed for leisure:
all his labours were based upon hopes and thoughts of leisure: this
was the wish of him who could accomplish the wishes of all other
men.

V. While tossed hither and thither by Catiline and Clodius, Pompeius
and Crassus, by some open enemies and some doubtful friends, while
he struggled with the struggling republic and kept it from going
to ruin, when at last he was banished, being neither able to keep
silence in prosperity nor to endure adversity with patience, how
often must Marcus Cicero have cursed that consulship of his which
he never ceased to praise, and which nevertheless deserved it? What
piteous expressions he uses in a letter to Atticus when Pompeius
the father had been defeated, and his son was recruiting his shattered
forces in Spain? “Do you ask,” writes he, “what I am doing here? I
am living in my Tusculan villa almost as a prisoner.” He adds more
afterwards, wherein he laments his former life, complains of the
present, and despairs of the future. Cicero called himself “half a
prisoner,” but, by Hercules, the wise man never would have come
under so lowly a title: he never would be half a prisoner, but would
always enjoy complete and entire liberty, being free, in his own
power, and greater than all others: for what can be greater than
the man who is greater than Fortune?

VI. When Livius Drusus, a vigorous and energetic man, brought forward
bills for new laws and radical measures of the Gracchus pattern,
being the centre of a vast mob of all the peoples of Italy, and
seeing no way to solve the question, since he was not allowed to
deal with it as he wished, and yet was not free to throw it up after
having once taken part in it, complained bitterly of his life, which
had been {296} one of unrest from the very cradle, and said, we are
told, that “he was the only person who had never had any holidays
even when he was a boy.” Indeed, while he was still under age and
wearing the praetexta, he had the courage to plead the cause of
accused persons in court, and to make use of his influence so
powerfully that it is well known that in some causes his exertions
gained a verdict. Where would such precocious ambition stop? You
may be sure that one who showed such boldness as a child would end
by becoming a great pest both in public and in private life: it was
too late for him to complain that he had had no holidays, when from
his boyhood he had been a firebrand and a nuisance in the courts.
It is a stock question whether he committed suicide: for he fell
by a sudden wound in the groin, and some doubted whether his death
was caused by his own hand, though none disputed its having happened
most seasonably. It would be superfluous to mention more who, while
others thought them the happiest of men, have themselves borne true
witness to their own feelings, and have loathed all that they have
done for all the years of their lives: yet by these complaints they
have effected no alteration either in others or in themselves: for
after these words have escaped them their feelings revert to their
accustomed frame. By Hercules, that life of you great men, even
though it should last for more than a thousand years, is still a
very short one: those vices of yours would swallow up any extent
of time: no wonder if this our ordinary span, which, though Nature
hurries on, can be enlarged by common sense, soon slips away from
you: for you do not lay hold of it or hold it back, and try to delay
the swiftest of all things, but you let it pass as though it were
a useless thing and you could supply its place.

VII. Among these I reckon in the first place those who devote their
time to nothing but drinking and debauchery: {297} for no men are
busied more shamefully: the others, although the glory which they
pursue is but a counterfeit, still deserve some credit for their
pursuit of it—though you may tell me of misers, of passionate men,
of men who hate and who even wage war without a cause—yet all such
men sin like men: but the sin of those who are given up to gluttony
and lust is a disgraceful one. Examine all the hours of their lives:
consider how much time they spend in calculation, how much in
plotting, how much in fear, how much in giving and deceiving flattery,
how much in entering into recognizances for themselves or for others,
how much in banquets, which indeed become a serious business, you
will see that they are not allowed any breathing time either by
their pleasures or their pains. Finally, all are agreed that nothing,
neither eloquence nor literature, can be done properly by one who
is occupied with something else; for nothing can take deep root in
a mind which is directed to some other subject, and which rejects
whatever you try to stuff into it. No man knows less about living
than a business man: there is nothing about which it is more difficult
to gain knowledge. Other arts have many folk everywhere who profess
to teach them: some of them can be so thoroughly learned by mere
boys, that they are able to teach them to others: but one’s whole
life must be spent in learning how to live, and, which may perhaps
surprise you more, one’s whole life must be spent in learning how
to die. Many excellent men have freed themselves from all hindrances,
have given up riches, business, and pleasure, and have made it their
duty to the very end of their lives to learn how to live: and yet
the larger portion of them leave this life confessing that they do
not yet know how to live, and still less know how to live as wise
men. Believe me, it requires a great man and one who is superior
to human frailties not to allow any of his time to be filched from
him: {298} and therefore it follows that his life is a very long
one, because he devotes every possible part of it to himself: no
portion lies idle or uncultivated, or in another man’s power; for
he finds nothing worthy of being exchanged for his time, which he
husbands most grudgingly. He, therefore, had time enough: whereas
those who gave up a great part of their lives to the people of
necessity had not enough. Yet you need not suppose that the latter
were not sometimes conscious of their loss: indeed, you will hear
most of those who are troubled with great prosperity every now and
then cry out amid their hosts of clients, their pleadings in court,
and their other honourable troubles, “I am not allowed to live my
own life.” Why is he not allowed? because all those who call upon
you to defend them, take you away from yourself. How many of your
days have been spent by that defendant? by that candidate for office?
by that old woman who is weary with burying her heirs? by that man
who pretends to be ill, in order to excite the greed of those who
hope to inherit his property? by that powerful friend of yours, who
uses you to swell his train, not to be his friend? Balance your
account, and run over all the days of your life; you will see that
only a very few days, and only those which were useless for any
other purpose, have been left to you. He who has obtained the
_fasces_[6] for which he longed, is eager to get rid of them, and
is constantly saying, “When will this year be over?” another exhibits
public games, and once would have given a great deal for the chance
of doing so, but now “when,” says he, “shall I escape from this?”
another is an advocate who is fought for in all the courts, and who
draws immense audiences, who crowd all the forum to a far greater
distance than they can hear him; “When,” says he, “will vacation-time
come?” Every man hurries through his life, and {299} suffers from
a yearning for the future, and a weariness of the present: but he
who disposes of all his time for his own purposes, who arranges all
his days as though he were arranging the plan of his life, neither
wishes for nor fears the morrow: for what new pleasure can any hour
now bestow upon him? he knows it all, and has indulged in it all
even to satiety. Fortune may deal with the rest as she will, his
life is already safe from her: such a man may gain something, but
cannot lose anything: and, indeed, he can only gain anything in the
same way as one who is already glutted and filled can get some extra
food which he takes although he does not want it. You have no
grounds, therefore, for supposing that any one has lived long,
because he has wrinkles or grey hairs: such a man has not lived
long, but has only been long alive. Why! would you think that a man
had voyaged much if a fierce gale had caught him as soon as he left
his port, and he had been driven round and round the same place
continually by a succession of winds blowing from opposite quarters?
such a man has not travelled much, he has only been much tossed
about.

VIII. I am filled with wonder when I see some men asking others for
their time, and those who are asked for it most willing to give it:
both parties consider the object for which the time is given, but
neither of them thinks of the time itself, as though in asking for
this one asked for nothing, and in giving it one gave nothing: we
play with what is the most precious of all things: yet it escapes
men’s notice, because it is an incorporeal thing, and because it
does not come before our eyes; and therefore it is held very cheap,
nay, hardly any value whatever is put upon it. Men set the greatest
store upon presents or pensions, and hire out their work, their
services, or their care in order to gain them: no one values time:
they give it much more freely, as though it cost nothing. Yet you
will see these {300} same people clasping the knees of their physician
as suppliants when they are sick and in present peril of death, and
if threatened with a capital charge willing to give all that they
possess in order that they may live: so inconsistent are they.
Indeed, if the number of every man’s future years could be laid
before him, as we can lay that of his past years, how anxious those
who found that they had but few years remaining would be to make
the most of them? Yet it is easy to arrange the distribution of a
quantity, however small, if we know how much there is: what you
ought to husband most carefully is that which may run short you
know not when. Yet you have no reason to suppose that they do not
know how dear a thing time is: they are wont to say to those whom
they especially love that they are ready to give them a part of
their own years. They do give them, and know not that they are
giving them; but they give them in such a manner that they themselves
lose them without the others gaining them. They do not, however,
know whence they obtain their supply, and therefore they are able
to endure the waste of what is not seen: yet no one will give you
back your years, no one will restore them to you again: your life
will run its course when once it has begun, and will neither begin
again or efface what it has done. It will make no disturbance, it
will give you no warning of how fast it flies: it will move silently
on: it will not prolong itself at the command of a king, or at the
wish of a nation: as it started on its first day, so it will run:
it will never turn aside, never delay. What follows, then? Why! you
are busy, but life is hurrying on: death will be here some time or
other, and you must attend to him, whether you will or no.

IX. Can anything be mentioned which is more insane than the ideas
of leisure of those people who boast of their worldly wisdom? They
live laboriously, in order that {301} they may live better; they
fit themselves out for life at the expense of life itself, and cast
their thoughts a long way forwards: yet postponement is the greatest
waste of life: it wrings day after day from us, and takes away the
present by promising something hereafter: there is no such obstacle
to true living as waiting, which loses to-day while it is depending
on the morrow. You dispose of that which is in the hand of Fortune,
and you let go that which is in your own. Whither are you looking,
whither are you stretching forward? everything future is uncertain:
live now straightway. See how the greatest of bards cries to you
and sings in wholesome verse as though inspired with celestial
fire:—

    “The best of wretched mortals’ days is that Which is the first
    to fly.”

Why do you hesitate, says he, why do you stand back? unless you
seize it it will have fled: and even if you do seize it, it will
still fly. Our swiftness in making use of our time ought therefore
to vie with the swiftness of time itself, and we ought to drink of
it as we should of a fast-running torrent which will not be always
running. The poet, too, admirably satirizes our boundless thoughts,
when he says, not “the first age,” but “the first day.” Why are you
careless and slow while time is flying so fast, and why do you
spread out before yourself a vision of long months and years, as
many as your greediness requires? he talks with you about one day,
and that a fast-fleeting one. There can, then, be no doubt that the
best days are those which fly first for wretched, that is, for busy
mortals, whose minds are still in their childhood when old age comes
upon them, and they reach it unprepared and without arms to combat
it. They have never looked forward: they have all of a sudden
stumbled upon old age: they never noticed that it was stealing upon
them day by day. As conversation, or reading, or deep thought
deceives travellers, and they find {302} themselves at their journey’s
end before they knew that it was drawing near, so in this fast and
never-ceasing journey of life, which we make at the same pace whether
we are asleep or awake, busy people never notice that they are
moving till they are at the end of it.

X. If I chose to divide this proposition into separate steps,
supported by evidence, many things occur to me by which I could
prove that the lives of busy men are the shortest of all. Fabianus,
who was none of your lecture-room philosophers, but one of the true
antique pattern, used to say, “We ought to fight against the passions
by main force, not by skirmishing, and upset their line of battle
by a home charge, not by inflicting trifling wounds: I do not approve
of dallying with sophisms; they must be crushed, not merely scratched.”
Yet, in order that sinners may be confronted with their errors,
they must be taught, and not merely mourned for. Life is divided
into three parts: that which has been, that which is, and that which
is to come: of these three stages, that which we are passing through
is brief, that which we are about to pass is uncertain, and that
which we have passed is certain: this it is over which Fortune has
lost her rights, and which can fall into no other man’s power: and
this is what busy men lose: for they have no leisure to look back
upon the past, and even if they had, they take no pleasure in
remembering what they regret: they are, therefore, unwilling to
turn their minds to the contemplation of ill-spent time, and they
shrink from reviewing a course of action whose faults become glaringly
apparent when handled a second time, although they were snatched
at when we were under the spell of immediate gratification. No one,
unless all his acts have been submitted to the infallible censorship
of his own conscience, willingly turns his thoughts back upon the
past. He who has ambitiously desired, haughtily scorned, passionately
vanquished, treacherously deceived, greedily snatched, or prodigally
{303} wasted much, must needs fear his own memory; yet this is a
holy and consecrated part of our time, beyond the reach of all human
accidents, removed from the dominion of Fortune, and which cannot
be disquieted by want, fear, or attacks of sickness: this can neither
be troubled nor taken away from one: we possess it for ever
undisturbed. Our present consists only of single days, and those,
too, taken one hour at a time: but all the days of past times appear
before us when bidden, and allow themselves to be examined and
lingered over, albeit busy men cannot find time for so doing. It
is the privilege of a tranquil and peaceful mind to review all the
parts of its life: but the minds of busy men are like animals under
the yoke, and cannot bend aside or look back. Consequently, their
life passes away into vacancy, and as you do no good however much
you may pour into a vessel which cannot keep or hold what you put
there, so also it matters not how much time you give men if it can
find no place to settle in, but leaks away through the chinks and
holes of their minds. Present time is very short, so much so that
to some it seems to be no time at all; for it is always in motion,
and runs swiftly away: it ceases to exist before it comes, and can
no more brook delay than can the universe or the host of heaven,
whose unresting movement never lets them pause on their way. Busy
men, therefore, possess present time, alone, that being so short
that they cannot grasp it, and when they are occupied with many
things they lose even this.

XI. In a word, do you want to know for how short a time they live?
see how they desire to live long: broken-down old men beg in their
prayers for the addition of a few more years: they pretend to be
younger than they are: they delude themselves with their own lies,
and are as willing to cheat themselves as if they could cheat Fate
at the same time: when at last some weakness reminds them that they
{304} are mortal, they die as it were in terror: they may rather
be said to be dragged out of this life than to depart from it. They
loudly exclaim that they have been fools and have not lived their
lives, and declare that if they only survive this sickness they
will spend the rest of their lives at leisure: at such times they
reflect how uselessly they have laboured to provide themselves with
what they have never enjoyed, and how all their toil has gone for
nothing: but those whose life is spent without any engrossing
business may well find it ample: no part of it is made over to
others, or scattered here and there; no part is entrusted to Fortune,
is lost by neglect, is spent in ostentatious giving, or is useless:
all of it is, so to speak, invested at good interest. A very small
amount of it, therefore, is abundantly sufficient, and so, when his
last day arrives, the wise man will not hang back, but will walk
with a steady step to meet death.

XII. Perhaps you will ask me whom I mean by “busy men”? you need
not think that I allude only to those who are hunted out of the
courts of justice with dogs at the close of the proceedings, those
whom you see either honourably jostled by a crowd of their own
clients or contemptuously hustled in visits of ceremony by strangers,
who call them away from home to hang about their patron’s doors,
or who make use of the praetor’s sales by auction to acquire infamous
gains which some day will prove their own ruin. Some men’s leisure
is busy: in their country house or on their couch, in complete
solitude, even though they have retired from all men’s society,
they still continue to worry themselves: we ought not to say that
such men’s life is one of leisure, but their very business is sloth.
Would you call a man idle who expends anxious finicking care in the
arrangement of his Corinthian bronzes, valuable only through the
mania of a few connoisseurs? and who passes the greater part of his
days among plates of rusty metal? who sits in the palaestra (shame,
that our very vices {305} should be foreign) watching boys wrestling?
who distributes his gangs of fettered slaves into pairs according
to their age and colour? who keeps athletes of the latest fashion?
Why, do you call those men idle, who pass many hours at the barber’s
while the growth of the past night is being plucked out by the
roots, holding councils over each several hair, while the scattered
locks are arranged in order and those which fall back are forced
forward on to the forehead? How angry they become if the shaver is
a little careless, as though he were shearing a _man_! what a white
heat they work themselves into if some of their mane is cut away,
if some part of it is ill-arranged, if all their ringlets do not
lie in regular order! who of them would not rather that the state
were overthrown than that his hair should be ruffled? who does not
care more for the appearance of his head than for his health? who
would not prefer ornament to honour? Do you call these men idle,
who make a business of the comb and looking-glass? what of those
who devote their lives to composing, hearing, and learning songs,
who twist their voices, intended by Nature to sound best and simplest
when used straightforwardly, through all the turns of futile melodies:
whose fingers are always beating time to some music on which they
are inwardly meditating; who, when invited to serious and even sad
business may be heard humming an air to themselves?—such people are
not at leisure, but are busy about trifles. As for their banquets,
by Hercules, I cannot reckon them among their unoccupied times when
I see with what anxious care they set out their plate, how laboriously
they arrange the girdles of their waiters’ tunics, how breathlessly
they watch to see how the cook dishes up the wild boar, with what
speed, when the signal is given, the slave-boys run to perform their
duties, how skilfully birds are carved into pieces of the right
size, how painstakingly wretched youths wipe up the spittings of
drunken men. By these means men seek credit for taste {306} and
grandeur, and their vices follow them so far into their privacy
that they can neither eat nor drink without a view to effect. Nor
should I count those men idle who have themselves carried hither
and thither in sedans and litters, and who look forward to their
regular hour for taking this exercise as though they were not allowed
to omit it: men who are reminded by some one else when to bathe,
when to swim, when to dine: they actually reach such a pitch of
languid effeminacy as not to be able to find out for themselves
whether they are hungry. I have heard one of these luxurious folk—if
indeed, we ought to give the name of luxury to unlearning the life
and habits of a man—when he was carried in men’s arms out of the
bath and placed in his chair, say inquiringly, “Am I seated?” Do
you suppose that such a man as this, who did not know when he was
seated, could know whether he was alive, whether he could see,
whether he was at leisure? I can hardly say whether I pity him more
if he really did not know or if he pretended not to know this. Such
people do really become unconscious of much, but they behave as
though they were unconscious of much more: they delight in some
failings because they consider them to be proofs of happiness: it
seems the part of an utterly low and contemptible man to know what
he is doing. After this, do you suppose that playwrights draw largely
upon their imaginations in their burlesques upon luxury: by Hercules,
they omit more than they invent; in this age, inventive in this
alone, such a number of incredible vices have been produced, that
already you are able to reproach the playwrights with omitting to
notice them. To think that there should be any one who had so far
lost his senses through luxury as to take some one else’s opinion
as to whether he was sitting or not? This man certainly is not at
leisure: you must bestow a different title on him: he is sick, or
rather dead: he only is at leisure who feels that he is at leisure:
but this creature is {307} only half alive, if he wants some one
to tell him what position his body is in. How can such a man be
able to dispose of any time?

XIII. It would take long to describe the various individuals who
have wasted their lives over playing at draughts, playing at ball,
or toasting their bodies in the sun: men are not at leisure if their
pleasures partake of the character of business, for no one will
doubt that those persons are laborious triflers who devote themselves
to the study of futile literary questions, of whom there is already
a great number in Rome also. It used to be a peculiarly Greek disease
of the mind to investigate how many rowers Ulysses had, whether the
Iliad or the Odyssey was written first, and furthermore, whether
they were written by the same author, with other matters of the
same stamp, which neither please your inner consciousness if you
keep them to yourself, nor make you seem more learned, but only
more troublesome, if you publish them abroad. See, already this
vain longing to learn what is useless has taken hold of the Romans:
the other day I heard somebody telling who was the first Roman
general who did this or that: Duillius was the first who won a
sea-fight, Curius Dentatus was the first who drove elephants in his
triumph: moreover, these stories, though they add nothing to real
glory, do nevertheless deal with the great deeds of our countrymen:
such knowledge is not profitable, yet it claims our attention as a
fascinating kind of folly. I will even pardon those who want to
know who first persuaded the Romans to go on board ship. It was
Claudius, who for this reason was surnamed Caudex, because any piece
of carpentry formed of many planks was called _caudex_ by the ancient
Romans, for which reason public records are called _Codices_, and
by old custom the ships which ply on the Tiber with provisions are
called _codicariae_. Let us also allow that it is to the point to
tell how Valerius Corvinus was the first {308} to conquer Messana,
and first of the family of the Valerii transferred the name of the
captured city to his own, and was called Messana, and how the people
gradually corrupted the pronunciation and called him Messalla: or
would you let any one find interest in Lucius Sulla having been the
first to let lions loose in the circus, they having been previously
exhibited in chains, and hurlers of darts having been sent by King
Bocchus to kill them? This may be permitted to their curiosity: but
can it serve any useful purpose to know that Pompeius was the first
to exhibit eighteen elephants in the circus, who were matched in a
mimic battle with some convicts? The leading man in the state, and
one who, according to tradition, was noted among the ancient leaders
of the state for his transcendent goodness of heart, thought it a
notable kind of show to kill men in a manner hitherto unheard of.
Do they fight to the death? that is not cruel enough: are they torn
to pieces? that is not cruel enough: let them be crushed flat by
animals of enormous bulk. It would be much better that such a thing
should be forgotten, for fear that hereafter some potentate might
hear of it and envy its refined barbarity. O, how doth excessive
prosperity blind our intellects! at the moment at which he was
casting so many troops of wretches to be trampled on by outlandish
beasts, when he was proclaiming war between such different creatures,
when he was shedding so much blood before the eyes of the Roman
people, whose blood he himself was soon to shed even more freely,
he thought himself the master of the whole world; yet he afterwards,
deceived by the treachery of the Alexandrians, had to offer himself
to the dagger of the vilest of slaves, and then at last discovered
what an empty boast was his surname of “The Great.” But to return
to the point from which I have digressed, I will prove that even
on this very subject some people expend useless pains. The same
author tells us that {309} Metellus, when he triumphed after having
conquered the Carthaginians in Sicily, was the only Roman who ever
had a hundred and twenty captured elephants led before his car: and
that Sulla was the last Roman who extended the pomoerium,[7] which
it was not the custom of the ancients to extend on account of the
conquest of provincial, but only of Italian territory. Is it more
useful to know this, than to know that the Mount Aventine, according
to him, is outside of the pomoerium, for one of two reasons, either
because it was thither that the plebeians seceded, or because when
Remus took his auspices on that place the birds which he saw were
not propitious: and other stories without number of the like sort,
which are either actual falsehoods or much the same as falsehoods?
for even if you allow that these authors speak in all good faith,
if they pledge themselves for the truth of what they write, still,
whose mistakes will be made fewer by such stories? whose passions
will be restrained? whom will they make more brave, more just, or
more gentlemanly? My friend Fabianus used to say that he was not
sure that it was not better not to apply oneself to any studies at
all than to become interested in these.

XIV. The only persons who are really at leisure are those who devote
themselves to philosophy: and they alone really live: for they do
not merely enjoy their own lifetime, but they annex every century
to their own: all the years which have passed before them belong
to them. Unless we are the most ungrateful creatures in the world,
we shall regard these noblest of men, the founders of divine schools
of thought, as having been born for us, and having prepared life
for us: we are led by the labour of others to behold most beautiful
things which have been brought out of darkness into light; we are
not shut out from any period, we can make our way into every subject,
{310} and, if only we can summon up sufficient strength of mind to
overstep the narrow limit of human weakness, we have a vast extent
of time wherein to disport ourselves: we may argue with Socrates,
doubt with Carneades, repose with Epicurus, overcome human nature
with the Stoics, out-herod it with the Cynics. Since Nature allows
us to commune with every age, why do we not abstract ourselves from
our own petty fleeting span of time, and give ourselves up with our
whole mind to what is vast, what is eternal, what we share with
better men than ourselves? Those who gad about in a round of calls,
who worry themselves and others, after they have indulged their
madness to the full, and crossed every patron’s threshold daily,
leaving no open door unentered, after they have hawked about their
interested greetings in houses of the most various character,—after
all, how few people are they able to see out of so vast a city,
divided among so many different ruling passions: how many will be
moved by sloth, self-indulgence, or rudeness to deny them admittance:
how many, after they have long plagued them, will run past them
with feigned hurry? how many will avoid coming out through their
entrance-hall with its crowds of clients, and will escape by some
concealed backdoor? as though it were not ruder to deceive their
visitor than to deny him admittance!—how many, half asleep and
stupid with yesterday’s debauch, can hardly be brought to return
the greeting of the wretched man who has broken his own rest in
order to wait on that of another, even after his name has been
whispered to them for the thousandth time, save by a most offensive
yawn of his half-opened lips. We may truly say that those men are
pursuing the true path of duty, who wish every day to consort on
the most familiar terms with Zeno, Pythagoras, Democritus, and the
rest of those high priests of virtue, with Aristotle and with
Theophrastus. None of these men will be “engaged,” {311} none of
these will fail to send you away after visiting him in a happier
frame of mind and on better terms with yourself, none of them will
let you leave him empty-handed: yet their society may be enjoyed
by all men, and by night as well as by day.

XV. None of these men will force you to die, but all of them will
teach you how to die: none of these will waste your time, but will
add his own to it. The talk of these men is not dangerous, their
friendship will not lead you to the scaffold, their society will
not ruin you in expenses: you may take from them whatsoever you
will; they will not prevent your taking the deepest draughts of
their wisdom that you please. What blessedness, what a fair old age
awaits the man who takes these for his patrons! he will have friends
with whom he may discuss all matters, great and small, whose advice
he may ask daily about himself, from whom he will hear truth without
insult, praise without flattery, and according to whose likeness
he may model his own character. We are wont to say that we are not
able to choose who our parents should be, but that they were assigned
to us by chance; yet we may be born just as we please: there are
several families of the noblest intellects: choose which you would
like to belong to: by your adoption you will not receive their name
only, but also their property, which is not intended to be guarded
in a mean and miserly spirit: the more persons you divide it among
the larger it becomes. These will open to you the path which leads
to eternity, and will raise you to a height from whence none shall
cast you down. By this means alone can you prolong your mortal life,
nay, even turn it into an immortal one. High office, monuments, all
that ambition records in decrees or piles up in stone, soon passes
away: lapse of time casts down and ruins everything; but those
things on which Philosophy has set its seal are beyond the reach
of injury: no age will discard them or {312} lessen their force,
each succeeding century will add somewhat to the respect in which
they are held: for we look upon what is near us with jealous eyes,
but we admire what is further off with less prejudice. The wise
man’s life, therefore, includes much: he is not hedged in by the
same limits which confine others: he alone is exempt from the laws
by which mankind is governed: all ages serve him like a god. If any
time be past, he recals it by his memory; if it be present, he uses
it; if it be future, he anticipates it: his life is a long one
because he concentrates all times into it.

XVI. Those men lead the shortest and unhappiest lives who forget
the past, neglect the present, and dread the future: when they reach
the end of it the poor wretches learn too late that they were busied
all the while that they were doing nothing. You need not think,
because sometimes they call for death, that their lives are long:
their folly torments them with vague passions which lead them into
the very things of which they are afraid: they often, therefore,
wish for death because they live in fear. Neither is it, as you
might think, a proof of the length of their lives that they often
find the days long, that they often complain how slowly the hours
pass until the appointed time arrives for dinner: for whenever they
are left without their usual business, they fret helplessly in their
idleness, and know not how to arrange or to spin it out. They betake
themselves, therefore, to some business, and all the intervening
time is irksome to them; they would wish, by Hercules, to skip over
it, just as they wish to skip over the intervening days before a
gladiatorial contest or some other time appointed for a public
spectacle or private indulgence: all postponement of what they wish
for is grievous to them. Yet the very time which they enjoy is brief
and soon past, and is made much briefer by their own fault: for
they run from one pleasure to another, and are not able to devote
{313} themselves consistently to one passion: their days are not
long, but odious to them: on the other hand, how short they find
the nights which they spend with courtezans or over wine? Hence
arises that folly of the poets who encourage the errors of mankind
by their myths, and declare that Jupiter to gratify his voluptuous
desires doubled the length of the night. Is it not adding fuel to
our vices to name the gods as their authors, and to offer our
distempers free scope by giving them deity for an example? How can
the nights for which men pay so dear fail to appear of the shortest?
they lose the day in looking forward to the night, and lose the
night through fear of the dawn.

XVII. Such men’s very pleasures are restless and disturbed by various
alarms, and at the most joyous moment of all there rises the anxious
thought: “How long will this last?” This frame of mind has led kings
to weep over their power, and they have not been so much delighted
at the grandeur of their position, as they have been terrified by
the end to which it must some day come. That most arrogant Persian
king,[8] when his army stretched over vast plains and could not be
counted but only measured, burst into tears at the thought that in
less than a hundred years none of all those warriors would be alive:
yet their death was brought upon them by the very man who wept over
it, who was about to destroy some of them by sea, some on land,
some in battle, and some in flight, and who would in a very short
space of time put an end to those about whose hundredth year he
showed such solicitude. Why need we wonder at their very joys being
mixed with fear? they do not rest upon any solid grounds, but are
disturbed by the same emptiness from which they spring. What must
we suppose to be the misery of such times as even they acknowledge
to be wretched, when even the joys by which they elevate themselves
and raise themselves above their fellows are of {314} a mixed
character. All the greatest blessings are enjoyed with fear, and
no thing is so untrustworthy as extreme prosperity: we require fresh
strokes of good fortune to enable us to keep that which we are
enjoying, and even those of our prayers which are answered require
fresh prayers. Everything for which we are dependent on chance is
uncertain: the higher it rises, the more opportunities it has of
falling. Moreover, no one takes any pleasure in what is about to
fall into ruin: very wretched, therefore, as well as very short
must be the lives of those who work very hard to gain what they
must work even harder to keep: they obtain what they wish with
infinite labour, and they hold what they have obtained with fear
and trembling. Meanwhile they take no account of time, of which
they will never have a fresh and larger supply: they substitute new
occupations for old ones, one hope leads to another, one ambition
to another: they do not seek for an end to their wretchedness, but
they change its subject. Do our own preferments trouble us? nay,
those of other men occupy more of our time. Have we ceased from our
labours in canvassing? then we begin others in voting. Have we got
rid of the trouble of accusation? then we begin that of judging.
Has a man ceased to be a judge? then he becomes an examiner. Has
he grown old in the salaried management of other people’s property?
then he becomes occupied with his own. Marius is discharged from
military service; he becomes consul many times: Quintius is eager
to reach the end of his dictatorship; he will be called a second
time from the plough: Scipio marched against the Carthaginians
before he was of years sufficient for so great an undertaking; after
he has conquered Hannibal, conquered Antiochus, been the glory of
his own consulship and the surety for that of his brother, he might,
had he wished it, have been set on the same pedestal with Jupiter;
but civil factions will vex the saviour of the state, and he who
when {315} a young man disdained to receive divine honours, will
take pride as an old man in obstinately remaining in exile. We shall
never lack causes of anxiety, either pleasurable or painful: our
life will be pushed along from one business to another: leisure
will always be wished for, and never enjoyed.

XVIII. Whefore, my dearest Paulinus, tear yourself away from the
common herd, and since you have seen more rough weather than one
would think from your age, betake yourself at length to a more
peaceful haven: reflect what waves you have sailed through, what
storms you have endured in private life, and brought upon yourself
in public. Your courage has been sufficiently displayed by many
toilsome and wearisome proofs; try how it will deal with leisure:
the greater, certainly the better part of your life, has been given
to your country; take now some part of your time for yourself as
well. I do not urge you to practise a dull or lazy sloth, or to
drown all your fiery spirit in the pleasures which are dear to the
herd: that is not rest: you can find greater works than all those
which you have hitherto so manfully carried out, upon which you may
employ yourself in retirement and security. You manage the revenues
of the entire world, as unselfishly as though they belonged to
another, as laboriously as if they were your own, as scrupulously
as though they belonged to the public: you win love in an office
in which it is hard to avoid incurring hatred; yet, believe me, it
is better to understand your own mind than to understand the
corn-market. Take away that keen intellect of yours, so well capable
of grappling with the greatest subjects, from a post which may be
dignified, but which is hardly fitted to render life happy, and
reflect that you did not study from childhood all the branches of
a liberal education merely in order that many thousand tons of corn
might safely be entrusted to your charge: you have {316} given us
promise of something greater and nobler than this. There will never
be any want of strict economists or of laborious workers: slow-going
beasts of burden are better suited for carrying loads than well-bred
horses, whose generous swiftness no one would encumber with a heavy
pack. Think, moreover, how full of risk is the great task which you
have undertaken: you have to deal with the human stomach: a hungry
people will not endure reason, will not be appeased by justice, and
will not hearken to any prayers. Only just a few days ago, when G.
Caesar perished, grieving for nothing so much (if those in the other
world can feel grief) as that the Roman people did not die with
him, there was said to be only enough corn for seven or eight days’
consumption: while he was making bridges with ships[9] and playing
with the resources of the empire, want of provisions, the worst
evil that can befall even a besieged city, was at hand: his imitation
of a crazy outlandish and misproud king very nearly ended in ruin,
famine, and the general revolution which follows famine. What must
then have been the feelings of those who had the charge of supplying
the city with corn, who were in danger of stoning, of fire and
sword, of Gaius himself? With consummate art they concealed the
vast internal evil by which the state was menaced, and were quite
right in so doing; for some diseases must be cured without the
patient’s knowledge: many have died through discovering what was
the matter with them.

XIX. Betake yourself to these quieter, safer, larger fields of
action: do you think that there can be any comparison between seeing
that corn is deposited in the public {317} granary without being
stolen by the fraud or spoilt by the carelessness of the importer,
that it does not suffer from damp or overheating, and that it
measures and weighs as much as it ought, and beginning the study
of sacred and divine knowledge, which will teach you of what elements
the gods are formed, what are their pleasures, their position, their
form? to what changes your soul has to look forward? where Nature
will place us when we are dismissed from our bodies? what that
principle is which holds all the heaviest particles of our universe
in the middle, suspends the lighter ones above, puts fire highest
of all, and causes the stars to rise in their courses, with many
other matters, full of marvels? Will you not[10] cease to grovel
on earth and turn your mind’s eye on these themes? nay, while your
blood still flows swiftly, before your knees grow feeble, you ought
to take the better path. In this course of life there await you
many good things, such as love and practice of the virtues,
forgetfulness of passions, knowledge of how to live and die, deep
repose. The position of all busy men is unhappy, but most unhappy
of all is that of those who do not even labour at their own affairs,
but have to regulate their rest by another man’s sleep, their walk
by another man’s pace, and whose very love and hate, the freest
things in the world, are at another’s bidding. If such men wish to
know how short their lives are, let them think how small a fraction
of them is their own.

XX. When, therefore, you see a man often wear the purple robes of
office, and hear his name often repeated in the forum, do not envy
him: he gains these things by losing so much of his life. Men throw
away all their years in order to have one year named after them as
consul: some lose their lives during the early part of the struggle,
and never reach the height to which they aspired: {318} some after
having submitted to a thousand indignities in order to reach the
crowning dignity, have the miserable reflexion that the only result
of their labours will be the inscription on their tombstone. Some,
while telling off extreme old age, like youth, for new aspirations,
have found it fail from sheer weakness amid great and presumptuous
enterprises. It is a shameful ending, when a man’s breath deserts
him in a court of justice, while, although well stricken in years,
he is still striving to gain the sympathies of an ignorant audience
for some obscure litigant: it is base to perish in the midst of
one’s business, wearied with living sooner than with working;
shameful, too, to die in the act of receiving payments, amid the
laughter of one’s long-expectant heir. I cannot pass over an an
instance which occurs to me: Turannius was an old man of the most
painstaking exactitude, who after entering upon his ninetieth year,
when he had by G. Caesar’s own act been relieved of his duties as
collector of the revenue, ordered himself to be laid out on his bed
and mourned for as though he were dead. The whole house mourned for
the leisure of its old master, and did not lay aside its mourning
until his work was restored to him. Can men find such pleasure in
dying in harness? Yet many are of the same mind: they retain their
wish for labour longer than their capacity for it, and fight against
their bodily weakness; they think old age an evil for no other
reason than because it lays them on the shelf. The law does not
enrol a soldier after his fiftieth year, or require a senator’s
attendance after his sixtieth: but men have more difficulty in
obtaining their own consent than that of the law to a life of
leisure. Meanwhile, while they are plundering and being plundered,
while one is disturbing another’s repose, and all are being made
wretched alike, life remains without profit, without pleasure,
without any intellectual progress: no one keeps death well before
his eyes, no one refrains from far-reaching {319} hopes. Some even
arrange things which lie beyond their own lives, such as huge
sepulchral buildings, the dedication of public works, and exhibitions
to be given at their funeral-pyre, and ostentatious processions:
but, by Hercules, the funerals of such men ought to be conducted
by the light of torches and wax tapers,[11] as though they had lived
but a few days.


[1] “On croit que ce Paulin étoit frère de Pauline, épouse de
Sénéque.” —La Grange.

[2] “L’un se consume en projets d’ambition, dont le succès depend
du suffrage de l’autrui.”—La Grange.

[3] “Combien d’orateurs qui s’épuisent de sang et de forces pour
faire montrer de leur génie!”—La Grange.

[4] “Pour vous, jamais vous ne daignâtes vous regarder seulement,
ou vous entendre. Ne faites pas non plus valoir votre condescendance
a écouter les autres. Lorsque vous vous y prêtez, ce n’est pas que
vous aimiez a vous communiquer aux autres; c’est que vous craignez
de vous trouver avec vous-même.”—La Grange.

    “It is a folly therefore beyond Sence, When great men will not
    give us Audience To count them proud; how dare we call it pride
    When we the same have to ourselves deny’d.

    Yet they how great, how proud so e’re, have bin Sometimes so
    courteous as to call thee in.  And hear thee speak; but thou
    could’st nere afford Thyself the leisure of a look or word.

    Thou should’st not then herein another blame, Because when thou
    thyself do’st do the same.  Thou would’st not be with others,
    but we see Plainly thou can’st not with thine own self be.”

“L. ANNAEUS SENECA, the Philosopher, his book of the Shortness of
Life, translated into an English Poem. Imprinted at London, by
William Goldbird, for the Author, mdclxiii.”

[5] “Dans une lettre qu’il envoya au Sénat apres avoir promis que
son repos n’aura rièn indigne de la gloire de ses premières années,
il ajoute: Mais l’execution y mettra un prix, que ne peuvent y
mettre les promesses. J’obeis cependant a la vive passion que j’ai,
de me voir a ce temps si désiré; et puisque l’heureuse situation
d’affaires m’en tient encore éloigné, j’ai voulu du moins me
satisfaire en partie, par la douceur que je trouve à vous en
parler.”—La Grange.

    “Such words I find. But these things rather ought Be done, then
    said; yet so far hath the thought Of that wish’d time prevail’d,
    that though the glad Fruition of the thing be not yet had.  Yet
    I,” &c.

[6] Fasces, the rods carried by the _lictors_ as symbols of office.
See Smith’s “Diet, of Antiquities,” _s.v._

[7] See Smith’s “Dict. of Antiquities.”

[8] Xerxes.

[9] “Sénéque parle ici du pont que Caligula fit construire sur le
golphe de Baies, l’an de Rome 791, 40 de J. C. . . . . rassembla
et fit entrer dans la construction de son pont tous les vaisseaux
qui se trouverent dans les ports d’Italie et des contrées voisines.
Il n’excepta pas même ceux qui etoient destinés a y apporter des
grains étrangers,” &c.—LaGrange.

[10] For _vis tu_ see Juv. v., vis tu consuetis, &c. Mayor’s note.

[11] As those of children were.




{320}

THE ELEVENTH BOOK OF THE DIALOGUES OF L. ANNAEUS SENECA, ADDRESSED
TO HIS MOTHER, HELVIA.

OF CONSOLATION.


I. My best of mothers, I have often felt eager to console you, and
have as often checked that impulse. Many things urged me to make
the attempt: in the first place, I thought that if, though I might
not be able to restrain your tears, yet that if I could even wipe
them away, I should set myself free from all my own sorrows: then
I was quite sure that I should rouse you from your grief with more
authority if I had first shaken it off myself. I feared, too, lest
Fortune, though overcome by me, might nevertheless overcome some
one of my family. Then I endeavoured to crawl and bind up your
wounds in the best way I could, holding my hand over my own wound;
but then again other considerations occurred to me which held me
back: I knew that I must not oppose your grief during its first
transports, lest my very attempts at consolation might irritate it,
and add fuel to it: for in diseases, also, there is nothing more
hurtful than medicine applied too soon. I waited, therefore, until
it exhausted itself by its own violence, and being weakened by time,
so that it was able to bear remedies, would allow itself to be
handled and {321} touched. Beside this, while turning over all the
works which the greatest geniuses have composed, for the purpose
of soothing and pacifying grief, I could not find any instance of
one who had offered consolation to his relatives, while he himself
was being sorrowed over by them. Thus, the subject being a new one,
I hesitated and feared that instead of consoling, I might embitter
your grief. Then there was the thought that a man who had only just
raised his head after burying his child, and who wished to console
his friends, would require to use new phrases not taken from our
common every-day words of comfort: but every sorrow of more than
usual magnitude must needs prevent one’s choosing one’s words,
seeing that it often prevents one’s using one’s very voice. However
this may be, I will make the attempt, not trusting in my own genius,
but because my consolation will be most powerful since it is I who
offer it. You never would deny me anything, and I hope, though all
grief is obstinate, that you will surely not refuse me this request,
that you will allow me to set bounds to your sorrow.

II. See how far I have presumed upon your indulgence: I have no
doubts about my having more power over you than your grief, than
which nothing has more power over the unhappy. In order, therefore,
to avoid encountering it straightway, I will at first take its part
and offer it every encouragement: I will rip up and bring to light
again wounds already scarred. Some one may say, “What sort of
consolation is this, for a man to rake up buried evils, and to bring
all its sorrows before a mind which scarcely can bear the sight of
one?” but let him reflect that diseases which are so malignant that
they do but gather strength from ordinary remedies, may often be
cured by the opposite treatment: I will, therefore, display before
your grief all its woes and miseries: this will be to effect a cure,
not by soothing measures, but by cautery and {322} the knife. What
shall I gain by this? I shall make the mind that could overcome so
many sorrows, ashamed to bewail one wound more in a body so full
of scars. Let those whose feeble minds have been enervated by a
long period of happiness, weep and lament for many days, and faint
away on receiving the slightest blow: but those whose years have
all been passed amid catastrophes should bear the severest losses
with brave and unyielding patience. Continual misfortune has this
one advantage, that it ends by rendering callous those whom it is
always scourging. Ill fortune has given you no respite, and has not
left even your birthday free from the bitterest grief: you lost
your mother as soon as you were born, nay, while you were being
born, and you came into life, as it were, an outcast: you grew up
under a step-mother, whom you made into a mother by all the obedience
and respect which even a real daughter could have bestowed upon
her: and even a good step-mother costs every one dear. You lost
your most affectionate uncle, a brave and excellent man, just when
you were awaiting his return: and, lest Fortune should weaken its
blows by dividing them, within a month you lost your beloved husband,
by whom you had become the mother of three children. This sorrowful
news was brought you while you were already in mourning, while all
your children were absent, so that all your misfortunes seemed to
have been purposely brought upon you at a time when your grief could
nowhere find any repose. I pass over all the dangers and alarms
which you have endured without any respite: it was but the other
day that you received the bones of three of your grandchildren in
the bosom from which you had sent them forth: less than twenty days
after you had buried my child, who perished in your arms and amid
your kisses, you heard that I had been exiled: you wanted only this
drop in your cup, to have to weep for those who still lived.

{323}

III. The last wound is, I admit, the severest that you have ever
yet sustained: it has not merely torn the skin, but has pierced you
to the very heart: yet as recruits cry aloud when only slightly
wounded, and shudder more at the hands of the surgeon than at the
sword, while veterans even when transfixed allow their hurts to be
dressed without a groan, and as patiently as if they were in some
one else’s body, so now you ought to offer yourself courageously
to be healed. Lay aside lamentations and wailings, and all the usual
noisy manifestations of female sorrow: you have gained nothing by
so many misfortunes, if you have not learned how to suffer. Now,
do I seem not to have spared you? nay, I have not passed over any
of your sorrows, but have placed them all together in a mass before
you.

IV. I have done this by way of a heroic remedy: for I have determined
to conquer this grief of yours, not merely to limit it; and I shall
conquer it, I believe, if in the first place I can prove that I am
not suffering enough to entitle me to be called unhappy, let alone
to justify me in rendering my family unhappy: and, secondly, if I
can deal with your case and prove that even your misfortune, which
comes upon you entirely through me, is not a severe one.

The point to which I shall first address myself is that of which
your motherly love longs to hear, I mean, that I am not suffering:
if I can, I will make it clear to you that the events by which you
think that I am overwhelmed, are not unendurable: if you cannot
believe this, I at any rate shall be all the more pleased with
myself for being happy under circumstances which could make most
men miserable. You need not believe what others say about me: that
you may not be puzzled by any uncertainty as to what to think, I
distinctly tell you that I am not miserable: I will add, for your
greater comfort, that it is not possible for me to be made miserable.

V. We are born to a comfortable position enough, if we {324} do not
afterwards lose it: the aim of Nature has been to enable us to live
well without needing a vast apparatus to enable us to do so: every
man is able by himself to make himself happy. External circumstances
have very little importance either for good or for evil: the wise
man is neither elated by prosperity nor depressed by adversity; for
he has always endeavoured to depend chiefly upon himself and to
derive all his joys from himself. Do I, then, call myself a wise
man? far from it: for were I able to profess myself wise, I should
not only say that I was not unhappy, but should avow myself to be
the most fortunate of men, and to be raised almost to the level of
a god: as it is, I have applied myself to the society of wise men,
which suffices to lighten all sorrows, and, not being as yet able
to rely upon my own strength, I have betaken myself for refuge to
the camp of others, of those, namely, who can easily defend both
themselves and their friends. They have ordered me always to stand
as it were on guard, and to mark the attacks and charges of Fortune
long before she delivers them; she is only terrible to those whom
she catches unawares; he who is always looking out for her assault,
easily sustains it: for so also an invasion of the enemy overthrows
those by whom it is unexpected, but those who have prepared themselves
for the coming war before it broke out, stand in their ranks fully
equipped and repel with ease the first, which is always the most
furious onset. I never have trusted in Fortune, even when she seemed
most peaceful. I have accepted all the gifts of wealth, high office,
and influence, which she has so bountifully bestowed upon me, in
such a manner that she can take them back again without disturbing
me: I have kept a great distance between them and myself: and
therefore she has taken them, not painfully torn them away from me.
No man loses anything by the frowns of Fortune unless he has been
deceived by her smiles: those who have {325} enjoyed her bounty as
though it were their own heritage for ever, and who have chosen to
take precedence of others because of it, lie in abject sorrow when
her unreal and fleeting delights forsake their empty childish minds,
that know nothing about solid pleasure: but he who has not been
puffed up by success, does not collapse after failure: he possesses
a mind of tried constancy, superior to the influences of either
state; for even in the midst of prosperity he has experimented upon
his powers of enduring adversity. Consequently I have always believed
that there was no real good in any of those things which all men
desire: I then found that they were empty, and merely painted over
with artificial and deceitful dyes, without containing anything
within which corresponds to their outside: I now find nothing so
harsh and fearful as the common opinion of mankind threatened me
with in this which is known as adversity: the word itself, owing
to the prevalent belief and ideas current about it, strikes somewhat
unpleasantly upon one’s ears, and thrills the hearers as something
dismal and accursed, for so hath the vulgar decreed that it should
be: but a great many of the decrees of the vulgar are reversed by
the wise.

VI. Setting aside, then, the verdict of the majority, who are carried
away by the first appearance of things and the usual opinion about
them, let us consider what is meant by exile: clearly a changing
from one place to another. That I may not seem to be narrowing its
force, and taking away its worst parts, I must add, that this
changing of place is accompanied by poverty, disgrace, and contempt.
Against these I will combat later on: meanwhile I wish to consider
what there is unpleasant in the mere act of changing one’s place
of abode.

”It is unbearable,” men say, “to lose one’s native land.” Look, I
pray you, on these vast crowds, for whom all the countless roofs
of Rome can scarcely find shelter: the {326} greater part of those
crowds have lost their native land: they have flocked hither from
their country towns and colonies, and in fine from all parts of the
world. Some have been brought by ambition, some by the exigencies
of public office, some by being entrusted with embassies, some by
luxury which seeks a convenient spot, rich in vices, for its exercise,
some by their wish for a liberal education, others by a wish to see
the public shows. Some have been led hither by friendship, some by
industry, which finds here a wide field for the display of its
powers. Some have brought their beauty for sale, some their eloquence:
people of every kind assemble themselves together in Rome, which
sets a high price both upon virtues and vices. Bid them all to be
summoned to answer to their names, and ask each one from what home
he has come: you will find that the greater part of them have left
their own abodes, and journeyed to a city which, though great and
beauteous beyond all others, is nevertheless not their own. Then
leave this city, which may be said to be the common property of all
men, and visit all other towns: there is not one of them which does
not contain a large proportion of aliens. Pass away from those whose
delightful situation and convenient position attracts many settlers:
examine wildernesses and the most rugged islands, Sciathus and
Seriphus, Gyarus and Corsica: you will find no place of exile where
some one does not dwell for his own pleasure. What can be found
barer or more precipitous on every side than this rock? what more
barren in respect of food? what more uncouth in its inhabitants?
more mountainous in its configuration? or more rigorous in its
climate? yet even here there are more strangers than natives. So
far, therefore, is the mere change of place from being irksome,
that even this place has allured some away from their country. I
find some writers who declare that mankind has a natural itch for
change of abode and alteration of {327} domicile: for the mind of
man is wandering and unquiet; it never stands still, but spreads
itself abroad and sends forth its thoughts into all regions, known
or unknown; being nomadic, impatient of repose, and loving novelty
beyond everything else. You need not be suprised at this, if you
reflect upon its original source: it is not formed from the same
elements as the heavy and earthly body, but from heavenly spirit:
now heavenly things are by their nature always in motion, speeding
along and flying with the greatest swiftness. Look at the luminaries
which light the world: none of them stands still. The sun is
perpetually in motion, and passes from one quarter to another, and
although he revolves with the entire heaven, yet nevertheless he
has a motion in the contrary direction to that of the universe
itself, and passes through all the constellations without remaining
in any: his wandering is incessant, and he never ceases to move
from place to place. All things continually revolve and are for
ever changing; they pass from one position to another in accordance
with natural and unalterable laws: after they have completed a
certain circuit in a fixed space of time, they begin again the path
which they had previously trodden. Be not surprised, then, if the
human mind, which is formed from the same seeds as the heavenly
bodies, delights in change and wandering, since the divine nature
itself either takes pleasure in constant and exceeding swift motion
or perhaps even preserves its existence thereby.

VII. Come now, turn from divine to human affairs: you will see that
whole tribes and nations have changed their abodes. What is the
meaning of Greek cities in the midst of barbarous districts? or of
the Macedonian language existing among the Indians and the Persians?
Scythia and all that region which swarms with wild and uncivilized
tribes boasts nevertheless Achaean cities along the shores of the
Black Sea. Neither the rigours of eternal winter, {328} nor the
character of men as savage as their climate, has prevented people
migrating thither. There is a mass of Athenians in Asia Minor.
Miletus has sent out into various parts of the world citizens enough
to populate seventy-five cities. That whole coast of Italy which
is washed by the Lower Sea is a part of what once was “Greater
Greece.” Asia claims the Tuscans as her own: there are Tyrians
living in Africa, Carthaginians in Spain; Greeks have pushed in
among the Gauls, and Gauls among the Greeks. The Pyrenees have
proved no barrier to the Germans: human caprice makes its way through
pathless and unknown regions: men drag along with them their children,
their wives, and their aged and worn-out parents. Some have been
tossed hither and thither by long wanderings, until they have become
too wearied to choose an abode, but have settled in whatever place
was nearest to them: others have made themselves masters of foreign
countries by force of arms: some nations while making for parts
unknown have been swallowed up by the sea: some have established
themselves in the place in which they were originally stranded by
utter destitution. Nor have all men had the same reasons for leaving
their country and for seeking for a new one: some have escaped from
their cities when destroyed by hostile armies, and having lost their
own lands have been thrust upon those of others: some have been
cast out by domestic quarrels: some have been driven forth in
consequence of an excess of population, in order to relieve the
pressure at home: some have been forced to leave by pestilence, or
frequent earthquakes, or some unbearable defects of a barren soil:
some have been seduced by the fame of a fertile and over-praised
clime. Different people have been led away from their homes by
different causes; but in all cases it is clear that nothing remains
in the same place in which it was born: the movement of the human
race is perpetual: in this vast world some changes {329} take place
daily. The foundations of new cities are laid, new names of nations
arise, while the former ones die out, or become absorbed by more
powerful ones. And yet what else are all these general migrations
but the banishments of whole peoples? Why should I lead you through
all these details? what is the use of mentioning Antenor the founder
of Padua, or Evander who established his kingdom of Arcadian settlers
on the banks of the Tiber? or Diomedes and the other heroes, both
victors and vanquished, whom the Trojan war scattered over lands
which were not their own? It is a fact that the Roman Empire itself
traces its origin back to an exile as its founder, who, fleeing
from his country after its conquest, with what few relics he had
saved from the wreck, had been brought to Italy by hard necessity
and fear of his conqueror, which bade him seek distant lands. Since
then, how many colonies has this people sent forth into every
province? wherever the Roman conquers, there he dwells. These
migrations always found people eager to take part in them, and
veteran soldiers desert their native hearths and follow the flag
of the colonists across the sea. The matter does not need illustrations
by any more examples: yet I will add one more which I have before
my eyes: this very island[1] has often changed its inhabitants. Not
to mention more ancient events, which have become obscure from their
antiquity, the Greeks who inhabit Marseilles at the present day,
when they left Phocaea, first settled here, and it is doubtful what
drove them hence, whether it was the rigour of the climate, the
sight of the more powerful land of Italy, or the want of harbours
on the coast: for the fact of their having placed themselves in the
midst of what were then the most savage and uncouth tribes of Gaul
proves that they were not driven hence by the ferocity of the
natives. Subsequently {330} the Ligurians came over into this same
island, and also the Spaniards,[2] which is proved by the resemblance
of their customs: for they wear the same head-coverings and the
same sort of shoes as the Cantabrians, and some of their words are
the same: for by association with Greeks and Ligurians they have
entirely lost their native speech. Hither since then have been
brought two Roman colonies, one by Marius, the other by Sulla: so
often has the population of this barren and thorny rock been changed.
In fine, you will scarcely find any land which is still in the hands
of its original inhabitants: all peoples have become confused and
intermingled: one has come after another: one has wished for what
another scorned: some have been driven out of the land which they
took from another. Thus fate has decreed that nothing should ever
enjoy an uninterrupted course of good fortune.

VIII. Varro, that most learned of all the Romans, thought that for
the mere change of place, apart from the other evils attendant on
exile, we may find a sufficient remedy in the thought that wherever
we go we always have the same Nature to deal with. Marcus Brutus
thought that there was sufficient comfort in the thought that those
who go into exile are permitted to carry their virtues thither with
them. Though one might think that neither of these alone were able
to console an exile, yet it must be confessed that when combined
they have great power: for how very little it is that we lose!
whithersoever we betake ourselves two most excellent things will
accompany us, namely, a common Nature and our own especial virtue.
Believe me, this is the work of whoever was the Creator of the
universe, whether he be an all-powerful deity, an incorporeal mind
which effects vast works, a divine spirit by which all things from
the greatest to the smallest are equally pervaded, or {331} fate
and an unalterable connected sequence of events, this, I say, is
its work, that nothing above the very lowest can ever fall into the
power of another: all that is best for a man’s enjoyment lies beyond
human power, and can neither be bestowed or taken away: this world,
the greatest and the most beautiful of Nature’s productions, and
its noblest part, a mind which can behold and admire it, are our
own property, and will remain with us as long as we ourselves endure.
Let us therefore briskly and cheerfully hasten with undaunted steps
whithersoever circumstances call us: let us wander over whatever
countries we please; no place of banishment can be found in the
whole world in which man cannot find a home. I can raise my eyes
from the earth to the sky in one place as well as in another; the
heavenly bodies are everywhere equally near to mankind: accordingly,
as long as my eyes are not deprived of that spectacle of which they
never can have their fill, as long as I am allowed to gaze on the
sun and moon, to dwell upon the other stars, to speculate upon their
risings and settings, their periods, and the reasons why they move
faster or slower, to see so many stars glittering throughout the
night, some fixed, some not moving in a wide orbit but revolving
in their own proper track, some suddenly diverging from it, some
dazzling our eyes by a fiery blaze as though they were falling, or
flying along drawing after them a long trail of brilliant light:
while I am permitted to commune with these, and to hold intercourse,
as far as a human being may, with all the company of heaven, while
I can raise my spirit aloft to view its kindred sparks above, what
does it matter upon what soil I tread?

IX. “But this country does not produce beautiful or fruit-bearing
trees; it is not watered by the courses of large or navigable rivers;
it bears nothing which other nations would covet, since its produce
barely suffices to support its inhabitants: no precious marbles are
quarried here, no veins {332} of gold and silver are dug out.” What
of that! It must be a narrow mind that takes pleasure in things of
the earth: it ought to be turned away from them to the contemplation
of those which can be seen everywhere, which are equally brilliant
everywhere: we ought to reflect, also, that these vulgar matters
by a mistaken perversion of ideas prevent really good things reaching
us: the further men stretch out their porticos, the higher they
raise their towers, the more widely they extend their streets, the
deeper they sink their retreats from the heats of summer, the more
ponderous the roofs with which they cover their banqueting halls,
the more there will be to obstruct their view of heaven. Fortune
has cast you into a country in which there is no lodging more
splendid than a cottage: you must indeed have a poor spirit, and
one which seeks low sources of consolation, if you endure this
bravely because you have seen the cottage of Romulus: say, rather,
“Should that lowly barn be entered by the virtues, it will straightway
become more beautiful than any temple, because within it will be
seen justice, self-restraint, prudence, love, a right division of
all duties, a knowledge of all things on earth and in heaven. No
place can be narrow, if it contains such a company of the greatest
virtues; no exile can be irksome in which one can be attended by
these companions. Brutus, in the book which he wrote upon virtue,
says that he saw Marcellus in exile at Mytilene, living as happily
as it is permitted to man to live, and never keener in his pursuit
of literature than at that time. He consequently adds the reflexion:
‘I seemed rather to be going into exile myself when I had to return
without him, than to be leaving him in exile.’ O how much more
fortunate was Marcellus at that time, when Brutus praised him for
his exile, than when Rome praised him for his consulship! what a
man that must have been who made any one think himself exiled because
he was leaving him in exile! what a man that {333} must have been
who attracted the admiration of one whom even his friend Cato
admired! Brutus goes on to say:— ‘Gaius Caesar sailed past Mytilene
without landing, because he could not bear to see a fallen man.’
The Senate did indeed obtain his recall by public petition, being
so anxious and sorrowful the while, that you would have thought
that they all were of Brutus’s mind that day, and were not pleading
the cause of Marcellus, but their own, that they might not be sent
into exile by being deprived of him: yet he gained far greater glory
on the day when Brutus could not bear to leave him in exile, and
Caesar could not bear to see him: for each of them bore witness to
his worth: Brutus grieved, and Caesar blushed at going home without
Marcellus. Can you doubt that so great a man as Marcellus frequently
encouraged himself to endure his exile patiently in some such terms
as these: “The loss of your country is no misery to you: you have
so steeped yourself in philosophic lore, as to know that all the
world is the wise man’s country? What! was not this very man who
banished you absent from his country for ten successive years? he
was, no doubt, engaged in the extension of the empire, but for all
that he was absent from his country. Now see how his presence is
required in Africa, which threatens to re-kindle the war, in Spain
which is nursing up again the strength of the broken and shattered
opposite faction, in treacherous Egypt, in fine, in all the parts
of the world, for all are watching their opportunity to seize the
empire at a disadvantage. Which will he go to meet first? which
part of the universal conspiracy will he first oppose? His victory
will drag him through every country in the world. Let nations look
up to him and worship him: do thou live satisfied with the admiration
of Brutus.”

X. Marcellus, then, nobly endured his exile, and his change of place
made no change in his mind, even though it was accompanied by
poverty, in which every man who {334} has not fallen into the madness
of avarice and luxury, which upset all our ideas, sees no harm.
Indeed, how very little is required to keep a man alive? and who,
that has any virtue whatever, will find this fail him? As for myself,
I do not feel that I have lost my wealth, but my occupation: the
wants of the body are few: it wants protection from the cold, and
the means of allaying hunger and thirst: all desires beyond these
are vices, not necessities. There is no need for prying into all
the depths of the sea, for loading one’s stomach with heaps of
slaughtered animals, or for tearing up shell-fish[3] from the unknown
shore of the furthest sea: may the gods and goddesses bring ruin
upon those whose luxury transcends the bounds of an empire which
is already perilously wide. They want to have their ostentatious
kitchens supplied with game from the other side of the Phasis, and
though Rome has not yet obtained satisfaction from the Parthians,
they are not ashamed to obtain birds from them: they bring together
from all regions everything, known or unknown, to tempt their
fastidious palate: food, which their stomach, worn out with delicacies,
can scarcely retain, is brought from the most distant ocean: they
vomit that they may eat, and eat that they may vomit, and do not
even deign to digest the banquets which they ransack the globe to
obtain. If a man despises these things, what harm can poverty do
him? If he desires them, then poverty even does him good, for he
is cured in spite of himself, and though he will not receive remedies
even upon compulsion, yet while he is unable to fulfil his wishes
he is as though he had them not. Gaius Caesar, whom in my opinion
Nature produced in order to show what unlimited vice would be capable
of when combined with unlimited power, dined one day at a cost of
ten millions of sesterces: and though in this he had the {335}
assistance of the intelligence of all his subjects, yet he could
hardly find how to make one dinner out of the tribute-money of three
provinces. How unhappy are they whose appetite can only be aroused
by costly food! and the costliness of food depends not upon its
delightful flavour and sweetness of taste, but upon its rarity and
the difficulty of procuring it: otherwise, if they chose to return
to their sound senses, what need would they have of so many arts
which minister to the stomach? of so great a commerce? of such
ravaging of forests? of such ransacking of the depths of the sea?
Food is to be found everywhere, and has been placed by Nature in
every part the world, but they pass it by as though they were blind,
and wander through all countries, cross the seas, and excite at a
great cost the hunger which they might allay at a small one. One
would like to say: Why do you launch ships? why do you arm your
hands for battle both with men and wild beasts? why do you run so
riotously hither and thither? why do you amass fortune after fortune?
Are you unwilling to remember how small our bodies are? is it not
frenzy and the wildest insanity to wish for so much when you can
contain so little? Though you may increase your income, and extend
the boundaries of your property, yet you never can enlarge your own
bodies: when your business transactions have turned out well, when
you have made a successful campaign, when you have collected the
food for which you have hunted through all lands, you will have no
place in which to bestow all these superfluities. Why do you strive
to obtain so much? Do you think that our ancestors, whose virtue
supports our vices even to the present day, were unhappy, though
they dressed their food with their own hands, though the earth was
their bed, though their roofs did not yet glitter with gold, nor
their temples with precious stones? and so they used then to swear
with scrupulous honesty by earthenware {336} gods; those who called
these gods to witness would go back to the enemy for certain death
rather than break their word.[4] Do you suppose that our dictator
who granted an audience to the ambassadors of the Samnites, while
he roasted the commonest food before the fire himself with that
very hand with which he had so often smitten the enemy, and with
which he had placed his laurel wreath upon the lap of Capitolian
Jove, enjoyed life less than the Apicius who lived in our own days,
whose habits tainted the entire century, who set himself up as a
professor of gastronomy in that very city from which philosophers
once were banished as corrupters of youth? It is worth while to
know his end. After he had spent a hundred millions of sesterces
on his kitchen, and had wasted on each single banquet a sum equal
to so many presents from the reigning emperors, and the vast revenue
which he drew from the Capitol, being overburdened with debt, he
then for the first time was forced to examine his accounts: he
calculated that he would have ten millions left of his fortune,
and, as though he would live a life of mere starvation on ten
millions, put an end to his life by poison. How great must the
luxury of that man have been, to whom ten millions signified want?
Can you think after this that the amount of money necessary to make
a fortune depends upon its actual extent rather than on the mind
of the owner? Here was a man who shuddered at the thought of a
fortune of ten million sesterces, and escaped by poison from a
prospect which other men pray for. Yet, for a mind so diseased,
that last draught of his was the most wholesome: he was really
eating and drinking poisons when he was not only enjoying, but
boasting of his enormous banquets, when he was flaunting his vices,
when he was causing his country to follow his example, when he was
inviting youths to imitate him, albeit youth is quick {337} to learn
evil, without being provided with a model to copy. This is what
befalls those who do not use their wealth according to reason, which
has fixed limits, but according to vicious fashion, whose caprices
are boundless and immeasurable. Nothing is sufficient for covetous
desire, but Nature can be satisfied even with scant measure. The
poverty of an exile, therefore, causes no inconvenience, for no
place of exile is so barren as not to produce what is abundantly
sufficient to support a man.

XI. Next, need an exile regret his former dress and house? If he
only wishes for these things because of their use to him, he will
want neither roof nor garment, for it takes as little to cover the
body as it does to feed it: Nature has annexed no difficult conditions
to anything which man is obliged to do. If, however, he sighs for
a purple robe steeped in floods of dye, interwoven with threads of
gold and with many coloured artistic embroideries, then his poverty
is his own fault, not that of Fortune: even though you restored to
him all that he has lost, you would do him no good; for he would
have more unsatisfied ambitions, if restored, than he had unsatisfied
wants when he was an exile. If he longs for furniture glittering
with silver vases, plate which boasts the signature of antique
artists, bronze which the mania of a small clique has rendered
costly, slaves enough to crowd however large a house, purposely
overfed horses, and precious stones of all countries: whatever
collections he may make of these, he never will satisfy his insatiable
appetite, any more than any amount of liquor will quench a thirst
which arises not from the need of drink but from the burning heat
within a man; for this is not thirst but disease. Nor does this
take place only with regard to money and food, but every want which
is caused by vice and not by necessity is of this nature: however
much you supply it with you do not quench it but intensify it. He
who restrains himself within the limits prescribed by {338} nature,
will not feel poverty; he who exceeds them will always be poor,
however great his wealth may be. Even a place of exile suffices to
provide one with necessaries; whole kingdoms do not suffice to
provide one with superfluities. It is the mind which makes men rich:
this it is that accompanies them into exile, and in the most savage
wildernesses, after having found sufficient sustenance for the body,
enjoys its own overflowing resources: the mind has no more connexion
with money than the immortal gods have with those things which are
so highly valued by untutored intellects, sunk in the bondage of
the flesh. Gems, gold, silver, and vast polished round tables are
but earthly dross, which cannot be loved by a pure mind that is
mindful of whence it came, is unblemished by sin, and which, when
released from the body, will straightway soar aloft to the highest
heaven: meanwhile, as far as it is permitted by the hindrances of
its mortal limbs and this heavy clog of the body by which it is
surrounded, it examines divine things with swift and airy thought.
From this it follows that no free-born man, who is akin to the gods,
and fit for any world and any age, can ever be in exile: for his
thoughts are directed to all the heavens and to all times past and
future: this trumpery body, the prison and fetter of the spirit,
may be tossed to this place or to that; upon it tortures, robberies,
and diseases may work their will: but the spirit itself is holy and
eternal, and upon it no one can lay hands.

XII. That you may not suppose that I merely use the maxims of the
philosophers to disparage the evils of poverty, which no one finds
terrible, unless he thinks it so; consider in the first place how
many more poor people there are than rich, and yet you will not
find that they are sadder or more anxious than the rich: nay, I am
not sure that they are not happier, because they have fewer things
to distract their minds. From these poor men, who often are not
{339} unhappy at their poverty, let us pass to the rich. How many
occasions there are on which they are just like poor men! When they
are on a journey their baggage is cut down, whenever they are obliged
to travel fast their train of attendants is dismissed. When they
are serving in the army, how small a part of their property can
they have with them, since camp discipline forbids superfluities!
Nor is it only temporary exigences or desert places that put them
on the same level as poor men: they have some days on which they
become sick of their riches, dine reclining on the ground, put away
all their gold and silver plate, and use earthenware. Madmen! they
are always afraid of this for which they sometimes wish. O how dense
a stupidity, how great an ignorance of the truth they show when
they flee from this thing and yet amuse themselves by playing with
it! Whenever I look back to the great examples of antiquity, I feel
ashamed to seek consolation for my poverty, now that luxury has
advanced so far in the present age, that the allowance of an exile
is larger than the inheritance of the princes of old. It is well
known that Homer had one slave, that Plato had three, and that Zeno,
who first taught the stern and masculine doctrine of the Stoics,
had none: yet could any one say that they lived wretchedly without
himself being thought a most pitiable wretch by all men? Menenius
Agrippa, by whose mediation the patricians and plebeians were
reconciled, was buried by public subscription. Attilius Regulus,
while he was engaged in scattering the Carthaginians in Africa,
wrote to the Senate that his hired servant had left him, and that
consequently his farm was deserted: whereupon it was decreed that
as long as Regulus was absent, it should be cultivated at the expense
of the state. Was it not worth his while to have no slave, if thereby
he obtained the Roman people for his farm-bailiff? Scipio’s daughters
received their dowries from the Treasury, because {340} their father
had left them none: by Hercules, it was right for the Roman people
to pay tribute to Scipio for once, since he had exacted it for ever
from Carthage. O how happy were those girls’ husbands, who had the
Roman people for their father-in-law. Can you think that those whose
daughters dance in the ballet, and marry with a settlement of a
million sesterces, are happier than Scipio, whose children received
their dowry of old-fashioned brass money from their guardian the
Senate? Can any one despise poverty, when she has such a noble
descent to boast of? can an exile be angry at any privation, when
Scipio could not afford a portion for his daughters, Regulus could
not afford a hired labourer, Menenius could not afford a funeral?
when all these men’s wants were supplied in a manner which rendered
them a source of additional honour? Poverty, when such men as these
plead its cause, is not only harmless, but positively attractive.

XIII. To this one may answer: “Why do you thus ingeniously divide
what can indeed be endured if taken singly, but which all together
are overwhelming? Change of place can be borne if nothing more than
one’s place be changed: poverty can be borne if it be without
disgrace, which is enough to cow our spirits by itself.” If any one
were to endeavour to frighten me with the number of my misfortunes,
I should answer him as follows: If you have enough strength to
resist any one part of your ill-fortune, you will have enough to
resist it all. If virtue has once hardened your mind, it renders
it impervious to blows from any quarter: if avarice, that greatest
pest of the human race, has left it, you will not be troubled by
ambition: if you regard the end of your days not as a punishment,
but as an ordinance of nature, no fear of anything else will dare
to enter the breast which has cast out the fear of death. If you
consider sexual passion to have been bestowed on mankind not for
the sake of pleasure, but for {341} the continuance of the race,
all other desires will pass harmlessly by one who is safe even from
this secret plague, implanted in our very bosoms. Reason does not
conquers vices one by one, but all together: if reason is defeated,
it is utterly defeated once for all. Do you suppose that any wise
man, who relies entirely upon himself, who has set himself free
from the ideas of the common herd, can be wrought upon by disgrace?
A disgraceful death is worse even than disgrace: yet Socrates bore
the same expression of countenance with which he had rebuked thirty
tyrants, when he entered the prison and thereby took away the
infamous character of the place; for the place which contained
Socrates could not be regarded as a prison. Was any one ever so
blind to the truth as to suppose that Marcus Cato was disgraced by
his double defeat in his candidature for the praetorship and the
consulship? that disgrace fell on the praetorship and consulship
which Cato honoured by his candidature. No one is despised by others
unless he be previously despised by himself: a grovelling and abject
mind may fall an easy prey to such contempt: but he who stands up
against the most cruel misfortunes, and overcomes those evils by
which others would have been crushed—such a man, I say, turns his
misfortunes into badges of honour, because we are so constituted
as to admire nothing so much as a man who bears adversity bravely.
At Athens, when Aristides was being led to execution, every one who
met him cast down his eyes and groaned, as though not merely a just
man but justice herself was being put to death. Yet one man was
found who spat in his face: he might have been disturbed at this,
since he knew it could only be a foul-mouthed fellow that would
have the heart to do so; he, however, wiped his face, and with a
smile asked the magistrate who accompanied him to warn that man not
to open his mouth so rudely again. To act thus was to treat contumely
itself {342} with contempt. I know that some say that there is
nothing more terrible than disgrace, and that they would prefer
death. To such men I answer that even exile is often accompanied
by no disgrace whatever: if a great man falls, he remains a great
man after his fall, you can no more suppose that he is disgraced
than when people tread upon the walls of a ruined temple, which the
pious treat with as much respect as when they were standing.

XIV. Since, then, my dearest mother, you have no reason for endless
weeping on my account, it follows that your tears must flow on your
own: there are two causes for this, either your having lost my
protection, or your not being able to bear the mere fact of separation.
The first of these I shall only touch upon lightly, for I know that
your heart loves nothing belonging to your children except themselves.
Let other mothers look to that, who make use of their sons’ authority
with a woman’s passion, who are ambitious through their sons because
they cannot bear office themselves, who spend their sons’ inheritance,
and yet are eager to inherit it, and who weary their sons by lending
their eloquence to others: you have always rejoiced exceedingly in
the successes of your sons, and have made no use of them whatever:
you have always set bounds to our generosity, although you set none
to your own: you, while a minor under the power of the head of the
family, still used to make presents to your wealthy sons: you managed
our inheritances with as much care as if you were working for your
own, yet refrained from touching them as scrupulously as if they
belonged to strangers: you have spared to use our influence, as
though you enjoyed other means of your own, and you have taken no
part in the public offices to which we have been elected beyond
rejoicing in our success and paying our expenses: your indulgence
has never been tainted by any thought of profit, and you cannot
regret the loss of your son for a reason which never had any weight
with you before his exile.

{343}

XV. All my powers of consolation must be directed to the other
point, the true source of your maternal grief. You say, “I am
deprived of the embraces of my darling son, I cannot enjoy the
pleasure of seeing him and of hearing him talk. Where is he at whose
sight I used to smooth my troubled brow, in whose keeping I used
to deposit all my cares? Where is his conversation, of which I never
could have enough? his studies, in which I used to take part with
more than a woman’s eagerness, with more than a mother’s familiarity?
Where are our meetings? the boyish delight which he always showed
at the sight of his mother?” To all this you add the actual places
of our merrymakings and conversation, and, what must needs have
more power to move you than anything else, the traces of our late
social life, for Fortune treated you with the additional cruelty
of allowing you to depart on the very third day before my ruin,
without a trace of anxiety, and not fearing anything of the kind.
It was well that we had been separated by a vast distance: it was
well that an absence of some years had prepared you to bear this
blow: you came home, not to take any pleasure in your son, but to
get rid of the habit of longing for him. Had you been absent long
before, you would have borne it more bravely, as the very length
of your absence would have moderated your longing to see me: had
you never gone away, you would at any rate have gained one last
advantage in seeing your son for two days longer: as it was, cruel
Fate so arranged it that you were not present with me during my
good fortune, and yet have not become accustomed to my absence. But
the harder these things are to bear, the more virtue you must summon
to your aid, and the more bravely you must struggle as it were with
an enemy whom you know well, and whom you have already often
conquered. This blood did not flow from a body previously unhurt:
you have been struck through the scar of an old wound.

{344}

XVI. You have no grounds for excusing yourself on the ground of
being a woman, who has a sort of right to weep without restraint,
though not without limit. For this reason our ancestors allotted a
space of ten months’ mourning for women who had lost their husbands,
thus settling the violence of a woman’s grief by a public ordinance.
They did not forbid them to mourn, but they set limits to their
grief: for while it is a foolish weakness to give way to endless
grief when you lose one of those dearest to you, yet it shows an
unnatural hardness of heart to express no grief at all: the best
middle course between affection and hard common sense is both to
feel regret and to restrain it. You need not look at certain women
whose sorrow, when once begun, has been ended only by death: you
know some who after the loss of their sons have never laid aside
the garb of mourning: you are constitutionally stronger than these,
and from you more is required. You cannot avail yourself of the
excuse of being a woman, for you have no womanish vices. Unchastity,
the greatest evil of the age, has never classed you with the majority
of women; you have not been tempted either by gems or by pearls;
riches have not allured you into thinking them the greatest blessing
that man can own; respectably brought up as you were in an old-fashioned
and strict household, you have never been led astray by that imitation
of others which is so full of danger even to virtuous women. You
have never been ashamed of your fruitfulness as though it were a
reproach to your youth: you never concealed the signs of pregnancy
as though it were an unbecoming burden, nor did you ever destroy
your expected child within your womb after the fashion of many other
women, whose attractions are to be found in their beauty alone. You
never defiled your face with paints or cosmetics: you never liked
clothes which showed the figure as plainly as though it were naked:
your sole ornament has been a consummate {345} loveliness which no
time can impair, your greatest glory has been your modesty. You
cannot, therefore, plead your womanhood as an excuse for your grief,
because your virtues have raised you above it: you ought to be as
superior to womanish tears as you are to womanish vices. Even women
would not allow you to pine away after receiving this blow, but
would bid you quickly and calmly go through the necessary amount
of mourning, and then to arise and shake it off: I mean, if you are
willing to take as your models those women whose eminent virtue has
given them a place among even great men. Misfortune reduced the
number of Cornelia’s children from twelve to two: if you count the
number of their deaths, Cornelia had lost ten: if you weigh them,
she had lost the Gracchi: nevertheless, when her friends were weeping
around her and using too bitter imprecations against her fate, she
forbade them to blame fortune for having deprived[5] her of her
sons the Gracchi. Such ought to have been the mother of him who,
when speaking in the Forum, said, “Would you speak evil of the
mother who bore me?” The mother’s speech seems to me to show a far
greater spirit: the son set a high value on the birth of the Gracchi;
the mother set an equal value on their deaths. Rutilia followed her
son Cotta into exile, and was so passionately attached to him that
she could bear exile better than absence from him; nor did she
return home before her son did so: after he had been restored, and
had been raised to honour in the republic, she bore his death as
bravely as she had borne his exile. No one saw any traces of tears
upon her cheeks after she had buried her son: she displayed her
courage when he was banished, her wisdom when he died: she allowed
no {346} considerations either to interfere with her affection, or
to force her to protract a useless and foolish mourning. These are
the women with whom I wish you to be numbered: you have the best
reasons for restraining and suppressing your sorrow as they did,
because you have always imitated their lives.

XVII. I am aware that this is a matter which is not in our power,
and that none of the passions, least of all that which arises from
grief, are obedient to our wishes; indeed, it is overbearing and
obstinate, and stubbornly rejects all remedies: we sometimes wish
to crush it, and to swallow our emotion, but, nevertheless, tears
flow over our carefully arranged and made-up countenance. Sometimes
we occupy our minds with public spectacles and shows of gladiators;
but during the very sights by which it is amused, the mind is wrung
by slight touches of sorrow. It is better, therefore, to conquer
it than to cheat it; for a grief which has been deceived and driven
away either by pleasure or by business rises again, and its period
of rest does but give it strength for a more terrible attack; but
a grief which has been conquered by reason is appeased for ever. I
shall not, then, give you the advice which so many, I know, adopt,
that you should distract your thoughts by a long journey, or amuse
them by a beautiful one; that you should spend much of your time
in the careful examination of accounts, and the management of your
estate, and that you should keep constantly engaging in new
enterprises: all these things avail but little, and do not cure,
but merely obstruct our sorrow. I had rather it should be brought
to an end than that it should be cheated: and, therefore, I would
fain lead you to the study of philosophy, the true place of refuge
for all those who are flying from the cruelty of Fortune: this will
heal your wounds and take away all your sadness: to this you would
now have to apply yourself, even though you {347} had never done
so before; but as far as my father’s old-fashioned strictness
permitted, you have gained a superficial, though not a thorough
knowledge of all liberal studies. Would that my father, most excellent
man that he was, had been less devoted to the customs of our
ancestors, and had been willing to have you thoroughly instructed
in the elements of philosophy, instead of receiving a mere smattering
of it! I should not now need to be providing you with the means of
struggling against Fortune, but you would offer them to me: but he
did not allow you to pursue your studies far, because some women
use literature to teach them luxury instead of wisdom. Still, thanks
to your keen intellectual appetite, you learned more than one could
have expected in the time: you laid the foundations of all good
learning: now return to them: they will render you safe, they will
console you, and charm you. If once they have thoroughly entered
into your mind, grief, anxiety, the distress of vain suffering will
never gain admittance thither: your breast will not be open to any
of these; against all other vices it has long been closed. Philosophy
is your most trustworthy guardian, and it alone can save you from
the attacks of Fortune.

XVIII. Since, however, you require something to lean upon until you
can reach that haven of rest which philosophy offers to you, I wish
in the meantime to point out to you the consolations which you have.
Look at my two brothers—while they are safe, you have no grounds
for complaint against Fortune; you can derive pleasure from the
virtues of each of them, different as they are; the one has gained
high office by attention to business, the other has philosophically
despised it. Rejoice in the great place of one of your sons, in the
peaceful retirement of the other, in the filial affection of both.
I know my brothers’ most secret motives: the one adorns his high
office in order to confer lustre upon you, the {348} other has
withdrawn from the world into his life of quiet and contemplation,
that he may have full enjoyment of your society. Fortune has consulted
both your safety and your pleasure in her disposal of your two sons:
you may be protected by the authority of the one, and delighted by
the literary leisure of the other. They will vie with one another
in dutiful affection to you, and the loss of one son will be supplied
by the love of two others. I can confidently promise that you will
find nothing wanting in your sons except their number. Now, then,
turn your eyes from them to your grandchildren; to Marcus, that
most engaging child, whose sight no sorrow can withstand. No grief
can be so great or so fresh in any one’s bosom as not to be charmed
away by his presence. Where are the tears which his joyousness could
not dry? whose heart is so nipped by sorrow that his animation would
not cause it to dilate? who would not be rendered mirthful by his
playfulness? who would not be attracted and made to forget his
gloomy thoughts by that prattle to which no one can ever be weary
of listening? I pray the gods that he may survive us: may all the
cruelty of fate exhaust itself on me and go no further; may all the
sorrow destined for my mother and my grandmother fall upon me; but
let all the rest flourish as they do now: I shall make no complaints
about my childlessness or my exile, if only my sacrifice may be
received as a sufficient atonement, and my family suffer nothing
more. Hold in your bosom Novatilla, who soon will present you with
great-grandchildren, she whom I had so entirely adopted and made
my own, that, now that she has lost me, she seems like an orphan,
even though her father is alive. Love her for my sake as well as
for her own: Fortune has lately deprived her of her mother: your
affection will be able to prevent her really feeling the loss of
the mother whom she mourns. Take this opportunity of forming and
strengthening her principles; nothing sinks {349} so deeply into
the mind as the teaching which we receive in our earliest years;
let her become accustomed to hearing your discourses; let her
character be moulded according to your pleasure: she will gain much
even if you give her nothing more than your example. This continually
recurring duty will be a remedy in itself: for when your mind is
full of maternal sorrow, nothing can distract it from its grief
except either philosophic argument or honourable work. I should
count your father among your greatest consolations, were he not
absent: as it is, judge from your affection for me what his affection
is for you, and then you will see how much more just it is that you
should be preserved for him than that you should be sacrificed to
me. Whenever your keenest paroxysms of grief assail you and bid you
give way to them, think of your father. By giving him so many
grandchildren and great-grandchildren you have made yourself no
longer his only daughter; but you alone can crown his prosperous
life by a happy end: as long as he is alive it is impiety for you
to regret having been born.

XIX. I have hitherto said nothing of your chief source of consolation,
your sister, that most faithful heart which shares all your sorrows
as fully as your own, and who feels for all of us like a mother.
With her you have mingled your tears, on her bosom you have tasted
your first repose: she always feels for your troubles, and when I
am in the case she does not grieve for you alone. It was in her
arms that I was carried into Rome: by her affectionate and motherly
nursing I regained my strength after a long period of sickness: she
enlarged her influence to obtain the office of quaestor for me, and
her fondness for me made her conquer a shyness which at other times
made her shrink from speaking to, or loudly greeting her friends.
Neither her retired mode of life, nor her country-bred modesty, at
a time when so many women display such boldness of manner, her
placidity, nor her habits of solitary seclusion {350} prevented her
from becoming actually ambitious on my account. Here, my dearest
mother, is a source from which you may gain true consolation: join
yourself, as far as you are able, to her, bind yourself to her by
the closest embraces. Those who are in sorrow are wont to flee from
those who are dearest to them, and to seek liberty for the indulgence
of their grief: do you let her share your every thought: if you
wish to nurse your grief, she will be your companion, if you wish
to lay it aside she will bring it to an end. If, however, I rightly
understand the wisdom of that most perfect woman, she will not
suffer you to waste your life in unprofitable mourning, and will
tell you what happened in her own instance, which I myself witnessed.
During a sea-voyage she lost a beloved husband, my uncle, whom she
married when a maiden; she endured at the same time grief for him
and fear for herself, and at last, though shipwrecked, nevertheless
rescued his body from the vanquished tempest. How many noble deeds
are unknown to fame! If only she had had the simple-minded ancients
to admire her virtues, how many brilliant intellects would have
vied with one another in singing the praises of a wife who forgot
the weakness of her sex, forgot the perils of the sea, which terrify
even the boldest, exposed herself to death in order to lay him in
the earth, and who was so eager to give him decent burial that she
cared nothing about whether she shared it or no. All the poets have
made the wife[6] famous who gave herself to death instead of her
husband: my aunt did more when she risked her life in order to give
her husband a tomb: it shows greater love to endure the same peril
for a less important end. After this, no one need wonder that for
sixteen years, during which her husband governed the province of
Egypt, she was never beheld in public, never admitted any of the
natives to her house, never {351} begged any favour of her husband,
and never allowed anyone to beg one of her. Thus it came to pass
that a gossiping province, ingenious in inventing scandal about its
rulers, in which even the blameless often incurred disgrace, respected
her as a singular example of uprightness,[7] never made free with
her name,—a remarkable piece of self-restraint among a people who
will risk everything rather than forego a jest,—and that at the
present time it hopes for another governor’s wife like her, although
it has no reasonable expectation of ever seeing one. It would have
been greatly to her credit if the province had approved her conduct
for a space of sixteen years: it was much more creditable to her
that it knew not of her existence. I do not remind you of this in
order to celebrate her praises, for to take such scanty notice of
them is to curtail them, but in order that you may understand the
magnanimity of a woman who has not yielded either to ambition or
to avarice, those twin attendants and scourges of authority, who,
when her ship was disabled and her own death was impending, was not
restrained by fear from keeping fast hold of her husband’s dead
body, and who sought not how to escape from the wreck, but how to
carry him out of it with her. You must now show a virtue equal to
hers, recall your mind from grief, and take care that no one may
think that you are sorry that you have borne a son.

XX. However, since it is necessary, whatever you do, that your
thoughts should sometimes revert to me, and that I should now be
present to your mind more often than your other children, not because
they are less dear to you, but because it is natural to lay one’s
hands more often upon a place that pains one; learn how you are to
think of me: I am as joyous and cheerful as in my best days: indeed
these {352} days are my best, because my mind is relieved from all
pressure of business and is at leisure to attend to its own affairs,
and at one time amuses itself with lighter studies, at another
eagerly presses its inquiries into its own nature and that of the
universe: first it considers the countries of the world and their
position: then the character of the sea which flows between them,
and the alternate ebbings and flowings of its tides; next it
investigates all the terrors which hang between heaven and earth,
the region which is torn asunder by thunderings, lightnings, gusts
of wind, vapour, showers of snow and hail. Finally, having traversed
every one of the realms below, it soars to the highest heaven,
enjoys the noblest of all spectacles, that of things divine, and,
remembering itself to be eternal, reviews all that has been and all
that will be for ever and ever.


[1] Corsica.

[2] Seneca himself was of Spanish extraction.

[3] Qu., oysters from Britain.

[4] The allusion is evidently to Regulus.

[5] I think Madvig’s _ademisset_ spoils the sense. _Dedisset_ means:
“when you bid me mourn the loss of the Gracchi you bid me blame
fortune for having given me such sons.” “’Tis better to have loved
and lost than to have never loved at all.”—J. E. B. M.

[6] Alcestis.

[7] The context shows that _sanctitas_ is opposed to “rapacity,”
“taking bribes,” like the Celaeno of Juv. viii.—J. E. B. M.




{353}

THE TWELFTH BOOK OF THE DIALOGUES OF L. ANNAEUS SENECA, ADDRESSED
TO POLYBIUS.

OF CONSOLATION.


I. .... compared with ours is firm and lasting; but if you transfer
it to the domain of Nature, which destroys everything and calls
everything back to the place from whence it came, it is transitory.
What, indeed, have mortal hands made that is not mortal? The seven
wonders of the world, and any even greater wonders which the ambition
of later ages has constructed, will be seen some day levelled with
the ground. So it is: nothing lasts for ever, few things even last
for long: all are susceptible of decay in one way or another. The
ways in which things come to an end are manifold, but yet everything
that has a beginning has an end also. Some threaten the world with
death, and, though you may think the thought to be impious, this
entire universe, containing gods and men and all their works will
some day be swept away and plunged a second time into its original
darkness and chaos. Weep, if you can, after this, over the loss of
any individual life! Can we mourn the ashes of Carthage, Numantia,
Corinth, or any city that has fallen from a high estate, when we
know that the world must perish, albeit it has no place {354} into
which it can fall. Weep, if you can, because Fate has not spared
you, she who some day will dare to work so great a wickedness! Who
can be so haughtily and peevishly arrogant as to expect that this
law of nature by which everything is brought to an end will be set
aside in his own case, and that his own house will be exempted from
the ruin which menaces the whole world itself? It is, therefore, a
great consolation to reflect that what has happened to us has
happened to every one before us and will happen to every one after
us. In my opinion, nature has made her cruellest acts affect all
men alike, in order that the universality of their lot might console
them for its hardship.

II. It will also be no small assistance to you to reflect that grief
can do no good either to him whom you have lost or to yourself, and
you would not wish to protract what is useless: for if we could
gain anything by sorrow, I should not refuse to bestow upon your
misfortunes whatever tears my own have left at my disposal: I would
force some drops to flow from these eyes, exhausted as they are
with weeping over my own domestic afflictions, were it likely to
be of any service to you. Why do you hesitate? let us lament together,
and I will even make this quarrel my own:—“Fortune, whom every one
thinks most unjust, you seemed hitherto to have restrained yourself
from attacking one who by your favour had become the object of such
universal respect that—rare distinction for any one—his prosperity
had excited no jealousy: but now, behold! you have dealt him the
cruellest wound which, while Caesar lives, he could receive, and
after reconnoitring him from all sides you have discovered that on
this point alone he was exposed to your strokes. What else indeed
could you have done to him? should you take away his wealth? he
never was its slave: now he has even as far as possible put it away
from him, and the chief thing that he has gained by his unrivalled
facilities {355} for amassing money has been to despise it. Should
you take away his friends? you knew that he was of so loveable a
disposition that he could easily gain others to replace those whom
he might lose: for of all the powerful officers of the Imperial
household he seems to me to be the only one whom all men wish to
have for their friend without considering how advantageous his
friendship would be. Should you take away his reputation? it is so
firmly established, that even you could not shake it. Should you
take away his health? you knew that his mind was so grounded on
philosophical studies, in whose schools he was born as well as bred,
that it would rise superior to any sufferings of the body. Should
you take away his breath? how small an injury would that be to him?
fame promised his genius one of the longest of lives: he himself
has taken care that his better part should remain alive, and has
guarded himself against death by the composition of his admirable
works of eloquence: as long as literature shall be held in any
honour, as long as the vigour of the Latin or the grace of the Greek
language shall endure, he will flourish together with their greatest
writers, with whose genius he has measured, or, if his modesty will
not let me say this, has connected his own. This, then, was the
only means you could devise of doing him a great injury. The better
a man is, the more frequently he is wont to suffer from your
indiscriminate rage, you who are to be feared even when you are
bestowing benefits upon one. How little it would have cost you to
avert this blow from one upon whom your favours seemed to be conferred
according to some regular plan, and not to be flung at random in
your wonted fashion!”

III. Let us add, if you please, to these grounds of complaint the
disposition of the youth himself, cut off in the midst of its first
growth. He was worthy to be your brother: you most certainly did
not deserve to be given {356} any pain through your brother, even
though he had been unworthy. All men alike bear witness to his
merits: he is regretted for your sake, and is praised for his own.
He had no qualities which you would not be glad to recognize. You
would indeed have been good to a worse brother, but to him your
fraternal love was given all the more freely because in him it found
so fitting a field for its exercise. No one ever was made to feel
his influence by receiving wrongs at his hands, he never used the
fact of your being his brother to threaten any one: he had moulded
his character after the pattern of your modesty, and reflected how
great a glory and how great a burden you were to your family: the
burden he was able to sustain; but, O pitiless Fate, always unjust
to virtue—before your brother could taste the happiness of his
position, he was called away. I am well aware that I express my
feelings inadequately; for nothing is harder than to find words
which adequately represent great grief: still, let us again lament
for him, if it be of any use to do so:—“What did you mean, Fortune,
by being so unjust and so savage? did you so soon repent you of
your favour? What cruelty it was to fall upon brothers, to break
up so loving a circle by so deadly an attack; why did you bring
mourning into a house so plenteously stocked with admirable youths,
in which no brother came short of the high standard of the rest,
and without any cause pluck one of them away? So, then, scrupulous
innocency of life, old-fashioned frugality, the power of amassing
vast wealth wielded with the greatest self-denial, a true and
imperishable love of literature, a mind free from the least spot
of sin, all avail nothing: Polybius is in mourning, and, warned by
the fate of one brother what he may have to dread for the rest, he
fears for the very persons who soothe his grief. O shame! Polybius
is in mourning, and mourns even though he still enjoys the favour
of Caesar. No doubt, Fortune, what you aimed at in {357} your
impotent rage was to prove that no one could be protected from your
attacks, not even by Caesar himself.”

IV. We might go on blaming fate much longer, but we cannot alter
it: it stands harsh and inexorable: no one can move it by reproaches,
by tears, or by justice. Fate never spares any one, never makes
allowances to any one. Let us, then, refrain from unprofitable
tears: for our grief will carry us away to join him sooner than it
will bring him back to us: and if it tortures us without helping
us, we ought to lay it aside as soon as possible, and restore the
tone of our minds after their indulgence in that vain solace and
the bitter luxury of woe: for unless reason puts an end to our
tears, fortune will not do so. Look around, I pray you, upon all
mortals: everywhere there is ample and constant reason for weeping:
one man is driven to daily labour by toilsome poverty, another is
tormented by never-resting ambition, another fears the very riches
that he once wished for, and suffers from the granting of his own
prayer: one man is made wretched by loneliness, another by labour,
another by the crowds which always besiege his antechamber. This
man mourns because he has children, that one because he has lost
them. Tears will fail us sooner than causes for shedding them. Do
you not see what sort of a life it must be that Nature has promised
to us men when she makes us weep as soon as we are born? We begin
life in this fashion, and all the chain of years that follow it is
in harmony with it. Thus we pass our lives, and consequently we
ought to be sparing in doing what we have to do so often, and when
we look back upon the mass of sorrows that hangs over us, we ought,
if not to end our tears, at any rate to reserve them. There is
nothing that we ought to husband more carefully than this, which
we are so often obliged to expend.

V. It will also be no small assistance to you to consider that there
is no one to whom your grief is more offensive {358} than he upon
whom it is nominally bestowed: he either does not wish you to suffer
or does not understand why you suffer. There is, therefore, no
reason for a service which is useless if it is not felt by him who
is the object of it, and which is displeasing to him if it is. I
can boldly affirm that there is no one in the whole world who derives
any pleasure from your tears. What then? do you suppose that your
brother has a feeling against you which no one else has, that he
wishes you to be injured by your self-torture, that he desires to
separate you from the business of your life, that is, from philosophy
and from Caesar? that is not likely: for he always gave way to you
as a brother, respected you as a parent, courted you as a superior.
He wishes to be fondly remembered by you, but not to be a source
of agony to you. Why, then, should you insist upon pining away with
a grief which, if the dead have any feelings, your brother wishes
to bring to an end? If it were any other brother about whose affection
there could be any question, I should put all this vaguely, and
say, “If your brother wishes you to be tortured with endless mourning,
he does not deserve such affection: if he does not wish it, dismiss
the grief which affects you both: an unnatural brother ought not,
a good brother would not wish to be so mourned for,” but with one
whose brotherly love has been so clearly proved, we may be quite
sure that nothing could hurt him more than that you should be hurt
by his loss, that it should agonize you, that your eyes, most
undeserving as they are of such a fate, should be by the same cause
continually filled and drained of never-ceasing tears.

Nothing however will restrain your loving nature from these useless
tears so effectually as the reflexion that you ought to show your
brothers an example by bearing this outrage of fortune bravely. You
ought to imitate great generals in times of disaster, when they are
careful to affect {359} a cheerful demeanour, and conceal misfortunes
by a counterfeited joyousness, lest, if the soldiers saw their
leader cast down, they should themselves become dispirited. This
must now be done by you also. Put on a countenance that does not
reflect your feelings, and if you possibly can, cast out conceal
it within you and hide it away so that it may not be seen, and take
care that your brothers, who will think everything honourable that
they see you doing, imitate you in this and take courage from the
sight of your looks. It is your duty to be both their comfort and
their consoler; but you will have no power to check their grief if
you humour your own.

VI. It may also keep you from excessive grief if you remind yourself
that nothing which you do can be done in secret: all men agree in
regarding you as an important personage, and you must keep up this
character: you are encompassed by all that mass of offerers of
consolation who all are peering into your mind to learn how much
strength it has to resist grief, and whether you merely know how
to avail yourself cunningly of prosperity, or whether you can also
bear adversity with a manly spirit: the expression of your very
eyes is watched. Those who are able to conceal their feelings may
indulge them more freely; but you are not free to have any secresy:
your fortune has set you in so brilliant a position, that nothing
which you do can be hid: all men will know how you have borne this
wound of yours, whether you laid down your arms at the first shock
or whether you stood your ground. Long ago the love of Caesar raised
you, and your own literary pursuits brought you, to the highest
rank in the state: nothing vulgar, nothing mean befits you: yet
what can be meaner or more womanish than to make oneself a victim
to grief? Although your sorrow is as great as that of your brothers,
yet you may not indulge it as much as they: the ideas which the
public have formed about your philosophic {360} learning and your
character make many things impossible for you. Men demand much, and
expect much from you: you ought not to have drawn all eyes upon
yourself, if you wished to be allowed to act as you pleased: as it
is, you must make good that of which you have given promise. All
those, who praise the works of your genius, who make copies of them,
who need your genius if they do not need your fortune, are as guards
set over your mind: you cannot, therefore, ever do anything unworthy
of the character of a thorough philosopher and sage, without many
men feeling sorry that they ever admired you. You may not weep
beyond reason: nor is this the only thing that you may not do: you
may not so much as remain asleep after daybreak, or retreat from
the noisy troubles of public business to the peaceful repose of the
country, or refresh yourself with a pleasure tour when wearied by
constant attendance to the duties of your toilsome post, or amuse
yourself with beholding various shows, or even arrange your day
according to your own wish. Many things are forbidden to you which
are permitted to the poorest beggars that lie about in holes and
corners. A great fortune is a great slavery; you may not do anything
according to your wish: you must give audiences to all those thousands
of people, you must take charge of all those petitions: you must
cheer yourself up, in order that all this mass of business which
flows hither from every part of the world may be offered in due
order for the consideration of our excellent emperor. I repeat, you
yourself are forbidden to weep, that you may be able to listen to
so many weeping petitioners: your own tears must be dried, in order
that the tears of those who are in peril and who desire to obtain
the gracious pardon of the kindest-hearted of Caesars may be dried.

VII. These reflexions will serve you as partial remedies for your
grief, but if you wish to forget it altogether, remember Caesar:
think with what loyalty, with what {361} industry you are bound to
requite the favours which he has shown you: you will then see that
you can no more sink beneath your burden than could he of whom the
myths tells us, he whose shoulders upheld the world. Even Caesar,
who may do all things, may not do many things for this very reason:
his watchfulness protects all men’s sleep, his labour guarantees
their leisure, his toil ensures their pleasures, his work preserves
their holidays. On the day on which Caesar devoted his services to
the universe, he lost them for himself, and like the planets which
ever unrestingly pursue their course, he can never halt or attend
to any affair of his own. After a certain fashion this prohibition
is imposed upon you also; you may not consider your own interests,
or devote yourself to your own studies: while Caesar owns the world,
you cannot allow either joy or grief, or anything else to occupy
any part of you: you owe your entire self to Caesar. Add to this
that, since you have always declared that Caesar was dearer to you
than your own life, you have no right to complain of misfortune as
long as Caesar is alive: while he is safe all your friends are
alive, you have lost nothing, your eyes ought not only to be dry,
but glad. In him is your all, he stands in the place of all else
to you: you are not grateful enough for your present happy state
(which God forbid that one of your most wise and loyal disposition
should be) if you permit yourself to weep at all while Caesar is
safe.

VIII. I will now point out to you yet another remedy, of a more
domestic, though not of a more efficacious character. Your sorrow
is most to be feared when you have retired to your own home: for
as long as your divinity is before your eyes, it can find no means
of access to you, but Caesar will possess your entire being; when
you have left his presence, grief, as though it then had an opportunity
of attack, will lie in ambush for you in your loneliness, and creep
by degrees over your mind as it rests from its labours. {362} You
ought not, therefore, to allow any moment to be unoccupied by
literary pursuits: at such times let literature repay to you the
debt which your long and faithful love has laid upon it, let it
claim you for its high priest and worshipper: at such times let
Homer[1] and Virgil be much in your company, those poets to whom
the human race owes as much as every one owes to you, and they
especially, because you have made them known to a wider circle than
that for which they wrote. All time which you entrust to their
keeping will be safe. At such times, as far as you are able, compile
an account of your Caesar’s acts, that they may be read by all
future ages in a panegyric written by one of his own household: for
he himself will afford you both the noblest subject and the noblest
example for putting together and composing a history. I dare not
go so far as to advise you to write in your usual elegant style a
version of Aesop’s fables, a work which no Roman intellect has
hitherto attempted. It is hard, no doubt, for a mind which has
received so rude a shock to betake itself so quickly to these
livelier pursuits: but if it is able to pass from more serious
studies to these lighter ones, you must regard it as a proof that
it has recovered its strength, and is itself again. In the former
case, although it may suffer and hang back, still it will be led
on by the serious nature of the subject under consideration to take
an interest in it: but, unless it has thoroughly recovered, it will
not endure to treat of subjects which must be written of in a
cheerful spirit. You ought, therefore, first to exercise your mind
upon grave studies, and then to enliven it with gayer ones.

{363}

IX. It will also be a great solace to you if you often ask yourself:
“Am I grieving on my own account or on that of him who is gone? if
on my own, I have no right to boast of my affectionate sensibility;
grief is only excusable as long as it is honourable; but when it
is only caused by personal interests, it no longer springs from
tenderness: nothing can be less becoming to a good man than to make
a calculation about his grief for his brother. If I grieve on his
account, I must necessarily take one of the two following views:
if the dead retain no feeling whatever, my brother has escaped from
all the troubles of life, has been restored to the place which he
occupied before his birth, and, being free from every kind of ill,
can neither fear, nor desire, nor suffer: what madness then for me
never to cease grieving for one who will never grieve again? If the
dead have any feeling, then my brother is now like one who has been
let out of a prison in which he has long been confined, who at last
is free and his own master, and who enjoys himself, amuses himself
with viewing the works of Nature, and looks down from above the
earth upon all human things, while he looks at things divine, whose
meaning he has long sought in vain, from a much nearer standpoint.
Why then am I wasting away with grief for one who is either in bliss
or non-existent? it would be envy to weep for one who is in bliss,
it would be madness to weep for one who has no existence whatever.”
Are you affected by the thought that he appears to have been deprived
of great blessings just at the moment when they came crowding upon
him? after thinking how much he has lost, call to mind how much
more he has ceased to fear: anger will never more wring his heart,
disease will not crush him, suspicion will not disquiet him, the
gnawing pain of envy which we feel at the successes of others will
not attend him, terror will not make him wretched, the fickleness
of fortune who quickly transfers her favours from one man {364} to
another will not alarm him. If you reckon it up properly, he has
been spared more than he has lost. He will not enjoy wealth, or
your influence at Court, or his own: he will not receive benefits,
and will not confer them: do you imagine him to be unhappy, because
he has lost these things, or happy because he does not miss them?
Believe me, he who does not need good fortune is happier than he
on whom it attends: all those good things which charm us by the
attractive but unreal pleasures which they afford, such as money,
high office, influence, and many other things which dazzle the
stupid greed of mankind, require hard labour to keep, are regarded
by others with bitter jealousy, and are more of a menace than an
advantage to those who are bedecked and encumbered by them. They
are slippery and uncertain; one never can enjoy them in comfort;
for, even setting aside anxiety about the future, the present
management of great prosperity is an uneasy task. If we are to
believe some profound seekers after truth, life is all torment: we
are flung, as it were, into this deep and rough sea, whose tides
ebb and flow, at one time raising us aloft by sudden accessions of
fortune, at another bringing down low by still greater losses, and
for ever tossing us about, never letting us rest on firm ground.
We roll and plunge upon the waves, and sometimes strike against one
another, sometimes are shipwrecked, always are in terror. For those
who sail upon this stormy sea, exposed as it is to every gale, there
is no harbour save death. Do not, then, grudge your brother his
rest: he has at last become free, safe, and immortal: he leaves
surviving him Caesar and all his family, yourself, and his and your
brothers. He left Fortune before she had ceased to regard him with
favour, while she stood still by him, offering him gifts with a
full hand. He now ranges free and joyous through the boundless
heavens; he has left this poor and low-lying region, and has soared
{365} upwards to that place, whatever it may be, which receives in
its happy bosom the souls which have been set free from the chains
of matter: he now roams there at liberty, and enjoys with the keenest
delight all the blessings of Nature. You are mistaken! your brother
has not lost the light of day, but has obtained a more enduring
light: whither he has gone, we all alike must go: why then do we
weep for his fate? He has not left us, but has gone on before us.
Believe me, there is great happiness in a happy death. We cannot
be sure of anything even for one whole day: since the truth is so
dark and hard to come at, who can tell whether death came to your
brother out of malice or out of kindness?

X. One who is as just in all things as you are, must find comfort
in the thought that no wrong has been done you by the loss of so
noble a brother, but that you have received a benefit by having
been permitted for so long a time to enjoy his affection. He who
will not allow his benefactor to choose his own way of bestowing a
gift upon him, is unjust: he who does not reckon what he receives
as gain, and yet reckons what he gives back again as loss, is greedy:
he who says that he has been wronged, because his pleasure has come
to an end, is ungrateful: he who thinks that we gain nothing from
good things beyond the present enjoyment of them, is a fool, because
he finds no pleasure in past joys, and does not regard those which
are gone as his most certain possessions, since he need not fear
that they will come to an end. A man limits his pleasures too
narrowly if he believes that he enjoys those things only which he
touches and sees, if he counts the having enjoyed them for nothing:
for all pleasure quickly leaves us, seeing that it flows away, flits
across our lives, and is gone almost before it has come. We ought,
therefore, to make our mind travel back over past time, to bring
back whatever we once took pleasure in, and frequently to ruminate
over it {366} in our thoughts: the remembrance of pleasures is truer
and more trustworthy than their reality. Regard it, then, among
your greatest blessings that you have had an excellent brother: you
need not think for how much longer you might have had him, but for
how long you did have him. Nature gave him to you, as she gives
others to other brothers, not as an absolute property, but as a
loan: afterwards when she thought proper she took him back again,
and followed her own rules of action, instead of waiting until you
had indulged your love to satiety. If any one were to be indignant
at having to repay a loan of money, especially if he had been allowed
to use it without having to pay any interest, would he not be thought
an unreasonable man? Nature gave your brother his life, just as she
gave you yours: exercising her lawful rights, she has chosen to ask
one of you to repay her loan before the other: she cannot be blamed
for this, for you knew the conditions on which you received it: you
must blame the greedy hopes of mortal men’s minds, which every now
and then forget what Nature is, and never remember their own lot
unless reminded of it. Rejoice, then, that you have had so good a
brother, and be grateful for having had the use and enjoyment of
him, though it was for a shorter time than you wished. Reflect that
what you have had of him was most delightful, that your having lost
him is an accident common to mankind. There is nothing more
inconsistent than that a man should grieve that so good a brother
was not long enough with him, and should not rejoice that he
nevertheless has been with him.

XI. “But,” you say, “he was taken away unexpectedly.” Every man is
deceived by his own willingness to believe what he wishes, and he
chooses to forget that those whom he loves are mortal: yet Nature
gives us clear proofs that she will not suspend her laws in favour
of any one: the funeral processions of our friends and of strangers
alike {367} pass daily before our eyes, yet we take no notice of
them, and when an event happens which our whole life warns us will
some day happen, we call it sudden. This is not, therefore, the
injustice of fate, but the perversity and insatiable universal
greediness of the human mind, which is indignant at having to leave
a place to which it was only admitted on sufferance. How far more
righteous was he who, on hearing of the death of his son, made a
speech worthy of a great man, saying: “When I begat him, I knew
that he would die some day.” Indeed, you need not be surprised at
the son of such a man being able to die bravely. He did not receive
the tidings of his son’s death as news: for what is there new in a
man’s dying, when his whole life is merely a journey towards death?
“When I begat him, I knew that he would die some day,” said he: and
then he added, what showed even more wisdom and courage, “It was
for this that I brought him up.” It is for this that we have all
been brought up: every one who is brought into life is intended to
die. Let us enjoy what is given to us, and give it back when it is
asked for: the Fates lay their hands on some men at some times, and
on other men at other times, but they will never pass any one by
altogether. Our mind ought always to be on the alert, and while it
ought never to fear what is certain to happen, it ought always to
be ready for what may happen at any time. Why need I tell you of
generals and the children of generals, of men ennobled by many
consulships and triumphs, who have succumbed to pitiless fate? whole
kingdoms together with their kings, whole nations with all their
component tribes, have all submitted to their doom. All men, nay,
all things look forward to an end of their days: yet all do not
come to the same end: one man loses his life in the midst of his
career, another at the very beginning of it, another seems hardly
able to free himself from it when worn out with extreme old age,
and eager to {368} be released: we are all going to the same place,
but we all go thither at different times, I know not whether it is
more foolish not to know the law of mortality, or more presumptuous
to refuse to obey it. Come, take into your hands the poems[2] of
whichever you please of those two authors upon whom your genius has
expended so much labour, whom you have so well paraphrased, that
although the structure of the verse be removed, its charm nevertheless
is preserved; for you have transferred them from one language to
another so well as to effect the most difficult matter of all, that
of making all the beauties of the original reappear in a foreign
speech: among their works you will find no volume which will not
offer you numberless instances of the vicissitudes of human life,
of the uncertainty of events, and of tears shed for various reasons.
Read with what fire you have thundered out their swelling phrases:
you will feel ashamed of suddenly failing and falling short of the
elevation of their magnificent language. Do not commit the fault
of making every one, who according to his ability admires your
writings, ask how so frail a mind can have formed such stable and
well-connected ideas.

XII. Turn yourself away from these thoughts which torment you, and
look rather at those numerous and powerful sources of consolation
which you possess: look at your excellent brothers, look at your
wife and your son. It is to guarantee the safety of all these that
Fortune[3] has struck you in this quarter: you have many left in
whom you can take comfort. Guard yourself from the shame of letting
all men think that a single grief has more power with you than these
many consolations. You see all of them cast down into the same
despondency as yourself, and you know that they cannot help you,
nay, that on the other hand they look to {369} you to encourage
them: wherefore, the less learning and the less intellect they
possess, the more vigorously you ought to withstand the evil which
has fallen upon you all. The very fact of one’s grief being shared
by many persons acts as a consolation, because if it be distributed
among such a number the share of it which falls upon you must be
small. I shall never cease to recall your thoughts to Caesar. While
he governs the earth, and shows how far better the empire may be
maintained by kindnesses than by arms, while he presides over the
affairs of mankind, there is no danger of your feeling that you
have lost anything: in this fact alone you will find ample help and
ample consolation; raise yourself up, and fix your eyes upon Caesar
whenever tears rise to them; they will become dry on beholding that
greatest and most brilliant light; his splendour will attract them
and firmly attach them to himself, so that they are able to see
nothing else. He whom you behold both by day and by night, from
whom your mind never deviates to meaner matters, must occupy your
thoughts and be your defence against Fortune; indeed, so kind and
gracious as he is towards all his followers that he has already, I
doubt not, laid many healing balms upon this wound of yours, and
furnished you with many antidotes for your sorrow. Why, even had
he done nothing of the kind, is not the mere sight and thought of
Caesar in itself your greatest consolation? May the gods and goddesses
long spare him to the earth: may he rival the deeds of the Emperor
Augustus, and surpass him in length of days! as long as he remains
among mortals, may he never be reminded that any of his house are
mortal: may he train up his son by long and faithful service to be
the ruler of the Roman people, and see him share his father’s power
before he succeeds to it: may the day on which his kindred shall
claim him for heaven be far distant, and may our grandchildren alone
be alive to see it.

{370}

XIII. Fortune, refrain your hands from him, and show your power
over him only in doing him good: allow him to heal the long sickness
from which mankind has suffered; to replace and restore whatever
has been shattered by the frenzy of our late sovereign: may this
star, which has shed its rays upon a world overthrown and cast into
darkness, ever shine brightly: may he give peace to Germany, open
Britain to us, and lead through the city triumphs, both over the
nations whom his fathers conquered, and over new ones. Of these his
clemency, the first of his many virtues, gives me hopes of being a
spectator: for he has not so utterly cast me down that he will never
raise me up again; nay, he has not cast me down at all; rather he
has supported me when I was struck by evil fortune and was tottering,
and has gently used his godlike hand to break my headlong fall: he
pleaded with the Senate on my behalf, and not only gave me my life
but even begged it for me. He will see to my cause: let him judge
my cause to be such as he would desire; let his justice pronounce
it good or his clemency so regard it: his kindness to me will be
equal in either case, whether he knows me to be innocent or chooses
that I should be thought so. Meanwhile it is a great comfort to me
for my own miseries to behold his pardons travelling throughout the
world: even from the corner in which I am confined his mercy has
unearthed and restored to light many exiles who had been buried and
forgotten here for long years, and I have no fear that I alone shall
be passed over by it. He best knows the time at which he ought to
show favour to each man: I will use my utmost efforts to prevent
his having to blush when he comes to me. O how blessed is your
clemency, Caesar, which makes exiles live more peacefully during
your reign than princes did in that of Gaius! We do not tremble or
expect the fatal stroke every hour, nor are we terrified whenever
a ship comes in sight: you have set bounds to the cruelty of Fortune
towards {371} us, and have given us present peace and hopes of a
happier future. You may indeed be sure that those thunderbolts alone
are just which are worshipped even by those who are struck by them.

XIV. Thus this prince, who is the universal consoler of all men,
has, unless I am altogether mistaken, already revived your spirit
and applied more powerful remedies to so severe a wound than I can:
he has already strengthened you in every way: his singularly retentive
memory has already furnished you with all the examples which will
produce tranquillity: his practised eloquence has already displayed
before you all the precepts of sages. No one therefore could console
you as well as he: when he speaks his words have greater weight,
as though they were the utterances of an oracle: his divine authority
will crush all the strength of your grief. Think, then, that he
speaks to you as follows:—“Fortune has not chosen you as the only
man in the world to receive so severe a blow: there is no house in
all the earth, and never has been one, that has not something to
mourn for: I will pass over examples taken from the common herd,
which, while they are of less importance, are also endless in number,
and I will direct your attention to the Calendar and the State
Chronicles. Do you see all these images which fill the hall of the
Caesars? there is not one of these men who was not especially
afflicted by domestic sorrows: no one of those men who shine there
as the ornament of the ages was not either tortured by grief for
some of his family or most bitterly mourned for by those whom he
left behind. Why need I remind you of Scipio Africanus, who heard
the news of his brother’s death when he was himself in exile? he
who saved his brother from prison could not save him from his fate.
Yet all men saw how impatient Africanus’s brotherly affection was
even of equal law: on the same day on which Scipio Africanus rescued
his brother from the {372} hands of the apparitor, he, although not
holding any office, protested against the action of the tribune of
the people. He mourned for his brother as magnanimously as he had
defended him. Why need I remind you of Scipio Aemilianus,[4] who
almost at one and the same time beheld his father’s triumph and the
funeral of his two brothers? yet, although a stripling and hardly
more than a boy, he bore the sudden bereavement which befel his
family at the very time of Paulus’s triumph with all the courage
which beseemed one who was born that Rome might not be without a
Scipio and that she might be without a Carthage.

XV. Why should I speak of the intimacy of the two Luculli, which
was broken only by their death? or of the Pompeii? whom the cruelty
of Fortune did not even allow to perish by the same catastrophe;
for Sextus Pompeius in the first place survived his sister,[5] by
whose death the firmly knit bond of peace in the Roman empire was
broken, and he also survived his noble brother, whom Fortune had
raised so high in order that she might cast him down from as great
a height as she had already cast down his father; yet after this
great misfortune Sextus Pompeius was able not only to endure his
grief but even to make war. Innumerable instances occur to me of
brothers who were separated by death: indeed on the other hand we
see very few pairs of brothers growing old together: however, I
shall content myself with examples from my own family. No one can
be so devoid of feeling or of reason as to complain of Fortune’s
having thrown him into mourning when he learns that she has coveted
the tears of the Caesars themselves. The Emperor Augustus lost his
darling sister Octavia, and though Nature destined him for heaven,
yet she did not relax her laws to spare him from mourning while on
earth: nay, he suffered every kind of bereavement, {373} losing his
sister’s son,[6] who was intended to be his heir. In fine, not to
mention his sorrows in detail, he lost his son-in-law, his children,
and his grandchildren, and, while he remained among men, no mortal
was more often reminded that he was a man. Yet his mind, which was
able to bear all things, bore all these heavy sorrows, and the
blessed Augustus was the conqueror, not only of foreign nations,
but also of his own sorrows. Gaius Caesar,[7] the grandson of the
blessed Augustus, my maternal great uncle, in the first years of
manhood, when Prince of the Roman Youth, as he was preparing for
the Parthian war, lost his darling brother Lucius[8] who was also
‘Prince of the Roman Youth,’ and suffered more thereby in his mind
than he did afterwards in his body, though he bore both afflictions
with the greatest piety and fortitude. Tiberius Caesar, my paternal
uncle, lost his younger brother Drusus Germanicus,[9] my father,
when he was opening out the innermost fastnesses of Germany, and
bringing the fiercest tribes under the dominion of the Roman empire;
he embraced him and received his last kiss, but he nevertheless
restrained not only his own grief but that of others, and when the
whole army, not merely sorrowful but heartbroken, claimed the corpse
of their Drusus for themselves, he made them grieve only as it
became Romans to grieve, {374} and taught them that they must observe
military discipline not only in fighting but also in mourning. He
could not have checked the tears of others had he not first repressed
his own.

XVI. “Marcus Antonius, my grandfather, who was second to none save
his conqueror, received the news of his brother’s execution at the
very time when the state was at his disposal, and when, as a member
of the triumvirate, he saw no one in the world superior to himself
in power, nay, when, with the exception of his two colleagues, every
man was subordinate to himself. O wanton Fortune, what sport you
make for yourself out of human sorrows! At the very time when Marcus
Antonius was enthroned with power of life and death over his
countrymen, Marcus Antonius’s brother was being led to his death:
yet Antonius bore this cruel wound with the same greatness of mind
with which he had endured all his other crosses; and he mourned for
his brother by offering the blood of twenty legions to his manes.
However, to pass by all other instances, not to speak of the other
deaths which have occurred in my own house. Fortune has twice
assailed me through the death of a brother; she has twice learned
that she could wound me but could not overthrow me. I lost my brother
Germanicus, whom I loved in a manner which any one will understand
if he thinks how affectionate brothers love one another; yet I so
restrained my passion of grief as neither to leave undone anything
which a good brother could be called upon to do, nor yet to do
anything which a sovereign could be blamed for doing.”

Think, then, that our common parent quotes these instances to you,
and that he points out to you how nothing is respected or held
inviolable by Fortune, who actually dares to send out funeral
processions from the very house in which she will have to look for
gods: so let no one be surprised at her committing any act of cruelty
{375} or injustice; for how could she show any humanity or moderation
in her dealings with private families, when her pitiless fury has
so often hung the very throne[10] itself with black? She will not
change her habits even though reproached, not by my voice alone,
but by that of the entire nation: she will hold on her course in
spite of all prayers and complaints. Such has Fortune always been,
and such she ever will be in connexion with human affairs: she has
never shrunk from attacking anything, and she will never let anything
alone: she will rage everywhere terribly, as she has always been
wont to do: she will dare to enter for evil purposes into those
houses whose entrance lies through the temples of the gods, and
will hang signs of mourning upon laurelled door-posts. However, if
she has not yet determined to destroy the human race: if she still
looks with favour upon the Roman nation, may our public and private
prayers prevail upon her to regard as sacred from her violence this
prince, whom all men think to be sacred, who has been granted them
by heaven to give them rest after their misfortunes: let her learn
clemency from him, and let the mildest of all sovereigns teach her
mildness.

XVII. You ought, therefore, to fix your eyes upon all the persons
whom I have just mentioned, who have either been deified or were
nearly related to those who have been deified, and when Fortune
lays her hands upon you to bear it calmly, seeing that she does not
even respect those by whose names we swear. It is your duty to
imitate their constancy in enduring and triumphing over suffering,
as far as it is permitted to a mere man to follow in the footsteps
of the immortals. Albeit in all other matters rank and birth make
great distinctions between men, yet virtue is open to all; she
despises no one provided he thinks himself {376} worthy to possess
her. Surely you cannot do better than follow the example of those
who, though they might have been angry at not being exempt from
this evil, nevertheless have decided to regard this, the only thing
which brings them down to the level of other men, not as a wrong
done to themselves, but as the law of our mortal nature, and to
bear what befals them without undue bitterness and wrath, and yet
in no base or cowardly spirit: for it is not human not to feel our
sorrows, while it is unmanly not to bear them. When I glance through
the roll of all the Caesars whom fate has bereaved of sisters or
brothers, I cannot pass over that one who is unworthy to figure on
the list of Caesars, whom Nature produced to be the ruin and the
shame of the human race, who utterly wrecked and destroyed the state
which is now recovering under the gentle rule of the most benign
of princes. On losing his sister Drusilla, Gaius Caesar, a man who
could neither mourn nor rejoice as becomes a prince, shrank from
seeing and speaking to his countrymen, was not present at his
sister’s funeral, did not pay her the conventional tribute of
respect, but tried to forget the sorrows caused by this most
distressing death by playing at dice in his Alban villa, and by
sitting on the judgment-seat, and the like customary engagements.
What a disgrace to the Empire! a Roman emperor solaced himself by
gambling for his grief at the loss of his sister! This same Gaius,
with frantic levity, at one time let his beard and hair grow long,
at another wandered aimlessly along the coast of Italy and Sicily.
He never clearly made up his mind whether he wished his sister to
be mourned for or to be worshipped, and during all the time that
he was raising temples and shrines[11] in her honour he punished
those who did not manifest sufficient {377} sorrow with the most
cruel tortures:[12] for his mind was so ill-balanced, that he was
as much cast down by adversity as he was unbecomingly elated and
puffed up by success. Far be it from every Roman to follow such an
example, either to divert his mind from his grief by unreasonable
amusements, to stimulate it by unseemly squalor and neglect, or to
be so inhuman as to console himself by taking pleasure in the
sufferings of others.

XVIII. You, however, need change none of your ordinary habits, since
you have taught yourself to love those studies which, while they
are pre-eminently fitted for perfecting our happiness, at the same
time teach us how we may bear misfortune most lightly, and which
are at the same time a man’s greatest honour and greatest comfort.
Now, therefore, immerse yourself even more deeply in your studies,
now surround your mind with them like fortifications, so that grief
may not find any place at which it can gain entrance. At the same
time, prolong the remembrance of your brother by inserting some
memoir of him among your other writings: for that is the only sort
of monument that can be erected by man which no storm can injure,
no time destroy. The others, which consist of piles of stone, masses
of marble, or huge mounds of earth heaped on high, cannot preserve
his memory for long, because they themselves perish; but the memorials
which genius raises are everlasting. Lavish these upon your brother,
embalm him in these: you will do better to immortalise him by an
everlasting work of genius than to mourn over him with useless
grief. As for Fortune herself, although I cannot just now {378}
plead her cause before you, because all that she has given us is
now hateful to you, because she has taken something away from you,
yet I will plead her cause as soon as time shall have rendered you
a more impartial judge of her action: indeed she has bestowed much
upon you to make amends for the injury which she has done you, and
she will give more hereafter by way of atonement for it: and, after
all, it was she herself who gave you this brother whom she has taken
away. Forbear, then, to display your abilities against your own
self, or to take part with your grief against yourself: your
eloquence, can, no doubt, make trifles appear great, and, conversely,
can disparage and depreciate great things until they seem the merest
trifles; but let it reserve those powers and use them on some other
subject, and at the present time devote its entire strength to the
task of consoling you. Yet see whether even this task be not
unnecessary. Nature demands from us a certain amount of grief, our
imagination adds some more to it; but I will never forbid you to
mourn at all. I know, indeed, that there are some men, whose wisdom
is of a harsh rather than a brave character, who say that the wise
man never would mourn. It seems to me that they never can have been
in the position of mourners, for otherwise their misfortune would
have shaken all their haughty philosophy out of them, and, however
much against their will, would have forced them to confess their
sorrow. Reason will have done enough if she does but cut off from
our grief all that is superfluous and useless: as for her not
allowing us to grieve at all, that we ought neither to expect nor
to wish for. Let her rather restrain us within the bounds of a
chastened grief, which partakes neither of indifference nor of
madness, and let her keep our minds in that attitude which becomes
affection without excitement: let your tears flow, but let them
some day cease to flow: groan as deeply as you will, but let your
{379} groans cease some day: regulate your conduct so that both
philosophers and brothers may approve of it. Make yourself feel
pleasure in often thinking about your brother, talk constantly about
him, and keep him ever present in your memory; which you cannot
succeed in doing unless you make the remembrance of him pleasant
rather than sad: for it is but natural that the mind should shrink
from a subject which it cannot contemplate without sadness. Think
of his retiring disposition, of his abilities for business, his
diligence in carrying it out, his loyalty to his word. Tell other
men of all his sayings and doings, and remind your own self of them:
think how good he was and how great you hoped he might become: for
what success is there which you might not safely have wagered that
such a brother would win?

I have thrown together these reflexions in the best way that I
could, for my mind is dimmed and stupefied with the tedium of my
long exile: if, therefore, you should find them unworthy of the
consideration of a person of your intelligence, or unable to console
you in your grief, remember how impossible it is for one who is
full of his own sorrows to find time to minister to those of others,
and how hard it is to express oneself in the Latin language, when
all around one hears nothing but a rude foreign jargon, which even
barbarians of the more civilised sort regard with disgust.


[1] “The Latins had four versions of Homer (Fabric, tom. i. 1. ii.
ch. 3, p. 297), yet, in spite of the phraises of Seneca, Consol,
ch. 26 (viii.), they appear to have been more successful in imitating
than in translating the Greek poets.”—Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall,”
ch. 41, ad init., note. Polybius had made a prose translation of
Homer, and a prose paraphrase of Virgil.

[2] See note _ante_, ch. viii.

[3] “Fortune hath parted stakes with thee, in taking away thy
brother, and leaving thee all the rest in securitie and safetie.”—Lodge.

[4] See “On Benefits,” v. 16.

[5] Scipio Africanus minor, the son of Paulus Aemilius.

[6] Marcellus. See “Virgil’s well-known lines, Aen. VI., 869, _sqq_.,
and “Consolatio ad Marciam,” 2.

[7] G. Caesar, d. at Limyra, a.d. 4.

[8] Lucius Caesar, d. at Marseilles, A.D. 2.

[9] Drusus died by a fall from his horse, B.C. 9. “A monument was
erected in his honour at Moguntiacum (Mayence), and games and
military spectacles were exhibited there on the anniversary of his
death. An altar had already been raised in his honour on the banks
of the Lippe.” Tac. Ann. ii. 7. “The soldiers began now to regard
themselves as a distinct people, with rites and heroes of their
own. Augustus required them to surrender the body of their beloved
chief as a matter of discipline.” Merivale, ch. 36.

[10] _Pulvinaria_. See note, ch. xvii.

[11] _Pulvinaria_. This word properly means “a couch made of cushions,
and spread over with a splendid covering, for the gods or persons
who received divine honours.”

[12] Merivale, following Suetonius and Dion Cassius, says: “He
declared that if any man dared to mourn for his sister’s death, he
should be punished, for she had become a goddess: if any one ventured
to rejoice at her deification, he should be punished also, for she
was dead.” The passage in the text, he remarks, gives a less
extravagant turn to the story.




{380}

THE FIRST BOOK OF THE DIALOGUE OF L. ANNAEUS SENECA, ADDRESSED TO
NERO CAESAR.

ON CLEMENCY.


I. I have determined to write a book upon clemency, Nero Caesar,
in order that I may as it were serve as a mirror to you, and let
you see yourself arriving at the greatest of all pleasures. For
although the true enjoyment of good deeds consists in the performance
of them, and virtues have no adequate reward beyond themselves,
still it is worth your while to consider and investigate a good
conscience from every point of view, and afterwards to cast your
eyes upon this enormous mass of mankind— quarrelsome, factious, and
passionate as they are; likely, if they could throw off the yoke
of your government, to take pleasure alike in the ruin of themselves
and of one another —and thus to commune with yourself:—“Have I of
all mankind been chosen and thought fit to perform the office of a
god upon earth? I am the arbiter of life and death to mankind: it
rests with me to decide what lot and position in life each man
possesses: fortune makes use of my mouth to announce what she bestows
on each man: cities and nations are moved to joy by my words: no
region {381} anywhere can flourish without my favour and good will:
all these thousands of swords now restrained by my authority, would
be drawn at a sign from me: it rests with me to decide which tribes
shall be utterly exterminated, which shall be moved into other
lands, which shall receive and which shall be deprived of liberty,
what kings shall be reduced to slavery and whose heads shall be
crowned, what cities shall be destroyed and what new ones shall be
founded. In this position of enormous power I am not tempted to
punish men unjustly by anger, by youthful impulse, by the recklessness
and insolence of men, which often overcomes the patience even of
the best regulated minds, not even that terrible vanity, so common
among great sovereigns, of displaying my power by inspiring terror.
My sword is sheathed, nay, fixed in its sheath: I am sparing of the
blood even of the lowest of my subjects: a man who has nothing else
to recommend him, will nevertheless find favour in my eyes because
he is a man. I keep harshness concealed, but I have clemency always
at hand: I watch myself as carefully as though I had to give an
account of my actions to those laws which I have brought out of
darkness and neglect into the light of day. I have been moved to
compassion by the youth of one culprit, and the age of another: I
have spared one man because of his great place, another on account
of his insignificance: when I could find no reason for showing
mercy, I have had mercy upon myself. I am prepared this day, should
the gods demand it, to render to them an account of the human race.”
You, Caesar, can boldly say that everything which has come into
your charge has been kept safe, and that the state has neither
openly nor secretly suffered any loss at your hands. You have coveted
a glory which is most rare, and which has been obtained by no emperor
before you, that of innocence. Your remarkable goodness is not
thrown away, nor is it ungratefully or spitefully undervalued. Men
feel {382} gratitude towards you: no one person ever was so dear
to another as you are to the people of Rome, whose great and enduring
benefit you are. You have, however, taken upon yourself a mighty
burden: no one any longer speaks of the good times of the late
Emperor Augustus, or the first years of the reign of Tiberius, or
proposes for your imitation any model outside yourself: yours is a
pattern reign. This would have been difficult had your goodness of
heart not been innate, but merely adopted for a time; for no one
can wear a mask for long, and fictitious qualities soon give place
to true ones. Those which are founded upon truth, and which, so to
speak, grow out of a solid basis, only become greater and better
as time goes on. The Roman people were in a state of great hazard
as long as it was uncertain how your generous[1] disposition would
turn out; now, however, the prayers of the community are sure of
an answer, for there is no fear that you should suddenly forget
your own character. Indeed, excess of happiness makes men greedy,
and our desires are never so moderate as to be bounded by what they
have obtained: great successes become the stepping-stones to greater
ones, and those who have obtained more than they hoped, entertain
even more extravagant hopes than before; yet by all your countrymen
we hear it admitted that they are now happy, and moreover, that
nothing can be added to the blessings that they enjoy, except that
they should be eternal. Many circumstances force this admission
from them, although it is the one which men are least willing to
make: we enjoy a profound and prosperous peace, the power of the
law has been openly asserted in the sight of all men, and raised
beyond the reach of any violent interference: the form of our
government is so happy, as to contain all the essentials of liberty
except the power of destroying itself. It is {383} nevertheless
your clemency which is most especially admired by the high and low
alike: every man enjoys or hopes to enjoy the other blessings of
your rule according to the measure of his own personal good fortune,
whereas from your clemency all hope alike: no one has so much
confidence in his own innocence, as not to feel glad that in your
presence stands a clemency which is ready to make allowance for
human errors.

II. I know, however, that there are some who imagine that clemency
only saves the life of every villain, because clemency is useless
except after conviction, and alone of all the virtues has no function
among the innocent. But in the first place, although a physician
is only useful to the sick, yet he is held in honour among the
healthy also; and so clemency, though she be invoked by those who
deserve punishment, is respected by innocent people as well. Next,
she can exist also in the person of the innocent, because sometimes
misfortune takes the place of crime; indeed, clemency not only
succours the innocent, but often the virtuous, since in the course
of time it happens that men are punished for actions which deserve
praise. Besides this, there is a large part of mankind which might
return to virtue if the hope of pardon were not denied them. Yet
it is not right to pardon indiscriminately; for when no distinction
is made between good and bad men, disorder follows, and all vices
break forth; we must therefore take care to distinguish those
characters which admit of reform from those which are hopelessly
depraved. Neither ought we to show an indiscriminate and general,
nor yet an exclusive clemency; for to pardon every one is as great
cruelty as to pardon none; we must take a middle course; but as it
is difficult to find the true mean, let us be careful, if we depart
from it, to do so upon the side of humanity.

III. But these matters will be treated of better in their own place.
I will now divide this whole subject into {384} three parts. The
first will be of gentleness of temper:[2] the second will be that
which explains the nature and disposition of clemency; for since
there are certain vices which have the semblance of virtue, they
cannot be separated unless you stamp upon them the marks which
distinguish them from one another: in the third place we shall
inquire how the mind may be led to practise this virtue, how it may
strengthen it, and by habit make it its own.

That clemency, which is the most humane of virtues, is that which
best befits a man, is necessarily an axiom, not only among our own
sect, which regards man as a social animal, born for the good of
the whole community, but even among those philosophers who give him
up entirely to pleasure, and whose words and actions have no other
aim than their own personal advantage. If man, as they argue, seeks
for quiet and repose, what virtue is there which is more agreeable
to his nature than clemency, which loves peace and restrains him
from violence? Now clemency becomes no one more than a king or a
prince; for great power is glorious and admirable only when it is
beneficent; since to be powerful only for mischief is the power of
a pestilence. That man’s greatness alone rests upon a secure
foundation, whom all men know to be as much on their side as he is
above them, of whose watchful care for the safety of each and all
of them they receive daily proofs, at whose approach they do not
fly in terror, as though some evil and dangerous animal had sprung
out from its den, but flock to him as they would to the bright and
health-giving sunshine. They are perfectly ready to fling themselves
upon the swords of conspirators in his defence, to offer their
bodies if his only path to safety must be formed of corpses: they
protect his sleep by nightly watches, they {385} surround him and
defend him on every side, and expose themselves to the dangers which
menace him. It is not without good reason that nations and cities
thus agree in sacrificing their lives and property for the defence
and the love of their king whenever their leader’s safety demands
it; men do not hold themselves cheap, nor are they insane when so
many thousands are put to the sword for the sake of one man, and
when by so many deaths they save the life of one man alone, who not
unfrequently is old and feeble. Just as the entire body is commanded
by the mind, and although the body be so much larger and more
beautiful while the mind is impalpable and hidden, and we are not
certain as to where it is concealed, yet the hands, feet, and eyes
work for it, the skin protects it; at its bidding we either lie
still or move restlessly about; when it gives the word, if it be
an avaricious master, we scour the sea in search of gain, or if it
be ambitious we straightway place our right hand in the flames like
Mucius, or leap into the pit like Curtius, so likewise this enormous
multitude which surrounds one man is directed by his will, is guided
by his intellect, and would break and hurl itself into ruin by its
own strength, if it were not upheld by his wisdom.

IV. Men therefore love their own safety, when they draw up vast
legions in battle on behalf of one man, when they rush to the front,
and expose their breasts to wounds, for fear that their leader’s
standards should be driven back. He is the bond which fastens the
commonwealth together, he is the breath of life to all those
thousands, who by themselves would become merely an encumbrance and
a source of plunder if that directing mind were withdrawn:—

    Bees have but one mind, till their king doth die, But when he
    dies, disorderly they fly.

Such a misfortune will be the end of the peace of Rome, it will
wreck the prosperity of this great people; the nation {386} will
be free from this danger as long as it knows how to endure the
reins: should it ever break them, or refuse to have them replaced
if they were to fall off by accident, then this mighty whole, this
complex fabric of government will fly asunder into many fragments,
and the last day of Rome’s empire will be that upon which it forgets
how to obey. For this reason we need not wonder that princes, kings,
and all other protectors of a state, whatever their titles may be,
should be loved beyond the circle of their immediate relatives; for
since right-thinking men prefer the interests of the state to their
own, it follows that he who bears the burden of state affairs must
be dearer to them than their own friends. Indeed, the emperor long
ago identified himself so thoroughly with the state, that neither
of them could be separated without injury to both, because the one
requires power, while the other requires a head.

V. My argument seems to have wandered somewhat far from the subject,
but, by Hercules, it really is very much to the point. For if, as
we may infer from what has been said, you are the soul of the state,
and the state is your body, you will perceive, I imagine, how
necessary clemency is; for when you appear to spare another, you
are really sparing yourself. You ought therefore to spare even
blameworthy citizens, just as you spare weakly limbs; and when
blood-letting becomes necessary, you must hold your hand, lest you
should cut deeper than you need. Clemency therefore, as I said
before, naturally befits all mankind, but more especially rulers,
because in their case there is more for it to save, and it is
displayed upon a greater scale. Cruelty in a private man can do but
very little harm; but the ferocity of princes is war. Although there
is a harmony between all the virtues, and no one is better or more
honourable than another, yet some virtues befit some persons better
than {387} others. Magnanimity befits all mortal men, even the
humblest of all; for what can be greater or braver than to resist
ill fortune? Yet this virtue of magnanimity occupies a wider room
in prosperity, and shows to greater advantage on the judgment seat
than on the floor of the court. On the other hand, clemency renders
every house into which it is admitted happy and peaceful; but though
it is more rare, it is on that account even more admirable in a
palace. What can be more remarkable than that he whose anger might
be indulged without fear of the consequences, whose decision, even
though a harsh one, would be approved even by those who were to
suffer by it, whom no one can interrupt, and of whom indeed, should
he become violently enraged, no one would dare to beg for mercy,
should apply a check to himself and use his power in a better and
calmer spirit, reflecting: “Any one may break the law to kill a
man, no one but I can break it to save him”? A great position
requires a great mind, for unless the mind raises itself to and
even above the level of its station, it will degrade its station
and draw it down to the earth; now it is the property of a great
mind to be calm and tranquil and to look down upon outrages and
insults with contempt. It is a womanish thing to rage with passion;
it is the part of wild beasts, and that, too, not of the most noble
ones, to bite and worry the fallen. Elephants and lions pass by
those whom they have struck down; inveteracy is the quality of
ignoble animals. Fierce and implacable rage does not befit a king,
because he does not preserve his superiority over the man to whose
level he descends by indulging in rage; but if he grants their lives
and honours to those who are in jeopardy and who deserve to lose
them, he does what can only be done by an absolute ruler; for life
may be torn away even from those who are above us in station, but
can never be granted save to those who are below us. To save men’s
lives {388} is the privilege of the loftiest station, which never
deserves admiration so much as when it is able to act like the gods,
by whose kindness good and bad men alike are brought into the world.
Thus a prince, imitating the mind of a god, ought to look with
pleasure on some of his countrymen because they are useful and good
men, while he ought to allow others to remain to fill up the roll;
he ought to be pleased with the existence of the former, and to
endure that of the latter.

VI. Look at this city of Rome, in which the widest streets become
choked whenever anything stops the crowds which unceasingly pour
through them like raging torrents, in which the people streaming
to three theatres demand the roads at the same time, in which the
produce of the entire world is consumed, and reflect what a desolate
waste it would become if only those were left in it whom a strict
judge would acquit. How few magistrates are there who ought not to
be condemned by the very same laws which they administer? How few
prosecutors are themselves faultless? I imagine, also, that few men
are less willing to grant pardon, than those who have often had to
beg it for themselves. We have all of us sinned, some more deeply
than others, some of set purpose, some either by chance impulse or
led away by the wickedness of others; some of us have not stood
bravely enough by our good resolutions, and have lost our innocence,
although unwillingly and after a struggle; nor have we only sinned,
but to the very end of our lives we shall continue to sin. Even if
there be any one who has so thoroughly cleansed his mind that nothing
can hereafter throw him into disorder or deceive him, yet even he
has reached this state of innocence through sin.

VII. Since I have made mention of the gods, I shall state the best
model on which a prince may mould his life to be, that he deal with
his countrymen as he would that {389} the gods may deal with himself.
Is it then desirable that the gods should show no mercy upon sins
and mistakes, and that they should harshly pursue us to our ruin?
In that case what king will be safe? Whose limbs will not be torn
asunder and collected by the soothsayers? If, on the other hand,
the gods are placable and kind, and do not at once avenge the crimes
of the powerful with thunderbolts, is it not far more just that a
man set in authority over other men should exercise his power in a
spirit of clemency and should consider whether the condition of the
world is more beauteous and pleasant to the eyes on a fine calm
day, or when everything is shaken with frequent thunder-claps and
when lightning flashes on all sides! Yet the appearance of a peaceful
and constitutional reign is the same as that of the calm and brilliant
sky. A cruel reign is disordered and hidden in darkness, and while
all shake with terror at the sudden explosions, not even he who
caused all this disturbance escapes unharmed. It is easier to find
excuses for private men who obstinately claim their rights; possibly
they may have been injured, and their rage may spring from their
wrongs; besides this, they fear to be despised, and not to return
the injuries which they have received looks like weakness rather
than clemency; but one who can easily avenge himself, if he neglects
to do so, is certain to gain praise for goodness of heart. Those
who are born in a humble station may with greater freedom exercise
violence, go to law, engage in quarrels, and indulge their angry
passions; even blows count for little between two equals; but in
the case of a king, even loud clamour and unmeasured talk are
unbecoming.

VIII. You think it a serious matter to take away from kings the
right of free speech which the humblest enjoy. “This,” you say, “is
to be a subject, not a king.” What, do you not find that we have
the command, you the subjection? {390} Your position is quite
different to that of those who lie hid in the crowd which they never
leave, whose very virtues cannot be manifested without a long
struggle, and whose vices are shrouded in obscurity; rumour catches
up your acts and sayings, and therefore no persons ought to be more
careful of their reputation than those who are certain to have a
great one, whatsoever one they may have deserved. How many things
there are that you may not do which, thanks to you, we may do! I
am able to walk alone without fear in any part of Rome whatever,
although no companion accompanies me, though there is no guard at
my house no sword by my side. You must live armed in the peace which
you maintain.[3] You cannot stray away from your position; it besets
you, and follows you with mighty pomp wherever you go. This slavery
of not being able to sink one’s rank belongs to the highest position
of all; yet it is a burden which you share with the gods. They too
are held fast in heaven, and it is no more possible for them to
come down than it is safe[4] for you; you are chained to your lofty
pinnacle. Of our movements few persons are aware; we can go forth
and return home and change our dress without its being publicly
known; but you are no more able to hide yourself than the sun. A
strong light is all around you, the eyes of all are turned towards
it. Do you think you are leaving your house? nay, you are dawning
upon the world. You cannot speak without all nations everywhere
hearing your voice; you cannot be angry, without making everything
tremble, because you can strike no one without shaking all around
him. Just as thunderbolts when they fall endanger few men but terrify
all, so the chastisement inflicted by great potentates terrify more
widely than they injure, and that for good reasons; for in the case
of one whose power is absolute, men do not think of what he has
done, so much as of what he may do. Add to this that {391} private
men endure wrongs more tamely, because they have already endured
others; the safety of kings on the other hand is more surely founded
on kindness, because frequent punishment may crush the hatred of a
few, but excites that of all. A king ought to wish to pardon while
he has still grounds for being severe; if he acts otherwise, just
as lopped trees sprout forth again with numberless boughs, and many
kinds of crops are cut down in order that they may grow more thickly,
so a cruel king increases the number of his enemies by destroying
them; for the parents and children of those who are put to death,
and their relatives and friends, step into the place of each victim.

IX. I wish to prove the truth of this by an example drawn from your
own family. The late Emperor Augustus was a mild prince, if in
estimating his character one reckons from the era of his reign; yet
he appealed to arms while the state was shared among the triumvirate.
When he was just of your age, at the end of his twenty-second year,
he had already hidden daggers under the clothes of his friends, he
had already conspired to assassinate Marcus Antonius, the consul,
he had already taken part in the proscription. But when he had
passed his sixtieth[5] year, and was staying in {392} Gaul,
intelligence was brought to him that Lucius Cinna, a dull man, was
plotting against him: the plot was betrayed by one of the conspirators,
who told him where, when, and in what manner Cinna meant to attack
him. Augustus determined to consult his own safety against this
man, and ordered a council of his own friends to be summoned. He
passed a disturbed night, reflecting that he would be obliged to
condemn to death a youth of noble birth, who was guilty of no crime
save this one, and who was the grandson of Gnaeus Pompeius. He, who
had sat at dinner and heard M. Antonius[6] read aloud his edict for
the proscription, could not now bear to put one single man to death.
With groans he kept at intervals making various inconsistent
exclamations:—“What! shall I allow my assassin to walk about at his
ease while I am racked by fears? Shall the man not be punished who
has plotted not merely to slay but actually to sacrifice at the
altar” (for the conspirators intended to attack him when he was
sacrificing), “now when there is peace by land and sea, that life
which so many civil wars have sought in vain, which has passed
unharmed through so many battles of fleets and armies?”

Then, after an interval of silence, he would say to himself in a
far louder, angrier tone than he had used to Cinna, “Why do you
live, if it be to so many men’s advantage that you should die? Is
there no end to these executions? to this bloodshed? I am a figure
set up for nobly-born youths to sharpen their swords on. Is life
worth having, if so many must perish to prevent my losing it?” At
last his wife Livia interrupted him, saying: “Will you take a woman’s
{393} advice? Do as the physicians do, who, when the usual remedies
fail, try their opposites. Hitherto you have gained nothing by harsh
measures: Salvidienus has been followed by Lepidus, Lepidus by
Muraena, Muraena by Caepio, and Caepio by Egnatius, not to mention
others of whom one feels ashamed of their having dared to attempt
so great a deed. Now try what effect clemency will have: pardon
Lucius Cinna. He has been detected, he cannot now do you any harm,
and he can do your reputation much good.” Delighted at finding some
one to support his own view of the case, he thanked his wife,
straightway ordered his friends, whose counsel he had asked for,
to be told that he did not require their advice, and summoned Cinna
alone. After ordering a second seat to be placed for Cinna, he sent
every one else out of the room, and said:—“The first request which
I have to make of you is, that you will not interrupt me while I
am speaking to you: that you will not cry out in the middle of my
address to you: you shall be allowed time to speak freely in answer
to me. Cinna, when I found you in the enemy’s camp, you who had not
become but were actually born my enemy, I saved your life, and
restored to you the whole of your father’s estate. You are now so
prosperous and so rich, that many of the victorious party envy you,
the vanquished one: when you were a candidate for the priesthood I
passed over many others whose parents had served with me in the
wars, and gave it to you: and now, after I have deserved so well
of you, you have made up your mind to kill me.” When at this word
the man exclaimed that he was far from being so insane, Augustus
replied, “You do not keep your promise, Cinna; it was agreed upon
between us that you should not interrupt me. I repeat, you are
preparing to kill me.” He then proceeded to tell him of the place,
the names of his accomplices, the day, the way in which they had
arranged to do the deed, and which of them was to give the fatal
stab. {394} When he saw Cinna’s eyes fixed upon the ground, and
that he was silent, no longer because of the agreement, but from
consciousness of his guilt, he said, “What is your intention in
doing this? is it that you yourself may be emperor? The Roman people
must indeed be in a bad way if nothing but my life prevents your
ruling over them. You cannot even maintain the dignity of your own
house: you have recently been defeated in a legal encounter by the
superior influence of a freedman: and so you can find no easier
task than to call your friends to rally round you against Caesar.
Come, now, if you think that I alone stand in the way of your
ambition; will Paulus and Fabius Maximus, will the Cossi and the
Servilii and all that band of nobles, whose names are no empty
pretence, but whose ancestry really renders them illustrious—will
they endure that you should rule over them?” Not to fill up the
greater part of this book by repeating the whole of his speech—for
he is known to have spoken for more than two hours, lengthening out
this punishment, which was the only one which he intended to
inflict—he said at last: “Cinna, I grant you your life for the
second time: when I gave it you before you were an open enemy, you
are now a secret plotter and parricide.[7] From this day forth let
us be friends: let us try which of us is the more sincere, I in
giving you your life, or you in owing your life to me.” After this
he of his own accord bestowed the consulship upon him, complaining
of his not venturing to offer himself as a candidate for that office,
and found him ever afterwards his most grateful and loyal adherent.
Cinna made the emperor his sole heir, and no one ever again formed
any plot against him.

X. Your great-great-grandfather spared the vanquished: for whom
could he have ruled over, had he not spared them? He recruited
Sallustius, the Cocoeii, the Deillii, and the whole {395} inner
circle of his court from the camp of his opponents. Soon afterwards
his clemency gave him a Domitius, a Messala, an Asinius, a Cicero,
and all the flower of the state. For what a long time he waited for
Lepidus to die: for years he allowed him to retain all the insignia
of royalty, and did not allow the office of pontifex maximus to be
conferred upon himself until after Lepidus’s death; for he wished
it to be called a honourable office rather than a spoil stripped
from a vanquished foe. It was this clemency which made him end his
days in safety and security: this it was which rendered him popular
and beloved, although he had laid his hands on the neck of the
Romans when they were still unused to bearing the yoke: this gives
him even at the present day a reputation such as hardly any prince
has enjoyed during his own lifetime. We believe him to be a god,
and not merely because we are bidden to do so. We declare that
Augustus was a good emperor, and that he was well worthy to bear
his parent’s name, for no other reason than because he did not even
show cruelty in avenging personal insults, which most princes feel
more keenly than actual injuries; because he smiled at scandalous
jests against himself, because it was evident that he himself
suffered when he punished others, because he was so far from putting
to death even those whom he had convicted of intriguing with his
daughter, that when they were banished he gave them passports to
enable them to travel more safely. When you know that there will
be many who will take your quarrel upon themselves, and will try
to gain your favour by the murder of your enemies, you do indeed
pardon them if you not only grant them their lives but ensure that
they shall not lose them.

XI. Such was Augustus when an old man, or when growing old: in his
youth he was hasty and passionate, and did many things upon which
he looked back with regret. No one will venture to compare the rule
of the {396} blessed Augustus to the mildness of your own, even if
your youth be compared with his more than ripe old age: he was
gentle and placable, but it was after he had dyed the sea at Actium
with Roman blood; after he had wrecked both the enemy’s fleet and
his own at Sicily; after the holocaust of Perusia and the proscriptions.
But I do not call it clemency to be wearied of cruelty; true clemency,
Caesar, is that which you display, which has not begun from remorse
at its past ferocity, on which there is no stain, which has never
shed the blood of your countrymen: this, when combined with unlimited
power, shows the truest self-control and all-embracing love of the
human race as of one’s self, not corrupted by any low desires, any
extravagant ideas, or any of the bad examples of former emperors
into trying, by actual experiment, how great a tyranny you would
be allowed to exercise over his countrymen, but inclining rather
to blunting your sword of empire. You, Caesar, have granted us the
boon of keeping our state free from bloodshed, and that of which
you boast, that you have not caused one single drop of blood to
flow in any part of the world, is all the more magnanimous and
marvellous because no one ever had the power of the sword placed
in his hands at an earlier age. Clemency, then, makes princes safer
as well as more respected, and is a glory to empires besides being
their most trustworthy means of preservation. Why have legitimate
sovereigns grown old on the throne, and bequeathed their power to
their children and grandchildren, while the sway of despotic usurpers
is both hateful and shortlived l? What is the difference between
the tyrant and the king—for their outward symbols of authority and
their powers are the same—except it be that tyrants take delight
in cruelty, whereas kings are only cruel for good reasons and because
they cannot help it.[8]

{397}

XII. “What, then,” say you, “do not kings also put men to death?”
They do, but only when that measure is recommended by the public
advantage: tyrants enjoy cruelty. A tyrant differs from a king in
deeds, not in title: for the elder Dionysius deserves to be preferred
before many kings, and what can prevent our styling Lucius Sulla a
tyrant, since he only left off slaying because he had no more enemies
to slay? Although he laid down his dictatorship and resumed the
garb of a private citizen, yet what tyrant ever drank human blood
as greedily as he, who ordered seven thousand Roman citizens to be
butchered, and who, on hearing the shrieks of so many thousands
being put to the sword as he sat in the temple of Bellona, said to
the terror-stricken Senate, “Let us attend to our business, Conscript
Fathers; it is only a few disturbers of the public peace who are
being put to death by my orders.” In saying this he did not lie:
they really seemed few to Sulla. But we shall speak of Sulla
presently, when we consider how we ought to feel anger against our
enemies, at any rate when our own countrymen, members of the same
community as ourselves, have been torn away from it and assumed the
name of enemies: in the meanwhile, as I was saying, clemency is
what makes the great distinction between kings and tyrants. Though
each of them may be equally fenced around by armed soldiers,
nevertheless the one uses his troops to safeguard the peace of his
kingdom, the other uses them to quell great hatred by great terror:
and yet he does not look with any confidence upon those to whose
hands he entrusts himself. He is driven in opposite directions by
conflicting passions: for since he is hated because he is feared,
he wishes to be feared because he is {398} hated: and he acts up
to the spirit of that odious verse, which has cast so many headlong
from their thrones—

    “Why, let them hate me, if they fear me too!”—

not knowing how frantic men become when their hatred becomes
excessive: for a moderate amount of fear restrains men, but a
constant and keen apprehension of the worst tortures rouses up even
the most grovelling spirits to deeds of reckless courage, and causes
them to hesitate at nothing. Just so a string stuck full of feathers[9]
will prevent wild beasts escaping: but should a horseman begin to
shoot at them from another quarter, they will attempt to escape
over the very thing that scared them, and will trample the cause
of their alarm underfoot. No courage is so great as that which is
born of utter desperation. In order to keep people down by terror,
you must grant them a certain amount of security, and let them see
that they have far more to hope for than to fear: for otherwise,
if a man is in equal peril whether he sits still or takes action,
he will feel actual pleasure in risking his life, and will fling
it away as lightly as though it were not his own.

XIII. A calm and peaceful king trusts his guards, because he makes
use of them to ensure the common safety of all his subjects, and
his soldiers, who see that the security of the state depends upon
their labours, cheerfully undergo the severest toil and glory in
being the protectors of the father of their country: whereas your
harsh and murderous tyrant must needs be disliked even by his own
janissaries. No man can expect willing and loyal service from those
whom he uses like the rack and the axe, as instruments of torture
and death, to whom he casts men as he would cast them to wild beasts.
No prisoner at the bar is so full of agony and anxiety as a tyrant;
for while he dreads both gods and men because they have witnessed,
{399} and will avenge his crimes, he has at the same time so far
committed himself to this course of action that he is not able to
alter it. This is perhaps the very worst quality of cruelty: a man
must go on exercising it, and it is impossible for him to retrace
his steps and start in a better path; for crimes must be safeguarded
by fresh crimes. Yet who can be more unhappy than he who is actually
compelled to be a villain? How greatly he ought to be pitied: I
mean, by himself, for it would be impious for others to pity a man
who has made use of his power to murder and ravage, who has rendered
himself mistrusted by every one at home and abroad, who fears the
very soldiers to whom he flees for safety, who dare not rely upon
the loyalty of his friends or the affection of his children: who,
whenever he considers what he has done, and what he is about to do,
and calls to mind all the crimes and torturings with which his
conscience is burdened, must often fear death, and yet must often
wish for it, for he must be even more hateful to himself than he
is to his subjects. On the other hand, he who takes an interest in
the entire state, who watches over every department of it with more
or less care, who attends to all the business of the state as well
as if it were his own, who is naturally inclined to mild measures,
and shows, even when it is to his advantage to punish, how unwilling
he is to make use of harsh remedies; who has no angry or savage
feelings, but wields his authority calmly and beneficially, being
anxious that even his subordinate officers shall be popular with
his countrymen, who thinks his happiness complete if he can make
the nation share his prosperity, who is courteous in language, whose
presence is easy of access, who looks obligingly upon his subjects,
who is disposed to grant all their reasonable wishes, and does not
treat their unreasonable wishes with harshness—such a prince is
loved, protected, and worshipped by his whole empire. Men talk of
such a one in private in the same {400} words which they use in
public: they are eager to bring up families under his reign, and
they put an end to the childlessness which public misery had
previously rendered general: every one feels that he will indeed
deserve that his children should be grateful to him for having
brought them into so happy an age. Such a prince is rendered safe
by his own beneficence; he has no need of guards, their arms serve
him merely as decorations.

XIV. What, then, is his duty? It is that of good parents, who
sometimes scold their children goodnaturedly, sometimes threaten
them, and sometimes even flog them. No man in his senses disinherits
his son for his first offence: he does not pass this extreme sentence
upon him unless his patience has been worn out by many grievous
wrongs, unless he fears that his son will do something worse than
that which he punishes him for having done; before doing this he
makes many attempts to lead his son’s mind into the right way while
it is still hesitating between good and evil and has only taken its
first steps in depravity; it is only when its case is hopeless that
he adopts this extreme measure. No one demands that people should
be executed until after he has failed to reform them. This which
is the duty of a parent, is also that of the prince whom with no
unmeaning flattery we call “The Father of our Country.” Other names
are given as titles of honour: we have styled some men “The Great,”
“The Fortunate,” or “The August,” and have thus satisfied their
passion for grandeur by bestowing upon them all the dignity that
we could: but when we style a man “The Father of his Country” we
give him to understand that we have entrusted him with a father’s
power over us, which is of the mildest character, for a father takes
thought for his children and subordinates his own interests to
theirs. It is long before a father will cut off a member of his own
body: even after he has cut it off he longs to replace it, and in
cutting it off he laments {401} and hesitates much and long: for
he who condemns quickly is not far from being willing to condemn;
and he who inflicts too great punishment comes very near to punishing
unjustly.

XV. Within my own recollection the people stabbed in the forum with
their writing-styles a Roman knight named Tricho, because he had
flogged his son to death: even the authority of Augustus Caesar
could hardly save him from the angry clutches of both fathers and
sons: but every one admired Tarius, who, on discovering that his
son meditated parricide, tried him, convicted him, and was then
satisfied with punishing him by exile, and that, too, to that
pleasant place of exile, Marseilles, where he made him the same
yearly allowance which he had done while he was innocent: the result
of this generosity was that even in a city where every villain finds
some one to defend him, no one doubted that he was justly condemned,
since even the father who was unable to hate him, nevertheless had
condemned him. In this very same instance I will give you an example
of a good prince, which you may compare with a good father. Tarius,
when about to sit in judgement on his son, invited Augustus Caesar
to assist in trying him: Augustus came into his private house, sat
beside the father, took part in another man’s family council, and
did not say, “Nay, let him rather come to my house,” because if he
had done so, the trial would have been conducted by Caesar and not
by the father. When the cause had been heard, after all that the
young man pleaded in his own defence and all that was alleged against
him had been thoroughly discussed, the emperor begged that each man
would write his sentence (instead of pronouncing it aloud), in order
that they might not all follow Caesar in giving sentence: then,
before the tablets were opened, he declared that if Tarius, who was
a rich man, made him his heir, he would not accept the bequest. One
might say “It showed a paltry mind in him {402} to fear that people
would think that he condemned the son in order to enable himself
to inherit the estate.” I am of a contrary opinion—any one of us
ought to have sufficient trust in the consciousness of his own
integrity to defend him against calumny, but princes must take great
pains to avoid even the appearance of evil. He swore that he would
not accept the property. On that day Tarius lost two heirs to his
estate, but Caesar gained the liberty of forming an unbiassed
judgement: and when he had proved that his severity was disinterested,
a point of which a prince should never lose sight, he gave sentence
that the son should be banished to whatever place the father might
choose. He did not sentence him to the sack and the snakes, or to
prison, because he thought, not of who it was upon whom he was
passing sentence, but of who it was with whom he was sitting in
judgement: he said that a father ought to be satisfied with the
mildest form of punishment for his stripling son, who had been
seduced into a crime which he had attempted so faintheartedly as
to be almost innocent of it, and that he ought to be removed from
Rome and out of his father’s sight.

XVI. How worthy was he to be invited by fathers to join their family
councils: how worthy to be made co-heir with innocent children!
This is the sort of clemency which befits a prince; wherever he
goes, let him make every one more charitable. In the king’s sight,
no one ought to be so despicable that he should not notice whether
he lives or dies: be his character what it may, he is a part of the
empire. Let us take examples for great kingdoms from smaller ones.
There are many forms of royalty: a prince reigns over his subjects,
a father over his children, a teacher over his scholars, a tribune
or centurion over his soldiers. Would not he, who constantly punished
his children by beating them for the most trifling faults, be thought
the worst of fathers? Which is worthier to impart {403} a liberal
education: he who flays his scholars alive if their memory be weak,
or if their eyes do not run quickly along the lines as they read,
or he who prefers to improve and instruct them by kindly warnings
and moral influence? If a tribune or a centurion is harsh, he will
make men deserters, and one cannot blame them for desertion. It is
never right to rule a human being more harshly and cruelly than we
rule dumb animals; yet a skilled horse-breaker will not scare a
horse by frequent blows, because he will become timid and vicious
if you do not soothe him with pats and caresses. So also a huntsman,
both when he is teaching puppies to follow the tracks of wild
animals, and when he uses dogs already trained to drive them from
their lairs and hunt them, does not often threaten to beat them,
for, if he does, he will break their spirit, and make them stupid
and currish with fear; though, on the other hand, he will not allow
them to roam and range about unrestrained. The same is the case
with those who drive the slower draught cattle, which, though brutal
treatment and wretchedness is their lot from their birth, still,
by excessive cruelty may be made to refuse to draw.

XVII. No creature is more self-willed, requires more careful
management, or ought to be treated with greater indulgence than
man. What, indeed, can be more foolish than that we should blush
to show anger against dogs or beasts of burden, and yet wish one
man to be most abominably ill-treated by another? We are not angry
with diseases, but apply remedies to them: but this also is a disease
of the mind, and requires soothing medicine and a physician who is
anything but angry with his patient. It is the part of a bad physician
to despair of effecting a cure: he, to whom the care of all men’s
well-being is entrusted, ought to act like a good physician, and
not be in a hurry to give up hope or to declare that the symptoms
are mortal: he should wrestle with vices, withstand them, reproach
{404} some with their distemper, and deceive others by a soothing
mode of treatment, because he will cure his patient more quickly
and more thoroughly if the medicines which he administers escape
his notice: a prince should take care not only of the recovery of
his people, but also that their scars should be honourable. Cruel
punishments do a king no honour: for who doubts that he is able to
inflict them? but, on the other hand, it does him great honour to
restrain his powers, to save many from the wrath of others, and
sacrifice no one to his own.

XVIII. It is creditable to a man to keep within reasonable bounds
in his treatment of his slaves. Even in the case of a human chattel
one ought to consider, not how much one can torture him with impunity,
but how far such treatment is permitted by natural goodness and
justice, which prompts us to act kindly towards even prisoners of
war and slaves bought for a price (how much more towards free-born,
respectable gentlemen?), and not to treat them with scornful brutality
as human chattels, but as persons somewhat below ourselves in
station, who have been placed under our protection rather than
assigned to us as servants. Slaves are allowed to run and take
sanctuary at the statue of a god, though the laws allows a slave
to be ill-treated to any extent, there are nevertheless some things
which the common laws of life forbid us to do to a human being. Who
does not hate Vedius Pollio[10] more even than his own slaves did,
because he used to fatten his lampreys with human blood, and ordered
those who had offended him in any way to be cast into his fish-pond,
or rather snake-pond? That {405} man deserved to die a thousand
deaths, both for throwing his slaves to be devoured by the lampreys
which he himself meant to eat, and for keeping lampreys that he
might feed them in such a fashion. Cruel masters are pointed at
with disgust in all parts of the city, and are hated and loathed;
the wrong-doings of kings are enacted on a wider theatre: their
shame and unpopularity endures for ages: yet how far better it would
have been never to have been born than to be numbered among those
who have been born to do their country harm!

XIX. Nothing can be imagined which is more becoming to a sovereign
than clemency, by whatever title and right he may be set over his
fellow citizens. The greater his power, the more beautiful and
admirable he will confess his clemency to be: for there is no reason
why power should do any harm, if only it be wielded in accordance
with the laws of nature. Nature herself has conceived the idea of
a king, as you may learn from various animals, and especially from
bees, among whom the king’s cell is the roomiest, and is placed in
the most central and safest part of the hive; moreover, he does no
work, but employs himself in keeping the others up to their work.
If the king be lost, the entire swarm disperses: they never endure
to have more than one king at a time, and find out which is the
better by making them fight with one another: moreover the king is
distinguished by his statelier appearance, being both larger and
more brilliantly coloured than the other bees. The most remarkable
distinction, however, is the following: bees are very fierce, and
for their size are the most pugnacious of creatures, and leave their
stings in the wounds which they make, but the king himself has no
sting: nature does not wish him to be savage or to seek revenge at
so dear a rate, and so has deprived him of his weapon and disarmed
his rage. She has offered him as a pattern to great sovereigns: for
she is wont to practise {406} herself in small matters, and to
scatter abroad tiny models of the hugest structures. We ought to
be ashamed of not learning a lesson in behaviour from these small
creatures, for a man, who has so much more power of doing harm than
they, ought to show a correspondingly greater amount of self-control.
Would that human beings were subject to the same law, and that their
anger destroyed itself together with its instrument, so that they
could only inflict a wound once, and would not make use of the
strength of others to carry out their hatreds: for their fury would
soon grow faint if it carried its own punishment with it, and could
only give rein to its violence at the risk of death. Even as it is,
however, no one can exercise it with safety, for he must needs feel
as much fear as he hopes to cause, he must watch every one’s
movements, and even when his enemies are not laying violent hands
upon him he must bear in mind that they are plotting to do so, and
he cannot have a single moment free from alarm. Would any one endure
to live such a life as this, when he might enjoy the privileges of
his high station to the general joy of all men, without injuring
any one, and for that very reason have no one to fear? for it is a
mistake to suppose that the king can be safe in a state where nothing
is safe from the king: he can only purchase a life without anxiety
for himself by guaranteeing the same for his subjects. He need not
pile up lofty citadels, escarp steep hills, cut away the sides of
mountains, and fence himself about with many lines of walls and
towers: clemency will render a king safe even upon an open plain.
The one fortification which cannot be stormed is the love of his
countrymen. What can be more glorious than a life which every one
spontaneously and without official pressure hopes may last long?
to excite men’s fears, not their hopes, if one’s health gives way
a little? to know that no one holds anything so dear that he would
not be glad to give it in exchange for the health of his sovereign?
“O, may {407} no evil befall him!” they would cry: “he must live
for his own sake, not only for ours: his constant proofs of goodness
have made him belong to the state instead of the state belonging
to him.” Who would dare to plot any danger to such a king? Who would
not rather, if he could, keep misfortune far from one under whom
justice, peace, decency, security and merit flourish, under whom
the state grows rich with an abundance of all good things, and looks
upon its ruler in the same spirit of adoration and respect with
which we should look upon the immortal gods, if they allowed us to
behold them as we behold him? Why! does not that man come very close
to the gods who acts in a god-like manner, and who is beneficent,
open-handed, and powerful for good? Your aim and your pride ought
to lie in being thought the best, as well as the greatest of mankind.

XX. A prince generally inflicts punishment for one of two reasons:
he wishes either to assert his own rights or those of another. I
will first discuss the case in which he is personally concerned,
for it is more difficult for him to act with moderation when he
acts under the impulse of actual pain than when he merely does so
for the sake of the example. It is unnecessary in this place to
remind him to be slow to believe what he hears, to ferret out the
truth, to show favour to innocence, and to bear in mind that to
prove it is as much the business of the judge as that of the prisoner;
for these considerations are connected with justice, not with
clemency: what we are now encouraging him to do is not to lose
control over his feelings when he receives an unmistakeable injury,
and to forego punishing it if he possibly can do so with safety,
if not, to moderate the severity of the punishment, and to show
himself far more unwilling to forgive wrongs done to others than
those done to himself: for, just as the truly generous man is not
he who gives away what belongs to others, but he who deprives himself
of what he gives to another, so also I should not call a prince
clement {408} who looked goodnaturedly upon a wrong done to someone
else, but one who is unmoved even by the sting of a personal injury,
who understands how magnanimous it is for one whose power is unlimited
to allow himself to be wronged, and that there is no more noble
spectacle than that of a sovereign who has received an injury without
avenging it.

XXI. Vengeance effects two purposes: it either affords compensation
to the person to whom the wrong was done, or it ensures him against
molestation for the future. A prince is too rich to need compensation,
and his power is too evident for him to require to gain a reputation
for power by causing any one to suffer. I mean, when he is attacked
and injured by his inferiors, for if he sees those who once were
his equals in a position of inferiority to himself he is sufficiently
avenged. A king may be killed by a slave, or a serpent, or an arrow:
but no one can be saved except by some one who is greater than him
whom he saves. He, therefore, who has the power of giving and of
taking away life ought to use such a great gift of heaven in a
spirited manner. Above all, if he once obtains this power over those
who he knows were once on a level with himself, he has completed
his revenge, and done all that he need to towards the punishment
of his adversary: for he who owes his life to another must have
lost it, and he who has been cast down from on high and lies at his
enemy’s feet with his kingdom and his life depending upon the
pleasure of another, adds to the glory of his preserver if he be
allowed to live, and increases his reputation much more by remaining
unhurt than if he were put out of the way. In the former case he
remains as an everlasting testimony to the valour of his conqueror;
whereas if led in the procession of a triumph he would have soon
passed out of sight.[11] If, however, his kingdom also may be safely
left in his hands {409} and he himself replaced upon the throne
from which he has fallen, such a measure confers an immense increase
of lustre on him who scorned to take anything from a conquered king
beyond the glory of having conquered him. To do this is to triumph
even over one’s own victory, and to declare that one has found
nothing among the vanquished which it was worth the victor’s while
to take. As for his countrymen, strangers, and persons of mean
condition, he ought to treat them with all the less severity because
it costs so much less to overcome them. Some you would be glad to
spare, against some you would disdain to assert your rights, and
would forbear to touch them as you would to touch little insects
which defile your hands when you crush them: but in the case of men
upon whom all eyes are fixed, whether they be spared or condemned,
you should seize the opportunity of making your clemency widely
known.

XXII. Let us now pass on to the consideration of wrongs done to
others, in avenging which the law has aimed at three ends, which
the prince will do well to aim at also: they are, either that it
may correct him whom it punishes, or that his punishment may render
other men better, or that, by bad men being put out of the way, the
rest may live without fear. You will more easily correct the men
themselves by a slight punishment, for he who has some part of his
fortune remaining untouched will behave less recklessly; on the
other hand, no one cares about respectability after he has lost it:
it is a species of impunity to have nothing left for punishment to
take away. It is conducive, however, to good morals in a state,
that punishment should seldom be inflicted: for where there is a
multitude of sinners men become familiar with sin, shame is less
felt when shared with a number of fellow-criminals, and severe
sentences, if frequently pronounced, lose the influence which
constitutes their chief power as remedial measures. A good king
establishes a good standard of morals for his {410} kingdom and
drives away vices if he is long-suffering with them, not that he
should seem to encourage them, but to be very unwilling and to
suffer much when he is forced to chastise them. Clemency in a
sovereign even makes men ashamed to do wrong: for punishment seems
far more grievous when inflicted by a merciful man.

XXIII. Besides this, you will find that sins which are frequently
punished are frequently committed. Your father sewed up more
parricides in sacks during five years, than we hear of in all
previous centuries. As long as the greatest of crimes remained
without any special law, children were much more timid about
committing it. Our wise ancestors, deeply skilled in human nature,
preferred to pass over this as being a wickedness too great for
belief, and beyond the audacity of the worst criminal, rather than
teach men that it might be done by appointing a penalty for doing
it: parricides, consequently, were unknown until a law was made
against them, and the penalty showed them the way to the crime.
Filial affection soon perished, for since that time we have seen
more men punished by the sack than by the cross. Where men are
seldom punished innocence becomes the rule, and is encouraged as a
public benefit. If a state thinks itself innocent, it will be
innocent: it will be all the more angry with those who corrupt the
general simplicity of manners if it sees that they are few in number.
Believe me, it is a dangerous thing to show a state how great a
majority of bad men it contains.

XXIV. A proposal was once made in the Senate to distinguish slaves
from free men by their dress: it was then discovered how dangerous
it would be for our slaves to be able to count our numbers. Be
assured that the same thing would be the case if no one’s offence
is pardoned: it will quickly be discovered how far the number of
bad men exceeds that of the good. Many executions are as disgraceful
to a sovereign as many funerals are to a physician: {411} one who
governs less strictly is better obeyed. The human mind is naturally
self-willed, kicks against the goad, and sets its face against
authority; it will follow more readily than it can be led. As
well-bred and high-spirited horses are best managed with a loose
rein, so mercy gives men’s minds a spontaneous bias towards innocence,
and the public think that it is worth observing. Mercy, therefore,
does more good than severity.

XXV, Cruelty is far from being a human vice, and is unworthy of
man’s gentle mind: it is mere bestial madness to take pleasure in
blood and wounds, to cast off humanity and transform oneself into
a wild beast of the forest. Pray, Alexander, what is the difference
between your throwing Lysimachus into a lion’s den and tearing his
flesh with your own teeth? it is you that have the lion’s maw, and
the lion’s fierceness. How pleased you would be if you had claws
instead of nails, and jaws that were capable of devouring men! We
do not expect of you that your hand, the sure murderer of your best
friends, should restore health to any one; or that your proud spirit,
that inexhaustible source of evil to all nations, should be satisfied
with anything short of blood and slaughter: we rather call it mercy
that your friend should have a human being chosen to be his butcher.
The reason why cruelty is the most hateful of all vices is that it
goes first beyond the ordinary limits, and then beyond those of
humanity; that it devises new kinds of punishments, calls ingenuity
to aid it in inventing devices for varying and lengthening men’s
torture, and takes delight in their sufferings: this accursed disease
of the mind reaches its highest pitch of madness when cruelty itself
turns into pleasure, and the act of killing a man becomes enjoyment.
Such a ruler is soon cast down from his throne; his life is attempted
by poison one day and by the sword the next; he is exposed to as
many dangers as there are men to whom he is dangerous, and he {412}
is sometimes destroyed by the plots of individuals, and at others
by a general insurrection. Whole communities are not roused to
action by unimportant outrages on private persons; but cruelty which
takes a wider range, and from which no one is safe, becomes a mark
for all men’s weapons. Very small snakes escape our notice, and the
whole country does not combine to destroy them; but when one of
them exceeds the usual size and grows into a monster, when it poisons
fountains with its spittle, scorches herbage with its breath, and
spreads ruin wherever it crawls, we shoot at it with military
engines. Trifling evils may cheat us and elude our observation, but
we gird up our loins to attack great ones. One sick person does not
so much as disquiet the house in which he lies; but when frequent
deaths show that a plague is raging, there is a general outcry, men
take to flight and shake their fists angrily at the very gods
themselves. If a fire breaks out under one single roof, the family
and the neighbours pour water upon it; but a wide conflagration
which has consumed many houses must be smothered under the ruins
of a whole quarter of a city.

XXVI. The cruelty even of private men has sometimes been revenged
by their slaves in spite of the certainty that they will be crucified:
whole kingdoms and nations when oppressed by tyrants or threatened
by them, have attempted their destruction. Sometimes their own
guards have risen in revolt, and have used against their master all
the deceit, disloyalty, and ferocity which they have learned from
him. What, indeed, can he expect from those whom he has taught to
be wicked? A bad man will not long be obedient, and will not do
only as much evil as he is ordered. But even if the tyrant may be
cruel with safety, how miserable his kingdom must be: it must look
like a city taken by storm, like some frightful scene of general
panic. Everywhere sorrow, anxiety, disorder; men dread even their
own pleasures; they cannot even dine with one another in safety
{413} when they have to keep watch over their tongues even when in
their cups, nor can they safely attend the public shows when informers
are ready to find grounds for their impeachment in their behaviour
there. Although the spectacles be provided at an enormous expense,
with royal magnificence and with world-famous artists, yet who cares
for amusement when he is in prison? Ye gods! what a miserable life
it is to slaughter and to rage, to delight in the clanking of chains,
and to cut off one’s countrymen’s heads, to cause blood to flow
freely wherever one goes, to terrify people, and make them flee
away out of one’s sight! It is what would happen if bears or lions
were our masters, if serpents and all the most venomous creatures
were given power over us. Even these animals, devoid of reason as
they are, and accused by us of cruel ferocity, spare their own kind,
and wild beasts themselves respect their own likeness: but the fury
of tyrants does not even stop short at their own relations, and
they treat friends and strangers alike, only becoming more violent
the more they indulge their passions. By insensible degrees he
proceeds from the slaughter of individuals to the ruin of nations,
and thinks it a sign of power to set roofs on fire and to plough
up the sites of ancient cities: he considers it unworthy of an
emperor to order only one or two people to be put to death, and
thinks that his cruelty is unduly restrained if whole troops of
wretches are not sent to execution together. True happiness, on the
other hand; consists in saving many men’s lives, in calling them
back from the very gates of death, and in being so merciful as to
deserve a civic crown.[12] No decoration is more worthy or more
becoming to a prince’s rank than that crown “for saving the lives
of fellow-citizens”: not trophies torn from a vanquished enemy, not
{414} chariots wet with their savage owner’s blood, not spoils
captured in war. This power which saves men’s lives by crowds and
by nations, is godlike: the power of extensive and indiscrimate
massacre is the power of downfall and conflagration.


[1] _Nobilis_.

[2] The text is corrupt. I have followed Gertz’s conjectural
emendation, _mansuefactionis_, but I believe that Lipsius is right
in thinking that a great deal more than one word has been lost here.

[3] _Pace_.

[4] Tutum.

[5] Gertz reads _sexagesimum_, his sixtieth year, which he calls
“the not very audacious conjecture of Wesseling,” and adds that he
does so because of the words at the beginning of chap. xi. and the
authority of Dion Cassius. The ordinary reading is _quadragesimum_,
“his fortieth year,” and this is the date to which Cinna’s conspiracy
is referred to by Merivale, “History of the Romans under the Empire,”
vol. iv. ch, 37. “A plot,” he says, “was formed for his destruction,
at the head of which was Cornelius Cinna, described as a son of
Faustus Sulla by a daughter of the Great Pompeius.” The story of
Cinna’s conspiracy is told by Seneca, de Clem, i, 9, and Dion iv.
14, foll. They agree in the main fact; but Seneca is our authority
for the details of the interview between Augustus and his enemy,
while Dion has doubtless invented his long conversation between the
emperor and Livia. Seneca, however, calls the conspirator Lucius,
and places the event in the fortieth year of Augustus (A.D. 731),
the scene in Gaul: Dion, on the other, gives the names of Gnaeus,
and supposes the circumstances to have occured twenty-six years
later, and at Rome. It may be observed that a son of Faustus Sulla
must have been at least fifty at this latter date, nor do we know
why he should bear the name of Cinna, though an adoption is not
impossible.

[6] See Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar,” Act IV, Sc. 1.

[7] In allusion to the title of “Father of his country,” bestowed
by the Senate upon Augustus. See Merivale, ch. 33.

[8] This whole comparison, which reads so meaninglessly both in
Latin and in English, is borrowed from the eternal declamations of
Plutarch and the Greek philosophers about βασιλεῖς and τύραννοι.
See Plutarch, Lives of Philopoemen and Aratus, Plato, Gorgias and
Politicus; Arnold, “Appendix to Thucydides,” vol. i., and “Dictionary
of Antiquities,” _s.v._

[9] De lra, ii. 11.

[10] Vedius Pollio had a villa on the mountain now called Punta di
Posilippo, which projects into the sea between Naples and Puteoli,
which he left to Augustus, and which was afterwards possessed by
the Emperor Trajan. He was a freedman by birth, and remarkable for
nothing except his riches and his cruelty. Cf. Dion Cassius, liv.
23; Pliny, H. N. ix. 23; and Seneca, “On Anger,” iii. 40, 2.

[11] The conquered princes who were led through Rome in triumphs
were as a rule put to death when the procession was over.

[12] The “civic” crown of oak-leaves was bestowed on him who had
saved the life of a fellow-citizen in war. It was bestowed upon
Augustus, and after him upon the other emperors, as preservers of
the state.




{415}

THE SECOND BOOK OF THE DIALOGUE OF L. ANNAEUS SENECA, ADDRESSED TO
NERO CAESAR.

ON CLEMENCY.


I. I have been especially led to write about clemency, Nero Caesar,
by a saying of yours, which I remember having heard with admiration
and which I afterwards told to others: a noble saying, showing a
great mind and great gentleness, which suddenly burst from you
without premeditation, and was not meant to reach any ears but your
own, and which displayed the conflict which was raging between your
natural goodness and your imperial duties. Your prefect Burrus, an
excellent man who was born to be the servant of such an emperor as
you are, was about to order two brigands to be executed, and was
pressing you to write their names and the grounds on which they
were to be put to death: this had often been put off, and he was
insisting that it should then be done. When he reluctantly produced
the document and put it into your equally reluctant hands, you
exclaimed: “Would that I had never learned my letters!” O what a
speech, how worthy to be heard by all nations, both those who dwell
within the Roman Empire, those who enjoy a debatable independence
upon its borders, and those who either in will or in deed fight
against it! It is a speech which ought to be spoken {416} before a
meeting of all mankind, whose words all kings and princes ought to
swear to obey: a speech worthy of the days of human innocence, and
worthy to bring back that golden age. Now in truth we ought all to
agree to love righteousness and goodness; covetousness, which is
the root of all evil, ought to be driven away, piety and virtue,
good faith and modesty ought to resume their interrupted reign, and
the vices which have so long and so shamefully ruled us ought at
last to give way to an age of happiness and purity.

II. To a great extent, Caesar, we may hope and expect that this
will come to pass. Let your own goodness of heart be gradually
spread and diffused throughout the whole body of the empire, and
all parts of it will mould themselves into your likeness. Good
health proceeds from the head into all the members of the body:
they are all either brisk and erect, or languid and drooping,
according as their guiding spirit blooms or withers. Both Romans
and allies will prove worthy of this goodness of yours, and good
morals will return to all the world: your hands will everywhere
find less to do. Allow me to dwell somewhat upon this saying of
yours, not because it is a pleasant subject for your ears (indeed,
this is not my way; I would rather offend by telling the truth than
curry favour by flattery). What, then, is my reason? Besides wishing
that you should be as familiar as possible with your own good deeds
and good words, in order that what is now untutored impulse may
grow into matured decision, I remember that many great but odious
sayings have become part of human life and are familiar in men’s
mouths, such as that celebrated “Let them hate me, provided that
they fear me,” which is like that Greek verse, έμοῦ θανόντος γαῖα
μιχθήτω πνρί, in which a man bids the earth perish in flame after
he is dead, and others of the like sort. I know not how it is, but
certainly human ingenuity seems to have found it {417} easier to
find emphatic and ardent expression for monstrous and cynical
sentiments: I have never hitherto heard any spirited saying from a
good and gentle person. What, then, is the upshot of all this? It
is that, albeit seldom and against your will, and after much
hesitation, you sometimes nevertheless must write that which made
you hate your letters, but that you ought to do so with great
hesitation and after many postponements, even as you now do.

III. But lest the plausible word “mercy” should sometimes deceive
us and lead us into the opposite extreme, let us consider what mercy
is, what its qualities are, and within what limits it is confined.

Mercy is “a restraining of the mind from vengeance when it is in
its power to avenge itself,” or it is “gentleness shown by a powerful
man in fixing the punishment of a weaker one.” It is safer to have
more than one definition, since one may not include the whole
subject, and may, so to speak, lose its cause: mercy, therefore,
may likewise be termed a tendency towards mildness in inflicting
punishment. It is possible to discover certain inconsistencies in
the definition which comes nearer the truth than all the rest, which
is to call mercy “self-restraint, which remits some part of a fine
which it deserves to receive and which is due to it.” To this it
will be objected that no virtue ever gives any man less than his
due. However, all men understand mercy to consist in coming short
of the penalty which might with justice be inflicted.

IV. The unlearned think that its opposite is strictness: but no
virtue is the opposite of another virtue. What, then, is the opposite
of mercy? Cruelty: which is nothing more than obstinacy in exacting
punishments. “But,” say you, “some men do not exact punishments,
and nevertheless are cruel, such as those who kill the strangers
whom they meet, not in order to rob them, but for killing’s sake,
and men who are not satisfied with killing, but kill {418} with
savage tortures, like the famous Busiris,[1] and Procrustes, and
pirates who flog their captives and burn them alive.” This appears
to be cruelty: but as it is not the result of vengeance (for it has
received no wrong), and is not excited by any offence (for no crime
has preceded it), it does not come within our definition, which was
limited to “extravagance in exacting the penalties of wrongdoing.”
We may say that this is not cruelty, but ferocity, which finds
pleasure in savagery: or we may call it madness; for madness is of
various kinds, and there is no truer madness than that which takes
to slaughtering and mutilating human beings. I shall, therefore,
call those persons cruel who have a reason for punishing but who
punish without moderation, like Phalaris, who is not said to have
tortured innocent men, but to have tortured criminals with inhuman
and incredible barbarity. We may avoid hairsplitting by defining
cruelty to be “a tendency of the mind towards harsh measures.” Mercy
repels cruelty and bids it be far from her: with strictness she is
on terms of amity.

At this point it is useful to inquire into what pity is; for many
praise it as a virtue, and say that a good man is full of pity.
This also is a disease of the mind. Both of these stand close to
mercy and to strictness, and both ought to be avoided, lest under
the name of strictness we be led into cruelty, and under the name
of mercy into pity. It is less dangerous to make the latter mistake,
but both lead us equally far away from the truth.

V. Just as the gods are worshipped by religion, but are dishonoured
by superstition, so all good men will show mercy and mildness, but
will avoid pity, which is a vice incident to weak minds which cannot
endure the sight of another’s sufferings. It is, therefore, most
commonly {419} found in the worst people; there are old women and
girls[2] who are affected by the tears of the greatest criminals,
and who, if they could, would let them out of prison. Pity considers
a man’s misfortunes and does not consider to what they are due:
mercy is combined with reason. I know that the doctrine of the
Stoics is unpopular among the ignorant as being excessively severe
and not at all likely to give kings and princes good advice; it is
blamed because it declares that the wise man knows not how to feel
pity or to grant pardon. These doctrines, if taken separately, are
indeed odious, for they appear to give men no hope of repairing
their mistakes but exact a penalty for every slip. If this were
true, how can it be true wisdom to bid us put off human feeling,
and to exclude us from mutual help, that surest haven of refuge
against the attacks of Fortune? But no school of philosophy is more
gentle and benignant, none is more full of love towards man or more
anxious to promote the happiness of all, seeing that its maxims
are, to be of service and assistance to others, and to consult the
interests of each and all, not of itself alone. Pity is a disorder
of the mind caused by the sight of other men’s miseries, or it is
a sadness caused by the evils with which it believes others to be
undeservedly afflicted: but the wise man cannot be affected by any
disorder: his mind is calm, and nothing can possibly happen to
ruffle it. Moreover, nothing becomes a man more than magnanimity:
but magnanimity cannot coexist with sorrow. Sorrow overwhelms men’s
minds, casts them down, contracts them: now this cannot happen to
the wise man even in his greatest misfortunes, but he will beat
back the rage of Fortune and triumph over it: he will {420} always
retain the same calm, undisturbed expression of countenance, which
he never could do were he accessible to sorrow.

VI. Add to this, that the wise man provides for the future and
always has a distinct plan of action ready: yet nothing clear and
true can flow from a disturbed source. Sorrow is awkward at reviewing
the position of affairs, at devising useful expedients, avoiding
dangerous courses, and weighing the merits of fair and just ones:
therefore the wise man will not feel pity, because this cannot
happen to a man unless his mind is disturbed. He will do willingly
and highmindedly all that those who feel pity are wont to do; he
will dry the tears of others, but will not mingle his own with them;
he will stretch out his hand to the shipwrecked mariner, will offer
hospitality to the exile, and alms to the needy—not in the offensive
way in which most of those who wish to be thought tender-hearted
fling their bounty to those whom they assist and shrink from their
touch, but as one man would give another something out of the common
stock—he will restore children to their weeping mothers, will loose
the chains of the captive, release the gladiator from his bondage,
and even bury the carcase of the criminal, but he will perform all
this with a calm mind and unaltered expression of countenance. Thus
the wise man will not pity men, but will help them and be of service
to them, seeing that he is born to be a help to all men and a public
benefit, of which he will bestow a share upon every one. He will
even grant a proportional part of his bounty to those sufferers who
deserve blame and correction; but he will much more willingly help
those whose troubles and adversities are caused by misfortune.
Whenever he is able he will interpose between Fortune and her
victims: for what better employment can he find for his wealth or
his strength than in setting up again what chance has overthrown?
He will not show or feel any {421} disgust at a man’s having withered
legs, or a flabby wrinkled skin, or supporting his aged body upon
a staff; but he will do good to those who deserve it, and will,
like a god, look benignantly upon all who are in trouble. Pity
borders upon misery: it is partly composed of it and partly derived
from it. You know that eyes must be weak, if they fill with rheum
at the sight of another’s blearedness, just as it is not real
merriment but hysteria which makes people laugh because others
laugh, and yawn whenever others open their jaws: pity is a defect
in the mind of people who are extraordinarily affected by suffering,
and he who requires a wise man to exhibit it is not far from requiring
him to lament and groan when strangers are buried.

VII. But why should he not pardon?[3] Let us decide by exact
definition this other slippery matter, the true nature of pardon,
and we shall then perceive that the wise man ought not to grant it.
Pardon is the remitting of a deserved punishment. The reasons why
the wise man ought not to grant this remission are given at length
by those of whom this question is specially asked: I will briefly
say, as though it were no concern of mine to decide this point, “A
man grants pardon to one whom he ought to punish: now the wise man
does nothing which he ought not to do, and omits to [do] nothing
which he ought to do: he does not, therefore, remit any punishment
which he ought to exact. But the wise man will bestow upon you in
a more honourable way that which you wish to obtain by pardon, for
he will make allowances for you, will consult your interests, and
will correct your bad habits: he will act just as though he were
pardoning you, but nevertheless he will not pardon you, because he
who pardons admits that in so doing he has neglected a part of {422}
his duty. He will only punish some people by reprimanding them, and
will inflict no further penalty if he considers that they are of
an age which admits of reformation: some people who are undeniably
implicated in an odious charge he will acquit, because they were
deceived into committing, or were not sober when they committed the
offence with which they are charged: he will let his enemies depart
unharmed, sometimes even with words of commendation, if they have
taken up arms to defend their honour, their covenants with others,
their freedom, or on any other honourable ground. All these doings
come under the head of mercy, not of pardon. Mercy is free to come
to what decision it pleases: she gives her decision, not under any
statute, but according to equity and goodness: she may acquit the
defendant, or impose what damages she pleases. She does not do any
of these things as though she were doing less than justice requires,
but as though the justest possible course were that which she adopts.
On the other hand, to pardon is not to punish a man whom you have
decided ought to be punished; pardon is the remission of a punishment
which ought to be inflicted. The first advantage which mercy has
over it is that she does not tell those whom she lets off that they
ought to have suffered: she is more complete, more honourable than
pardon.”

In my opinion, this is a mere dispute about words, and we are agreed
about the thing itself. The wise man will remit many penalties, and
will save many who are wicked, but whose wickedness is not incurable.
He will act like good husbandmen, who do not cultivate only straight
and tall trees, but also apply props to straighten those which have
been rendered crooked by various causes; they trim some, lest the
luxuriance of their boughs should hinder their upward growth, they
nurse those which have been {423} weakened by being planted in an
unsuitable position, and they give air to those which are overshadowed
by the foliage of others. The wise man will see the several treatments
suitable to several dispositions, and how what is crooked may be
straightened. . . .


[1] A king of Egypt, who sacrificed strangers, and was himself slain
by Hercules.

[2] “Three or four wenches where I stood, cried ‘Alas, good soul!—’
and forgave him with all their hearts: but there’s no heed to be
taken of them; if Caesar had stabbed their mothers, they would have
done no less.”—“Julius Caesar,” act i. sc. 2.

[3] See above, chap. v.


THE END.




{425}

INDEX.


A

Alexander the Great, 78, 98, 135, 141, 411.

Alexandria, Library of, 270.

Anger, 48; signs of, 49; results of, 50; definitions of, 50_n_;
animals not subject to, 52; not natural, 54; should be resisted at
the beginning, 57; examples of its results, 60; not necessary against
enemies, 60; nor useful, 63; not necessary for punishment, 68;
contrasted with reason, 69; creates vain-glory, but not magnanimity,
73; cannot act without the approval of the mind, 77; contrasted
with ferocity, 80; the wise man will never be angry, 81; anger and
fear, 87; anger ought to be done away with, 88; must never become
a habit, 90; remedies for, 93; some men more prone to, than others,
93; influence of education, 95; and of prosperity, 96; cause of,
97; effect of trifles, 99; delay the best remedy, 104; anger caused
by ignorance or arrogance, 106; or by desire for revenge, 108; its
hideousness and danger, 111; its power, 114; contrasted with other
vices and passions, 116; how to avoid it, 120; examples of anger
indulged in, Cambyses, 131, 139; Astyages, 133; Darius, 135; Xerxes,
135; Alexander, 135; Lysimachus, 136; Caligula, 137, 139; Rhinocolura,
138; Cyrus, 139; examples of anger controlled, Antigonus, 140;
Philip, 141; Augustus, 142; how injuries ought to be bourne, 144;
better to heal than to avenge them, 146; the evils of anger, 147;
its trifling beginnings, 149; money, 151; other causes, 152; value
of self-examination, 154; how to soothe the anger of others, 156;
Augustus and Vedius, 158; anger should be got rid of altogether,
159.

Animals, anger in, 49, 52.

Antigonus (monophthalmus), 141.

Antisthenes, 45.

Antonius, M., 374, 391.

Aristides, 341.

Aristotle, 51_n_, 52, 58, 68, 118, 135, 287, 288.

Apicius, the glutton, 217, 336.

Asinius Pollio, 142, 285.

Astyages, King of Persia, 133.

Augustus. _See_ Caesar.

{426}

Avarice, conquered by anger, 114.

Athenodorus, quoted, 259, 265.

B

Bees, 405.

Bibulus, L., 181.

Bion, quoted, 267, 282.

Books, should be bought to read, not for show, 270.

Brutus, L. Junius, 183.

Brutus, M. Junius, 330.

Burrus, prefect of Nero, 415.

C

Caelius (Antipater), 125.

Caesar, Augustus, 142, 158, 165, 182, 293, 372, 391, 393, 401.

Caesar, Claudius, 360, 369, 370.

Caesar, Gaius (Caligula), 44, 74, 109, 137, 140, 276, 280, 316,
334, 376.

Caesar, Gaius, grandson of Augustus, 373.

Caesar, Gaius Julius, 98, 149, 181, 333.

Caesar, Germanicus, brother of Claudius, 374.

Caesar, Lucius, grandson of Augustus, 373.

Caesar, Nero, 382, 396, 415.

Caesar, Tiberius, 11, 182, 373.

Caligula. _See_ Caesar, Gaius.

Calmness, a sign of wisdom, 27.

Cambyses, 131, 139.

Cato, M., 5, 7, 10, 23, 31, 40, 108, 156, 192, 196, 228, 285, 286,
341.

Chaerea, 44.

Chrysippus, 242, 247, 248, 252.

Cicero, 192, 274, 295.

Cimber, Tillius, 149.

Cinna, L., 392.

Claudius Caudex, 307,

Cleanthes, 247, 252.

Clemency, 380; becomes no one more than a king, 384, 386; clemency
of Augustus, 391; and of Nero, 396; distinguishes between kings and
tyrants, 397; makes a king beloved, 399; Tarius, 401; clemency
towards slaves, 404; the king-bee, 405; clemency in inflicting
punishment, 407; makes men ashamed to do wrong, 410; clemency of
Nero, 415; definitions of Mercy, 417; of cruelty, 417; of pity,
418; of pardon, 421.

Clitus, killed by Alexander, 135.

Cloelia, 183.

Comfort, excess of, 13.

Consolation, 162, 320, 353.

Contempt, 36.

Cordus, A. Cremutius, 162, 196, 197.

Cornelia, wife of L. Drusus, 183.

Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi, 183, 345.

Corvinus, M. Valerius, 307.

Cotta, C. Aurelius, 345.

Courage, aims high, 18; born of desperation, 398.

Cruelty, caused by anger, 80; cannot be left off, if once begun,
399; inhumanity of, 411; shown in kings, 411; and in private men,
412; the opposite of mercy, 417.

Cyrus (the elder), 139.

D

Darius, 135.

Death, quickness of, 21; not an evil, 23; a release from pain, 190.
191.

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Delay, a remedy for anger, 104, 115, 129; and for grief, 172.

Demetrius the Cynic, quoted, 7, 16.

Demetrius Poliorcetes, 28.

Demochares (Parrhesiastes), 141 142.

Democritus, 18, 85, 122, 255, 278.

Dentatus, Curius, 264, 307.

Desperation, breeds courage, 398.

Diodorus, the Epicurean, 255.

Diogenes, the Cynic, 225, 267, 268,

Diogenes, the Stoic, 156,

Dionysius, of Syracuse, 186, 397,

Drusilla, 376.

Drusus, Livius, 183, 295.

Drusus, N. Claudius, senior, 373.

Drusus, N. Claudius, 166, 169.

Duillius, C. 307.

E

Education, should be carefully regulated, 95.

Epicurus, and Epicureans, 41, 42, 218, 219, 242, 248.

Exile, 325.

F

Fabianus (Papirius), quoted, 302, 309.

Fabius (Cunctator), 61, 106.

Fabricius, 7, 8.

Fear, felt by those who inspire it, 87; in moderation restrains
men, 398.

Ferocity, contrasted with anger, 80; and with cruelty, 418.

Firmness, the, of a wise man, 22, _sqq_.

Friendship, 265.

G

Good, the highest, definition of, 208. 212, 215, 221, 244.

Gracchi, the, 183, 345.

Grief, examples of, 165; extreme grief unnatural, 171; cured by
time, 172; counterfeited, 282; should be countered by reason, 346;
its unprofitableness, 357; cannot co-exist with magnanimity, 419.

H

Hannibal, 61, 78, 80.

Happiness, 204; how to gain it, 206; definitions of, 208; in connexion
with pleasure, 211; consists in virtue, 222; excess makes men greedy,
382.

Harpagus, 133.

Heraclitus, 85.

Hieronymus, quoted, 71.

Hippias, 98.

I

Injury, cannot touch a wise man, 25, 32, 41, 42; distinguished from
insult, 27, 35; can be endured, 144.

Insult, distinguished from injury, 27, 35; how received by Diogenes
and Cato, 156.

Irascibility, contrasted with anger, 53, 71.

J

Julia Augusta (title of Livia), 168.

K

Kanus, Julius, 280, 281.

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L

Laberius, quoted, 87.

Lacedaemonians, the, 13.

Leisure, advantages of, 240, _sqq_.

Life, shortness of, 160, 161, 175, 193, 288; its misery, 175; three
kinds of, 248; divided into three parts, 302.

Livia, wife of Augustus (afterwards Julia Augusta), 165, 168, 392.

Livius, T., quoted, 74, 270.

Love, conquered by anger, 114.

Lucretia. 183.

Lucretius, quoted, 258.

Luxury, 218, 306.

Lysimachus, 136, 411.

M

Maecenas, 9.

Magnanimity, repels insult, 36; not caused by anger, 73, 122; does
not feel blows, 144; befits all men, 387; cannot co-exist with
sorrow, 419.

Marcellus, M. Claudius, 332.

Marcellus, M. Claudius, son of Octavia, 165, 373.

Mercy, inclines men to innocence, 411; definitions of, 417;
distinguished from pardon, 422.

Metellus, L. Caecilius, 309.

Mindyrides, the Sybarite, 99.

Misfortunes, how regarded by the wise man, 3; are to the advantage
of those to whom they happen, 6; are the test of brave men, 11, 12,
17; generally come unexpectedly, 173; attack all alike, 178;
alleviated by habit, 271, 322.

Money, evils of, 151. _See_ Riches.

Mucius, 7.

N

Nero. _See_ Caesar.

Nomentanus, 217.

O

Octavia, sister of Augustus, 165, 372.

Oeobazus, 135.

Ovid, quoted, 18, 52, 84, 228.

P

Pardon, definition of, 421.

Pastor, 109.

Paulus, L. Aemilius, 180.

Peace of mind, definition of, 122, 255; how to attain it, etc.,
255, _sqq_.

Peripatetics, the, 50_n_.

Phaethon, 18.

Phalaris, 418.

Philip, of Macedon, 141, 142.

Philip, physician of Alexander, 98

Pisistratus, 128.

Piso, Gnaeus, 70.

Pity, definition of, 418, 419; borders on misery, 421.

Plato, 55, 72, 95, 97, 129, 198 286.

Pleasure, has no connexion with virtue, 211, 212; belongs to good
and bad alike, 213; not the aim of virtue, 214; pleasures of bad
men, 216; and of the wise, 217; the Epicurean doctrine, 218; all
pleasure is short-lived, 365.

Pollio, Asinius, 142, 285.

Pollio, Vedius, 158, 402.

Pompeius, 78_n_, 98, 150, 181, 192, 276, 308.

Pompeius, Sextus, 372.

Posidonius, his definition of anger, 50_n_.

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Poverty, 333; no inconvenience to an exile, 337.

Praexaspes, 131.

Predestination, 194.

Property, 267. _See_ Riches.

Prosperity, 4, 10; fosters anger, 96.

Providence, 1, _sqq_.

Publilius, quoted, 275.

Pulvillus, 179.

Punishment, why inflicted, 407; should not be frequent, 410.

Pythagoras, 126.

Pythias, 135.

R

Rage, does not befit kings, 317.

Reason, only strong apart from the passions, 56; its power, 69;
contrasted with anger, 70; cannot overcome some habits, 80.

Regulus, 7, 9, 339.

Relaxation, necessity for, 285.

Revenge, a cause of anger, 108, 146; has two effects, 408.

Rhinocolura, why so called, 138.

Riches, how regarded by the wise man, 229; and by the fool, 235;
better never to possess, than to lose, 267.

Rutilia, mother of C. Cotta, 345.

Rutilius, 7, 8, 196.

S

Scipio Africanus, 61, 371.

Scipio Africanus Minor, 61, 180, 285, 339, 372.

Sejanus, 162, 182, 196, 197, 276.

Self-examination, value of, 154, 206, 264.

Self-love, 106.

Sextius, Q., a Stoic, 113, 154.

Socrates, 7, 9, 31, 45, 65, 128, 130, 196, 234, 236, 238, 262, 285,
341.

Sorrow. _See_ Grief.

Stilbo, 28.

Stoics and Stoicism, 22, 23, 41, 42, 50_n_, 94, 207, 218, 241, 242,
248, 419.

Sulkiness, a form of irascibility, 53.

Sulla, L., 8, 73, 78, 110, 179, 309, 397.

Suspicion, a cause of anger, 99.

T

Tarius, 401.

Telesphorus, the Rhodian, 136.

Theodorus, (Cyrenaicus), 279.

Theophrastus, quoted, 62, 64.

Thrift, advantage of, 269.

Tillius Cimber, 149.

Timagenes, 142.

Trifles, anger caused by, 99, 100, 106, 149, 152.

Triumphus, 11.

Turannius, 318.

Tyrant, compared with king, 396, 397.

V

Valerius, Asiaticus, 44.

Valour, greedy of danger, 11.

Varro, M. Terentius, 330.

Vatinius, 43.

Vedius Pollio, 158, 402.

Vengeance, 408. _See_ Revenge.

Virgil, quoted, 112, 185, 241.

Virtue, not given by fortune, 28; its natural function to rejoice,
81; is infectious, 124; has no connexion with pleasure, 211, 212;
and does not aim at it, 214, 215; is a sure guide, 219; brings true
happiness, 222; should be reverenced, {430} 237; cannot be hidden,
260, 262.

Volesus, cruelty of, 81.

W

Weakness of mind, a cause of anger, 62.

Wine, 286.

X

Xanthippe, wife of Socrates, 45.

Xerxes, 26, 135, 313.

Z

Zeno, 68, 242, 247, 252, 279.