Letter 90

[1] Who can doubt, my dear Lucilius, that our living is a gift of the immortal gods, but our living well is a gift of philosophy? And so it would be taken for certain that we owe more to philosophy than to the gods, in the same proportion as a good life is a greater benefit than mere life, were it not that the gods themselves bestowed philosophy. Knowledge of it they gave to no one, but the capacity for it to all. [2] For if they had made this too a common good, and we were born already wise, wisdom would have lost what is best in itself: its not being among the things that come by chance. As it is, what is precious and magnificent in it is precisely this, that it does not fall to us, that each man owes it to himself, that it is not sought from another. What would you have in philosophy worth looking up to, if it were a thing handed out as a favor? [3] Its one task is to discover the truth about things divine and human. From it religion never withdraws, nor piety, nor justice, nor all the rest of that company of virtues, interlocked and clinging to one another. It has taught us to revere the divine, to love the human, to recognize that with the gods lies dominion, and among men, fellowship. This fellowship remained unbroken for a time, before avarice tore the community apart and became a cause of poverty even to those whom it had made the richest of all; for men ceased to possess everything once they began to want their own. [4] But the first of mortals, and those born from them, followed nature uncorrupted, having one and the same man as both their leader and their law, committed to the judgment of one better than themselves; for it is nature's way to make the worse submit to the better. Among dumb herds, indeed, it is either the largest bodies or the most powerful that take the lead: no degenerate bull goes before the cattle, but the one that has beaten the other males in size and brawn; the tallest leads the herd of elephants. Among men, the best counts as the greatest. And so a ruler was chosen for his mind, and for that reason the supreme happiness belonged to those nations among whom no one could be more powerful unless he were better; for the man who thinks he can do nothing except what he ought can safely do as much as he wishes. [5] Posidonius judges, then, that in that age which they call the golden age the rule lay with the wise. These men kept their hands in check and protected the weaker against the stronger; they persuaded and dissuaded, and pointed out what was useful and what was useless. Their foresight saw to it that their people lacked nothing, their courage warded off dangers, their generosity increased and adorned their subjects. To rule was a duty, not a kingdom. No one tested how much he could do against those through whom he had begun to be able to do anything, and no one had either the inclination toward wrongdoing or the occasion for it, since the man who ruled well was well obeyed, and a king could threaten his disobedient subjects with nothing greater than that he would depart from the kingdom. [6] But after vices crept in and kingdoms were turned into tyrannies, there began to be a need for laws; and these too, in the beginning, the wise men introduced. Solon, who founded Athens upon equal justice, was among the seven famed for wisdom; if the same age had produced Lycurgus, he would have been added as an eighth to that sacred number. The laws of Zaleucus and of Charondas are praised; these men learned, not in the forum nor in the chamber of legal advisers, but in that silent and holy retreat of Pythagoras, the principles of justice which they would lay down for Sicily, then flourishing, and for Greek Italy. [7] So far I agree with Posidonius. But that the arts which life uses in its daily round were invented by philosophy I will not grant, nor will I credit it with the glory of the workshop. "It was philosophy," he says, "that taught men, scattered about and sheltered either in huts or in some dug-out rock or in the trunk of a hollowed tree, to build themselves roofs." But for my part I judge that philosophy no more devised these contrivances of roofs rising over roofs and cities pressing upon cities than it devised the fish-ponds enclosed so that gluttony need not run the risk of storms, and so that, however fiercely the sea raged, luxury might have its own harbors in which to fatten its sorted shoals of fish. [8] What do you say? Did philosophy teach men to have a key and a bolt? What was that but giving a signal to avarice? Did philosophy hang up these overhanging roofs with such great danger to those living beneath them? For was it not enough to be sheltered by whatever came to hand, and to find oneself some natural shelter without art and without difficulty? [9] Believe me, that age was a happy one before the architects, before the builders. These things were born when luxury was already being born: to cut beams into squares, and with the saw running along a marked line to split the timber with sure hand; for the first man cleaved his wood with wedges. For roofs were not being prepared for a banqueting hall meant to host a feast, nor was pine or fir carted off for this purpose in a long line of wagons, the streets trembling, so that from it might hang panels heavy with gold. [10] Forked poles set up on either side propped up the cottage; with packed-together branches and heaped-up leaves arranged on a slope there was a runoff even for the heaviest rains. Under such roofs they lived, but they lived free of care: thatch covered free men; under marble and gold dwells slavery. [11] On this point too I disagree with Posidonius, that he judges the smith's tools to have been devised by wise men; for on that reasoning one might say that those were wise through whom [snares were devised to trap game, and birdlime to deceive the birds, and the encircling of great woods with hounds.] For all these things the shrewdness of men, not wisdom, discovered. [12] On this too I disagree, that wise men discovered the mines of iron and bronze, when the earth, scorched by the burning of forests, melted and poured out the veins of ore lying at its surface: such things are discovered by the sort of men who work at them. [13] Nor does that question seem to me as subtle as it does to Posidonius, namely whether the hammer or the tongs came first into use. Both were invented by some man of quick and keen wit, but not great or lofty, and so with whatever else must be sought with the body bent over and the mind gazing at the ground. The wise man was easy to satisfy in his way of living. Why not? Since even in this age of ours he would wish to be as unencumbered as possible. [14] How, I ask you, does it square that you admire both Diogenes and Daedalus? Which of these two seems to you the wise man? The one who devised the saw, or the one who, when he had seen a boy drinking water from his cupped hand, at once broke the cup he had taken from his knapsack, reproaching himself thus: "Fool that I am, how long have I carried superfluous baggage!"—the one who curled himself up in his jar and slept in it? [15] Today, which, in the end, do you think the wiser: the man who has discovered how to force saffron to a vast height through hidden pipes, who fills or drains channels with a sudden rush of water, and so joins together the rotating panels of a dining-room ceiling that one appearance succeeds another, the roof changing as often as the courses are changed, or the man who shows both others and himself how nature has imposed on us nothing harsh or difficult, how we can live without the marble-worker and the smith, how we can be clothed without trade in silks, how we can have what is necessary for our use if we are content with what the earth has set on its surface? If the human race were willing to listen to this man, it would know that a cook is as superfluous to it as a soldier. [16] Those were wise men, or at any rate like the wise, for whom the care of the body was a simple matter. The necessities are met with simple care: it is for luxuries that men labor. You will not need craftsmen: follow nature. She did not wish us to be harassed; for whatever she compelled us to, she equipped us for. "Cold is unbearable to the naked body." What then? Cannot the skins of wild beasts and other animals defend us against the cold abundantly and more than enough? Do not very many nations cover their bodies with the bark of trees? Are not the feathers of birds sewn together for use as clothing? Does not even today a great part of the Scythians dress in the hides of foxes and mice, which are soft to the touch and impenetrable to the winds? [17] "But still there is need to drive off the heat of the summer sun with thicker shade." What then? Has not great age hidden away many places which, hollowed out either by the ravages of time or by some other chance, have receded into a cave? What then? Do not the tribes of the Syrtes lie hidden underground, and all those for whom, because of the excessive blaze of the sun, no covering is solid enough to repel the heat except the parched earth itself? [18] Nature was not so unfair that, while she gave all other animals an easy passage through life, man alone could not live without so many arts; nothing harsh has been laid upon us by her, nothing that must be sought with toil, so that life may be carried on. We were born to things ready at hand: it is we who, out of disdain for what is easy, have made everything difficult for ourselves. Roofs and coverings and warm comforts for the body, and food, and the things that have now become a vast undertaking, were available, free, and procurable with light effort; for the measure of all things matched the need: it is we who have made these things precious, marvelous, to be sought after with great and many arts. [19] Nature suffices for what she demands. Luxury has revolted from nature; daily it goads itself on, grows through so many ages, and with its ingenuity assists the vices. At first it began to crave the superfluous, then the harmful, and finally it made the mind a bondsman to the body and bade it serve the body's lust. All those arts by which the city is kept busy, or kept in an uproar, are conducting the body's business—the body, to which once everything was supplied as to a slave, but now is furnished as to a master. And so from this come the workshops of the weavers, from this of the smiths, from this the kitchens of those who cook up perfumes, from this those who teach soft movements of the body and soft, broken songs. For that natural measure has departed, the one that bounded desires by what is necessary; now it is a mark of boorishness and misery to want only as much as is enough. [20] It is incredible, my dear Lucilius, how easily even great men are led away from the truth by the sweetness of speech. Look at Posidonius—one of those, in my opinion, who have contributed most to philosophy—while he wishes to describe first how some threads are twisted and others drawn out from the soft, loosened mass, then how the loom, with its hanging weights, stretches the warp straight, how the inserted woof, which softens the hardness of the weft pressing it from either side, is forced by the batten to come together and be joined: he declared that the art of weaving too was invented by wise men, forgetting that this finer kind was discovered later, in which [the web is fastened to the beam; the reed separates the warp; the woof is inserted between by the pointed shuttles, and the broad comb's notched teeth drive it home.] What if it had fallen to him to see the looms of our own time, on which clothing is made that will conceal nothing, in which there is, I will not say no help for the body, but no help even for modesty? [21] He then passes on to the farmers, and with no less eloquence describes the soil broken by the plow and gone over again so that the loosened earth may lie more open to the roots, then the seed scattered and the weeds plucked out by hand, lest anything chance or wild should grow up to kill the crop. This work too, he says, belongs to the wise—as though even now the tillers of the fields did not discover very many new methods by which fertility is increased. [22] Then, not content with these arts, he sends the wise man down into the mill; for he tells how, imitating the nature of things, the wise man began to make bread. "The grains received into the mouth," he says, "are crushed by the hard teeth meeting one another, and whatever falls out the tongue carries back to those same teeth; then it is mixed with moisture so that it may pass more easily down the slippery throat; when it reaches the stomach, it is digested by the stomach's even heat; then at last it is added to the body. [23] Following this model, someone set a rough stone upon a rough stone, in the likeness of the teeth, of which one part is fixed and awaits the motion of the other; then by the friction of both the grains are crushed and brought back again and again, until by frequent grinding they are reduced to fine powder; then he sprinkled the meal with water and, by constant working, subdued it and shaped the loaf, which at first the hot ash and the glowing earthenware baked, and afterward ovens, gradually discovered, and other devices whose heat would obey one's wish." He came not far short of saying that the cobbler's trade too was invented by the wise. [24] All these things reason indeed devised, but not right reason. They are the inventions of man, not of the wise man—just as, by Hercules, are the ships in which we cross rivers and seas, fitted with sails to catch the force of the winds, and with rudders added at the stern to turn the vessel's course this way and that. The model was drawn from the fish, which are steered by the tail and, by a slight movement of it to either side, bend their swift course. [25] "All these things," he says, "the wise man did indeed invent, but, as too petty for him to handle himself, he handed them over to humbler assistants." On the contrary, these things were thought out by none other than those who attend to them today. Some, we know, have come to light only within our own memory, such as the use of window-panes that transmit a clear light through transparent glass, or the suspended floors of baths and the pipes set into the walls through which heat is distributed to warm the lowest parts together with the highest equally. Why should I speak of the marble with which temples and houses gleam? Or the masses of stone shaped into rounded and smooth form by which we raise up colonnades and roofs spacious enough for whole peoples? Or the symbols for words by which a speech, however rapid, is taken down, and the hand keeps pace with the speed of the tongue? These are the devices of the cheapest slaves. [26] Wisdom sits higher and does not train the hands: she is the mistress of minds. Do you wish to know what she has unearthed, what she has accomplished? Not the graceful movements of the body, nor the varied songs played through trumpet and pipe, by which the breath taken in is shaped into voice as it goes out or passes through. She does not contrive arms, nor walls, nor things useful for war: she favors peace and calls the human race to concord. [27] She is not, I say, a craftsman of instruments for the necessary uses. Why do you assign her such tiny things? You see the craftsman of life. The other arts she has, indeed, under her dominion; for to the one whom life serves, the things that adorn life serve too: but she herself reaches toward the happy state, leads us thither, opens the ways thither. [28] She shows which things are evils and which only seem so; she strips vanity from minds, gives a greatness that is solid, but represses the kind that is inflated and showy from emptiness, and does not allow us to be ignorant of the difference, among great things, between the great and the merely swollen; she hands down knowledge of the whole of nature and of herself. She declares what the gods are and of what kind, what the powers below are, what the household gods and the guardian spirits are, what those souls are that, having endured into a second form of divinity, continue—where they have their place, what they do, what they can do, what they will. These are her rites of initiation, through which is unlocked, not a local shrine, but the vast temple of all the gods, the world itself, whose true images and true faces she has brought forth for minds to behold; for the sight is too dull for spectacles so great. [29] Then she returns to the first beginnings of things and to the eternal reason set within the whole, and to the power of all the seeds, which gives to each its own proper shape. Then she began to inquire about the mind: where it comes from, where it is, how long it lasts, into how many parts it is divided. Then she transferred herself from bodies to incorporeal things and sifted out truth and its proofs; after this, how the ambiguities of life or of speech might be distinguished, for in both the false is mingled with the true. [30] The wise man, I say, did not withdraw himself (as Posidonius thinks) from those arts, but rather never came to them at all. For he would have judged nothing worth discovering that he was not going to judge worth using forever; he would not take up what must be laid aside. [31] "Anacharsis," he says, "invented the potter's wheel, by whose turning vessels are shaped." Then, because the potter's wheel is found in Homer, he preferred to think the verses false rather than the story. I, for my part, neither maintain that Anacharsis was the author of this thing, and, even if he was, a wise man did indeed invent it, but not as a wise man—just as wise men do many things insofar as they are men, not insofar as they are wise. Suppose a wise man is exceedingly swift: he will outrun everyone in the race insofar as he is swift, not insofar as he is wise. I should like to show Posidonius some glassblower who shapes glass with his breath into a great many forms that could scarcely be fashioned by a careful hand. These things were discovered after we stopped discovering the wise man. [32] "Democritus," he says, "is said to have invented the arch, so that the curve of stones gradually leaning toward each other is bound together by a central stone." This I shall say is false; for there must have been bridges and gateways before Democritus, whose tops are generally curved. [33] It has slipped your minds, moreover, that this same Democritus discovered how ivory might be softened, how a pebble, by boiling, might be turned into an emerald—the very firing by which even today stones found suitable for this are colored. A wise man may have discovered these things, but he did not discover them insofar as he was wise; for he does many things which we see done just as well, or more skillfully and practiced, by the most ignorant men. [34] Do you ask what the wise man has investigated, what he has dragged into the light? First, the truth and nature, which he followed not, as the other animals do, with eyes too slow for things divine; then the law of life, which he directed by universal principles, and he taught us not only to know the gods but to follow them, and to receive what happens no otherwise than as commanded. He forbade us to obey false opinions and weighed by a true estimation what each thing was worth; he condemned pleasures mixed with regret and praised the goods that will always please, and he made it plain that he is most happy who has no need of happiness, and most powerful who has himself in his own power. [35] I am not speaking of that philosophy which has placed the citizen outside his country and the gods outside the world, which has handed virtue over to pleasure, but of that which thinks nothing a good except what is honorable, which cannot be coaxed by the gifts of either man or fortune, whose value is this: that it cannot be captured at any price. That this philosophy existed in that rude age, when crafts were still lacking and useful things were learned by practice itself, I do not believe. [36] There were, to be sure, fortunate times, when the benefits of nature lay open in common for all to use without distinction, before avarice and luxury divided mortals from one another and taught them, abandoning their shared life, to scatter to plunder: those men were not wise, even if they did what wise men ought to do. [37] No one, indeed, could admire any other condition of the human race more, and if a god permitted someone to shape earthly things and to give peoples their customs, he would approve of nothing other than what is recorded to have existed among those people among whom [no one plowed the land, nor was it lawful to mark off the field or divide it with a boundary; men sought their gains in common, and the earth herself bore everything more freely with no one demanding it.] [38] What was happier than that kind of men? They enjoyed the world of nature in common; she sufficed, like a parent, for the protection of all; this was the secure possession of public wealth. Why should I not call that the richest race of mortals, in which you could not find a poor man? Avarice broke in upon things so well arranged, and, while it desired to set something apart and turn it to its own, it made everything belong to others and reduced itself from boundlessness into a narrow space. Avarice brought in poverty and, by coveting much, lost everything. [39] And so, though it now tries to repair what it lost, though it adds field to field, driving out a neighbor either by price or by wrong, though it extends its country estates to the size of provinces and calls a long journey through one's own land "ownership": no extension of our boundaries will lead us back to the point from which we departed. When we have done everything, we shall have much: we used to have the whole. [40] The earth itself was more fertile untilled, and generous in the use of peoples who did not plunder it. Whatever nature had brought forth, it was as much a pleasure to have found it as to show it, once found, to another; and no one could have either too much or too little: it was divided among people in harmony. The stronger had not yet laid his hand upon the weaker, the greedy man had not yet, by hiding away what lay before him, shut another off even from necessities: each cared as much for another as for himself. [41] Weapons lay idle, and hands unstained by human blood had turned all their hatred against wild beasts. Those whom some dense grove had sheltered from the sun, who lived safe beneath the leaves against the harshness of winter or rain in a cheap shelter, passed their nights peacefully without a sigh. Anxiety tosses us about in our purple and rouses us with the sharpest of goads: but how soft a sleep the hard ground gave to them! [42] No carved panels hung over them, but as they lay in the open the stars glided above, and, the splendid spectacle of the nights, the world was driven headlong, conducting so great a work in silence alone. By day as by night the views of this most beautiful house lay open to them; they liked to gaze at the constellations sinking from mid-sky, and again at others rising from their hidden place. [43] Why should it not delight them to wander among marvels strewn so far and wide? But you tremble at every sound your roofs make, and among your paintings, if anything creaks, you flee thunderstruck. They had no houses the size of cities. The breeze and the free draft blowing among open spaces, and the light shade of a crag or a tree, and crystal-clear springs and streams not spoiled by labor nor by pipe nor by any forced channel but running of their own accord, and meadows beautiful without art—amid these a rustic dwelling polished by a country hand: this was a house according to nature, in which it was a joy to live, fearing neither it nor for it; now a great part of our fear is our roofs. [44] But however outstanding their life was, and free from deceit, they were not wise men, since that name now belongs to the greatest achievement. 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 brought forth better things before it was worn out. But just as in all of them the native disposition was stronger and readier for toil, so their talents were not in all of them brought to perfection. For nature does not give virtue: to become good is an art. [45] They, indeed, sought neither gold nor silver nor translucent stones in the lowest dregs of the earth, and they still spared even the dumb animals: so far were they from a man killing a man, neither in anger nor in fear, but merely to make a show. They had as yet no embroidered clothing, gold was not yet woven, nor yet even dug up. [46] What, then, is the point? They were innocent through ignorance of things; but it matters greatly whether someone is unwilling to sin or does not know how. They lacked justice, lacked prudence, lacked self-control and courage. Their rude life had something resembling all these virtues; but virtue does not come to a mind unless it has been trained and taught and brought to the highest pitch by constant practice. We are born for this, but not in possession of it, and even in the best of men, before you educate them, there is the raw material of virtue, not virtue itself. Farewell.

Who can doubt, my dear Lucilius, that life is the gift of the immortal gods, but that living well is the gift of philosophy? Hence the idea that our debt to philosophy is greater than our debt to the gods, in proportion as a good life is more of a benefit than mere life, would be regarded as correct, were not philosophy itself a boon which the gods have bestowed upon us. They have given the knowledge thereof to none, but the faculty of acquiring it they have given to all. For if they had made philosophy also a general good, and if we were gifted with understanding at our birth, wisdom would have lost her best attribute—that she is not one of the gifts of fortune. For as it is, the precious and noble characteristic of wisdom is that she does not advance to meet us, that each man is indebted to himself for her, and that we do not seek her at the hands of others. What would there be in philosophy worthy of your respect, if she were a thing that came by bounty? Her sole function is to discover the truth about things divine and things human. From her side religion never departs, nor duty, nor justice, nor any of the whole company of virtues which cling together in close-united fellowship. Philosophy has taught us to worship that which is divine, to love that which is human; she has told us that with the gods lies dominion, and among men, fellowship. This fellowship remained unspoiled for a long time, until avarice tore the community asunder and became the cause of poverty, even in the case of those whom she herself had most enriched. For men cease to possess all things the moment they desire all things for their own. But the first men and those who sprang from them, still unspoiled, followed nature, having one man as both their leader and their law, entrusting themselves to the control of one better than themselves. For nature has the habit of subjecting the weaker to the stronger. Even among the dumb animals those which are either biggest or fiercest hold sway. It is no weakling bull that leads the herd; it is one that has beaten the other males by his might and his muscle. In the case of elephants, the tallest goes first; among men, the best is regarded as the highest. That is why it was to the mind that a ruler was assigned; and for that reason the greatest happiness rested with those peoples among whom a man could not be the more powerful unless he were the better. For that man can safely accomplish what he will who thinks he can do nothing except what he ought to do. Accordingly, in that age which is maintained to be the golden age, Posidonius holds that the government was under the jurisdiction of the wise. They kept their hands under control, and protected the weaker from the stronger. They gave advice, both to do and not to do; they showed what was useful and what was useless. Their forethought provided that their subjects should lack nothing; their bravery warded off dangers; their kindness enriched and adorned their subjects. For them ruling was a service, not an exercise of royalty. No ruler tried his power against those to whom he owed the beginnings of his power; and no one had the inclination, or the excuse, to do wrong, since the ruler ruled well and the subject obeyed well, and the king could utter no greater threat against disobedient subjects than that they should depart from the kingdom. But when once vice stole in and kingdoms were transformed into tyrannies, a need arose for laws; and these very laws were in turn framed by the wise. Solon, who established Athens upon a firm basis by just laws, was one of the seven men renowned for their wisdom. Had Lycurgus lived in the same period, an eighth would have been added to that hallowed number seven. The laws of Zaleucus and Charondas are praised; it was not in the forum or in the offices of skilled counsellors, but in the silent and holy retreat of Pythagoras, that these two men learned the principles of justice which they were to establish in Sicily (which at that time was prosperous) and throughout Grecian Italy. Up to this point I agree with Posidonius; but that philosophy discovered the arts of which life makes use in its daily round I refuse to admit, nor will I ascribe to it an artisan’s glory. Posidonius says: “When men were scattered over the earth, protected by caves or by the dug-out shelter of a cliff or by the trunk of a hollow tree, it was philosophy that taught them to build houses.” But I, for my part, do not hold that philosophy devised these shrewdly-contrived dwellings of ours which rise story upon story, where city crowds against city, any more than that she invented the fish-preserves, which are enclosed for the purpose of saving men’s gluttony from having to run the risk of storms, and in order that, no matter how wildly the sea is raging, luxury may have its safe harbours in which to fatten fancy breeds of fish. What! Was it philosophy that taught the use of keys and bolts? Nay, what was that except giving a hint to avarice? Was it philosophy that erected all these towering tenements, so dangerous to the persons who dwell in them? Was it not enough for man to provide himself a roof of any chance covering, and to contrive for himself some natural retreat without the help of art and without trouble? Believe me, that was a happy age, before the days of architects, before the days of builders! All this sort of thing was born when luxury was being born,—this matter of cutting timbers square and cleaving a beam with unerring hand as the saw made its way over the marked-out line. The primal man with wedges split his wood. For they were not preparing a roof for a future banquet-ball; for no such use did they carry the pine-trees or the firs along the trembling streets with a long row of drays—merely to fasten thereon panelled ceilings heavy with gold. Forked poles erected at either end propped up their houses. With close-packed branches and with leaves heaped up and laid sloping they contrived a drainage for even the heaviest rains. Beneath such dwellings, they lived, but they lived in peace. A thatched roof once covered free men; under marble and gold dwells slavery. On another point also I differ from Posidonius, when he holds that mechanical tools were the invention of wise men. For on that basis one might maintain that those were wise who taught the arts Of setting traps for game, and liming twigs For birds, and girdling mighty woods with dogs. It was man’s ingenuity, not his wisdom, that discovered all these devices. And I also differ from him when he says that wise men discovered our mines of iron and copper, “when the earth, scorched by forest fires, melted the veins of ore which lay near the surface and caused the metal to gush forth.” Nay, the sort of men who discover such things are the sort of men who are busied with them. Nor do I consider this question so subtle as Posidonius thinks, namely, whether the hammer or the tongs came first into use. They were both invented by some man whose mind was nimble and keen, but not great or exalted; and the same holds true of any other discovery which can only be made by means of a bent body and of a mind whose gaze is upon the ground. The wise man was easy-going in his way of living. And why not? Even in our own times he would prefer to be as little cumbered as possible. How, I ask, can you consistently admire both Diogenes and Daedalus? Which of these two seems to you a wise man—the one who devised the saw, or the one who, on seeing a boy drink water from the hollow of his hand, forthwith took his cup from his wallet and broke it, upbraiding himself with these words: “Fool that I am, to have been carrying superfluous baggage all this time!” and then curled himself up in his tub and lay down to sleep? In these our own times, which man, pray, do you deem the wiser—the one who invents a process for spraying saffron perfumes to a tremendous height from hidden pipes, who fills or empties canals by a sudden rush of waters, who so cleverly constructs a dining-room with a ceiling of movable panels that it presents one pattern after another, the roof changing as often as the courses,—or the one who proves to others, as well as to himself, that nature has laid upon us no stern and difficult law when she tells us that we can live without the marble-cutter and the engineer, that we can clothe ourselves without traffic in silk fabrics, that we can have everything that is indispensable to our use, provided only that we are content with what the earth has placed on its surface? If mankind were willing to listen to this sage, they would know that the cook is as superfluous to them as the soldier. Those were wise men, or at any rate like the wise, who found the care of the body a problem easy to solve. The things that are indispensable require no elaborate pains for their acquisition; it is only the luxuries that call for labour. Follow nature, and you will need no skilled craftsmen. Nature did not wish us to be harassed. For whatever she forced upon us, she equipped us. “But cold cannot be endured by the naked body.” What then? Are there not the skins of wild beasts and other animals, which can protect us well enough, and more than enough, from the cold? Do not many tribes cover their bodies with the bark of trees? Are not the feathers of birds sewn together to serve for clothing? Even at the present day does not a large portion of the Scythian tribe garb itself in the skins of foxes and mice, soft to the touch and impervious to the winds? “For all that, men must have some thicker protection than the skin, in order to keep off the heat of the sun in summer.” What then? Has not antiquity produced many retreats which, hollowed out either by the damage wrought by time or by any other occurrence you will, have opened into caverns? What then? Did not the very first-comers take twigs and weave them by hand into wicker mats, smear them with common mud, and then with stubble and other wild grasses construct a roof, and thus pass their winters secure, the rains carried off by means of the sloping gables? What then? Do not the peoples on the edge of the Syrtes dwell in dug-out houses—and indeed all the tribes who, because of the too fierce blaze of the sun, possess no protection sufficient to keep off the heat except the parched soil itself? Nature was not so hostile to man that, when she gave all the other animals an easy rôle in life, she made it impossible for him alone to live without all these artifices. None of these was imposed upon us by her; none of them had to be painfully sought out that our lives might be prolonged. All things were ready for us at our birth; it is we that have made everything difficult for ourselves, through our disdain for what is easy. Houses, shelter, creature comforts, food, and all that has now become the source of vast trouble, were ready at hand, free to all, and obtainable for trifling pains. For the limit everywhere corresponded to the need; it is we that have made all those things valuable, we that have made them admired, we that have caused them to be sought for by extensive and manifold devices. Nature suffices for what she demands. Luxury has turned her back upon nature; each day she expands herself, in all the ages she has been gathering strength, and by her wit promoting the vices. At first, luxury began to lust for what nature regarded as superfluous, then for that which was contrary to nature; and finally she made the soul a bondsman to the body, and bade it be an utter slave to the body’s lusts. All these crafts by which the city is patrolled—or shall I say kept in uproar—are but engaged in the body’s business; time was when all things were offered to the body as to a slave, but now they are made ready for it as for a master. Accordingly, hence have come the workshops of the weavers and the carpenters; hence the savoury smells of the professional cooks; hence the wantonness of those who teach wanton postures, and wanton and affected singing. For that moderation which nature prescribes, which limits our desires by resources restricted to our needs, has abandoned the field; it has now come to this—that to want only what is enough is a sign both of boorishness and of utter destitution. It is hard to believe, my dear Lucilius, how easily the charm of eloquence wins even great men away from the truth. Take, for example, Posidonius—who, in my estimation, is of the number of those who have contributed most to philosophy—when he wishes to describe the art of weaving. He tells how, first, some threads are twisted and some drawn out from the soft, loose mass of wool; next, how the upright warp keeps the threads stretched by means of hanging weights; then, how the inserted thread of the woof, which softens the hard texture of the web which holds it fast on either side, is forced by the batten to make a compact union with the warp. He maintains that even the weaver’s art was discovered by wise men, forgetting that the more complicated art which he describes was invented in later days—the art wherein The web is bound to frame; asunder now The reed doth part the warp. Between the threads Is shot the woof by pointed shuttles borne; The broad comb’s well-notched teeth then drive it home. Suppose he had had the opportunity of seeing the weaving of our own day, which produces the clothing that will conceal nothing, the clothing which affords—I will not say no protection to the body, but none even to modesty! Posidonius then passes on to the farmer. With no less eloquence he describes the ground which is broken up and crossed again by the plough, so that the earth, thus loosened, may allow freer play to the roots; then the seed is sown, and the weeds plucked out by hand, lest any chance growth or wild plant spring up and spoil the crop. This trade also, he declares, is the creation of the wise,—just as if cultivators of the soil were not even at the present day discovering countless new methods of increasing the soil’s fertility! Furthermore, not confining his attention to these arts, he even degrades the wise man by sending him to the mill. For he tells us how the sage, by imitating the processes of nature, began to make bread. “The grain,” he says, “once taken into the mouth, is crushed by the flinty teeth, which meet in hostile encounter, and whatever grain slips out the tongue turns back to the selfsame teeth. Then it is blended into a mass, that it may the more easily pass down the slippery throat. When this has reached the stomach, it is digested by the stomach’s equable heat; then, and not till then, it is assimilated with the body. Following this pattern,” he goes on, “someone placed two rough stones, the one above the other, in imitation of the teeth, one set of which is stationary and awaits the motion of the other set. Then, by the rubbing of the one stone against the other, the grain is crushed and brought back again and again, until by frequent rubbing it is reduced to powder. Then this man sprinkled the meal with water, and by continued manipulation subdued the mass and moulded the loaf. This loaf was, at first, baked by hot ashes or by an earthen vessel glowing hot; later on ovens were gradually discovered and the other devices whose heat will render obedience to the sage’s will.” Posidonius came very near declaring that even the cobbler’s trade was the discovery of the wise man. Reason did indeed devise all these things, but it was not right reason. It was man, but not the wise man, that discovered them; just as they invented ships, in which we cross rivers and seas—ships fitted with sails for the purpose of catching the force of the winds, ships with rudders added at the stern in order to turn the vessel’s course in one direction or another. The model followed was the fish, which steers itself by its tail, and by its slightest motion on this side or on that bends its swift course. “But,” says Posidonius, “the wise man did indeed discover all these things; they were, however, too petty for him to deal with himself and so he entrusted them to his meaner assistants.” Not so; these early inventions were thought out by no other class of men than those who have them in charge to-day. We know that certain devices have come to light only within our own memory—such as the use of windows which admit the clear light through transparent tiles, and such as the vaulted baths, with pipes let into their walls for the purpose of diffusing the heat which maintains an even temperature in their lowest as well as in their highest spaces. Why need I mention the marble with which our temples and our private houses are resplendent? Or the rounded and polished masses of stone by means of which we erect colonnades and buildings roomy enough for nations? Or our signs for whole words, which enable us to take down a speech, however rapidly uttered, matching speed of tongue by speed of hand? All this sort of thing has been devised by the lowest grade of slaves. Wisdom’s seat is higher; she trains not the hands, but is mistress of our minds. Would you know what wisdom has brought forth to light, what she has accomplished? It is not the graceful poses of the body, or the varied notes produced by horn and flute, whereby the breath is received and, as it passes out or through, is transformed into voice. It is not wisdom that contrives arms, or walls, or instruments useful in war; nay, her voice is for peace, and she summons all mankind to concord. It is not she, I maintain, who is the artisan of our indispensable implements of daily use. Why do you assign to her such petty things? You see in her the skilled artisan of life. The other arts, it is true, wisdom has under her control; for he whom life serves is also served by the things which equip life. But wisdom’s course is toward the state of happiness; thither she guides us, thither she opens the way for us. She shows us what things are evil and what things are seemingly evil; she strips our minds of vain illusion. She bestows upon us a greatness which is substantial, but she represses the greatness which is inflated, and showy but filled with emptiness; and she does not permit us to be ignorant of the difference between what is great and what is but swollen; nay, she delivers to us the knowledge of the whole of nature and of her own nature. She discloses to us what the gods are and of what sort they are; what are the nether gods, the household deities, and the protecting spirits; what are the souls which have been endowed with lasting life and have been admitted to the second class of divinities, where is their abode and what their activities, powers, and will. Such are wisdom’s rites of initiation, by means of which is unlocked, not a village shrine, but the vast temple of all the gods—the universe itself, whose true apparitions and true aspects she offers to the gaze of our minds. For the vision of our eyes is too dull for sights so great. Then she goes back to the beginnings of things, to the eternal Reason which was imparted to the whole, and to the force which inheres in all the seeds of things, giving them the power to fashion each thing according to its kind. Then wisdom begins to inquire about the soul, whence it comes, where it dwells, how long it abides, into how many divisions it falls. Finally, she has turned her attention from the corporeal to the incorporeal, and has closely examined truth and the marks whereby truth is known, inquiring next how that which is equivocal can be distinguished from the truth, whether in life or in language; for in both are elements of the false mingled with the true. It is my opinion that the wise man has not withdrawn himself, as Posidonius thinks, from those arts which we were discussing, but that he never took them up at all. For he would have judged that nothing was worth discovering that he would not afterwards judge to be worth using always. He would not take up things which would have to be laid aside. “But Anacharsis,” says Posidonius, “invented the potter’s wheel, whose whirling gives shape to vessels.” Then because the potter’s wheel is mentioned in Homer, people prefer to believe that Homer’s verses are false rather than the story of Posidonius! But I maintain that Anacharsis was not the creator of this wheel; and even if he was, although he was a wise man when he invented it, yet he did not invent it qua “wise man”—just as there are a great many things which wise men do as men, not as wise men. Suppose, for example, that a wise man is exceedingly fleet of foot; he will outstrip all the runners in the race by virtue of being fleet, not by virtue of his wisdom. I should like to show Posidonius some glass-blower who by his breath moulds the glass into manifold shapes which could scarcely be fashioned by the most skilful hand. Nay, these discoveries have been made since we men have ceased to discover wisdom. But Posidonius again remarks: “Democritus is said to have discovered the arch, whose effect was that the curving line of stones, which gradually lean toward each other, is bound together by the keystone.” I am inclined to pronounce this statement false. For there must have been, before Democritus, bridges and gateways in which the curvature did not begin until about the top. It seems to have quite slipped your memory that this same Democritus discovered how ivory could be softened, how, by boiling, a pebble could be transformed into an emerald,—the same process used even to-day for colouring stones which are found to be amenable to this treatment! It may have been a wise man who discovered all such things, but he did not discover them by virtue of being a wise man; for he does many things which we see done just as well, or even more skilfully and dexterously, by men who are utterly lacking in sagacity. Do you ask what, then, the wise man has found out and what he has brought to light? First of all there is truth, and nature; and nature he has not followed as the other animals do, with eyes too dull to perceive the divine in it. In the second place, there is the law of life, and life he has made to conform to universal principles; and he has taught us, not merely to know the gods, but to follow them, and to welcome the gifts of chance precisely as if they were divine commands. He has forbidden us to give heed to false opinions, and has weighed the value of each thing by a true standard of appraisement. He has condemned those pleasures with which remorse is intermingled, and has praised those goods which will always satisfy; and he has published the truth abroad that he is most happy who has no need of happiness, and that he is most powerful who has power over himself. I am not speaking of that philosophy which has placed the citizen outside his country and the gods outside the universe, and which has bestowed virtue upon pleasure, but rather of that philosophy which counts nothing good except what is honourable,—one which cannot be cajoled by the gifts either of man or of fortune, one whose value is that it cannot be bought for any value. That this philosophy existed in such a rude age, when the arts and crafts were still unknown and when useful things could only be learned by use,—this I refuse to believe. Next there came the fortune-favoured period when the bounties of nature lay open to all, for men’s indiscriminate use, before avarice and luxury had broken the bonds which held mortals together, and they, abandoning their communal existence, had separated and turned to plunder. The men of the second age were not wise men, even though they did what wise men should do. Indeed, there is no other condition of the human race that anyone would regard more highly; and if God should commission a man to fashion earthly creatures and to bestow institutions upon peoples, this man would approve of no other system than that which obtained among the men of that age, when No ploughman tilled the soil, nor was it right To portion off or bound one’s property. Men shared their gains, and earth more freely gave Her riches to her sons who sought them not. What race of men was ever more blest than that race? They enjoyed all nature in partnership. Nature sufficed for them, now the guardian, as before she was the parent, of all; and this her gift consisted of the assured possession by each man of the common resources. Why should I not even call that race the richest among mortals, since you could not find a poor person among them? But avarice broke in upon a condition so happily ordained, and, by its eagerness to lay something away and to turn it to its own private use, made all things the property of others, and reduced itself from boundless wealth to straitened need. It was avarice that introduced poverty and, by craving much, lost all. And so, although she now tries to make good her loss, although she adds one estate to another, evicting a neighbour either by buying him out or by wronging him, although she extends her country-seats to the size of provinces and defines ownership as meaning extensive travel through one’s own property,—in spite of all these efforts of hers, no enlargement of our boundaries will bring us back to the condition from which we have departed. When there is no more that we can do, we shall possess much; but we once possessed the whole world! The very soil was more productive when untilled, and yielded more than enough for peoples who refrained from despoiling one another. Whatever gift nature had produced, men found as much pleasure in revealing it to another as in having discovered it. It was possible for no man either to surpass another or to fall short of him; what there was, was divided among unquarrelling friends. Not yet had the stronger begun to lay hands upon the weaker; not yet had the miser, by hiding away what lay before him, begun to shut off his neighbour from even the necessities of life; each cared as much for his neighbour as for himself. Armour lay unused, and the hand, unstained by human blood, had turned all its hatred against wild beasts. The men of that day, who had found in some dense grove protection against the sun, and security against the severity of winter or of rain in their mean hiding-places, spent their lives under the branches of the trees and passed tranquil nights without a sigh. Care vexes us in our purple, and routs us from our beds with the sharpest of goads; but how soft was the sleep the hard earth bestowed upon the men of that day! No fretted and panelled ceilings hung over them, but as they lay beneath the open sky the stars glided quietly above them, and the firmament, night’s noble pageant, marched swiftly by, conducting its mighty task in silence. For them by day, as well as by night, the visions of this most glorious abode were free and open. It was their joy to watch the constellations as they sank from mid-heaven, and others, again, as they rose from their hidden abodes. What else but joy could it be to wander among the marvels which dotted the heavens far and wide? But you of the present day shudder at every sound your houses make, and as you sit among your frescoes the slightest creak makes you shrink in terror. They had no houses as big as cities. The air, the breezes blowing free through the open spaces, the flitting shade of crag or tree, springs crystal-clear and streams not spoiled by man’s work, whether by water-pipe or by any confinement of the channel, but running at will, and meadows beautiful without the use of art,—amid such scenes were their rude homes, adorned with rustic hand. Such a dwelling was in accordance with nature; therein it was a joy to live, fearing neither the dwelling itself nor for its safety. In these days, however, our houses constitute a large portion of our dread. But no matter how excellent and guileless was the life of the men of that age, they were not wise men; for that title is reserved for the highest achievement. Still, I would not deny that they were men of lofty spirit and—I may use the phrase—fresh from the gods. For there is no doubt that the world produced a better progeny before it was yet worn out. However, not all were endowed with mental faculties of highest perfection, though in all cases their native powers were more sturdy than ours and more fitted for toil. For nature does not bestow virtue; it is an art to become good. They, at least, searched not in the lowest dregs of the earth for gold, nor yet for silver or transparent stones; and they still were merciful even to the dumb animals—so far removed was that epoch from the custom of slaying man by man, not in anger or through fear, but just to make a show! They had as yet no embroidered garments nor did they weave cloth of gold; gold was not yet even mined. What, then, is the conclusion of the matter? It was by reason of their ignorance of things that the men of those days were innocent; and it makes a great deal of difference whether one wills not to sin or has not the knowledge to sin. Justice was unknown to them, unknown prudence, unknown also self-control and bravery; but their rude life possessed certain qualities akin to all these virtues. Virtue is not vouchsafed to a soul unless that soul has been trained and taught, and by unremitting practice brought to perfection. For the attainment of this boon, but not in the possession of it, were we born; and even in the best of men, before you refine them by instruction, there is but the stuff of virtue, not virtue itself. Farewell.

[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. [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? [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. [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. [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. 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. [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. [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. [8] Quid ais? philosophia homines docuit habere clavem et seram? Quid aliud erat avaritiae signum dare? 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. [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; 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. [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. [11] In illo quoque dissentio a Posidonio, quod ferramenta fabrilia excogitata a sapientibus viris iudicat; isto enim modo dicat licet sapientes fuisse per quos Omnia enim ista sagacitas hominum, non sapientia invenit. [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. [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. Quidni? cum hoc quoque saeculo esse quam expeditissimus cupiat. [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 <cum> hac obiurgatione sui: 'quamdiu homo stultus supervacuas sarcinas habui!', qui se conplicuit in dolio et in eo cubitavit? [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. [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. 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? 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? 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? [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? non in defosso latent Syrticae gentes quibusque propter nimios solis ardores nullum tegimentum satis repellendis caloribus solidum est nisi ipsa arens humus? [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. [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. 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. [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 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? [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. [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. [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. [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. [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? 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: [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. Non arma nec muros nec bello utilia molitur: paci favet et genus humanum ad concordiam vocat. [27] Non est, inquam, instrumentorum ad usus necessarios opifex. Quid illi tam parvola adsignas? artificem vides vitae. Alias quidem artes sub dominio habet; nam cui vita, illi vitae quoque ornantia serviunt: ceterum ad beatum statum tendit, illo ducit, illo vias aperit. [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. [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. [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. [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. Cuperem Posidonio aliquem vitrearium ostendere, qui spiritu vitrum in habitus plurimos format qui vix diligenti manu effingerentur. Haec inventa sunt postquam sapientem invenire desimus. [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. [33] Excidit porro vobis eundem Democritum invenisse quemadmodum ebur molliretur, quemadmodum decoctus calculus in zmaragdum converteretur, qua hodieque coctura inventi lapides <in> 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. [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. [35] Non de ea philosophia loquor quae civem extra patriam posuit, extra mundum deos, quae virtutem donavit voluptati, sed <de> 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. Hanc philosophiam fuisse illo rudi saeculo quo adhuc artificia deerant et ipso usu discebantur utilia non credo. [36] ~Sicut aut~ fortunata tempora, cum in medio iacerent beneficia naturae promiscue utenda, antequam avaritia atque luxuria dissociavere mortales et ad rapinam ex consortio <docuere> discurrere: non erant illi sapientes viri, etiam si faciebant facienda sapientibus. [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 [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? 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. [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. [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. [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! [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. [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. [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. Non enim dat natura virtutem: ars est bonum fieri. [45] Illi quidem non aurum nec argentum nec perlucidos <lapides in> 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. [46] Quid ergo <est>? 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. Ad hoc quidem, sed sine hoc nascimur, et in optimis quoque, antequam erudias, virtutis materia, non virtus est. Vale.