Seneca: DIALOGI

1. Tantum inter Stoicos, Serene, et ceteros sapientiam professos interesse quantum inter feminas et mares non inmerito dixerim, cum utraque turba ad uitae societatem tantundem conferat, sed altera pars ad obsequendum, altera imperio nata sit. Ceteri sapientes molliter et blande, ut fere domestici et familiares medici aegris corporibus, non qua optimum et celerrimum est medentur sed qua licet: Stoici uirilem ingressi uiam non ut amoena ineuntibus uideatur curae habent, sed ut quam primum nos eripiat et in illum editum uerticem educat qui adeo extra omnem teli iactum surrexit ut supra fortunam emineat. 2. 'At ardua per quae uocamur et confragosa sunt.' Quid enim?

1. So great a difference between the Stoics, Serene, and the others who have professed wisdom would I say there is—not undeservedly—as between females and males, although each crowd contributes just as much to the fellowship of life, yet the one part is born for obedience, the other for command. The other wise men treat softly and blandly, as household and familiar physicians commonly do with sick bodies: they heal not in the way that is best and swiftest but in the way that is permitted; the Stoics, having entered a virile path, have concern not that it may seem pleasant to those entering, but that it may snatch us away as soon as possible and lead us up to that exalted summit which has risen so far beyond every cast of a missile that it stands out above Fortune. 2. 'But the things through which we are called are steep and rugged.' What of it?

plano aditur excelsum? Sed ne tam abrupta quidem sunt quam quidam putant. Prima tantum pars saxa rupesque habet et inuii speciem, sicut pleraque ex longinquo speculantibus abscisa et conexa uideri solent, cum aciem longinquitas fallat, deinde propius adeuntibus eadem illa quae in unum congesserat error oculorum paulatim adaperiuntur, tum illis quae praecipitia ex interuallo apparebant redit lene fastigium.

Is the lofty place approached by level ground? But neither are they so abrupt as some think. Only the first part has rocks and crags and a look of inaccessibility, just as most things are wont to seem cut off and run together to those watching from a long distance, since longinquity deceives the eye’s keenness,
then, as one comes nearer, those same things which the error of the eyes had heaped into one are gradually opened up,
then those things which from a remove had appeared precipices take back a gentle slope.

3. Nuper cum incidisset mentio M. Catonis, indigne ferebas, sicut es iniquitatis inpatiens, quod Catonem aetas sua parum intellexisset, quod supra Pompeios et Caesares surgentem infra Vatinios posuisset, et tibi indignum uidebatur quod illi dissuasuro legem toga in foro esset erepta quodque a rostris usque ad arcum Fabianum per seditiosae factionis manus traditus uoces inprobas et sputa et omnis alias insanae multitudinis contumelias pertulisset.

3. Recently, when mention had arisen of M. Cato, you were taking it with indignation, as you are impatient of iniquity, that his age had too little understood Cato, that it had set him, rising above the Pompeys and the Caesars, beneath the Vatinii; and it seemed to you unworthy that, as he was about to dissuade a law, his toga had been snatched from him in the forum, and that, handed over through the hands of a seditious faction from the Rostra all the way to the Fabian Arch, he had endured shameless shouts and spittings and all the other contumelies of an insane multitude.

II.

1. Tum ego respondi habere te quod rei publicae nomine mouereris, quam hinc P. Clodius, hinc Vatinius ac pessimus quisque uenundabat et caeca cupiditate correpti non intellegebant se dum uendunt et uenire: pro ipso quidem Catone securum te esse iussi; nullam enim sapientem nec iniuriam accipere nec contumeliam posse, Catonem autem certius exemplar sapientis uiri nobis deos inmortalis dedisse quam Vlixem et Herculem prioribus saeculis. Hos enim Stoici nostri sapientes pronuntiauerunt, inuictos laboribus et contemptores uoluptatis et uictores omnium terrorum. 2. Cato non cum feris manus contulit, quas consectari uenatoris agrestisque est, nec monstra igne ac ferro persecutus est, nec in ea tempora incidit quibus credi posset caelum umeris unius inniti: excussa iam antiqua credulitate et saeculo ad summam perducto sollertiam cum ambitu congressus, multiformi malo, et cum potentiae inmensa cupiditate, quam totus orbis in tres diuisus satiare non poterat, aduersus uitia ciuitatis degenerantis et pessum sua mole sidentis stetit solus et cadentem rem publicam, quantum modo una retrahi manu poterat, tenuit, donec abstractus comitem se diu sustentatae ruinae dedit simulque extincta sunt quae nefas erat diuidi; neque enim Cato post libertatem uixit nec libertas post Catonem.

1. Then I replied that you have reason to be moved in the name of the commonwealth, which on this side P. Clodius, on that side Vatinius and every worst man were putting up for sale, and, seized by blind cupidity, did not understand that while they sell they themselves are being sold: as for Cato himself, I bade you be without care; for no wise man can either receive injury or insult, and the immortal gods have given us in Cato a surer exemplar of a wise man than Ulysses and Hercules in earlier ages. For our Stoics have pronounced these men wise, unconquered by labors and despisers of pleasure and victors over all terrors. 2. Cato did not join hands in combat with wild beasts, which it is the task of a hunter and rustic to pursue, nor did he hunt down monsters with fire and iron, nor did he fall upon those times in which it could be believed that the sky rested on the shoulders of one man: with ancient credulity now shaken off and the age brought to the summit of cleverness, he matched his ingenuity against ambition, that multiform evil, and against an immense lust of power, which the whole world divided into three could not satiate; he stood alone against the vices of a degenerating state, sinking to ruin under its own mass, and he held the falling republic, so far as it could be drawn back by a single hand, until, being torn away, he gave himself as companion to the ruin long sustained, and at the same time those things were extinguished which it was sacrilege to divide; for neither did Cato live after freedom, nor freedom after Cato.

3. Huic tu putas iniuriam fieri potuisse a populo quod aut praeturam illi detraxit aut togam, quod sacrum illud caput purgamentis oris adspersit? Tutus est sapiens nec ulla adfici aut iniuria aut contumelia potest.

3. Do you think an injury could have been done to this man by the people because it either took away from him the praetorship or the toga, because it sprinkled that sacred head with the offscourings of their mouths? The wise man is secure, and can be affected by neither injury nor contumely.

III.

1. Videor mihi intueri animum tuum incensum et efferuescentem, paras adclamare: 'haec sunt quae auctoritatem praeceptis uestris detrahant. Magna promittitis et quae ne optari quidem, nedum credi possint. Deinde ingentia locuti cum pauperem negastis esse sapientem, non negatis solereilli et seruum et tectum et cibum deesse; cum sapientem negastis insanire, non negatis et alienari et parum sana uerba emittere et quidquid uis morbi cogit audere; cum sapientem negastis seruum esse, idem non itis infitias et ueniturum et imperata facturum et domino suo seruilia praestaturum ministeria: ita sublato alte supercilio in eadem quae ceteri descenditis mutatis rerum nominibus.

1. I seem to myself to behold your mind inflamed and effervescing; you are preparing to exclaim: 'these are the things which detract authority from your precepts. You promise great things, and such as cannot even be wished for, much less believed. Then, having spoken of huge matters, when you have denied that the wise man is poor, you do not deny that it is his wont to lack both a slave and a roof and food; when you have denied that the wise man goes insane, you do not deny that he also becomes alienated and emits words not quite sound, and dares whatever the force of disease compels; when you have denied that the wise man is a slave, you do not go so far as to deny that he will be sold and will do what is commanded and will render to his master servile ministries: thus, with your eyebrow lifted high, you descend into the same things as the rest, with the names of the things changed.'

2. Tale itaque aliquid et in hoc esse suspicor, quod prima specie pulchrum atque magnificum est, nec iniuriam nec contumeliam accepturum esse sapientem. Multum autem interest utrum sapientem extra indignationem an extra iniuriam ponas. Nam si dicis illum aequo animo laturum, nullum habet priuilegium, contigit illi res uulgaris et quae discitur ipsa iniuriarum adsiduitate, patientia; si negas accepturum iniuriam, id est neminem illi temptaturum facere, omnibus relictis negotiis Stoicus fio.' 3. Ego uero sapientem non imaginario honore uerborum exornare constitui, sed eo loco ponere quo nulla permittatur iniuria.

2. Therefore I suspect that there is something of this sort here too, which at first appearance is fair and magnificent: that the wise man will receive neither injury nor contumely. But it makes a great difference whether you place the wise man beyond indignation or beyond injury. For if you say that he will bear it with an even mind, he has no privilege; a common thing has befallen him, and patience, which is learned by the very assiduity of injuries; but if you deny that he will receive injury, that is, that no one will attempt to do it to him, leaving all other business, I become a Stoic.' 3. As for me, I have determined not to adorn the wise man with an imaginary honor of words, but to place him in that position where no injury is permitted.

'Quid ergo? nemo erit qui lacessat, qui temptet?' Nihil in rerum natura tam sacrum est quod sacrilegum non inueniat, sed non ideo diuina minus in sublimi sunt si existunt qui magnitudinem multum ultra se positam non tacturi adpetant; inuulnerabile est non quod non feritur, sed quod non laeditur: ex hac tibi nota sapientem exhibebo. 4. Numquid dubium est quin certius robur sit quod non uincitur quam quod non lacessitur, cum dubiae sint uires inexpertae, at merito certissima firmitas habeatur quae omnis incursus respuit?

'What then? Will there be no one
who provokes, who attempts?' Nothing in the nature of things is so sacred that a sacrilegious man does not find it, but the divine are not therefore less in the sublime if there exist those who, not going to touch the greatness set far beyond themselves, nonetheless aspire to it; invulnerable is not that which is not struck, but that which is not harmed: by this mark I will exhibit to you the wise man. 4. Is there any doubt that the more certain vigor is that which is not conquered rather than that which is not provoked, since untried forces are doubtful, and with good reason the most most-certain firmness is held to be that which repels every incursion?

Sic tu sapientem melioris scito esse naturae, si nulla illi iniuria nocet, quam si nulla fit; et illum fortem uirum dicam quem bella non subigunt nec admota uis hostilis exterret, non cui pingue otium est inter desides populos. 5. Hoc igitur dico, sapientem nulli esse iniuriae obnoxium; itaque non refert quam multa in illum coiciantur tela, cum sit nulli penetrabilis. Quomodo quorundam lapidum inexpugnabilis ferro duritia est nec secari adamas aut caedi uel deteri potest sed incurrentia ultro retundit, quemadmodum quaedam non possunt igne consumi sed flamma circumfusa rigorem suum habitumque conseruant, quemadmodum proiecti quidam in altum scopuli mare frangunt nec ipsi ulla saeuitiae uestigia tot uerberati saeculis ostentant, ita sapientis animus solidus est et id roboris collegit ut tam tutus sit ab iniuria quam illa quae rettuli.

Thus know the wise man to be of a better nature, if no injury harms him, than if none is done; and I shall call that man brave whom wars do not subdue nor does the applied hostile force terrify, not the one for whom there is fat leisure among slothful peoples. 5. Therefore I say this: that the wise man is liable to no injury; and so it is of no moment how many missiles are hurled against him, since he is penetrable to none. Just as certain stones have a hardness impregnable to iron and the adamant can be neither cut nor hewn nor worn away, but on the contrary blunts things that run against it, just as certain things cannot be consumed by fire but, with the flame poured around, preserve their own rigor and condition, just as certain crags projected on high break the sea, and they themselves, beaten through so many ages, display no traces of savagery, so the soul of the wise man is solid and has gathered such strength that it is as safe from injury as those which I have recounted.

IV.

1. 'Quid ergo? non erit aliquis qui sapienti facere temptet iniuriam?' Temptabit, sed non peruenturam ad eum; maiore enim interuallo a contactu inferiorum abductus est quam ut ulla uis noxia usque ad illum uires suas perferat. Etiam cum potentes, et imperio editi et consensu seruientium ualidi, nocere intendent, tam citra sapientiam omnes eorum impetus deficient quam quae neruo tormentisue in altum exprimuntur, cum extra uisum exilierint, citra caelum tamen flectuntur.

1. 'What then? Will there not be someone who attempts to do injury to the wise man?' He will attempt it, but it will not reach him; for he has been drawn off by a greater interval from the contact of inferior things than that any noxious force could carry its powers all the way to him. Even when the powerful—both raised by command and strong by the consensus of those serving— aim to harm, all their onsets will fall short of the wise man, just as things propelled aloft by sinew or by engines, when they have leapt beyond sight, nevertheless are bent short of the sky.

2. Quid? tu putas tum, cum stolidus ille rex multitudine telorum diem obscuraret, ullam sagittam in solem incidisse aut demissis in profundum catenis Neptunum potuisse contingi? Vt caelestia humanas manus effugiunt et ab his qui templa diruunt ac simulacra conflant nihil diuinitati nocetur, ita quidquid fit in sapientem proterue, petulanter, superbe, frustra temptatur.

2. What? Do you think that when that stolid king was darkening the day with a multitude of missiles, any arrow struck the sun, or that, with chains let down into the deep, Neptune could be touched? As the celestial things escape human hands, and by those who tear down temples and melt down simulacra nothing is harmed in the divinity, so whatever is done against the wise man—insolently, petulantly, superbly—is attempted in vain.

3. 'At satius erat neminem esse qui facere uellet.' Rem difficilem optas humano generi, innocentiam; et non fieri eorum interest qui facturi sunt, non eius qui pati ne si fiat quidem potest. Immo nescio an magis uires sapientiae ostendat tranquillitas inter lacessentia, sicut maximum argumentum est imperatoris armis uirisque pollentis tuta securitas in hostium terra.

3. 'But it would have been better that there be no one who would want to do it.' You are wishing a difficult thing for the human race—innocence; and that it not be done concerns those who are going to do it, not him who cannot suffer it, not even if it does happen. Nay rather, I do not know whether tranquility amid provocations shows the powers of wisdom more, just as the secure safety of an emperor, powerful in arms and in men, in the land of enemies, is the greatest argument.

1. Diuidamus, si tibi uidetur, Serene, iniuriam a contumelia. Prior illa natura grauior est, haec leuior et tantum delicatis grauis, qua non laeduntur homines sed offenduntur. Tanta est tamen animorum dissolutio et uanitas ut quidam nihil acerbius putent; sic inuenies seruum qui flagellis quam colaphis caedi malit et qui mortem ac uerbera tolerabiliora credat quam contumeliosa uerba.

1. Let us divide, if it seems good to you, Serenus, injury from contumely. The former is by nature graver; the latter lighter, and grievous only to the delicate, by which men are not harmed but offended. So great, however, is the dissolution of minds and vanity that some think nothing more bitter; thus you will find a slave who would rather be beaten with whips than with cuffs, and who believes death and beatings more tolerable than contumelious words.

2. Ad tantas ineptias peruentum est ut non dolore tantum sed doloris opinione uexemur, more puerorum, quibus metum incutit umbra et personarum deformitas et deprauata facies, lacrimas uero euocant nomina parum grata auribus et digitorum motus et alia quae impetu quodam erroris inprouidi refugiunt. 3. Iniuria propositum hoc habet, aliquem malo adficere; malo autem sapientia non relinquit locum (unum enim illi malum est turpitudo, quae intrare eo ubi iam uirtus honestumque est non potest); ergo, si iniuria sine malo nulla est, malum nisi turpe nullum est, turpe autem ad honestis occupatum peruenire non potest, iniuria ad sapientem non peruenit. Nam si iniuria alicuius mali patientia est, sapiens autem nullius mali est patiens, nulla ad sapientem iniuria pertinet.

2. We have come to such ineptitudes that we are vexed not only by pain
but by the opinion of pain, after the manner of boys, for whom a shadow and the deformity of masks and a depraved face instill fear, while in truth tears are called forth
by names little pleasing to the ears and by the motion of fingers and by other things from which, by a certain impulse of unwary error, they flee. 3. Injury has this purpose, to afflict someone with an evil; but for evil
wisdom leaves no place (for to it the one evil is turpitude, which
cannot enter where virtue and the honorable already are); therefore, if injury
is nothing without an evil, and there is no evil except the base, but the base cannot reach what is occupied by the honorable, injury does not reach the wise man. For
if injury is the suffering of some evil, and the wise man suffers no evil,
no injury pertains to the wise man.

4. Omnis iniuria deminutio eius est in quem incurrit, nec potest quisquam iniuriam accipere sine aliquo detrimento uel dignitatis uel corporis uel rerum extra nos positarum. Sapiens autem nihil perdere potest; omnia in se reposuit, nihil fortunae credit, bona sua in solido habet contentus uirtute, quae fortuitis non indiget ideoque nec augeri nec minui potest; nam et in summum perducta incrementi non habent locum et nihil eripit fortuna nisi quod dedit; uirtutem autem non dat, ideo nec detrahit: libera est, inuiolabilis, inmota, inconcussa, sic contra casus indurata ut ne inclinari quidem, nedum uinci possit; aduersus apparatus terribilium rectos oculos tenet, nihil ex uultu mutat siue illi dura siue secunda ostentantur. 5. Itaque nihil perdet quod perire sensurus sit; unius enim in possessione uirtutis est, ex qua depelli numquam potest, ceteris precario utitur: quis autem iactura mouetur alieni?

4. Every injury is a diminution of him into whom it runs, nor can anyone receive an injury without some detriment either of dignity or of body or of things placed outside us. But the wise man can lose nothing; he has placed all things back in himself, he trusts nothing to Fortune, he holds his goods in solid, content with virtue, which has no need of fortuitous things and therefore can neither be increased nor diminished; for things brought to the highest admit no place for increase, and Fortune snatches away nothing except what she gave; but she does not give virtue, therefore neither does she take it away: it is free, inviolable, unmoved, unshaken, so hardened against accidents that it cannot even be bent, much less conquered; against the apparatus of terrible things he keeps his eyes straight, he changes nothing in his countenance whether hard or favorable things are displayed to him. 5. And so he will lose nothing whose loss he is going to feel; for he is in the possession of one thing, virtue, from which he can never be driven, the rest he uses on sufferance: but who is moved by the loss of what is another’s?

Quodsi iniuria nihil laedere potest ex his quae propria sapientis sunt, quia <salua> uirtute sua salua sunt, iniuria sapienti non potest fieri. 6. Megaram Demetrius ceperat, cui cognomen Poliorcetes fuit. Ab hoc Stilbon philosophus interrogatus num aliquid perdidisset, 'nihil,' inquit 'omnia mea mecum sunt.' Atqui et patrimonium eius in praedam cesserat et filias rapuerat hostis et patria in alienam dicionem peruenerat et ipsum rex circumfusus uictoris exercitus armis ex superiore loco rogitabat.

But if injury can harm nothing of those things which are proper to the wise man, because, his virtue being <safe>, they are safe, injury cannot be done to the wise man. 6. Demetrius had taken Megara, whose cognomen was Poliorcetes. By him Stilbo the philosopher, asked whether he had lost anything, said, 'nothing,' he says, 'all my things are with me.' And yet both his patrimony had yielded into spoil, and the enemy had carried off his daughters, and his fatherland had come under another’s dominion, and the king himself, surrounded by the arms of the victor’s army, from a higher place kept questioning him.

7. At ille uictoriam illi excussit et se urbe capta non inuictum tantum sed indemnem esse testatus est; habebat enim uera secum bona, in quae non est manus iniectio, at quae dissipata et direpta ferebantur non iudicabat sua, sed aduenticia et nutum fortunae sequentia. Ideo ut non propria dilexerat; omnium enim extrinsecus adfluentium lubrica et incerta possessio est.

7. But he shook the victory from him and attested that, with the city captured, he was not only unconquered but unharmed; for he had the true goods with him, upon which there is no laying-on of hands, whereas the things that were being scattered and plundered he did not judge as his own, but adventitious and following the nod of Fortune. Therefore he had not loved them as his own; for the possession of all things flowing in from without is slippery and uncertain.

VI.

1. Cogita nunc an huic fur aut calumniator aut uicinus inpotens aut diues aliquis regnum orbae senectutis exercens facere iniuriam possit, cui bellum et hostis et ille egregiam artem quassandarum urbium professus eripere nihil potuit. 2. Inter micantis ubique gladios et militarem in rapina tumultum, inter flammas et sanguinem stragemque inpulsae ciuitatis, inter fragorem templorum super deos suos cadentium uni homini pax fuit. Non est itaque quod audax iudices promissum, cuius tibi, si parum fidei habeo, sponsorem dabo.

1. Think now whether to this man a thief or a calumniator or an intemperate neighbor or some rich man exercising the reign of orphaned old age could do an injury, from whom war and the enemy and that man professing the distinguished art of shattering cities could take nothing away. 2. Amid swords flashing everywhere and the military in rapine tumult, amid flames and blood and the carnage of a smitten city, amid the crash of temples falling upon their own gods, there was peace for one man. There is therefore no reason, judges, to deem the promise audacious, of which to you, if I have too little credit, I will give a sponsor.

Vix enim credis tantum firmitatis in hominem aut tantam animi magnitudinem cadere; sed is prodit in medium qui dicat: 3. 'non est quod dubites an attollere se homo natus supra humana possit, an dolores damna, ulcerationes uulnera, magnos motus rerum circa se frementium securus aspiciat et dura placide ferat et secunda moderate, nec illis cedens nec his fretus unus idemque inter diuersa sit nec quicquam suum nisi se putet, et se quoque ea parte qua melior est. 4. En adsum hoc uobis probaturus, sub isto tot ciuitatium euersore munimenta incussu arietis labefieri et turrium altitudinem cuniculis ac latentibus fossis repente desidere et aequaturum editissimas arces aggerem crescere, at nulla machinamenta posse reperiri quae bene fundatum animum agitent. 5. Erepsi modo e ruinis domus et incendiis undique relucentibus flammas per sanguinem fugi; filias meas quis casus habeat, an peior publico, nescio; solus et senior et hostilia circa me omnia uidens tamen integrum incolumemque esse censum meum profiteor: teneo, habeo quidquid mei habui.

For you scarcely believe that so much firmness in a man or so great a greatness of spirit can fall to him; but one comes forth into the midst who would say: 3. 'there is no reason for you to doubt whether a man, born a man, can lift himself above human things, whether he can look untroubled upon pains, losses, ulcerations, wounds, the great commotions of affairs roaring around him, and bear hardships peaceably and prosperities with moderation, and, yielding to those neither nor relying on these, be one and the same amid diverse conditions, and think nothing his own except himself, and even himself only in that part whereby he is better. 4. Lo, I am here to prove this to you: under that overthrower of so many cities, fortifications are shaken by the stroke of the battering-ram, and the height of towers by tunnels and hidden trenches suddenly subsides, and the rampart, destined to make level the loftiest citadels, rises; but no machines can be found which might agitate a well-founded mind. 5. I have just crept out of the ruins of my house, and, with fires gleaming back on every side, I fled the flames through blood; what fate holds my daughters, whether worse than the public calamity, I do not know; alone and elderly, and seeing all things hostile around me, nevertheless I profess that my estate is whole and unharmed: I hold, I have whatever of mine I had.'

6. Non est quod me uictum uictoremque te credas: uicit fortuna tua fortunam meam. Caduca illa et dominum mutantia ubi sint nescio: quod ad res meas pertinet, mecum sunt, mecum erunt. 7. Perdiderunt isti diuites patrimonia, libidinosi amores suos et magno pudoris inpendio dilecta scorta, ambitiosi curiam et forum et loca exercendis in publico uitiis destinata; feneratores perdiderunt tabellas, quibus auaritia falso laeta diuitias imaginatur: ego quidem omnia integra inlibataque habeo.

6. There is no reason for you to think me defeated and yourself victorious: your fortune has conquered my fortune. Those things that are falling and change their master—where they are, I do not know: as far as my affairs are concerned, they are with me, they will be with me. 7. These rich men have lost their patrimonies; the libidinous have lost their loves and the courtesans cherished at great expense of modesty; the ambitious have lost the curia and the forum and the places destined for exercising vices in public; the moneylenders have lost their tablets, by which greed, falsely rejoicing, imagines wealth: I indeed hold all things whole and inviolate.

Proinde istos interroga qui flent lamentantur, qui strictis gladiis nuda pro pecunia corpora opponunt, qui hostem onerato sinu fugiunt.' 8. Ergo ita habe, Serene, perfectum illum uirum, humanis diuinisque uirtutibus plenum, nihil perdere. Bona eius solidis et inexsuperabilibus munimentis praecincta sunt. Non Babylonios illis muros contuleris, quos Alexander intrauit, non Carthaginis aut Numantiae moenia una manu capta, non Capitolium arcemue — habent ista hostile uestigium: illa quae sapientem tuentur et a flamma et ab incursu tuta sunt, nullum introitum praebent, excelsa, inexpugnabilia, dis aequa.

Accordingly, question those who weep and lament, who with drawn swords expose naked bodies for money, who flee the enemy with bosom overladen.'8. Therefore hold it thus, Serenus: that perfect man, full of human and divine virtues, loses nothing. His goods are girded with solid and insuperable fortifications. You would not compare to them the Babylonian walls, which Alexander entered, nor the walls of Carthage or Numantia captured by a single hand, nor the Capitol or the citadel — these bear the hostile vestige: those which protect the wise man are safe both from flame and from incursion, afford no entrance, exalted, inexpugnable, equal to the gods.

VII.

1. Non est quod dicas, ita ut soles, hunc sapientem nostrum nusquam inueniri. Non fingimus istud humani ingenii uanum decus nec ingentem imaginem falsae rei concipimus, sed qualem conformamus exhibuimus, exhibebimus, raro forsitan magnisque aetatium interuallis unum; neque enim magna et excedentia solitum ac uulgarem modum crebro gignuntur. Ceterum hic ipse M. Cato, a cuius mentione haec disputatio processit, uereor ne supra nostrum exemplar sit.

1. There is no reason for you to say, as you are wont, that this our wise man is nowhere to be found. We do not feign that vain ornament of human ingenuity nor do we conceive a huge image of a false thing, but such as we fashion we have exhibited, we shall exhibit, perhaps rarely, and at great intervals of ages, a single one; for great things and those exceeding the usual and vulgar measure are not begotten frequently. Moreover, this very M. Cato, from whose mention this disputation has proceeded, I fear lest he be above our exemplar.

2. Denique ualidius debet esse quod laedit eo quod laeditur; non est autem fortior nequitia uirtute; non potest ergo laedi sapiens. Iniuria in bonos nisi a malis non temptatur; bonis inter se pax est, mali tam bonis perniciosi quam inter se. Quodsi laedi nisi infirmior non potest, malus autembono infirmior est, nec iniuria bonis nisi a dispari uerenda est, iniuria in sapientem uirum non cadit. Illud enim iam non es admonendus, neminem bonum esse nisi sapientem.

2. Finally, that which harms ought to be stronger than that which is harmed; but iniquity is not stronger than virtue; therefore the wise man cannot be harmed. Injury against the good is not attempted except by the bad; among the good there is peace, the bad are as pernicious to the good as among themselves. And if none can be harmed except the weaker, and the bad man is weaker than the good, and injury is to be feared by the good only from an unequal (i.e., a superior), injury does not fall upon the wise man. For as to this you need no admonition now, that no one is good except the wise man.

3. 'Si iniuste' inquit 'Socrates damnatus est, iniuriam accepit.' Hoc loco intellegere nos oportet posse euenire ut faciat aliquis iniuriam mihi et ego non accipiam: tamquam si quis rem quam e uilla mea surripuit in domo mea ponat, ille furtum fecerit, ego nihil perdiderim. 4. Potest aliquis nocens fieri, quamuis non nocuerit. Si quis cum uxore sua tamquam cum aliena concumbat, adulter erit, quamuis illa adultera non sit.

3. 'If unjustly,' he says, 'Socrates was condemned,
he received an injury.' At this point we ought to understand that it can come about
that someone does an injury to me and I do not receive it: just as if someone were to place a thing
which he stole from my villa in my house, he would have committed theft, I
would have lost nothing. 4. Someone can become guilty, although he has not done harm. If someone lies with his own wife as if with another man’s, he will be an adulterer, although
that woman is not an adulteress.

Aliquis mihi uenenum dedit, sed uim suam remixtum cibo perdidit: uenenum ille dando scelere se obligauit, etiam si non nocuit. Non minus latro est cuius telum opposita ueste elusum est. Omnia scelera etiam ante effectum operis, quantum culpae satis est, perfecta sunt.

Someone gave me poison, but, mixed with food, it lost its force: by giving poison he bound himself with a crime, even if it did not harm. He is no less a robber whose weapon is foiled by an interposed garment. All crimes, even before the effecting of the deed, are complete, so far as suffices for culpability.

5. Quaedam eius condicionis sunt et hac uice copulantur ut alterum sine altero esse possit, alterum sine altero non possit. Quod dico conabor facere manifestum. Possum pedes mouere ut non curram: currere non possum ut pedes non moueam; possum, quamuis in aqua sim, non natare: si nato, non possum in aqua non esse.

5. Certain things are of such a condition and are in this turn coupled such that the one can be without the other, the other cannot be without the other. What I say I will strive to make manifest. I can move my feet so that I do not run: I cannot run so that I do not move my feet; I can, although I am in water, not swim: if I swim, I cannot be not in water.

6. Ex hac sorte et hoc est de quo agitur: si iniuriam accepi, necesse est factam esse; si est facta, non est necesse accepisse me. Multa enim incidere possunt quae summoueant iniuriam: ut intentatam manum deicere aliquis casus potest et emissa tela declinare, ita iniurias qualescumque potest aliqua res repellere et in medio intercipere, ut et factae sint nec acceptae.

6. From this class too is the point at issue: if I have received an injury, it must have been done; if it has been done, it is not necessary that I have received it. For many things can occur which remove an injury: just as some chance can cast down a threatening hand and can deflect missiles once sent, so injuries of whatever kind some circumstance can repel and intercept in the midst, so that they both have been done and not been received.

VIII.

1. Praeterea iustitia nihil iniustum pati potest, quia non coeunt contraria; iniuria autem non potest fieri nisi iniuste; ergo sapienti iniuria non potest fieri. Nec est quod mireris, si nemo illi potest iniuriam facere: ne prodesse quidem quisquam potest. Et sapienti nihil deest quod accipere possit loco muneris, et malus nihil potest dignum tribuere sapiente; habere enim prius debet quam dare, nihil autem habet quod ad se transferri sapiens gauisurus sit.

1. Furthermore justice can suffer nothing unjust, because contraries do not cohere;
but an injury cannot be done except unjustly; therefore to the wise man an injury cannot
be done. Nor is there any cause for you to marvel, if no one can do him an injury:
not even to benefit him, indeed, can anyone. And to the wise man nothing is lacking which he could receive
by way of a gift, and a bad man can bestow nothing worthy of the wise man; he ought,
in fact, first to have before he gives, but he has nothing which the wise man would be glad to have
transferred to himself.

2. Non potest ergo quisquam aut nocere sapienti aut prodesse, quoniam diuina nec iuuari desiderant nec laedi possunt, sapiens autem uicinus proximusque dis consistit, excepta mortalitate similis deo. Ad illa nitens pergensque excelsa, ordinata, intrepida, aequali et concordi cursu fluentia, secura, benigna, bono publico nata, et sibi et aliis salutaria, nihil humile concupiscet, nihil flebit. 3. Qui rationi innixus per humanos casus diuino incedit animo, non habet ubi accipiat iniuriam — ab homine me tantum dicere putas?

2. Therefore no one can either harm the wise man or benefit him, since the divine neither desire to be helped nor can be harmed, but the wise man stands neighbor and nearest to the gods, like a god with mortality excepted. Striving toward those heights and proceeding—lofty, ordered, intrepid, flowing with an equal and concordant course, secure,
benign, born for the public good, and healthful to himself and to others—he will covet nothing lowly,
he will weep for nothing. 3. He who, leaning on reason, advances with a divine spirit through human chances,
has nowhere to receive an injury — do you think I mean from a man only?

ne a fortuna quidem, quae quotiens cum uirtute congressa est, numquam par recessit. Si maximum illud ultra quod nihil habent iratae leges ac saeuissimi domini <quod> minentur, in quo imperium suum fortuna consumit, aequo placidoque animo accipimus et scimus mortem malum non esse, ob hoc ne iniuriam quidem, multo facilius alia tolerabimus, damna et dolores, ignominias, locorum commutationes, orbitates, discidia, quae sapientem, etiam si uniuersa circumueniant, non mergunt, nedum ut ad singulorum inpulsus maereat. Et si fortunaeiniurias moderate fert, quanto magis hominum potentium, quos scit fortunae manus esse!

not even by Fortune, who, whenever she has contended with Virtue, has never withdrawn on equal terms. If that greatest thing, beyond which angry laws and most savage lords <which> threaten, in which Fortune expends her dominion—death—we receive with an even and placid mind and we know that death is not an evil, for this reason not even injury; we shall much more easily tolerate other things, losses and pains, ignominies, changes of place, bereavements, estrangements, which do not sink the wise man, even if all encompass him, still less that he should mourn at the blows of individuals. And if he bears Fortune’s injuries with moderation, how much more those of powerful men, whom he knows to be the hands of Fortune!

IX.

1. Omnia itaque sic patitur ut hiemis rigorem et intemperantiam caeli, ut feruores morbosque et cetera forte accidentia, nec de quoquam tam bene iudicat ut illum quicquam putet consilio fecisse, quod in uno sapiente est. Aliorum omnium non consilia, sed fraudes et insidiae et motus animorum inconditi sunt, quos casibus adnumerat; omne autem fortuitum circa nos saeuit et in uilia. 2. Illud quoque cogita, iniuriarum latissime patere materiam illis per quae periculum nobis quaesitum est, ut accusatore summisso aut criminatione falsa aut inritatis in nos potentiorum odiis quaeque alia inter togatos latrocinia sunt.

1. He therefore suffers all things just as he does the rigor of winter and the intemperance of the sky, just as scorching heats and diseases and the other things that happen by chance, nor does he judge so well of anyone as to think that he has done anything by counsel, which belongs to the one wise man. As for all others, there are not counsels, but frauds and ambushes and disordered motions of minds, which he numbers among chances; and every fortuitous thing rages around us and upon paltry things. 2. Consider this also, that the material of injuries extends most widely those things by which danger has been contrived against us, as when an accuser is suborned or by a false crimination or by the hatreds of the more powerful stirred up against us, and whatever other brigandages among the toga-clad there are.

Est et illa iniuria frequens, si lucrum alicuius excussum est aut praemium diu captatum, si magno labore adfectata hereditas auersa est et quaestuosae domus gratia erepta: haec effugit sapiens, qui nescit nec in spem nec in metum uiuere. 3. Adice nunc quod iniuriam nemo inmota mente accipit, sed ad sensum eius perturbatur, caret autem perturbatione uir ereptus erroribus, moderator sui, altae quietis et placidae. Nam si tangit illum iniuria, et mouet et inpellit; caret autem ira sapiens, quam excitat iniuriae species, nec aliter careret ira nisi et iniuria, quam scit sibi non posse fieri.

There is also that frequent injury, if someone’s profit has been shaken out, or a reward long pursued, if an inheritance sought with great labor has been turned away, and the favor of a lucrative household has been snatched away: these the wise man escapes, who knows how to live neither in hope nor in fear. 3. Add now that no one receives an injury with an unmoved mind, but is disturbed at the perception of it; but the man rescued from errors, a governor of himself, is without perturbation, possessed of deep and placid quiet. For if an injury touches him, it both stirs and impels; but the wise man is without anger, which the appearance of an injury excites, nor otherwise would he be without anger unless also without injury, which he knows cannot be done to him.

Inde tam erectus laetusque est, inde continuo gaudio elatus; adeo autem ad offensiones rerum hominumque non contrahitur ut ipsa illi iniuria usui sit, per quam experimentum sui capit et uirtutem temptat. 4. Faueamus, obsecro uos, huic proposito aequisque et animis et auribus adsimus, dum sapiens iniuriae excipitur. Nec quicquam ideo petulantiae uestrae aut rapacissimis cupiditatibus aut caecae temeritati superbiaeque detrahitur: saluis uitiis uestris haec sapienti libertas quaeritur.

From this he is so uplifted and joyful, from this with continuous joy exalted; and to such an extent he is not contracted at the offenses of things and of men that the very injury is of use to him, through which he takes an experiment of himself and tests his virtue. 4. Let us favor, I beseech you, this purpose, and let us be present with even minds and ears, while the wise man is subjected to injury. Nor is anything on that account detracted from your petulance or your most rapacious cupidities or your blind temerity and pride: with your vices safe, this liberty is sought for the wise man.

Non ut uobis facere non liceat iniuriam agimus, sed ut ille omnes iniurias in altum demittat patientiaque se ac magnitudine animi defendat. 5. Sic in certaminibus sacris plerique uicerunt caedentium manus obstinata patientia fatigando: ex hoc puta genere sapientem, eorum qui exercitatione longa ac fideli robur perpetiendi lassandique omnem inimicam uim consecuti sunt.

Not
that we argue it is not permitted to you to do injury, but that he should let all injuries
sink into the deep and defend himself by patience and by magnitude of spirit. 5. Thus
in sacred contests many have conquered the hands of those striking by wearing them out with obstinate patience,
by fatiguing them: reckon the wise man among this kind, among those who by long
and faithful exercise have attained the robustness of enduring and of wearying out every inimical force.

10.

1. Quoniam priorem partem percucurrimus, ad alteramtranseamus, qua quibusdam propriis, plerisque uero communibus, contumeliam refutabimus. Est minor iniuria, quam queri magis quam exequi possumus, quam leges quoque nulla dignam uindicta putauerunt. 2. Hunc adfectum mouet humilitas animi contrahentis se ob dictum factum inhonorificum: 'ille me hodie non admisit, cum alios admitteret', et 'sermonem meum aut superbe auersatus est aut palam risit', et 'non in medio me lecto sed in imo conlocauit', et alia huius notae, quae quid uocem nisi querellas nausiantis animi?

1. Since we have run through the prior part, let us pass to the other, in which by certain things proper, but truly for the most part common, we will refute contumely. There is a lesser injury, which we can complain of rather than prosecute, which the laws also have thought worthy of no vengeance. 2. This affect is moved by the lowness of a mind drawing itself together on account of a dishonoring word or deed: 'he did not admit me today, while he was admitting others', and 'he either haughtily turned away from my discourse or openly laughed', and 'he placed me not on the middle couch but on the lowest', and other things of this mark, which what do they call but the complaints of a nauseated spirit?

In quae fere delicati et felices incidunt; non uacat enim haec notare cui peiora instant. 3. Nimio otio ingenia natura infirma et muliebria et inopia uerae iniuriae lasciuientia his commouentur, quorum pars maior constat uitio interpretantis. Itaque nec prudentiae quicquam in se esse nec fiduciae ostendit qui contumelia adficitur; non dubie enim contemptum se iudicat, et hic morsus non sine quadam humilitate animi euenit supprimentis se ac descendentis.

Into which the delicate and the fortunate commonly fall; for the one to whom worse things are imminent has no leisure to note these. 3.
By excessive idleness, minds naturally infirm and womanish, and, wantoning because of the lack of a true injury, are stirred by these things, of which the greater part consists in the fault of the interpreter. Therefore he who is affected by contumely shows that there is in him nothing of prudence nor of confidence; for he without doubt judges himself to be held in contempt, and this bite comes about not without a certain lowness of spirit, of one who suppresses himself and descends.

Sapiens autem a nullo contemnitur, magnitudinem suam nouit nullique tantum de se licere renuntiat sibi et omnis has, quas non miserias animorum sed molestias dixerim, non uincit sed ne sentit quidem. 4. Alia sunt quae sapientem feriunt, etiam si non peruertunt, ut dolor corporis et debilitas aut amicorum liberorumque amissio et patriae bello flagrantis calamitas: haec non nego sentire sapientem; nec enim lapidis illi duritiam ferriue adserimus. Nulla uirtus est quae non sentias perpeti.

The wise man, however, is contemned by no one, he knows his own magnitude and declares to himself that to no one is so much permitted over him, and all these things, which I would call not miseries of minds but annoyances, he does not conquer but does not even feel. 4. There are other things which strike the wise man, even if they do not pervert him, such as pain of the body and debility, or the loss of friends and children and the calamity of a fatherland blazing with war: these I do not deny that the wise man feels; for we do not assert for him the hardness of stone or of iron. There is no virtue which you do not feel yourself to be enduring.

Quid ergo est? quosdam ictus recipit, sed receptos euincit et sanat et comprimit, haec uero minora ne sentit quidem nec aduersus ea solita illa uirtute utitur dura tolerandi, sed aut non adnotat aut digna risu putat.

What then? He receives certain blows, but, once received, he overcomes them, heals them, and suppresses them; whereas these lesser things he does not even feel, nor does he use against them that accustomed virtue of hard endurance, but either does not note them or deems them worthy of laughter.

XI.1. Praeterea cum magnam partem contumeliarum superbi insolentesque faciant et male felicitatem ferentes, habet quo istum adfectum inflatum respuat, pulcherrimam uirtutem omnium [animi], magnanimitatem: illa quidquid eiusmodi est transcurrit ut uanas species somniorum uisusque nocturnos nihil habentis solidi atque ueri. 2. Simul illud cogitat, omnes inferiores esse quam ut illis audacia sit tanto excelsiora despicere. Contumelia a contemptu dicta est, quia nemo nisi quem contempsit tali iniuria notat; nemo autem maiorem melioremque contemnit, etiam si facit aliquid quod contemnentes solent.

11.
1. Moreover, since the proud and the insolent, and those who bear prosperity badly, make a great part of contumelies, he has wherewith to spit out that inflated affect— the most beautiful virtue of all [of the soul], magnanimity: that passes over whatever is of this sort as the empty apparitions of dreams and nocturnal visions, having nothing solid and true.
2. At the same time he considers this, that all are too inferior for there to be audacity in them to despise things so much loftier. Contumely is named from contempt, because no one brands with such an injury except one whom he has contemned; but no one contemns one greater and better, even if he does something which those who contemn are wont to do.

Nam et pueri os parentium feriunt et crines matris turbauit lacerauitque infans et sputo adspersit aut nudauit in conspectu suorum tegenda et uerbis obscenioribus non pepercit, et nihil horum contumeliam dicimus. Quare? quia qui facit contemnere non potest.

For even children strike the face of their parents, and an infant has disordered and torn his mother’s hair,
and has spattered them with spittle, or has bared in the sight of his own what ought to be covered, and has not spared more obscene words,
and we call none of these contumely. Why? Because the one who does them cannot contemn.

3. Eadem causa est cur nos mancipiorum nostrorum urbanitas in dominos contumeliosa delectet, quorum audacia ita demum sibi in conuiuas ius facit, si coepit a domino; et ut quisque contemptissimus [et ut ludibrium] est, ita solutissimae linguae est. Pueros quidam in hoc mercantur procaces et illorum inpudentiam acuunt ac sub magistro habent, qui probra meditate effundant, nec has contumelias uocamus sed argutias: quanta autem dementia est isdem modo delectari, modo offendi, et rem ab amico dictam maledictum uocare, a seruulo ioculare conuicium!

3. The same cause is why the urbanity of our slaves, contumelious against their masters, delights us, whose audacity only then makes license for itself among the dinner-companions, if it has begun from the master; and the more each one is most contemptible [and as a laughing-stock], so he is of the loosest tongue. Certain people buy boys for this purpose, saucy fellows, and sharpen their impudence and keep them under a trainer, to pour out studied insults, and we do not call these contumelies but witticisms: and how great a madness it is to be now delighted by these same things, now offended, and to call a thing said by a friend a malediction, but from a little slave a jocular invective!

XII.

12.

1. Quem animum nos aduersus pueros habemus, hunc sapiens aduersus omnes quibus etiam post iuuentam canosque puerilitas est. An quicquam isti profecerunt quibus animi mala sunt auctique in maius errores, qui a pueris magnitudine tantum formaque corporum differunt, ceterum non minus uagi incertique, uoluptatium sine dilectu adpetentes, trepidi et non ingenio sed formidine quieti? 2. Non ideo quicquam inter illos puerosque interesse quis dixerit quod illis talorum nucumue et aeris minuti auaritia est, his auri argentique et orbium, quod illi inter ipsos magistratus gerunt et praetextam fascesque ac tribunal imitantur, hi eadem in campo foroque et in curia serio ludunt, illi in litoribus harenae congestu simulacra domuum excitant, hi ut magnum aliquid agentes in lapidibus ac parietibus et tectis moliendis occupati tutelae corporum inuenta in periculum uerterunt.

1. The disposition which we have against boys, the wise man has against all for whom, even after youth and gray hairs, there is puerility. Have those made any progress whose evils of mind are increased and whose errors are augmented, who differ from boys only by the magnitude and form of their bodies, but otherwise are no less wandering and unsure, seeking pleasures without selection, timorous and quiet not by character but by fear? 2. One would not for that reason say that there is any difference between them and boys, because those have a greed for knucklebones or nuts and for small copper, these for gold and silver and orbs (round platters); because those among themselves conduct magistracies and imitate the praetexta, the fasces, and the tribunal, these play the same games in the Campus and in the Forum and in the Curia in earnest; those on the shores raise likenesses of houses by a piling of sand, these, as if doing something great, occupied with building stones and walls and roofs, have turned into danger the inventions for the tutelage of bodies.

Ergo par pueris longiusque progressis, sed in alia maioraque error est. 3. Non inmerito itaque horum contumelias sapiens ut iocos accipit, et aliquando illos tamquam pueros malo poenaque admonet [adficit], non quia accepit iniuriam, sed quia fecerunt, et ut desinant facere; sic enim et pecora uerbere domantur, nec irascimur illis, cum sessorem recusauerunt, sed compescimus, ut dolor contumaciam uincat. Ergo et illud solutum scies quod nobis opponitur: 'quare, si non accepit iniuriam sapiens nec contumeliam, punit eos qui fecerunt?' Non enim se ulciscitur, sed illos emendat.

Therefore they are on a par with boys and with those who have gone farther, but the error is in other and greater matters. 3. Not without reason, therefore, the wise man receives the contumelies of these people as jests, and sometimes he admonishes them, as if boys, with the cudgel and with punishment [afflicts], not because he has received an injury, but because they have done one, and so that they may cease to do it; for thus also cattle are tamed by a beating, nor do we grow angry with them when they have refused a rider, but we restrain them, so that pain may conquer contumacy. Therefore you will also know that that objection which is set against us is resolved: 'why, if the wise man has not received an injury nor a contumely, does he punish those who have done it?' For he does not avenge himself, but corrects them.

XIII.

13.

1. Quid est autem quare hanc animi firmitatem non credas in uirum sapientem cadere, cum tibi in aliis idem notare sed non ex eadem causa liceat? Quis enim phrenetico medicus irascitur? Quis febricitantis et a frigida prohibiti maledicta in malam partem accipit?

1. What, moreover, is the reason why you do not believe this firmness of mind to befall a wise man, when it is permitted to you to note the same in others, but not from the same cause? For what physician grows angry at a phrenetic patient? Who takes amiss the maledictions of one feverish and prohibited from cold water?

2. Hunc adfectum aduersus omnis habet sapiens quem aduersus aegros suos medicus, quorum nec obscena, si remedio egent, contrectare nec reliquias et effusa intueri dedignatur nec per furorem saeuientium excipere conuicia. Scit sapiens omnis hos qui togati purpuratique incedunt, ualentes colorati, male sanos esse, quos non aliter uidet quam aegros intemperantis. Itaque ne succenset quidem, si quid in morbo petulantius ausi sunt aduersus medentem, et quo animo honores eorum nihilo aestimat, eodem parum honorifice facta.

2. The wise man has toward all the same disposition that the physician has toward his patients, whose obscene parts he does not disdain to handle if they need a remedy, nor to look upon their remnants and effusions, nor to receive the invectives of those raging through frenzy. The wise man knows that all those who proceed in togas and in purple, hale and high-colored, are unsound, whom he views in no other way than as patients of intemperance. And so he is not even incensed, if in their sickness they have dared something more petulant against their healer; and with the same mind with which he esteems their honors at nothing, he likewise esteems their deeds done with little honor.

3. Quemadmodum non placebit sibi, si illum mendicus coluerit, nec contumeliam iudicabit, si illi homo plebis ultimae salutanti mutuam salutationem non reddiderit, sic ne suspiciet quidem, si illum multi diuites suspexerint — scit enim illos nihil a mendicis differre, immo miseriores esse; illi enim exiguo, hi multo egent — et rursus non tangetur, si illum rex Medorum Attalusue Asiae salutantem silentio ac uultu adroganti transierit. Scit statum eius non magis habere quicquam inuidendum quam eius cui in magna familia cura optigit aegros insanosque compescere. 4. Num moleste feram, si mihi non reddiderit nomen aliquis ex his qui ad Castoris negotiantur nequam mancipia ementes uendentesque, quorum tabernae pessimorum seruorum turba refertae sunt?

3. Just as he will not be pleased with himself, if a beggar has honored him, nor will he judge it a contumely, if a man of the very lowest plebs, being greeted by him, has not returned a mutual salutation, so neither will he even look up in admiration, if many rich men have looked up to him — for he knows that they differ in nothing from beggars, nay, that they are more miserable; those need a little, these need much — and again he will not be touched, if the king of the Medes or Attalus of Asia, as he greets, passes him by in silence and with an arrogant countenance.
He knows that his status has nothing more enviable than that of one to whom in a great family the charge has fallen to restrain the sick and the insane. 4. Shall I take it ill, if someone from among those who negotiate at Castor’s, buying and selling worthless chattel-slaves, has not acknowledged me by name, whose shops are crammed with a rabble of the worst slaves?

Non, ut puto; quid enim is boni habet sub quo nemo nisi malus est? Ergo ut huius humanitatem inhumanitatemque neglegit, ita et regis: 'habes sub te Parthos et Medos et Bactrianos, sed quos metu contines, sed propter quos remittere arcum tibi non contigit, sed hostes taeterrimos, sed uenales, sed nouum aucupantes dominum.' 5. Nullius ergo mouebitur contumelia; omnes enim inter se differant, sapiens quidem pares illos ob aequalem stultitiam omnis putat. Nam si semel se demiserit eo ut aut iniuria moueatur aut contumelia, non poterit umquam esse securus; securitas autem proprium bonum sapientis est.

No, as I think; for what good does that man have, under whom no one is anything but bad? Therefore, just as he disregards this man’s humanity and inhumanity, so too the king’s: 'you have under you the Parthians and the Medes and the Bactrians, but men whom you keep in check by fear, but on account of whom it has not befallen you to relax the bow, but most loathsome enemies, but venal, but hunting for a new master.' 5. Therefore he will be moved by no one’s contumely; for although all differ among themselves, the wise man indeed deems them equal on account of equal stupidity. For if once he has lowered himself to the point that he is moved either by injury or by contumely, he will never be secure; security, however, is the proper good of the wise man.

Nec committet ut iudicando contumeliam sibi factam honorem habeat ei qui fecit; necesse est enim, a quo quisque contemni moleste ferat, suspici gaudeat.

Nor will he permit that, by declaring a contumely done to himself, he pay honor to the one who did it; for it is necessary that, by the one by whom anyone would take it hard to be contemned, he also rejoice to be looked up to.

XIV.

14.

1. Tanta quosdam dementia tenet ut sibi contumeliam fieri putent posse a muliere. Quid refert quam habeant, quot lecticarios habentem, quam oneratas aures, quam laxam sellam? aeque inprudens animal est et, nisi scientia accessit ac multa eruditio, ferum, cupiditatium incontinens.

1. Such great madness holds certain people that they think contumely can be done to them by a woman. What does it matter how ‘blessed’ they deem her, how many litter-bearers she has, how laden her ears, how roomy her seat? She is an equally imprudent animal and, unless knowledge has been added and much erudition, wild, incontinent of cupidities.

Quidam se a cinerario inpulsos moleste ferunt et contumeliam uocant ostiari difficultatem, nomenculatoris superbiam, cubiculari supercilium: o quantus risus inter ista tollendus est, quanta uoluptate inplendus animus ex alienorum errorum tumultu contemplanti quietem suam! 2. 'Quid ergo? sapiens non accedet ad fores quas durus ianitor obsidet?' Ille uero, si res necessaria uocabit, experietur et illum, quisquis erit, tamquam canem acrem obiecto cibo leniet nec indignabitur aliquid inpendere ut limen transeat, cogitans et in pontibus quibusdam pro transitu dari.

Certain men take it ill that they have been jostled by an ash-man and call the doorkeeper’s obstructiveness contumely, the nomenclator’s arrogance, the chamberlain’s superciliousness: O what great laughter is to be lifted amid these things, with what great pleasure is the mind to be filled, for one who, from the tumult of others’ errors, contemplates his own quiet!
2. ‘What then? Will the wise man not approach the doors which a harsh janitor besieges?’ He indeed, if a necessary matter calls, will put up with even that fellow, whoever he may be, and will soothe him like a fierce dog by throwing food, nor will he think it beneath him to expend something in order to cross the threshold, considering that even on certain bridges a payment is given for passage.

Itaque illi quoque, quisquis erit qui hoc salutationum publicum exerceat, donabit: scit emi aere uenalia. Ille pusilli animi est qui sibi placet quod ostiario libere respondit, quod uirgam eius fregit, quod ad dominum accessit et petit corium; facit se aduersarium qui contendit, et, ut uincat, par fuit. 3. 'At sapiens colapho percussus quid faciet?' Quod Cato, cum illi os percussum esset: non excanduit, non uindicauit iniuriam, ne remisit quidem, sed factam negauit; maiore animo non agnouit quam ignouisset.

Therefore he too will give a gift to that man also, whoever he may be who exercises this public traffic of salutations; he knows that things for sale are bought with bronze (money). He is of a small spirit who pleases himself because he answered the doorkeeper freely, because he broke his rod, because he approached the master and demanded his hide; he makes himself an adversary who contends, and, in order to conquer, he has proved a match. 3. 'But if the wise man is struck with a cuff, what will he do?' What Cato did, when his face had been struck: he did not blaze up, he did not avenge the injury, he did not even remit it, but denied it had been done; with a greater spirit he refused to acknowledge it than if he had forgiven it.

4. Non diu in hoc haerebimus; quis enim nescit nihil ex his quae creduntur mala aut bona ita uideri sapienti ut omnibus? Non respicit quid homines turpe iudicent aut miserum, non it qua populus, sed ut sidera contrarium mundo iter intendunt, ita hic aduersus opinionem omnium uadit.

4. We shall not linger long on this; for who does not know that nothing of those things which are believed to be evils or goods appears to the wise man as it does to everyone else? He does not regard what men judge shameful or miserable, he does not go where the populace goes, but as the stars intend a course contrary to the world, so this man goes against the opinion of all.

XV.

15.

1. Desinite itaque dicere: 'non accipiet ergo sapiens iniuriam, si caedetur, si oculus illi eruetur? Non accipiet contumeliam, si obscenorum uocibus inprobis per forum agetur? si in conuiuio regis recumbere infra mensam uescique cum seruis ignominiosa officia sortitis iubebitur?

1. Therefore cease to say: 'Will the wise man then not receive injury, if he is beaten,
if his eye is torn out? Will he not receive contumely, if, with obscene, shameless voices, he is driven through the forum?
if at the king’s banquet he is ordered to recline beneath the table and to feed with slaves assigned by lot to ignominious offices?

si quid aliud ferre cogetur eorum quae excogitari pudori ingenuo molesta possunt?' 2. In quantumcumque ista uel numero uel magnitudine creuerint, eiusdem naturae erunt: si non tangent illum parua, ne maiora quidem; si non tangent pauca, ne plura quidem. Sed ex inbecillitate uestra coniecturam capitis ingentis animi, et cum cogitastis quan tum putetis uos pati posse, sapientis patientiae paulo ulteriorem terminum ponitis; at illum in aliis mundi finibus sua uirtus conlocauit, nihil uobiscum commune habentem. 3. Quaere et aspera et quaecumque toleratu grauia sunt audituque et uisu refugienda: non obruetur eorum coetu et qualis singulis, talis uniuersis obsistet.

if he is compelled to bear anything else of those things which can be devised as troublesome to ingenuous modesty?' 2.
However much these shall have increased either in number or in magnitude, they will be of the same nature:
if small things do not touch him, neither indeed greater ones; if few do not touch him,
neither indeed more numerous. But from your imbecility you take a conjecture of the capacity of a vast spirit,
and when you have thought how much you suppose you yourselves can suffer, you set the limit of the wise man’s patience a little further;
but his virtue has placed him in other bounds of the world, having nothing in common with you. 3. Seek out both harsh things
and whatever are grievous to be borne and to be shunned by hearing and by sight: he will not be overwhelmed
by their concourse, and such as he is against individuals, such he will stand against all together.

Qui dicit illud tolerabile sapienti, illud intolerabile, et animi magnitudinem intra certos fines tenet, male agit: uincit nos fortuna, nisi tota uincitur. 4. Ne putes istam Stoicam esse duritiam, Epicurus, quem uos patronum inertiae uestrae adsumitis putatisque mollia ac desidiosa praecipere et ad uoluptates ducentia, 'raro' inquit 'sapienti fortuna interuenit.' Quam paene emisit uiri uocem! Vis tu fortius loqui et illam ex toto summouere?

Who says “that is tolerable for the wise man, that intolerable,” and keeps the greatness of spirit within fixed bounds, does ill: Fortune conquers us, unless she is conquered entirely. 4. Do not think that this is Stoic hardness: Epicurus, whom you assume as the patron of your inertia and think to prescribe soft and slothful things and those leading to pleasures, says, ‘rarely does Fortune intervene for the wise man.’ How nearly he uttered a man’s word! Will you speak more stoutly and remove her altogether?

5. Domus haec sapientis angusta, sine cultu, sine strepitu, sine apparatu, nullis adseruatur ianitoribus turbam uenali fastidio digerentibus, sed per hoc limen uacuum et ab ostiariis liberum fortuna non transit: scit non esse illic sibi locum ubi sui nihil est.

5. The house of the wise man is narrow, without ornament, without din, without apparatus, it is kept by no janitors sorting the crowd with mercenary fastidiousness, but across this threshold, empty and free from doorkeepers, Fortune does not pass: she knows there is no place there for herself where there is nothing of her own.

XVI.

16.

1. Quodsi Epicurus quoque, qui corpori plurimum indulsit, aduersus iniurias exsurgit, quid apud nos incredibile uideri potest aut supra humanae naturae mensuram? Ille ait iniurias tolerabiles esse sapienti, nos iniurias non esse. 2. Nec enim est quod dicas hoc naturae repugnare: non negamus rem incommodam esse uerberari et inpelli et aliquo membro carere, sed omnia ista negamus iniurias esse; non sensum illis doloris detrahimus, sed nomen iniuriae, quod non potest recipi uirtute salua.

1. But if even Epicurus, who very much indulged the body, rises up against injuries, what can seem incredible among us or beyond the measure of human nature? He says injuries are tolerable for the wise man; we say injuries do not exist. 2. Nor indeed is there ground to say that this is repugnant to nature: we do not deny that it is an incommodious thing to be beaten and shoved and to be lacking some member, but we deny that all those are injuries; we do not take away from them the sense of pain, but the name of injury, which cannot be received with virtue intact.

Vter uerius dicat uidebimus: ad contemptum quidem iniuriae uterque consentit. Quaeris quid inter duos intersit? quod inter gladiatores fortissimos, quorum alter premit uulnus et stat in gradu, alter respiciens ad clamantem populum significat nihil esse et intercedi non patitur.

Which of the two speaks more truly we shall see:
toward the contempt of injury, indeed, each agrees. Do you ask what difference there is between the two
men? The same as between the most stalwart gladiators, of whom one presses his wound
and stands in his stance, the other, looking back at the shouting populace, signifies that it is nothing
and does not allow an intercession to be made.

3. Non est quod putes magnum quo dissidemus: illud quo de agitur, quod unum ad uos pertinet, utraque exempla hortantur, contemnere iniurias et, quas iniuriarum umbras ac suspiciones dixerim, contumelias, ad quas despiciendas non sapiente opus est uiro, sed tantum consipiente, qui sibi possit dicere: 'utrum merito mihi ista accidunt an inmerito? Si merito, non est contumelia, iudicium est; si inmerito, illi qui iniusta facit erubescendum est.' 4. Et quid est illud quod contumelia dicitur? In capitis mei leuitatem iocatus est et in oculorum ualetudinem et in crurum gracilitatem et in staturam: quae contumelia est quod apparet audire?

3. There is no reason for you to think great that in which we disagree: as to the matter at issue, which alone pertains to you, both examples exhort you to contemn injuries and, what I would call the shadows and suspicions of injuries, contumelies, for the despising of which there is no need of a wise man, but only of a man of sense, who can say to himself: 'Do these things befall me deservedly or undeservedly? If deservedly, it is not contumely, it is a judgment; if undeservedly, it is he who does the unjust thing that should blush.' 4. And what is that which is called contumely? He has joked about the lightness (baldness) of my head and about the condition of my eyes and the slenderness of my legs and my stature: what contumely is it to hear what is apparent?

Coram uno aliquid dictum ridemus, coram pluribus indignamur, et eorum aliis libertatem non relinquimus quae ipsi in nos dicere adsueuimus; iocis temperatis delectamur, inmodicis irascimur.

When something is said before one, we laugh; before several, we become indignant, and we do not allow others the liberty of those things which we ourselves have been accustomed to say against ourselves; we are delighted by temperate jests, at immoderate ones we grow angry.

XVII.

17.

1. Chrysippus ait quendam indignatum, quod illum aliquis ueruecem marinum dixerat. In senatu flentem uidimus Fidum Cornelium, Nasonis Ouidi generum, cum illum Corbulo struthocamelum depilatum dixisset; aduersus alia maledicta mores et uitam conuulnerantia frontis illi firmitas constitit, aduersus hoc tam absurdum lacrimae prociderunt: tanta animorum inbecillitas est, ubi ratio discessit. 2. Quid quod offendimur, si quis sermonem nostrum imitatur, si quis incessum, si quis uitium aliquod corporis aut linguae exprimit?

1. Chrysippus says that a certain man was indignant because someone had called him a sea-wether. In the senate we saw Fidus Cornelius, the son-in-law of Ovid Naso, weeping, when Corbulo had called him a plucked ostrich; against other slanders that co-wounded his character and way of life, the firmness of his brow stood fast, but against this so absurd a thing tears fell: so great is the weakness of souls, when reason has departed. 2. What of the fact that we take offense if someone imitates our discourse, if someone our gait, if someone expresses some defect of body or of tongue?

quasi notiora illa fiant alio imitante quam nobis facientibus! Senectutem quidam inuiti audiunt et canos et alia ad quae uoto peruenitur; paupertatis maledictum quosdam perussit, quam sibi obiecit quisquis abscondit: itaque materia petulantibus et per contumeliam urbanis detrahitur, si ultro illam et prior occupes; nemo risum praebuit qui ex se cepit. 3. Vatinium, hominem natum et ad risum et ad odium, scurram fuisse et uenustum ac dicacem memoriae proditum est.

as if those things became more well-known by another imitating than by us doing them! Some listen unwillingly to “old age” and “gray hairs” and to other things which are arrived at by vow; the malediction of poverty has singed some, which he throws at himself whoever conceals it: accordingly, material is taken away from the petulant and from the urbane by way of contumely, if you preempt it of your own accord and first; no one has furnished laughter who has taken it from himself. 3. Of Vatinius, a man born both for laughter and for hatred, it is handed down to memory that he was a scurra and charming and witty.

In pedes suos ipse plurima dicebat et in fauces concisas: sic inimicorum, quos plures habebat quam morbos, et in primis Ciceronis urbanitatem effugerat. Si hoc potuit ille duritia oris qui adsiduis conuiciis pudere dedidicerat, cur is non possit qui studiis liberalibus et sapientiae cultu ad aliquem profectum peruenerit? 4. Adice quod genus ultionis est eripereei qui fecit factae contumeliae uoluptatem; solent dicere 'o miserum me! puto, non intellexit': adeo fructus contumeliae in sensu et indignatione patientis est.

He himself would say very many things against his own feet and his scarred throat: thus he had escaped the urbanity of his enemies—of whom he had more than diseases—and above all of Cicero. If that man could do this by hardness of face, who by assiduous revilings had unlearned to feel shame, why should not he be able who by liberal studies and the cultivation of sapience has come to some progress? 4. Add that it is a kind of revenge to snatch away from him who did it the pleasure of the contumely done; they are wont to say, “O wretched me! I think he did not understand”: so much does the fruit of contumely lie in the sense and indignation of the sufferer.

Deinde non deerit illi aliquando par; inuenietur qui te quoque uindicet.

Then, in time, he will not lack a match; there will be found someone who will avenge you as well.

XVIII.

18.

1. C. Caesar, inter cetera uitia quibus abundabat contumeliosus, mira libidine ferebatur omnis aliqua nota feriendi, ipse materia risus benignissima: tanta illi palloris insaniam testantis foeditas erat, tanta oculorum sub fronte anili latentium toruitas, tanta capitis destituti et ~emendacitatis~ capillis adspersi deformitas; adice obsessam saetis ceruicem et exilitatem crurum et enormitatem pedum. Inmensum est, si uelim singula referre per quae in parentes auosque suos contumeliosus fuit, per quae in uniuersos ordines: ea referam quae illum exitio dederunt. 2. Asiaticum Valerium in primis amicis habebat, ferocem uirum et uix aequo animo alienas contumelias laturum: huic in conuiuio, id est in contione, uoce clarissima qualis in concubitu esset uxor eius obiecit.

1. Gaius Caesar, contumelious among the other vices with which he abounded, was carried by a wondrous libido of branding everyone with some stigma, he himself the most benign material for laughter: so great was the foulness of his pallor attesting to insanity, so great the grimness of his eyes lurking beneath an old-womanish brow, so great the deformity of a head bereft and sprinkled with ~emendacitatis~ hairs; add a neck beset with bristles and the thinness of the legs and the enormity of the feet. It is a boundless task, if I should wish to recount one by one the ways in which he was contumelious toward his parents and grandfathers, the ways toward all the orders: I will relate those which delivered him to destruction. 2. He had Valerius Asiaticus among his foremost friends, a ferocious man and one who would scarcely with an even mind endure contumelies offered to others: to this man at a banquet, that is, in an assembly, with a very loud voice he cast in his teeth what sort his wife was in intercourse.

Di boni, hoc uirum audire, principem scire, et usque eo licentiam peruenisse ut, non dico consulari, non dico amico, sed tantum marito princeps et adulterium suum narret et fastidium! 3. Chaereae contra, tribuno militum, sermo non pro manu erat, languidus sono et, ni facta nosses, suspectior. Huic Gaius signum petenti modo Veneris, modo Priapi dabat, aliter atque aliter exprobrans armato mollitiam; haec ipse perlucidus, crepidatus, auratus.

Good gods, that a man should hear this, that the princeps should know it, and that license should have advanced so far that, not
do I say to a consular, not do I say to a friend, but to a mere husband the princeps should recount both his own adultery
and his disgust! 3. On the other hand, for Chaerea, a tribune of soldiers, speech was not up to his hand,
languid in sound and, unless you knew his deeds, the more suspect. To this man, when he asked for the sign, Gaius would give now that of Venus, now that of Priapus,
reproaching in one way and another softness in an armed man; he himself diaphanous, sandal-shod, gilded.

Coegit itaque illum uti ferro, ne saepius signum peteret: ille primus inter coniuratos manum sustulit, ille ceruicem mediam uno ictu decidit; plurimum deinde undique publicas ac priuatas iniurias ulciscentium gladiorum ingestum est, sed primus uir fuit qui minime uisus est. 4. At idem Gaius omnia contumelias putabat, ut sunt ferendarum inpatientes faciendarum cupidissimi: iratus fuit Herennio Macro, quod illum Gaium salutauerat, nec inpune cessit primipilari quod Caligulam dixerat; hoc enim in castris natus et alumnus legionum uocari solebat, nullo nomine militibus familiarior umquam factus, sed iam Caligulam conuicium et probrum iudicabat coturnatus. 5. Ergo hoc ipsum solacio erit, etiam si nostra facilitas ultionem omiserit, futurum aliquem qui poenas exigat a procace et superbo et iniurioso, quae uitia numquam in uno homine et in una contumelia consumuntur.

He therefore compelled that man to use iron, so that he might not ask for the signal more often: he, first among the conspirators, raised his hand; he cut down the middle of the neck with one blow; thereafter there was from every side a vast heaping-on of the swords of those avenging public and private injuries, but the foremost man was he who was least seen. 4. But that same Gaius reckoned everything as contumelies, as men are who are most greedy for doing them and least patient of bearing them: he was angry with Herennius Macro because he had greeted him as “Gaius,” nor did it pass unpunished for the primipilaris that he had called him “Caligula”; for he, born in the camps and a nursling of the legions, used to be called this, never by any name made more familiar to the soldiers, but now, buskined, he judged “Caligula” to be an outcry and a reproach. 5. Therefore this very thing will be a solace, even if our easiness has omitted vengeance: that there will be someone to exact penalties from a saucy and proud and injurious man—vices which are never consumed in one man and in one contumely.

6. Respiciamus eorum exempla quorum laudamus patientiam, ut Socratis, qui comoediarum publicatos in se et spectatos sales in partem bonam accepit risitque non minus quam cum ab uxore Xanthippe inmunda aqua perfunderetur. Antistheni mater barbara et Thraessa obiciebatur: respondit et deorum matrem Idaeam esse.

6. Let us look back to the examples of those whose patience we praise, as of Socrates, who took in good part the jests of the comedies published and displayed against him, and laughed no less than when he was drenched with filthy water by his wife Xanthippe. The mother of Antisthenes, a barbarian and a Thracian woman, was thrown in his teeth: he replied that even the Mother of the gods is Idaean.

XIX.

19.

1. Non est in rixam conluctationemque ueniendum. Procul auferendi pedes sunt et quidquid horum ab inprudentibus fiet (fieri autem nisi ab inprudentibus non potest) neglegendum et honores iniuriaeque uulgi in promiscuo habendae. 2. Nec his dolendum nec illis gaudendum; alioqui multa timore contumeliarum aut taedio necessaria omittemus publicisque et priuatis officiis, aliquando etiam salutaribus, non occurremus, dum muliebris nos cura angit aliquid contra animum audiendi.

1. One must not enter into brawl and grappling. Our feet are to be carried far off, and whatever of these things is done by the imprudent (for it cannot be done except by the imprudent) must be neglected, and the honors and injuries of the crowd are to be held in common. 2. We should neither grieve at these nor rejoice at those; otherwise, out of fear of affronts or out of weariness we will omit many necessary things, and we will not meet public and private duties, sometimes even salutary ones, while a womanish concern pains us about hearing anything contrary to our inclination.

Aliquando etiam obirati potentibus detegemus hunc adfectum intemperanti libertate. Non est autem libertas nihil pati, fallimur: libertas est animum superponere iniuriis et eum facere se ex quo solo sibi gaudenda ueniant, exteriora diducere a se, ne inquieta agenda sit uita omnium risus, omnium linguas timenti. Quis enim est qui non possit contumeliam facere, si quisquam potest?

Sometimes, too, when angered at the powerful, we will expose this affect with intemperate liberty. But liberty is not to suffer nothing—we are deceived: liberty is to set the mind above injuries and to make oneself that from which alone things to be rejoiced at come to oneself; to draw the externals off from oneself, lest life have to be lived unquiet, fearing everyone’s laughter, everyone’s tongues. For who is there who cannot inflict contumely, if anyone can?

3. Diuerso autem remedio utetur sapiens adfectatorque sapientiae. Inperfectis enim et adhuc ad publicum se iudicium derigentibus hoc proponendum est, inter iniurias ipsos contumeliasque debere uersari: omnia leuiora accident expectantibus. Quo quisque honestior genere fama patrimonio est, hoc se fortius gerat, memor in prima acie altos ordines stare.

3. But the wise man and the aspirer to sapience will use a diverse remedy. For to the imperfect and to those who are still directing themselves to public judgment this must be set forth: that they ought to move amid injuries and insults themselves; all things befall more lightly to those who expect them. The more each is more honorable in birth, fame, and patrimony, so much the more stoutly let him bear himself, mindful that in the front line the high orders stand.

Contumelias et uerba probrosa et ignominias et cetera dehonestamenta uelut clamorem hostium ferat et longinqua tela et saxa sine uulnere circa galeas crepitantia; iniurias uero ut uulnera, alia armis, alia pectori infixa, non deiectus, ne motus quidem gradu sustineat. Etiam si premeris et infesta ui urgeris, cedere tamen turpe est: adsignatum a natura locum tuere. Quaeris quis hic sit locus?

Let him bear contumelies and opprobrious words and ignominies and the other dehonestations like the shouting of enemies and long-range missiles and stones rattling around the helmets without a wound; but injuries as wounds—some fixed by arms, others fixed in the breast—let him, not cast down, not even moved a step, sustain. Even if you are pressed and driven by hostile force, yet to cede is disgraceful: guard the place assigned by nature. Do you ask what this place is?

uiri. 4. Sapienti aliud auxilium est huic contrarium; uos enim rem geritis, illi parta uictoria est. Ne repugnate uestro bono et hanc spem, dum ad uerum peruenitis, alite in animis libentesque meliora excipite et opinione ac uoto iuuate: esse aliquid inuictum, esse aliquem in quem nihil fortuna possit, e re publica est generis humani [est].

men. 4. The wise man has another aid
contrary to this; for you are conducting the affair, for him the victory has been won. Do not resist
your own good, and, while you are arriving at the truth, nourish this hope in your minds, and willingly
receive better things and help them by opinion and vow: that there is something unconquered, that there is
someone against whom Fortune can do nothing, is in the interest of the commonwealth of the human race [is].