Seneca: EPISTULAE MORALES AD LUCILIUM

[1] Rem utilem desideras et ad sapientiam properanti necessariam, dividi philosophiam et ingens corpus eius in membra disponi; facilius enim per partes in cognitionem totius adducimur. Utinam quidem quemadmodum universa mundi facies in conspectum venit, ita philosophia tota nobis posset occurrere, simillimum mundo spectaculum! Profecto enim omnes mortales in admirationem sui raperet, relictis iis quae nunc magna magnorum ignorantia credimus.

[1] You desire a useful thing, and necessary for one hastening toward wisdom: that philosophy be divided, and its vast body be arranged into members; for we are more easily led through parts into the cognition of the whole. Would that indeed, just as the entire face of the world comes into sight, so philosophy in its entirety could present itself to us—a spectacle most similar to the world! For surely it would sweep all mortals into admiration of itself, with those things left behind which we now believe through a great ignorance of great matters.

Sed quia contingere hoc non potest, est sic nobis aspicienda quemadmodum mundi secreta cernuntur.

But since this cannot come to pass, it is to be inspected by us thus, just as the secrets of the world are discerned.

[2] Sapientis quidem animus totam molem eius amplectitur nec minus illam velociter obit quam caelum acies nostra; nobis autem, quibus perrumpenda caligo est et quorum visus in proximo deficit, singula quaeque ostendi facilius possunt, universi nondum capacibus. Faciam ergo quod exigis et philosophiam in partes, non in frusta dividam. Dividi enim illam, non concidi, utile est; nam conprehendere quemadmodum maxima ita minima difficile est.

[2] The mind of the sapient man embraces its whole mass and traverses it no less swiftly than our acuity does the sky; but for us, who must break through the gloom and whose sight fails at the proximate, the several particulars can more easily be shown, we who are not yet capable of the whole. I will do, then, what you demand, and I will divide philosophy into parts, not into fragments. For to divide it, not to cut it to pieces, is useful; for to comprehend alike the greatest things and the least is difficult.

[3] Discribitur in tribus populus, in centurias exercitus; quidquid in maius crevit facilius agnoscitur si discessit in partes, quas, ut dixi, innumerabiles esse et parvulas non oportet. Idem enim vitii habet nimia quod nulla divisio: simile confuso est quidquid usque in pulverem sectum est.

[3] The people is apportioned into tribes, the army into centuries; whatever has grown into something greater is more easily recognized if it has been separated into parts—parts which, as I said, ought not to be innumerable and minute. For excessive division has the same fault as no division: whatever has been cut up all the way into dust is like something confused.

[4] Primum itaque, si [ut] videtur tibi, dicam inter sapientiam et philosophiam quid intersit. Sapientia perfectum bonum est mentis humanae; philosophia sapientiae amor est et adfectatio: haec eo tendit quo illa pervenit. Philosophia unde dicta sit apparet; ipso enim nomine fatetur quid amet.

[4] First therefore, if [as] it seems to you, I will say what the difference is between wisdom and philosophy. Wisdom is the perfect good of the human mind; philosophy is love of wisdom and an aspiration: this tends to that point to which the other has arrived. It is apparent whence philosophy is so called; for by its very name it confesses what it loves.

[5] Sapientiam quidam ita finierunt ut dicerent divinorum et humanorum scientiam; quidam ita: sapientia est nosse divina et humana et horum causas. Supervacua mihi haec videtur adiectio, quia causae divinorum humanorumque pars divinorum sunt. Philosophiam quoque fuerunt qui aliter atque aliter finirent: alii studium illam virtutis esse dixerunt, alii studium corrigendae mentis; a quibusdam dicta est adpetitio rectae rationis.

[5] Some have bounded wisdom thus, that they said it is the science of divine and human things; some thus: wisdom is to know divine and human things and their causes. This addition seems to me superfluous, because the causes of divine and human things are a part of the divine. Philosophy also there were those who defined in one way and another: some said it is the study of virtue, others the study of correcting the mind; by some it has been called the appetition of right reason.

[6] Illud quasi constitit, aliquid inter philosophiam et sapientiam interesse; neque enim fieri potest ut idem sit quod adfectatur et quod adfectat. Quomodo multum inter avaritiam et pecuniam interest, cum illa cupiat, haec concupiscatur, sic inter philosophiam et sapientiam. Haec enim illius effectus ac praemium est; illa venit, ad hanc itur.

[6] That, as it were, is settled: that there is some difference between philosophy and wisdom; for it cannot be that the same thing is both what is aspired to and what aspires. Just as there is much difference between avarice and money—since the former desires, the latter is concupisced—so between philosophy and wisdom. For the latter is the effect and prize of the former; philosophy comes, to wisdom one goes.

[7] Sapientia est quam Graeci sophian vocant. Hoc verbo Romani quoque utebantur, sicut philosophia nunc quoque utuntur; quod et togatae tibi antiquae probabunt et inscriptus Dossenni monumento titulus:

[7] Wisdom is what the Greeks call sophia. The Romans too used this word, just as they now also use philosophia; which both the ancient togatae will prove to you and the title inscribed on the monument of Dossennus:

hospes resiste et sophian Dossenni lege.

Stranger, halt and read the sophia of Dossennus.

[8] Quidam ex nostris, quamvis philosophia studium virtutis esset et haec peteretur, illa peteret, tamen non putaverunt illas distrahi posse; nam nec philosophia sine virtute est nec sine philosophia virtus. Philosophia studium virtutis est, sed per ipsam virtutem; nec virtus autem esse sine studio sui potest nec virtutis studium sine ipsa. Non enim quemadmodum in iis qui aliquid ex distanti loco ferire conantur alibi est qui petit, alibi quod petitur; nec quemadmodum itinera quae ad urbes perducunt extra ipsam: ad virtutem venitur per ipsam, cohaerent inter se philosophia virtusque.

[8] Certain of our own, although philosophy was a study of virtue and this was being sought, that was seeking it, nevertheless did not think those could be drawn apart; for neither is philosophy without virtue nor virtue without philosophy. Philosophy is a study of virtue, but through virtue itself; nor indeed can virtue exist without the study of itself, nor the study of virtue without it. For it is not as in the case of those who try to strike something from a distant place: in one place is the one who aims, in another what is aimed at; nor, just as the roads which lead to cities are outside virtue itself: one comes to virtue through virtue itself; philosophy and virtue cohere with each other.

[9] Philosophiae tres partes esse dixerunt et maximi et plurimi auctores: moralem, naturalem, rationalem. Prima componit animum; secunda rerum naturam scrutatur; tertia proprietates verborum exigit et structuram et argumentationes, ne pro vero falsa subrepant. Ceterum inventi sunt et qui in pauciora philosophiam et qui in plura diducerent.

[9] Both the greatest and the most numerous authorities have said that philosophy has three parts: the moral, the natural, the rational. The first composes the mind; the second scrutinizes the nature of things; the third requires the properties of words and their structure and the argumentations, lest falsehoods creep in in place of the true. Moreover, there have been found both those who would reduce philosophy to fewer parts and those who would divide it into more.

[10] Quidam ex Peripateticis quartam partem adiecerunt civilem, quia propriam quandam exercitationem desideret et circa aliam materiam occupata sit; quidam adiecerunt his partem quam oikonomiken vocant, administrandae familiaris rei scientiam; quidam et de generibus vitae locum separaverunt. Nihil autem horum non in illa parte morali reperietur.

[10] Certain of the Peripatetics added a fourth part, the civil, because it requires a certain proper exercitation and is occupied with a different subject-matter; some added to these the part which they call oikonomiken, the science of administering the household estate; some also separated off a place concerning the genera of life. However, none of these will fail to be found in that moral part.

[11] Epicurei duas partes philosophiae putaverunt esse, naturalem atque moralem: rationalem removerunt. Deinde cum ipsis rebus cogerentur ambigua secernere, falsa sub specie veri latentia coarguere, ipsi quoque locum quem 'de iudicio et regula' appellant — alio nomine rationalem — induxerunt, sed eum accessionem esse naturalis partis existimant.

[11] The Epicureans thought there to be two parts of philosophy, the natural and the moral: they removed the rational. Then, when by the things themselves they were compelled to separate ambiguities, to convict falsehoods lying hidden under the appearance of the true, they too introduced a topic which they call “On judgment and rule” — by another name rational — but they consider it to be an accession of the natural part.

[12] Cyrenaici naturalia cum rationalibus sustulerunt et contenti fuerunt moralibus, sed hi quoque quae removent aliter inducunt; in quinque enim partes moralia dividunt, ut una sit de fugiendis et petendis, altera de adfectibus, tertia de actionibus, quarta de causis, quinta de argumentis. Causae rerum ex naturali parte sunt, argumenta ex rationali.

[12] The Cyrenaics removed the natural things together with the rational and were content with the moral; but these too introduce in another way the very things which they remove; for into five parts they divide the moral, that one be about things to be fled and sought, another about affections, a third about actions, a fourth about causes, a fifth about arguments. The causes of things are from the natural part, the arguments from the rational.

[13] Ariston Chius non tantum supervacuas esse dixit naturalem et rationalem sed etiam contrarias; moralem quoque, quam solam reliquerat, circumcidit. Nam eum locum qui monitiones continet sustulit et paedagogi esse dixit, non philosophi, tamquam quidquam aliud sit sapiens quam generis humani paedagogus.

[13] Ariston of Chios said that the natural and the rational were not only superfluous but even contrary; he also curtailed the moral, which alone he had left. For he removed that place which contains admonitions and said it belongs to the paedagogue, not to the philosopher, as though the wise man were anything other than the paedagogue of the human race.

[14] Ergo cum tripertita sit philosophia, moralem eius partem primum incipiamus disponere. Quam in tria rursus dividi placuit, ut prima esset inspectio suum cuique distribuens et aestimans quanto quidque dignum sit, maxime utilis — quid enim est tam necessarium quam pretia rebus inponere? — secunda de impetu, de actionibus tertia.

[14] Therefore, since philosophy is tripartite, let us first begin to set in order its moral part. It has been decided to divide this again into three: that the first be an inspection distributing to each his own and estimating how much each thing is worthy—most useful—for what is so necessary as to impose prices upon things?—the second concerning impulse, the third concerning actions.

Primum enim est ut quanti quidque sit iudices, secundum ut impetum ad illa capias ordinatum temperatumque, tertium ut inter impetum tuum actionemque conveniat, ut in omnibus istis tibi ipse consentias.

First, namely, that you judge how much each thing is worth; second, that you take an impulse toward those things that is ordered and tempered; third, that your impulse and your action be in agreement, so that in all these matters you be of one accord with yourself.

[15] Quidquid ex tribus defuit turbat et cetera. Quid enim prodest inter aestimata habere omnia, si sis in impetu nimius? quid prodest impetus repressisse et habere cupiditates in sua potestate, si in ipsa rerum actione tempora ignores nec scias quando quidque et ubi et quemadmodum agi debeat?

[15] Whatever of the three is lacking perturbs the rest as well. For what profit is it to have all things evaluated among , if you are excessive in impulse? what profit is it to have repressed your impulse and to have your desires in your own power, if in the very action of things you are ignorant of the times and do not know when each thing, and where, and in what manner ought to be done?

Aliud est enim dignitates et pretia rerum nosse, aliud articulos, aliud impetus refrenare et ad agenda ire, non ruere. Tunc ergo vita concors sibi est ubi actio non destituit impetum, impetus ex dignitate rei cuiusque concipitur, proinde remissus <aut> acrior prout illa digna est peti.

For it is one thing to know the dignities and prices of things, another to know the articulations, another to rein in impulses and to go to the things to be done, not to rush headlong. Then, therefore, life is in concord with itself when action does not desert impulse, and impulse is conceived from the dignity of each thing, accordingly more relaxed or keener in proportion as that thing is worthy to be sought.

[16] Naturalis pars philosophiae in duo scinditur, corporalia et incorporalia; utraque dividuntur in suos, ut ita dicam, gradus. Corporum locus in hos primum, in ea quae faciunt et quae ex his gignuntur — gignuntur autem elementa. Ipse elementis locus, ut quidam putant, simplex est, ut quidam, in materiam et causam omnia moventem et elementa dividitur.

[16] The natural part of philosophy is split into two, corporeals and incorporeals; each is divided into its, so to speak, degrees. The heading of bodies is first into these, into the things which act and the things which are generated from these — and the elements are generated. The section itself the elements, as some think, is simple; as others think, it is divided into matter, and the cause moving all things, and the elements.

[17] Superest ut rationalem partem philosophiae dividam. Omnis oratio aut continua est aut inter respondentem et interrogantem discissa; hanc dialektiken, illam rhetoriken placuit vocari. Rhetorike verba curat et sensus et ordinem; dialektike in duas partes dividitur, in verba et significationes, id est in res quae dicuntur et vocabula quibus dicuntur.

[17] It remains that I divide the rational part of philosophy. Every discourse is either continuous or split between the one answering and the one asking; it has been decided that the latter be called dialectic, the former rhetoric. Rhetoric attends to words and meanings and order; dialectic is divided into two parts, into words and significations, that is, into the things that are said and the terms by which they are said.

Ingens deinde sequitur utriusque divisio. Itaque hoc loco finem faciam et

Then an immense division of both follows. And so at this place I shall make an end and

summa sequar fastigia rerum;

I will follow the topmost summits of things;

alioqui, si voluero facere partium partes, quaestionum liber fiet.

otherwise, if I shall have wished to make parts of the parts, it will become a book of questions.

[18] Haec, Lucili virorum optime, quominus legas non deterreo, dummodo quidquid legeris ad mores statim referas. Illos conpesce, marcentia in te excita, soluta constringe, contumacia doma, cupiditates tuas publicasque quantum potes vexa; et istis dicentibus 'quousque eadem?' responde:

[18] These, Lucilius, best of men, I do not deter you from reading, provided that whatever you read you at once refer to morals. Restrain them, rouse what is languishing in you, bind what is loose, tame contumacy, harry your desires, both your own and the public, as much as you can; and to those saying 'how long the same things?' reply:

[19] 'Ego debebam dicere "quousque eadem peccabitis?" Remedia ante vultis quam vitia desinere? Ego vero eo magis dicam, et quia recusatis perseverabo; tunc incipit medicina proficere ubi in corpore alienato dolorem tactus expressit. Dicam etiam invitis profutura.

[19] 'I ought to have said "how long will you be sinning the same things?" Do you want remedies before the vices cease? I, for my part, will say it all the more, and because you refuse I will persevere; then the medicine begins to make progress when, in an alienated body, the touch has elicited pain. I will speak things beneficial even to the unwilling.

Aliquando aliqua ad vos non blanda vox veniat, et quia verum singuli audire non vultis, publice audite.

Let there sometimes come to you a voice not blandishing, and because you do not wish to hear the truth as individuals, hear it publicly.

[20] 'Quousque fines possessionum propagabitis? Ager uni domino qui populum cepit angustus est? Quousque arationes vestras porrigetis, ne provinciarum quidem spatio contenti circumscribere praediorum modum?

[20] 'How long will you propagate the boundaries of your possessions? Is the land narrow for one master—the land that has taken in a people? How long will you stretch out your ploughings, not content even with the expanse of provinces, without circumscribing a measure of your estates?

Inlustrium fluminum per privatum decursus est et amnes magni magnarumque gentium termini usque ad ostium a fonte vestri sunt. Hoc quoque parum est nisi latifundiis vestris maria cinxistis, nisi trans Hadriam et Ionium Aegaeumque vester vilicus regnat, nisi insulae, ducum domicilia magnorum, inter vilissima rerum numerantur. Quam vultis late possidete, sit fundus quod aliquando imperium vocabatur, facite vestrum quidquid potestis, dum plus sit alieni.

The course of illustrious rivers runs through private property, and great streams and the boundaries of great peoples, from source to mouth, are yours. This too is too little unless with your latifundia you have encircled the seas, unless across the Adriatic and the Ionian and the Aegean your bailiff reigns, unless islands—the domiciles of great leaders—are counted among the vilest of things. Possess as widely as you wish; let what once was called an empire be a farm; make whatever you can yours, so long as there is more that belongs to others.

[21] 'Nunc vobiscum loquor quorum aeque spatiose luxuria quam illorum avaritia diffunditur. Vobis dico: quousque nullus erit lacus cui non villarum vestrarum fastigia inmineant? nullum flumen cuius non ripas aedificia vestra praetexant?

[21] 'Now I speak with you, whose luxury is diffused just as spaciously as their avarice. I say to you: how long will there be no lake over which the gables of your villas do not loom? no river whose banks your edifices do not border?'

Ubicumque scatebunt aquarum calentium venae, ibi nova deversoria luxuriae excitabuntur. Ubicumque in aliquem sinum litus curvabitur, vos protinus fundamenta iacietis, nec contenti solo nisi quod manu feceritis, mare agetis introrsus. Omnibus licet locis tecta vestra resplendeant, aliubi inposita montibus in vastum terrarum marisque prospectum, aliubi ex plano in altitudinem montium educta, cum multa aedificaveritis, cum ingentia, tamen et singula corpora estis et parvola.

Wherever veins of hot waters shall gush, there new hostelries of luxury will be raised. Wherever the shore shall curve into some bay, you will straightway cast foundations, and, not content with any ground except what you have made by hand, you will drive the sea inward. Though in all places your roofs may shine—elsewhere set upon mountains, over a vast prospect of lands and sea; elsewhere, from the plain, reared up into the height of mountains—though you will have built many things, though immense ones, yet you are each but a single body, and very small.

Quid prosunt multa cubicula? in uno iacetis. Non est vestrum ubicumque non estis.

What do many chambers profit? in one you lie. It is not yours wherever you are not.

[22] 'Ad vos deinde transeo quorum profunda et insatiabilis gula hinc maria scrutatur, hinc terras, alia hamis, alia laqueis, alia retium variis generibus cum magno labore persequitur: nullis animalibus nisi ex fastidio pax est. Quantulum [est] ex istis epulis [quae] per tot comparatis manus fesso voluptatibus ore libatis? quantulum ex ista fera periculose capta dominus crudus ac nauseans gustat?

[22] 'To you then I pass, whose deep and insatiable gullet on this side searches the seas, on that the lands, pursuing some with hooks, others with snares, others with nets of various kinds, with great labor: for no creatures have peace from you, except when out of fastidiousness. How tiny a bit [is it] from those banquets [which], procured through so many hands, you merely sip with a mouth wearied by pleasures? how tiny a bit from that wild beast dangerously captured does the master, crude and nauseated, taste?

quantulum ex tot conchyliis tam longe advectis per istum stomachum inexplebilem labitur? Infelices, ecquid intellegitis maiorem vos famem habere quam ventrem?'

how tiny a bit from so many shellfish, conveyed from so far away, slips down through that insatiable stomach of yours? Unhappy ones, do you in any way understand that you have a hunger greater than a belly?'

[23] Haec aliis dic, ut dum dicis audias ipse, scribe, ut dum scribis legas, omnia ad mores et ad sedandam rabiem adfectuum referens. Stude, non ut plus aliquid scias, sed ut melius. Vale.

[23] Say these things to others, so that while you speak you may yourself hear; write, so that while you write you may read, referring everything to morals and to the sedating of the rabidity of the affections. Study, not so that you may know more, but that you may know better. Farewell.

XC. SENECA LVCILIO SVO SALVTEM

90. SENECA TO HIS LUCILIUS, GREETINGS

[1] Quis dubitare, mi Lucili, potest quin deorum inmortalium munus sit quod vivimus, philosophiae quod bene vivimus? Itaque tanto plus huic nos debere quam dis quanto maius beneficium est bona vita quam vita pro certo haberetur, nisi ipsam philosophiam di tribuissent; cuius scientiam nulli dederunt, facultatem omnibus.

[1] Who can doubt, my Lucilius, that it is a gift of the immortal gods that we live, and of philosophy that we live well? Therefore it would be held for certain that we owe so much more to this (i.e., to philosophy) than to the gods, by as much as the benefit of a good life is greater than that of life, unless the gods themselves had bestowed philosophy; the science of which they have given to no one, the faculty to all.

[2] Nam si hanc quoque bonum vulgare fecissent et prudentes nasceremur, sapientia quod in se optimum habet perdidisset, inter fortuita non esse. Nunc enim hoc in illa pretiosum atque magnificum est, quod non obvenit, quod illam sibi quisque debet, quod non ab alio petitur. Quid haberes quod in philosophia suspiceres si beneficiaria res esset?

[2] For if they had made this too a common (vulgar) good, and we were born prudent, sapience would have lost what it has best in itself: not to be among fortuitous things. For now this in it is precious and magnificent, that it does not befall, that each person owes it to himself, that it is not sought from another. What would you have to look up to in philosophy if it were a beneficiary thing?

[3] Huius opus unum est de divinis humanisque verum invenire; ab hac numquam recedit religio, pietas, iustitia et omnis alius comitatus virtutum consertarum et inter se cohaerentium. Haec docuit colere divina, humana diligere, et penes deos imperium esse, inter homines consortium. Quod aliquamdiu inviolatum mansit, antequam societatem avaritia distraxit et paupertatis causa etiam iis quos fecit locupletissimos fuit; desierunt enim omnia possidere, dum volunt propria.

[3] The single work of this is to find the true about divine and human things; from this religion, piety, justice, and the whole other retinue of virtues, interlaced and mutually cohering, never departs. This taught one to cultivate the divine, to cherish the human, and that sovereignty is with the gods, fellowship/consortium among men. Which remained inviolate for some time, before greed tore society apart and was the cause of poverty even for those whom it made most wealthy; for they ceased to possess all things, while they wish to have things as their own.

[4] Sed primi mortalium quique ex his geniti naturam incorrupti sequebantur eundem habebant et ducem et legem, commissi melioris arbitrio; natura est enim potioribus deteriora summittere. Mutis quidem gregibus aut maxima corpora praesunt aut vehementissima: non praecedit armenta degener taurus, sed qui magnitudine ac toris ceteros mares vicit; elephantorum gregem excelsissimus ducit: inter homines pro maximo est optimum. Animo itaque rector eligebatur, ideoque summa felicitas erat gentium in quibus non poterat potentior esse nisi melior; tuto enim quantum vult potest qui se nisi quod debet non putat posse.

[4] But the first mortals and those born from them, uncorrupted, followed nature and had the same both leader and law, being committed to the arbitration of the better; for it is of nature to subject the worse to the superior. Indeed, in mute herds either the largest bodies or the most vehement are in charge: a degenerate bull does not precede the herds, but he who by magnitude and muscles has surpassed the other males; the most lofty leads the herd of elephants: among men, the best counts for the greatest. Thus a ruler was chosen by spirit, and therefore the highest felicity was the mark of those nations in which no one could be more potent unless he were better; for securely he can as much as he wishes who thinks himself able to do nothing except what he ought.

[5] Illo ergo saeculo quod aureum perhibent penes sapientes fuisse regnum Posidonius iudicat. Hi continebant manus et infirmiorem a validioribus tuebantur, suadebant dissuadebantque et utilia atque inutilia monstrabant; horum prudentia ne quid deesset suis providebat, fortitudo pericula arcebat, beneficentia augebat ornabatque subiectos. Officium erat imperare, non regnum.

[5] Therefore Posidonius judges that in that age which they call the golden, the rule was in the hands of the wise. These restrained hands and protected the weaker from the stronger; they persuaded and dissuaded, and pointed out what was useful and what useless; their prudence provided that nothing should be lacking to their own, their fortitude warded off dangers, their beneficence increased and adorned their subjects. To command was a duty, not a kingship.

Nemo quantum posset adversus eos experiebatur per quos coeperat posse, nec erat cuiquam aut animus in iniuriam aut causa, cum bene imperanti bene pareretur, nihilque rex maius minari male parentibus posset quam ut abiret e regno.

No one made trial, as much as he could, against those through whom he had begun to be able; nor had anyone either the spirit for injury or a cause, since one who commanded well was well obeyed, and the king could menace nothing greater to those who obeyed badly than that he should depart from the kingdom.

[6] Sed postquam subrepentibus vitiis in tyrannidem regna conversa sunt, opus esse legibus coepit, quas et ipsas inter initia tulere sapientes. Solon, qui Athenas aequo iure fundavit, inter septem fuit sapientia notos; Lycurgum si eadem aetas tulisset, sacro illi numero accessisset octavus. Zaleuci leges Charondaeque laudantur; hi non in foro nec in consultorum atrio, sed in Pythagorae tacito illo sanctoque secessu didicerunt iura quae florenti tunc Siciliae et per Italiam Graeciae ponerent.

[6] But after, with vices creeping in, kingdoms were converted into tyranny, there began to be need of laws, which laws the wise themselves, in the beginnings, also brought forward. Solon, who founded Athens on equal right, was among the seven known for wisdom; if the same age had produced Lycurgus, he would have been added as the eighth to that sacred number. The laws of Zaleucus and of Charondas are praised; these men learned the iura not in the forum nor in the atrium of consultants, but in Pythagoras’s silent and holy seclusion, the laws which they established for then-flourishing Sicily and, through Italy, for Greece.

[7] Hactenus Posidonio adsentior: artes quidem a philosophia inventas quibus in cotidiano vita utitur non concesserim, nec illi fabricae adseram gloriam. 'Illa' inquit 'sparsos et aut casis tectos aut aliqua rupe suffossa aut exesae arboris trunco docuit tecta moliri.' Ego vero philosophiam iudico non magis excogitasse has machinationes tectorum supra tecta surgentium et urbium urbes prementium quam vivaria piscium in hoc clausa ut tempestatum periculum non adiret gula et quamvis acerrime pelago saeviente haberet luxuria portus suos in quibus distinctos piscium greges saginaret.

[7] Thus far I agree with Posidonius: that the arts were invented by philosophy, which life uses in quotidian practice, I would not grant, nor would I ascribe to it the glory of that workmanship. 'It,' he says, 'taught men, scattered and either covered with huts or with some hollowed rock or with the trunk of a hollowed-out tree, to construct roofs.' I for my part judge that philosophy no more devised these machinations of roofs rising above roofs and of cities pressing upon cities than it devised fish-ponds, enclosed for this purpose, that the peril of storms might not approach the gullet, and that, however most fiercely the deep raged, luxury might have its own harbors in which it could fatten separate schools of fish.

[8] Quid ais? philosophia homines docuit habere clavem et seram? Quid aliud erat avaritiae signum dare?

[8] What do you say? Did philosophy teach men to have a key and a bar? What else was it than to give a sign of avarice?

Philosophia haec cum tanto habitantium periculo inminentia tecta suspendit? Parum enim erat fortuitis tegi et sine arte et sine difficultate naturale invenire sibi aliquod receptaculum.

Did philosophy suspend these overhanging roofs, with so great a peril to the inhabitants? For was it too little to be covered by fortuitous things, and, without art and without difficulty, to find for oneself some natural receptacle?

[9] Mihi crede, felix illud saeculum ante architectos fuit, ante tectores. Ista nata sunt iam nascente luxuria, in quadratum tigna decidere et serra per designata currente certa manu trabem scindere;

[9] Believe me, that happy age was before architects, before plasterers. These things were born as luxury itself was being born: to trim beams into a square and to split a timber with the saw, running along the marked lines with a sure hand;

nam primi cuneis scindebant fissile lignum.

for the first people used to split the fissile wood with wedges.

Non enim tecta cenationi epulum recepturae parabantur, nec in hunc usum pinus aut abies deferebatur longo vehiculorum ordine vicis intrementibus, ut ex illa lacunaria auro gravia penderent.

For roofs were not being prepared for a dining-room destined to receive a banquet, nor for this purpose were pine or fir conveyed in a long rank of vehicles, the streets groaning, so that from that wood coffered ceilings, heavy with gold, might hang.

[10] Furcae utrimque suspensae fulciebant casam; spissatis ramalibus ac fronde congesta et in proclive disposita decursus imbribus quamvis magnis erat. Sub his tectis habitavere [sed] securi: culmus liberos texit, sub marmore atque auro servitus habitat.

[10] Forks, suspended on both sides, propped the hut; with thick-set branches and leafage piled up and arranged on a slope, there was a runoff for the rains, however great. Under these roofs they dwelt [but] secure: thatch covered the free; under marble and gold servitude dwells.

[11] In illo quoque dissentio a Posidonio, quod ferramenta fabrilia excogitata a sapientibus viris iudicat; isto enim modo dicat licet sapientes fuisse per quos

[11] In this also I disagree with Posidonius, because he judges that forge-tools were devised by wise men; for in this way he may as well say that there were wise men through whom

tunc laqueis captare feras et fallere visco
inventum et magnos canibus circumdare saltus.

then it was devised to catch wild beasts with snares and to beguile with birdlime
and to surround great woodland ranges with dogs.

Omnia enim ista sagacitas hominum, non sapientia invenit.

For all those things the sagacity of men, not wisdom, discovered.

[12] In hoc quoque dissentio, sapientes fuisse qui ferri metalla et aeris invenerint, cum incendio silvarum adusta tellus in summo venas iacentis liquefacta fudisset: ista tales inveniunt quales colunt.

[12] In this too I dissent: that the wise were the ones who found the metals of iron and of bronze, when by a conflagration of forests the scorched earth, liquefied, had poured out the veins lying near the surface: such people discover such things as they cultivate.

[13] Ne illa quidem tam subtilis mihi quaestio videtur quam Posidonio, utrum malleus in usu esse prius an forcipes coeperint. Utraque invenit aliquis excitati ingenii, acuti, non magni nec elati, et quidquid aliud corpore incurvato et animo humum spectante quaerendum est. Sapiens facilis victu fuit.

[13] Not even that question seems to me so subtle as to Posidonius, whether the hammer began to be in use prior, or the tongs. Someone of aroused ingenuity, sharp, not great nor exalted, discovered both—and whatever else must be sought with the body incurved and the mind gazing at the ground. The wise man was easy in sustenance.

Quidni? cum hoc quoque saeculo esse quam expeditissimus cupiat.

Why not? since in this age too he desires to be as unencumbered as possible.

[14] Quomodo, oro te, convenit ut et Diogenen mireris et Daedalum? Uter ex his sapiens tibi videtur? qui serram commentus est, an ille qui, cum vidisset puerum cava manu bibentem aquam, fregit protinus exemptum e perula calicem hac obiurgatione sui: 'quamdiu homo stultus supervacuas sarcinas habui!', qui se conplicuit in dolio et in eo cubitavit?

[14] How, I beg you, does it fit that you admire both Diogenes and Daedalus? Which of these seems to you a wise man? he who contrived the saw, or he who, when he had seen a boy drinking water with a cupped hand, immediately broke the cup taken from his little pouch, this rebuke of himself: 'How long, foolish man, have I carried superfluous baggage!', who curled himself up in a tub and lodged in it?

[15] Hodie utrum tandem sapientiorem putas qui invenit quemadmodum in immensam altitudinem crocum latentibus fistulis exprimat, qui euripos subito aquarum impetu implet aut siccat et versatilia cenationum laquearia ita coagmentat ut subinde alia facies atque alia succedat et totiens tecta quotiens fericula mutentur, an eum qui et aliis et sibi hoc monstrat, quam nihil nobis natura durum ac difficile imperaverit, posse nos habitare sine marmorario ac fabro, posse nos vestitos esse sine commercio sericorum, posse nos habere usibus nostris necessaria si contenti fuerimus iis quae terra posuit in summo? Quem si audire humanum genus voluerit, tam supervacuum sciet sibi cocum esse quam militem.

[15] Today which, pray, do you reckon the wiser: the one who discovered how to express crocus in hidden pipes to an immense altitude, who fills or drains Euripus-channels suddenly by the rush of waters, and so co-aggregates the versatile ceilings of dining-rooms that one aspect after another keeps succeeding, and the roofs as many times as the courses are changed; or the one who shows both to others and to himself this—that nature has imposed upon us nothing hard or difficult: that we can dwell without a marble-worker and a craftsman, that we can be clothed without the commerce of silks, that we can have the things necessary for our uses if we shall be content with those which the earth has placed on the surface? If the human race shall be willing to listen to him, it will know that a cook is as superfluous for it as a soldier.

[16] Illi sapientes fuerunt aut certe sapientibus similes quibus expedita erat tutela corporis. Simplici cura constant necessaria: in delicias laboratur. Non desiderabis artifices: sequere naturam.

[16] Those men were wise, or at least like the wise, for whom the tutelage of the body was unencumbered. With simple care the necessaries are obtained: one toils for delights. You will not desire artificers: follow nature.

Illa noluit esse districtos; ad quaecumque nos cogebat instruxit. 'Frigus intolerabilest corpori nudo.' Quid ergo? non pelles ferarum et aliorum animalium a frigore satis abundeque defendere queunt?

She did not wish us to be hard-pressed; for whatever she compelled us to, she equipped us. ‘Cold is intolerable to the naked body.’ What then? Do not the pelts of wild beasts and of other animals suffice, and more than suffice, to defend from cold?

non corticibus arborum pleraeque gentes tegunt corpora? non avium plumae in usum vestis conseruntur? non hodieque magna Scytharum pars tergis vulpium induitur ac murum, quae tactu mollia et inpenetrabilia ventis sunt?

do not most peoples cover their bodies with the bark of trees? are not the feathers of birds sewn together for the use of clothing? and even today does not a great part of the Scythians put on the hides of foxes and sable, which are soft to the touch and impenetrable to the winds?

Quid ergo? non quilibet virgeam cratem texuerunt manu et vili obliverunt luto, deinde [de] stipula aliisque silvestribus operuere fastigium et pluviis per devexa labentibus hiemem transiere securi?

What then? Did not just anybody weave by hand a wicker lattice and smear it with cheap mud, then [from] straw and other sylvan materials cover the gable, and, with the rains sliding down along the slopes, pass the winter secure?

[17] 'Opus est tamen calorem solis aestivi umbra crassiore propellere.' Quid ergo? non vetustas multa abdidit loca quae vel iniuria temporis vel alio quolibet casu excavata in specum recesserunt? Quid ergo?

[17] 'There is need, however, to drive back the heat of the summer sun with a thicker shade.' What then? Has not antiquity hidden many places which, either by the injury of time or by whatever other chance, having been hollowed out, have withdrawn into a cave? What then?

non in defosso latent Syrticae gentes quibusque propter nimios solis ardores nullum tegimentum satis repellendis caloribus solidum est nisi ipsa arens humus?

Do not the Syrtic peoples lie hidden in excavated places, and for whom, on account of the excessive ardors of the sun, no tegument is solid enough for repelling the heats except the parched soil itself?

[18] Non fuit tam iniqua natura ut, cum omnibus aliis animalibus facilem actum vitae daret, homo solus non posset sine tot artibus vivere; nihil durum ab illa nobis imperatum est, nihil aegre quaerendum, ut possit vita produci. Ad parata nati sumus: nos omnia nobis difficilia facilium fastidio fecimus. Tecta tegimentaque et fomenta corporum et cibi et quae nunc ingens negotium facta sunt obvia erant et gratuita et opera levi parabilia; modus enim omnium prout necessitas erat: nos ista pretiosa, nos mira, nos magnis multisque conquirenda artibus fecimus.

[18] Nature was not so inequitable that, while it gave to all other animals an easy course of life, man alone could not live without so many arts; nothing harsh was enjoined upon us by her, nothing to be sought with toil, so that life might be prolonged. We were born for things prepared: we have made all things difficult for ourselves out of fastidiousness toward easy things. Roofs and coverings and fomentations for bodies and foods, and the things which now have been made an enormous business, were at hand and gratuitous and procurable by light effort; for the measure of all things was as necessity required: we have made those things precious, wondrous, to be hunted up by great and many arts.

[19] Sufficit ad id natura quod poscit. A natura luxuria descivit, quae cotidie se ipsa incitat et tot saeculis crescit et ingenio adiuvat vitia. Primo supervacua coepit concupiscere, inde contraria, novissime animum corpori addixit et illius deservire libidini iussit.

[19] Nature suffices for what it requires. Luxury has defected from nature, which every day incites itself and through so many ages grows, and by ingenuity abets vices. At first it began to covet superfluities, then contraries, and at the last it addicted the mind to the body and ordered it to serve that one’s libido.

Omnes istae artes quibus aut circitatur civitas aut strepit corpori negotium gerunt, cui omnia olim tamquam servo praestabantur, nunc tamquam domino parantur. Itaque hinc textorum, hinc fabrorum officinae sunt, hinc odores coquentium, hinc molles corporis motus docentium mollesque cantus et infractos. Recessit enim ille naturalis modus desideria ope necessaria finiens; iam rusticitatis et miseriae est velle quantum sat est.

All those arts by which either the city is made to run in circles or a din is raised on behalf of the body conduct business for that, for which once everything was furnished as for a slave, but now things are prepared as for a master. And so, here are the workshops of weavers, here of smiths, here the odors of cooks, here those teaching the body’s soft motions, and soft and broken songs. For that natural measure, which ended desires by the aid of what is necessary, has receded; now it is counted rusticity and misery to want as much as is enough.

[20] Incredibilest, mi Lucili, quam facile etiam magnos viros dulcedo orationis abducat a vero. Ecce Posidonius, ut mea fert opinio, ex iis qui plurimum philosophiae contulerunt, dum vult describere primum quemadmodum alia torqueantur fila, alia ex molli solutoque ducantur, deinde quemadmodum tela suspensis ponderibus rectum stamen extendat, quemadmodum subtemen insertum, quod duritiam utrimque conprimentis tramae remolliat, spatha coire cogatur et iungi, textrini quoque artem a sapientibus dixit inventam, oblitus postea repertum hoc subtilius genus in quo

[20] It is incredible, my Lucilius, how easily the sweetness of oration can lead even great men away from the true. Behold Posidonius, as my opinion carries it, among those who have contributed the most to philosophy, while he wishes to describe first how some threads are twisted, others are drawn out from what is soft and loosened, then how the loom, by weights hanging, stretches the straight warp, how the inserted weft, which softens the hardness of the trama compressing from both sides, is forced by the spatha to come together and be joined, said that the art of the weaving-shop too was invented by the wise men, forgetting that later this subtler kind was discovered in which

tela iugo vincta est, stamen secernit harundo,
inseritur medium radiis subtemen acutis,
quod lato paviunt insecti pectine dentes.

the web is bound to the yoke,
the reed separates the stamen,
into the middle the weft is inserted by sharp shuttles,
which the teeth inset in a broad comb beat down.

Quid si contigisset illi videre has nostri temporis telas, in quibus vestis nihil celatura conficitur, in qua non dico nullum corpori auxilium, sed nullum pudori est?

What if it had befallen him to see these looms of our time, in which a vestment is fashioned that will conceal nothing, in which I do not say there is no aid to the body, but there is none to modesty?

[21] Transit deinde ad agricolas nec minus facunde describit proscissum aratro solum et iteratum quo solutior terra facilius pateat radicibus, tunc sparsa semina et collectas manu herbas ne quid fortuitum et agreste succrescat quod necet segetem. Hoc quoque opus ait esse sapientium, tamquam non nunc quoque plurima cultores agrorum nova inveniant per quae fertilitas augeatur.

[21] Then he passes to the agriculturists and no less eloquently describes the soil torn by the plow and gone over again so that the more loosened earth may more easily lie open to the roots, then the seeds scattered and the weeds gathered by hand, lest anything fortuitous and wild grow up which may kill the crop. This too, he says, is the work of the wise, as though even now the cultivators of the fields did not also discover very many new things by which fertility might be augmented.

[22] Deinde non est contentus his artibus, sed in pistrinum sapientem summittit; narrat enim quemadmodum rerum naturam imitatus panem coeperit facere. 'Receptas' inquit 'in os fruges concurrens inter se duritia dentium frangit, et quidquid excidit ad eosdem dentes lingua refertur; tunc umore miscetur ut facilius per fauces lubricas transeat; cum pervenit in ventrem, aequali eius fervore concoquitur; tunc demum corpori accedit.

[22] Then he is not content with these arts, but sends the sage down into the bakehouse; for he relates how, having imitated the nature of things, he began to make bread. 'The grains,' he says, 'received into the mouth, the hardness of the teeth, colliding among themselves, breaks; and whatever falls out is brought back by the tongue to those same teeth; then it is mixed with moisture, that it may pass more easily through the slippery throat; when it arrives in the belly, it is concocted by its even fervor; then at last it accedes to the body.'

[23] Hoc aliquis secutus exemplar lapidem asperum aspero inposuit ad similitudinem dentium, quorum pars immobilis motum alterius expectat; deinde utriusque adtritu grana franguntur et saepius regeruntur donec ad minutiam frequenter trita redigantur; tum farinam aqua sparsit et adsidua tractatione perdomuit finxitque panem, quem primo cinis calidus et fervens testa percoxit, deinde furni paulatim reperti et alia genera quorum fervor serviret arbitrio.' Non multum afuit quin sutrinum quoque inventum a sapientibus diceret.

[23] Following this exemplar someone placed a rough stone upon a rough stone in the similitude of teeth, of which one part, immobile, awaits the motion of the other; then by the attrition of both the grains are broken and are more than once turned back until, frequently ground, they are reduced to minuteness; then he sprinkled the flour with water and by assiduous handling thoroughly subdued it and fashioned bread, which at first hot ash and a seething potsherd cooked through, then ovens gradually discovered, and other kinds whose fervor might serve at one’s arbitrium. He was not far from saying that even the cobbler’s shop was invented by the wise.

[24] Omnia ista ratio quidem, sed non recta ratio commenta est. Hominis enim, non sapientis inventa sunt, tam mehercules quam navigia quibus amnes quibusque maria transimus, aptatis ad excipiendum ventorum impetum velis et additis a tergo gubernaculis quae huc atque illuc cursum navigii torqueant. Exemplum a piscibus tractum est, qui cauda reguntur et levi eius in utrumque momento velocitatem suam flectunt.

[24] All those things have indeed been contrived by reason, but not by right reason. For they are the inventions of a man, not of a wise man—by Hercules, as are the ships by which we cross rivers and seas—with sails fitted to receive the impetus of the winds and with rudders added at the stern which twist the course of the vessel hither and thither. The example was drawn from fishes, who are governed by the tail and by its slight movement to either side they bend their velocity.

[25] 'Omnia' inquit 'haec sapiens quidem invenit, sed minora quam ut ipse tractaret sordidioribus ministris dedit.' Immo non aliis excogitata ista sunt quam quibus hodieque curantur. Quaedam nostra demum prodisse memoria scimus, ut speculariorum usum perlucente testa clarum transmittentium lumen, ut suspensuras balneorum et inpressos parietibus tubos per quos circumfunderetur calor qui ima simul ac summa foveret aequaliter. Quid loquar marmora quibus templa, quibus domus fulgent?

[25] 'All these,' he says, 'the wise man indeed invented, but as things too minor for him to handle, he handed them over to more sordid ministers.' On the contrary, these were devised by none other than those by whom they are even today cared for. We know that certain things only in our own memory have at last come forth, such as the use of specularia, transmitting clear light through a translucent pane, such as the suspended floors of baths and the tubes embedded in the walls, through which the heat might be poured around so that the lowest and the highest alike were cherished evenly. Why should I speak of the marbles with which temples, with which houses, gleam?

quid lapideas moles in rotundum ac leve formatas quibus porticus et capacia populorum tecta suscipimus? quid verborum notas quibus quamvis citata excipitur oratio et celeritatem linguae manus sequitur? Vilissimorum mancipiorum ista commenta sunt:

What of the stone masses shaped into the rounded and smoothed, by which we support porticoes and roofs capacious of peoples? What of the notes of words, by which speech, however swift, is taken down, and the hand follows the speed of the tongue? These are the inventions of the vilest slaves:

[26] sapientia altius sedet nec manus edocet: animorum magistra est. Vis scire quid illa eruerit, quid effecerit? Non decoros corporis motus nec varios per tubam ac tibiam cantus, quibus exceptus spiritus aut in exitu aut in transitu formatur in vocem.

[26] Wisdom sits higher and does not teach the hands: she is the teacher of souls. Do you wish to know what she has unearthed, what she has effected? Not the decorous movements of the body, nor the various songs through the trumpet and the pipe, by which the captured breath, either on its exit or in transit, is formed into voice.

Non arma nec muros nec bello utilia molitur: paci favet et genus humanum ad concordiam vocat.

It does not contrive arms nor walls nor things useful for war: it favors peace and calls the human race to concord.

[27] Non est, inquam, instrumentorum ad usus necessarios opifex. Quid illi tam parvola adsignas? artificem vides vitae.

[27] She is not, I say, a craftsman of instruments for necessary uses. Why do you assign to her such very little things? you see an artificer of life.

Alias quidem artes sub dominio habet; nam cui vita, illi vitae quoque ornantia serviunt: ceterum ad beatum statum tendit, illo ducit, illo vias aperit.

It indeed holds the other arts under dominion; for he who has life, to him the adornments of life likewise do service: moreover it tends toward the blessed state, thither it leads, thither it opens the ways.

[28] Quae sint mala, quae videantur ostendit; vanitatem exuit mentibus, dat magnitudinem solidam, inflatam vero et ex inani speciosam reprimit, nec ignorari sinit inter magna quid intersit et tumida; totius naturae notitiam ac sui tradit. Quid sint di qualesque declarat, quid inferi, quid lares et genii, quid in secundam numinum formam animae perpetitae, ubi consistant, quid agant, quid possint, quid velint. Haec eius initiamenta sunt, per quae non municipale sacrum sed ingens deorum omnium templum, mundus ipse, reseratur, cuius vera simulacra verasque facies cernendas mentibus protulit; nam ad spectacula tam magna hebes visus est.

[28] It shows what things are evils and what only seem; it strips vanity from minds, gives solid magnitude, but represses what is inflated and showy out of emptiness, nor does it allow to be ignored what difference there is between things great and things tumid; it hands down the knowledge of the whole of nature and of oneself. It declares what the gods are and of what sort, what the underworld is, what the Lares and Genii are, what souls perpetuated into the second rank of divinities are, where they take their stand, what they do, what they can, what they will. These are its initiations, through which there is unbarred not a municipal sacred rite but the vast temple of all the gods, the world itself, whose true simulacra and true faces it has brought forth to be discerned by minds; for toward spectacles so great our vision has been dull.

[29] Ad initia deinde rerum redit aeternamque rationem toti inditam et vim omnium seminum singula proprie figurantem. Tum de animo coepit inquirere, unde esset, ubi, quamdiu, in quot membra divisus. Deinde a corporibus se ad incorporalia transtulit veritatemque et argumenta eius excussit; post haec quemadmodum discernerentur vitae aut vocis ambigua; in utraque enim falsa veris inmixta sunt.

[29] Then he returns to the beginnings of things, and to the eternal reason implanted in the whole, and to the force of all seeds shaping each thing in its proper form. Then he began to inquire about the mind—whence it is, where, how long, into how many parts divided. Next he passed from bodies to incorporeals and examined truth and its arguments; after these, how the ambiguities of life or of voice should be discerned; for in both the false are intermixed with the true.

[30] Non abduxit, inquam, se (ut Posidonio videtur) ab istis artibus sapiens, sed ad illas omnino non venit. Nihil enim dignum inventu iudicasset quod non erat dignum perpetuo usu iudicaturus; ponenda non sumeret.

[30] He did not, I say, withdraw himself (as it seems to Posidonius) from those arts, but he did not come to them at all. For he would have judged nothing worthy of discovery which he was going to judge not worthy of perpetual use; he would not take up things meant to be laid down.

[31] 'Anacharsis' inquit 'invenit rotam figuli, cuius circuitu vasa formantur.' Deinde quia apud Homerum invenitur figuli rota, maluit videri versus falsos esse quam fabulam. Ego nec Anacharsim auctorem huius rei fuisse contendo et, si fuit, sapiens quidem hoc invenit, sed non tamquam sapiens, sicut multa sapientes faciunt qua homines sunt, non qua sapientes. Puta velocissimum esse sapientem: cursu omnis anteibit qua velox est, non qua sapiens.

[31] 'Anacharsis,' he says, 'invented the potter’s wheel, by whose circuit the vessels are formed.' Then, because the potter’s wheel is found in Homer, he preferred that the verses seem false rather than the fable. I, for my part, do not contend that Anacharsis was the author of this thing, and, if he was, a wise man indeed discovered this, but not as a wise man, just as the wise do many things inasmuch as they are men, not inasmuch as they are wise. Suppose the wise man to be the swiftest: in running he will outstrip everyone inasmuch as he is swift, not inasmuch as he is wise.

Cuperem Posidonio aliquem vitrearium ostendere, qui spiritu vitrum in habitus plurimos format qui vix diligenti manu effingerentur. Haec inventa sunt postquam sapientem invenire desimus.

I would wish to show Posidonius a certain glassworker, who by his breath shapes glass into very many forms which would scarcely be fashioned by a diligent hand. These things were invented after we ceased to find the wise man.

[32] 'Democritus' inquit 'invenisse dicitur fornicem, ut lapidum curvatura paulatim inclinatorum medio saxo alligaretur.' Hoc dicam falsum esse; necesse est enim ante Democritum et pontes et portas fuisse, quarum fere summa curvantur.

[32] 'Democritus,' he says, 'is said to have invented the arch, so that by the curvature of stones gradually inclined it might be bound to a middle stone (keystone).' I shall say this is false; for it is necessary that before Democritus there were both bridges and gates, whose tops for the most part are curved.

[33] Excidit porro vobis eundem Democritum invenisse quemadmodum ebur molliretur, quemadmodum decoctus calculus in zmaragdum converteretur, qua hodieque coctura inventi lapides hoc utiles colorantur. Ista sapiens licet invenerit, non qua sapiens erat invenit; multa enim facit quae ab inprudentissimis aut aeque fieri videmus aut peritius atque exercitatius.

[33] Moreover, it has slipped your notice that the same Democritus discovered how ivory might be softened, how a decocted pebble might be converted into a smaragd (emerald), by which coction even today stones found, useful this, are colored. Although the sage discovered those things, he did not discover them qua sage; for he does many things which we see either are done equally by the most imprudent, or are done more skillfully and with more practice.

[34] Quid sapiens investigaverit, quid in lucem protraxerit quaeris? Primum verum naturamque, quam non ut cetera animalia oculis secutus est, tardis ad divina; deinde vitae legem, quam universa derexit, nec nosse tantum sed sequi deos docuit et accidentia non aliter excipere quam imperata. Vetuit parere opinionibus falsis et quanti quidque esset vera aestimatione perpendit; damnavit mixtas paenitentia voluptates et bona semper placitura laudavit et palam fecit felicissimum esse cui felicitate non opus est, potentissimum esse qui se habet in potestate.

[34] You ask what the wise man has investigated, what he has brought into the light? First, the truth and nature, which he did not, as the other animals, follow with the eyes, tardy toward divine things; then the law of life, by which he directed the universe, and he taught not only to know but to follow the gods and to receive accidents in no other way than as commanded. He forbade obeying false opinions and weighed by a true estimation how much each thing was worth; he condemned pleasures mixed with penitence and praised goods that would always be pleasing, and he made it plain that the most felicitous is he who has no need of felicity, that the most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.

[35] Non de ea philosophia loquor quae civem extra patriam posuit, extra mundum deos, quae virtutem donavit voluptati, sed illa quae nullum bonum putat nisi quod honestum est, quae nec hominis nec fortunae muneribus deleniri potest, cuius hoc pretium est, non posse pretio capi.

[35] I do not speak of that philosophy which placed the citizen outside his native land, the gods outside the world, which bestowed virtue upon pleasure, but that which reckons nothing good except what is honest, which can be beguiled by the gifts neither of man nor of fortune, whose price is this: that it cannot be captured by a price.

Hanc philosophiam fuisse illo rudi saeculo quo adhuc artificia deerant et ipso usu discebantur utilia non credo.

I do not believe that this philosophy existed in that rude age, when as yet the arts were lacking and useful things were learned by the very use itself.

[36] ~Sicut aut~ fortunata tempora, cum in medio iacerent beneficia naturae promiscue utenda, antequam avaritia atque luxuria dissociavere mortales et ad rapinam ex consortio discurrere: non erant illi sapientes viri, etiam si faciebant facienda sapientibus.

[36] ~Just as also~ the fortunate times, when the benefits of nature lay in the middle for promiscuous/common use, before avarice and luxury dissociated mortals and them to run out to rapine from consortium: those men were not wise men, even if they were doing the things to be done by wise men.

[37] Statum quidem generis humani non alium quisquam suspexerit magis, nec si cui permittat deus terrena formare et dare gentibus mores, aliud probaverit quam quod apud illos fuisse memoratur apud quos

[37] Indeed, no one would admire more any other state of the human race, nor, if god should permit someone to form earthly things and to give morals to the nations, would he approve anything other than that which is recounted to have been among those among whom

nulli subigebant arva coloni;
ne signare quidem aut partiri limite campum
fas erat: in medium quaerebant, ipsaque tellus
omnia liberius nullo poscente ferebat.

no cultivators were subduing the fields;
nor indeed was it lawful to mark or to partition the field with a limit;
they sought things in common, and the earth herself
bore everything more freely, with no one demanding.

[38] Quid hominum illo genere felicius? In commune rerum natura fruebantur; sufficiebat illa ut parens in tutelam omnium; haec erat publicarum opum secura possessio. Quidni ego illud locupletissimum mortalium genus dixerim in quo pauperem invenire non posses?

[38] What of men was happier than that race? They enjoyed Nature in common; she sufficed as a parent for the tutelage of all; this was a secure possession of public wealth. Why should I not call that the most opulent race of mortals, in which you could not find a poor man?

Inrupit in res optime positas avaritia et, dum seducere aliquid cupit atque in suum vertere, omnia fecit aliena et in angustum se ex inmenso redegit. Avaritia paupertatem intulit et multa concupiscendo omnia amisit.

Avarice broke in upon affairs most excellently set, and, while it longs to seduce something and convert it to its own, it made all things alien and out of the immense reduced itself into the narrow. Avarice brought in poverty, and by desiring many things it lost everything.

[39] Licet itaque nunc conetur reparare quod perdidit, licet agros agris adiciat vicinum vel pretio pellens vel iniuria, licet in provinciarum spatium rura dilatet et possessionem vocet per sua longam peregrinationem: nulla nos finium propagatio eo reducet unde discessimus. Cum omnia fecerimus, multum habebimus: universum habebamus.

[39] Let him therefore now attempt to repair what he has lost, let him add fields to fields, driving off the neighbor either by price or by injustice, let him expand the farmlands into the span of provinces and call a long peregrination through his own things “possession”: no extension of boundaries will bring us back to the place whence we departed. When we have done everything, we shall have much: we had the universe.

[40] Terra ipsa fertilior erat inlaborata et in usus populorum non diripientium larga. Quidquid natura protulerat, id non minus invenisse quam inventum monstrare alteri voluptas erat; nec ulli aut superesse poterat aut deesse: inter concordes dividebatur. Nondum valentior inposuerat infirmiori manum, nondum avarus abscondendo quod sibi iaceret alium necessariis quoque excluserat: par erat alterius ac sui cura.

[40] The earth itself was more fertile unlabored, and bounteous for the uses of peoples not despoiling. Whatever nature had brought forth, it was a pleasure no less to have found than to demonstrate the thing found to another; nor could anything either be in excess for anyone or be lacking: it was divided among those in concord. Not yet had the stronger laid a hand upon the weaker, not yet had the avaricious man, by hiding what lay to hand for himself, excluded another even from necessaries: the care for another and for oneself was equal.

[41] Arma cessabant incruentaeque humano sanguine manus odium omne in feras verterant. Illi quos aliquod nemus densum a sole protexerat, qui adversus saevitiam hiemis aut imbris vili receptaculo tuti sub fronde vivebant, placidas transigebant sine suspirio noctes. Sollicitudo nos in nostra purpura versat et acerrimis excitat stimulis: at quam mollem somnum illis dura tellus dabat!

[41] Arms were at rest, and hands unstained with human blood had turned all hatred upon wild beasts. Those whom some dense grove had protected from the sun, who, secure against the savagery of winter or of rain, lived under the foliage in a cheap shelter, passed placid nights without a sigh. Solicitude tosses us in our purple and rouses us with the most piercing goads; but how soft a sleep the hard earth gave to them!

[42] Non inpendebant caelata laquearia, sed in aperto iacentis sidera superlabebantur et, insigne spectaculum noctium, mundus in praeceps agebatur, silentio tantum opus ducens. Tam interdiu illis quam nocte patebant prospectus huius pulcherrimae domus; libebat intueri signa ex media caeli parte vergentia, rursus ex occulto alia surgentia.

[42] Not embossed coffered ceilings overhung them, but over those lying in the open the stars glided past, and—the notable spectacle of nights—the cosmos was borne headlong, carrying on its work with silence alone. As much by day as by night there lay open to them the prospects of this most beautiful house; it was a pleasure to gaze at the signs, the constellations, slanting down from the middle part of the sky, and again others rising from concealment.

[43] Quidni iuvaret vagari inter tam late sparsa miracula? At vos ad omnem tectorum pavetis sonum et inter picturas vestras, si quid increpuit, fugitis attoniti. Non habebant domos instar urbium: spiritus ac liber inter aperta perflatus et levis umbra rupis aut arboris et perlucidi fontes rivique non opere nec fistula nec ullo coacto itinere obsolefacti sed sponte currentes et prata sine arte formosa, inter haec agreste domicilium rustica politum manu — haec erat secundum naturam domus, in qua libebat habitare nec ipsam nec pro ipsa timentem: nunc magna pars nostri metus tecta sunt.

[43] Why should it not delight to wander amid miracles so widely strewn? But you quail at every sound of your roofs, and among your pictures, if anything has cracked, you flee astonished. They did not have homes on the model of cities: a free breath of air blowing through open places, the light shade of a crag or of a tree, and translucent springs and brooks, not worn out by workmanship nor by pipe nor by any forced course, but running of their own accord; and meadows beautiful without art; amidst these, a rustic dwelling, polished by a country hand — this was a house according to nature, in which it was a pleasure to dwell, fearing neither it nor for it: now a great part of our fear is our roofs.

[44] Sed quamvis egregia illis vita fuerit et carens fraude, non fuere sapientes, quando hoc iam in opere maximo nomen est. Non tamen negaverim fuisse alti spiritus viros et, ut ita dicam, a dis recentes; neque enim dubium est quin meliora mundus nondum effetus ediderit. Quemadmodum autem omnibus indoles fortior fuit et ad labores paratior, ita non erant ingenia omnibus consummata.

[44] But although their life was outstanding and lacking in fraud, they were not Sages, since this is now a title for the greatest work; yet I would not deny that there were men of lofty spirit and, so to speak, fresh from the gods; for there is no doubt that the world, not yet worn-out, has brought forth better things. And just as the inborn character was stronger in all and more prepared for labors, so the talents were not perfected in all.

Non enim dat natura virtutem: ars est bonum fieri.

For nature does not give virtue: becoming good is an art.

[45] Illi quidem non aurum nec argentum nec perlucidos ima terrarum faece quaerebant parcebantque adhuc etiam mutis animalibus: tantum aberat ut homo hominem non iratus, non timens, tantum spectaturus occideret. Nondum vestis illis erat picta, nondum texebatur aurum, adhuc nec eruebatur.

[45] Those men indeed did not seek gold nor silver nor translucent the dregs of the depths of the earth, and they still spared even mute animals: it was so far from the case that a man would kill a man—not in anger, not in fear—merely as a spectator. Their garment was not yet painted, gold was not yet woven, and as yet it was not even dug up.

[46] Quid ergo ? Ignorantia rerum innocentes erant; multum autem interest utrum peccare aliquis nolit an nesciat. Deerat illis iustitia, deerat prudentia, deerat temperantia ac fortitudo. Omnibus his virtutibus habebat similia quaedam rudis vita: virtus non contingit animo nisi instituto et edocto et ad summum adsidua exercitatione perducto.

[46] What then is it? Through ignorance of things they were innocent; but there is a great difference whether someone is unwilling to sin or does not know. Justice was lacking to them, prudence was lacking, temperance and fortitude were lacking. To all these virtues untutored life had certain likenesses: virtue does not befall the mind unless it has been disciplined and educated and brought to the summit by assiduous exercise.

Ad hoc quidem, sed sine hoc nascimur, et in optimis quoque, antequam erudias, virtutis materia, non virtus est. Vale.

For this indeed we are born, but we are born without this; and even in the best, before they are educated, there is material of virtue, not virtue. Farewell.

XCI. SENECA LVCILIO SVO SALVTEM

91. SENECA TO HIS LUCILIUS, GREETING

[1] Liberalis noster nunc tristis est nuntiato incendio quo Lugdunensis colonia exusta est; movere hic casus quemlibet posset, nedum hominem patriae suae amantissimum. Quae res effecit ut firmitatem animi sui quaerat, quam videlicet ad ea quae timeri posse putabat exercuit. Hoc vero tam inopinatum malum et paene inauditum non miror si sine metu fuit, cum esset sine exemplo; multas enim civitates incendium vexavit, nullam abstulit.

[1] Our Liberalis is now sad at the announcement of the conflagration by which the colony of Lugdunum was burned up; this occurrence could move anyone, let alone a man most loving of his fatherland. This has brought it about that he seeks the firmness of his spirit, which, to be sure, he had exercised toward those things which he supposed could be feared. But this evil, so unanticipated and almost unheard-of, I do not wonder if it was not feared, since it was without precedent; for a conflagration has vexed many cities, it has carried off none.

Nam etiam ubi hostili manu in tecta ignis inmissus est, multis locis deficit, et quamvis subinde excitetur, raro tamen sic cuncta depascitur ut nihil ferro relinquat. Terrarum quoque vix umquam tam gravis et perniciosus fuit motus ut tota oppida everteret. Numquam denique tam infestum ulli exarsit incendium ut nihil alteri superesset incendio.

For even when by a hostile hand fire has been let into the dwellings, it fails in many places, and although it is again and again stirred up, yet it rarely so devours everything that it leaves nothing for the sword. An earthquake, too, has scarcely ever been so grave and pernicious as to overturn whole towns. Never, finally, has so hostile a conflagration blazed against anyone that nothing would be left over for another conflagration.

[2] Tot pulcherrima opera, quae singula inlustrare urbes singulas possent, una nox stravit, et in tanta pace quantum ne bello quidem timeri potest accidit. Quis hoc credat? ubique armis quiescentibus, cum toto orbe terrarum diffusa securitas sit, Lugudunum, quod ostendebatur in Gallia, quaeritur.

[2] So many most beautiful works, any one of which could make individual cities illustrious, one night has laid low, and in so great a peace there has happened as much as cannot be feared even in war. Who would believe this? with arms everywhere resting, when security has been diffused through the whole orb of the lands, Lugudunum, which used to be pointed out in Gaul, is being sought.

Omnibus fortuna quos publice adflixit quod passuri erant timere permisit; nulla res magna non aliquod habuit ruinae suae spatium: in hac una nox interfuit inter urbem maximam et nullam. Denique diutius illam tibi perisse quam perit narro.

Fortune allowed all those whom she publicly afflicted to fear what they were going to suffer; no great thing lacked some interval of its own ruin: in this one case a single night intervened between the greatest city and no city. Finally, I tell you that it takes me longer to narrate to you that it perished than it took to perish.

[3] Haec omnia Liberalis nostri adfectum inclinant, adversus sua firmum et erectum. Nec sine causa concussus est: inexpectata plus adgravant; novitas adicit calamitatibus pondus, nec quisquam mortalium non magis quod etiam miratus est doluit.

[3] All these things incline the affect of our Liberalis, firm and erect against his own ills. Nor was he shaken without cause: the unexpected aggravate more; novelty adds weight to calamities, and there is no one of mortals who has not grieved more for that which he has also marveled at.

[4] Ideo nihil nobis inprovisum esse debet; in omnia praemittendus animus cogitandumque non quidquid solet sed quidquid potest fieri. Quid enim est quod non fortuna, cum voluit, ex florentissimo detrahat? quod non eo magis adgrediatur et quatiat quo speciosius fulget?

[4] Therefore nothing ought to be unforeseen for us; the mind must be sent ahead into all things, and one must think not whatever is wont to happen but whatever can happen. For what is there that Fortune, when she has willed, does not drag down from the most flourishing? what does she not all the more attack and shake the more splendidly it shines?

Quid illi arduum quidve difficile est?

What is arduous for her, or what is difficult?

[5] Non una via semper, ne trita quidem incurrit: modo nostras in nos manus advocat, modo suis contenta viribus invenit pericula sine auctore. Nullum tempus exceptum est: in ipsis voluptatibus causae doloris oriuntur. Bellum in media pace consurgit et auxilia securitatis in metum transeunt: ex amico inimicus, hostis ex socio.

[5] Not a single way always—nor even the well-trodden one—rushes upon us: now it summons our own hands against ourselves, now, content with its own forces, it finds perils without an author. No time is exempt: in pleasures themselves causes of pain arise. War springs up in the midst of peace, and the aids of security pass into fear: from a friend an enemy is made, an enemy from an ally.

In subitas tempestates hibernisque maiores agitur aestiva tranquillitas. Sine hoste patimur hostilia, et cladis causas, si alia deficiunt, nimia sibi felicitas invenit. Invadit temperantissimos morbus, validissimos pthisis, innocentissimos poena, secretissimos tumultus; eligit aliquid novi casus per quod velut oblitis vires suas ingerat.

Summer tranquillity is driven into sudden tempests, and into wintry ones yet greater. Without an enemy we suffer hostilities, and, if other causes fail, excessive felicity finds for itself the causes of disaster. Disease invades the most temperate, phthisis the most robust, punishment the most innocent, tumult the most secluded; chance chooses something new through which, as if upon the forgetful, it may thrust its forces.

[6] Quidquid longa series multis laboribus, multa deum indulgentia struxit, id unus dies spargit ac dissipat. Longam moram dedit malis properantibus qui diem dixit: hora momentumque temporis evertendis imperis sufficit. Esset aliquod inbecillitatis nostrae solacium rerumque nostrarum si tam tarde perirent cuncta quam fiunt: nunc incrementa lente exeunt, festinatur in damnum.

[6] Whatever a long series, with many labors and much indulgence of the gods, has constructed, a single day scatters and dissipates. He gave a long delay to hurrying evils who appointed a day: an hour and a moment of time suffice for overturning empires. It would be some consolation for our infirmity and our affairs if all things perished as slowly as they are made: now increments proceed slowly, haste is made into loss.

[7] Nihil privatim, nihil publice stabile est; tam hominum quam urbium fata volvuntur. Inter placidissima terror existit nihilque extra tumultuantibus causis mala unde minime expectabantur erumpunt. Quae domesticis bellis steterant regna, quae externis, inpellente nullo ruunt: quota quaeque felicitatem civitas pertulit!

[7] Nothing is stable privately, nothing publicly; the fates of men as well as of cities are turned. Amid the most placid conditions terror arises, and with no causes tumultuating outside, evils burst forth from where they were least expected. The kingdoms that had stood through domestic wars, that had stood through external wars, collapse with no one impelling them: how few are the cities that have endured felicity!

Cogitanda ergo sunt omnia et animus adversus ea quae possunt evenire firmandus.

Therefore all things are to be considered, and the mind must be made firm against the things that can occur.

[8] Exilia, tormenta [morbi], bella, naufragia meditare. Potest te patriae, potest patriam tibi casus eripere, potest te in solitudines abigere, potest hoc ipsum in quo turba suffocatur fieri solitudo. Tota ante oculos sortis humanae condicio ponatur, nec quantum frequenter evenit sed quantum plurimum potest evenire praesumamus animo, si nolumus opprimi nec illis inusitatis velut novis obstupefieri; in plenum cogitanda fortuna est.

[8] Meditate upon exiles, torments [of disease], wars, shipwrecks. Chance can snatch you from your fatherland; it can snatch your fatherland from you; it can drive you into solitudes; this very thing in which the crowd is suffocated can become a solitude. Let the whole condition of the human lot be set before your eyes, and let us anticipate in mind not as much as frequently happens but as much as can happen to the utmost, if we do not wish to be overwhelmed nor to be stupefied by those unusual things as if new; fortune must be thought through in full.

[9] Quotiens Asiae, quotiens Achaiae urbes uno tremore ceciderunt! Quot oppida in Syria, quot in Macedonia devorata sunt! Cypron quotiens vastavit haec clades!

[9] How many times have the cities of Asia, how many times those of Achaia, fallen with a single tremor! How many towns in Syria, how many in Macedonia, have been devoured! How many times has this calamity laid waste Cyprus!

Quotiens in se Paphus corruit! Frequenter nobis nuntiati sunt totarum urbium interitus, et nos inter quos ista frequenter nuntiantur, quota pars omnium sumus! Consurgamus itaque adversus fortuita et quidquid inciderit sciamus non esse tam magnum quam rumore iactetur.

How many times has Paphos collapsed upon itself! The destructions of whole cities have frequently been reported to us, and we, among whom these things are frequently reported—what fraction of the whole are we! Let us therefore rise up against fortuitous things, and let us know that whatever may befall is not so great as it is bandied about by rumor.

[10] Civitas arsit opulenta ornamentumque provinciarum quibus et inserta erat et excepta, uni tamen inposita et huic non latissimo monti: omnium istarum civitatium quas nunc magnificas ac nobiles audis vestigia quoque tempus eradet. Non vides quemadmodum in Achaia clarissimarum urbium iam fundamenta consumpta sint nec quicquam extet ex quo appareat illas saltem fuisse?

[10] A city opulent burned, and the ornament of the provinces—to which it was both inserted and singled out—yet set upon a single, and not a very broad, mountain: time will eradicate even the vestiges of all those cities which you now hear called magnificent and noble. Do you not see how in Achaia the very foundations of the most illustrious cities have already been consumed, and that nothing exists from which it might appear that they at least had been?

[11] Non tantum manu facta labuntur, nec tantum humana arte atque industria posita vertit dies: iuga montium diffluunt, totae desedere regiones, operta sunt fluctibus quae procul a conspectu maris stabant; vasta vis ignium colles per quos relucebat erosit et quondam altissimos vertices, solacia navigantium ac speculas, ad humile deduxit. Ipsius naturae opera vexantur et ideo aequo animo ferre debemus urbium excidia.

[11] Not only manu-factured things slip away, nor does time overturn only what has been set by human art and industry: the yokes of mountains dissolve, whole regions have subsided, things that stood far from the sight of the sea have been covered by billows; the vast force of fires has eroded the hills, through which it used to shine back, and has brought down to the low the once most lofty summits, solaces of sailors and watchtowers. The works of nature herself are vexed, and therefore we ought to bear with equanimity the destructions of cities.

[12] Casurae stant; omnis hic exitus manet, sive interna vis flatusque per clusa violenti pondus sub quo tenentur excusserint, sive torrentium in abdito vastior obstantia effregerit, sive flammarum violentia conpaginem soli ruperit, sive vetustas, a qua nihil tutum est, expugnaverit minutatim, sive gravitas caeli egesserit populos et situs deserta corruperit. Enumerare omnes fatorum vias longum est. Hoc unum scio: omnia mortalium opera mortalitate damnata sunt, inter peritura vivimus.

[12] Things about-to-fall stand; this end awaits all, whether the internal force of the and blasts, violent, through closed places shake off the weight under which they are held, or whether the more vast of torrents in hidden places break through obstacles, or the violence of flames rupture the structure of the ground, or old age, from which nothing is safe, has stormed and taken it bit by bit, or the heaviness of the sky drives out peoples and disuse corrupts sites into deserts. To enumerate all the ways of the Fates would be long. This one thing I know: all the works of mortals are condemned to mortality; we live among things destined to perish.

[13] Haec ergo atque eiusmodi solacia admoveo Liberali nostro incredibili quodam patriae suae amore flagranti, quae fortasse consumpta est ut in melius excitaretur. Saepe maiori fortunae locum fecit iniuria: multa ceciderunt ut altius surgerent. Timagenes, felicitati urbis inimicus, aiebat Romae sibi incendia ob hoc unum dolori esse, quod sciret meliora surrectura quam arsissent.

[13] Therefore I apply these and the like solaces to our Liberalis, blazing with a certain incredible love for his fatherland, which perhaps has been consumed so that it might be raised into something better. Often injury has made room for greater fortune: many things have fallen so that they might rise higher. Timagenes, an enemy to the felicity of the city, used to say that the conflagrations of Rome were for this one reason a sorrow to him, because he knew that better things would rise than had burned.

[14] In hac quoque urbe veri simile est certaturos omnes ut maiora celsioraque quam amisere restituant. Sint utinam diuturna et melioribus auspiciis in aevum longius condita! Nam huic coloniae ab origine sua centensimus annus est, aetas ne homini quidem extrema.

[14] In this city too it is very likely that all will vie to restore things greater and loftier than what they lost. May they be long-lasting and, under better auspices, founded for a longer age! For this colony is in its hundredth year from its own origin—an age not even the utmost for a man.

A Planco deducta in hanc frequentiam loci opportunitate convaluit: quot tamen gravissimos casus intra spatium humanae <pertulit> senectutis!

Led out by Plancus, it convalesced into this populousness by the opportuneness of the place: yet how many most grave disasters within the span of a human old age has it borne!

[15] Itaque formetur animus ad intellectum patientiamque sortis suae et sciat nihil inausum esse fortunae, adversus imperia illam idem habere iuris quod adversus imperantis, adversus urbes idem posse quod adversus homines. Nihil horum indignandum est: in eum intravimus mundum in quo his legibus vivitur. Placet: pare.

[15] Therefore let the mind be formed to an understanding and to the patience of its own lot, and let it know that nothing is left unattempted by Fortune: that she has the same right in law against empires as against those who command, that she can do the same against cities as against men. None of these things is to be resented: we have entered into a world in which one lives by these laws. It pleases: obey.

Non placet: quacumque vis exi. Indignare si quid in te iniqui proprie constitutum est; sed si haec summos imosque necessitas alligat, in gratiam cum fato revertere, a quo omnia resolvuntur.

It does not please: go out by whatever way you wish. Be indignant if anything of injustice has been expressly decreed against you; but if this necessity binds the highest and the lowest, return into favor with fate, by which all things are resolved.

[16] Non est quod nos tumulis metiaris et his monumentis quae viam disparia praetexunt: aequat omnis cinis. Inpares nascimur, pares morimur. Idem de urbibus quod de urbium incolis dico: tam Ardea capta quam Roma est.

[16] There is no reason for you to measure us by tombs and by those monuments which border the road with disparities: all ash equalizes. Unequal we are born, equal we die. I say the same of cities as of the inhabitants of cities: Ardea, when captured, is as much so as Rome.

Conditor ille iuris humani non natalibus nos nec nominum claritate distinxit, nisi dum sumus: ubi vero ad finem mortalium ventum est, 'discede' inquit 'ambitio: omnium quae terram premunt siremps lex esto'. Ad omnia patienda pares sumus; nemo altero fragilior est, nemo in crastinum sui certior.

That founder of human law did not distinguish us by births nor by the claritas of names, save while we are: but when the end-point of mortals is reached, “withdraw,” he says, “ambition: let there be the selfsame law for all things that press the earth.” For all things to be suffered we are equal; no one is more fragile than another, no one more certain of himself for the morrow.

[17] Alexander Macedonum rex discere geometriam coeperat, infelix, sciturus quam pusilla terra esset, ex qua minimum occupaverat. Ita dico: 'infelix' ob hoc quod intellegere debebat falsum se gerere cognomen: quis enim esse magnus in pusillo potest? Erant illa quae tradebantur subtilia et diligenti intentione discenda, non quae perciperet vesanus homo et trans oceanum cogitationes suas mittens.

[17] Alexander, king of the Macedonians, had begun to learn geometry, unfortunate, about to know how tiny the earth was, of which he had occupied only the least part. Thus I say: 'unfortunate' on this account, that he ought to have understood that he was bearing a false cognomen: for who can be great in something small? Those things which were being handed down were subtle and to be learned with diligent intention, not such as a madman would apprehend, sending his cogitations across the ocean.

'Facilia' inquit 'me doce'. Cui praeceptor 'ista' inquit 'omnibus eadem sunt, aeque difficilia'.

'Easy things,' he says, 'teach me.' To whom the preceptor, 'those,' he says, 'are the same for all, equally difficult.'

[18] Hoc puta rerum naturam dicere: 'ista de quibus quereris omnibus eadem sunt; nulli dare faciliora possum, sed quisquis volet sibi ipse illa reddet faciliora'. Quomodo? aequanimitate. Et doleas oportet et sitias et esurias et senescas (si tibi longior contigerit inter homines mora) et aegrotes et perdas aliquid et pereas.

[18] Suppose this to be the nature of things speaking: 'those things about which you complain are the same for everyone; I can give easier ones to no one, but whoever wishes will himself make them easier.' How? by equanimity. And you must grieve and thirst and hunger and grow old (if a longer sojourn among men should befall you) and fall ill and lose something and perish.

[19] Non est tamen quod istis qui te circumstrepunt credas: nihil horum malum est, nihil intolerabile aut durum. Ex consensu istis metus est. Sic mortem times quomodo famam: quid autem stultius homine verba metuente?

[19] Nevertheless, you have no cause to believe those who clamor around you: none of these things is an evil, nothing intolerable or hard. The fear of these things arises from consensus. Thus you fear death just as you fear fame; and what is more foolish than a man fearing words?

Eleganter Demetrius noster solet dicere eodem loco sibi esse voces inperitorum quo ventre redditos crepitus. 'Quid enim' inquit 'mea, susum isti an deosum sonent?'

Elegantly, our Demetrius is wont to say that, for him, the voices of the inexpert are on the same level as crepitations emitted by the belly. ‘For what,’ he says, ‘is it to me whether those fellows sound upward or downward?’

[20] Quanta dementia est vereri ne infameris ab infamibus! Quemadmodum famam extimuisti sine causa, sic et illa quae numquam timeres nisi fama iussisset. Num quid detrimenti faceret vir bonus iniquis rumoribus sparsus?

[20] How great a madness it is to fear lest you be defamed by the infamous! Just as you have dreaded fame without cause, so also those things which you would never fear unless fame had commanded. Would a good man incur any detriment, being spattered with iniquitous rumors?

[21] Ne morti quidem hoc apud nos noceat: et haec malam opinionem habet. Nemo eorum qui illam accusat expertus est: interim temeritas est damnare quod nescias. At illud scis, quam multis utilis sit, quam multos liberet tormentis, egestate, querellis, supplicis, taedio.

[21] Let not even this, among us, tell against death; it too has an ill reputation. None of those who accuse it has experienced it; meanwhile, it is temerity to condemn what you do not know. But this you do know: how useful it is to many, how many it frees from torments, destitution, complaints, punishments, and tedium.

Non sumus in ullius potestate, cum mors in nostra potestate sit. Vale.

We are in no one’s power, since death is in our power. Farewell.

XCII. SENECA LVCILIO SVO SALVTEM

92. SENECA TO HIS LUCILIUS, GREETING

[1] Puto, inter me teque conveniet externa corpori adquiri, corpus in honorem animi coli, in animo esse partes ministras, per quas movemur alimurque, propter ipsum principale nobis datas. In hoc principali est aliquid inrationale, est et rationale; illud huic servit, hoc unum est quod alio non refertur sed omnia ad se refert. Nam illa quoque divina ratio omnibus praeposita est, ipsa sub nullo est; et haec autem nostra eadem est, quae ex illa est.

[1] I think it will be agreed between me and you that external things are acquired for the body, that the body is cultivated in honor of the mind, that in the mind there are ministering parts, through which we are moved and nourished, given to us for the principal itself. In this principal there is something irrational, and there is also rational; the former serves the latter, and this alone is that which is not referred to another but refers all things to itself. For that divine reason too, set over all things, is itself under none; and ours, moreover, is the same, which is from that.

[2] Si de hoc inter nos convenit, sequitur ut de illo quoque conveniat, in hoc uno positam esse beatam vitam, ut in nobis ratio perfecta sit. Haec enim sola non summittit animum, stat contra fortunam; in quolibet rerum habitu ~servitus~ servat. Id autem unum bonum est quod numquam defringitur.

[2] If we are agreed on this, it follows that we are agreed on that as well: that the blessed life is placed in this one thing, that reason be perfect within us. For this alone does not lower the mind, it stands against fortune; in whatever condition of things it preserves ~slavery~. But that is the one good which is never broken.

Is est, inquam, beatus quem nulla res minorem facit; tenet summa, et ne ulli quidem nisi sibi innixus; nam qui aliquo auxilio sustinetur potest cadere. Si aliter est, incipient multum in nobis valere non nostra. Quis autem vult constare fortuna aut quis se prudens ob aliena miratur?

He is, I say, blessed, whom no thing makes smaller; he holds the summits, and leans upon no one at all save upon himself; for he who is sustained by some assistance can fall. If it is otherwise, things not ours will begin to prevail much in us. Who, moreover, wants to stand by fortune, or what prudent man admires himself on account of alien things?

[3] Quid est beata vita? securitas et perpetua tranquillitas. Hanc dabit animi magnitudo, dabit constantia bene iudicati tenax.

[3] What is the blessed life? security and perpetual tranquillity. Greatness of mind will give this; constancy, tenacious of what has been well-judged, will give it.

Ad haec quomodo pervenitur? si veritas tota perspecta est; si servatus est in rebus agendis ordo, modus, decor, innoxia voluntas ac benigna, intenta rationi nec umquam ab illa recedens, amabilis simul mirabilisque. Denique ut breviter tibi formulam scribam, talis animus esse sapientis viri debet qualis deum deceat.

How does one come to this? if the whole truth has been seen through; if in the conduct of affairs order, measure, decorum are preserved; an innocuous and benign will, intent upon reason and never receding from it, amiable and at the same time admirable. Finally, to write you a formula briefly, such should the mind of a wise man be as befits a god.

[4] Quid potest desiderare is cui omnia honesta contingunt? Nam si possunt aliquid non honesta conferre ad optimum statum, in his erit beata vita sine quibus non est. Et quid turpius stultiusve quam bonum rationalis animi ex inrationalibus nectere?

[4] What can he desire, to whom all honorable things befall? For if non-honorable things are able to confer anything toward the optimum state, in these will the blessed life be, without which it is not. And what is more shameful or more foolish than to weave the good of a rational mind out of irrational things?

[5] Quidam tamen augeri summum bonum iudicant, quia parum plenum sit fortuitis repugnantibus. Antipater quoque inter magnos sectae huius auctores aliquid se tribuere dicit externis, sed exiguum admodum. Vides autem quale sit die non esse contentum nisi aliquis igniculus adluxerit: quod potest in hac claritate solis habere scintilla momentum?

[5] Certain persons nevertheless judge that the supreme good is to be augmented, because it is too little full, with fortuitous things repugnant. Antipater also, among the great authors of this sect, says that he assigns something to externals, but exceedingly little. You see, however, what sort of thing it is to not be content with day unless some little spark has given light: what weight can a spark have in this brightness of the sun?

[6] Si non es sola honestate contentus, necesse est aut quietem adici velis, quam Graeci aochlesian vocant, aut voluptatem. Horum alterum utcumque recipi potest; vacat enim animus molestia liber ad inspectum universi, nihilque illum avocat a contemplatione naturae. Alterum illud, voluptas, bonum pecoris est: adicimus rationali inrationale, honesto inhonestum, magno * * * vitam facit titillatio corporis?

[6] If you are not content with the honorable alone, it is necessary that you either wish to add quiet, which the Greeks call aochlesia, or pleasure. Of these, the former can somehow be received; for the mind is vacant of trouble, free for the inspection of the universe, and nothing calls it away from the contemplation of nature. The other, pleasure, is a good of cattle: we add to the rational the irrational, to the honest the dishonest, to the great * * * does the titillation of the body make life?

[7] Quid ergo dubitatis dicere bene esse homini, si palato bene est? Et hunc tu, non dico inter viros numeras, sed inter homines, cuius summum bonum saporibus et coloribus et sonis constat? Excedat ex hoc animalium numero pulcherrimo ac dis secundo; mutis adgregetur animal pabulo laetum.

[7] Why then do you hesitate to say that it is well with a man, if it is well with his palate? And do you count this one— I do not say among men, but among human beings— whose supreme good consists of flavors and colors and sounds? Let him depart from this most beautiful number of animals, second to the gods; let this animal be aggregated to the mute animals, glad with fodder.

[8] Inrationalis pars animi duas habet partes, alteram animosam, ambitiosam, inpotentem, positam in adfectionibus, alteram humilem, languidam, voluptatibus deditam: illam effrenatam, meliorem tamen, certe fortiorem ac digniorem viro, reliquerunt, hanc necessariam beatae vitae putaverunt, enervem et abiectam.

[8] The irrational part of the soul has two parts: one spirited, ambitious, uncontrolled, placed in affections; the other humble, languid, given over to pleasures. The former, unbridled—yet better, certainly stronger and more worthy of a man—they have left; the latter, enervated and abject, they have thought necessary for a blessed life.

[9] Huic rationem servire iusserunt, et fecerunt animalis generosissimi summum bonum demissum et ignobile, praeterea mixtum portentosumque et ex diversis ac male congruentibus membris. Nam ut ait Vergilius noster in Scylla,

[9] They ordered reason to serve this, and they made the highest good of the most noble animal low and ignoble, moreover mixed and monstrous, and from diverse and ill-congruent limbs. For as our Vergilius says in Scylla,

prima hominis facies et pulchro pectore virgo
pube tenus, postrema inmani corpore pistrix
delphinum caudas utero commissa luporum.

first the face of a human, and a maiden with a beautiful breast
up to the groin; the hind part a pistrix of monstrous body,
with the tails of dolphins and of wolves joined to her womb.

Huic tamen Scyllae fera animalia adiuncta sunt, horrenda, velocia: at isti sapientiam ex quibus composuere portentis?

To this Scylla, however, feral animals were adjoined, horrendous, swift: but those men, out of what portents have they composed wisdom?

[10] Prima pars hominis est ipsa virtus; huic committitur inutilis caro et fluida, receptandis tantum cibis habilis, ut ait Posidonius. Virtus illa divina in lubricum desinit et superioribus eius partibus venerandis atque caelestibus animal iners ac marcidum adtexitur. Illa utcumque altera quies nihil quidem ipsa praestabat animo, sed inpedimenta removebat: voluptas ultro dissolvit et omne robur emollit.

[10] The primary part of man is virtue itself; to this is entrusted a useless and fluid flesh, fit only for taking in foods, as Posidonius says. That divine virtue ends in a slippery place, and to its higher parts, venerable and celestial, an inert and drooping animal is woven on. That other repose, however, though in some fashion it provided nothing to the mind itself, removed impediments; pleasure, on the other hand, actually dissolves and softens all strength.

Quae invenietur tam discors inter se iunctura corporum? Fortissimae rei inertissima adstruitur, severissimae parum seria, sanctissimae intemperans usque ad incesta.

What coupling of bodies will be found so mutually discordant? To the most strong thing the most inert is adjoined, to the most severe something hardly serious, to the most holy something intemperate even to the point of incest.

[11] 'Quid ergo?' inquit 'si virtutem nihil inpeditura sit bona valetudo et quies et dolorum vacatio, non petes illas?' Quidni petam? non quia bona sunt, sed quia secundum naturam sunt, et quia bono a me iudicio sumentur. Quid erit tunc in illis bonum?

[11] 'What then?' he says, 'if good health and rest and a freedom from pains are going to put no impediment in the way of virtue, will you not seek those?' Why should I not seek them? not because they are goods, but because they are according to nature, and because they will be taken up by me with good judgment. What then will be the good in them?

hoc unum, bene eligi. Nam cum vestem qualem decet sumo, cum ambulo ut oportet, cum ceno quemadmodum debeo, non cena aut ambulatio aut vestis bona sunt, sed meum in iis propositum servantis in quaque re rationi convenientem modum.

this one thing: that they be well chosen. For when I assume clothing such as is fitting, when I walk as is proper, when I dine as I ought, it is not the dinner or the walking or the clothing that are good, but my purpose in them, preserving in each matter a mode convenient to reason.

[12] Etiamnunc adiciam: mundae vestis electio adpetenda est homini; natura enim homo mundum et elegans animal est. Itaque non est bonum per se munda vestis sed mundae vestis electio, quia non in re bonum est sed in electione quali; actiones nostrae honestae sunt, non ipsa quae aguntur.

[12] I will add still this: the choice of a neat garment is to be sought after by a man; for by nature man is a neat and elegant animal. Therefore it is not the neat garment per se that is good, but the choice of a neat garment, because the good is not in the thing but in the quality of the choice; our actions are honorable, not the very things which are done.

[13] Quod de veste dixi, idem me dicere de corpore existima. Nam hoc quoque natura ut quandam vestem animo circumdedit; velamentum eius est. Quis autem umquam vestimenta aestimavit arcula?

[13] What I have said about dress, reckon me to say the same about the body. For nature also has encircled this, as a kind of vestment, around the soul; it is its veil. Who, moreover, has ever appraised garments by the little coffer?

nec bonum nec malum vagina gladium facit. Ergo de corpore quoque idem tibi respondeo: sumpturum quidem me, si detur electio, et sanitatem et vires, bonum autem futurum iudicium de illis meum, non ipsa.

Neither good nor bad does a sheath make a sword. Therefore about the body also I answer you the same: I, if choice be granted, would indeed take both health and strength, but the good will be my judgment about them, not the things themselves.

[14] 'Est quidem' inquit 'sapiens beatus; summum tamen illud bonum non consequitur nisi illi et naturalia instrumenta respondeant. Ita miser quidem esse qui virtutem habet non potest, beatissimus autem non est qui naturalibus bonis destituitur, ut valetudine, ut membrorum integritate.'

[14] 'Indeed,' he says, 'the wise man is blessed; yet he does not attain that highest good unless the natural instruments also respond to him. Thus, indeed, he who has virtue cannot be miserable, but he is not most blessed who is deprived of natural goods, such as health, such as integrity of the limbs.'

[15] Quod incredibilius videtur, id concedis, aliquem in maximis et continuis doloribus non esse miserum, esse etiam beatum: quod levius est negas, beatissimum esse. Atqui si potest virtus efficere ne miser aliquis sit, facilius efficiet ut beatissimus sit; minus enim intervalli a beato ad beatissimum restat quam a misero ad beatum. An quae res tantum valet ut ereptum calamitatibus inter beatos locet non potest adicere quod superest, ut beatissimum faciat?

[15] You concede the more incredible thing: that someone in the greatest and continuous pains is not wretched, is even blessed; you deny the lighter thing, that he is most blessed. And yet, if virtue can bring it about that someone is not wretched, it will more easily bring it about that he be most blessed; for less interval remains from blessed to most blessed than from wretched to blessed. Or can that thing which avails so much as to place one snatched from calamities among the blessed not add what remains, to make him most blessed?

in summo deficit clivo?

does it fail at the summit of the slope?

[16] Commoda sunt in vita et incommoda, utraque extra nos. Si non est miser vir bonus quamvis omnibus prematur incommodis, quomodo non est beatissimus si aliquibus commodis deficitur? Nam quemadmodum incommodorum onere usque ad miserum non deprimitur, sic commodorum inopia non deducitur a beatissimo, sed tam sine commodis beatissimus est quam non est sub incommodis miser; aut potest illi eripi bonum suum, si potest minui.

[16] There are conveniences in life and inconveniences, both outside us. If the good man is not wretched although he is pressed by all inconveniences, how is he not most-blessed if he is deficient in some conveniences? For just as he is not pressed down to “wretched” by the burden of inconveniences, so by a lack of conveniences he is not led down from “most-blessed,” but he is as most-blessed without conveniences as he is not wretched under inconveniences; or can his own good be snatched away from him, if it can be diminished?

[17] Paulo ante dicebam igniculum nihil conferre lumini solis; claritate enim eius quidquid sine illo luceret absconditur. 'Sed quaedam' inquit 'soli quoque opstant.' At sol integer est etiam inter opposita, et quamvis aliquid interiacet quod nos prohibeat eius aspectu, in opere est, cursu suo fertur; quotiens inter nubila eluxit, non est sereno minor, ne tardior quidem, quoniam multum interest utrum aliquid obstet tantum an inpediat.

[17] A little earlier I was saying that a tiny spark contributes nothing to the light of the sun; for by its brightness whatever would shine without it is concealed. 'But certain things,' he says, 'also stand against the sun.' Yet the sun is entire even among things set opposite, and although something lies between which prohibits us from its aspect, it is in operation, is borne along on its course; whenever it has shone out among the clouds, it is not less than in a clear sky, nor even slower, since it makes much difference whether something merely stands in the way or actually impedes.

[18] Eodem modo virtuti opposita nihil detrahunt: non est minor, sed minus fulget. Nobis forsitan non aeque apparet ac nitet, sibi eadem est et more solis obscuri in occulto vim suam exercet. Hoc itaque adversus virtutem possunt calamitates et damna et iniuriae quod adversus solem potest nebula.

[18] In the same way, things opposed to virtue detract nothing: it is not lesser, but it shines less. To us perhaps it does not appear and glitter equally; to itself it is the same, and, in the manner of an obscured sun, it exercises its force in hiding. Therefore calamities and losses and injuries can do against virtue what a cloud can do against the sun.

[19] Invenitur qui dicat sapientem corpore parum prospero usum nec miserum esse nec beatum. Hic quoque fallitur; exaequat enim fortuita virtutibus et tantundem tribuit honestis quantum honestate carentibus. Quid autem foedius, quid indignius quam comparari veneranda contemptis?

[19] One can be found who says that a wise man, endowed with a body not very prosperous, is neither wretched nor blessed. He too is mistaken; for he equalizes fortuitous things with virtues and grants just as much to the honorable as to those lacking honor. What, however, is more foul, what more unworthy, than that things to be venerated be compared with things to be contemned?

Veneranda enim sunt iustitia, pietas, fides, fortitudo, prudentia: e contrario vilia sunt quae saepe contingunt pleniora vilissimis, crus solidum et lacertus et dentes et horum sanitas firmitasque.

For venerable indeed are justice, piety, faith, fortitude, prudence: on the contrary, base are those things which often fall more plentifully to the most worthless—a solid leg, and brawn, and teeth, and the health and soundness of these.

[20] Deinde si sapiens cui corpus molestum est nec miser habebitur nec beatus, sed medio relinquetur, vita quoque eius nec adpetenda erit nec fugienda. Quid autem tam absurdum quam sapientis vitam adpetendam non esse? aut quid tam extra fidem quam esse aliquam vitam nec adpetendam nec fugiendam?

[20] Then, if the sage, for whom the body is troublesome, will be held neither miserable nor blessed, but the middle he will be left, his life too will be neither to be desired nor to be shunned. What, however, is so absurd as that the life of the sage is not to be desired? Or what so beyond belief as that there is some life neither to be desired nor to be shunned?

Deinde si damna corporis miserum non faciunt, beatum esse patiuntur; nam quibus potentia non est in peiorem transferendi statum, ne interpellandi quidem optimum.

Then, if the damages of the body do not make one miserable, they allow him to be blessed; for those which do not have the power of transferring into a worse state do not even have the power of interrupting the best.

[21] 'Frigidum' inquit 'aliquid et calidum novimus, inter utrumque tepidum est; sic aliquis beatus est, aliquis miser, aliquis nec beatus nec miser.' Volo hanc contra nos positam imaginem excutere. Si tepido illi plus frigidi ingessero, fiet frigidum; si plus calidi adfudero, fiet novissime calidum. At huic nec misero nec beato quantumcumque ad miserias adiecero, miser non erit, quemadmodum dicitis; ergo imago ista dissimilis est.

[21] 'We know,' he says, 'something frigid and something hot; between the two is the tepid; so someone is blessed, someone wretched, someone neither blessed nor wretched.' I wish to shake off this image set up against us. If I add more of the frigid to that tepid thing, it will become frigid; if I pour on more of the hot, it will at last become hot. But to this person neither wretched nor blessed, however much I add to his miseries, he will not be wretched, as you say; therefore that image is dissimilar.

[22] Deinde trado tibi hominem nec miserum nec beatum. Huic adicio caecitatem: non fit miser; adicio debilitatem: non fit miser; adicio dolores continuos et graves: miser non fit. Quem tam multa mala in miseram vitam non transferunt ne ex beata quidem educunt.

[22] Then I hand over to you a man neither miserable nor blessed. To him I add blindness: he does not become miserable; I add debility: he does not become miserable; I add continuous and grievous pains: he does not become miserable. The one whom so many evils do not transfer into a miserable life, they do not even lead out from a blessed one.

[23] Si non potest, ut dicitis, sapiens ex beato in miserum decidere, non potest in non beatum. Quare enim qui labi coepit alicubi subsistat? quae res illum non patitur ad imum devolvi retinet in summo.

[23] If, as you say, the wise man cannot fall from happy into miserable, he cannot into not-happy. For why should one who has begun to slip stop anywhere? What thing is it that, not allowing him to be rolled down to the bottom, keeps him at the summit?

Quidni non possit beata vita rescindi? ne remitti quidem potest, et ideo virtus ad illam per se ipsa satis est.

Why should the blessed life not be able to be rescinded? it cannot even be remitted, and therefore virtue, by itself, is sufficient for it.

[24] 'Quid ergo?' inquit 'sapiens non est beatior qui diutius vixit, quem nullus avocavit dolor, quam ille qui cum mala fortuna semper luctatus est?' Responde mihi: numquid et melior est et honestior? Si haec non sunt, ne beatior quidem est. Rectius vivat oportet ut beatius vivat: si rectius non potest, ne beatius quidem.

[24] 'What then?' he says, 'is not the wise man happier who has lived longer, whom no pain has diverted, than the one who has always wrestled with ill fortune?' Answer me: is he also better and more honorable? If these are not so, he is not happier either. He ought to live more rightly in order that he may live more happily: if he cannot live more rightly, then not more happily either.

Non intenditur virtus, ergo ne beata quidem vita, quae ex virtute est. Virtus enim tantum bonum est ut istas accessiones minutas non sentiat, brevitatem aevi et dolorem et corporum varias offensiones; nam voluptas non est digna ad quam respiciat.

Virtue is not intensified; therefore neither is the blessed life, which is from virtue. For virtue is so great a good that it does not feel those minute accessions—brevity of age, pain, and the various offenses of the body; for pleasure is not worthy to which it should look back.

[25] Quid est in virtute praecipuum? futuro non indigere nec dies suos conputare. In quantulo libet tempore bona aeterna consummat.

[25] What is principal in virtue? To be in no need of the future nor to reckon its days. In however little time you please, it consummates eternal goods.

Incredibilia nobis haec videntur et supra humanam naturam excurrentia; maiestatem enim eius ex nostra inbecillitate metimur et vitiis nostris nomen virtutis inponimus. Quid porro? non aeque incredibile videtur aliquem in summis cruciatibus positum dicere 'beatus sum'? Atqui haec vox in ipsa officina voluptatis audita est.

These things seem to us incredible and running out beyond human nature; for we measure his majesty by our own imbecility and impose the name of virtue upon our vices. What furthermore? Does it not seem equally incredible that someone set amid the highest torments should say, 'I am happy'? And yet this utterance was heard in the very workshop of pleasure.

'Beatissimum' inquit 'hunc et ultimum diem ago' Epicurus, cum illum hinc urinae difficultas torqueret, hinc insanabilis exulcerati dolor ventris.

'Most blessed,' said Epicurus, 'this day and last I am passing,' while on the one hand a difficulty of urine tormented him, on the other the incurable pain of an ulcerated belly.

[26] Quare ergo incredibilia ista sint apud eos qui virtutem colunt, cum apud eos quoque reperiantur apud quos voluptas imperavit? Hi quoque degeneres et humillimae mentis aiunt in summis doloribus, in summis calamitatibus sapientem nec miserum futurum nec beatum. Atqui hoc quoque incredibile est, immo incredibilius; non video enim quomodo non in imum agatur e fastigio suo deiecta virtus.

[26] Why, then, should those things be incredible among those who cultivate virtue, since they are likewise found among those over whom pleasure has held sway? These too, degenerate and of a most abject mind, say that, in the greatest pains, in the greatest calamities, the wise man will be neither wretched nor blessed. And yet this too is incredible, rather, more incredible; for I do not see how virtue, cast down from its own pinnacle, is not driven to the lowest.

Aut beatum praestare debet aut, si ab hoc depulsa est, non prohibebit fieri miserum. Stans non potest mitti: aut vincatur oportet aut vincat.

It ought either to guarantee the blessed state, or, if it has been driven away from this, it will not prevent one from becoming wretched. While it stands, it cannot be dismissed: it must either be vanquished or it must vanquish.

[27] 'Dis' inquit 'inmortalibus solis et virtus et beata vita contigit, nobis umbra quaedam illorum bonorum et similitudo; accedimus ad illa, non pervenimus.' Ratio vero dis hominibusque communis est: haec in illis consummata est, in nobis consummabilis.

[27] 'To the immortal gods alone both virtue and a blessed life have fallen; to us a certain shadow of those goods and a similitude; we approach them, we do not arrive,' he says. Reason indeed is common to gods and human beings: this in them is consummated, in us consummable.

[28] Sed ad desperationem nos vitia nostra perducunt. Nam ille alter secundus est ut aliquis parum constans ad custodienda optima, cuius iudicium labat etiamnunc et incertum est. Desideret oculorum atque aurium sensum, bonam valetudinem et non foedum aspectum corporis et habitu manente suo aetatis praeterea longius spatium.

[28] But our vices conduct us to desperation. For that other is of the second rank, as someone too little constant in guarding the best things, whose judgment even now wavers and is uncertain. He will desire the senses of eyes and ears, good health, and not a foul aspect of the body, and, with his constitution remaining intact, a longer span of age besides.

[29] Per haec potest non paenitenda agi vita, at inperfecto viro huic malitiae vis quaedam inest, quia animum habet mobilem ad prava, illa ~aitarens malitia et ea agitata~ abest [de bono]. Non est adhuc bonus, sed in bonum fingitur; cuicumque autem deest aliquid ad bonum, malus est.

[29] Through these things a life not to be repented of can be conducted, but in the imperfect man a certain force of this malice is present, because he has a mind mobile toward depraved things; that ~altering malice and it agitated~ is absent [from the good]. He is not yet good, but is being fashioned into the good; moreover, whoever lacks anything toward the good is bad.

[30] Sed

[30] But

si cui virtus animusque in corpore praesens,

if anyone has virtue and spirit present in the body,

hic deos aequat, illo tendit originis suae memor. Nemo inprobe eo conatur ascendere unde descenderat. Quid est autem cur non existimes in eo divini aliquid existere qui dei pars est?

here he equals the gods; thither he tends, mindful of his origin. No one wickedly attempts to ascend to that whence he had descended. What reason is there, moreover, why you should not suppose that something of the divine exists in him who is a part of God?

Totum hoc quo continemur et unum est et deus; et socii sumus eius et membra. Capax est noster animus, perfertur illo si vitia non deprimant. Quemadmodum corporum nostrorum habitus erigitur et spectat in caelum, ita animus, cui in quantum vult licet porrigi, in hoc a natura rerum formatus est, ut paria dis vellet; et si utatur suis viribus ac se in spatium suum extendat, non aliena via ad summa nititur.

This whole by which we are contained is both one and God; and we are its associates and its members. Our mind is capacious, and is borne thereto if vices do not press it down. Just as the carriage of our bodies is erected and looks toward heaven, so the mind—which is permitted to be extended as far as it wishes—has been formed by the nature of things for this: to will things on a par with the gods; and if it use its own powers and stretch itself into its own proper expanse, it strives toward the heights not by an alien way.

[31] Magnus erat labor ire in caelum: redit. Cum hoc iter nactus est, vadit audaciter contemptor omnium nec ad pecuniam respicit aurumque et argentum, illis in quibus iacuere tenebris dignissima, non ab hoc aestimat splendore quo inperitorum verberant oculos, sed a vetere caeno ex quo illa secrevit cupiditas nostra et effodit. Scit, inquam, aliubi positas esse divitias quam quo congeruntur; animum impleri debere, non arcam.

[31] Great was the labor to go into heaven: he returns. Having found this path, he goes audaciously, a contemner of all things, and he does not look toward money, nor toward gold and silver—most worthy of the darkness in which they have lain—he does not estimate them by that splendor with which they lash the eyes of the inexpert, but by the ancient mud from which our cupidity separated them and dug them out. He knows, I say, that riches are placed elsewhere than where they are amassed; the mind ought to be filled, not the coffer.

[32] Hunc inponere dominio rerum omnium licet, hunc in possessionem rerum naturae inducere, ut sua orientis occidentisque terminis finiat, deorumque ritu cuncta possideat, cum opibus suis divites superne despiciat, quorum nemo tam suo laetus est quam tristis alieno.

[32] One may set this man over the dominion of all things, one may lead him into the possession of the things of nature, so that he may bound what is his by the limits of east and west, and, in the manner of the gods, possess all things, while, with his own resources, he looks down from above upon the rich, of whom no one is so glad at what is his own as he is sad at what is another’s.

[33] Cum se in hanc sublimitatem tulit, corporis quoque ut oneris necessarii non amator sed procurator est, nec se illi cui inpositus est subicit. Nemo liber est qui corpori servit; nam ut alios dominos quos nimia pro illo sollicitudo invenit transeas, ipsius morosum imperium delicatumque est.

[33] When he has lifted himself into this sublimity, he is, with respect to the body too, not a lover but a procurator of it, as of a necessary onus; nor does he subject himself to that upon which he has been imposed. No one is free who serves the body; for, to pass over the other masters which excessive solicitude on its behalf has discovered, its own imperium is finicky and delicate.

[34] Ab hoc modo aequo animo exit, modo magno prosilit, nec quis deinde relicti eius futurus sit exitus quaerit; sed ut ex barba capilloque tonsa neglegimus, ita ille divinus animus egressurus hominem, quo receptaculum suum conferatur, ignis illud ~excludat~ an terra contegat an ferae distrahant, non magis ad se iudicat pertinere quam secundas ad editum infantem. Utrum proiectum aves differant an consumatur

[34] Now with an even mind he goes out, now with a great leap he springs forth, nor does he inquire what outcome there will then be of what is left behind of him; but as we take no thought for beard and hair when shorn, so that divine spirit, about to go out of the man, judges that the question of where its receptacle is conveyed—whether fire exclude it, or earth cover it, or wild beasts tear it apart—pertains to itself no more than the afterbirth to the newborn infant. Whether, when cast out, birds scatter it or it be consumed

canibus data praeda marinis,

prey given to the marine dogs,

quid ad illum qui nullus <est>?

what is it to him who is not <is>?

[35] Sed tunc quoque cum inter homines est, timet ullas post mortem minas eorum quibus usque ad mortem timeri parum est. 'Non conterret' inquit 'me nec uncus nec proiecti ad contumeliam cadaveris laceratio foeda visuris. Neminem de supremo officio rogo, nulli reliquias meas commendo.

[35] But even then, when he is among men, does he fear any threats after death from those for whom it is too little to be feared only up to death. 'It will not terrify,' he says, 'me, neither the hook nor the foul mangling, for those who will look upon it, of a corpse cast forth for contumely. I ask no one for the supreme office; to no one do I commend my remains.'

Ne quis insepultus esset rerum natura prospexit: quem saevitia proiecerit dies condet.' Diserte Maecenas ait,

Lest anyone be unburied, the nature of things has provided: the one whom cruelty will cast forth, the day will inter.' Eloquently Maecenas says,

nec tumulum curo: sepelit natura relictos.

nor do I care for a tomb: nature inters the left-behind.

Alte cinctum putes dixisse; habuit enim ingenium et grande et virile, nisi illud secunda discinxissent. Vale.

You would think a man girded high had said it; for he had a genius both grand and virile, if only favorable circumstances had not ungirded it. Farewell.

XCIII. SENECA LVCILIO SVO SALVTEM

93. SENECA TO HIS LUCILIUS, GREETINGS

[1] In epistula qua de morte Metronactis philosophi querebaris, tamquam et potuisset diutius vivere et debuisset, aequitatem tuam desideravi, quae tibi in omni persona, in omni negotio superest, in una re deest, in qua omnibus: multos inveni aequos adversus homines, adversus deos neminem. Obiurgamus cotidie fatum: 'quare ille in medio cursu raptus est? quare ille non rapitur?

[1] In the letter in which you were complaining about the death of the philosopher Metronax, as though he both could have lived longer and ought to have, I missed your equity, which remains to you in every person, in every business, but is lacking in one matter, in which it is lacking to all: I have found many fair toward men, toward the gods no one. We scold fate every day: 'why was that man snatched in mid-course? why is that man not snatched?'

quare senectutem et sibi et aliis gravem extendit?'

why does he prolong an old age grievous both to himself and to others?'

[2] Utrum, obsecro te, aequius iudicas, te naturae an tibi parere naturam? quid autem interest quam cito exeas unde utique exeundum est? Non ut diu vivamus curandum est, sed ut satis; nam ut diu vivas fato opus est, ut satis, animo.

[2] Which, I beg you, do you judge more equitable: that you obey nature, or that nature obey you? And what difference does it make how quickly you depart from where one must in any case depart? It is not to be cared for that we live long, but that we live enough; for to live long there is need of fate, to live enough, of spirit.

Longa est vita si plena est; impletur autem cum animus sibi bonum suum reddidit et ad se potestatem sui transtulit.

Life is long if it is full; it is fulfilled, moreover, when the mind has rendered back to itself its own good and has transferred to itself the power over itself.

[3] Quid illum octoginta anni iuvant per inertiam exacti? non vixit iste sed in vita moratus est, nec sero mortuus est, sed diu. 'Octoginta annis vixit.' Interest mortem eius ex quo die numeres.

[3] What do eighty years, spent in inertia, avail him? He did not live, but lingered in life; nor did he die late, but after a long time. 'He lived for eighty years.' It matters from which day you reckon his death.

'At ille obiit viridis.'

'But he died in the prime of his years.'

[4] Sed officia boni civis, boni amici, boni filii executus est; in nulla parte cessavit; licet aetas eius inperfecta sit, vita perfecta est. 'Octoginta annis vixit.' Immo octoginta annis fuit, nisi forte sic vixisse eum dicis quomodo dicuntur arbores vivere. Obsecro te, Lucili, hoc agamus ut quemadmodum pretiosa rerum sic vita nostra non multum pateat sed multum pendeat; actu illam metiamur, non tempore.

[4] But he discharged the offices of a good citizen, a good friend, a good son; he was remiss in no part; although his age be imperfect, his life is perfect. 'He lived eighty years.' Nay rather, he existed for eighty years, unless perhaps you say he lived in the way trees are said to live. I beseech you, Lucilius, let us aim at this: that, just as with precious things among our possessions, so our life should not be much extended but be of much weight; let us measure it by act, not by time.

Vis scire quid inter hunc intersit vegetum contemptoremque fortunae functum omnibus vitae humanae stipendiis atque in summum bonum eius evectum et illum cui multi anni transmissi sunt? alter post mortem quoque est, alter ante mortem perit.

Do you wish to know what difference there is between this man—vigorous and a contemner of Fortune, having discharged all the stipends of human life and elevated into its highest good—and that man to whom many years have been transmitted? The one exists even after death; the other perishes before death.

[5] Laudemus itaque et in numero felicium reponamus eum cui quantulumcumque temporis contigit bene conlocatum est. Vidit enim veram lucem; non fuit unus e multis; et vixit et viguit. Aliquando sereno usus est, aliquando, ut solet, validi sideris fulgor per nubila emicuit.

[5] Let us therefore praise him and place him in the number of the happy, for whom however small an amount of time befell has been well invested. For he saw the true light; he was not one of the many; he both lived and flourished. At times he enjoyed serene weather; at times, as is its wont, the brilliance of a mighty star flashed forth through the clouds.

Quid quaeris quamdiu vixerit? vivit: ad posteros usque transiluit et se in memoriam dedit.

Why do you ask how long he lived? He lives: he has leapt even to posterity and has given himself into memory.

[6] Nec ideo mihi plures annos accedere recusaverim; nihil tamen mihi ad beatam vitam defuisse dicam si spatium eius inciditur; non enim ad eum diem me aptavi quem ultimum mihi spes avida promiserat, sed nullum non tamquam ultimum aspexi. Quid me interrogas quando natus sim, an inter iuniores adhuc censear? habeo meum.

[6] Nor for that reason would I have refused that more years be added to me; nevertheless I will say that nothing has been lacking to me for a blessed life if its span is cut short; for I did not adapt myself to that day which avid hope had promised me as the last, but I have regarded every day as if the last. Why do you ask me when I was born, whether I am still to be reckoned among the younger? I have what is mine.

[7] Quemadmodum in minore corporis habitu potest homo esse perfectus, sic et in minore temporis modo potest vita esse perfecta. Aetas inter externa est. Quamdiu sim alienum est: quamdiu ero, ut sim, meum est.

[7] Just as in a smaller bodily frame a man can be perfect, so too in a lesser measure of time a life can be perfect. Lifespan is among externals. How long I may exist is alien: how long I shall be, that I be, is mine.

Hoc a me exige, ne velut per tenebras aevum ignobile emetiar, ut agam vitam, non ut praetervehar.

Demand this of me: that I not measure out an ignoble age as if through darkness; that I may live life, not be borne past it.

[8] Quaeris quod sit amplissimum vitae spatium? usque ad sapientiam vivere; qui ad illam pervenit attigit non longissimum finem, sed maximum. Ille vero glorietur audacter et dis agat gratias interque eos sibi, et rerum naturae inputet quod fuit.

[8] You ask what is the amplest span of life? to live all the way to wisdom; he who has come to that has attained not the longest end, but the greatest. Let that man indeed glory boldly and give thanks to the gods, and among them to himself, and impute to the nature of things what has been.

Merito enim inputabit: meliorem illi vitam reddidit quam accepit. Exemplar boni viri posuit, qualis quantusque esset ostendit; si quid adiecisset, fuisset simile praeterito.

For he will rightly impute it: he returned to her a better life than he received. He set down the exemplar of a good man, he showed of what sort and how great he was; if he had added anything, it would have been similar to what had gone before.

[9] Et tamen quousque vivimus? Omnium rerum cognitione fruiti sumus: scimus a quibus principiis natura se attollat, quemadmodum ordinet mundum, per quas annum vices revocet, quemadmodum omnia quae usquam erunt cluserit et se ipsam finem sui fecerit; scimus sidera impetu suo vadere, praeter terram nihil stare, cetera continua velocitate decurrere; scimus quemadmodum solem luna praetereat, quare tardior velociorem post se relinquat, quomodo lumen accipiat aut perdat, quae causa inducat noctem, quae reducat diem: illuc eundum est ubi ista propius aspicias.

[9] And yet, how far do we live? We have enjoyed the cognition of all things: we know from what principles nature lifts herself up, how she orders the world, through what vicissitudes she brings back the year, how she has enclosed all things that will be anywhere and has made herself the end of herself; we know that the stars go by their own impetus, that nothing stands except the earth, that the rest run on with continuous velocity; we know how the moon passes by the sun, why the slower leaves the swifter behind itself, how it receives or loses light, what cause brings in night, what brings back day: thither one must go where you may look upon these things more closely.

[10] 'Nec hac spe' inquit sapiens ille 'fortius exeo, quod patere mihi ad deos meos iter iudico. Merui quidem admitti et iam inter illos fui animumque illo meum misi et ad me illi suum miserant. Sed tolli me de medio puta et post mortem nihil ex homine restare: aeque magnum animum habeo, etiam si nusquam transiturus excedo.' Non tam multis vixit annis quam potuit.

[10] 'Nor with this hope,' says that wise man, 'do I go out more bravely, because I judge that a path lies open to my gods. I have indeed merited to be admitted, and already I have been among them, and I have sent my mind thither, and to me they had sent their own. But suppose I am taken out of the midst, and that after death nothing of the human being remains: I have an equally great spirit, even if I depart about to transit to nowhere.' He did not live as many years as he could.

[11] Et paucorum versuum liber est et quidem laudandus atque utilis: annales Tanusii scis quam ponderosi sint et quid vocentur. Hoc est vita quorundam longa, et quod Tanusii sequitur annales.

[11] And it is a book of few verses, and indeed praiseworthy and useful: you know how ponderous the annals of Tanusius are and what they are called. This is the long life of certain people—and what follows the annals of Tanusius.

[12] Numquid feliciorem iudicas eum qui summo die muneris quam eum qui medio occiditur? numquid aliquem tam stulte cupidum esse vitae putas ut iugulari in spoliario quam in harena malit? Non maiore spatio alter alterum praecedimus.

[12] Do you judge him more felicitous who is killed on the last day of the show than him who is killed in the middle? Do you think anyone so foolishly desirous of life that he would prefer to be jugulated in the spoliary rather than in the arena? We do not precede one another by any greater interval.

Mors per omnis it; qui occidit consequitur occisum. Minimum est de quo sollicitissime agitur. Quid autem ad rem pertinet quam diu vites quod evitare non possis?

Death goes through all; he who kills follows the one killed. It is the least thing about which there is the most anxious fuss. And what, moreover, pertains to the matter—how long you shun what you cannot evade?

Vale.

Farewell.

XCIV. SENECA LVCILIO SVO SALVTEM

94. SENECA TO HIS LUCILIUS GREETING

[1] Eam partem philosophiae quae dat propria cuique personae praecepta nec in universum componit hominem sed marito suadet quomodo se gerat adversus uxorem, patri quomodo educet liberos, domino quomodo servos regat, quidam solam receperunt, ceteras quasi extra utilitatem nostram vagantis reliquerunt, tamquam quis posset de parte suadere nisi qui summam prius totius vitae conplexus esset.

[1] That part of philosophy which gives to each person his own proper precepts and does not compose the man in universal, but advises the husband how he should conduct himself toward his wife, the father how he should educate his children, the master how he should rule his slaves, certain men have accepted this alone; the rest they have left, as if wandering outside our utility, as though anyone could counsel about a part unless he had first embraced the sum of the whole life.

[2] Ariston Stoicus e contrario hanc partem levem existimat et quae non descendat in pectus usque, anilia habentem praecepta; plurimum ait proficere ipsa decreta philosophiae constitutionemque summi boni; 'quam qui bene intellexit ac didicit quid in quaque re faciendum sit sibi ipse praecipit.'

[2] Ariston the Stoic, on the contrary, judges this part to be light and not one that descends down into the breast, as having anile (old-wives’) precepts; he says that the very decrees of philosophy and the constitution of the supreme good profit most; 'whoever has well understood and learned that prescribes to himself what in each matter is to be done.'

[3] Quemadmodum qui iaculari discit destinatum locum captat et manum format ad derigenda quae mittit, cum hanc vim ex disciplina et exercitatione percepit, quocumque vult illa utitur (didicit enim non hoc aut illud ferire sed quodcumque voluerit), sic qui se ad totam vitam instruxit non desiderat particulatim admoneri, doctus in totum, non enim quomodo cum uxore aut cum filio viveret sed quomodo bene viveret: in hoc est et quomodo cum uxore ac liberis vivat.

[3] Just as one who learns to hurl the javelin aims at the destined place and forms his hand for directing the missiles he sends, when he has perceived this power from discipline and exercise, he uses it wherever he wishes (for he has learned not to strike this or that, but whatever he wishes), so one who has equipped himself for the whole of life does not desire to be admonished in particulars, being taught as to the whole; for it is not how he should live with a wife or with a son, but how he should live well: in this is included also how he should live with a wife and children.

[4] Cleanthes utilem quidem iudicat et hanc partem, sed inbecillam nisi ab universo fluit, nisi decreta ipsa philosophiae et capita cognovit.

[4] Cleanthes judges even this part useful indeed, but feeble unless it flows from the whole, unless one has known the very decrees of philosophy and its chief heads.

In duas ergo quaestiones locus iste dividitur: utrum utilis an inutilis sit, et an solus virum bonum possit efficere, id est utrum supervacuus sit an omnis faciat supervacuos.

Therefore this passage is divided into two questions: whether it is useful or useless, and whether it alone can effect a good man, that is, whether it is superfluous or makes all superfluous.

[5] Qui hanc partem videri volunt supervacuam hoc aiunt: si quid oculis oppositum moratur aciem, removendum est; illo quidem obiecto operam perdit qui praecipit 'sic ambulabis, illo manum porriges'. Eodem modo ubi aliqua res occaecat animum et ad officiorum dispiciendum ordinem inpedit, nihil agit qui praecipit 'sic vives cum patre, sic cum uxore'. Nihil enim proficient praecepta quamdiu menti error offusus est: si ille discutitur, apparebit quid cuique debeatur officio. Alioqui doces illum quid sano faciendum sit, non efficis sanum.

[5] Those who wish this part to seem superfluous say this: if anything set opposite to the eyes delays the gaze, it must be removed; with that obstacle interposed, he wastes his effort who prescribes, 'thus you will walk, in that direction you will extend your hand.' In the same way, when some thing blinds the mind and hinders the discerning of the order of duties, he does nothing who prescribes, 'thus you will live with your father, thus with your wife.' For precepts will accomplish nothing so long as an error is overspread upon the mind: if that is dispelled, it will appear what is owed to each by duty. Otherwise you teach him what a healthy man ought to do; you do not make him healthy.

[6] Pauperi ut agat divitem monstras: hoc quomodo manente paupertate fieri potest? Ostendis esurienti quid tamquam satur faciat: fixam potius medullis famem detrahe. Idem tibi de omnibus vitiis dico: ipsa removenda sunt, non praecipiendum quod fieri illis manentibus non potest.

[6] You show a pauper how to act the rich man: how can this be done with poverty remaining? You point out to the hungry man what he should do as though satiated: rather, tear away the hunger fixed in his very marrow. The same I say to you about all vices: they themselves must be removed, not prescribing what cannot be done while they remain.

Nisi opiniones falsas quibus laboramus expuleris, nec avarus quomodo pecunia utendum sit exaudiet nec timidus quomodo periculosa contemnat.

Unless you expel the false opinions with which we labor, neither will the avaricious man listen to how money is to be used, nor the timid man to how he should contemn perilous things.

[7] Efficias oportet ut sciat pecuniam nec bonum nec malum esse; ostendas illi miserrimos divites; efficias ut quidquid publice expavimus sciat non esse tam timendum quam fama circumfert, nec dolere quemquam nec mori saepe: in morte, quam pati lex est, magnum esse solacium quod ad neminem redit; in dolore pro remedio futuram obstinationem animi, qui levius sibi facit quidquid contumaciter passus est; optimam doloris esse naturam, quod non potest nec qui extenditur magnus esse nec qui est magnus extendi; omnia fortiter excipienda quae nobis mundi necessitas imperat.

[7] You must bring it about that he knows that money is neither a good nor an evil; show him that the rich are most wretched; bring it about that he knows that whatever we have been publicly terrified at is not so much to be feared as rumor circulates, and that no one suffers pain for nor dies often: in death, which it is law to undergo, there is a great consolation, that it returns to no one; in pain, the obstinacy of the mind will serve as a remedy, which makes lighter for itself whatever it has endured contumaciously; the best nature of pain is this, that that which is prolonged cannot be great, nor that which is great be prolonged; all things which the necessity of the world imposes upon us must be met bravely.

[8] His decretis cum illum in conspectum suae condicionis adduxeris et cognoverit beatam esse vitam non quae secundum voluptatem est sed secundum naturam, cum virtutem unicum bonum hominis adamaverit, turpitudinem solum malum fugerit, reliqua omnia — divitias, honores, bonam valetudinem, vires, imperia — scierit esse mediam partem nec bonis adnumerandam nec malis, monitorem non desiderabit ad singula qui dicat 'sic incede, sic cena; hoc viro, hoc feminae, hoc marito, hoc caelibi convenit'.

[8] By these decrees, when you have brought him into the sight of his own condition and he has recognized that the blessed life is not that which is according to pleasure but according to nature, when he has fallen in love with virtue as the unique good of man, has fled turpitude as the sole evil, and has come to know that all the remaining things — riches, honors, good health, strength, empires — occupy the middle part and are to be reckoned neither among goods nor among evils, he will not desire a monitor for each particular who says 'thus proceed, thus dine; this befits a man, this a woman, this a husband, this a celibate'.

[9] Ista enim qui diligentissime monent ipsi facere non possunt; haec paedagogus puero, haec avia nepoti praecipit, et irascendum non esse magister iracundissimus disputat. Si ludum litterarium intraveris, scies ista quae ingenti supercilio philosophi iactant in puerili esse praescripto.

[9] For those who most diligently admonish these matters cannot themselves do them; these things the pedagogue prescribes to the boy, these the grandmother to her grandson, and a most irascible teacher argues that one should not grow angry. If you enter a school of letters, you will know that those things which the philosophers, with immense superciliousness, vaunt are in a puerile prescription.

[10] Utrum deinde manifesta an dubia praecipies? Non desiderant manifesta monitorem, praecipienti dubia non creditur; supervacuum est ergo praecipere. Id adeo sic disce: si id mones quod obscurum est et ambiguum, probationibus adiuvandum erit; si probaturus es, illa per quae probas plus valent satisque per se sunt.

[10] Will you then prescribe what is manifest or what is dubious? Manifest things do not need a monitor; one who prescribes dubious things is not believed; therefore to prescribe is superfluous. Learn this accordingly thus: if you admonish what is obscure and ambiguous, it will have to be assisted by proofs; if you are going to prove, those things by which you prove prevail more and are sufficient in themselves.

[11] 'Sic amico utere, sic cive, sic socio.' 'Quare?' 'Quia iustum est.' Omnia ista mihi de iustitia locus tradit: illic invenio aequitatem per se expetendam, nec metu nos ad illam cogi nec mercede conduci, non esse iustum cui quidquam in hac virtute placet praeter ipsam. Hoc cum persuasi mihi et perbibi, quid ista praecepta proficiunt quae eruditum docent? praecepta dare scienti supervacuum est, nescienti parum; audire enim debet non tantum quid sibi praecipiatur sed etiam quare.

[11] 'Use a friend thus, a citizen thus, a partner thus.' 'Why?' 'Because it is just.' A passage on justice hands all those things down to me: there I find equity to be sought for its own sake, that we are neither to be driven to it by fear nor hired to it by a wage, that he is not just to whom anything in this virtue pleases besides itself. When I have persuaded myself of this and thoroughly drunk it in, what do those precepts accomplish which teach the educated? To give precepts to one who knows is superfluous, to one who does not know, too little; for he ought to hear not only what is enjoined upon him but also why.

[12] Utrum, inquam, veras opiniones habenti de bonis malisque sunt necessaria an non habenti? Qui non habet nihil a te adiuvabitur, aures eius contraria monitionibus tuis fama possedit; qui habet exactum iudicium de fugiendis petendisque scit sibi faciendum sit etiam te tacente. Tota ergo pars ista philosophiae summoveri potest.

[12] Are they, I say, necessary for one who has true opinions about goods and evils, or for one who does not have [them]? He who does not have [them] will be helped by you in nothing; a rumor contrary to your admonitions has taken possession of his ears; he who has an exact judgment about things to be fled and to be sought knows he must do even with you silent. Therefore that whole part of philosophy can be removed.

[13] Duo sunt propter quae delinquimus: aut inest animo pravis opinionibus malitia contracta aut, etiam si non est falsis occupatus, ad falsa proclivis est et cito specie quo non oportet trahente corrumpitur. Itaque debemus aut percurare mentem aegram et vitiis liberare aut vacantem quidem sed ad peiora pronam praeoccupare. Utrumque decreta philosophiae faciunt; ergo tale praecipiendi genus nil agit.

[13] There are two reasons on account of which we do wrong: either there is in the mind a malice contracted from crooked opinions, or, even if it is not occupied by falsehoods, it is inclined toward the false and is quickly corrupted by an appearance dragging it whither it ought not. And so we ought either to thoroughly cure the sick mind and free it from vices, or, if it is indeed vacant yet prone to worse things, to pre-occupy it. Both things the decrees of philosophy accomplish; therefore this sort of prescribing does nothing.

[14] Praeterea si praecepta singulis damus, inconprehensibile opus est; alia enim dare debemus feneranti, alia colenti agrum, alia negotianti, alia regum amicitias sequenti, alia pares, alia inferiores amaturo.

[14] Moreover, if we give precepts to individuals, it is an incomprehensible task; for we ought to give one kind to the moneylender, another to the cultivator of a field, another to the merchant, another to the one pursuing the friendships of kings, one kind to the one intending to love peers, another to the one intending to love inferiors.

[15] In matrimonio praecipies quomodo vivat cum uxore aliquis quam virginem duxit, quomodo cum ea quae alicuius ante matrimonium experta est, quemadmodum cum locuplete, quemadmodum cum indotata. An non putas aliquid esse discriminis inter sterilem et fecundam, inter provectiorem et puellam, inter matrem et novercam? Omnis species conplecti non possumus: atqui singulae propria exigunt, leges autem philosophiae breves sunt et omnia alligant.

[15] In marriage you will prescribe how someone is to live with a wife whom he married as a virgin, how with one who has had experience of someone before marriage, in what manner with a wealthy woman, in what manner with one undowered. Do you not think there is some distinction between a sterile and a fecund woman, between one more advanced in years and a girl, between a mother and a stepmother? We cannot embrace every type: and yet individual cases demand their own proper requirements, but the laws of philosophy are brief and bind all.

[16] Adice nunc quod sapientiae praecepta finita debent esse et certa; si qua finiri non possunt, extra sapientiam sunt; sapientia rerum terminos novit. Ergo ista praeceptiva pars summovenda est, quia quod paucis promittit praestare omnibus non potest; sapientia autem omnis tenet.

[16] Add now that the precepts of wisdom ought to be finite and certain; if any cannot be defined, they are outside wisdom; wisdom knows the boundaries of things. Therefore that preceptive part must be removed, because what it promises to a few it cannot provide to all; but wisdom, however, comprehends all.

[17] Inter insaniam publicam et hanc quae medicis traditur nihil interest nisi quod haec morbo laborat, illa opinionibus falsis; altera causas furoris traxit ex valetudine, altera animi mala valetudo est. Si quis furioso praecepta det quomodo loqui debeat, quomodo procedere, quomodo in publico se gerere, quomodo in privato, erit ipso quem monebit insanior: [si] bilis nigra curanda est et ipsa furoris causa removenda. Idem in hoc alio animi furore faciendum est: ipse discuti debet; alioqui abibunt in vanum monentium verba.

[17] Between the common insanity and this which is consigned to physicians there is no difference except that this one suffers from disease, that one from false opinions; the one has drawn the causes of frenzy from bodily condition, the other is a bad condition of the mind. If someone should give precepts to a madman as to how he ought to speak, how to proceed, how to conduct himself in public, how in private, he will be more insane than the very person whom he admonishes: [if] the black bile must be treated and the very cause of the frenzy removed. The same must be done in this other madness of the mind: it itself must be dispelled; otherwise the words of those who admonish will go off into the void.

[18] Haec ab Aristone dicuntur; cui respondebimus ad singula. Primum adversus illud quod ait, si quid obstat oculo et inpedit visum, debere removeri, fateor huic non opus esse praeceptis ad videndum, sed remedio quo purgetur acies et officientem sibi moram effugiat; natura enim videmus, cui usum sui reddit qui removit obstantia; quid autem cuique debeatur officio natura non docet.

[18] These things are said by Ariston; to each of them we will respond in turn. First, against that point which he states, that if anything stands in the way of the eye and impedes vision, it ought to be removed, I confess that in this case there is no need of precepts for seeing, but of a remedy by which the acuity may be cleansed and it may escape the hindrance working against it; for by nature we see, to which he who has removed the obstacles restores its own use; but what is owed to each person in respect of duty nature does not teach.

[19] Deinde cuius curata suffusio est, is non protinus cum visum recepit aliis quoque potest reddere: malitia liberatus et liberat. Non opus est exhortatione, ne consilio quidem, ut colorum proprietates oculus intellegat; a nigro album etiam nullo monente distinguet. Multis contra praeceptis eget animus ut videat quid agendum sit in vita.

[19] Then, the one whose suffusion has been treated, as soon as he has recovered sight, cannot forthwith also restore it to others: the one freed from malice both is freed and frees. There is no need of exhortation, nor even of counsel, for the eye to understand the properties of colors; from black it will distinguish white even with no one advising. The mind, on the contrary, needs many precepts so that it may see what must be done in life.

Quamquam oculis quoque aegros medicus non tantum curat sed etiam monet.

Although, with respect to eyes as well, the physician not only cures the sick but also admonishes.

[20] 'Non est' inquit 'quod protinus inbecillam aciem committas inprobo lumini; a tenebris primum ad umbrosa procede, deinde plus aude et paulatim claram lucem pati adsuesce. Non est quod post cibum studeas, non est quod plenis oculis ac tumentibus imperes; adflatum et vim frigoris in os occurrentis evita' — alia eiusmodi, quae non minus quam medicamenta proficiunt. Adicit remediis medicina consilium.

[20] 'There is no reason,' he says, 'for you immediately to commit your feeble sight to immoderate light; from darkness first proceed to shady places, then dare more and gradually accustom yourself to endure bright light. There is no reason to study after a meal, there is no reason to command eyes that are full and swollen; avoid the breath and force of cold meeting the face' — other things of this sort, which profit no less than medicaments. Medicine adds counsel to the remedies.

[21] 'Error' inquit 'est causa peccandi: hunc nobis praecepta non detrahunt nec expugnant opiniones de bonis ac malis falsas.' Concedo per se efficacia praecepta non esse ad evertendam pravam animi persuasionem; sed non ideo aliis quidem adiecta proficiunt. Primum memoriam renovant; deinde quae in universo confusius videbantur in partes divisa diligentius considerantur. Aut [in] isto modo licet et consolationes dicas supervacuas et exhortationes: atqui non sunt supervacuae; ergo ne monitiones quidem.

[21] 'Error,' he says, 'is the cause of sinning: precepts do not take this away from us, nor do they storm down the false opinions about goods and evils.' I concede that, by themselves, precepts are not effective for overturning a depraved persuasion of the mind; but not on that account do they, when added to other aids, fail to profit. First, they renew memory; then the things that seemed more confusedly in the whole, once divided into parts, are considered more carefully. Or [in] this way you may also call consolations superfluous and exhortations too: and yet they are not superfluous; therefore, neither are admonitions.

[22] 'Stultum est' inquit 'praecipere aegro quid facere tamquam sanus debeat, cum restituenda sanitas sit, sine qua inrita sunt praecepta.' Quid quod habent aegri quaedam sanique communia de quibus admonendi sunt? tamquam ne avide cibos adpetant, ut lassitudinem vitent. Habent quaedam praecepta communia pauper et dives.

[22] 'It is foolish,' he says, 'to prescribe to a sick man what he ought to do as though he were healthy, since health must be restored, without which precepts are void.' What of the fact that the sick and the healthy have certain things in common, about which they ought to be admonished? for instance, that they not be avid for foods, that they avoid lassitude. The poor man and the rich man have certain precepts in common.

[23] 'Sana' inquit 'avaritiam, et nihil habebis quod admoneas aut pauperem aut divitem, si cupiditas utriusque consedit.' Quid quod aliud est non concupiscere pecuniam, aliud uti pecunia scire? cuius avari modum ignorant, etiam non avari usum. 'Tolle' inquit 'errores: supervacua praecepta sunt.' Falsum est.

[23] 'Heal,' he says, 'avarice, and you will have nothing to admonish either the poor or the rich about, if cupidity has settled in both.' What of the fact that it is one thing not to covet money, another to know how to use money? of which the avaricious are ignorant of the measure, and even the non-avaricious of the use. 'Remove,' he says, 'errors: precepts are superfluous.' It is false.

Puta enim avaritiam relaxatam, puta adstrictam esse luxuriam, temeritati frenos iniectos, ignaviae subditum calcar: etiam remotis vitiis, quid et quemadmodum debeamus facere discendum est.

Suppose, indeed, avarice relaxed, suppose luxury tightened, a bridle cast upon temerity, a spur set beneath sloth: even with the vices removed, it must be learned what and how we ought to do.

[24] 'Nihil' inquit 'efficient monitiones admotae gravibus vitiis.' Ne medicina quidem morbos insanabiles vincit, tamen adhibetur aliis in remedium, aliis in levamentum. Ne ipsa quidem universae philosophiae vis, licet totas in hoc vires suas advocet, duram iam et veterem animis extrahet pestem; sed non ideo nihil sanat quia non omnia.

[24] 'Nothing,' he says, 'will admonitions accomplish when applied to grave vices.' Not even medicine conquers incurable diseases; nevertheless it is applied to some as a remedy, to others as an alleviation. Not even the very power of universal philosophy, although it should summon all its forces to this, will extract from minds a pestilence already hardened and long-standing; but it does not on that account heal nothing because it does not heal everything.

[25] 'Quid prodest' inquit 'aperta monstrare?' Plurimum; interdum enim scimus nec adtendimus. Non docet admonitio sed advertit, sed excitat, sed memoriam continet nec patitur elabi. Pleraque ante oculos posita transimus: admonere genus adhortandi est.

[25] 'What does it profit,' he says, 'to show what is open?' Very much; for sometimes we know and do not attend. Admonition does not teach but adverts, but excites, but holds memory and does not allow it to slip away. We pass by very many things set before our eyes: to admonish is a kind of exhortation.

Saepe animus etiam aperta dissimulat; ingerenda est itaque illi notitia rerum notissimarum. Illa hoc loco in Vatinium Calvi repetenda sententia est: 'factum esse ambitum scitis, et hoc vos scire omnes sciunt'.

Often the mind even dissimulates what is open; therefore knowledge of the most well-known things must be thrust upon it. That sentence in Calvus’s Against Vatinius is to be repeated in this place: 'you know that electoral bribery has been committed, and everyone knows that you know this'.

[26] Scis amicitias sancte colendas esse, sed non facis. Scis inprobum esse qui ab uxore pudicitiam exigit, ipse alienarum corruptor uxorum; scis ut illi nil cum adultero, sic tibi nil esse debere cum paelice, et non facis. Itaque subinde ad memoriam reducendus es; non enim reposita illa esse oportet sed in promptu.

[26] You know that friendships are to be sacredly cultivated, but you do not do it. You know it is improper for one who demands pudicity from his wife, himself a corruptor of others’ wives; you know that as she ought to have nothing with an adulterer, so you ought to have nothing with a concubine, and you do not do it. Therefore you must be brought back to remembrance repeatedly; for those things ought not to be laid away but to be at the ready.

Quaecumque salutaria sunt saepe agitari debent, saepe versari, ut non tantum nota sint nobis sed etiam parata. Adice nunc quod aperta quoque apertiora fieri solent.

Whatever things are salutary ought to be often agitated, often turned over, so that they be not only known to us but also prepared. Add now that even things which are open are wont to become more open.

[27] 'Si dubia sunt' inquit 'quae praecipis, probationes adicere debebis; ergo illae, non praecepta proficient.' Quid quod etiam sine probationibus ipsa monentis auctoritas prodest? sic quomodo iurisconsultorum valent responsa, etiam si ratio non redditur. Praeterea ipsa quae praecipiuntur per se multum habent ponderis, utique si aut carmini intexta sunt aut prosa oratione in sententiam coartata, sicut illa Catoniana: 'emas non quod opus est, sed quod necesse est; quod non opus est asse carum est', qualia sunt illa aut reddita oraculo aut similia:

[27] 'If the things you enjoin are doubtful,' he says, 'you will have to add proofs; therefore those, not the precepts, will do the good.' What of the fact that even without proofs the very authority of the admonisher is profitable? just so as the responses of jurisconsults have force, even if the rationale is not rendered. Furthermore, the very things that are prescribed have much weight in themselves, especially if either they are interwoven into song or, in prose oration, compressed into a sententia, like those Catonian ones: 'buy not what is for use, but what is necessary; what is not necessary is dear at an as,' such as those either delivered by an oracle or like to them:

[28] 'tempori parce', 'te nosce'. Numquid rationem exiges cum tibi aliquis hos dixerit versus?

[28] 'be sparing of time', 'know thyself'. Will you demand a rationale when someone has spoken these verses to you?

Iniuriarum remedium est oblivio.
Audentis fortuna iuvat, piger ipse sibi opstat.

The remedy for injuries is oblivion.
Fortune favors the bold, the sluggard himself stands in his own way.

Advocatum ista non quaerunt: adfectus ipsos tangunt et natura vim suam exercente proficiunt.

These do not seek an advocate: they touch the affections themselves, and, with nature exercising its own force, they advance.

[29] Omnium honestarum rerum semina animi gerunt, quae admonitione excitantur non aliter quam scintilla flatu levi adiuta ignem suum explicat; erigitur virtus cum tacta est et inpulsa. Praeterea quaedam sunt quidem in animo, sed parum prompta, quae incipiunt in expedito esse cum dicta sunt; quaedam diversis locis iacent sparsa, quae contrahere inexercitata mens non potest. Itaque in unum conferenda sunt et iungenda, ut plus valeant animumque magis adlevent.

[29] The minds bear the seeds of all honorable things, which are excited by admonition, not otherwise than a spark, aided by a light breath, unfolds its fire; virtue is raised up when it is touched and impelled. Moreover, certain things are indeed in the mind, but insufficiently prompt, which begin to be in the open when they have been spoken; certain things lie scattered in diverse places, which an unexercised mind cannot draw together. And so they must be brought into one and joined, so that they may prevail more and more uplift the mind.

[30] Aut si praecepta nihil adiuvant, omnis institutio tollenda est; ipsa natura contenti esse debemus. Hoc qui dicunt non vident alium esse ingenii mobilis et erecti, alium tardi et hebetis, utique alium alio ingeniosiorem. Ingenii vis praeceptis alitur et crescit novasque persuasiones adicit innatis et depravata corrigit.

[30] Or if precepts aid nothing, all instruction must be removed; we ought to be content with nature herself. Those who say this do not see that one person is of a mobile and erect ingenium, another of slow and hebetate, and, in any case, that one is more ingenious than another. The force of ingenium is nourished by precepts and grows, and it adds new persuasions to the inborn ones and corrects what has been depraved.

[31] 'Si quis' inquit 'non habet recta decreta, quid illum admonitiones iuvabunt vitiosis obligatum?' Hoc scilicet, ut illis liberetur; non enim extincta in illo indoles naturalis est sed obscurata et oppressa. Sic quoque temptat resurgere et contra prava nititur, nacta vero praesidium et adiuta praeceptis evalescit, si tamen illam diutina pestis non infecit nec enecuit; hanc enim ne disciplina quidem philosophiae toto impetu suo conisa restituet. Quid enim interest inter decreta philosophiae et praecepta nisi quod illa generalia praecepta sunt, haec specialia?

[31] 'If someone,' he says, 'does not have right decrees, how will admonitions help him, bound to vices?' This, of course: that by them he may be freed; for the natural disposition in him has not been extinguished but has been obscured and oppressed. Even so it tries to rise again and strives against crooked things; but, once it has found a defense and has been aided by precepts, it grows strong—provided, however, that a long-continued pestilence has not infected and killed it; for not even the discipline of philosophy, having striven with its whole impetus, will restore this. For what is the difference between the decrees of philosophy and precepts, except that those are general precepts, these particular?

Utraque res praecipit, sed altera in totum, particulatim altera.

Both things give precepts, but the one does so as a whole, the other in particulars.

[32] 'Si quis' inquit 'recta habet et honesta decreta, hic ex supervacuo monetur.' Minime; nam hic quoque doctus quidem est facere quae debet, sed haec non satis perspicit. Non enim tantum adfectibus inpedimur quominus probanda faciamus sed inperitia inveniendi quid quaeque res exigat. Habemus interdum compositum animum, sed residem et inexercitatum ad inveniendam officiorum viam, quam admonitio demonstrat.

[32] 'If someone,' he says, 'has right and honest decrees, this man is admonished superfluously.' Not at all; for this man too is indeed taught to do what he ought, but he does not discern these things sufficiently. For we are impeded not only by affections from doing what is to be approved, but by inexperience in finding what each matter requires. At times we have a composed mind, but idle and unexercised for finding the way of duties, which admonition points out.

[33] 'Expelle' inquit 'falsas opiniones de bonis et malis, in locum autem earum veras repone, et nihil habebit admonitio quod agat.' Ordinatur sine dubio ista ratione animus, sed non ista tantum; nam quamvis argumentis collectum sit quae bona malaque sint, nihilominus habent praecepta partes suas. Et prudentia et iustitia officiis constat: officia praeceptis disponuntur.

[33] 'Expel,' he says, 'the false opinions about goods and evils, and in their place put back the true ones, and admonition will have nothing to do.' The mind is ordered, without doubt, by that rationale, but not by that alone; for although by arguments it has been determined what things are good and bad, nonetheless precepts have their own parts. Both prudence and justice consist in duties: duties are disposed by precepts.

[34] Praeterea ipsum de malis bonisque iudicium confirmatur officiorum exsecutione, ad quam praecepta perducunt. Utraque enim inter se consentiunt: nec illa possunt praecedere ut non haec sequantur, et haec ordinem sequuntur suum; unde apparet illa praecedere.

[34] Furthermore, the very judgment about evils and goods is confirmed by the execution of duties, to which the precepts lead. For the two are in mutual consent: nor can the former precede without the latter following, and the latter follow their own order; whence it appears that the former take precedence.

[35] 'Infinita' inquit 'praecepta sunt.' Falsum est; nam de maximis ac necessariis rebus non sunt infinita; tenues autem differentias habent quas exigunt tempora, loca, personae, sed his quoque dantur praecepta generalia.

[35] 'The precepts are infinite,' he says. That is false; for concerning the greatest and most necessary matters they are not infinite; but they have slight differences which times, places, persons require, yet for these also general precepts are given.

[36] 'Nemo', inquit, 'praeceptis curat insaniam; ergo ne malitiam quidem.' Dissimile est; nam si insaniam sustuleris, sanitas reddita est; si falsas opiniones exclusimus, non statim sequitur dispectus rerum agendarum; ut sequatur, tamen admonitio conroborabit rectam de bonis malisque sententiam. Illud quoque falsum est, nihil apud insanos proficere praecepta. Nam quemadmodum sola non prosunt, sic curationem adiuvant; et denuntiatio et castigatio insanos coercuit — de illis nunc insanis loquor quibus mens mota est, non erepta.

[36] 'No one,' he says, 'cures insanity by precepts; therefore not malice either.' It is dissimilar; for if you remove insanity, health is restored; if we have excluded false opinions, a survey of things to be done does not immediately follow; that it may follow, however, admonition will corroborate the right opinion about good and evil things. That too is false, that precepts achieve nothing with the insane. For just as by themselves they do not profit, so they aid the cure; and both denunciation and chastisement have restrained the insane — I am speaking now of those madmen whose mind has been moved, not snatched away.

[37] 'Leges' inquit 'ut faciamus quod oportet non efficiunt, et quid aliud sunt quam minis mixta praecepta?' Primum omnium ob hoc illae non persuadent quia minantur, at haec non cogunt sed exorant; deinde leges a scelere deterrent, praecepta in officium adhortantur. His adice quod leges quoque proficiunt ad bonos mores, utique si non tantum imperant sed docent.

[37] 'Laws,' he says, 'do not bring it about that we do what is fitting, and what else are they than precepts mixed with threats?' First of all, for this reason they do not persuade because they threaten, whereas these do not compel but entreat; next, laws deter from crime, precepts exhort to duty. Add to these the fact that laws too conduce to good morals, especially if they not only command but teach.

[38] In hac re dissentio a Posidonio, qui <'improbo' inquit> 'quod Platonis legibus adiecta principia sunt. Legem enim brevem esse oportet, quo facilius ab inperitis teneatur. Velut emissa divinitus vox sit: iubeat, non disputet.

[38] In this matter I disagree with Posidonius, who says, <'I disapprove,' he says> 'that preambles have been added to Plato’s Laws. For a law ought to be brief, so that it may be more easily held by the unskilled. As if a voice were sent forth divinely: let it command, not dispute.

Nihil videtur mihi frigidius, nihil ineptius quam lex cum prologo. Mone, dic quid me velis fecisse: non disco sed pareo.' Proficiunt vero; itaque malis moribus uti videbis civitates usas malis legibus.

Nothing seems to me colder, nothing more inept than a law with a prologue. Admonish, say what you want me to have done: I do not learn but obey.' They do indeed have effect; and so you will see cities using bad mores, having used bad laws.

[39] 'At non apud omnis proficiunt.' Ne philosophia quidem; nec ideo inutilis et formandis animis inefficax est. Quid autem? philosophia non vitae lex est?

[39] 'But they do not make progress with everyone.' Not even philosophy does; nor for that reason is it useless and inefficacious for shaping minds. What then? Is not philosophy the law of life?

Sed putemus non proficere leges: non ideo sequitur ut ne monitiones quidem proficiant. Aut sic et consolationes nega proficere dissuasionesque et adhortationes et obiurgationes et laudationes. Omnia ista monitionum genera sunt; per ista ad perfectum animi statum pervenitur.

But let us suppose that laws do not profit: it does not therefore follow that not even monitions profit. Or thus, on the same reasoning, deny that consolations profit, and dissuasions and exhortations and objurgations and laudations. All these are kinds of monitions; through these one arrives at the perfect state of mind.

[40] Nulla res magis animis honesta induit dubiosque et in pravum inclinabiles revocat ad rectum quam bonorum virorum conversatio; paulatim enim descendit in pectora et vim praeceptorum obtinet frequenter aspici, frequenter audiri. Occursus mehercules ipse sapientium iuvat, et est aliquid quod ex magno viro vel tacente proficias.

[40] Nothing more clothes minds with honest things and calls back the dubious and those inclinable into the crooked to the right than the conversation of good men; for little by little it descends into the breasts and, by being frequently looked upon, frequently heard, it attains the force of precepts. The very encounter, by Hercules, with the wise helps, and there is something you may profit from a great man even when he is silent.

[41] Nec tibi facile dixerim quemadmodum prosit, sicut illud intellegam profuisse. 'Minuta quaedam' ut ait Phaedon 'animalia cum mordent non sentiuntur, adeo tenuis illis et fallens in periculum vis est; tumor indicat morsum et in ipso tumore nullum vulnus apparet.' Idem tibi in conversatione virorum sapientium eveniet: non deprehendes quemadmodum aut quando tibi prosit, profuisse deprendes.

[41] Nor could I easily tell you in what way it profits, just as I shall understand that it has profited. 'Certain minute animals,' as Phaedo says, 'when they bite are not perceived, so thin is their force and so deceiving into peril; the swelling indicates the bite, and in the swelling itself no wound appears.' The same will happen to you in the conversation of wise men: you will not detect how or when it helps you, you will detect that it has helped.

[42] 'Quorsus' inquis 'hoc pertinet?' Aeque praecepta bona, si saepe tecum sint, profutura quam bona exempla. Pythagoras ait alium animum fieri intrantibus templum deorumque simulacra ex vicino cernentibus et alicuius oraculi opperientibus vocem.

[42] 'To what end,' you say, 'does this pertain?' Equally, good precepts, if they are often with you, will be as profitable as good examples. Pythagoras says that the mind becomes other for those entering the temple and discerning the simulacra of the gods at close hand and awaiting the voice of some oracle.

[43] Quis autem negabit feriri quibusdam praeceptis efficaciter etiam inperitissimos? velut his brevissimis vocibus, sed multum habentibus ponderis:

[43] Who, however, will deny that even the most inexperienced are struck efficaciously by certain precepts? for instance, by these very brief utterances, but having much weight:

Nil nimis.
Avarus animus nullo satiatur lucro.
Ab alio expectes alteri quod feceris.

Nothing in excess.
An avaricious mind is satisfied by no lucre.
Expect from another what you have done to another.

Haec cum ictu quodam audimus, nec ulli licet dubitare aut interrogare 'quare?'; adeo etiam sine ratione ipsa veritas lucet.

We hear these with a certain impact, nor is it permitted to anyone to doubt or to ask 'why?'; so much so that even without a rationale the truth itself shines.

[44] Si reverentia frenat animos ac vitia conpescit, cur non et admonitio idem possit? Si inponit pudorem castigatio, cur admonitio non faciat, etiam si nudis praeceptis utitur? Illa vero efficacior est et altius penetrat quae adiuvat ratione quod praecipit, quae adicit quare quidque faciendum sit et quis facientem oboedientemque praeceptis fructus expectet.

[44] If reverence reins in minds and restrains vices, why should not admonition also be able to do the same? If chastisement imposes modesty, why should admonition not do so, even if it uses bare precepts? That, indeed, is more efficacious and penetrates more deeply which aids with reason what it enjoins, which adds why each thing must be done and what fruit awaits the one who acts and is obedient to the precepts.

Si imperio proficitur, et admonitione; atqui proficitur imperio; ergo et admonitione.

If progress is made by command, then also by admonition; and indeed progress is made by command; therefore also by admonition.

[45] In duas partes virtus dividitur, in contemplationem veri et actionem: contemplationem institutio tradit, actionem admonitio. Virtutem et exercet et ostendit recta actio. Acturo autem si prodest qui suadet, et qui monet proderit.

[45] Virtue is divided into two parts, into contemplation of the true and into action: instruction imparts contemplation, admonition action. Right action both exercises and shows virtue. Moreover, for one about to act, if he who persuades profits, he who admonishes will profit as well.

Ergo si recta actio virtuti necessaria est, rectas autem actiones admonitio demonstrat, et admonitio necessaria est.

Therefore, if right action is necessary to virtue, and admonition demonstrates right actions, admonition too is necessary.

[46] Duae res plurimum roboris animo dant, fides veri et fiducia: utramque admonitio facit. Nam et creditur illi et, cum creditum est, magnos animus spiritus concipit ac fiducia impletur; ergo admonitio non est supervacua. M. Agrippa, vir ingentis animi, qui solus ex iis quos civilia bella claros potentesque fecerunt felix in publicum fuit, dicere solebat multum se huic debere sententiae: 'nam concordia parvae res crescunt, discordia maximae dilabuntur'.

[46] Two things give the mind very much robustness: faith in truth and confidence; admonition makes both. For both trust is placed in it and, when trust has been placed, the mind conceives great spirits and is filled with confidence; therefore admonition is not superfluous. M. Agrippa, a man of vast spirit, who alone of those whom the civil wars made famous and powerful was fortunate for the public, used to say that he owed much to this sententia: 'for by concord small things grow, by discord the greatest are dissolved'.

[47] Hac se aiebat et fratrem et amicum optimum factum. Si eiusmodi sententiae familiariter in animum receptae formant eum, cur non haec pars philosophiae quae talibus sententiis constat idem possit? Pars virtutis disciplina constat, pars exercitatione; et discas oportet et quod didicisti agendo confirmes.

[47] By this, he used to say, both he himself and his brother and best friend had been made so. If sentences of this sort, familiarly received into the mind, shape it, why should not this part of philosophy, which consists of such sentences, be able to do the same? Part of virtue consists in discipline, part in exercise; and you ought both to learn, and to confirm what you have learned by doing.

Quod si est, non tantum scita sapientiae prosunt sed etiam praecepta, quae adfectus nostros velut edicto coercent et ablegant.

If this is so, not only do the ordinances of wisdom profit, but the precepts as well, which, as if by an edict, constrain and send away our affections.

[48] 'Philosophia' inquit 'dividitur in haec, scientiam et habitum animi; nam qui didicit et facienda ac vitanda percepit nondum sapiens est nisi in ea quae didicit animus eius transfiguratus est. Tertia ista pars praecipiendi ex utroque est, et ex decretis et ex habitu; itaque supervacua est ad implendam virtutem, cui duo illa sufficiunt.'

[48] 'Philosophy,' he says, 'is divided into these: science and habit of mind; for he who has learned and has perceived the things to be done and to be avoided is not yet wise unless his mind has been transfigured into those things which he has learned. That third part, the precept-giving, is from both, both from the decrees and from the habit; and so it is superfluous for the fulfillment of virtue, for which those two suffice.'

[49] Isto ergo modo et consolatio supervacua est (nam haec quoque ex utroque est) et adhortatio et suasio et ipsa argumentatio; nam et haec ab habitu animi compositi validique proficiscitur. Sed quamvis ista ex optimo habitu animi veniant, optimus animi habitus ex his est; et facit illa et ex illis ipse fit.

[49] Therefore in this way, consolation is superfluous (for this too is from both), and exhortation and suasion and argumentation itself; for these also proceed from a habit of mind composed and strong. But although those come from the best habit of mind, the best habit of mind is from these; and it makes those, and from these it itself is made.

[50] Deinde istud quod dicis iam perfecti viri est ac summam consecuti felicitatis humanae. Ad haec autem tarde pervenitur; interim etiam inperfecto sed proficienti demonstranda est in rebus agendis via. Hanc forsitan etiam sine admonitione dabit sibi ipsa sapientia, quae iam eo perduxit animum ut moveri nequeat nisi in rectum.

[50] Next, that which you say pertains to an already perfect man and to one who has attained the summit of human felicity. But one comes to these things slowly; meanwhile, even for one imperfect but proficient, the way must be demonstrated in matters to be done. Perhaps wisdom itself will grant this to itself even without admonition, since it has already conducted the mind to such a point that it cannot be moved except toward rectitude.

Inbecillioribus quidem ingeniis necessarium est aliquem praeire: 'hoc vitabis, hoc facies'.

For weaker wits indeed, it is necessary that someone go before: 'this you will avoid, this you will do'.

[51] Praeterea si expectat tempus quo per se sciat quid optimum factu sit, interim errabit et errando inpedietur quominus ad illud perveniat quo possit se esse contentus; regi ergo debet dum incipit posse se regere. Pueri ad praescriptum discunt; digiti illorum tenentur et aliena manu per litterarum simulacra ducuntur, deinde imitari iubentur proposita et ad illa reformare chirographum: sic animus noster, dum eruditur ad praescriptum, iuvatur.

[51] Moreover, if he waits for the time when he may know by himself what is best to do, in the meantime he will err, and by erring he will be impeded from arriving at that point where he can be content with himself; therefore he ought to be ruled while he is beginning to be able to rule himself. Boys learn by a prescript; their fingers are held, and by another’s hand they are led through the likenesses of letters, then they are bidden to imitate the things set before them and to reform their chirography to them: thus our mind, while it is being educated by a prescript, is aided.

[52] Haec sunt per quae probatur hanc philosophiae partem supervacuam non esse. Quaeritur deinde an ad faciendum sapientem sola sufficiat. Huic quaestioni suum diem dabimus: interim omissis argumentis nonne apparet opus esse nobis aliquo advocato qui contra populi praecepta praecipiat?

[52] These are the things by which it is proved that this part of philosophy is not superfluous. It is asked then whether it alone is sufficient for making a sage. We will give this question its own day: meanwhile, arguments set aside, does it not appear that we need some advocate to prescribe against the people’s precepts?

[53] Nulla ad aures nostras vox inpune perfertur: nocent qui optant, nocent qui execrantur. Nam et horum inprecatio falsos nobis metus inserit et illorum amor male docet bene optando; mittit enim nos ad longinqua bona et incerta et errantia, cum possimus felicitatem domo promere.

[53] No voice is carried to our ears with impunity: those who wish do harm, those who execrate do harm. For the imprecation of the latter inserts false fears into us, and the love of the former teaches us badly by well-wishing; for it sends us to distant goods, uncertain and wandering, when we can draw forth felicity from home.

[54] Non licet, inquam, ire recta via; trahunt in pravum parentes, trahunt servi. Nemo errat uni sibi, sed dementiam spargit in proximos accipitque invicem. Et ideo in singulis vitia populorum sunt quia illa populus dedit.

[54] It is not permitted, I say, to go by the straight way; parents drag into the wrong, servants drag too. No one errs for himself alone, but he scatters madness into those nearest and in turn receives it. And therefore in individuals are the vices of the people, because the people has given them.

Dum facit quisque peiorem, factus est; didicit deteriora, dein docuit, effectaque est ingens illa nequitia congesto in unum quod cuique pessimum scitur.

While each man makes another worse, he himself has been made so; he learned the worse things, then taught them, and that vast iniquity has been effected by the heaping into one of what is known to be worst in each person.

[55] Sit ergo aliquis custos et aurem subinde pervellat abigatque rumores et reclamet populis laudantibus. Erras enim si existimas nobiscum vitia nasci: supervenerunt, ingesta sunt. Itaque monitionibus crebris opiniones quae nos circumsonant repellantur.

[55] Let there, then, be some guardian, who from time to time tweaks the ear, drives away rumors, and cries out against the applauding crowds. For you err if you suppose vices are born with us: they have supervened; they have been imported. Therefore, by frequent admonitions let the opinions that resound around us be repelled.

[56] Nulli nos vitio natura conciliat: illa integros ac liberos genuit. Nihil quo avaritiam nostram inritaret posuit in aperto: pedibus aurum argentumque subiecit calcandumque ac premendum dedit quidquid est propter quod calcamur ac premimur. Illa vultus nostros erexit ad caelum et quidquid magnificum mirumque fecerat videri a suspicientibus voluit: ortus occasusque et properantis mundi volubilem cursum, interdiu terrena aperientem, nocte caelestia, tardos siderum incessus si compares toti, citatissimos autem si cogites quanta spatia numquam intermissa velocitate circumeant, defectus solis ac lunae invicem obstantium, alia deinceps digna miratu, sive per ordinem subeunt sive subitis causis mota prosiliunt, ut nocturnos ignium tractus et sine ullo ictu sonituque fulgores caeli patescentis columnasque ac trabes et varia simulacra flammarum.

[56] Nature reconciles us to no vice: she brought us forth intact and free. She set nothing out in the open to excite our avarice: she put gold and silver under our feet, and gave to be trodden and pressed whatever it is on account of which we ourselves are trodden and pressed. She raised our faces toward heaven and wished that whatever she had made magnificent and marvelous be seen by those looking up: the risings and settings, and the rolling course of the hastening cosmos, revealing earthly things by day, celestial things by night; the slow progresses of the stars, if you compare them to the whole, yet most rapid if you consider how vast the spaces they traverse with speed never interrupted; the eclipses of sun and moon, as they obstruct each other in turn; and other things in succession worthy of wonder, whether they come on in order or spring forth moved by sudden causes—such as the nocturnal tracks of fires, and the flashes of the sky’s opening without any stroke or sound, and columns and beams and various likenesses of flames.

[57] Haec supra nos natura disposuit, aurum quidem et argentum et propter ista numquam pacem agens ferrum, quasi male nobis committerentur, abscondit. Nos in lucem propter quae pugnaremus extulimus, nos et causas periculorum nostrorum et instrumenta disiecto terrarum pondere eruimus, nos fortunae mala nostra tradidimus nec erubescimus summa apud nos haberi quae fuerant ima terrarum.

[57] Nature has disposed these things above us; but gold and silver and iron—because of these never conducting peace—as if they would be ill-entrusted to us, she hid. We have brought into the light the very things on account of which we would fight; we have dug out, by the weight of the lands being broken up, both the causes of our dangers and the instruments; we have handed our evils over to Fortune, nor do we blush that things which were the lowest of the earth are held as the highest among us.

[58] Vis scire quam falsus oculos tuos deceperit fulgor? nihil est istis quamdiu mersa et involuta caeno suo iacent foedius, nihil obscurius, quidni? quae per longissimorum cuniculorum tenebras extrahuntur; nihil est illis dum fiunt et a faece sua separantur informius.

[58] Do you want to know how a false gleam has deceived your eyes? Nothing is fouler than those things, so long as they lie submerged and wrapped in their own mire, nothing more obscure—why not? since they are drawn out through the darkness of very long tunnels; nothing is more formless than they while they are being made and separated from their dregs.

Denique ipsos opifices intuere per quorum manus sterile terrae genus et infernum perpurgatur: videbis quanta fuligine oblinantur.

Finally, behold the artificers themselves, through whose hands the sterile kind of earth and the infernal are thoroughly purged: you will see with how much soot they are besmeared.

[59] Atqui ista magis inquinant animos quam corpora, et in possessore eorum quam in artifice plus sordium est. Necessarium itaque admoneri est, habere aliquem advocatum bonae mentis et in tanto fremitu tumultuque falsorum unam denique audire vocem. Quae erit illa vox? ea scilicet quae tibi tantis clamoribus ambitionis exsurdato salubria insusurret verba, quae dicat:

[59] And yet those things pollute minds more than bodies, and in their possessor there is more sordidness than in the artificer. It is therefore necessary to be admonished, to have some advocate of a good mind and, amid so great a fremitus and tumult of falsities, to hear at last a single voice. What will that voice be? that, of course, which, you deafened by such great clamors of ambition, will whisper salutary words to you, which will say:

[60] non est quod invideas istis quos magnos felicesque populus vocat, non est quod tibi compositae mentis habitum et sanitatem plausus excutiat, non est quod tibi tranquillitatis tuae fastidium faciat ille sub illis fascibus purpura cultus, non est quod feliciorem eum iudices cui summovetur quam te quem lictor semita deicit. Si vis exercere tibi utile, nulli autem grave imperium, summove vitia.

[60] there is no reason for you to envy those whom the populace calls great and happy, no reason that applause should shake loose for you the habit and health of a composed mind, no reason that that purple attire beneath those fasces should make you feel a distaste for your tranquility, no reason for you to judge him happier, for whom people are driven back, than yourself, whom the lictor casts from the footpath. If you wish to exercise a command (imperium) useful to you and burdensome to no one, drive away vices.

[61] Multi inveniuntur qui ignem inferant urbibus, qui inexpugnabilia saeculis et per aliquot aetates tuta prosternant, qui aequum arcibus aggerem attollant et muros in miram altitudinem eductos arietibus ac machinis quassent. Multi sunt qui ante se agant agmina et tergis hostium [et] graves instent et ad mare magnum perfusi caede gentium veniant, sed hi quoque, ut vincerent hostem, cupiditate victi sunt. Nemo illis venientibus restitit, sed nec ipsi ambitioni crudelitatique restiterant; tunc cum agere alios visi sunt, agebantur.

[61] Many are found who infer fire upon cities, who prostrate things inexpugnable for ages and safe through several generations, who raise a rampart equal to the citadels, and shake with battering-rams and machines walls brought up to wondrous height. Many there are who drive columns before them and press heavy upon the backs of the enemy, and, drenched with the slaughter of nations, come to the great sea; but these too, in order to conquer the enemy, have been conquered by cupidity. No one resisted them as they came, but neither had they themselves resisted ambition and cruelty; then, when they seemed to drive others, they were being driven.

[62] Agebat infelicem Alexandrum furor aliena vastandi et ad ignota mittebat. An tu putas sanum qui a Graeciae primum cladibus, in qua eruditus est, incipit? qui quod cuique optimum est eripit, Lacedaemona servire iubet, Athenas tacere?

[62] A fury of laying waste what is another’s drove the ill‑fated Alexander and sent him toward the unknown. Do you think sane the man who begins with the calamities of Greece, in which he was educated? who snatches from each what is best, bids Lacedaemon serve, Athens be silent?

Non contentus tot civitatium strage, quas aut vicerat Philippus aut emerat, alias alio loco proicit et toto orbe arma circumfert; nec subsistit usquam lassa crudelitas inmanium ferarum modo quae plus quam exigit fames mordent.

Not content with the slaughter of so many cities, which Philip had either conquered or purchased, he casts down others elsewhere and carries arms around the whole orb; nor does his weary cruelty halt anywhere, after the manner of monstrous wild beasts that bite more than hunger exacts.

[63] Iam in unum regnum multa regna coniecit, iam Graeci Persaeque eundem timent, iam etiam a Dareo liberae nationes iugum accipiunt; it tamen ultra oceanum solemque, indignatur ab Herculis Liberique vestigiis victoriam flectere, ipsi naturae vim parat. Non ille ire vult, sed non potest stare, non aliter quam in praeceps deiecta pondera, quibus eundi finis est iacuisse.

[63] Already he has thrown many kingdoms into one kingdom, already Greeks and Persians fear the same man, already even nations free from Darius accept the yoke; yet he goes beyond the Ocean and the Sun, he is indignant to bend his victory back from the footprints of Hercules and Liber, he prepares force against nature herself. It is not that he wishes to go, but he cannot stand still, no otherwise than weights cast headlong, for which the end of motion is to have lain.

[64] Ne Gnaeo quidem Pompeio externa bella ac domestica virtus aut ratio suadebat, sed insanus amor magnitudinis falsae. Modo in Hispaniam et Sertoriana arma, modo ad colligandos piratas ac maria pacanda vadebat: hae praetexebantur causae ad continuandam potentiam.

[64] Not even to Gnaeus Pompeius did virtue or reason recommend external and domestic wars, but an insane love of false magnitude. Now into Spain and the Sertorian arms, now to gather up the pirates and to pacify the seas he would go: these causes were being pretexted for the continuing of his power.

[65] Quid illum in Africam, quid in septentrionem, quid in Mithridaten et Armeniam et omnis Asiae angulos traxit? infinita scilicet cupido crescendi, cum sibi uni parum magnus videretur. Quid C. Caesarem in sua fata pariter ac publica inmisit?

[65] What drew him into Africa, what into the north, what against Mithridates and Armenia and all the corners of Asia? Surely an infinite cupidity of increasing, since to himself alone he seemed too little great. What drove C. Caesar into his own fates equally with the public’s?

gloria et ambitio et nullus supra ceteros eminendi modus. Unum ante se ferre non potuit, cum res publica supra se duos ferret.

glory and ambition and no measure of being eminent above the rest. He could not bear one before himself, while the commonwealth bore above him two.

[66] Quid, tu C. Marium semel consulem (unum enim consulatum accepit, ceteros rapuit), cum Teutonos Cimbrosque concideret, cum Iugurtham per Africae deserta sequeretur, tot pericula putas adpetisse virtutis instinctu? Marius exercitus, Marium ambitio ducebat.

[66] What, do you think that Gaius Marius, consul once (for he received one consulship, the rest he seized), when he was cutting down the Teutones and the Cimbri, when he was pursuing Jugurtha through the deserts of Africa, courted so many dangers at the instigation of virtue? Marius led the army, ambition led Marius.

[67] Isti cum omnia concuterent, concutiebantur turbinum more, qui rapta convolvunt sed ipsi ante volvuntur et ob hoc maiore impetu incurrunt quia nullum illis sui regimen est, ideoque, cum multis fuerunt malo, pestiferam illam vim qua plerisque nocuerunt ipsi quoque sentiunt. Non est quod credas quemquam fieri aliena infelicitate felicem.

[67] Those men, when they were shaking everything, were themselves being shaken in the manner of whirlwinds, which roll together the things they have snatched, but themselves are rolled beforehand; and on this account they charge with greater impetus, because there is for them no regimen of themselves, and therefore, since they have been an evil to many, they themselves also feel that pestiferous force by which they have harmed most. There is no reason for you to believe that anyone becomes happy by another’s infelicity.

[68] Omnia ista exempla quae oculis atque auribus nostris ingeruntur retexenda sunt, et plenum malis sermonibus pectus exhauriendum; inducenda in occupatum locum virtus, quae mendacia et contra verum placentia exstirpet, quae nos a populo cui nimis credimus separet ac sinceris opinionibus reddat. Hoc est enim sapientia, in naturam converti et eo restitui unde publicus error expulerit.

[68] All those examples which are thrust upon our eyes and ears must be rewoven, and a breast full of evil discourses must be drained; virtue must be led into the occupied place, to extirpate lies and things pleasing contrary to the truth, to separate us from the populace to whom we trust too much and to restore us to sincere opinions. For this is wisdom: to be converted to nature and to be restored to that whence public error has expelled us.

[69] Magna pars sanitatis est hortatores insaniae reliquisse et ex isto coitu invicem noxio procul abisse. Hoc ut esse verum scias, aspice quanto aliter unusquisque populo vivat, aliter sibi. Non est per se magistra innocentiae solitudo nec frugalitatem docent rura, sed ubi testis ac spectator abscessit, vitia subsidunt, quorum monstrari et conspici fructus est.

[69] A great part of sanity is to have left behind the exhorters of insanity and to have gone far away from that mutually noxious congress. That you may know this to be true, observe how differently each person lives for the public, and differently for himself. Solitude is not in itself a magistra of innocence, nor do the rural places teach frugality; but when the witness and spectator have withdrawn, the vices subside, whose fruit lies in being shown and seen.

[70] Quis eam quam nulli ostenderet induit purpuram? quis posuit secretam in auro dapem? quis sub alicuius arboris rusticae proiectus umbra luxuriae suae pompam solus explicuit?

[70] Who donned that purple which he would show to no one? who set a secret feast upon gold? who, flung beneath the shade of some rustic tree, unfolded alone the pomp of his luxury?

Nemo oculis suis lautus est, ne paucorum quidem aut familiarium, sed apparatum vitiorum suorum pro modo turbae spectantis expandit.

No one is lavish for his own eyes, not even for a few or for familiars, but he expands the apparatus of his vices according to the measure of the crowd looking on.

[71] Ita est: inritamentum est omnium in quae insanimus admirator et conscius. Ne concupiscamus efficies si ne ostendamus effeceris. Ambitio et luxuria et inpotentia scaenam desiderant: sanabis ista si absconderis.

[71] It is so: the admirer and the accomplice is the incitement of all the things in which we run mad. You will make it so that we do not desire, if you make it so that we do not display. Ambition and luxury and lack of self-control crave a stage: you will heal these if you hide them.

[72] Itaque si in medio urbium fremitu conlocati sumus, stet ad latus monitor et contra laudatores ingentium patrimoniorum laudet parvo divitem et usu opes metientem. Contra illos qui gratiam ac potentiam attollunt otium ipse suspiciat traditum litteris et animum ab externis ad sua reversum.

[72] And so, if we have been placed amid the roar of cities, let a monitor stand at our side and, against the praisers of enormous patrimonies, let him praise the man rich in little and measuring his resources by use. Against those who exalt favor and power, let him himself admire leisure handed down in letters and a mind turned back from externals to its own.

[73] Ostendat ex constitutione vulgi beatos in illo invidioso fastigio suo trementis et attonitos longeque aliam de se opinionem habentis quam ab aliis habetur; nam quae aliis excelsa videntur ipsis praerupta sunt. Itaque exanimantur et trepidant quotiens despexerunt in illud magnitudinis suae praeceps; cogitant enim varios casus et in sublimi maxime lubricos.

[73] Let him show, from the constitution of the crowd, that the “blessed” on that invidious pinnacle of theirs are trembling and thunderstruck, and that they hold a far different opinion about themselves than is held by others; for what seems exalted to others is to them precipitous. And so they are left breathless and they tremble whenever they have looked down into that headlong drop of their own greatness; for they consider various falls, and that in high places things are especially slippery.

[74] Tunc adpetita formidant et quae illos graves aliis reddit gravior ipsis felicitas incubat. Tunc laudant otium lene et sui iuris, odio est fulgor et fuga a rebus adhuc stantibus quaeritur. Tunc demum videas philosophantis metu et aegrae fortunae sana consilia.

[74] Then they fear the things they have sought, and the felicity which makes them grievous to others lies heavier upon themselves. Then they praise leisure, gentle and at one’s own disposal; splendor is hateful, and flight is sought from affairs that are still standing. Then at last you may see them philosophizing from fear, and from a sickly fortune, sound counsels.

Nam quasi ista inter se contraria sint, bona fortuna et mens bona, ita melius in malis sapimus: secunda rectum auferunt. Vale.

For, as if these were contrary to one another—good fortune and a good mind—so we grow wiser amid evils: favorable circumstances take away the straight course. Farewell.

XCV. SENECA LVCILIO SVO SALVTEM

95. SENECA TO HIS LUCILIUS, GREETINGS

[1] Petis a me ut id quod in diem suum dixeram debere differri repraesentem et scribam tibi an haec pars philosophiae quam Graeci paraeneticen vocant, nos praeceptivam dicimus, satis sit ad consummandam sapientiam. Scio te in bonam partem accepturum si negavero. Eo magis promitto et verbum publicum perire non patior: 'postea noli rogare quod inpetrare nolueris'.

[1] You ask of me that I should pay in advance what I had said ought to be deferred to its proper day, and that I should write to you whether that part of philosophy which the Greeks call paraeneticen, we call preceptive, is sufficient for bringing wisdom to consummation. I know you will take it in good part if I say no. All the more, therefore, I promise, and I do not allow a public proverb to perish: 'afterwards do not ask for what you were unwilling to obtain.'

[2] Interdum enim enixe petimus id quod recusaremus si quis offerret. Haec sive levitas est sive vernilitas punienda est promittendi facilitate. Multa videri volumus velle sed nolumus.

[2] For sometimes we earnestly beg for that which we would refuse if someone should offer it. This—whether it is levity or servility—namely the facility of promising, is to be punished. We wish to seem to will many things, but we do not will them.

Recitator historiam ingentem attulit minutissime scriptam, artissime plictam, et magna parte perlecta 'desinam' inquit 'si vultis': adclamatur 'recita, recita' ab iis qui illum ommutescere illic cupiunt. Saepe aliud volumus, aliud optamus, et verum ne dis quidem dicimus, sed dii aut non exaudiunt aut miserentur.

The reciter brought a huge history, most minutely written, most tightly pleated, and when a great part had been read through, he said, 'I will stop, if you wish'; there is acclamation, 'recite, recite,' from those who want him to fall silent then and there. Often we will one thing, we wish another, and we do not tell the truth even to the gods; but the gods either do not hearken or they take pity.

[3] Ego me omissa misericordia vindicabo et tibi ingentem epistulam inpingam, quam tu si invitus leges, dicito 'ego mihi hoc contraxi', teque inter illos numera quos uxor magno ducta ambitu torquet, inter illos quos divitiae per summum adquisitae sudorem male habent, inter illos quos honores nulla non arte atque opera petiti discruciant, et ceteros malorum suorum compotes.

[3] I, mercy set aside, will vindicate myself and thrust upon you a huge epistle, which, if you read unwillingly, say, 'I have contracted this upon myself,' and count yourself among those whom a wife, led home with great pomp, torments; among those whom riches acquired by the utmost sweat afflict; among those whom honors sought by every art and effort excruciate; and the rest, partakers of their own ills.

[4] Sed ut omisso principio rem ipsam adgrediar, 'beata' inquiunt 'vita constat ex actionibus rectis; ad actiones rectas praecepta perducunt; ergo ad beatam vitam praecepta sufficiunt'. Non semper ad actiones rectas praecepta perducunt, sed cum obsequens ingenium est; aliquando frustra admoventur, si animum opiniones obsident pravae.

[4] But, with the beginning omitted that I may approach the thing itself, “the blessed life,” they say, “consists of right actions; to right actions precepts conduce; therefore for the blessed life precepts suffice.” Precepts do not always conduce to right actions, but only when the disposition is compliant; sometimes they are applied in vain, if depraved opinions besiege the mind.

[5] Deinde etiam si recte faciunt, nesciunt facere se recte. Non potest enim quisquam nisi ab initio formatus et tota ratione compositus omnis exsequi numeros ut sciat quando oporteat et in quantum et cum quo et quemadmodum et quare. Non potest toto animo ad honesta conari, ne constanter quidem aut libenter, sed respiciet, sed haesitabit.

[5] Then even if they do rightly, they do not know that they are doing rightly. For no one can, unless formed from the beginning and composed by reason as a whole, execute all the numbers, so as to know when it is fitting, and to what extent, and with whom, and in what manner, and why. He cannot strive with his whole mind toward honorable things, not even steadfastly or willingly; rather he will look back, he will hesitate.

[6] 'Si honesta' inquit 'actio ex praeceptis venit, ad beatam vitam praecepta abunde sunt: atqui est illud, ergo et hoc.' His respondebimus actiones honestas et praeceptis fieri, non tantum praeceptis.

[6] 'If,' he says, 'an honorable action comes from precepts, precepts are abundantly sufficient for the blessed life: but since that is the case, therefore this also.' To this we shall reply that honorable actions both are brought about by precepts, and not by precepts only.

[7] 'Si aliae' inquit 'artes contentae sunt praeceptis, contenta erit et sapientia; nam et haec ars vitae est. Atqui gubernatorem facit ille qui praecipit "sic move gubernaculum, sic vela summitte, sic secundo vento utere, sic adverso resiste, sic dubium communemque tibi vindica". Alios quoque artifices praecepta conformant; ergo in hoc idem poterunt artifice vivendi.'

[7] 'If other arts,' he says, 'are content with precepts, wisdom too will be content; for this too is an art of life. And indeed he makes a helmsman who prescribes: "move the rudder thus, thus lower the sails, thus use a fair wind, thus resist an adverse one, thus claim for yourself what is doubtful and common." Precepts also shape other artificers; therefore they will be able to do the same in this, the artificer of living.'

[8] Omnes istae artes circa instrumenta vitae occupatae sunt, non circa totam vitam; itaque multa illas inhibent extrinsecus et inpediunt, spes, cupiditas, timor. At haec quae artem vitae professa est nulla re quominus se exerceat vetari potest; discutit enim inpedimenta et iactat obstantia. Vis scire quam dissimilis sit aliarum artium condicio et huius?

[8] All those arts are occupied with the instruments of life, not with the whole life; and so many things from without inhibit and impede them—hope, cupidity, fear. But this art, which has professed the art of life, can be forbidden by nothing from exercising itself; for it shakes off impediments and tosses aside obstacles. Do you wish to know how dissimilar is the condition of the other arts and of this one?

in illis excusatius est voluntate peccare quam casu, in hac maxima culpa est sponte delinquere.

in those, it is more excusable to sin by chance than by will; in this, the greatest fault is to transgress of one’s own accord.

[9] Quod dico tale est. Grammaticus non erubescet soloecismo si sciens fecit, erubescet si nesciens; medicus si deficere aegrum non intellegit, quantum ad artem magis peccat quam si se intellegere dissimulat: at in hac arte vivendi turpior volentium culpa est. Adice nunc quod artes quoque pleraeque — immo ex omnibus liberalissimae — habent decreta sua, non tantum praecepta, sicut medicina; itaque alia est Hippocratis secta, alia Asclepiadis, alia Themisonis.

[9] What I say is of this sort. A grammarian will not blush at a solecism if he did it knowingly; he will blush if unknowingly. If a physician does not understand that the sick man is failing, so far as concerns the art he sins more than if he dissembles that he understands; but in this art of living the fault of those who will [to do wrong] is more disgraceful. Add now that most arts—nay, of all the most liberal—have their decrees, not only precepts, just as medicine; and so one sect is that of Hippocrates, another of Asclepiades, another of Themison.

[10] Praeterea nulla ars contemplativa sine decretis suis est, quae Graeci vocant dogmata, nobis vel decreta licet appellare vel scita vel placita; quae et in geometria et in astronomia invenies. Philosophia autem et contemplativa est et activa: spectat simul agitque. Erras enim si tibi illam putas tantum terrestres operas promittere: altius spirat.

[10] Moreover, no contemplative art is without its own decrees, which the Greeks call dogmata; we may call them decrees, or scita, or placita; you will find these both in geometry and in astronomy. Philosophy, however, is both contemplative and active: it looks on and at the same time acts. For you are mistaken if you think it promises to you only terrestrial works: it breathes higher.

'Totum' inquit 'mundum scrutor nec me intra contubernium mortale contineo, suadere vobis aut dissuadere contenta: magna me vocant supraque vos posita.

'The whole world,' she says, 'I scrutinize, nor do I confine myself within a mortal contubernium, content to persuade you or to dissuade: great things call me, and I am set above you.'

[11]

Nam tibi de summa caeli ratione deumque
disserere incipiam et rerum primordia pandam,
unde omnis natura creet res, auctet alatque,
quoque eadem rursus natura perempta resolvat,

For to you I shall begin to discourse about the highest reason of heaven and of the gods
and I shall lay open the primordial first-beginnings of things,
whence all nature creates things, augments and nourishes them,
and also how the same nature again dissolves the things once destroyed,

ut ait Lucretius.' Sequitur ergo ut, cum contemplativa sit, habeat decreta sua.

as Lucretius says.' Therefore it follows that, since it is contemplative, it should have its own decrees.

[12] Quid quod facienda quoque nemo rite obibit nisi is cui ratio erit tradita qua in quaque re omnis officiorum numeros exsequi possit? quos non servabit qui in rem praecepta acceperit, non in omne. Inbecilla sunt per se et, ut ita dicam, sine radice quae partibus dantur.

[12] What of this, too: that no one will duly carry out the things to be done unless he be one to whom the ratio has been handed down, by which in each and every matter he can execute all the numbers of duties? Which he will not observe, who has received precepts for the particular case, not for the whole. Feeble in themselves and, so to speak, without root are the things that are given in parts.

Decreta sunt quae muniant, quae securitatem nostram tranquillitatemque tueantur, quae totam vitam totamque rerum naturam simul contineant. Hoc interest inter decreta philosophiae et praecepta quod inter elementa et membra: haec ex illis dependent, illa et horum causae sunt et omnium.

Decrees are those which fortify, which protect our security and tranquility, which at once contain the whole of life and the whole nature of things. This is the difference between the decrees of philosophy and the precepts, as that between elements and members: these depend on those; those are both the causes of these and of all things.

[13] 'Antiqua' inquit 'sapientia nihil aliud quam facienda ac vitanda praecepit, et tunc longe meliores erant viri: postquam docti prodierunt, boni desunt; simplex enim illa et aperta virtus in obscuram et sollertem scientiam versa est docemurque disputare, non vivere.'

[13] 'Ancient,' he says, 'wisdom prescribed nothing other than things to be done and things to be avoided, and then men were far better: after the learned have come forth, good men are lacking; for that simple and open virtue has been turned into obscure and skillful science, and we are taught to dispute, not to live.'

[14] Fuit sine dubio, ut dicitis, vetus illa sapientia cum maxime nascens rudis non minus quam ceterae artes quarum in processu subtilitas crevit. Sed ne opus quidem adhuc erat remediis diligentibus. Nondum in tantum nequitia surrexerat nec tam late se sparserat: poterant vitiis simplicibus obstare remedia simplicia.

[14] There was, without doubt, as you say, that old wisdom, at its very birth, rude, no less than the other arts, whose subtlety grew in the process. But there was not yet even need of diligent remedies. Iniquity had not yet risen to such a degree nor spread itself so widely: simple remedies could obstruct simple vices.

Nunc necesse est tanto operosiora esse munimenta quanto vehementiora sunt quibus petimur.

Now it is necessary that the muniments be the more operose, the more vehement are those by which we are assailed.

[15] Medicina quondam paucarum fuit scientia herbarum quibus sisteretur fluens sanguis, vulnera coirent; paulatim deinde in hanc pervenit tam multiplicem varietatem. Nec est mirum tunc illam minus negotii habuisse firmis adhuc solidisque corporibus et facili cibo nec per artem voluptatemque corrupto: qui postquam coepit non ad tollendam sed ad inritandam famem quaeri et inventae sunt mille conditurae quibus aviditas excitaretur, quae desiderantibus alimenta erant onera sunt plenis.

[15] Medicine was once a science of a few herbs by which flowing blood might be staunched, wounds might cohere; little by little then it arrived at this so manifold a variety. Nor is it a marvel that at that time it had less business, with bodies as yet firm and solid, and with simple food not corrupted by art and pleasure: which, after it began to be sought not to take away but to irritate hunger, and a thousand condiments were invented by which avidity might be excited, the things which were nourishment for the desiring are burdens for the full.

[16] Inde pallor et nervorum vino madentium tremor et miserabilior ex cruditatibus quam ex fame macies; inde incerti labantium pedes et semper qualis in ipsa ebrietate titubatio; inde in totam cutem umor admissus distentusque venter dum male adsuescit plus capere quam poterat; inde suffusio luridae bilis et decolor vultus tabesque ~in se~ putrescentium et retorridi digiti articulis obrigescentibus nervorumque sine sensu iacentium torpor aut palpitatio [corporum] sine intermissione vibrantium.

[16] Thence pallor and the tremor of nerves soaked with wine, and an emaciation more pitiable from crudities than from hunger; thence the uncertain feet of those slipping, and a titubation always such as in drunkenness itself; thence humor admitted into the whole skin and a distended belly, while it ill-accustoms itself to take in more than it could; thence a suffusion of lurid bile and a discolored countenance, and the tabes of the putrescent ~in themselves~, and bent-back fingers as the joints grow rigid, and the torpor of nerves lying without sensation, or the palpitation of [bodies] vibrating without intermission.

[17] Quid capitis vertigines dicam? quid oculorum auriumque tormenta et cerebri exaestuantis verminationes et omnia per quae exoneramur internis ulceribus adfecta? Innumerabilia praeterea febrium genera, aliarum impetu saevientium, aliarum tenui peste repentium, aliarum cum horrore et multa membrorum quassatione venientium?

[17] What shall I say of the head’s vertigos? what of the torments of the eyes and ears, and the verminations of a seething brain, and all the channels through which we are unloaded, afflicted by internal ulcers? Innumerable, moreover, are the kinds of fevers—some raging with an onrush, others creeping with a thin pestilence, others coming with horror and with much quassation of the limbs?

[18] Quid alios referam innumerabiles morbos, supplicia luxuriae? Immunes erant ab istis malis qui nondum se delicis solverant, qui sibi imperabant, sibi ministrabant. Corpora opere ac vero labore durabant, aut cursu defatigati aut venatu aut tellure versanda; excipiebat illos cibus qui nisi esurientibus placere non posset.

[18] Why should I recount other innumerable diseases, the punishments of luxury? Immune from those evils were they who had not yet dissolved themselves in delicacies, who commanded themselves, who ministered to themselves. Their bodies were hardened by work and by true labor, either wearied by running or by hunting or by turning the earth; food received them which could not please except the hungry.

Itaque nihil opus erat tam magna medicorum supellectile nec tot ferramentis atque puxidibus. Simplex erat ex causa simplici valetudo: multos morbos multa fericula fecerunt.

Therefore there was no need of so great a stock of physicians’ equipment nor of so many instruments and pyxes. Health was simple from a simple cause: many courses have produced many diseases.

[19] Vide quantum rerum per unam gulam transiturarum permisceat luxuria, terrarum marisque vastatrix. Necesse est itaque inter se tam diversa dissideant et hausta male digerantur aliis alio nitentibus. Nec mirum quod inconstans variusque ex discordi cibo morbus est et illa ex contrariis naturae partibus in eundem conpulsa redundant.

[19] See how many things luxury, the devastator of lands and sea, commingles to pass through a single gullet. It is necessary, therefore, that things so diverse disagree among themselves and, once gulped down, are badly digested, as some strive one way, others another. Nor is it a wonder that a disease from discordant food is inconstant and various, and that those things, driven together from contrary parts of nature into the same , overflow.

Inde tam novo aegrotamus genere quam vivimus.

Hence we are sick in as novel a kind as we live.

[20] Maximus ille medicorum et huius scientiae conditor feminis nec capillos defluere dixit nec pedes laborare: atqui et capillis destituuntur et pedibus aegrae sunt. Non mutata feminarum natura sed victa est; nam cum virorum licentiam aequaverint, corporum quoque virilium incommoda aequarunt.

[20] That greatest of the physicians and the founder of this science said that, for women, neither does hair flow out nor do the feet labor; and yet they are destitute of hair and are ailing in their feet. It is not the nature of women that has been changed, but it has been conquered; for when they have equaled the license of men, they have likewise equaled the incommodities of virile bodies.

[21] Non minus pervigilant, non minus potant, et oleo et mero viros provocant; aeque invitis ingesta visceribus per os reddunt et vinum omne vomitu remetiuntur; aeque nivem rodunt, solacium stomachi aestuantis. Libidine vero ne maribus quidem cedunt: pati natae (di illas deaeque male perdant!) adeo perversum commentae genus inpudicitiae viros ineunt. Quid ergo mirandum est maximum medicorum ac naturae peritissimum in mendacio prendi, cum tot feminae podagricae calvaeque sint?

[21] They are no less sleepless, no less drinkers, and with oil and with neat wine they provoke men; equally, things forced upon unwilling viscera they return through the mouth, and they re-measure all the wine by vomiting; equally they gnaw snow, a solace for a seething stomach. In lust indeed they do not yield even to males: born to suffer (may the gods and goddesses badly destroy them!), having devised so perverse a kind of impudicity, they penetrate men. What, then, is there to wonder at, that the greatest of physicians and the most skilled in nature was caught in a lie, since so many women are gouty (podagric) and bald?

Beneficium sexus sui vitiis perdiderunt et, quia feminam exuerant, damnatae sunt morbis virilibus.

They lost the benefit of their sex through their vices, and, because they had cast off womanhood, they were condemned to virile diseases.

[22] Antiqui medici nesciebant dare cibum saepius et vino fulcire venas cadentis, nesciebant sanguinem mittere et diutinam aegrotationem balneo sudoribusque laxare, nesciebant crurum vinculo brachiorumque latentem vim et in medio sedentem ad extrema revocare. Non erat necesse circumspicere multa auxiliorum genera, cum essent periculorum paucissima.

[22] The ancient physicians did not know to give food more often and to support with wine the veins that were collapsing; they did not know to let blood and to relax a long-protracted sickness by bath and by sweats; they did not know, by a ligature of the legs and by the hidden force of the arms, to recall to the extremities the power sitting in the middle. It was not necessary to look around for many kinds of aids, since the dangers were very few.

[23] Nunc vero quam longe processerunt mala valetudinis! Has usuras voluptatium pendimus ultra modum fasque concupitarum. Innumerabiles esse morbos non miraberis: cocos numera.

[23] Now indeed, how far the evils of ill-health have advanced! We pay these usuries of pleasures coveted beyond measure and right. You will not marvel that diseases are innumerable: count the cooks.

Cessat omne studium et liberalia professi sine ulla frequentia desertis angulis praesident; in rhetorum ac philosophorum scholis solitudo est: at quam celebres culinae sunt, quanta circa nepotum focos <se> iuventus premit!

All study ceases, and those who profess the liberal arts preside, without any attendance, in deserted corners; in the schools of rhetors and philosophers there is solitude: but how thronged the kitchens are, how much youth presses itself around the hearths of profligates!

[24] Transeo puerorum infelicium greges quos post transacta convivia aliae cubiculi contumeliae expectant; transeo agmina exoletorum per nationes coloresque discripta ut eadem omnibus levitas sit, eadem primae mensura lanuginis, eadem species capillorum, ne quis cui rectior est coma crispulis misceatur; transeo pistorum turbam, transeo ministratorum per quos signo dato ad inferendam cenam discurritur. Di boni, quantum hominum unus venter exercet!

[24] I pass over the flocks of unhappy boys, whom, after the banquets are finished, further bedchamber outrages await; I pass over the battalions of exolets, arranged by nations and by colors, so that all may have the same smoothness, the same measure of first down, the same appearance of hair, lest anyone whose hair is straighter be mixed with the curly-haired; I pass over the crowd of bakers, I pass over the servers, through whom, when a signal is given, there is a scurrying to bring in the dinner. Good gods, how many men one belly puts to work!

[25] Quid? tu illos boletos, voluptarium venenum, nihil occulti operis iudicas facere, etiam si praesentanei non fuerunt? Quid?

[25] What? Do you judge that those boletes, a voluptuary poison, effect nothing by occult operation, even if they were not immediate? What?

tu illam aestivam nivem non putas callum iocineribus obducere? Quid? illa ostrea, inertissimam carnem caeno saginatam, nihil existimas limosae gravitatis inferre?

do you not think that summer snow draws a callus over the livers? What? those oysters, the most inert flesh fattened with mud, do you estimate they bring in nothing of muddy gravity?

Quid? illud sociorum garum, pretiosam malorum piscium saniem, non credis urere salsa tabe praecordia? Quid?

What? Do you not believe that that garum of the allies, the precious sanies of bad fish, sears the vitals with salty rot? What?

illa purulenta et quae tantum non ex ipso igne in os transferuntur iudicas sine noxa in ipsis visceribus extingui? Quam foedi itaque pestilentesque ructus sunt, quantum fastidium sui exhalantibus crapulam veterem! scias putrescere sumpta, non concoqui.

Do you judge that those purulent things, and those which are transferred into the mouth almost straight from the very fire, are extinguished without harm in the very viscera? How foul and pestilential the belchings are, how much self-disgust in those exhaling their old crapulence! Know that what has been taken in putrefies, not concocted.

[26] Memini fuisse quondam in sermone nobilem patinam in quam quidquid apud lautos solet diem ducere properans in damnum suum popina congesserat: veneriae spondylique et ostrea eatenus circumcisa qua eduntur intervenientibus distinguebantur ~echini totam destructique~ sine ullis ossibus mulli constraverant.

[26] I remember there once being in conversation a famous platter, into which a popina, hastening to draw out the day among the elegant to its own harm, had heaped whatever it is wont to serve: Venus-shells and spondylus-shells and oysters, trimmed only to the point at which they are eaten, were marked off by intervening items; ~sea-urchins wholly broken up~; mullets, without any bones, had carpeted it.

[27] Piget esse iam singula: coguntur in unum sapores. In cena fit quod fieri debebat in ventre: expecto iam ut manducata ponantur. Quantulo autem hoc minus est, testas excerpere atque ossa et dentium opera cocum fungi?

[27] It irks me now to go into particulars: flavors are forced into one mass. At dinner there is done what ought to have been done in the belly: I am already expecting that things masticated be served. And by how little is this less than picking out shells and bones, and the cook’s doing the work of the teeth?

'Gravest luxuriari per singula: omnia semel et in eundem saporem versa ponantur. Quare ego ad unam rem manum porrigam? plura veniant simul, multorum ferculorum ornamenta coeant et cohaereant.

'It is onerous to luxuriate through things one by one: let everything at once, turned into the same savor, be set down. Why should I extend my hand to one thing? let more come at the same time; let the ornaments of many courses come together and cohere.

[28] Sciant protinus hi qui iactationem ex istis peti et gloriam aiebant non ostendi ista sed conscientiae dari. Pariter sint quae disponi solent, uno iure perfusa; nihil intersit; ostrea, echini, spondyli, mulli perturbati concoctique ponantur.' Non esset confusior vomentium cibus.

[28] Let those who were saying that ostentation and glory are sought from these things know at once that these are not displayed but are given to the conscience. Let the things that are wont to be set out be alike, drenched in one sauce; let it make no difference; let oysters, sea-urchins, spondyli, mullets, jumbled together and cooked, be served.' The food of those who vomit would not be more confused.

[29] Quomodo ista perplexa sunt, sic ex istis non singulares morbi nascuntur sed inexplicabiles, diversi, multiformes, adversus quos et medicina armare se coepit multis generibus, multis observationibus.

[29] As these things are perplexed, so from these there arise not singular diseases but inexplicable, diverse, multiform ones, against which even medicine has begun to arm itself with many kinds, many observations.

Idem tibi de philosophia dico. Fuit aliquando simplicior inter minora peccantis et levi quoque cura remediabiles: adversus tantam morum eversionem omnia conanda sunt. Et utinam sic denique lues ista vincatur!

The same I say to you about philosophy. It was once simpler, when people were offending in smaller things and were remediable even by slight care: against so great an overthrow of morals, everything must be attempted. And would that thus at last this plague be conquered!

[30] Non privatim solum sed publice furimus. Homicidia conpescimus et singulas caedes: quid bella et occisarum gentium gloriosum scelus? Non avaritia, non crudelitas modum novit.

[30] Not only in private but in public we steal. We restrain homicides and individual killings: what of wars and the glorious crime of peoples slain? Neither avarice nor cruelty knows a measure.

Et ista quamdiu furtim et a singulis fiunt minus noxia minusque monstrosa sunt: ex senatus consultis plebisque scitis saeva exercentur et publice iubentur vetata privatim.

And these things, so long as they are done furtively and by individuals, are less noxious and less monstrous: by senatorial decrees and plebiscites savage acts are exercised, and the things forbidden privately are publicly commanded.

[31] Quae clam commissa capite luerent, tum quia paludati fecere laudamus. Non pudet homines, mitissimum genus, gaudere sanguine alterno et bella gerere gerendaque liberis tradere, cum inter se etiam mutis ac feris pax sit.

[31] Things which, if committed secretly, would be paid for with the head, then, because the paludati did them, we laud. Are men not ashamed, the mildest genus, to rejoice in one another’s blood and to wage wars and hand them down to their children to be waged, when even among themselves the mute and the wild beasts have peace?

[32] Adversus tam potentem explicitumque late furorem operosior philosophia facta est et tantum sibi virium sumpsit quantum iis adversus quae parabatur accesserat. Expeditum erat obiurgare indulgentis mero et petentis delicatiorem cibum, non erat animus ad frugalitatem magna vi reducendus a qua paullum discesserat:

[32] Against so potent and far-unfolded frenzy, philosophy became more laborious, and took to itself as much strength as had been added to those things against which it was being prepared. It was easy to objurgate those indulging in wine and seeking more delicate fare; the spirit did not have to be brought back to frugality with great force, from which it had departed only a little:

[33]

nunc manibus rapidis opus est, nunc arte magistra.

now there is need of rapid hands, now of art as mistress.

Voluptas ex omni quaeritur. Nullum intra se manet vitium: in avaritiam luxuria praeceps est. Honesti oblivio invasit; nihil turpest cuius placet pretium.

Pleasure is sought from every source. No vice remains within itself: luxury is headlong into avarice. Oblivion of the honorable has seized; nothing is shameful whose price pleases.

Homo, sacra res homini, iam per lusum ac iocum occiditur et quem erudiri ad inferenda accipiendaque vulnera nefas erat, is iam nudus inermisque producitur satisque spectaculi ex homine mors est.

Man, a sacred thing to man, is now slain for sport and jest; and he whom it was impious to train for inflicting and for receiving wounds is now produced naked and unarmed, and the death of a man is spectacle enough.

[34] In hac ergo morum perversitate desideratur solito vehementius aliquid quod mala inveterata discutiat: decretis agendum est ut revellatur penitus falsorum recepta persuasio. His si adiunxerimus praecepta, consolationes, adhortationes, poterunt valere: per se inefficaces sunt.

[34] In this, therefore, perversity of morals, something is desired more vehemently than usual which may shake off the inveterate evils: we must proceed by decrees, that the received persuasion of falsehoods be utterly torn up by the root. To these, if we add precepts, consolations, exhortations, they can avail; by themselves they are ineffective.

[35] Si volumus habere obligatos et malis quibus iam tenentur avellere, discant quid malum, quid bonum sit, sciant omnia praeter virtutem mutare nomen, modo mala fieri, modo bona. Quemadmodum primum militiae vinculum est religio et signorum amor et deserendi nefas, tunc deinde facile cetera exiguntur mandanturque iusiurandum adactis, ita in iis quos velis ad beatam vitam perducere prima fundamenta iacienda sunt et insinuanda virtus. Huius quadam superstitione teneantur, hanc ament; cum hac vivere velint, sine hac nolint.

[35] If we wish to have them bound and to tear them away from the evils by which they are already held, let them learn what is evil and what is good; let them know that all things except virtue change their name, now becoming bad, now good. Just as the first bond of military service is religion and love of the standards and the impiety of deserting, then thereafter the rest are easily exacted and commanded once the oath has been administered, so in those whom you would lead to a blessed life the first foundations must be laid and virtue insinuated. Let them be held by a certain superstition for this, let them love this; let them wish to live with this, and not wish to live without this.

[36] 'Quid ergo? non quidam sine institutione subtili evaserunt probi magnosque profectus adsecuti sunt dum nudis tantum praeceptis obsequuntur?' Fateor, sed felix illis ingenium fuit et salutaria in transitu rapuit. Nam ut dii immortales nullam didicere virtutem cum omni editi et pars naturae eorum est bonos esse, ita quidam ex hominibus egregiam sortiti indolem in ea quae tradi solent perveniunt sine longo magisterio et honesta conplexi sunt cum primum audiere; unde ista tam rapacia virtutis ingenia vel ex se fertilia.

[36] 'What then? Have not certain persons without subtle instruction emerged upright and attained great progresses while they obey only bare precepts?' I confess it, but a happy natural genius was theirs and it snatched up salutary things in passing. For just as the immortal gods learned no virtue, being brought forth with it all, and it is part of their nature to be good, so certain men, having drawn an excellent disposition, arrive at those things which are wont to be handed down without long instruction, and embraced honorable things as soon as they first heard them; hence these talents so rapacious for virtue, or even fertile from themselves.

At illis aut hebetibus et obtusis aut mala consuetudine obsessis diu robigo animorum effricanda est.

But for those who are either dull and obtuse or obsessed by bad custom, the rust of their minds must be rubbed off for a long time.

[37] Ceterum, ut illos in bonum pronos citius educit ad summa, et hos inbecilliores adiuvabit malisque opinionibus extrahet qui illis philosophiae placita tradiderit; quae quam sint necessaria sic licet videas. Quaedam insident nobis quae nos ad alia pigros, ad alia temerarios faciunt; nec haec audacia reprimi potest nec illa inertia suscitari nisi causae eorum eximuntur, falsa admiratio et falsa formido. Haec nos quamdiu possident, dicas licet 'hoc patri praestare debes, hoc liberis, hoc amicis, hoc hospitibus': temptantem avaritia retinebit.

[37] Moreover, just as he who will have imparted to them the tenets of philosophy both leads forth those prone toward the good more quickly to the heights, so too he will aid these more weak and will extract them from evil opinions; how necessary these are you may thus see. Certain things sit in us which make us sluggish toward some matters, rash toward others; and neither can this audacity be repressed nor that inertia stirred unless their causes are removed—false admiration and false fear. So long as these possess us, though you may say, 'this you ought to render to your father, this to your children, this to friends, this to guests': avarice will hold back the one attempting.

Sciet pro patria pugnandum esse, dissuadebit timor; sciet pro amicis desudandum esse ad extremum usque sudorem, sed deliciae vetabunt; sciet in uxore gravissimum esse genus iniuriae paelicem, sed illum libido in contraria inpinget.

He will know that one must fight for the fatherland; fear will dissuade. He will know that one must sweat it out for friends to the very last drop of sweat, but delights will forbid; he will know that, in the case of a wife, the most grave kind of injury is a mistress, but lust will impel him into the contrary.

[38] Nihil ergo proderit dare praecepta nisi prius amoveris obstatura praeceptis, non magis quam proderit arma in conspectu posuisse propiusque admovisse nisi usurae manus expediuntur. Ut ad praecepta quae damus possit animus ire, solvendus est.

[38] Therefore it will profit nothing to give precepts unless you first remove what will stand in the way of the precepts, no more than it will profit to have set weapons in sight and brought them closer unless the hands are freed from encumbrances. So that the mind may be able to go to the precepts we give, it must be unbound.

[39] Putemus aliquem facere quod oportet: non faciet adsidue, non faciet aequaliter; nesciet enim quare faciat. Aliqua vel casu vel exercitatione exibunt recta, sed non erit in manu regula ad quam exigantur, cui credat recta esse quae fecit. Non promittet se talem in perpetuum qui bonus casu est.

[39] Let us suppose someone does what he ought: he will not do it assiduously, he will not do it uniformly; for he will not know why he does it. Some things will come out right either by chance or by exercise, but there will not be a rule at hand by which they may be measured, on the faith of which he may believe that the things he has done are right. He who is good by chance will not promise himself to be such in perpetuity.

[40] Deinde praestabunt tibi fortasse praecepta ut quod oportet faciat, non praestabunt ut quemadmodum oportet; si hoc non praestant, ad virtutem non perducunt. Faciet quod oportet monitus, concedo; sed id parum est, quoniam quidem non in facto laus est sed in eo quemadmodum fiat.

[40] Then precepts will perhaps secure for you that he do what is fitting; they will not secure that he do it as is fitting; if they do not secure this, they do not lead to virtue. Admonished, he will do what is fitting, I concede; but that is too little, since indeed praise is not in the deed but in the manner in which it is done.

[41] Quid est cena sumptuosa flagitiosius et equestrem censum consumente? quid tam dignum censoria nota, si quis, ut isti ganeones loquuntur, sibi hoc et genio suo praestet? et deciens tamen sestertio aditiales cenae frugalissimis viris constiterunt.

[41] What is more flagitious than a sumptuous dinner that consumes an equestrian census? what so worthy of a censorial mark, if someone, as those gluttons say, provides this for himself and for his Genius? and yet inaugural (aditial) banquets have cost the most frugal men 1,000,000 sesterces.

Eadem res, si gulae datur, turpis est, si honori, reprensionem effugit; non enim luxuria sed inpensa sollemnis est.

The same thing, if it is given to gluttony, is shameful; if to honor, it escapes reprehension; for it is not luxury but a solemn expense.

[42] Mullum ingentis formae — quare autem non pondus adicio et aliquorum gulam inrito? quattuor pondo et selibram fuisse aiebant — Tiberius Caesar missum sibi cum in macellum deferri et venire iussisset, 'amici,' inquit 'omnia me fallunt nisi istum mullum aut Apicius emerit aut P. Octavius'. Ultra spem illi coniectura processit: liciti sunt, vicit Octavius et ingentem consecutus est inter suos gloriam, cum quinque sestertiis emisset piscem quem Caesar vendiderat, ne Apicius quidem emerat. Numerare tantum Octavio fuit turpe, non illi qui emerat ut Tiberio mitteret, quamquam illum quoque reprenderim: admiratus est rem qua putavit Caesarem dignum.

[42] A mullet of enormous form — why, indeed, do I not add the weight and irritate the gullet of some? they said it was four pounds and a half-pound (4½ lb) — when Tiberius Caesar, after it had been sent to him, had ordered it to be carried into the macellum and to be sold, said, 'friends, everything deceives me unless either Apicius buys that mullet or P. Octavius.' His conjecture went beyond expectation: they bid; Octavius won and obtained immense glory among his own, since he had bought for five sesterces the fish which Caesar had put up for sale; not even Apicius had bought it. It was disgraceful only for Octavius to count out the money, not for the man who would have bought it to send it to Tiberius, although him too I would reprehend: he admired a thing which he thought worthy of Caesar.

Amico aliquis aegro adsidet: probamus.

Someone sits by a sick friend: we approve.

[43] At hoc hereditatis causa facit: vultur est, cadaver expectat. Eadem aut turpia sunt aut honesta: refert quare aut quemadmodum fiant. Omnia autem honeste fient si honesto nos addixerimus idque unum in rebus humanis bonum iudicarimus quaeque ex eo sunt; cetera in diem bona sunt.

[43] But he does this for the sake of an inheritance: he is a vulture, he waits for a cadaver. The same deeds are either foul or honorable: it matters for what reason or in what manner they are done. But all things will be done honorably if we have bound ourselves to the honorable and judged that to be the sole good in human affairs, and whatever things arise from it; the rest are good for the day.

[44] Ergo infigi debet persuasio ad totam pertinens vitam: hoc est quod decretum voco. Qualis haec persuasio fuerit, talia erunt quae agentur, quae cogitabuntur; qualia autem haec fuerint, talis vita erit. In particulas suasisse totum ordinanti parum est.

[44] Therefore a persuasion ought to be fastened, pertaining to the whole life: this is what I call a decree. Of whatever sort this persuasion shall have been, such will be the things that are done, the things that are thought; and of whatever sort these shall have been, such will life be. For one who is ordering the whole, it is too little to have persuaded in particles.

[45] M. Brutus in eo libro quem peri kathekontos inscripsit dat multa praecepta et parentibus et liberis et fratribus: haec nemo faciet quemadmodum debet nisi habuerit quo referat. Proponamus oportet finem summi boni ad quem nitamur, ad quem omne factum nostrum dictumque respiciat; veluti navigantibus ad aliquod sidus derigendus est cursus.

[45] M. Brutus, in that book which he entitled Peri Kathekontos, gives many precepts to parents, to children, and to brothers: no one will do these as he ought unless he has something to which he may refer them. We ought to set before us the end of the highest good, toward which we may strive, to which every deed and word of ours may have regard; just as for sailors the course must be directed by some star.

[46] Vita sine proposito vaga est; quod si utique proponendum est, incipiunt necessaria esse decreta. Illud, ut puto, concedes, nihil esse turpius dubio et incerto ac timide pedem referente. Hoc in omnibus rebus accidet nobis nisi eximuntur quae reprendunt animos et detinent et ire conarique totos vetant.

[46] Life without a purpose is wandering; and if indeed a purpose must be set forth, decrees begin to be necessary. This, as I think, you will grant: that nothing is more disgraceful than one who is doubtful and uncertain and draws back his foot timidly. This will befall us in all matters unless those things are removed which clutch back our minds and detain them and forbid them to go and to endeavor with their whole selves.

[47] Quomodo sint dii colendi solet praecipi. Accendere aliquem lucernas sabbatis prohibeamus, quoniam nec lumine dii egent et ne homines quidem delectantur fuligine. Vetemus salutationibus matutinis fungi et foribus adsidere templorum: humana ambitio istis officiis capitur, deum colit qui novit.

[47] How the gods are to be worshiped is accustomed to be prescribed. Let us forbid anyone to light lamps on the sabbaths, since the gods have no need of light and not even men are delighted by soot. Let us forbid the performance of morning salutations and sitting at the doors of temples: human ambition is captured by those offices; he worships God who knows Him.

Vetemus lintea et strigiles Iovi ferre et speculum tenere Iunoni: non quaerit ministros deus. Quidni? ipse humano generi ministrat, ubique et omnibus praesto est.

Let us forbid carrying linens and strigils to Jove and holding a mirror for Juno: the god does not require ministers. Why not? He himself ministers to the human race, he is at hand everywhere and for all.

[48] Audiat licet quem modum servare in sacrificiis debeat, quam procul resilire a molestis superstitionibus, numquam satis profectum erit nisi qualem debet deum mente conceperit, omnia habentem, omnia tribuentem, beneficum gratis.

[48] He may hear, to be sure, what measure he ought to observe in sacrifices, how far to recoil from troublesome superstitions; he will never have made sufficient progress unless he has conceived in his mind such a god as he ought—having all things, distributing all things, beneficent gratis.

[49] Quae causa est dis bene faciendi? natura. Errat si quis illos putat nocere nolle: non possunt.

[49] What is the cause of the gods’ doing good? Nature. He errs if anyone thinks they are unwilling to harm: they cannot.

Nec accipere iniuriam queunt nec facere; laedere etenim laedique coniunctum est. Summa illa ac pulcherrima omnium natura quos periculo exemit ne periculosos quidem fecit.

Nor are they able to receive injury nor to do it; for to harm and to be harmed are conjoined. That highest and most beautiful nature of all has not even made dangerous those whom it has exempted from peril.

[50] Primus est deorum cultus deos credere; deinde reddere illis maiestatem suam, reddere bonitatem sine qua nulla maiestas est; scire illos esse qui praesident mundo, qui universa vi sua temperant, qui humani generis tutelam gerunt interdum incuriosi singulorum. Hi nec dant malum nec habent; ceterum castigant quosdam et coercent et inrogant poenas et aliquando specie boni puniunt. Vis deos propitiare?

[50] The first part of the cult of the gods is to believe that the gods exist; then to render to them their own majesty, to render goodness, without which there is no majesty; to know that they are those who preside over the world, who temper all things by their force, who bear the tutelage of the human race, sometimes unmindful of individuals. These neither give evil nor have it; however, they chastise some and coerce and inflict penalties, and sometimes under the appearance of a good they punish. Do you wish to propitiate the gods?

bonus esto. Satis illos coluit quisquis imitatus est.

Be good. Whoever has imitated them has worshiped them enough.

[51] Ecce altera quaestio, quomodo hominibus sit utendum. Quid agimus? quae damus praecepta?

[51] Behold another question, how we are to make use of human beings. What do we do? what precepts do we give?

Ut parcamus sanguini humano? quantulum est ei non nocere cui debeas prodesse! Magna scilicet laus est si homo mansuetus homini est.

That we spare human blood? How little a thing it is not to harm him whom you ought to profit! Great praise indeed, if a man is gentle to a man.

Praecipiemus ut naufrago manum porrigat, erranti viam monstret, cum esuriente panem suum dividat? Quare omnia quae praestanda ac vitanda sunt dicam? cum possim breviter hanc illi formulam humani offici tradere:

Shall we prescribe that he extend a hand to a shipwrecked man, show the way to the errant, divide his bread with the hungry? Why should I say all the things which are to be performed and to be avoided? when I can briefly hand down to him this formula of human duty:

[52] omne hoc quod vides, quo divina atque humana conclusa sunt, unum est; membra sumus corporis magni. Natura nos cognatos edidit, cum ex isdem et in eadem gigneret; haec nobis amorem indidit mutuum et sociabiles fecit. Illa aequum iustumque composuit; ex illius constitutione miserius est nocere quam laedi; ex illius imperio paratae sint iuvandis manus.

[52] all this which you see, within which the divine and the human are enclosed, is one; we are members of a great body. Nature has brought us forth as kindred, since she begets us from the same and into the same; she has instilled in us mutual love and has made us sociable. She has composed what is fair and just; by her constitution it is more wretched to harm than to be harmed; at her command let hands be prepared for helping.

[53] Ille versus et in pectore et in ore sit:

[53] Let that verse be both in the breast and on the lips:

homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto.

i am a human, i think nothing human is alien to me.

Habeamus in commune: <in commune> nati sumus. Societas nostra lapidum fornicationi simillima est, quae, casura nisi in vicem obstarent, hoc ipso sustinetur.

Let us have things in common: <in common> we were born. Our society is most similar to the vaulting of stones, which, about to fall if they did not in turn oppose one another, is sustained by this very fact.

[54] Post deos hominesque dispiciamus quomodo rebus sit utendum. In supervacuum praecepta iactabimus nisi illud praecesserit, qualem de quacumque re habere debeamus opinionem, de paupertate, de divitiis, de gloria, de ignominia, de patria, de exilio. Aestimemus singula fama remota et quaeramus quid sint, non quid vocentur.

[54] After the gods and men, let us scrutinize how things are to be used. We will be casting precepts into the void unless this has gone before: what sort of opinion we ought to hold about any given matter—about poverty, about riches, about glory, about ignominy, about the fatherland, about exile. Let us appraise each thing with fame set aside, and let us inquire what they are, not what they are called.

[55] Ad virtutes transeamus. Praecipiet aliquis ut prudentiam magni aestimemus, ut fortitudinem conplectamur, iustitiam, si fieri potest, propius etiam quam ceteras nobis adplicemus; sed nil aget si ignoramus quid sit virtus, una sit an plures, separatae an innexae, an qui unam habet et ceteras habeat, quo inter se differant.

[55] Let us pass over to the virtues. Someone will prescribe that we esteem prudence highly, that we embrace fortitude, that we apply justice to ourselves, if it can be done, even more closely than the others; but he will accomplish nothing if we are ignorant what virtue is, whether it is one or several, separate or interconnected, whether he who has one also has the others, and in what way they differ among themselves.

[56] Non est necesse fabro de fabrica quaerere quod eius initium, quis usus sit, non magis quam pantomimo de arte saltandi: omnes istae artes se sciunt, nihil deest; non enim ad totam pertinent vitam. Virtus et aliorum scientia est et sui; discendum de ipsa est ut ipsa discatur.

[56] It is not necessary to ask a craftsman about craft what its beginning is, what its use may be, any more than to ask a pantomimist about the art of dancing: all those arts know themselves; nothing is lacking; for they do not pertain to the whole of life. Virtue is both a science of other things and of itself; one must learn about it itself so that it itself may be learned.

[57] Actio recta non erit nisi recta fuerit voluntas; ab hac enim est actio. Rursus voluntas non erit recta nisi habitus animi rectus fuerit; ab hoc enim est voluntas. Habitus porro animi non erit in optimo nisi totius vitae leges perceperit et quid de quoque iudicandum sit exegerit, nisi res ad verum redegerit.

[57] A right action will not be unless the will has been right; for from this comes the action. In turn, the will will not be right unless the habitus of the mind has been right; for from this comes the will. Furthermore, the habitus of the mind will not be in the best condition unless it has grasped the laws of the whole of life and has worked out what is to be judged about each thing, unless it has reduced matters to truth.

Non contingit tranquillitas nisi inmutabile certumque iudicium adeptis: ceteri decidunt subinde et reponuntur et inter missa adpetitaque alternis fluctuantur.

Tranquility does not befall any except those who have attained an immutable and certain judgment: the rest keep falling and being set back, and they fluctuate by turns between what they have let go and what they desire.

[58] Causa his quae iactationis est? quod nihil liquet incertissimo regimine utentibus, fama. Si vis eadem semper velle, vera oportet velis.

[58] What is the cause of their tossing? That nothing is clear to those who use the most uncertain helm—rumor. If you wish to will the same things always, you must will things that are true.

Ad verum sine decretis non pervenitur: continent vitam. Bona et mala, honesta et turpia, iusta et iniusta, pia et impia, virtutes ususque virtutum, rerum commodarum possessio, existimatio ac dignitas, valetudo, vires, forma, sagacitas sensuum — haec omnia aestimatorem desiderant. Scire liceat quanti quidque in censum deferendum sit.

To the truth one does not arrive without decrees: they contain life. Good and bad, honorable and base, just and unjust, pious and impious, the virtues and the use of the virtues, the possession of commodities, estimation and dignity, health, strength, form (beauty), the sagacity of the senses — all these require an appraiser. Let it be permitted to know at what price each thing ought to be carried into the census.

[59] Falleris enim et pluris quaedam quam sunt putas, adeoque falleris ut quae maxima inter nos habentur — divitiae, gratia, potentia — sestertio nummo aestimanda sint. Hoc nescies nisi constitutionem ipsam qua ista inter se aestimantur inspexeris. Quemadmodum folia per se virere non possunt, ramum desiderant cui inhaereant, ex quo trahant sucum, sic ista praecepta, si sola sunt, marcent; infigi volunt sectae.

[59] For you are mistaken and think certain things to be worth more than they are, and so mistaken are you that those which are held as the greatest among us — riches, favor, power — ought to be appraised at a single sesterce coin. You will not know this unless you inspect the very constitution by which these things are assessed in relation to one another. Just as leaves cannot be green by themselves, they need a branch to which they may cling, from which they draw sap, so these precepts, if they stand alone, wither; they want to be fixed into a sect.

[60] Praeterea non intellegunt hi qui decreta tollunt eo ipso confirmari illa quo tolluntur. Quid enim dicunt? praeceptis vitam satis explicari, supervacua esse decreta sapientiae [id est dogmata]. Atqui hoc ipsum quod dicunt decretum est tam mehercules quam si nunc ego dicerem recedendum a praeceptis velut supervacuis, utendum esse decretis, in haec sola studium conferendum; hoc ipso quo negarem curanda esse praecepta praeciperem.

[60] Moreover, those who abolish the decrees do not understand that by that very act those decrees are confirmed by the very thing by which they are abolished. For what do they say? that life is sufficiently unfolded by precepts, that the decrees of wisdom [that is, dogmata] are superfluous. And yet this very thing which they say is a decree just as, by Hercules, as if I were now to say that one must withdraw from precepts as if superfluous, that decrees must be used, that one’s zeal should be conferred upon these alone; by this very statement by which I would deny that precepts are to be cared for I would be prescribing.

[61] Quaedam admonitionem in philosophia desiderant, quaedam probationem et quidem multam, quia involuta sunt vixque summa diligentia ac summa subtilitate aperiuntur. Si probationes , necessaria sunt et decreta quae veritatem argumentis colligunt. Quaedam aperta sunt, quaedam obscura: aperta quae sensu conprehenduntur, quae memoria; obscura quae extra haec sunt.

[61] Certain things in philosophy require admonition, certain things proof, and indeed much, because they are involved and are scarcely opened even by the utmost diligence and the utmost subtlety. If proofs , decrees too are necessary, which gather the truth by arguments. Some things are open, some obscure: open are those which are comprehended by sense, those by memory; obscure are those which are outside these.

Ratio autem non impletur manifestis: maior eius pars pulchriorque in occultis est. Occulta probationem exigunt, probatio non sine decretis est; necessaria ergo decreta sunt.

Reason, however, is not fulfilled by manifest things: the greater and more beautiful part of it lies in hidden matters. Hidden things require proof, and proof is not without decrees; therefore decrees are necessary.

[62] Quae res communem sensum facit, eadem perfectum, certa rerum persuasio; sine qua si omnia in animo natant, necessaria sunt decreta quae dant animis inflexibile iudicium.

[62] The thing which makes common sense, the same brings it to perfection—a sure persuasion of things; without which, if everything floats in the mind, decrees are necessary which give minds an inflexible judgment.

[63] Denique cum monemus aliquem ut amicum eodem habeat loco quo se, ut ex inimico cogitet fieri posse amicum, in illo amorem incitet, in hoc odium moderetur, adicimus 'iustum est, honestum'. Iustum autem honestumque decretorum nostrorum continet ratio; ergo haec necessaria est, sine qua nec illa sunt.

[63] Finally, when we admonish someone to hold a friend in the same place as himself, to think that an enemy can become a friend, to incite love in the other, to moderate hatred in himself, we add, 'it is just, it is honorable.' Now reason—the rationale of our decrees—contains the just and the honorable; therefore this is necessary, without which neither are those.

[64] Sed utrumque iungamus; namque et sine radice inutiles rami sunt et ipsae radices iis quae genuere adiuvantur. Quantum utilitatis manus habeant nescire nulli licet, aperte iuvant: cor illud, quo manus vivunt, ex quo impetum sumunt, quo moventur, latet. Idem dicere de praeceptis possum: aperta sunt, decreta vero sapientiae in abdito.

[64] But let us join both; for both without a root the branches are useless, and the roots themselves are aided by the things which they have generated. No one is permitted to be ignorant how much utility the hands have; they help openly: that core (heart), by which the hands live, from which they take impulse, by which they are moved, lies hidden. I can say the same about precepts: they are open, but the decrees of wisdom are in hiding.

Sicut sanctiora sacrorum tantum initiati sciunt, ita in philosophia arcana illa admissis receptisque in sacra ostenduntur; at praecepta et alia eiusmodi profanis quoque nota sunt.

Just as the holier things of the sacred rites are known only to the initiated, so in philosophy those arcana are shown to those admitted and received into the sacred rites; but precepts and other things of that sort are known even to the profane.

[65] Posidonius non tantum praeceptionem (nihil enim nos hoc verbo uti prohibet) sed etiam suasionem et consolationem et exhortationem necessariam iudicat; his adicit causarum inquisitionem, aetiologian quam quare nos dicere non audeamus, cum grammatici, custodes Latini sermonis, suo iure ita appellent, non video. Ait utilem futuram et descriptionem cuiusque virtutis; hanc Posidonius 'ethologian' vocat, quidam 'characterismon' appellant, signa cuiusque virtutis ac vitii et notas reddentem, quibus inter se similia discriminentur.

[65] Posidonius judges not only preception (for nothing prevents us from using this word) but also suasion and consolation and exhortation to be necessary; to these he adds the inquiry of causes, aetiology, which I do not see why we should not dare to call it, since the grammarians, custodians of the Latin speech, by their own right so name it. He says that a description of each virtue will be useful as well; this Posidonius calls ‘ethology,’ some call ‘characterismon,’ setting forth the signs and marks of each virtue and vice, by which things similar among themselves are discriminated.

[66] Haec res eandem vim habet quam praecipere; nam qui praecipit dicit 'illa facies si voles temperans esse', qui describit ait 'temperans est qui illa facit, qui illis abstinet'. Quaeris quid intersit? alter praecepta virtutis dat, alter exemplar. Descriptiones has et, ut publicanorum utar verbo, iconismos ex usu esse confiteor: proponamus laudanda, invenietur imitator.

[66] This thing has the same force as giving a precept; for he who gives a precept says, 'you will do those things if you wish to be temperate,' he who describes says, 'temperate is he who does those things, who abstains from those things.' Do you ask what the difference is? The one gives the precepts of virtue, the other an exemplar. These descriptions and—so that I may use the publicans’ word—iconisms I confess to be of use: let us set forth things to be praised, an imitator will be found.

[67] Putas utile dari tibi argumenta per quae intellegas nobilem equum, ne fallaris empturus, ne operam perdas in ignavo? Quanto hoc utilius est excellentis animi notas nosse, quas ex alio in se transferre permittitur.

[67] Do you think it useful to be given arguments by which you may understand a noble horse, lest you be deceived when about to purchase, lest you waste effort on a sluggish one? How much more useful is it to know the marks of an excellent mind, which it is permitted to transfer from another into oneself.

[68]

Continuo pecoris generosi pullus in arvis
altius ingreditur et mollia crura reponit;
primus et ire viam et fluvios temptare minantis
audet et ignoto sese committere ponti,
nec vanos horret strepitus. Illi ardua cervix
argutumque caput, brevis alvus obesaque terga,
luxuriatque toris animosum pectus . . .
. . . Tum, si qua sonum procul arma dederunt,
stare loco nescit, micat auribus et tremit artus,
conlectumque premens volvit sub naribus ignem.

Straightway the foal of a noble stock in the fields
steps higher and sets down his pliant shanks;
he is first both to go the road and to test the threatening rivers,
and dares to commit himself to an unknown sea,
nor does he shudder at empty noises. To him a lofty neck,
and a keen head, a short belly and a well-fleshed back,
and his high-spirited chest luxuriates in muscles . . .
. . . Then, if any arms have given sound from afar,
he knows not to stand in place, his ears flicker and his limbs tremble,
and, pressing the collected fire, he rolls it beneath his nostrils.

[69] Dum aliud agit, Vergilius noster descripsit virum fortem: ego certe non aliam imaginem magno viro dederim. Si mihi M. Cato exprimendus inter fragores bellorum civilium inpavidus et primus incessens admotos iam exercitus Alpibus civilique se bello ferens obvium, non alium illi adsignaverim vultum, non alium habitum.

[69] While he is about another thing, our Vergil has described a brave man: I, for my part, would surely give no other image to a great man. If I had to portray M. Cato, undaunted amid the crashes of the civil wars and the first striding forth to meet the armies already brought up to the Alps, and bearing himself to confront the civil war, I would assign to him no other countenance, no other bearing.

[70] Altius certe nemo ingredi potuit quam qui simul contra Caesarem Pompeiumque se sustulit et aliis Caesareanas opes, aliis Pompeianas [tibi] foventibus utrumque provocavit ostenditque aliquas esse et rei publicae partes. Nam parum est in Catone dicere 'nec vanos horret strepitus'. Quidni? cum veros vicinosque non horreat, cum contra decem legiones et Gallica auxilia et mixta barbarica arma civilibus vocem liberam mittat et rem publicam hortetur ne pro libertate decidat, sed omnia experiatur, honestius in servitutem casura quam itura.

[70] Certainly no one could step more loftily than he who at once stood up against Caesar and Pompey and, while some were fostering Caesarian resources, others Pompeian [to you], challenged both and showed that there are also some parties belonging to the Republic. For it is too little to say of Cato, “nor does he shudder at empty noises.” Why not? when he does not shudder at the real and the near at hand, when against ten legions and Gallic auxiliaries and barbarian arms mingled with civil ones he sends forth a free voice and exhorts the Republic not to drop away from freedom, but to try everything—about to fall into servitude more honorably than to go into it.

[71] Quantum in illo vigoris ac spiritus, quantum in publica trepidatione fiduciaest! Scit se unum esse de cuius statu non agatur; non enim quaeri an liber Cato, sed an inter liberos sit: inde periculorum gladiorumque contemptus. Libet admirantem invictam constantiam viri inter publicas ruinas non labantis dicere 'luxuriatque toris animosum pectus'.

[71] How much vigor and spirit in him, how much confidence in the public trepidation there is! He knows that he is the one about whose status there is no deliberation; for the question is not whether Cato is free, but whether he is among the free: thence the contempt of dangers and of swords. It pleases me, as I admire the unconquered constancy of the man, not tottering amid public ruins, to say 'and the spirited breast luxuriates upon couches'.

[72] Proderit non tantum quales esse soleant boni viri dicere formamque eorum et liniamenta deducere sed quales fuerint narrare et exponere, Catonis illud ultimum ac fortissimum vulnus per quod libertas emisit animam, Laeli sapientiam et cum suo Scipione concordiam, alterius Catonis domi forisque egregia facta, Tuberonis ligneos lectos, cum in publicum sterneret, haedinasque pro stragulis pelles et ante ipsius Iovis cellam adposita conviviis vasa fictilia. Quid aliud paupertatem in Capitolio consecrare? Ut nullum aliud factum eius habeam quo illum Catonibus inseram, hoc parum credimus?

[72] It will be profitable not only to say what good men are wont to be and to draw out their form and lineaments, but to narrate what they have been and to set it forth: that last and most valiant wound of Cato, through which Liberty breathed out her soul; Laelius’s wisdom and his concord with his own Scipio; the outstanding deeds of the other Cato, at home and abroad; Tubero’s wooden couches, when he spread them in public, and goatskins as coverings in place of bedspreads, and earthenware vessels set for banquets before the very cell of Jupiter. What else is this than to consecrate Poverty on the Capitol? Grant that I have no other deed of his by which I may insert him among the Catos—do we think this too little?

censura fuit illa, non cena.

that was a censure, not a dinner.

[73] O quam ignorant homines cupidi gloriae quid illa sit aut quemadmodum petenda! Illo die populus Romanus multorum supellectilem spectavit, unius miratus est. Omnium illorum aurum argentumque fractum est et [in] milliens conflatum, at omnibus saeculis Tuberonis fictilia durabunt.

[73] O how ignorant are men greedy for glory of what it is or how it is to be sought! On that day the Roman people surveyed the furnishings of many, but marveled at those of one. The gold and silver of all those men were broken up and [into] a thousand times recast, but through all ages Tubero’s earthenware will endure.

Vale.

Farewell.