Letter 91

Our friend Liberalis is downcast now, after the news of the fire that burned down the colony of Lugdunum [Lyons]. A disaster like this could shake anyone, let alone a man who loves his homeland so deeply. The event has made him test the firmness of his own mind, which, of course, he had trained against the things he thought could be feared. But I am not surprised that he had no fear of an evil so unforeseen and almost unheard of as this, since it had no precedent: fire has harassed many cities, but destroyed none. For even where flame has been thrown into the buildings by an enemy's hand, it fails in many places, and however often it is rekindled, it rarely devours everything so completely that it leaves nothing for the sword. Earthquakes too have scarcely ever been so severe and ruinous as to overturn whole towns. In short, never has any fire blazed up so hostile to a place that it left nothing for a second fire to consume. So many of the most beautiful works, any single one of which could give distinction to a whole city, were laid low by one night; and amid such peace there happened what could not be feared even in war. Who would believe it? Everywhere arms are at rest, and while security is spread across the whole world, Lugdunum, which used to be displayed in Gaul, is now sought after. Fortune has allowed all those whom she has struck publicly to feel fear of what they were going to suffer; nothing great has lacked some interval before its fall. In this one case a single night came between the greatest of cities and no city at all. In short, it takes me longer to tell you it has perished than the time in which it perished. All this bends down the spirit of our friend Liberalis, firm and upright as it is against his own troubles. And not without cause has he been shaken: the unexpected weighs more heavily; novelty adds weight to calamities, and no mortal fails to grieve more over what has also astonished him. For this reason nothing ought to be unforeseen by us. Our mind must be sent ahead to meet all things, and we must consider not only what usually happens but whatever can happen. For what is there that Fortune, when she has willed it, does not drag down from the most flourishing height? What does she not assail and shake all the more, the more splendidly it gleams? What is steep or difficult for her? She does not always run at us by one road, nor even by a beaten one: now she calls our own hands against us, now, content with her own strength, she finds perils that need no author. No time is exempt: in the midst of pleasures themselves the causes of pain arise. War springs up in the middle of peace, and the safeguards of our security pass over into objects of dread; a friend is made into an enemy, a foe out of an ally. The calm of summer is driven into sudden storms greater than those of winter. Without an enemy we suffer an enemy's blows, and if other causes of disaster are lacking, excessive good fortune finds them for itself. Disease invades the most temperate, consumption the most robust, punishment the most innocent, uproar the most secluded; chance picks out some novelty by which to thrust its strength upon those who have, as it were, forgotten it. Whatever a long succession of years has built up with much toil and much indulgence of the gods, a single day scatters and disperses. He who named a day granted a long delay to swift-coming evils: an hour, a moment of time, is enough to overthrow empires. It would be some consolation for our weakness and for our affairs if all things perished as slowly as they come into being; but as it is, growth comes out slowly, while the rush is toward ruin. Nothing is stable, in private or in public; the fates of men no less than of cities roll on. Amid the most peaceful conditions terror arises, and with no causes of turmoil from outside, evils break out from the quarter where they were least expected. Kingdoms that had stood firm through civil wars, and through foreign ones, fall with no one pushing them. How few cities have carried their good fortune all the way through! All things, therefore, must be thought over, and the mind must be made firm against what can happen. Rehearse in your mind exile, tortures, wars, shipwrecks. Chance can snatch you from your homeland, or your homeland from you; it can drive you off into the wilderness; it can turn this very place, where the crowd is suffocating, into a wilderness. Let the whole condition of the human lot be placed before our eyes, and let us anticipate in our mind not how much frequently happens, but how much at most can happen, if we do not wish to be crushed, nor to be stunned by those unaccustomed events as though they were new; Fortune must be thought over in full. How often have the cities of Asia, how often those of Achaia, fallen at a single tremor! How many towns in Syria, how many in Macedonia, have been swallowed up! How often has this disaster laid Cyprus waste! How often has Paphos collapsed upon itself! Frequently the destruction of whole cities has been reported to us, and we, among whom such things are frequently reported, what a small fraction are we of the whole! Let us therefore rise up against chance events, and know that whatever befalls is not so great as it is bandied about by rumor. A wealthy city has burned, the ornament of the provinces among which it was both included and set apart, yet placed upon a single hill, and that not a very broad one. Of all those cities that you now hear called magnificent and noble, time will erase even the traces. Do you not see how, in Achaia, the very foundations of the most renowned cities have already been consumed, and nothing remains by which it might appear that they at least once existed? Not only do things made by hand decay, nor does the day overturn only what has been set up by human skill and industry: the ridges of mountains flow away, whole regions have sunk, places that stood far from the sight of the sea have been covered by the waves; the vast force of fires has eaten away the hills through which it once shone, and has brought down to a lowly level peaks once very high, the comforts and watchtowers of sailors. The very works of nature are harassed, and so we ought to bear the destruction of cities with an even mind. They stand only to fall; this same end awaits them all: whether the inner force of winds and their violent blasts, pent up, shake off the weight under which they are held; or whether the onrush of torrents, vaster in the hidden depths, breaks through what stands in its way; or whether the violence of flames bursts apart the structure of the ground; or whether old age, from which nothing is safe, conquers them little by little; or whether an unhealthy climate empties out the peoples and decay corrupts the abandoned places. To list all the paths of fate would take long. This one thing I know: all the works of mortals are condemned to mortality; we live among things destined to perish. These, then, and consolations of this kind, I bring to bear on our friend Liberalis, who burns with an incredible love for his homeland, which perhaps has been consumed so that it may be raised up again to something better. Often injury has made room for a greater fortune: many things have fallen in order to rise higher. Timagenes, an enemy of the city's prosperity, used to say that fires at Rome grieved him for this one reason: he knew that better buildings would rise than those that had burned. And in this city too it is likely that all will compete to restore what they have lost greater and loftier than before. May they last long and, under happier auspices, be founded for a longer age! For this colony is in its hundredth year from its origin, an age not even the limit of a man's life. Founded by Plancus, it grew strong through the favorable position of the place into this dense population; yet how many of the gravest disasters has it endured within the span of a man's old age! And so let the mind be shaped to the understanding and endurance of its lot, and let it know that nothing is beyond Fortune's daring, that she holds the same right over empires as over those who rule, that she can do the same against cities as against men. None of these things should provoke indignation: we have entered a world in which life is lived under these laws. If it pleases you, obey; if it does not please you, leave by whatever way you wish. Be indignant if something unjust has been ordained specifically against you; but if this same necessity binds the highest and the lowest, then return into favor with fate, by which all things are dissolved. You must not measure us by burial mounds, or by these monuments of unequal size that border the road: all ashes are made equal. We are born unequal, we die equal. What I say of cities I say also of the cities' inhabitants: Ardea was captured just as much as Rome was. That founder of human law distinguished us neither by birth nor by the fame of our names, except while we exist; but when we come to the end of mortals, he says: ‘Depart, ambition: let the same law hold for all that press upon the earth.’ We are equal for enduring all things; no one is more fragile than another, no one more certain of himself for the morrow. Alexander, king of the Macedonians, had begun to learn geometry—unhappy man, since he was about to learn how tiny was the earth of which he had seized the smallest part. I say ‘unhappy’ for this reason: he ought to have understood that he bore a false surname. For who can be great in something so tiny? The things being taught him were subtle and to be learned with careful concentration—not the sort a madman could grasp, one sending his thoughts beyond the ocean. ‘Teach me easy things,’ he said. To which his teacher replied: ‘These things are the same for everyone, equally difficult.’ Imagine that the nature of things is saying this: ‘Those matters you complain of are the same for all; I can give nothing easier to anyone, but whoever wishes will make them easier for himself.’ How? By equanimity. You must feel pain, and thirst, and hunger, and grow old (if a longer stay among men should fall to you), and fall sick, and lose something, and perish. Yet there is no reason to believe those who clamor around you: none of these is an evil, none unbearable or harsh. It is by common consent that they are feared. You fear death just as you fear ill repute: but what is more foolish than a man fearing words? Our friend Demetrius elegantly likes to say that the voices of the ignorant are to him in the same place as wind released from the belly. ‘For what does it matter to me,’ he says, ‘whether they sound up above or down below?’ What great madness it is to fear being defamed by the disreputable! Just as you have dreaded ill repute without cause, so too those other things you would never fear unless rumor had ordered it. Would a good man suffer any loss from being spattered by unjust gossip? Then let not this harm death either in our judgment: it too has a bad reputation. None of those who accuse it have tried it. Meanwhile it is rash to condemn what you do not know. But this you do know: to how many it is useful, how many it frees from torments, poverty, complaints, punishment, weariness. We are in no one's power, since death is in our own power. Farewell.

Our friend Liberalis is now downcast; for he has just heard of the fire which has wiped out the colony of Lyons. Such a calamity might upset anyone at all, not to speak of a man who dearly loves his country. But this incident has served to make him inquire about the strength of his own character, which he has trained, I suppose, just to meet situations that he thought might cause him fear. I do not wonder, however, that he was free from apprehension touching an evil so unexpected and practically unheard of as this, since it is without precedent. For fire has damaged many a city, but has annihilated none. Even when fire has been hurled against the walls by the hand of a foe, the flame dies out in many places, and although continually renewed, rarely devours so wholly as to leave nothing for the sword. Even an earthquake has scarcely ever been so violent and destructive as to overthrow whole cities. Finally, no conflagration has ever before blazed forth so savagely in any town that nothing was left for a second. So many beautiful buildings, any single one of which would make a single town famous, were wrecked in one night. In time of such deep peace an event has taken place worse than men can possibly fear even in time of war. Who can believe it? When weapons are everywhere at rest, and when peace prevails throughout the world, Lyons, the pride of Gaul, is missing! Fortune has usually allowed all men, when she has assailed them collectively, to have a foreboding of that which they were destined to suffer. Every great creation has had granted to it a period of reprieve before its fall; but in this case, only a single night elapsed between the city at its greatest and the city non-existent. In short, it takes me longer to tell you it has perished than it took for the city to perish. All this has affected our friend Liberalis, bending his will, which is usually so steadfast and erect in the face of his own trials. And not without reason has he been shaken; for it is the unexpected that puts the heaviest load upon us. Strangeness adds to the weight of calamities, and every mortal feels the greater pain as a result of that which also brings surprise. Therefore, nothing ought to be unexpected by us. Our minds should be sent forward in advance to meet all problems, and we should consider, not what is wont to happen, but what can happen. For what is there in existence that Fortune, when she has so willed, does not drag down from the very height of its prosperity? And what is there that she does not the more violently assail the more brilliantly it shines? What is laborious or difficult for her? She does not always attack in one way, or even with her full strength; at one time she summons our own hands against us; at another time, content with her own powers, she makes use of no agent in devising perils for us. No time is exempt; in the midst of our very pleasures there spring up causes of suffering. War arises in the midst of peace, and that which we depended upon for protection is transformed into a cause of fear; friend becomes enemy, ally becomes foeman. The summer calm is stirred into sudden storms, wilder than the storms of winter. With no foe in sight we are victims of such fates as foes inflict, and if other causes of disaster fail, excessive good fortune finds them for itself. The most temperate are assailed by illness, the strongest by wasting disease, the most innocent by chastisement, the most secluded by the noisy mob. Chance chooses some new weapon by which to bring her strength to bear against us, thinking we have forgotten her. Whatever structure has been reared by a long sequence of years, at the cost of great toil and through the great kindness of the gods, is scattered and dispersed by a single day. Nay, he who has said “a day” has granted too long a postponement to swift-coming misfortune; an hour, an instant of time, suffices for the overthrow of empires! It would be some consolation for the feebleness of our selves and our works, if all things should perish as slowly as they come into being; but as it is, increases are of sluggish growth, but the way to ruin is rapid. Nothing, whether public or private, is stable; the destinies of men, no less than those of cities, are in a whirl. Amid the greatest calm terror arises, and though no external agencies stir up commotion, yet evils burst forth from sources whence they were least expected. Thrones which have stood the shock of civil and foreign wars crash to the ground though no one sets them tottering. How few the states which have carried their good fortune through to the end! We should therefore reflect upon all contingencies, and should fortify our minds against the evils which may possibly come. Exile, the torture of disease, wars, shipwreck,—we must think on these. Chance may tear you from your country or your country from you, or may banish you to the desert; this very place, where throngs are stifling, may become a desert. Let us place before our eyes in its entirety the nature of man’s lot, and if we would not be overwhelmed, or even dazed, by those unwonted evils, as if they were novel, let us summon to our minds beforehand, not as great an evil as oftentimes happens, but the very greatest evil that possibly can happen. We must reflect upon fortune fully and completely. How often have cities in Asia, how often in Achaia, been laid low by a single shock of earthquake! How many towns in Syria, how many in Macedonia, have been swallowed up! How often has this kind of devastation laid Cyprus in ruins! How often has Paphos collapsed! Not infrequently are tidings brought to us of the utter destruction of entire cities; yet how small a part of the world are we, to whom such tidings often come! Let us rise, therefore, to confront the operations of Fortune, and whatever happens, let us have the assurance that it is not so great as rumour advertises it to be. A rich city has been laid in ashes, the jewel of the provinces, counted as one of them and yet not included with them; rich though it was, nevertheless it was set upon a single hill, and that not very large in extent. But of all those cities, of whose magnificence and grandeur you hear today, the very traces will be blotted out by time. Do you not see how, in Achaia, the foundations of the most famous cities have already crumbled to nothing, so that no trace is left to show that they ever even existed? Not only does that which has been made with hands totter to the ground, not only is that which has been set in place by man’s art and man’s efforts overthrown by the passing days; nay, the peaks of mountains dissolve, whole tracts have settled, and places which once stood far from the sight of the sea are now covered by the waves. The mighty power of fires has eaten away the hills through whose sides they used to glow, and has levelled to the ground peaks which were once most lofty—the sailor’s solace and his beacon. The works of nature herself are harassed; hence we ought to bear with untroubled minds the destruction of cities. They stand but to fall! This doom awaits them, one and all; it may be that some internal force, and blasts of violence which are tremendous because their way is blocked, will throw off the weight which holds then down; or that a whirlpool of raging currents, mightier because they are hidden in the bosom of the earth, will break through that which resists its power; or that the vehemence of flames will burst asunder the framework of the earth’s crust; or that time, from which nothing is safe, will reduce them little by little; or that a pestilential climate will drive their inhabitants away and the mould will corrode their deserted walls. It would be tedious to recount all the ways by which fate may come; but this one thing I know: all the works of mortal man have been doomed to mortality, and in the midst of things which have been destined to die, we live! Hence it is thoughts like these, and of this kind, which I am offering as consolation to our friend Liberalis, who burns with a love for his country that is beyond belief. Perhaps its destruction has been brought about only that it may be raised up again to a better destiny. Oftentimes a reverse has but made room for more prosperous fortune. Many structures have fallen only to rise to a greater height. Timagenes, who had a grudge against Rome and her prosperity, used to say that the only reason he was grieved when conflagrations occurred in Rome was his knowledge that better buildings would arise than those which had gone down in the flames. And probably in this city of Lyons, too, all its citizens will earnestly strive that everything shall be rebuilt better in size and security than what they have lost. May it be built to endure and, under happier auspices, for a longer existence! This is indeed but the hundredth year since this colony was founded—not the limit even of a man’s lifetime. Led forth by Plancus, the natural advantages of its site have caused it to wax strong and reach the numbers which it contains to-day; and yet how many calamities of the greatest severity has it endured within the space of an old man’s life! Therefore let the mind be disciplined to understand and to endure its own lot, and let it have the knowledge that there is nothing which fortune does not dare—that she has the same jurisdiction over empires as over emperors, the same power over cities as over the citizens who dwell therein. We must not cry out at any of these calamities. Into such a world have we entered, and under such laws do we live. If you like it, obey; if not, depart whithersoever you wish. Cry out in anger if any unfair measures are taken with reference to you individually; but if this inevitable law is binding upon the highest and the lowest alike, be reconciled to fate, by which all things are dissolved. You should not estimate our worth by our funeral mounds or by these monuments of unequal size which line the road; their ashes level all men! We are unequal at birth, but are equal in death. What I say about cities I say also about their inhabitants: Ardea was captured as well as Rome. The great founder of human law has not made distinctions between us on the basis of high lineage or of illustrious names, except while we live. When, however, we come to the end which awaits mortals, he says: “Depart, ambition! To all creatures that burden the earth let one and the same law apply!” For enduring all things, we are equal; no one is more frail than another, no one more certain of his own life on the morrow. Alexander, king of Macedon, began to study geometry; unhappy man, because he would thereby learn how puny was that earth of which he had seized but a fraction! Unhappy man, I repeat, because he was bound to understand that he was bearing a false title. For who can be “great” in that which is puny? The lessons which were being taught him were intricate and could be learned only by assiduous application; they were not the kind to be comprehended by a madman, who let his thoughts range beyond the ocean. “Teach me something easy!” he cries; but his teacher answers: “These things are the same for all, as hard for one as for another.” Imagine that nature is saying to us: “Those things of which you complain are the same for all. I cannot give anything easier to any man, but whoever wishes will make things easier for himself.” In what way? By equanimity. You must suffer pain, and thirst, and hunger, and old age too, if a longer stay among men shall be granted you; you must be sick, and you must suffer loss and death. Nevertheless, you should not believe those whose noisy clamour surrounds you; none of these things is an evil, none is beyond your power to bear, or is burdensome. It is only by common opinion that there is anything formidable in them. Your fearing death is therefore like your fear of gossip. But what is more foolish than a man afraid of words? Our friend Demetrius is wont to put it cleverly when he says: “For me the talk of ignorant men is like the rumblings which issue from the belly. For,” he adds, “what difference does it make to me whether such rumblings come from above or from below?” What madness it is to be afraid of disrepute in the judgment of the disreputable! Just as you have had no cause for shrinking in terror from the talk of men, so you have no cause now to shrink from these things, which you would never fear had not their talk forced fear upon you. Does it do any harm to a good man to be besmirched by unjust gossip? Then let not this sort of thing damage death, either, in our estimation; death also is in bad odour. But no one of those who malign death has made trial of it. Meanwhile it is foolhardy to condemn that of which you are ignorant. This one thing, however, you do know—that death is helpful to many, that it sets many free from tortures, want, ailments, sufferings, and weariness. We are in the power of nothing when once we have death in our own power! Farewell.

[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. 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. [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. 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. [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. [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? Quid illi arduum quidve difficile est? [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 <fit> inimicus, hostis ex socio. 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. [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. [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! Cogitanda ergo sunt omnia et animus adversus ea quae possunt evenire firmandus. [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. [9] Quotiens Asiae, quotiens Achaiae urbes uno tremore ceciderunt! Quot oppida in Syria, quot in Macedonia devorata sunt! Cypron quotiens vastavit haec clades! 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. [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? [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. [12] Casurae stant; omnis hic exitus manet, sive <ventorum> interna vis flatusque per clusa violenti pondus sub quo tenentur excusserint, sive torrentium <impetus> 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. [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. [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. A Planco deducta in hanc frequentiam loci opportunitate convaluit: quot tamen gravissimos casus intra spatium humanae <pertulit> senectutis! [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. 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. [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. 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. [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. 'Facilia' inquit 'me doce'. Cui praeceptor 'ista' inquit 'omnibus eadem sunt, aeque difficilia'. [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. [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? Eleganter Demetrius noster solet dicere eodem loco sibi esse voces inperitorum quo ventre redditos crepitus. 'Quid enim' inquit 'mea, susum isti an deosum sonent?' [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? [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. Non sumus in ullius potestate, cum mors in nostra potestate sit. Vale.