Seneca: DE IRA

1. Exegisti a me, Nouate, ut scriberem quemadmodum posset ira leniri, nec inmerito mihi uideris hunc praecipue adfectum pertimuisse maxime ex omnibus taetrum ac rabidum. Ceteris enim aliquid quieti placidique inest, hic totus concitatus et in impetu est, doloris armorum, sanguinis suppliciorum minime humana furens cupiditate, dum alteri noceat sui neglegens, in ipsa inruens tela et ultionis secum ultorem tracturae auidus.

1. You have demanded from me, Novatus, that I write how anger might be mitigated, and you seem to me not without merit to have especially feared this affect, the most foul and rabid of all. For in the others there is something of quiet and placidity; this one is wholly stirred up and in an impetus, raging with a most inhuman cupidity for pain, for arms, for blood, for punishments, careless of itself so long as it may harm another, rushing upon the very weapons, and eager for vengeance which is going to drag along with itself an avenger.

2. Quidam itaque e sapientibus uiris iram dixerunt breuem insaniam; aeque enim inpotens sui est, decoris oblita, necessitudinum immemor, in quod coepit pertinax et intenta, rationi consiliisque praeclusa, uanis agitata causis, ad dispectum aequi uerique inhabilis, ruinis simillima quae super id quod oppressere franguntur. 3. Vt scias autem non esse sanos quos ira possedit, ipsum illorum habitum intuere; nam ut furentium certa indicia sunt audax et minax uultus, tristis frons, torua facies, citatus gradus, inquietae manus, color uersus, crebra et uehementius acta suspiria, ita irascentium eadem signa sunt: 4. flagrant ac micant oculi, multus ore toto rubor exaestuante ab imis praecordiis sanguine, labra quatiuntur, dentes comprimuntur, horrent ac surriguntur capilli, spiritus coactus ac stridens, articulorum se ipsos torquentium sonus, gemitus mugitusque et parum explanatis uocibus sermo praeruptus et conplosae saepius manus et pulsata humus pedibus et totum concitum corpus magnasque irae minas agens, foeda uisu et horrenda facies deprauantium se atque intumescentium — nescias utrum magis detestabile uitium sit an deforme.

2. Certain, therefore, of the wise men called anger a brief insanity; for it is equally impotent of itself, forgetful of decorum, unmindful of relationships, stubborn and intent upon what it has begun, precluded from reason and counsels, agitated by vain causes, unfit for the discernment of the equitable and the true, most like to ruins which, upon that which they have crushed, are themselves broken. 3. That you may know, moreover, that those whom anger has possessed are not sane, look upon their very bearing; for just as there are sure indications of the frenzied: a bold and menacing countenance, a gloomy brow, a grim face, a hurried step, restless hands, color changed, frequent and more vehemently drawn sighs, so of the angry the same signs are: 4. the eyes burn and flash, much redness over the whole face, as the blood boils up from the inmost breast, the lips are shaken, the teeth are pressed together, the hair bristles and stands on end, breath forced and hissing, the sound of the joints twisting themselves, groaning and bellowing, and with voices little articulate a broken speech, and hands very often clapped together and the ground beaten with the feet, and the whole body stirred up and acting great threats of anger, a face foul to see and horrendous in those deforming themselves and swelling—you would not know whether the vice is more detestable or more deformed.

5. Cetera licet abscondere et in abdito alere: ira se profert et in faciem exit, quantoque maior, hoc efferuescit manifestius. Non uides ut omnium animalium, simul ad nocendum insurrexerunt, praecurrant notae ac tota corpora solitum quietumque egrediantur habitum et feritatem suam exasperent? 6. Spumant apris ora, dentes acuuntur adtritu, taurorum cornua iactantur in uacuum et harena pulsu pedum spargitur, leones fremunt, inflantur inritatis colla serpentibus, rabidarum canum tristis aspectus est: nullum est animal tam horrendum tam perniciosumque natura ut non appareat in illo, simul ira inuasit, nouae feritatis accessio.

5. The rest you may hide and nourish in the hidden: anger brings itself forth and comes out into the face, and the greater it is, the more it effervesces manifestly. Do you not see how, in all animals, as soon as they have risen up to do harm, the signs run before, and their whole bodies depart from their accustomed and quiet habit and exasperate their ferocity? 6. The mouths of boars foam, the teeth are sharpened by attrition, the horns of bulls are brandished into the emptiness and the sand is scattered by the beating of the feet, lions roar, the necks of serpents, when irritated, are inflated, the aspect of rabid dogs is grim: there is no animal so horrendous and so pernicious by nature that, as soon as anger has invaded, there does not appear in it an accession of new ferocity.

7. Nec ignoro ceteros quoque adfectus uix occultari, libidinem metumque et audaciam dare sui signa et posse praenosci; neque enim ulla uehementior intrat agitatio quae nihil moueat in uultu. Quid ergo interest? quod alii adfectus apparent, hic eminet.

7. Nor am I unaware that the other passions too are scarcely hidden, that libido and fear and audacity give signs of themselves and can be foreknown; for no more vehement agitation enters which does not move something in the countenance. What then is the difference? That other passions appear; this one stands out.

II.

1. Iam uero si effectus eius damnaque intueri uelis, nulla pestis humano generi pluris stetit. Videbis caedes ac uenena et reorum mutuas sordes et urbium clades et totarum exitia gentium et principum sub ciuili hasta capita uenalia et subiectas tectis faces nec intra moenia coercitos ignes sed ingentia spatia regionum hostili flamma relucentia. 2. Aspice nobilissimarum ciuitatum fundamenta uix notabilia: has ira deiecit.

1. And indeed, if you wish to behold its effects and damages, no pestilence has cost the human race more. You will see slaughters and poisons and the mutual defilements of the guilty, and the calamities of cities and the destructions of entire nations, and the heads of princes for sale beneath the civil spear, and torches thrust under roofs, and fires not confined within the walls but vast expanses of regions gleaming with a hostile flame. 2. Behold the foundations of the most noble cities, scarcely noticeable: wrath has cast these down.

Aspice solitudines per multa milia sine habitatore desertas: has ira exhausit. Aspice tot memoriae proditos duces mali exempla fati: alium ira in cubili suo confodit, alium intra sacra mensae iura percussit, alium intra leges celebrisque spectaculum fori lancinauit, alium filii parricidio dare sanguinem iussit, alium seruili manu regalem aperire iugulum, alium in cruce membra diffindere. 3. Et adhuc singulorum supplicia narro: quid si tibi libuerit, relictis in quos ira uiritim exarsit, aspicere caesas gladio contiones et plebem inmisso milite contrucidatam et in perniciem promiscuam totos populos capitis damna<tos> * * * ?

Behold solitudes, deserted without an inhabitant for many miles: wrath has exhausted these. Behold so many leaders handed down to memory as examples of an evil fate: one wrath stabbed in his bed, another it struck down within the sacred rights of the table, another it lacerated under the laws and as a celebrated spectacle of the forum, another it ordered to give his blood by the parricide of his son, another to open a royal throat by a servile hand, another to have his limbs split upon a cross. 3. And as yet I recount the punishments of individuals: what if it should please you, leaving aside those against whom wrath blazed man by man, to behold assemblies cut down by the sword, and the common people butchered with the soldiery sent in, and whole peoples condemned to capital punishment into indiscriminate ruin * * * ?

Martin. Bracarensis de ira 2

Martin of Braga on anger 2

3(fr1).1

Ira omnia ex optimo et iustissimo in contrarium mutat. Quemcumque obtinuerit, nullius eum meminisse officii sinit: da eam patri, inimicus est; da filio, parricida est; da matri, nouerca est; da ciui, hostis est; da regi, tyrannus est.

Anger turns everything from the best and most just into the contrary. Whomever it has seized, it allows him to remember no duty: give it to a father, he is an enemy; give it to a son, he is a parricide; give it to a mother, she is a stepmother; give it to a citizen, he is an enemy; give it to a king, he is a tyrant.

Lactant. De Ira Dei 17.13

Lactantius. On the Wrath of God 17.13

3(fr2).1

Ira est cupiditas ulciscendae iniuriae aut, ut ait Posidonius, cupiditas puniendi eius a quo te inique putes laesum. Quidam ita finierunt: ira est incitatio animi ad nocendum ei qui aut nocuit aut nocere uoluit.

Anger is the desire of avenging an injury, or, as Posidonius says, the desire of punishing him by whom you think yourself unjustly injured. Some have defined it thus: anger is an incitement of the mind to do harm to him who either has harmed or has wished to harm.

4. * * * tamquam aut curam nostram deserentibus aut auctoritatem contemnentibus. Quid? gladiatoribus quare populus irascitur, et tam inique ut iniuriam putet quod non libenter pereunt?

4. * * * as though either deserting our care or contemning our authority. What? Why does the populace grow irate with gladiators, and so iniquitously that it deems it an injury that they do not die willingly?

contemni se iudicat et uultu gestu ardore ex spectatore in aduersarium uertitur. 5. Quidquid est tale, non est ira, sed quasi ira, sicut puerorum qui, si ceciderunt, terram uerberari uolunt et saepe ne sciunt quidem cur irascantur, sed tantum irascuntur, sine causa et sine iniuria, non tamen sine aliqua iniuriae specie nec sine aliqua poenae cupiditate. Deluduntur itaque imitatione plagarum et simulatis deprecantium lacrimis placantur et falsa ultione falsus dolor tollitur.

He judges himself contemned and, by countenance, gesture, ardor, is turned from spectator into adversary. 5. Whatever is of such a kind is not anger, but quasi-anger, as with boys who, if they have fallen, want the ground to be beaten, and often do not even know why they grow angry, but only are angry, without cause and without injury, yet not without some appearance of injury nor without some desire for punishment. They are deluded, therefore, by an imitation of blows, and are appeased by the feigned tears of those begging off, and by a false vengeance the false pain is removed.

III.

1. 'Irascimur' inquit 'saepe non illis qui laeserunt, sed iis qui laesuri sunt; ut scias iram non ex iniuria nasci.' Verum est irasci nos laesuris, sed ipsa cogitatione nos laedunt, et iniuriam qui facturus est iam facit. 2. 'Vt scias' inquit 'non esse iram poenae cupiditatem, infirmissimi saepe potentissimis irascuntur nec poenam concupiscunt quam non sperant.' Primum diximus cupiditatem esse poenae exigendae, non facultatem; concupiscunt autem homines et quae non possunt. Deinde nemo tam humilis est qui poenam uel summi hominis sperare non possit: ad nocendum potentes sumus.

1. 'We grow angry,' he says, 'often not at those who have injured, but at those who are going to injure; so that you may know that anger is not born from an injury.' It is true that we are angry at those about to injure, but by the very thought they harm us, and he who is going to do an injury already does it. 2. 'That you may know,' he says, 'that anger is not the cupidity for punishment, the most infirm often are angry at the most powerful and do not desire the punishment which they do not hope for.' First, we have said that the cupidity is for punishment to be exacted, not the faculty; moreover, human beings desire even things which they cannot. Then, no one is so humble that he cannot hope for the punishment even of the highest man: for harming we are powerful.

3. Aristotelis finitio non multum a nostra abest; ait enim iram esse cupiditatem doloris reponendi. Quid inter nostram et hanc finitionem intersit, exequi longum est. Contra utramque dicitur feras irasci nec iniuria inritatas nec poenae dolorisue alieni causa; nam etiam si haec efficiunt, non haec petunt.

3. Aristotle’s definition does not stand far from ours; for he says that anger is the desire of repaying pain. What the difference is between our definition and this one, to set forth would be lengthy. Against both it is said that wild beasts grow angry, neither irritated by injury nor for the sake of punishment or of another’s pain; for even if they effect these things, these things they do not seek.

4. Sed dicendum est feras ira carere et omnia praeter hominem; nam cum sit inimica rationi, nusquam tamen nascitur nisi ubi rationi locus est. Impetus habent ferae, rabiem feritatem incursum, iram quidem non magis quam luxuriam, et in quasdam uoluptates intemperantiores homine sunt. 5. Non est quod credas illi qui dicit:

4. But it must be said that beasts lack anger, and all things except man; for since it is inimical to reason, yet it is born nowhere except where there is a place for reason. Beasts have impulses, rabidity, ferity, incursion, but not anger any more than luxury, and in certain pleasures they are more intemperate than man. 5. There is no reason for you to believe the one who says:

non aper irasci meminit, non fidere cursu
cerua nec armentis incurrere fortibus ursi.

he does not remember the boar to grow irate, nor the hind to trust in running,
nor bears to charge at stout herds.

Irasci dicit incitari, inpingi; irasci quidem non magis sciunt quam ignoscere. 6. Muta animalia humanis adfectibus carent, habent autem similes illis quosdam inpulsus; alioqui, si amor in illis esset et odium, esset amicitia et simultas, dissensio et concordia; quorum aliqua in illis quoque extant uestigia, ceterum humanorum pectorum propria bona malaque sunt. 7. Nulli nisi homini concessa prudentia est, prouidentia diligentia cogitatio, nec tantum uirtutibus humanis animalia sed etiam uitiis prohibita sunt.

He says that “to be angry” means to be incited, to be impelled; indeed they no more know how to be angry than to forgive. 6. Mute animals lack human affections, but they have certain impulses similar to them; otherwise, if love were in them and hatred, there would be friendship and rivalry, dissension and concord; of which some traces too appear in them, but the goods and evils are proper to human hearts. 7. Prudence, providence, diligence, cogitation have been granted to no one except man, and animals are barred not only from human virtues but even from vices.

Tota illorum ut extra ita intra forma humanae dissimilis est; regium est illud et principale aliter ductum.Vt uox est quidem, sed non explanabilis et perturbata et uerborum inefficax, ut lingua, sed deuincta nec in motus uarios soluta, ita ipsum principale parum subtile, parum exactum. Capit ergo uisus speciesque rerum quibus ad impetus euocetur, sed turbidas et confusas. 8. Ex eo procursus illorum tumultusque uehementes sunt, metus autem sollicitudinesque et tristitia et ira non sunt, sed his quaedam similia; ideo cito cadunt et mutantur in contrarium et, cum acerrime saeuierunt expaueruntque, pascuntur, et ex fremitu discursuque uesano statim quies soporque sequitur.

Tota illorum as without so within form is dissimilar to the human; that regal and principal part is drawn otherwise. As there is indeed a voice, but not articulable, disturbed, and inefficacious for words; as the tongue is bound and not loosed into various motions, so the principal itself is insufficiently subtle, insufficiently exact. Therefore it takes in sights and the appearances of things by which it is called forth to impulses, but turbid and confused. 8. From this their onrushes and tumults are vehement; but fear and anxieties and sadness and ire are not present, rather certain things similar to these; therefore they quickly subside and are changed into the contrary, and, when they have raged most sharply and have taken fright, they feed, and from the roaring and mad running about straightway quiet and sleep follow.

IV.

1. Quid esset ira satis explicitum est. Quo distet ab iracundia apparet: quo ebrius ab ebrioso et timens a timido. Iratus potest non esse iracundus: iracundus potest aliquando iratus non esse.

1. What anger is has been sufficiently explicated. How it differs from irascibility is apparent: as a drunk man from a drunkard, and one who is fearing from a timid man. An angry man can be not irascible; an irascible man can sometimes be not angry.

2. Cetera quae pluribus apud Graecos nominibus in species iram distinguunt, quia apud nos uocabula sua non habent, praeteribo, etiam si amarum nos acerbumque dicimus, nec minus stomachosum rabiosum clamosum difficilem asperum, quae omnia irarum differentiae sunt; inter hos morosum ponas licet, delicatum iracundiae genus. 3. Quaedam enim sunt irae quae intra clamorem considant, quaedam non minus pertinaces quam frequentes, quaedam saeuae manu uerbis parciores, quaedam in uerborum maledictorumque amaritudinem effusae; quaedam ultra querellas et auersationes non exeunt, quaedam altae grauesque sunt et introrsus uersae: mille aliae species sunt mali multiplicis.

2. The other particulars by which among the Greeks they distinguish anger into species by more names, because among us they do not have their own vocabularies, I will pass over, even if we say bitter and acerb, and no less stomachous, rabid, clamorous, difficult, asperous—which are all differences of angers; among these you may place the morose, a delicate genus of irascibility. 3. For there are certain angers which settle within shouting, certain no less pertinacious than frequent, certain savage in hand and more sparing of words, certain poured out into the bitterness of words and curses; certain do not go beyond complaints and aversions, certain are deep and grave and turned inward: there are a thousand other species of a manifold evil.

1. Quid esset ira quaesitum est, an in ullum aliud animal quam in hominem caderet, quo ab iracundia distaret, quot eius species essent: nunc quaeramus an ira secundum naturam sit et an utilis atque ex aliqua parte retinenda.

1. It has been asked what anger is, whether it occurs in any other animal than man, by what it differs from irascibility, how many its species are: now let us inquire whether anger is according to nature, and whether it is useful and to be retained in any respect.

2. An secundum naturam sit manifestum erit, si hominem inspexerimus. Quo quid est mitius, dum in recto animi habitus est? quid autem ira crudelius est?

2. Whether it is according to nature will be manifest, if we inspect the human being. Than him, what is gentler, while the disposition of the mind is in the right? But what is more cruel than anger?

Quid homine aliorum amantius? quid ira infestius? Homo in adiutorium mutuum genitus est, ira in exitium; hic congregari uult, illa discedere, hic prodesse, illa nocere, hic etiam ignotis succurrere, illa etiam carissimos petere; hic aliorum commodis uel inpendere se paratus est, illa in periculum, dummodo deducat, descendere.

What is more loving of others than man? what more hostile than anger? Man was born for mutual aid, anger for destruction; the former wishes to congregate, the latter to separate; the former to benefit, the latter to harm; the former even to succor the unknown, the latter even to assail the dearest; the former is prepared even to expend himself for the interests of others, the latter to descend into danger, provided it drags down.

3. Quis ergo magis naturam rerum ignorat quam qui optimo eius operi et emendatissimo hoc ferum ac perniciosum uitium adsignat? Ira, ut diximus, auida poenae est, cuius cupidinem inesse pacatissimo hominis pectori minime secundum eius naturam est. Beneficiis enim humana uita constat et concordia, nec terrore sed mutuo amore in foedus auxiliumque commune constringitur.

3. Who, then, is more ignorant of the nature of things than one who assigns to its best and most perfected work this wild and pernicious vice? Anger, as we have said, is avid for punishment, the desire for which to be present in the most pacific human breast is in no way according to its nature. For human life consists of benefactions and concord, and it is bound not by terror but by mutual love into a covenant and common aid.

VI.

1. 'Quid ergo? non aliquando castigatio necessaria est?' Quidni? sed haec sine ira, cum ratione; non enim nocet sed medetur specie nocendi.

1. 'What then? Is not castigation sometimes necessary?' Why not? but this without ire, with reason; for it does not harm but heals under the semblance of harming.

Quemadmodum quaedam hastilia detorta ut corrigamus adurimus et adactis cuneis, non ut frangamus sed ut explicemus, elidimus, sic ingenia uitio praua dolore corporis animique corrigimus. 2. Nempe medicus primo in leuibus uitiis temptat non multum ex cotidiana consuetudine inflectere et cibis potionibus exercitationibus ordinem inponere ac ualetudinem tantum mutata uitae dispositione firmare. Proximum est ut modus proficiat.

Just as certain spear-shafts, when twisted, we scorch to set them right, and, with wedges driven in—not to break but to unbend them—we press them out, so we correct dispositions made crooked by vice through pain of body and of mind. 2. Surely the physician, at first, in slight ailments, tries to alter not much from the daily habit and to impose order by foods, potions, and exercises, and to secure health merely by a changed disposition of life. The next thing is that a measured regimen should bring improvement.

Si modus et ordo non proficit, subducit aliqua et circumcidit; si ne adhoc quidem respondet, interdicit cibis et abstinentia corpus exonerat; si frustra molliora cesserunt, ferit uenam membrisque, si adhaerentia nocent et morbum diffundunt, manus adfert; nec ulla dura uidetur curatio cuius salutaris effectus est. 3. Ita legum praesidem ciuitatisque rectorem decet, quam diu potest, uerbis et his mollioribus ingenia curare, ut facienda suadeat cupiditatemque honesti et aequi conciliet animis faciatque uitiorum odium, pretium uirtutium; transeat deinde ad tristiorem orationem, qua moneat adhuc et exprobret; nouissime ad poenas et has adhuc leues, reuocabiles decurrat; ultima supplicia sceleribus ultimis ponat, ut nemo pereat nisi quem perire etiam pereuntis intersit. 4. Hoc uno medentibus erit dissimilis, quod illi quibus uitam non potuerunt largiri facilem exitum praestant, hic damnatos cum dedecore et traductione uita exigit, non quia delectetur ullius poena — procul est enim a sapiente tam inhumana feritas — sed ut documentum omnium sint, et quia uiui noluerunt prodesse, morte certe eorum res publica utatur.

If measure and order do not profit, he withdraws some things and circumcises; if not even to this does it respond, he interdicts foods, and by abstinence he lightens the body; if the milder measures have yielded in vain, he strikes the vein, and, if adhesions harm and spread the disease, he brings the hand; nor does any hard treatment seem hard whose effect is salutary. 3. Thus it befits the guardian of the laws and the ruler of the commonwealth, for as long as he can, to treat characters by words, and these gentler ones, so that he may persuade what must be done and may conciliate in minds a desire for the honorable and the equitable, and may make hatred of vices, the price of virtues; then let him pass over to a sadder speech, by which he still warns and upbraids; at the very last let him run down to punishments, and these still light, recallable; let him set final penalties for the final crimes, so that no one may perish except one whose perishing is of concern even to the perishing man. 4. In this one point he will be unlike the healers: that those to whom they have not been able to grant life they provide an easy exit, while he exacts life from the condemned with disgrace and public parade, not because he takes delight in anyone’s punishment—for so inhuman ferocity is far from the wise man—but so that they may be a lesson to all, and because they were unwilling to benefit while alive, at least by their death let the commonwealth make use of them.

Non est ergo natura hominis poenae adpetens; ideo ne ira quidem secundum naturam hominis, quia poenae adpetens est. 5. Et Platonis argumentum adferam — quid enim nocet alienis uti ea parte qua nostra sunt? 'Vir bonus' inquit 'non laedit.' Poena laedit; bono ergo poena non conuenit, ob hoc nec ira, quia poena irae conuenit.

Therefore the nature of man is not appetent of punishment; therefore not even anger is according to the nature of man, because it is appetent of punishment. 5. And I will bring Plato’s argument — for what harm is there in using another’s things in that part wherein they are ours? ‘A good man,’ he says, ‘does not injure.’ Punishment injures; therefore punishment does not befit a good man; on this account neither does anger, because punishment befits anger.

Si uir bonus poena non gaudet, non gaudebit ne eo quidem adfectu cui poena uoluptati est; ergo non est naturalis ira.

If the good man does not rejoice in punishment, he will not rejoice even with that affect to which punishment is a pleasure; therefore anger is not natural.

VII.

1. Numquid, quamuis non sit naturalis ira, adsumenda est, quia utilis saepe fuit? Extollit animos et incitat, nec quicquam sine illa magnificum in bello fortitudo gerit, nisi hinc flamma subdita est et hic stimulus peragitauit misitque in pericula audaces. Optimum itaque quidam putant temperare iram, non tollere, eoque detracto quod exundat ad salutarem modum cogere, id uero retinere sine quo languebit actio et uis ac uigor animi resoluetur.

1. Should anger, although it is not natural, nevertheless be taken up, because it has often been useful? It lifts spirits and incites, and fortitude accomplishes nothing magnificent in war without it, unless from here a flame is applied beneath and this stimulus has driven them on and sent the bold into dangers. Therefore some think it best to temper anger, not to remove it, and, taking away that which overflows, to constrain it to a salutary measure, but to retain that without which action will grow languid and the force and vigor of the mind will be relaxed.

2. Primum facilius est excludere perniciosa quam regere et non admittere quam admissa moderari; nam cum se in possessione posuerunt, potentiora rectore sunt nec recidi se minuiue patiuntur. 3. Deinde ratio ipsa, cui freni traduntur, tam diu potens est quam diu diducta est ab adfectibus; si miscuit se illis et inquinauit, non potest continere quos summouere potuisset. Commota enim semel et excussa mens ei seruit quo inpellitur.

2. First, it is easier to exclude pernicious things than to govern them, and not to admit them than, once admitted, to moderate them; for when they have established themselves in possession, they are more powerful than the ruler, nor do they allow themselves to be cut back or diminished. 3. Next, reason herself, to whom the reins are delivered, is powerful only so long as she is kept drawn apart from the passions; if she has mixed herself with them and defiled herself, she cannot restrain those whom she could have removed. For the mind, once stirred and shaken, serves that impulse by which it is driven.

4. Quarundam rerum initia in nostra potestate sunt, ulteriora nos ui sua rapiunt nec regressum relinquunt. Vt in praeceps datis corporibus nullum sui arbitrium est nec resistere morariue deiecta potuerunt, sed consilium omne et paenitentiam inreuocabilis praecipitatio abscidit et non licet eo non peruenire quo non ire licuisset, ita animus, si in iram amorem aliosque se proiecit adfectus, non permittitur reprimere impetum; rapiat illum oportet et ad imum agat pondus suum et uitiorum natura procliuis.

4. The beginnings of certain things are in our power; their further stages carry us off by their own force and leave no way back. As, once bodies have been given to a headlong plunge, there is no control over themselves, nor can things cast down resist or delay: but an irrevocable precipitation cuts off all counsel and repentance, and it is not permitted not to arrive where it would have been permitted not to go—so the mind, if it has thrown itself into anger, love, and other affections, is not allowed to repress the impulse; it must be swept away and driven to the bottom by its own weight and by the downhill nature of vices.

VIII.

1. Optimum est primum inritamentum irae protinus spernere ipsisque repugnare seminibus et dare operam ne incidamus in iram. Nam si coepit ferre transuersos, difficilis ad salutem recursus est, quoniam nihil rationis est ubi semel adfectus inductus est iusque illi aliquod uoluntate nostra datum est: faciet de cetero quantum uolet, non quantum permiseris. 2. In primis, inquam, finibus hostis arcendus est; nam cum intrauit et portis se intulit, modum a captiuis non accipit.

1. The best thing is at the first to spurn the irritant of anger forthwith and to resist its very seeds, and to take pains that we do not fall into anger. For if it has begun to carry us astray, the recourse to safety is difficult, since there is nothing of rationality where once the affect has been introduced and some right has been given to it by our will: thereafter it will do as much as it wishes, not as much as you have permitted. 2. First of all, I say, the enemy must be warded off at the borders; for when he has entered and has borne himself within the gates, he takes no measure from captives.

Neque enim sepositus est animus et extrinsecus speculatur adfectus, ut illos non patiatur ultra quam oportet procedere, sed in adfectum ipse mutatur ideoque non potest utilem illam uim et salutarem proditam iam infirmatamque reuocare. 3. Non enim, ut dixi, separatas ista sedes suas diductasque habent, sed adfectus et ratio in melius peiusque mutatio animi est. Quomodo ergo ratio occupata et oppressa uitiis resurget, quae irae cessit?

For the mind is not set apart and from outside does it watch the affects, so as not to allow them to advance beyond what is fitting; rather, it itself is changed into affect, and therefore it cannot recall that useful and healthful force, once betrayed and already enfeebled. 3. For, as I said, these do not have their own seats separated and drawn apart, but affect and reason are the mind’s change, for better and for worse. How then will reason, seized and oppressed by vices, rise again—reason which has yielded to anger?

aut quemadmodum ex confusione se liberabit in qua peiorum mixtura praeualuit? 4. 'Sed quidam' inquit 'in ira se continent.' Vtrum ergo ita ut nihil faciant eorum quae ira dictat an ut aliquid? Si nihil faciunt, apparet non esse ad actiones rerum necessariam iram, quam uos, quasi fortius aliquid ratione haberet, aduocabatis.

or how will it liberate itself from the confusion in which the mixture of worse things has prevailed? 4. 'But certain people,' he says, 'keep themselves in check in anger.' Whether then thus, that they do nothing of the things which anger dictates, or that they do something? If they do nothing, it is apparent that anger is not necessary for the actions of affairs, which you were summoning, as though it had something stronger than reason.

5. Denique interrogo: ualentior est quam ratio an infirmior? Si ualentior, quomodo illi modum ratio poterit inponere, cum parere nisi inbecilliora non soleant? Si infirmior est, sine hac per se ad rerum effectus sufficit ratio nec desiderat inbecillioris auxilium.

5. Finally I ask: is it stronger than reason or weaker? If stronger, how will reason be able to impose a measure upon it, since only the more feeble are wont to obey? If it is weaker, without it reason by itself suffices for the effects of things and does not desire the aid of the more imbecile.

6. 'At irati quidam constant sibi et se continent.' Quando? cum iam ira euanescit et sua sponte decedit, non cum in ipso feruore est; tunc enim potentior est. 7. 'Quid ergo?

6. 'But certain men, when irate, are constant to themselves and contain themselves.' When? when already anger evanesces and of its own accord recedes, not when it is in the very fervor; then indeed it is more potent. 7. 'What then?

non aliquando in ira quoque et dimittunt incolumes intactosque quos oderunt et a nocendo abstinent?' Faciunt: quando? cum adfectus repercussit adfectum et aut metus aut cupiditas aliquid inpetrauit. Non rationis tunc beneficio quieuit, sed adfectuum infida et mala pace.

Do they not sometimes even in anger also let go unharmed and untouched those whom they hate, and abstain from harming? They do: when? when passion has struck back against passion, and either fear or desire has obtained something. It did not then grow quiet by the benefit of reason, but by the untrustworthy and bad peace of passions.

IX.

1. Deinde nihil habet in se utile nec acuit animum ad res bellicas; numquam enim uirtus uitio adiuuanda est se contenta. Quotiens impetu opus est, non irascitur sed exsurgit et in quantum putauit opus esse concitatur remittiturque, non aliter quam quae tormentis exprimuntur tela in potestate mittentis sunt in quantum torqueantur. 2. 'Ira' inquit Aristoteles 'necessaria est, nec quicquam sine illa expugnari potest, nisi illa inplet animum et spiritum accendit; utendum autem illa est non ut duce sed ut milite.' Quod est falsum; nam si exaudit rationem sequiturque qua ducitur, iam non est ira, cuius proprium est contumacia; si uero repugnat et non ubi iussa est quiescit sed libidine ferociaque prouehitur, tam inutilis animi minister est quam miles qui signum receptui neglegit.

1. Then it has nothing useful in itself, nor does it sharpen the mind for military matters; for virtue must never be aided by a vice, being self‑content. Whenever there is need of an impetus, it does not grow angry but rises up, and is stirred as much as it judged there was need and is relaxed again, no otherwise than missiles that are forced out by engines are in the power of the sender to the extent that they are twisted. 2. 'Anger,' says Aristotle, 'is necessary, and nothing can be stormed without it, unless it fills the mind and kindles the spirit; one ought, however, to use it not as a leader but as a soldier.' Which is false; for if it heeds reason and follows where it is led, it is no longer anger, whose property is contumacy; but if it resists and does not rest where it is bidden, but is carried forward by lust and ferocity, it is as useless a minister of the mind as a soldier who disregards the signal for retreat.

3. Itaque si modum adhiberi sibi patitur, alio nomine appellanda est, desit ira esse, quam effrenatam indomitamque intellego; si non patitur, perniciosa est nec inter auxilia numeranda: ita aut ira non est aut inutilis est. 4. Nam si quis poenam exigit non ipsius poenae auidus sed quia oportet, non est adnumerandus iratis. Hic erit utilis miles qui scit parere consilio; adfectus quidem tam mali ministri quam duces sunt.

3. And so, if it allows a measure to be applied to itself, it must be called by another name; it ceases to be anger, which I understand as unbridled and indomitable; if it does not allow this, it is pernicious and not to be numbered among the auxiliaries: thus either it is not anger or it is useless. 4. For if someone exacts punishment, not greedy for the punishment itself but because it is fitting, he is not to be counted among the angry. This will be a useful soldier who knows how to obey counsel; passions indeed are as bad ministers as they are leaders.

10.

1. Ideo numquam adsumet ratio in adiutorium inprouidos et uiolentos impetus apud quos nihil ipsa auctoritatis habeat, quos numquam comprimere possit nisi pares illis similisque opposuerit, ut irae metum, inertiae iram, timori cupiditatem. 2. Absit hoc a uirtute malum, ut umquam ratio ad uitia confugiat! Non potest hic animus fidele otium capere, quatiatur necesse est fluctueturque, qui malis suis tutus est, qui fortis esse nisi irascitur non potest, industrius nisi cupit, quietus nisi timet: in tyrannide illi uiuendum est in alicuius adfectus uenienti seruitutem.

1. Therefore reason will never assume rash and violent impulses into her aid, in whose presence she herself has no authority, whom she could never restrain unless she should oppose to them equals and similars: fear to anger, anger to inertia, desire to fear. 2. Far be this evil from virtue, that reason should ever flee for refuge to vices! Such a mind cannot take trustworthy repose; it must needs be shaken and fluctuate, which is secure by its own evils, which cannot be brave unless it grows angry, industrious unless it desires, calm unless it fears: it must live under a tyranny, in servitude to whatever passion comes.

Non pudet uirtutes in clientelam uitiorum demittere? 3. Deinde desinit quicquam posse ratio, si nihil potest sine adfectu, et incipit par illi similisque esse. Quid enim interest, si aeque adfectus inconsulta res est sine ratione quam ratio sine adfectu inefficax?

Is it not shameful to let virtues be lowered into the clientage of vices? 3. Then reason ceases to be able to do anything, if it can do nothing without affect, and begins to be equal to it and like it. For what difference is there, if affect is, without reason, an unadvised thing, just as reason without affect is ineffectual?

Par utrumque est, ubi esse alterum sine altero non potest. Quis autem sustineat adfectum exaequare rationi? 4. 'Ita' inquit 'utilis adfectus est, si modicus est.' Immo si natura utilis est.

Each is on a par, where the one cannot exist without the other. Who, however, would endure to make affect equal to reason? 4. 'Thus,' he says, 'affect is useful, if it is moderate.' Rather, if by nature it is useful.

Sed si inpatiens imperii rationisque est, hoc dumtaxat moderatione consequetur, ut quo minor fuerit minus noceat; ergo modicus adfectus nihil aliud quam malum modicum est.

But if it is impatient of command and of reason, it will achieve this at least by moderation: that the smaller it has been, the less it may harm; therefore a moderate affect is nothing other than a moderate evil.

XI.

11.

1. 'Sed aduersus hostes' inquit 'necessaria est ira.' Nusquam minus: ubi non effusos esse oportet impetus sed temperatos et oboedientes. Quid enim est aliud quod barbaros tanto robustiores corporibus, tanto patientiores laborum comminuat nisi ira infestissima sibi? Gladiatores quoque ars tuetur, ira denudat.

1. 'But against enemies,' he says, 'anger is necessary.' Nowhere less: where the onsets ought not to be poured out but tempered and obedient. For what else is it that breaks down the barbarians—so much more robust in body, so much more patient of labors—except anger most inimical to itself? Even gladiators skill protects; anger strips bare.

2. Deinde quid opus est ira, cum idem proficiat ratio? An tu putas uenatorem irasci feris? atqui et uenientis excipit et fugientis persequitur, et omnia illa sine ira facit ratio.

2. Then what need is there for anger, since reason accomplishes the same? Or do you think the hunter gets angry at wild beasts? And yet he catches those that come on and pursues those that flee, and reason does all those things without anger.

Quid Cimbrorum Teutonorumque tot milia superfusa Alpibus ita sustulit ut tantae cladis notitiam ad suos non nuntius sed fama pertulerit, nisi quod erat illis ira pro uirtute? Quae ut aliquando propulit strauitque obuia, ita saepius sibi exitio est. 3. Germanis quid est animosius?

What was it that so raised up the so many thousands of the Cimbri and Teutones, superfused over the Alps, that the notice of so great a disaster reached their own not by a messenger but by rumor, if not that for them anger stood in place of virtue? Which, although it has sometimes driven back and laid low what confronted it, yet more often is its own destruction. 3. What is more high-spirited than the Germans?

Quid ad incursum acrius? Quid armorum cupidius, quibus innascuntur innutriunturque, quorum unica illis cura est in alia neglegentibus? Quid induratius ad omnem patientiam, ut quibus magna ex parte non tegimenta corporum prouisa sint, non suffugia aduersus perpetuum caeli rigorem?

What is more keen to the onset? What more desirous of arms, with which they are born and are nurtured, which are their sole care, as they neglect other things? What more hardened to every endurance, for whom for the most part no coverings of their bodies have been provided, nor shelters against the perpetual rigor of the sky?

4. Hos tamen Hispani Gallique et Asiae Syriaeque molles bello uiri, antequam legio uisatur, caedunt ob nullam aliam rem opportunos quam iracundiam. Agedum illis corporibus, illis animis delicias luxum opes ignorantibus da rationem, da disciplinam: ut nil amplius dicam, necesse erit certe nobis mores Romanos repetere. 5. Quo alio Fabius adfectas imperii uires recreauit quam quod cunctari et trahere et morari sciit, quae omnia irati nesciunt?

4. These men, however, the Spaniards and the Gauls and the soft-in-war men of Asia and Syria, before a legion is even sighted, cut down as vulnerable for no other reason than irascibility. Come now, to those bodies, to those spirits that know nothing of delights, luxury, opulence, give reason, give discipline: not to say more, it will certainly be necessary for us to take up Roman mores again. 5. By what other means did Fabius revive the weakened strength of the imperium than by the fact that he knew how to delay and to draw out and to tarry—things which all the irate do not know?

Perierat imperium, quod tunc in extremo stabat, si Fabius tantum ausus esset quantum ira suadebat: habuit in consilio fortunam publicam et aestimatis uiribus, ex quibus iam perire nihil sine uniuerso poterat, dolorem ultionemque seposuit, in unam utilitatem et occasiones intentus; iram ante uicit quam Hannibalem. 6. Quid Scipio? non relicto Hannibale et Punico exercitu omnibusque quibus irascendum erat bellum in Africam transtulit, tam lentus ut opinionem luxuriae segnitiaeque malignis daret?

The empire would have perished, which then stood at the extremity, if Fabius had dared only as much as anger was urging: he held the public fortune in counsel and, the forces having been assessed—of which now nothing could perish without the whole—he set aside grief and vengeance, intent upon a single utility and upon occasions; he conquered his wrath before he conquered Hannibal. 6. What of Scipio? Did he not, with Hannibal and the Punic army, and all those against whom anger ought to have been felt, left behind, transfer the war into Africa, so slow that he gave to the malicious an opinion of luxury and sloth?

7. Quid alter Scipio? non circa Numantiam multum diuque sedit et hunc suum publicumque dolorem aequo animo tulit, diutius Numantiam quam Carthaginem uinci? Dum circumuallat et includit hostem, eo conpulit ut ferro ipsi suo caderent.

7. What of the other Scipio? Did he not sit much and for a long time around Numantia and bear with an even mind this his own and the public grief, that Numantia should be conquered longer than Carthage? While he circumvallated and enclosed the enemy, he compelled them to this point: that they fell by their very own sword.

8. Non est itaque utilis ne in proeliis quidem aut bellis ira; in temeritatem enim prona est et pericula, dum inferre uult, non cauet. Illa certissima est uirtus quae se diu multumque circumspexit et rexit et ex lento ac destinato prouexit.

8. Therefore anger is not useful even in battles or wars; for it is prone to temerity and to perils, and, while it wishes to infer them, it does not beware. That is the surest virtue which has long and much been circumspect and has ruled itself, and has advanced from a slow and destined resolve.

XII.

12.

1. 'Quid ergo?' inquit 'uir bonus non irascitur, si caedi patrem suum uiderit, si rapi matrem?' Non irascetur, sed uindicabit, sed tuebitur. Quid autem times ne parum magnus illi stimulus etiam sine ira pietas sit? Aut dic eodem modo: 'quid ergo?

1. 'What then?' he says, 'does a good man not grow angry, if he should see his father being beaten, if his mother being carried off?' He will not grow angry, but he will avenge, he will protect. What do you fear—that piety itself, even without anger, will be an insufficiently great stimulus for him? Or say in the same way: 'what then?

cum uideat secari patrem suum filiumue, uir bonus non flebit nec linquetur animo?' Quae accidere feminis uidemus, quotiens illas leuis periculi suspicio perculit. 2. Officia sua uir bonus exequetur inconfusus, intrepidus; et sic bono uiro digna faciet ut nihil faciat uiro indignum. Pater caedetur: defendam; caesus est: exequar, quia oportet, non quia dolet.

when he sees his father or his son being cut down, will the good man not weep nor be forsaken in spirit?' These are things we see befall women, whenever a light suspicion of danger has struck them. 2. The good man will execute his duties unconfused, intrepid; and thus he will do things worthy of a good man, so that he does nothing unworthy of a man. The father will be beaten: I will defend; he has been slain: I will perform the obsequies, because it is fitting, not because it pains.

3. 'Irascuntur boni uiri pro suorum iniuriis.' Cum hoc dicis, Theophraste, quaeris inuidiam praeceptis fortioribus et relicto iudice ad coronam uenis: quia unusquisque in eiusmodi suorum casu irascitur, putas iudicaturos homines id fieri debere quod faciunt; fere enim iustum quisque adfectum iudicat quem agnoscit. 4. Sed idem faciunt, si calda non bene praebetur, si uitreum fractum est, si calceus luto sparsus est. Non pietas illam iram sed infirmitas mouet, sicut pueris, qui tam parentibus amissis flebunt quam nucibus.

3. 'Good men grow angry on behalf of the injuries done to their own.' When you say this, Theophrastus, you court ill-will for stronger precepts and, leaving the judge, you come to the crowd: because each person, in such a case concerning his own, grows angry, you think men will judge that what they do ought to be done; for almost everyone judges as just the affect which he recognizes. 4. But they do the same if the hot water is not properly served, if a glass is broken, if a shoe is splashed with mud. Not piety moves that anger, but weakness—just as boys will weep as much for parents lost as for nuts.

5. Irasci pro suis non est pii animi sed infirmi: illud pulchrum dignumque, pro parentibus liberis amicis ciuibus prodire defensorem ipso officio ducente, uolentem iudicantem prouidentem, non inpulsum et rabidum. Nullus enim adfectus uindicandi cupidior est quam ira, et ob id ipsum ad uindicandum inhabilis: praerapida et amens, ut omnis fere cupiditas, ipsa sibi in id in quod properat opponitur. Itaque nec in pace nec in bello umquam bono fuit; pacem enim similem belli efficit, in armis uero obliuiscitur Martem esse communem uenitque in alienam potestatem dum in sua non est.

5. To be angry on behalf of one’s own is not the mark of a pious mind but of an infirm one: that is the beautiful and worthy thing, to go forth as a defender for parents, children, friends, fellow-citizens, with the duty itself leading—willing, judging, provident—not impelled and rabid. For no passion is more desirous of vindicating than anger, and for that very reason it is unfit for vindicating: over-hasty and mad, as almost every cupidity, it sets itself in opposition to itself in the very matter toward which it rushes. And so neither in peace nor in war has it ever been good; for it makes peace similar to war, and in arms it forgets that Mars is common, and comes into another’s power while it is not in its own.

6. Deinde non ideo uitia in usum recipienda sunt quia aliquando aliquid effecerunt; nam et febres quaedam genera ualetudinis leuant, nec ideo non ex toto illis caruisse melius est: abominandum remedi genus est sanitatem debere morbo. Simili modo ira, etiam si aliquando ut uenenum et praecipitatio et naufragium ex inopinato profuit, non ideo salutaris iudicanda est; saepe enim saluti fuere pestifera.

6. Then vices are not therefore to be taken into use because they have sometimes effected something; for fevers too relieve certain kinds of ill‑health, and yet it is better to have been wholly without them: it is an abominable kind of remedy to owe health to disease. In a similar way anger, even if sometimes, like poison and a headlong fall and a shipwreck, it has unexpectedly been of profit, is not on that account to be judged salutary; for often pestiferous things have been for salvation.

XIII.

13.

1. Deinde quae habenda sunt, quo maiora eo meliora et optabiliora sunt. Si iustitia bonum est, nemo dicet meliorem futuram si quid detractum ex ea fuerit; si fortitudo bonum est, nemo illam desiderabit ex aliqua parte deminui. 2. Ergo et ira quo maior hoc melior; quis enim ullius boni accessionem recusauerit?

1. Then, the things which are to be had, the greater they are, by so much the better and more desirable they are. If justice is a good, no one will say it will be better if anything is taken away from it; if fortitude is a good, no one will desire that it be diminished in any part. 2. Therefore anger too, the greater this is, the better; for who would refuse an accession of any good?

Atqui augeri illam inutile est; ergo et esse; non est bonum quod incremento malum fit.

And yet for that to be augmented is useless; therefore so is its being; it is not a good which by increment becomes an evil.

3. 'Vtilis' inquit 'ira est, quia pugnaciores facit.' Isto modo et ebrietas; facit enim proteruos et audaces multique meliores ad ferrum fuere male sobrii; isto modo dic et phrenesin atque insaniam uiribus necessariam, quia saepe ualidiores furor reddit. 4. Quid? non aliquotiens metus ex contrario fecit audacem, et mortis timor etiam inertissimos excitauit in proelium?

3. 'Useful,' he says, 'is anger, because it makes men more pugnacious.' By that method, ebriety too; for it makes men insolent and bold, and many have been better at the steel when improperly sober; by that method say also that phrenesis and insanity are necessary for strength, because often frenzy renders men stronger. 4. What? has not fear too, by the contrary, sometimes made a man bold, and has not fear of death even roused the most inert into battle?

Sed ira ebrietas metus aliaque eiusmodi foeda et caduca inritamenta sunt nec uirtutem instruunt, quae nihil uitiis eget, sed segnem alioqui animum et ignauum paulum adleuant. 5. Nemo irascendo fit fortior, nisi qui fortis sine ira non fuisset; ita non in adiutorium uirtutis uenit, sed in uicem. Quid quod si bonum esset ira, perfectissimum quemque sequeretur?

But anger, drunkenness, fear, and other such foul and caducous irritants are, nor do they equip virtue, which has need of nothing from vices, but they slightly lift up an otherwise sluggish and cowardly spirit. 5. No one becomes stronger by getting angry, except one who would not have been brave without anger; thus it comes not as a help to virtue, but as a substitute. What then? For if anger were a good, it would attend upon each most perfect person.

Atqui iracundissimi infantes senesque et aegri sunt, et inualidum omne natura querulum est.

And yet the most irascible are infants, old men, and the sick, and everything that is weak is by nature querulous.

XIV.

14.

1. 'Non potest' inquit 'fieri' Theophrastus 'ut non uir bonus irascatur malis.' Isto modo quo melior quisque, hoc iracundior erit: uide ne contra placidior solutusque adfectibus et cui nemo odio sit. 2. Peccantis uero quid habet cur oderit, cum error illos in eiusmodi delicta conpellat? Non est autem prudentis errantis odisse; alioqui ipse sibi odio erit.

1. 'It cannot,' said Theophrastus, 'come to pass that a good man not grow angry with the wicked.' In that way, the better each person is, the more irascible he will be: see whether rather he is more placid and released from passions, and one for whom no one is an object of hatred. 2. But as for one who is sinning, what reason has he to hate him, since error drives them into delicts of this sort? Nor is it the part of a prudent man to hate one who errs; otherwise he will himself be hateful to himself.

Cogitet quam multa contra bonum morem faciat, quam multa ex iis quae egit ueniam desiderent: iam irascetur etiam sibi. Neque enim aequus iudex aliam de sua, aliam de aliena causa sententiam fert. 3. Nemo, inquam, inuenietur qui se possit absoluere, et innocentem quisque se dicit respiciens testem, non conscientiam.

Let him consider how many things he does against good morals, how many of the things he has done would desire pardon: already he will grow angry even with himself. For an equitable judge does not deliver one sentence in his own case, another in someone else’s. 3. No one, I say, will be found who can absolve himself, and each person calls himself innocent, looking to a witness, not to conscience.

Quanto humanius mitem et patrium animum praestare peccantibus et illos non persequi sed reuocare! Errantem per agros ignorantia uiae melius est ad rectum iter admouere quam expellere.

How much more humane to show a mild and paternal spirit to those who sin, and not to persecute them but to call them back! The one errant, wandering through the fields from ignorance of the way, it is better to bring toward the straight road than to expel.

XV.

15.

1. Corrigendus est itaque qui peccat et admonitione et ui, et molliter et aspere, meliorque tam sibi quam aliis faciendus non sine castigatione, sed sine ira; quis enim cui medetur irascitur? At corrigi nequeunt nihilque in illis lene aut spei bonae capax est: tollantur e coetu mortalium facturi peiora quae contingunt, et quo uno modo possunt desinant mali esse, sed hoc sine odio. 2. Quid enim est cur oderim eum cui tum maxime prosum cum illum sibi eripio?

1. Therefore he who sins must be corrected both with admonition and by force, both gently and harshly, and must be made better both for himself and for others—not without castigation, but without anger; for who grows angry at one to whom he ministers healing? But if they cannot be corrected, and there is in them nothing mild or capable of good hope, let them be removed from the fellowship of mortals, being about to bring about worse things than those that befall, and let them cease to be evil in the one way they can—but this without hatred. 2. For what reason should I hate him to whom I then most profit when I snatch him from himself?

Num quis membra sua tunc odit cum abscidit? Non est illa ira, sed misera curatio. Rabidos effligimus canes et trucem atque inmansuetum bouem occidimus et morbidis pecoribus, ne gregem polluant, ferrum demittimus; portentosos fetus extinguimus, liberos quoque, si debiles monstrosique editi sunt, mergimus; nec ira sed ratio est a sanis inutilia secernere.

Does anyone then hate his own limbs when he cuts them off? That is not anger, but a pitiable cure. We extirpate rabid dogs, and we kill a truculent and untamed ox; and into morbid cattle, lest they pollute the flock, we let down the steel; we extinguish portentous births, we even drown children, if they have been brought forth feeble and monstrous; nor is it anger but reason to separate the useless from the sound.

3. Nil minus quam irasci punientem decet, cum eo magis ad emendationem poena proficiat, si iudicio ~lata~ est. Inde est quod Socrates seruo ait 'caederem te, nisi irascerer'. Admonitionem serui in tempus sanius distulit, illo tempore se admonuit. Cuius erit tandem temperatus adfectus, cum Socrates non sit ausus se irae committere?

3. Nothing is less fitting than that a punisher be angry, since punishment makes the more progress toward emendation if it is imposed by judgment. Hence it is that Socrates said to a slave, 'I would strike you, were I not angry.' He deferred the slave’s admonition to a sounder time; at that time he admonished himself. Who, then, will have a temperate affect, when Socrates did not dare to commit himself to anger?

XVI.

16.

1. Ergo ad coercitionem errantium sceleratorumque irato castigatore non opus est; nam cum ira delictum animi sit, non oportet peccata corrigere peccantem. 'Quid ergo? non irascar latroni?

1. Therefore, for the coercition of the erring and the criminal, there is no need of an angry castigator; for since anger is a delinquency of the mind, it is not proper for one who is sinning to correct sins. 'What then? shall I not be angry at the robber?'

Quid ergo? non irascar uenefico?' Non; neque enim mihi irascor, cum sanguinem mitto. Omne poenae genus remedi loco admoueo.

‘What then? shall I not be angry at the poisoner?’ No; for neither am I angry at myself when I let blood. Every kind of penalty I apply in the place of a remedy.

2. 'Tu adhuc in prima parte uersaris errorum, nec grauiter laberis sed frequenter: obiurgatio te primum secreta deinde publicata emendare temptabit. Tu longius iam processisti quam ut possis uerbis sanari: ignominia contineberis. Tibi fortius aliquid et quod sentias inurendum est: in exilium et loca ignota mitteris.

2. 'You are still engaged in the first part of errors, and you do not slip gravely but frequently: objurgation will try to amend you, first secret, then made public. You have already proceeded farther than that you can be healed by words: you will be restrained by ignominy. For you something stronger, and such as you will feel, must be branded in: you will be sent into exile and to unknown places.

In te duriora remedia iam solida nequitia desiderat: et uincula publica et carcer adhibebitur. 3. Tibi insanabilis animus et sceleribus scelera contexens, et iam non causis, quae numquam malo defuturae sunt, inpelleris, sed satis tibi est magna ad peccandum causa peccare; perbibisti nequitiam et ita uisceribus inmiscuisti ut nisi cum ipsis exire non possit; olim miser mori quaeris: bene de te merebimur, auferemus tibi istam qua uexas uexaris insaniam et per tua alienaque uolutato supplicia id quod unum tibi bonum superest repraesentabimus, mortem.' Quare irascar cui cum maxime prosum? interim optimum misericordiae genus est occidere.

In your case a more hardened wickedness now desires harsher remedies: even public chains and prison will be applied. 3. For you, with a mind incurable and weaving crimes upon crimes, you are impelled now not by causes—which will never be lacking to evil—but it suffices you, as a great cause for sinning, to sin; you have drunk wickedness to the dregs and so mingled it with your very viscera that it cannot go out except with them; for a long time, wretch, you have been seeking to die: we shall deserve well of you, we shall take from you that madness with which you vex and are vexed, and, as you are rolled through punishments your own and others’, we shall bring before you the one good that remains to you, death.' Why should I be angry with one for whom I am most of all doing good? meanwhile the best kind of misericordy is to kill.

4. Si intrassem ualetudinarium exercitus [et sciens] aut domus diuitis, non idem imperassem omnibus per diuersa aegrotantibus: uaria in tot animis uitia uideo et ciuitati curandae adhibitus sum; pro cuiusque morbo medicina quaeratur, hunc sanet uerecundia, hunc peregrinatio, hunc dolor, hunc egestas, hunc ferrum. 5. Itaque et, si peruersa induenda magistratui uestis et conuocanda classico contio est, procedam in tribunal non furens nec infestus sed uultu legis et illa sollemnia uerba leni magis grauique quam rabida uoce concipiam et agi iubebo non iratus sed seuerus; et cum ceruicem noxio imperabo praecidi et cum parricidas insuam culleo et cum mittam in supplicium militare et cum Tarpeio proditorem hostemue publicum inponam, sine ira eo uultu animoque ero quo serpentes et animalia uenenata percutio. 6. 'Iracundia opus est ad puniendum.' Quid?

4. If I had entered the military hospital [and knowingly] or the house of a rich man, I would not have prescribed the same to all who are ailing in different ways: I see varied vices in so many souls, and I have been applied to the curing of the commonwealth; let a medicine be sought for each one’s disease—let modesty cure this man, travel/exile that one, pain this one, poverty that one, iron another. 5. And so, even if a reversed garment must be donned by the magistracy and the assembly must be summoned by the classicum, I shall go up to the tribunal not raging nor hostile but with the countenance of the law, and I shall frame those solemn words with a voice more gentle and grave than rabid, and I shall order it to be proceeded with according to not angry but severe; and when I command the neck of the guilty to be cut, and when I sew parricides into the sack, and when I send to military punishment, and when I set upon the Tarpeian Rock a traitor or a public enemy, without anger I shall be with that face and mind with which I strike serpents and venomous animals. 6. 'Irascibility is needed for punishing.' What?

tibi lex uidetur irasci iis quos non nouit, quos non uidit, quos non futuros sperat? Illius itaque sumendus est animus, quae non irascitur sed constituit. Nam si bono uiro ob mala facinora irasci conuenit, et ob secundas res malorum hominum inuidere conueniet.

Does the law seem to you to be angry with those whom it does not know, whom it has not seen, whom it hopes will not exist? Therefore the spirit of that must be assumed, which does not get angry but constitutes. For if it is fitting for a good man to be angry on account of evil deeds, it will also be fitting to envy the prosperity of wicked men.

Quid enim est indignius quam florere quosdam et eos indulgentia fortunae abuti quibus nulla potest satis mala inueniri fortuna? Sed tam commoda illorum sine inuidia uidebit quam scelera sine ira; bonus iudex damnat inprobanda, non odit. 7. 'Quid ergo?

What, indeed, is more unworthy than that certain men flourish and that those, by the indulgence of Fortune, abuse it, for whom no fortune bad enough can be found? But he will view their advantages without envy just as their crimes without anger; a good judge condemns what is to be disapproved, he does not hate. 7. 'What then?

non, cum eiusmodi aliquid sapiens habebit in manibus, tangetur animus eius eritque solito commotior?' Fateor: sentiet leuem quendam tenuemque motum; nam, ut dicit Zenon, in sapientis quoque animo, etiam cum uulnus sanatum est, cicatrix manet. Sentiet itaque suspiciones quasdam et umbras adfectuum, ipsis quidem carebit.

“Will not his mind, when the wise man has something of this sort in hand, be touched and be more stirred than is his wont?” I concede: he will feel a certain light and tenuous motion; for, as Zeno says, in the mind of the wise man too, even when the wound has been healed, a cicatrix remains. He will therefore sense certain suspicions and shadows of affections, but he will indeed be without the affections themselves.

XVII.

17.

1. Aristoteles ait adfectus quosdam, si quis illis bene utatur, pro armis esse. Quod uerum foret, si uelut bellica instrumenta sumi deponique possent induentis arbitrio: haec arma quae Aristoteles uirtuti dat ipsa per se pugnant, non expectant manum, et habent, non habentur. 2. Nil aliis instrumentis opus est, satis nos instruxit ratione natura.

1. Aristotle says that certain affections, if one use them well, serve as arms. Which would be true, if, like warlike instruments, they could be taken up and laid down at the wearer’s discretion: these arms which Aristotle assigns to virtue fight of themselves, they do not wait for the hand, and they possess, they are not possessed. 2. No need of other instruments; nature has sufficiently equipped us with reason.

Hoc dedit telum, firmum perpetuum obsequens, nec anceps nec quod in dominum remitti posset. Non ad prouidendum tantum, sed ad res gerendas satis est per se ipsa ratio; etenim quid est stultius quam hanc ab iracundia petere praesidium, rem stabilem ab incerta, fidelem ab infida, sanam ab aegra? 3. Quid quod <ad> actiones quoque, in quibus solis opera iracundiae uidetur necessaria, multo per se ratio fortior est?

This has given us a weapon, firm, perpetual, compliant, neither two-edged nor one that could be sent back against its master. Not only for foreseeing, but for conducting affairs, reason by itself is sufficient; for what is more foolish than to seek protection for this from iracundity—something stable from the uncertain, faithful from the unfaithful, sound from the sick? 3. What of the fact that <ad> actions too, in which alone the service of iracundity seems necessary, reason by itself is much stronger?

Nam cum iudicauit aliquid faciendum, in eo perseuerat; nihil enim melius inuentura est se ipsa quo mutetur; ideo stat semel constitutis. 4. Iram saepe misericordia retro egit; habet enim non solidum robur sed uanum tumorem uiolentisque principiis utitur, non aliter quam qui a terra uenti surgunt et fluminibus paludibusque concepti sine pertinacia uehementes sunt: 5. incipit magno impetu, deinde deficit ante tempus fatigata, et, quae nihil aliud quam crudelitatem ac noua genera poenarum uersauerat, cum animaduertendum est, iam [ira] fracta lenisque est. Adfectus cito cadit, aequalis est ratio.

For when it has judged that something must be done, it perseveres in that; for it will find nothing better than itself into which it might be changed; therefore it stands fast once decisions have been set. 4. Mercy has often driven anger back; for it possesses not solid strength but a vain tumor, and it employs violent beginnings, not otherwise than the winds which rise from the earth and, conceived by rivers and marshes, are vehement without pertinacity: 5. it begins with great impetus, then fails before its time, fatigued, and, after it has busied itself with nothing other than cruelty and new kinds of punishments, when it is time to punish, now [anger] is broken and gentle. The passion quickly falls; reason is equable.

6. Ceterum etiam ubi perseuerauit ira, nonnumquam, si plures sunt qui perire meruerunt, post duorum triumue sanguinem occidere desinit. Primi eius ictus acres sunt: sic serpentium uenena a cubili erepentium nocent, innoxii dentes sunt cum illos frequens morsus exhausit. 7. Ergo non paria patiuntur qui paria commiserant, et saepe qui minus commisit plus patitur, quia recentiori obiectus est.

6. Moreover, even when anger has persevered, sometimes, if there are several who have deserved to perish, after the blood of two or three it ceases to kill. Its first blows are sharp: thus the venoms of serpents creeping from their lair do harm; their teeth are harmless when frequent biting has exhausted them. 7. Therefore those who had committed equal acts do not suffer equal things, and often he who committed less suffers more, because he is exposed to the more recent outburst.

Et in totum inaequalis est: modo ultra quam oportet excurrit, modo citerius debito resistit; sibi enim indulget et ex libidine iudicat et audire non uult et patrocinio non relinquit locum et ea tenet quae inuasit et eripi sibi iudicium suum, etiam si prauum est, non sinit.

And altogether it is unequal: now it runs beyond what is fitting, now it halts short of what is due; for it indulges itself and judges out of lust, and does not wish to hear, and leaves no place for advocacy, and holds fast to the things it has seized, and does not allow its own judgment, even if crooked, to be snatched away from itself.

XVIII.

18.

1. Ratio utrique parti tempus dat, deinde aduocationem et sibi petit, ut excutiendae ueritati spatium habeat: ira festinat. Ratio id iudicare uult quod aequum est: ira id aequum uideri uult quod iudicauit. 2. Ratio nil praeter ipsum de quo agitur spectat: ira uanis et extra causam obuersantibus commouetur.

1. Reason gives time to each party, then asks for an adjournment and for itself, so that it may have a span for truth to be shaken out: anger hastens. Reason wishes to judge what is equitable: anger wishes what it has judged to seem equitable. 2. Reason looks at nothing besides the very thing about which the case is being conducted: anger is moved by vain things and by those presenting themselves outside the cause.

Vultus illam securior, uox clarior, sermo liberior, cultus delicatior, aduocatio ambitiosior, fauor popularis exasperant; saepe infesta patrono reum damnat; etiam si ingeritur oculis ueritas, amat et tuetur errorem; coargui non uult, et in male coeptis honestior illi pertinacia uidetur quam paenitentia.

Countenance more assured, voice clearer, speech freer, attire more delicate, advocacy more ambitious, popular favor exasperate it; often, being hostile to the patron, it condemns the defendant; even if truth is thrust before its eyes, it loves and protects error; it does not wish to be refuted, and in ill-begun undertakings obstinacy seems to it more honorable than penitence.

3. Cn. Piso fuit memoria nostra uir a multis uitiis integer, sed prauus et cui placebat pro constantia rigor. Is cum iratus duci iussisset eum qui ex commeatu sine commilitone redierat, quasi interfecisset quem non exhibebat, roganti tempus aliquid ad conquirendum non dedit. Damnatus extra uallum productus est et iam ceruicem porrigebat, cum subito apparuit ille commilito qui occisus uidebatur.

3. Gnaeus Piso was, within our memory, a man free from many vices, yet perverse, and one to whom rigor pleased as constancy. He, when angry, had ordered to be led off the man who had returned from furlough without his fellow-soldier, as if he had killed the one whom he did not produce; to the one asking for some time to search he granted none. Condemned, he was led outside the rampart and was already stretching forth his neck, when suddenly that fellow-soldier appeared who had seemed to have been slain.

4. Tunc centurio supplicio praepositus condere gladium speculatorem iubet, damnatum ad Pisonem reducit redditurus Pisoni innocentiam; nam militi fortuna reddiderat. Ingenti concursu deducuntur complexi alter alterum cum magno gaudio castrorum commilitones. Conscendit tribunal furens Piso ac iubet duci utrumque, et eum militem qui non occiderat et eum qui non perierat.

4. Then the centurion set over the punishment orders the executioner to sheathe his sword, brings the condemned man back to Piso, intending to render to Piso the innocence; for Fortune had restored the soldier. With a huge concourse they are led down—the comrades-in-arms of the camp—embracing one another with great joy. Piso, raging, mounts the tribunal and orders both to be led away, both the soldier who had not killed and the one who had not perished.

5. Quid hoc indignius? quia unus innocens apparuerat, duo peribant. Piso adiecit et tertium; nam ipsum centurionem qui damnatum reduxerat duci iussit.

5. What more unworthy than this? because one innocent had appeared, two were perishing. Piso added even a third; for he ordered the centurion himself, who had led back the condemned man, to be led to execution.

Constituti sunt in eodem illo loco perituri tres ob unius innocentiam. 6. O quam sollers est iracundia ad fingendas causas furoris! 'Te' inquit 'duci iubeo, quia damnatus es; te, quia causa damnationis commilitoni fuisti; te, quia iussus occidere imperatori non paruisti.' Excogitauit quemadmodum tria crimina faceret, quia nullum inuenerat.

Three were set in that same very place, destined to perish, on account of one man’s innocence. 6. O how adroit is irascibility at forging causes of frenzy! 'You,' he says, 'I order to be led off, because you have been condemned; you, because you were the cause of condemnation to your fellow-soldier; you, because, having been ordered to kill, you did not obey the emperor.' He excogitated how to make three crimes, since he had found none.

XIX.

19.

1. Habet, inquam, iracundia hoc mali: non uult regi. Irascitur ueritati ipsi, si contra uoluntatem suam apparuit; cum clamore et tumultu et totius corporis iactatione quos destinauit insequitur adiectis conuiciis maledictisque. 2. Hoc non facit ratio; sed si ita opus est, silens quietaque totas domus funditus tollit et familias rei publicae pestilentes cum coniugibus ac liberis perdit, tecta ipsa diruit et solo exaequat et inimica libertati nomina exstirpat: hoc non frendens nec caput quassans nec quicquam indecorum iudici faciens, cuius tum maxime placidus esse debet et in statu uultus cum magna pronuntiat.

1. Anger, I say, has this evil: it does not want to be ruled. It grows angry at truth itself, if it has appeared against its will; with shouting and tumult and with a tossing of the whole body it pursues those whom it has marked out, with invectives and maledictions added. 2. Reason does not do this; but if thus there is need, silent and calm it removes whole households from the foundations and destroys families pestilent to the commonwealth together with wives and children, it tears down the very roofs and levels them with the ground and extirpates names inimical to liberty: this it does not by gnashing the teeth nor by shaking the head nor by doing anything unseemly for a judge, whose face ought then most of all to be placid and in set composure when he pronounces great matters.

3. 'Quid opus est' inquit Hieronymus 'cum uelis caedere aliquem, tua prius labra mordere?' Quid si ille uidisset desilientem de tribunali proconsulem et fasces lictori auferentem et suamet uestimenta scindentem, quia tardius scindebantur aliena? 4. Quid opus est mensam euertere? quid pocula adfligere?

3. 'What need is there,' says Hieronymus, 'when you wish to strike someone, to bite your own lips first?' What if he had seen a proconsul leaping down from the tribunal and snatching the fasces from the lictor and tearing his very own garments, because another’s were being torn too slowly? 4. What need is there to overturn the table? why smash the cups?

quid se in columnas inpingere? quid capillos auellere, femur pectusque percutere? ~Quantam~ iram putas, quae, quia in alium non tam cito quam uult erumpit, in se reuertitur?

what is the need to dash himself against columns? what to tear out his hair, to beat thigh and chest? ~How great~ an anger do you think it is, which, because it does not erupt against another as quickly as it wishes, reverts upon itself?

Tenentur itaque a proximis et rogantur ut sibi ipsi placentur.

Accordingly they are held back by their nearest and are begged to be appeased with themselves.

5. Quorum nil facit quisquis uacuus ira meritam cuique poenam iniungit. Dimittit saepe eum cuius peccatum deprendit: si paenitentia facti spem bonam pollicetur, si intellegit non ex alto uenire nequitiam sed summo, quod aiunt, animo inhaerere, dabit inpunitatem nec accipientibus nocituram nec dantibus; 6. nonnumquam magna scelera leuius quam minora compescet, si illa lapsu, non crudelitate commissa sunt, his inest latens et operta et inueterata calliditas; idem delictum in duobus non eodem malo adficiet, si alter per neglegentiam admisit, alter curauit ut nocens esset. 7. Hoc semper in omni animaduersione seruabit, ut sciat alteram adhiberi ut emendet malos, alteram ut tollat; in utroque non praeterita sed futura intuebitur (nam, ut Plato ait, nemo prudens punit quia peccatum est, sed ne peccetur; reuocari enim praeterita non possunt, futura prohibentur) et quos uolet nequitiae male cedentis exempla fieri palam occidet, non tantum ut pereant ipsi, sed ut alios pereundo deterreant.

5. None of this is done by whoever, void of anger, imposes on each the merited penalty. He often dismisses the one whose fault he has detected: if repentance of the deed promises good hope, if he understands that the wickedness does not come from the depths but, as they say, clings to the surface of the mind, he will grant impunity that will harm neither those receiving it nor those granting it; 6. sometimes he will restrain great crimes more lightly than lesser ones, if the former were committed by a slip, not by cruelty; in the latter there is a lurking, hidden, and inveterate craftiness; the same offense in two persons he will not visit with the same ill, if the one committed it through negligence, the other contrived to be guilty. 7. This he will always maintain in every animadversion: that the one sort is applied to amend the bad, the other to remove them; in both he will look not to things past but to things future (for, as Plato says, no prudent man punishes because a sin has been committed, but in order that it may not be committed; for things past cannot be called back, things future are prohibited), and those whom he will wish to become examples that vice comes to a bad end he will kill openly, not only that they themselves may perish, but that by perishing they may deter others.

8. Haec cui expendenda aestimandaque sunt, uides quam debeat omni perturbatione liber accedere ad rem summa diligentia tractandam, potestatem uitae necisque: male irato ferrum committitur.

8. For the one to whom these things must be weighed and assessed, you see how free from every perturbation he ought to approach the matter to be handled with the highest diligence, the power of life and death: steel is ill entrusted to a man in anger.

XX.

20.

1. Ne illud quidem iudicandum est, aliquid iram ad magnitudinem animi conferre. Non est enim illa magnitudo: tumor est; nec corporibus copia uitiosi umoris intentis morbus incrementum est sed pestilens abundantia. 2. Omnes quos uecors animus supra cogitationes extollit humanas altum quiddam et sublime spirare se credunt; ceterum nil solidi subest, sed in ruinam prona sunt quae sine fundamentis creuere.

1. Not even this is to be judged: that anger contributes anything to the magnitude of mind. For that is not magnitude: it is a tumor; nor, in bodies distended by a supply of vicious humor, is it growth, but a pestilential abundance. 2. All those whom an unhinged spirit lifts above human cogitations believe themselves to breathe something high and sublime; but nothing solid lies beneath, and what has grown without foundations is prone to ruin.

Non habet ira cui insistat; non ex firmo mansuroque oritur, sed uentosa et inanis est, tantumque abest a magnitudine animi quantum a fortitudine audacia, a fiducia insolentia, ab austeritate tristitia, a seueritate crudelitas. 3. Multum, inquam, interest inter sublimem animum et superbum. Iracundia nihil amplum decorumque molitur; contra mihi uidetur ueternosi et infelicis animi, inbecillitatis sibi conscii, saepe indolescere, ut exulcerata et aegra corpora quae ad tactus leuissimos gemunt.

Anger has nothing on which it may stand fast; it does not arise from what is firm and abiding, but is windy and empty, and it is as far from the magnitude of mind as audacity is from fortitude, insolence from confidence, sadness from austerity, cruelty from severity. 3. There is, I say, much difference between a sublime spirit and a proud one. Anger undertakes nothing great and decorous; on the contrary, it seems to me to belong to a drowsy and unlucky spirit, conscious of its own imbecility, often to smart, like ulcerated and sick bodies which groan at the very lightest touches.

Ita ira muliebre maxime ac puerile uitium est. 'At incidit et in uiros.' Nam uiris quoque puerilia ac muliebria ingenia sunt. 4. 'Quid ergo?

Thus anger is most of all a womanish and puerile vice. 'But it also befalls men.' For in men too there are puerile and womanish dispositions. 4. 'What then?

non aliquae uoces ab iratis emittuntur quae magno emissae uideantur animo?' <Immo> ueram ignorantibus magnitudinem, qualis illa dira et abominanda 'oderint, dum metuant'. Sullano scias saeculo scriptam. Nescio utrum sibi peius optauerit ut odio esset an ut timori. 'Oderint.' Occurrit illi futurum ut execrentur insidientur opprimant: quid adiecit?

Are there not certain voices sent forth by the angry which seem to have been emitted by a great spirit? <Rather> to those ignorant of true magnitude, such as that dire and abominable, 'let them hate, so long as they fear.' Know that it was written in the Sullan age. I do not know whether he opted the worse for himself—to be an object of hatred or of fear. 'Let them hate.' It occurs to him that the future will be that they will execrate, lie in wait, and oppress: what did he add?

Di illi male faciant, adeo repperit dignum odio remedium. 'Oderint' — quid? 'dum pareant'? Non.

May the gods do him ill; indeed he has found a remedy worthy of odium. ‘Let them hate’ — what? ‘so long as they obey’? No.

'dum probent'? Non. Quid ergo? 'dum timeant'. Sic ne amari quidem uellem.

'so long as they approve'? No. What then? 'so long as they fear'. Thus I would not wish even to be loved.

5. Magno hoc dictum spiritu putas? Falleris; nec enim magnitudo ista est sed immanitas. Non est quod credas irascentium uerbis, quorum strepitus magni, minaces sunt, intra mens pauidissima.

5. Do you think this was spoken with great spirit? You are mistaken; for that is not magnitude but immanity. There is no reason for you to trust the words of the irate, whose clamors are great, they are menacing; within, the mind is most timorous.

6. Nec est quod existimes uerum esse quod apud disertissimum uirum Liuium dicitur: 'uir ingenii magni magis quam boni.' Non potest istud separari: aut et bonum erit aut nec magnum, quia magnitudinem animi inconcussam intellego et introrsus solidam et ab imo parem firmamque, qualis inesse malis ingeniis non potest. 7. Terribilia enim esse et tumultuosa et exitiosa possunt: magnitudinem quidem, cuius firmamentum roburque bonitas est, non habebunt. 8. Ceterum sermone, conatu et omni extra paratu facient magnitudinis fidem; eloquentur aliquid quod tu magni putes, sicut C. Caesar, qui iratus caelo quod obstreperetur pantomimis, quos imitabatur studiosius quam spectabat, quodque comessatio sua fulminibus terreretur (prorsus parum certis), ad pugnam uocauit Iouem et quidem sine missione, Homericum illum exclamans uersum:

6. Nor is there reason for you to suppose true what is said by the most eloquent man, Livy: 'a man of genius more great than good.' That cannot be separated: either it will be good as well, or not even great, since by 'greatness of mind' I understand something unshaken and inwardly solid and, from the very bottom, even and firm—of a kind that cannot inhere in evil dispositions. 7. For they can be terrible and tumultuous and destructive; but they will not have greatness, whose stay and strength is goodness. 8. Otherwise, by speech, by effort, and by every external preparation they will make a show of greatness; they will utter something that you would think of great spirit, like Gaius Caesar, who, angry at the sky because it drowned out the pantomimes—whom he imitated more eagerly than he watched—and because his carousal was being frightened by thunderbolts (quite too uncertain), called Jupiter to the fight, and indeed without quarter, shouting that Homeric verse:

e m anaeir ego se.

Are you killing me? I you.

9. Quanta dementia fuit! Putauit aut sibi noceri ne ab Ioue quidem posse aut se nocere etiam Ioui posse. Non puto parum momenti hanc eius uocem ad incitandas coniuratorum mentes addidisse; ultimae enim patientiae uisum est eum ferre qui Iouem non ferret.

9. What madness it was! He thought either that harm could not be done to himself, not even by Jove, or that he could do harm even to Jove. I do not think this utterance of his added little weight for inciting the minds of the conspirators; for it seemed an extremity of patience to endure one who would not endure Jove.

XXI.

21.

1. Nihil ergo in ira, ne cum uidetur quidem uehemens et deos hominesque despiciens, magnum, nihil nobile est. Aut si uidetur alicui magnum animum ira producere, uideatur et luxuria — ebore sustineri uult, purpura uestiri, auro tegi, terras transferre, maria concludere, flumina praecipitare, nemora suspendere; 2. uideatur et auaritia magni animi — aceruis auri argentique incubat et prouinciarum nominibus agros colit et sub singulis uilicis latiores habet fines quam quos consules sortiebantur; 3. uideatur et libido magni animi — transnat freta, puerorum greges castrat, sub gladium mariti uenit morte contempta; uideatur et ambitio magni animi — non est contenta honoribus annuis; si fieri potest, uno nomine occupare fastus uult, per omnem orbem titulos disponere. 4. Omnia ista, non refert in quantum procedant extendantque se, angusta sunt, misera depressa; sola sublimis et excelsa uirtus est, nec quicquam magnum est nisi quod simul placidum.

1. Therefore nothing in anger, not even when it seems vehement and despising gods and men, is great, nothing noble. Or if anger seems to someone to produce a great spirit, let luxury seem so too — it wants to be supported by ivory, to be clothed with purple, to be covered with gold, to move lands, to enclose seas, to hurl rivers headlong, to suspend groves; 2. let avarice too seem of a great spirit — it broods over heaps of gold and silver and tills fields under the names of provinces, and under individual bailiffs has boundaries broader than those which the consuls were allotted; 3. let lust too seem of a great spirit — it swims across straits, it castrates herds of boys, it comes under the husband’s sword with death despised; let ambition too seem of a great spirit — it is not content with annual honors; if it can be done, it wants to seize the Fasti with a single name, to set out titles through the whole world. 4. All these things, no matter how far they advance and stretch themselves, are narrow, wretched, cast down; virtue alone is lofty and exalted, nor is anything great unless it is at the same time placid.