Letter 95

[1] You ask me to bring forward at once, and to set down for you in writing, the matter that I had said ought to be deferred to its own proper day: namely, whether that branch of philosophy which the Greeks call paraenetic, and which we call "preceptive," is sufficient to bring wisdom to completion. I know you will take it in good part if I say no. For that very reason I promise all the more, and I refuse to let the common saying perish: "Do not afterwards ask for what you would rather not have obtained." [2] For sometimes we beg earnestly for the very thing we would refuse if someone offered it. This, whether it be fickleness or a slavish over-readiness, must be punished by a prompt fulfilling of the request. There are many things we wish to seem to want, but do not really want. A reciter brought along an enormous history, written in the tiniest hand and folded up very tightly, and after a great part of it had been read through he said, "I shall stop, if you wish": and the cry came back, "Read on, read on!" from those who were longing for him to fall silent right there. Often we want one thing and pray for another, and we do not tell the truth even to the gods, but the gods either do not hear or take pity on us. [3] As for me, I shall set pity aside and take my revenge: I shall thrust an enormous letter upon you, and if you read it unwillingly, you may say, "I brought this on myself," and count yourself among those whom a wife wooed at great expense torments, among those whom riches acquired by the utmost sweat keep in misery, among those whom honors sought by every art and effort torture, and the rest who are possessors of their own evils. [4] But, to leave off the preamble and approach the matter itself: "The happy life," they say, "consists in right actions; precepts lead to right actions; therefore precepts are sufficient for the happy life." Precepts do not always lead to right actions, but only when the temperament is compliant; sometimes they are applied in vain, if base opinions besiege the mind. [5] Then again, even if men act rightly, they do not know that they are acting rightly. For no one, unless he has been shaped from the very beginning and composed according to the whole of reason, can carry out all the categories so as to know when something ought to be done, and to what extent, and with whom, and in what manner, and why. He cannot strive toward what is honorable with his whole mind, nor even steadily or gladly, but he will keep looking back, he will hesitate. [6] "If a right action," he says, "comes from precepts, then precepts are abundantly sufficient for the happy life: but the first is true, therefore so is the second." To this we shall reply that honorable actions are produced by precepts, but not by precepts alone. [7] "If the other arts," he says, "are content with precepts, then wisdom too will be content with them; for this also is an art of living. And indeed it is the man who gives the instruction who makes the helmsman: 'Move the rudder this way, lower the sails that way, use a favorable wind so, resist an adverse one so, and as for a doubtful and shifting wind, claim it for yourself thus.' Precepts shape the other craftsmen too; therefore they will be able to do the same in this craftsman of living." [8] All those arts are occupied with the instruments of life, not with the whole of life; and so many things check and impede them from without: hope, desire, fear. But this art, which has declared itself the art of life, can be prevented by nothing from exercising itself; for it shakes off impediments and tosses aside obstacles. Do you want to know how unlike the condition of the other arts is to this one? In the others it is more excusable to err by intention than by accident; in this one the greatest fault is to go wrong of one's own accord. [9] What I mean is this. A grammarian will not blush at a solecism if he made it knowingly, but he will blush if he made it unknowingly; a physician who does not perceive that his patient is failing offends against his art more than one who pretends not to perceive it: but in this art of living the fault of those who do wrong willingly is the more disgraceful. Add now that most of the arts too — indeed the most liberal of them all — have their own tenets, not merely precepts, as medicine does; and so the school of Hippocrates is one thing, that of Asclepiades another, that of Themison another. [10] Moreover, no contemplative art is without its own tenets, which the Greeks call dogmas, while we may call them decreta, or scita, or placita; these you will find both in geometry and in astronomy. Philosophy, however, is both contemplative and active: it observes and at the same time acts. For you are mistaken if you think it promises you only earthbound services: it breathes loftier air. "I scrutinize the whole universe," it says, "nor do I confine myself within mortal company, content to advise you or dissuade you: great things call me, things set above you. [11] [...] as Lucretius says." It follows, then, that since it is contemplative, it has its own tenets. [12] What of the fact that no one will rightly perform even the things that must be done unless he is the man to whom reason has been handed down, by which in each matter he can carry out all the categories of duties? These categories he will not keep who has received precepts for a particular case, not for the whole. Precepts given for the parts are feeble in themselves and, so to speak, without root. It is the tenets that fortify us, that guard our security and tranquillity, that embrace at once the whole of life and the whole of nature. This is the difference between the tenets of philosophy and precepts that there is between elements and members: the latter depend upon the former, while the former are the causes both of the latter and of all things. [13] "The old wisdom," he says, "prescribed nothing else than what should be done and what avoided, and at that time men were far better: after the learned came forth, good men grew scarce; for that simple and open virtue has turned into obscure and clever science, and we are taught to debate, not to live." [14] No doubt, as you say, that ancient wisdom, especially as it was first being born, was as crude as the other arts, whose subtlety increased as they advanced. But there was as yet no need for careful remedies. Wickedness had not yet risen to such a height, nor spread itself so widely: simple remedies could withstand simple vices. Now the defenses must be more elaborate in proportion as the forces by which we are assailed are more violent. [15] Medicine once was the knowledge of a few herbs by which flowing blood was stanched and wounds were closed; gradually then it arrived at this present manifold variety. And it is no wonder that it had less work to do then, when bodies were still firm and solid and food was simple, not corrupted by art and pleasure: but after food began to be sought not to remove hunger but to provoke it, and a thousand seasonings were invented to rouse the appetite, the things that were nourishment to those who needed food became burdens to those who were full. [16] Hence pallor, and the trembling of muscles soaked in wine, and an emaciation more pitiable from indigestion than from hunger; hence the uncertain feet of those who stagger and a perpetual tottering, as in actual drunkenness; hence fluid let in under the whole skin and a belly distended while it grows ill-accustomed to take in more than it could; hence the overflow of livid bile, the discolored face, and the rotting away of those who decay within themselves, and shriveled fingers with stiffening joints, and the torpor of muscles that lie without feeling, or the palpitation of bodies that quiver without intermission. [17] Why should I speak of fits of dizziness? Why of the tortures of the eyes and ears, and the writhing pains of the seething brain, and all those parts diseased through which we are relieved by inner ulcers? Besides these there are countless kinds of fever, some raging with violent onset, others creeping up with a thin contagion, others coming with shivering and much shaking of the limbs. [18] Why should I recount the other countless diseases, the punishments of luxury? Men were immune from these evils who had not yet dissolved themselves in delights, who commanded themselves and waited on themselves. Their bodies were toughened by work and real labor, wearied out by running, or by hunting, or by turning the soil; they were met by food that could please none but the hungry. And so there was no need of such a great apparatus of physicians, nor of so many instruments and pill-boxes. Health was simple, from a simple cause: many dishes made many diseases. [19] See how many things, all destined to pass through a single gullet, luxury mingles together, that ravager of land and sea. It is inevitable, then, that things so different should clash with one another, and that what is swallowed should be ill digested, with the various foods straining in various directions. And no wonder that disease, arising from discordant food, is inconstant and varied, and that those contrary elements of nature, driven together into the same belly, overflow. Hence we are sick with as novel a kind of illness as the life we live. [20] That greatest of physicians and the founder of this science said that women neither lose their hair nor suffer in the feet: yet now they are both stripped of their hair and sick in the feet. The nature of women has not been changed but conquered; for since they have made themselves equal to men in license, they have made themselves equal also in the discomforts of men's bodies. [21] They keep watch through the night no less, they drink no less, and they challenge men in oil and unmixed wine; what they have crammed into unwilling stomachs they bring up again through the mouth, and they measure back out all their wine by vomiting; they gnaw at snow just as much, the solace of a burning stomach. In lust indeed they do not even yield to males: born to be passive (may the gods and goddesses utterly destroy them!), they have devised so perverse a kind of unchastity that they take men as their partners. What wonder is it, then, that the greatest of physicians, most expert in nature, should be caught in a falsehood, when so many women are gouty and bald? They have lost the privilege of their sex by their vices and, because they have put off being women, they are condemned to men's diseases. [22] The physicians of old did not know how to give food more frequently and to prop up the failing veins with wine; they did not know how to let blood and to relieve a prolonged illness with the bath and with sweats; they did not know how, by a binding of the legs and arms, to recall the hidden strength that had settled in the middle to the extremities. There was no need to look around for many kinds of remedies, when the kinds of dangers were very few. [23] Now, however, how far the evils of bad health have advanced! These are the interest we pay for pleasures coveted beyond measure and beyond what is right. You will not be surprised that the diseases are countless: count the cooks. Every pursuit of learning languishes, and those who profess the liberal arts preside over deserted corners without any audience; in the schools of the rhetoricians and philosophers there is solitude: but how crowded are the kitchens, what a throng of young men presses around the hearths of the spendthrifts! [24] I pass over the herds of luckless boys whom, after the banquets are finished, other outrages of the bedchamber await; I pass over the troops of catamites sorted by nation and color, so that all may have the same smoothness, the same measure of first down, the same kind of hair, lest any boy whose hair is straighter should be mixed in with the curly-haired; I pass over the crowd of bakers, I pass over the throng of attendants through whom, at a given signal, men rush about to bring in the dinner. Good gods, how many men does a single belly keep busy! [25] What? Do you judge that those mushrooms, that voluptuary's poison, do nothing in secret, even if they had no immediate effect? What? Do you not think that summer snow of yours forms a callous on the liver? What? Those oysters, the most sluggish flesh, fattened on mud — do you suppose they bring no muddy heaviness? What? That garum of the provinces, the costly gore of foul fish — do you not believe it burns the vitals with its salty corruption? What? Those rotten dishes that are transferred to the mouth all but straight from the fire — do you judge they are quenched within the very entrails without harm? How foul, then, and how pestilential are the belchings, how great the loathing of themselves in those who breathe out the old debauch! You may be sure that what has been taken in is rotting, not being digested. [26] I remember there was once talk of a famous platter, into which a cookshop, hastening toward its own ruin, had heaped whatever the elegant are accustomed to dawdle over for a whole day: cockles and scallops and oysters, trimmed back as far as is edible, were interspersed and set off; sea-urchins ~entire and broken up~ had covered it over, and mullets without any bones. [27] It is wearisome now to eat things one by one: flavors are forced together into one. At the dinner table is done what ought to be done in the belly: I am now waiting for things to be served already chewed. And how little short of that it is, to take out the shells and bones and have the cook perform the work of the teeth! "It is too much trouble to indulge in luxuries one at a time: let everything be served at once and turned into one and the same flavor. Why should I stretch out my hand to a single dish? Let many come at once, let the adornments of many courses combine and cling together. [28] Let those who said that display and glory were sought from these things understand at once that they are not being shown off, but are offered to our conscience. Let those things which are usually arranged separately be alike, drenched in one sauce; let there be no difference: let oysters, sea-urchins, scallops, and mullets, all mixed and stewed together, be set out." The food of those vomiting could not be more confused. [29] As these things are jumbled, so from them arise not single diseases but inexplicable, diverse, multiform ones, against which medicine too has begun to arm itself with many kinds, many observations. The same thing I say to you about philosophy. It was once simpler, among men who sinned on a smaller scale and were curable with only light treatment: against so great a subversion of morals everything must be attempted. And would that this plague might at last be conquered in this way! [30] We are mad not only in private but in public. We restrain homicides and individual killings: but what of wars and the glorified crime of slaughtered nations? Neither greed nor cruelty knows any limit. And as long as these things are done by stealth and by individuals, they are less harmful and less monstrous: but by decrees of the senate and resolutions of the people savage acts are carried out, and what is forbidden to the individual is publicly commanded. [31] Things which, committed in secret, men would pay for with their lives, we praise because the doers wore the general's cloak. Men are not ashamed — the gentlest race — to rejoice in mutual bloodshed, to wage wars and to hand wars on to be waged by their children, when even among dumb beasts and wild animals there is peace. [32] Against a madness so powerful and so widely deployed, philosophy has become more laborious, and has taken to itself as much strength as had accrued to the things against which it was being prepared. It was an easy matter to rebuke those who gave way to unmixed wine and sought daintier food, nor did the mind need to be brought back to frugality by great force when it had departed from it only a little: [33] [...] Pleasure is sought from every source. No vice remains within itself: luxury rushes headlong into greed. Forgetfulness of what is honorable has invaded us; nothing is shameful whose price is pleasing. Man, a thing sacred to man, is now killed for sport and jest, and one whom it was an offense to train for inflicting and receiving wounds is now led out naked and unarmed, and the death of a man is spectacle enough. [34] In this perversity of morals, then, something more vigorous than usual is needed, something to shake off these inveterate evils: we must work by tenets to tear up by the roots the received persuasion of false things. If to these we add precepts, consolations, exhortations, they will be able to prevail: by themselves they are ineffective. [35] If we want to hold men bound to us and to tear them away from the evils that already hold them fast, let them learn what is evil and what is good, let them know that everything except virtue changes its name, becoming now evil, now good. Just as the first bond of military service is the oath, and love of the standards, and the offense of deserting, and then afterward the rest is easily exacted and entrusted to men who have been bound by oath, so in those whom you wish to lead to the happy life the first foundations must be laid and virtue worked in. Let them be held by a kind of religious reverence for it, let them love it; let them wish to live with it, and refuse to live without it. [36] "What then? Have not certain men turned out upright without subtle training, and made great progress while obeying only bare precepts?" I admit it; but their temperament was fortunate and snatched what was beneficial in passing. For just as the immortal gods learned no virtue, having been born with virtue entire — and it is part of their nature to be good — so certain men, allotted an exceptional disposition, arrive at the things that are usually taught without long instruction, and embrace what is honorable the moment they hear it; hence those temperaments so eager to seize virtue, or fertile of it from within themselves. But in those who are dull and blunted, or beset by bad habit, the rust of the mind must long be rubbed away. [37] Still, just as he who hands on the doctrines of philosophy more quickly raises to the heights those who are inclined toward the good, so he will also help the weaker and draw them out of bad opinions; and how necessary these doctrines are, you may see in this way. Certain things settle in us that make us slow toward some matters, reckless toward others; and neither can this audacity be checked nor that inertia roused unless their causes are removed — false admiration and false dread. As long as these possess us, you may say, "You owe this duty to your father, this to your children, this to your friends, this to your guests": greed will hold back the man who tries. He will know he must fight for his country, but fear will dissuade him; he will know he must sweat for his friends to the very last drop, but indulgences will forbid; he will know that in the matter of a wife the gravest kind of injury is a mistress, but lust will thrust him in the opposite direction. [38] It will therefore do no good to give precepts unless you first remove the things that will stand in the way of the precepts, no more than it does any good to set weapons in sight and bring them near unless the hands that will use them are freed. So that the mind may be able to go to the precepts we give, it must be set free. [39] Let us suppose that someone does what he ought: he will not do it consistently, he will not do it evenly; for he will not know why he does it. Some things will turn out right by chance or by practice, but he will not have in hand the rule by which they may be measured, on which he may rely that the things he has done are right. One who is good by chance will not promise to be such forever. [40] Then perhaps precepts will enable you to do what you ought, but they will not enable you to do it as you ought; and if they do not enable this, they do not lead you to virtue. Warned, he will do what he ought, I grant; but that is too little, since indeed the praise lies not in the deed but in the manner in which it is done. [41] What is more shameful than a costly dinner that devours a knight's income? What so deserving of the censor's mark, if a man, as those gluttons say, indulges this on himself and his genius? And yet inaugural dinners have cost the most frugal of men a million sesterces. The same thing, if given to the gullet, is disgraceful; if given to honor, it escapes reproach; for it is not luxury but a customary expense. [42] A mullet of enormous size — but why do I not add the weight too and whet the appetite of certain gluttons? They said it weighed four and a half pounds — was sent to Tiberius Caesar; when he ordered it carried down to the market and sold, he said, "Friends, everything deceives me unless either Apicius or P. Octavius buys that mullet." His guess turned out beyond his hope: they bid, Octavius won and gained great glory among his circle, since he had bought for five thousand sesterces a fish that Caesar had put up for sale, and which not even Apicius had bought. It was disgraceful for Octavius to pay so much, but not for the man who bought it to send to Tiberius — though I would blame him too: he admired a thing that he thought worthy of Caesar. Someone sits by a sick friend: we approve. [43] But he does it for the sake of an inheritance: he is a vulture, he is waiting for a corpse. The same acts are either shameful or honorable: it matters why and in what manner they are done. But all things will be done honorably if we have given ourselves over to what is honorable and have judged it the one good among human affairs, along with whatever springs from it; other things are good only for a day. [44] Therefore a conviction must be implanted that pertains to the whole of life: this is what I call a tenet. As this conviction is, so will be the things that are done and the things that are thought; and as these are, so will the life be. It is too little, for one who is ordering the whole, to have given counsel about the particulars. [45] Marcus Brutus, in the book he entitled On Duty, gives many precepts to parents and children and brothers: no one will do these as he ought unless he has something to which to refer them. We must set before us the goal of the highest good toward which we strive, to which every act and word of ours looks back; just as sailors must direct their course toward some star. [46] A life without a purpose wanders; and if a purpose must indeed be set, then tenets begin to be necessary. This, I think, you will grant, that nothing is more shameful than a wavering and uncertain man drawing back his foot timidly. This will happen to us in all matters unless those things are removed which censure our minds and hold them back and forbid them to advance and strive with all their force. [47] How the gods are to be worshiped is usually taught by precept. Let us forbid anyone to kindle lamps on the Sabbath, since the gods do not need light, nor do even men take pleasure in soot. Let us forbid the performing of morning salutations and sitting at the doors of temples: human ambition is captivated by such services; he worships god who knows him. Let us forbid bringing linen cloths and scrapers to Jupiter, and holding up a mirror to Juno: god seeks no attendants. Why not? He himself ministers to the human race; everywhere and to all he is at hand. [48] Though a man may hear what limit he ought to keep in sacrifices, how far to recoil from troublesome superstitions, he will never have made enough progress unless he has conceived of god in his mind as he ought — as possessing all things, bestowing all things, beneficent without charge. [49] What is the cause of the gods' doing good? Their nature. He is wrong who thinks they are unwilling to do harm: they cannot. They can neither receive injury nor inflict it; for to harm and to be harmed are linked together. That supreme and most beautiful nature of all has made those whom it has exempted from danger incapable even of being dangerous. [50] The first worship of the gods is to believe in the gods; then to render to them their majesty, to render their goodness, without which there is no majesty; to know that they are the ones who preside over the universe, who govern all things by their power, who bear the guardianship of the human race, though sometimes heedless of individuals. These neither give evil nor have it; but they do chasten certain men and restrain them and impose penalties, and sometimes punish under the appearance of good. Do you wish to win the gods' favor? Be good. Whoever has imitated them has worshiped them enough. [51] Here now is another question: how men are to be dealt with. What do we do? What precepts do we give? That we should spare human blood? How small a thing it is not to harm the one whom you ought to benefit! Great praise indeed, if a man is gentle to a man! Shall we prescribe that he stretch out his hand to the shipwrecked, show the way to the lost, share his bread with the hungry? Why should I state everything that must be afforded and avoided, when I can briefly hand him this formula of human duty: [52] all this that you see, in which divine and human things are enclosed, is one; we are members of a great body. Nature begot us related to one another, since she produced us from the same things and to the same end; she implanted in us mutual love and made us sociable. She established the equitable and the just; by her ordinance it is more wretched to do harm than to suffer it; by her command let hands be ready to help. [53] Let that verse be both in the heart and on the lips: Let us hold things in common: we were born for the common good. Our fellowship is most like an arch of stones, which, destined to fall unless they held one another up, is by this very fact sustained. [54] After gods and men, let us consider how things are to be used. We shall hurl out precepts in vain unless this has gone before: what opinion we ought to hold about each thing — about poverty, about riches, about glory, about disgrace, about country, about exile. Let us appraise each thing apart from reputation and ask what they are, not what they are called. [55] Let us pass on to the virtues. Someone will prescribe that we value prudence highly, that we embrace fortitude, that we attach justice to ourselves, if it can be done, even more closely than the others; but he will accomplish nothing if we do not know what virtue is, whether it is one or many, separate or interwoven, whether he who has one has the rest also, and how they differ from one another. [56] The carpenter need not inquire about his trade — what its origin, what its use — any more than the pantomime about the art of dancing: all those arts know themselves, nothing is lacking; for they do not pertain to the whole of life. But virtue is the knowledge both of other things and of itself; one must learn about virtue itself, so that virtue itself may be learned. [57] An action will not be right unless the will is right; for from the will comes the action. Again, the will will not be right unless the disposition of the mind is right; for from this comes the will. And further, the disposition of the mind will not be in its best state unless it has grasped the laws of the whole of life and has worked out what is to be judged about each thing, unless it has reduced things to the truth. Tranquillity does not fall to anyone except those who have attained an unchangeable and certain judgment: the rest keep falling away and are restored, and waver back and forth between letting go and reaching out. [58] What is the cause of this tossing of theirs? That nothing is clear to those who use a most uncertain guide — reputation. If you wish always to want the same things, you must want true things. One does not reach the truth without tenets: they sustain life. Things good and evil, honorable and shameful, just and unjust, pious and impious, the virtues and the uses of the virtues, the possession of advantageous things, esteem and dignity, health, strength, beauty, keenness of the senses — all these require an appraiser. Let it be permitted to know at what value each thing is to be entered on the register. [59] For you are deceived, and you reckon some things to be worth more than they are; indeed you are so deceived that the things held greatest among us — riches, influence, power — ought to be valued at a single sesterce. This you will not know unless you examine the very system by which these things are valued against one another. As leaves cannot grow green by themselves but need a branch to cling to, from which they may draw sap, so these precepts, if they are alone, wither: they need to be implanted in a school. [60] Besides, those who do away with tenets do not understand that the tenets are confirmed by the very fact that they are done away with. For what do they say? That life is sufficiently set in order by precepts, that the tenets of wisdom (that is, dogmas) are superfluous. And yet this very thing they say is a tenet — just as much, by Hercules, as if I should now say that one must withdraw from precepts as superfluous, that one must use tenets, that study should be directed to these alone; by this very thing, in denying that precepts should be attended to, I would be giving a precept. [61] Some matters in philosophy call for admonition, others for proof, and indeed much proof, because they are involved and are scarcely laid open with the utmost diligence and the utmost subtlety. If proofs are necessary, then so are the tenets that gather the truth by arguments. Some things are clear, some obscure: clear are those grasped by sense, by memory; obscure are those that lie beyond these. But reason is not satisfied with manifest things: its greater and more beautiful part lies in hidden things. Hidden things demand proof, proof is not without tenets; therefore tenets are necessary. [62] What makes common perception, the same makes it perfect — a sure conviction about things; lacking this, if all things float in the mind, then tenets are necessary, which give the mind an inflexible judgment. [63] Finally, when we advise someone to hold a friend in the same place as himself, to consider that an enemy may become a friend, to kindle love in the one and moderate hatred in the other, we add, "It is just, it is honorable." But the reasoning of our tenets contains the just and the honorable; therefore that reasoning is necessary, without which those things do not exist either. [64] But let us join the two; for branches without a root are useless, and the roots themselves are aided by the things they have produced. No one can fail to know how useful the hands are: they help openly. But the heart, by which the hands live, from which they take their impulse, by which they are moved, lies hidden. I can say the same about precepts: they are open, but the tenets of wisdom are in concealment. Just as only the initiated know the more sacred portions of the rites, so in philosophy those hidden things are shown to those admitted and received into the sacred mysteries; but precepts and other such things are known even to the profane. [65] Posidonius judges that not only precept-giving (for nothing forbids my using this word) but also persuasion and consolation and exhortation are necessary; to these he adds the investigation of causes — aetiology, which I do not see why I should not dare to call it, since the grammarians, the guardians of the Latin tongue, call it so by their own right. He says that a description of each virtue will also be useful; this Posidonius calls ethology, while some call it characterization — a thing that renders the signs and marks of each virtue and vice, by which like things may be distinguished from one another. [66] This has the same force as prescribing; for he who prescribes says, "You will do those things if you wish to be temperate"; he who describes says, "The temperate man is the one who does those things, who abstains from those things." Do you ask what the difference is? The one gives the precepts of virtue, the other the model. These descriptions, and — to use the tax-collectors' word — these sketches, I confess are of use: let us set forth things to be praised, and an imitator will be found. [67] Do you think it useful for arguments to be given you by which you may recognize a noble horse, so that you are not deceived in buying and do not waste effort on a worthless one? How much more useful it is to know the marks of an excellent mind, which one is permitted to transfer from another into oneself. [68] [...] [69] While he was about something else, our Vergil described a brave man: for my part I would certainly give a great man no other image. If I had to portray Marcus Cato, unterrified amid the crashes of the civil wars and the first to attack the armies already brought up to the Alps, bearing himself to meet the civil war, I would assign him no other countenance, no other bearing. [70] Surely no one could march with a loftier step than he who at one and the same time raised himself against Caesar and Pompey, and, while some favored Caesar's resources and others Pompey's, challenged both and showed that the republic too had its party. For it is too little to say of Cato that "he does not shudder at empty noises." Why not? When he does not shudder at noises real and near, when against ten legions and Gallic auxiliaries and barbarian arms mixed with the citizens' own he sends forth a free voice and urges the republic not to give in for the sake of liberty but to try everything, since it would fall into servitude more honorably than march into it. [71] What vigor and spirit are in him, what confidence amid the public trembling! He knows that he is the only one whose standing is not at stake; for the question is not whether Cato is free, but whether he is among the free: hence his contempt for dangers and swords. One would like, in admiration of the unconquered steadfastness of the man, who did not totter amid the public ruins, to say, "his spirited breast runs riot with its muscles." [72] It will be useful not only to say what good men are usually like and to draw out their form and features, but also to relate and set forth what men of this kind there have been: that last and bravest wound of Cato, through which liberty breathed out its soul; the wisdom of Laelius and his concord with his friend Scipio; the outstanding deeds of the other Cato at home and abroad; the wooden couches of Tubero, when he spread a public banquet, and the goatskins instead of coverlets, and the earthenware vessels set out for the feasts before the very shrine of Jupiter. What else is this than to consecrate poverty on the Capitol? Even if I had no other deed of his by which to enroll him among the Catos, do we count this too little? That was a censorship, not a dinner. [73] Oh, how ignorant are men greedy for glory of what it is, or how it should be sought! On that day the Roman people gazed at the furnishings of many men, but marveled at those of one alone. The gold and silver of all those others has been broken up and melted down a thousand times over, but through all ages Tubero's earthenware will endure. Farewell.

You keep asking me to explain without postponement a topic which I once remarked should be put off until the proper time, and to inform you by letter whether this department of philosophy which the Greeks call paraenetic, and we Romans call the “preceptorial,” is enough to give us perfect wisdom. Now I know that you will take it in good part if I refuse to do so. But I accept your request all the more willingly, and refuse to let the common saying lose its point: Don’t ask for what you’ll wish you hadn’t got. For sometimes we seek with effort that which we should decline if offered voluntarily. Call that fickleness or call it pettishness,—we must punish the habit by ready compliance. There are many things that we would have men think that we wish, but that we really do not wish. A lecturer sometimes brings upon the platform a huge work of research, written in the tiniest hand and very closely folded; after reading off a large portion, he says: “I shall stop, if you wish;” and a shout arises: “Read on, read on!” from the lips of those who are anxious for the speaker to hold his peace then and there. We often want one thing and pray for another, not telling the truth even to the gods, while the gods either do not hearken, or else take pity on us. But I shall without pity avenge myself and shall load a huge letter upon your shoulders; for your part, if you read it with reluctance, you may say: “I brought this burden upon myself,” and may class yourself among those men whose too ambitious wives drive them frantic, or those whom riches harass, earned by extreme sweat of the brow, or those who are tortured with the titles which they have sought by every sort of device and toil, and all others who are responsible for their own misfortunes. But I must stop this preamble and approach the problem under consideration. Men say: “The happy life consists in upright conduct; precepts guide one to upright conduct; therefore precepts are sufficient for attaining the happy life.” But they do not always guide us to upright conduct; this occurs only when the will is receptive; and sometimes they are applied in vain, when wrong opinions obsess the soul. Furthermore, a man may act rightly without knowing that he is acting rightly. For nobody, except he be trained from the start and equipped with complete reason, can develop to perfect proportions, understanding when he should do certain things, and to what extent, and in whose company, and how, and why. Without such training a man cannot strive with all his heart after that which is honourable, or even with steadiness or gladness, but will ever be looking back and wavering. It is also said: “If honourable conduct results from precepts, then precepts are amply sufficient for the happy life; but the first of these statements is true; therefore the second is true also.” We shall reply to these words that honourable conduct is, to be sure, brought about by precepts, but not by precepts alone. “Then,” comes the reply, “if the other arts are content with precepts, wisdom will also be content therewith; for wisdom itself is an art of living. And yet the pilot is made by precepts which tell him thus and so to turn the tiller, set his sails, make use of a fair wind, tack, make the best of shifting and variable breezes—all in the proper manner. Other craftsmen also are drilled by precepts; hence precepts will be able to accomplish the same result in the case of our craftsman in the art of living.” Now all these arts are concerned with the tools of life, but not with life as a whole. Hence there is much to clog these arts from without and to complicate them—such as hope, greed, fear. But that art which professes to teach the art of life cannot be forbidden by any circumstance from exercising its functions; for it shakes off complications and pierces through obstacles. Would you like to know how unlike its status is to the other arts? In the case of the latter, it is more pardonable to err voluntarily rather than by accident; but in the case of wisdom the worst fault is to commit sin wilfully. I mean something like this: A scholar will blush for shame, not if he makes a grammatical blunder intentionally, but if he makes it unintentionally; if a physician does not recognize that his patient is failing, he is a much poorer practitioner than if he recognizes the fact and conceals his knowledge. But in this art of living a voluntary mistake is the more shameful. Furthermore, many arts, aye and the most liberal of them all, have their special doctrines, and not mere precepts of advice—the medical profession, for example. There are the different schools of Hippocrates, of Asclepiades, of Themison. And besides, no art that concerns itself with theories can exist without its own doctrines; the Greeks call them dogmas, while we Romans may use the term “doctrines,” or “tenets,” or “adopted principles,”—such as you will find in geometry or astronomy. But philosophy is both theoretic and practical; it contemplates and at the same time acts. You are indeed mistaken if you think that philosophy offers you nothing but worldly assistance; her aspirations are loftier than that. She cries: “I investigate the whole universe, nor am I content, keeping myself within a mortal dwelling, to give you favourable or unfavourable advice. Great matters invite and such as are set far above you. In the words of Lucretius: To thee shall I reveal the ways of heaven And the gods, spreading before thine eyes The atoms,—whence all things are brought to birth, Increased, and fostered by creative power, And eke their end when Nature casts them off. Philosophy, therefore, being theoretic, must have her doctrines. And why? Because no man can duly perform right actions except one who has been entrusted with reason, which will enable him, in all cases, to fulfil all the categories of duty. These categories he cannot observe unless he receives precepts for every occasion, and not for the present alone. Precepts by themselves are weak and, so to speak, rootless if they be assigned to the parts and not to the whole. It is the doctrines which will strengthen and support us in peace and calm, which will include simultaneously the whole of life and the universe in its completeness. There is the same difference between philosophical doctrines and precepts as there is between elements and members; the latter depend upon the former, while the former are the source both of the latter and of all things. People say: “The old-style wisdom advised only what one should do and avoid; and yet the men of former days were better men by far. When savants have appeared, sages have become rare. For that frank, simple virtue has changed into hidden and crafty knowledge; we are taught how to debate, not how to live.” Of course, as you say, the old-fashioned wisdom, especially in its beginnings, was crude; but so were the other arts, in which dexterity developed with progress. Nor indeed in those days was there yet any need for carefully-planned cures. Wickedness had not yet reached such a high point, or scattered itself so broadcast. Plain vices could be treated by plain cures; now, however, we need defences erected with all the greater care, because of the stronger powers by which we are attacked. Medicine once consisted of the knowledge of a few simples, to stop the flow of blood, or to heal wounds; then by degrees it reached its present stage of complicated variety. No wonder that in early days medicine had less to do! Men’s bodies were still sound and strong; their food was light and not spoiled by art and luxury, whereas when they began to seek dishes not for the sake of removing, but of rousing, the appetite, and devised countless sauces to whet their gluttony,—then what before was nourishment to a hungry man became a burden to the full stomach. Thence come paleness, and a trembling of wine-sodden muscles, and a repulsive thinness, due rather to indigestion than to hunger. Thence weak tottering steps, and a reeling gait just like that of drunkenness. Thence dropsy, spreading under the entire skin, and the belly growing to a paunch through an ill habit of taking more than it can hold. Thence yellow jaundice, discoloured countenances, and bodies that rot inwardly, and fingers that grow knotty when the joints stiffen, and muscles that are numbed and without power of feeling, and palpitation of the heart with its ceaseless pounding. Why need I mention dizziness? Or speak of pain in the eye and in the ear, itching and aching in the fevered brain, and internal ulcers throughout the digestive system? Besides these, there are countless kinds of fever, some acute in their malignity, others creeping upon us with subtle damage, and still others which approach us with chills and severe ague. Why should I mention the other innumerable diseases, the tortures that result from high living? Men used to be free from such ills, because they had not yet slackened their strength by indulgence, because they had control over themselves, and supplied their own needs. They toughened their bodies by work and real toil, tiring themselves out by running or hunting or tilling the earth. They were refreshed by food in which only a hungry man could take pleasure. Hence, there was no need for all our mighty medical paraphernalia, for so many instruments and pill-boxes. For plain reasons they enjoyed plain health; it took elaborate courses to produce elaborate diseases. Mark the number of things—all to pass down a single throat—that luxury mixes together, after ravaging land and sea. So many different dishes must surely disagree; they are bolted with difficulty and are digested with difficulty, each jostling against the other. And no wonder, that diseases which result from ill-assorted food are variable and manifold; there must be an overflow when so many unnatural combinations are jumbled together. Hence there are as many ways of being ill as there are of living. The illustrious founder of the guild and profession of medicine remarked that women never lost their hair or suffered from pain in the feet; and yet nowadays they run short of hair and are afflicted with gout. This does not mean that woman’s physique has changed, but that it has been conquered; in rivalling male indulgences they have also rivalled the ills to which men are heirs. They keep just as late hours, and drink just as much liquor; they challenge men in wrestling and carousing; they are no less given to vomiting from distended stomachs and to thus discharging all their wine again; nor are they behind the men in gnawing ice, as a relief to their fevered digestions. And they even match the men in their passions, although they were created to feel love passively (may the gods and goddesses confound them!). They devise the most impossible varieties of unchastity, and in the company of men they play the part of men. What wonder, then, that we can trip up the statement of the greatest and most skilled physician, when so many women are gouty and bald! Because of their vices, women have ceased to deserve the privileges of their sex; they have put off their womanly nature and are therefore condemned to suffer the diseases of men. Physicians of old time knew nothing about prescribing frequent nourishment and propping the feeble pulse with wine; they did not understand the practice of blood-letting and of easing chronic complaints with sweat-baths; they did not understand how, by bandaging ankles and arms, to recall to the outward parts the hidden strength which had taken refuge in the centre. They were not compelled to seek many varieties of relief, because the varieties of suffering were very few in number. Nowadays, however, to what a stage have the evils of ill-health advanced! This is the interest which we pay on pleasures which we have coveted beyond what is reasonable and right. You need not wonder that diseases are beyond counting: count the cooks! All intellectual interests are in abeyance; those who follow culture lecture to empty rooms, in out-of-the-way places. The halls of the professor and the philosopher are deserted; but what a crowd there is in the cafés! How many young fellows besiege the kitchens of their gluttonous friends! I shall not mention the troops of luckless boys who must put up with other shameful treatment after the banquet is over. I shall not mention the troops of catamites, rated according to nation and colour, who must all have the same smooth skin, and the same amount of youthful down on their cheeks, and the same way of dressing their hair, so that no boy with straight locks may get among the curly-heads. Nor shall I mention the medley of bakers, and the numbers of waiters who at a given signal scurry to carry in the courses. Ye gods! How many men are kept busy to humour a single belly! What? Do you imagine that those mushrooms, the epicure’s poison, work no evil results in secret, even though they have had no immediate effect? What? Do you suppose that your summer snow does not harden the tissue of the liver? What? Do you suppose that those oysters, a sluggish food fattened on slime, do not weigh one down with mud-begotten heaviness? What? Do you not think that the so-called “Sauce from the Provinces,” the costly extract of poisonous fish, burns up the stomach with its salted putrefaction? What? Do you judge that the corrupted dishes which a man swallows almost burning from the kitchen fire, are quenched in the digestive system without doing harm? How repulsive, then, and how unhealthy are their belchings, and how disgusted men are with themselves when they breathe forth the fumes of yesterday’s debauch! You may be sure that their food is not being digested, but is rotting. I remember once hearing gossip about a notorious dish into which everything over which epicures love to dally had been heaped together by a cookshop that was fast rushing into bankruptcy; there were two kinds of mussels, and oysters trimmed round at the line where they are edible, set off at intervals by sea-urchins; the whole was flanked by mullets cut up and served without the bones. In these days we are ashamed of separate foods; people mix many flavours into one. The dinner table does work which the stomach ought to do. I look forward next to food being served masticated! And how little we are from it already when we pick out shells and bones and the cook performs the office of the teeth! They say: “It is too much trouble to take our luxuries one by one; let us have everything served at the same time and blended into the same flavour. Why should I help myself to a single dish? Let us have many coming to the table at once; the dainties of various courses should be combined and confounded. Those who used to declare that this was done for display and notoriety should understand that it is not done for show, but that it is an oblation to our sense of duty! Let us have at one time, drenched in the same sauce, the dishes that are usually served separately. Let there be no difference: let oysters, sea-urchins, shell-fish, and mullets be mixed together and cooked in the same dish.” No vomited food could be jumbled up more helter-skelter. And as the food itself is complicated, so the resulting diseases are complex, unaccountable, manifold, variegated; medicine has begun to campaign against them in many ways and by many rules of treatment. Now I declare to you that the same statement applies to philosophy. It was once more simple because men’s sins were on a smaller scale, and could be cured with but slight trouble; in the face, however, of all this moral topsy-turvy men must leave no remedy untried. And would that this pest might so at last be overcome! We are mad, not only individually, but nationally. We check manslaughter and isolated murders; but what of war and the much-vaunted crime of slaughtering whole peoples? There are no limits to our greed, none to our cruelty. And as long as such crimes are committed by stealth and by individuals, they are less harmful and less portentous; but cruelties are practised in accordance with acts of senate and popular assembly, and the public is bidden to do that which is forbidden to the individual. Deeds that would be punished by loss of life when committed in secret, are praised by us because uniformed generals have carried them out. Man, naturally the gentlest class of being, is not ashamed to revel in the blood of others, to wage war, and to entrust the waging of war to his sons, when even dumb beasts and wild beasts keep the peace with one another. Against this overmastering and widespread madness philosophy has become a matter of greater effort, and has taken on strength in proportion to the strength which is gained by the opposition forces. It used to be easy to scold men who were slaves to drink and who sought out more luxurious food; it did not require a mighty effort to bring the spirit back to the simplicity from which it had departed only slightly. But now One needs the rapid hand, the master-craft. Men seek pleasure from every source. No vice remains within its limits; luxury is precipitated into greed. We are overwhelmed with forgetfulness of that which is honourable. Nothing that has an attractive value, is base. Man, an object of reverence in the eyes of man, is now slaughtered for jest and sport; and those whom it used to be unholy to train for the purpose of inflicting and enduring wounds, are thrust forth exposed and defenceless; and it is a satisfying spectacle to see a man made a corpse. Amid this upset condition of morals, something stronger than usual is needed,—something which will shake off these chronic ills; in order to root out a deep-seated belief in wrong ideas, conduct must be regulated by doctrines. It is only when we add precepts, consolation, and encouragement to these, that they can prevail; by themselves they are ineffective. If we would hold men firmly bound and tear them away from the ills which clutch them fast, they must learn what is evil and what is good. They must know that everything except virtue changes its name and becomes now good and now bad. Just as the soldier’s primary bond of union is his oath of allegiance and his love for the flag, and a horror of desertion, and just as, after this stage, other duties can easily be demanded of him, and trusts given to him when once the oath has been administered; so it is with those whom you would bring to the happy life: the first foundations must be laid, and virtue worked into these men. Let them be held by a sort of superstitious worship of virtue; let them love her; let them desire to live with her, and refuse to live without her. “But what, then,” people say, “have not certain persons won their way to excellence without complicated training? Have they not made great progress by obeying bare precepts alone?” Very true; but their temperaments were propitious, and they snatched salvation as it were by the way. For just as the immortal gods did not learn virtue having been born with virtue complete, and containing in their nature the essence of goodness—even so certain men are fitted with unusual qualities and reach without a long apprenticeship that which is ordinarily a matter of teaching, welcoming honourable things as soon as they hear them. Hence come the choice minds which seize quickly upon virtue, or else produce it from within themselves. But your dull, sluggish fellow, who is hampered by his evil habits, must have this soul-rust incessantly rubbed off. Now, as the former sort, who are inclined towards the good, can be raised to the heights more quickly: so the weaker spirits will be assisted and freed from their evil opinions if we entrust to them the accepted principles of philosophy; and you may understand how essential these principles are in the following way. Certain things sink into us, rendering us sluggish in some ways, and hasty in others. These two qualities, the one of recklessness and the other of sloth, cannot be respectively checked or roused unless we remove their causes, which are mistaken admiration and mistaken fear. As long as we are obsessed by such feelings, you may say to us: “You owe this duty to your father, this to your children, this to your friends, this to your guests”; but greed will always hold us back, no matter how we try. A man may know that he should fight for his country, but fear will dissuade him. A man may know that he should sweat forth his last drop of energy on behalf of his friends, but luxury will forbid. A man may know that keeping a mistress is the worst kind of insult to his wife, but lust will drive him in the opposite direction. It will therefore be of no avail to give precepts unless you first remove the conditions that are likely to stand in the way of precepts; it will do no more good than to place weapons by your side and bring yourself near the foe without having your hands free to use those weapons. The soul, in order to deal with the precepts which we offer, must first be set free. Suppose that a man is acting as he should; he cannot keep it up continuously or consistently, since he will not know the reason for so acting. Some of his conduct will result rightly because of luck or practice; but there will be in his hand no rule by which he may regulate his acts, and which he may trust to tell him whether that which he has done is right. One who is good through mere chance will not give promise of retaining such a character for ever. Furthermore, precepts will perhaps help you to do what should be done; but they will not help you to do it in the proper way; and if they do not help you to this end, they do not conduct you to virtue. I grant you that, if warned, a man will do what he should; but that is not enough, since the credit lies, not in the actual deed, but in the way it is done. What is more shameful than a costly meal which eats away the income even of a knight? Or what so worthy of the censor’s condemnation as to be always indulging oneself and one’s “inner man,” if I may speak as the gluttons do? And yet often has an inaugural dinner cost the most careful man a cool million! The very sum that is called disgraceful if spent on the appetite, is beyond reproach if spent for official purposes! For it is not luxury but an expenditure sanctioned by custom. A mullet of monstrous size was presented to the Emperor Tiberius. They say it weighed four and one half pounds (and why should I not tickle the palates of certain epicures by mentioning its weight?). Tiberius ordered it to be sent to the fish-market and put up for sale, remarking: “I shall be taken entirely by surprise, my friends, if either Apicius or P. Octavius does not buy that mullet.” The guess came true beyond his expectation: the two men bid, and Octavius won, thereby acquiring a great reputation among his intimates because he had bought for five thousand sesterces a fish which the Emperor had sold, and which even Apicius did not succeed in buying. To pay such a price was disgraceful for Octavius, but not for the individual who purchased the fish in order to present it to Tiberius,—though I should be inclined to blame the latter as well; but at any rate he admired a gift of which he thought Caesar worthy. When people sit by the bedsides of their sick friends, we honour their motives. But when people do this for the purpose of attaining a legacy, they are like vultures waiting for carrion. The same act may be either shameful or honourable: the purpose and the manner make all the difference. Now each of our acts will be honourable if we declare allegiance to honour and judge honour and its results to be the only good that can fall to man’s lot; for other things are only temporarily good. I think, then, that there should be deeply implanted a firm belief which will apply to life as a whole: this is what I call a “doctrine.” And as this belief is, so will be our acts and our thoughts. As our acts and our thoughts are, so will our lives be. It is not enough, when a man is arranging his existence as a whole, to give him advice about details. Marcus Brutus, in the book which he has entitled Concerning Duty, gives many precepts to parents, children, and brothers; but no one will do his duty as he ought, unless he has some principle to which he may refer his conduct. We must set before our eyes the goal of the Supreme Good, towards which we may strive, and to which all our acts and words may have reference—just as sailors must guide their course according to a certain star. Life without ideals is erratic: as soon as an ideal is to be set up, doctrines begin to be necessary. I am sure you will admit that there is nothing more shameful than uncertain and wavering conduct, than the habit of timorous retreat. This will be our experience in all cases unless we remove that which checks the spirit and clogs it, and keeps it from making an attempt and trying with all its might. Precepts are commonly given as to how the gods should be worshipped. But let us forbid lamps to be lighted on the Sabbath, since the gods do not need light, neither do men take pleasure in soot. Let us forbid men to offer morning salutation and to throng the doors of temples; mortal ambitions are attracted by such ceremonies, but God is worshipped by those who truly know Him. Let us forbid bringing towels and flesh-scrapers to Jupiter, and proffering mirrors to Juno; for God seeks no servants. Of course not; he himself does service to mankind, everywhere and to all he is at hand to help. Although a man hear what limit he should observe in sacrifice, and how far he should recoil from burdensome superstitions, he will never make sufficient progress until he has conceived a right idea of God,—regarding Him as one who possesses all things, and allots all things, and bestows them without price. And what reason have the gods for doing deeds of kindness? It is their nature. One who thinks that they are unwilling to do harm, is wrong; they cannot do harm. They cannot receive or inflict injury; for doing harm is in the same category as suffering harm. The universal nature, all-glorious and all-beautiful, has rendered incapable of inflicting ill those whom it has removed from the danger of ill. The first way to worship the gods is to believe in the gods; the next to acknowledge their majesty, to acknowledge their goodness without which there is no majesty. Also, to know that they are supreme commanders in the universe, controlling all things by their power and acting as guardians of the human race, even though they are sometimes unmindful of the individual. They neither give nor have evil but they do chasten and restrain certain persons and impose penalties, and sometimes punish by bestowing that which seems good outwardly. Would you win over the gods? Then be a good man. Whoever imitates them, is worshipping them sufficiently. Then comes the second problem,—how to deal with men. What is our purpose? What precepts do we offer? Should we bid them refrain from bloodshed? What a little thing it is not to harm one whom you ought to help! It is indeed worthy of great praise, when man treats man with kindness! Shall we advise stretching forth the hand to the shipwrecked sailor, or pointing out the way to the wanderer, or sharing a crust with the starving? Yes, if I can only tell you first everything which ought to be afforded or withheld; meantime, I can lay down for mankind a rule, in short compass, for our duties in human relationships: all that you behold, that which comprises both god and man, is one—we are the parts of one great body. Nature produced us related to one another, since she created us from the same source and to the same end. She engendered in us mutual affection, and made us prone to friendships. She established fairness and justice; according to her ruling, it is more wretched to commit than to suffer injury. Through her orders, let our hands be ready for all that needs to be helped. Let this verse be in your heart and on your lips: I am a man; and nothing in man’s lot Do I deem foreign to me. Let us possess things in common; for birth is ours in common. Our relations with one another are like a stone arch, which would collapse if the stones did not mutually support each other, and which is upheld in this very way. Next, after considering gods and men, let us see how we should make use of things. It is useless for us to have mouthed out precepts, unless we begin by reflecting what opinion we ought to hold concerning everything—concerning poverty, riches, renown, disgrace, citizenship, exile. Let us banish rumour and set a value upon each thing, asking what it is and not what it is called. Now let us turn to a consideration of the virtues. Some persons will advise us to rate prudence very high, to cherish bravery, and to cleave more closely, if possible, to justice than to all other qualities. But this will do us no good if we do not know what virtue is, whether it is simple or compound, whether it is one or more than one, whether its parts are separate or interwoven with one another; whether he who has one virtue possesses the other virtues also; and just what are the distinctions between them. The carpenter does not need to inquire about his art in the light of its origin or of its function, any more than a pantomime need inquire about the art of dancing; if these arts understand themselves, nothing is lacking, for they do not refer to life as a whole. But virtue means the knowledge of other things besides herself: if we would learn virtue we must learn all about virtue. Conduct will not be right unless the will to act is right; for this is the source of conduct. Nor, again, can the will be right without a right attitude of mind; for this is the source of the will. Furthermore, such an attitude of mind will not be found even in the best of men unless he has learned the laws of life as a whole and has worked out a proper judgment about everything, and unless he has reduced facts to a standard of truth. Peace of mind is enjoyed only by those who have attained a fixed and unchanging standard of judgment; the rest of mankind continually ebb and flow in their decisions, floating in a condition where they alternately reject things and seek them. And what is the reason for this tossing to and fro? It is because nothing is clear to them, because they make use of a most unsure criterion—rumour. If you would always desire the same things, you must desire the truth. But one cannot attain the truth without doctrines; for doctrines embrace the whole of life. Things good and evil, honourable and disgraceful, just and unjust, dutiful and undutiful, the virtues and their practice, the possession of comforts, worth and respect, health, strength, beauty, keenness of the senses—all these qualities call for one who is able to appraise them. One should be allowed to know at what value every object is to be rated on the list; for sometimes you are deceived and believe that certain things are worth more than their real value; in fact, so badly are you deceived that you will find you should value at a mere pennyworth those things which we men regard as worth most of all—for example, riches, influence, and power. You will never understand this unless you have investigated the actual standard by which such conditions are relatively rated. As leaves cannot flourish by their own efforts, but need a branch to which they may cling and from which they may draw sap, so your precepts, when taken alone, wither away; they must be grafted upon a school of philosophy. Moreover, those who do away with doctrines do not understand that these doctrines are proved by the very arguments through which they seem to disprove them. For what are these men saying? They are saying that precepts are sufficient to develop life, and that the doctrines of wisdom (in other words, dogmas) are superfluous. And yet this very utterance of theirs is a doctrine just as if I should now remark that one must dispense with precepts on the ground that they are superfluous, that one must make use of doctrines, and that our studies should be directed solely towards this end; thus, by my very statement that precepts should not be taken seriously, I should be uttering a precept. There are certain matters in philosophy which need admonition; there are others which need proof, and a great deal of proof, too, because they are complicated and can scarcely be made clear with the greatest care and the greatest dialectic skill. If proofs are necessary, so are doctrines; for doctrines deduce the truth by reasoning. Some matters are clear, and others are vague: those which the senses and the memory can embrace are clear; those which are outside their scope are vague. But reason is not satisfied by obvious facts; its higher and nobler function is to deal with hidden things. Hidden things need proof; proof cannot come without doctrines; therefore, doctrines are necessary. That which leads to a general agreement, and likewise to a perfect one, is an assured belief in certain facts; but if, lacking this assurance, all things are adrift in our minds, then doctrines are indispensable; for they give to our minds the means of unswerving decision. Furthermore, when we advise a man to regard his friends as highly as himself, to reflect that an enemy may become a friend, to stimulate love in the friend, and to check hatred in the enemy, we add: “This is just and honourable.” Now the just and honourable element in our doctrines is embraced by reason; hence reason is necessary; for without it the doctrines cannot exist, either. But let us unite the two. For indeed branches are useless without their roots, and the roots themselves are strengthened by the growths which they have produced. Everyone can understand how useful the hands are; they obviously help us. But the heart, the source of the hands growth and power and motion, is hidden. And I can say the same thing about precepts: they are manifest, while the doctrines of wisdom are concealed. And as only the initiated know the more hallowed portion of the rites, so in philosophy the hidden truths are revealed only to those who are members and have been admitted to the sacred rites. But precepts and other such matters are familiar even to the uninitiated. Posidonius holds that not only precept-giving (there is nothing to prevent my using this word), but even persuasion, consolation, and encouragement, are necessary. To these he adds the investigation of causes (but I fail to see why I should not dare to call it aetiology, since the scholars who mount guard over the Latin language thus use the term as having the right to do so). He remarks that it will also be useful to illustrate each particular virtue; this science Posidonius calls ethology, while others call it characterization. It gives the signs and marks which belong to each virtue and vice, so that by them distinction may be drawn between like things. Its function is the same as that of precept. For he who utters precepts says: “If you would have self-control, act thus and so!” He who illustrates, says “The man who acts thus and so, and refrains from certain other things, possesses self-control.” If you ask what the difference here is, I say that the one gives the precepts of virtue, the other its embodiment. These illustrations, or, to use a commercial term, these samples, have, I confess, a certain utility; just put them up for exhibition well recommended, and you will find men to copy them. Would you, for instance, deem it a useful thing to have evidence given you by which you may recognize a thoroughbred horse, and not be cheated in your purchase or waste your time over a low-bred animal? But how much more useful it is to know the marks of a surpassingly fine soul—marks which one may appropriate from another for oneself! Straightway the foal of the high-bred drove, nursed up in the pastures, Marches with spirited step, and treads with a delicate motion; First on the dangerous pathway and into the threatening river, Trusting himself to the unknown bridge, without fear at its creakings, Neck thrown high in the air, and clear-cut head, and a belly Spare, back rounded, and breast abounding in courage and muscle. He, when the clashing of weapons is heard to resound in the distance, Leaps from his place, and pricks up his ears, and all in a tremble Pours forth the pent-up fire that lay close-shut in his nostrils. Vergil’s description, though referring to something else, might perfectly well be the portrayal of a brave man; at any rate, I myself should select no other simile for a hero. If I had to describe Cato, who was unterrified amid the din of civil war, who was first to attack the armies that were already making for the Alps, who plunged face-forward into the civil conflict, this is exactly the sort of expression and attitude which I should give him. Surely none could “march with more spirited step” than one who rose against Caesar and Pompey at the same time and, when some were supporting Caesar’s party and others that of Pompey, issued a challenge to both leaders, thus showing that the republic also had some backers. For it is not enough to say of Cato “without fear at its creakings.” Of course he is not afraid! He does not quail before real and imminent noises; in the face of ten legions, Gallic auxiliaries, and a motley host of citizens and foreigners, he utters words fraught with freedom, encouraging the Republic not to fail in the struggle for freedom, but to try all hazards; he declares that it is more honourable to fall into servitude than to fall in line with it. What force and energy are his! What confidence he displays amid the general panic! He knows that he is the only one whose standing is not in question, and that men do not ask whether Cato is free, but whether he is still among the free. Hence his contempt for danger and the sword. What a pleasure it is to say, in admiration of the unflinching steadiness of a hero who did not totter when the whole state was in ruins: A breast abounding in courage and muscle! It will be helpful not only to state what is the usual quality of good men, and to outline their figures and features, but also to relate and set forth what men there have been of this kind. We might picture that last and bravest wound of Cato’s, through which Freedom breathed her last; or the wise Laelius and his harmonious life with his friend Scipio; or the noble deeds of the Elder Cato at home and abroad; or the wooden couches of Tubero, spread at a public feast, goatskins instead of tapestry, and vessels of earthenware set out for the banquet before the very shrine of Jupiter! What else was this except consecrating poverty on the Capitol? Though I know no other deed of his for which to rank him with the Catos, is this one not enough? It was a censorship, not a banquet. How lamentably do those who covet glory fail to understand what glory is, or in what way it should be sought! On that day the Roman populace viewed the furniture of many men; it marvelled only at that of one! The gold and silver of all the others has been broken up and melted down times without number; but Tubero’s earthenware will endure throughout eternity. Farewell.

[1] Petis a me ut id quod in diem suum dixeram debere differri repraesentem et scribam tibi an haec pars philosophiae quam Graeci paraeneticen vocant, nos praeceptivam dicimus, satis sit ad consummandam sapientiam. Scio te in bonam partem accepturum si negavero. Eo magis promitto et verbum publicum perire non patior: 'postea noli rogare quod inpetrare nolueris'. [2] Interdum enim enixe petimus id quod recusaremus si quis offerret. Haec sive levitas est sive vernilitas punienda est promittendi facilitate. Multa videri volumus velle sed nolumus. Recitator historiam ingentem attulit minutissime scriptam, artissime plictam, et magna parte perlecta 'desinam' inquit 'si vultis': adclamatur 'recita, recita' ab iis qui illum ommutescere illic cupiunt. Saepe aliud volumus, aliud optamus, et verum ne dis quidem dicimus, sed dii aut non exaudiunt aut miserentur. [3] Ego me omissa misericordia vindicabo et tibi ingentem epistulam inpingam, quam tu si invitus leges, dicito 'ego mihi hoc contraxi', teque inter illos numera quos uxor magno ducta ambitu torquet, inter illos quos divitiae per summum adquisitae sudorem male habent, inter illos quos honores nulla non arte atque opera petiti discruciant, et ceteros malorum suorum compotes. [4] Sed ut omisso principio rem ipsam adgrediar, 'beata' inquiunt 'vita constat ex actionibus rectis; ad actiones rectas praecepta perducunt; ergo ad beatam vitam praecepta sufficiunt'. Non semper ad actiones rectas praecepta perducunt, sed cum obsequens ingenium est; aliquando frustra admoventur, si animum opiniones obsident pravae. [5] Deinde etiam si recte faciunt, nesciunt facere se recte. Non potest enim quisquam nisi ab initio formatus et tota ratione compositus omnis exsequi numeros ut sciat quando oporteat et in quantum et cum quo et quemadmodum et quare. Non potest toto animo ad honesta conari, ne constanter quidem aut libenter, sed respiciet, sed haesitabit. [6] 'Si honesta' inquit 'actio ex praeceptis venit, ad beatam vitam praecepta abunde sunt: atqui est illud, ergo et hoc.' His respondebimus actiones honestas et praeceptis fieri, non tantum praeceptis. [7] 'Si aliae' inquit 'artes contentae sunt praeceptis, contenta erit et sapientia; nam et haec ars vitae est. Atqui gubernatorem facit ille qui praecipit "sic move gubernaculum, sic vela summitte, sic secundo vento utere, sic adverso resiste, sic dubium communemque tibi vindica". Alios quoque artifices praecepta conformant; ergo in hoc idem poterunt artifice vivendi.' [8] Omnes istae artes circa instrumenta vitae occupatae sunt, non circa totam vitam; itaque multa illas inhibent extrinsecus et inpediunt, spes, cupiditas, timor. At haec quae artem vitae professa est nulla re quominus se exerceat vetari potest; discutit enim inpedimenta et iactat obstantia. Vis scire quam dissimilis sit aliarum artium condicio et huius? in illis excusatius est voluntate peccare quam casu, in hac maxima culpa est sponte delinquere. [9] Quod dico tale est. Grammaticus non erubescet soloecismo si sciens fecit, erubescet si nesciens; medicus si deficere aegrum non intellegit, quantum ad artem magis peccat quam si se intellegere dissimulat: at in hac arte vivendi turpior volentium culpa est. Adice nunc quod artes quoque pleraeque — immo ex omnibus liberalissimae — habent decreta sua, non tantum praecepta, sicut medicina; itaque alia est Hippocratis secta, alia Asclepiadis, alia Themisonis. [10] Praeterea nulla ars contemplativa sine decretis suis est, quae Graeci vocant dogmata, nobis vel decreta licet appellare vel scita vel placita; quae et in geometria et in astronomia invenies. Philosophia autem et contemplativa est et activa: spectat simul agitque. Erras enim si tibi illam putas tantum terrestres operas promittere: altius spirat. 'Totum' inquit 'mundum scrutor nec me intra contubernium mortale contineo, suadere vobis aut dissuadere contenta: magna me vocant supraque vos posita. [11] ut ait Lucretius.' Sequitur ergo ut, cum contemplativa sit, habeat decreta sua. [12] Quid quod facienda quoque nemo rite obibit nisi is cui ratio erit tradita qua in quaque re omnis officiorum numeros exsequi possit? quos non servabit qui in rem praecepta acceperit, non in omne. Inbecilla sunt per se et, ut ita dicam, sine radice quae partibus dantur. Decreta sunt quae muniant, quae securitatem nostram tranquillitatemque tueantur, quae totam vitam totamque rerum naturam simul contineant. Hoc interest inter decreta philosophiae et praecepta quod inter elementa et membra: haec ex illis dependent, illa et horum causae sunt et omnium. [13] 'Antiqua' inquit 'sapientia nihil aliud quam facienda ac vitanda praecepit, et tunc longe meliores erant viri: postquam docti prodierunt, boni desunt; simplex enim illa et aperta virtus in obscuram et sollertem scientiam versa est docemurque disputare, non vivere.' [14] Fuit sine dubio, ut dicitis, vetus illa sapientia cum maxime nascens rudis non minus quam ceterae artes quarum in processu subtilitas crevit. Sed ne opus quidem adhuc erat remediis diligentibus. Nondum in tantum nequitia surrexerat nec tam late se sparserat: poterant vitiis simplicibus obstare remedia simplicia. Nunc necesse est tanto operosiora esse munimenta quanto vehementiora sunt quibus petimur. [15] Medicina quondam paucarum fuit scientia herbarum quibus sisteretur fluens sanguis, vulnera coirent; paulatim deinde in hanc pervenit tam multiplicem varietatem. Nec est mirum tunc illam minus negotii habuisse firmis adhuc solidisque corporibus et facili cibo nec per artem voluptatemque corrupto: qui postquam coepit non ad tollendam sed ad inritandam famem quaeri et inventae sunt mille conditurae quibus aviditas excitaretur, quae desiderantibus alimenta erant onera sunt plenis. [16] Inde pallor et nervorum vino madentium tremor et miserabilior ex cruditatibus quam ex fame macies; inde incerti labantium pedes et semper qualis in ipsa ebrietate titubatio; inde in totam cutem umor admissus distentusque venter dum male adsuescit plus capere quam poterat; inde suffusio luridae bilis et decolor vultus tabesque ~in se~ putrescentium et retorridi digiti articulis obrigescentibus nervorumque sine sensu iacentium torpor aut palpitatio [corporum] sine intermissione vibrantium. [17] Quid capitis vertigines dicam? quid oculorum auriumque tormenta et cerebri exaestuantis verminationes et omnia per quae exoneramur internis ulceribus adfecta? Innumerabilia praeterea febrium genera, aliarum impetu saevientium, aliarum tenui peste repentium, aliarum cum horrore et multa membrorum quassatione venientium? [18] Quid alios referam innumerabiles morbos, supplicia luxuriae? Immunes erant ab istis malis qui nondum se delicis solverant, qui sibi imperabant, sibi ministrabant. Corpora opere ac vero labore durabant, aut cursu defatigati aut venatu aut tellure versanda; excipiebat illos cibus qui nisi esurientibus placere non posset. Itaque nihil opus erat tam magna medicorum supellectile nec tot ferramentis atque puxidibus. Simplex erat ex causa simplici valetudo: multos morbos multa fericula fecerunt. [19] Vide quantum rerum per unam gulam transiturarum permisceat luxuria, terrarum marisque vastatrix. Necesse est itaque inter se tam diversa dissideant et hausta male digerantur aliis alio nitentibus. Nec mirum quod inconstans variusque ex discordi cibo morbus est et illa ex contrariis naturae partibus in eundem conpulsa <ventrem> redundant. Inde tam novo aegrotamus genere quam vivimus. [20] Maximus ille medicorum et huius scientiae conditor feminis nec capillos defluere dixit nec pedes laborare: atqui et capillis destituuntur et pedibus aegrae sunt. Non mutata feminarum natura sed victa est; nam cum virorum licentiam aequaverint, corporum quoque virilium incommoda aequarunt. [21] Non minus pervigilant, non minus potant, et oleo et mero viros provocant; aeque invitis ingesta visceribus per os reddunt et vinum omne vomitu remetiuntur; aeque nivem rodunt, solacium stomachi aestuantis. Libidine vero ne maribus quidem cedunt: pati natae (di illas deaeque male perdant!) adeo perversum commentae genus inpudicitiae viros ineunt. Quid ergo mirandum est maximum medicorum ac naturae peritissimum in mendacio prendi, cum tot feminae podagricae calvaeque sint? Beneficium sexus sui vitiis perdiderunt et, quia feminam exuerant, damnatae sunt morbis virilibus. [22] Antiqui medici nesciebant dare cibum saepius et vino fulcire venas cadentis, nesciebant sanguinem mittere et diutinam aegrotationem balneo sudoribusque laxare, nesciebant crurum vinculo brachiorumque latentem vim et in medio sedentem ad extrema revocare. Non erat necesse circumspicere multa auxiliorum genera, cum essent periculorum paucissima. [23] Nunc vero quam longe processerunt mala valetudinis! Has usuras voluptatium pendimus ultra modum fasque concupitarum. Innumerabiles esse morbos non miraberis: cocos numera. Cessat omne studium et liberalia professi sine ulla frequentia desertis angulis praesident; in rhetorum ac philosophorum scholis solitudo est: at quam celebres culinae sunt, quanta circa nepotum focos <se> iuventus premit! [24] Transeo puerorum infelicium greges quos post transacta convivia aliae cubiculi contumeliae expectant; transeo agmina exoletorum per nationes coloresque discripta ut eadem omnibus levitas sit, eadem primae mensura lanuginis, eadem species capillorum, ne quis cui rectior est coma crispulis misceatur; transeo pistorum turbam, transeo ministratorum per quos signo dato ad inferendam cenam discurritur. Di boni, quantum hominum unus venter exercet! [25] Quid? tu illos boletos, voluptarium venenum, nihil occulti operis iudicas facere, etiam si praesentanei non fuerunt? Quid? tu illam aestivam nivem non putas callum iocineribus obducere? Quid? illa ostrea, inertissimam carnem caeno saginatam, nihil existimas limosae gravitatis inferre? Quid? illud sociorum garum, pretiosam malorum piscium saniem, non credis urere salsa tabe praecordia? Quid? illa purulenta et quae tantum non ex ipso igne in os transferuntur iudicas sine noxa in ipsis visceribus extingui? Quam foedi itaque pestilentesque ructus sunt, quantum fastidium sui exhalantibus crapulam veterem! scias putrescere sumpta, non concoqui. [26] Memini fuisse quondam in sermone nobilem patinam in quam quidquid apud lautos solet diem ducere properans in damnum suum popina congesserat: veneriae spondylique et ostrea eatenus circumcisa qua eduntur intervenientibus distinguebantur ~echini totam destructique~ sine ullis ossibus mulli constraverant. [27] Piget esse iam singula: coguntur in unum sapores. In cena fit quod fieri debebat in ventre: expecto iam ut manducata ponantur. Quantulo autem hoc minus est, testas excerpere atque ossa et dentium opera cocum fungi? 'Gravest luxuriari per singula: omnia semel et in eundem saporem versa ponantur. Quare ego ad unam rem manum porrigam? plura veniant simul, multorum ferculorum ornamenta coeant et cohaereant. [28] Sciant protinus hi qui iactationem ex istis peti et gloriam aiebant non ostendi ista sed conscientiae dari. Pariter sint quae disponi solent, uno iure perfusa; nihil intersit; ostrea, echini, spondyli, mulli perturbati concoctique ponantur.' Non esset confusior vomentium cibus. [29] Quomodo ista perplexa sunt, sic ex istis non singulares morbi nascuntur sed inexplicabiles, diversi, multiformes, adversus quos et medicina armare se coepit multis generibus, multis observationibus. Idem tibi de philosophia dico. Fuit aliquando simplicior inter minora peccantis et levi quoque cura remediabiles: adversus tantam morum eversionem omnia conanda sunt. Et utinam sic denique lues ista vincatur! [30] Non privatim solum sed publice furimus. Homicidia conpescimus et singulas caedes: quid bella et occisarum gentium gloriosum scelus? Non avaritia, non crudelitas modum novit. Et ista quamdiu furtim et a singulis fiunt minus noxia minusque monstrosa sunt: ex senatus consultis plebisque scitis saeva exercentur et publice iubentur vetata privatim. [31] Quae clam commissa capite luerent, tum quia paludati fecere laudamus. Non pudet homines, mitissimum genus, gaudere sanguine alterno et bella gerere gerendaque liberis tradere, cum inter se etiam mutis ac feris pax sit. [32] Adversus tam potentem explicitumque late furorem operosior philosophia facta est et tantum sibi virium sumpsit quantum iis adversus quae parabatur accesserat. Expeditum erat obiurgare indulgentis mero et petentis delicatiorem cibum, non erat animus ad frugalitatem magna vi reducendus a qua paullum discesserat: [33] Voluptas ex omni quaeritur. Nullum intra se manet vitium: in avaritiam luxuria praeceps est. Honesti oblivio invasit; nihil turpest cuius placet pretium. Homo, sacra res homini, iam per lusum ac iocum occiditur et quem erudiri ad inferenda accipiendaque vulnera nefas erat, is iam nudus inermisque producitur satisque spectaculi ex homine mors est. [34] In hac ergo morum perversitate desideratur solito vehementius aliquid quod mala inveterata discutiat: decretis agendum est ut revellatur penitus falsorum recepta persuasio. His si adiunxerimus praecepta, consolationes, adhortationes, poterunt valere: per se inefficaces sunt. [35] Si volumus habere obligatos et malis quibus iam tenentur avellere, discant quid malum, quid bonum sit, sciant omnia praeter virtutem mutare nomen, modo mala fieri, modo bona. Quemadmodum primum militiae vinculum est religio et signorum amor et deserendi nefas, tunc deinde facile cetera exiguntur mandanturque iusiurandum adactis, ita in iis quos velis ad beatam vitam perducere prima fundamenta iacienda sunt et insinuanda virtus. Huius quadam superstitione teneantur, hanc ament; cum hac vivere velint, sine hac nolint. [36] 'Quid ergo? non quidam sine institutione subtili evaserunt probi magnosque profectus adsecuti sunt dum nudis tantum praeceptis obsequuntur?' Fateor, sed felix illis ingenium fuit et salutaria in transitu rapuit. Nam ut dii immortales nullam didicere virtutem cum omni editi et pars naturae eorum est bonos esse, ita quidam ex hominibus egregiam sortiti indolem in ea quae tradi solent perveniunt sine longo magisterio et honesta conplexi sunt cum primum audiere; unde ista tam rapacia virtutis ingenia vel ex se fertilia. At illis aut hebetibus et obtusis aut mala consuetudine obsessis diu robigo animorum effricanda est. [37] Ceterum, ut illos in bonum pronos citius educit ad summa, et hos inbecilliores adiuvabit malisque opinionibus extrahet qui illis philosophiae placita tradiderit; quae quam sint necessaria sic licet videas. Quaedam insident nobis quae nos ad alia pigros, ad alia temerarios faciunt; nec haec audacia reprimi potest nec illa inertia suscitari nisi causae eorum eximuntur, falsa admiratio et falsa formido. Haec nos quamdiu possident, dicas licet 'hoc patri praestare debes, hoc liberis, hoc amicis, hoc hospitibus': temptantem avaritia retinebit. Sciet pro patria pugnandum esse, dissuadebit timor; sciet pro amicis desudandum esse ad extremum usque sudorem, sed deliciae vetabunt; sciet in uxore gravissimum esse genus iniuriae paelicem, sed illum libido in contraria inpinget. [38] Nihil ergo proderit dare praecepta nisi prius amoveris obstatura praeceptis, non magis quam proderit arma in conspectu posuisse propiusque admovisse nisi usurae manus expediuntur. Ut ad praecepta quae damus possit animus ire, solvendus est. [39] Putemus aliquem facere quod oportet: non faciet adsidue, non faciet aequaliter; nesciet enim quare faciat. Aliqua vel casu vel exercitatione exibunt recta, sed non erit in manu regula ad quam exigantur, cui credat recta esse quae fecit. Non promittet se talem in perpetuum qui bonus casu est. [40] Deinde praestabunt tibi fortasse praecepta ut quod oportet faciat, non praestabunt ut quemadmodum oportet; si hoc non praestant, ad virtutem non perducunt. Faciet quod oportet monitus, concedo; sed id parum est, quoniam quidem non in facto laus est sed in eo quemadmodum fiat. [41] Quid est cena sumptuosa flagitiosius et equestrem censum consumente? quid tam dignum censoria nota, si quis, ut isti ganeones loquuntur, sibi hoc et genio suo praestet? et deciens tamen sestertio aditiales cenae frugalissimis viris constiterunt. Eadem res, si gulae datur, turpis est, si honori, reprensionem effugit; non enim luxuria sed inpensa sollemnis est. [42] Mullum ingentis formae — quare autem non pondus adicio et aliquorum gulam inrito? quattuor pondo et selibram fuisse aiebant — Tiberius Caesar missum sibi cum in macellum deferri et venire iussisset, 'amici,' inquit 'omnia me fallunt nisi istum mullum aut Apicius emerit aut P. Octavius'. Ultra spem illi coniectura processit: liciti sunt, vicit Octavius et ingentem consecutus est inter suos gloriam, cum quinque sestertiis emisset piscem quem Caesar vendiderat, ne Apicius quidem emerat. Numerare tantum Octavio fuit turpe, non illi qui emerat ut Tiberio mitteret, quamquam illum quoque reprenderim: admiratus est rem qua putavit Caesarem dignum. Amico aliquis aegro adsidet: probamus. [43] At hoc hereditatis causa facit: vultur est, cadaver expectat. Eadem aut turpia sunt aut honesta: refert quare aut quemadmodum fiant. Omnia autem honeste fient si honesto nos addixerimus idque unum in rebus humanis bonum iudicarimus quaeque ex eo sunt; cetera in diem bona sunt. [44] Ergo infigi debet persuasio ad totam pertinens vitam: hoc est quod decretum voco. Qualis haec persuasio fuerit, talia erunt quae agentur, quae cogitabuntur; qualia autem haec fuerint, talis vita erit. In particulas suasisse totum ordinanti parum est. [45] M. Brutus in eo libro quem peri kathekontos inscripsit dat multa praecepta et parentibus et liberis et fratribus: haec nemo faciet quemadmodum debet nisi habuerit quo referat. Proponamus oportet finem summi boni ad quem nitamur, ad quem omne factum nostrum dictumque respiciat; veluti navigantibus ad aliquod sidus derigendus est cursus. [46] Vita sine proposito vaga est; quod si utique proponendum est, incipiunt necessaria esse decreta. Illud, ut puto, concedes, nihil esse turpius dubio et incerto ac timide pedem referente. Hoc in omnibus rebus accidet nobis nisi eximuntur quae reprendunt animos et detinent et ire conarique totos vetant. [47] Quomodo sint dii colendi solet praecipi. Accendere aliquem lucernas sabbatis prohibeamus, quoniam nec lumine dii egent et ne homines quidem delectantur fuligine. Vetemus salutationibus matutinis fungi et foribus adsidere templorum: humana ambitio istis officiis capitur, deum colit qui novit. Vetemus lintea et strigiles Iovi ferre et speculum tenere Iunoni: non quaerit ministros deus. Quidni? ipse humano generi ministrat, ubique et omnibus praesto est. [48] Audiat licet quem modum servare in sacrificiis debeat, quam procul resilire a molestis superstitionibus, numquam satis profectum erit nisi qualem debet deum mente conceperit, omnia habentem, omnia tribuentem, beneficum gratis. [49] Quae causa est dis bene faciendi? natura. Errat si quis illos putat nocere nolle: non possunt. Nec accipere iniuriam queunt nec facere; laedere etenim laedique coniunctum est. Summa illa ac pulcherrima omnium natura quos periculo exemit ne periculosos quidem fecit. [50] Primus est deorum cultus deos credere; deinde reddere illis maiestatem suam, reddere bonitatem sine qua nulla maiestas est; scire illos esse qui praesident mundo, qui universa vi sua temperant, qui humani generis tutelam gerunt interdum incuriosi singulorum. Hi nec dant malum nec habent; ceterum castigant quosdam et coercent et inrogant poenas et aliquando specie boni puniunt. Vis deos propitiare? bonus esto. Satis illos coluit quisquis imitatus est. [51] Ecce altera quaestio, quomodo hominibus sit utendum. Quid agimus? quae damus praecepta? Ut parcamus sanguini humano? quantulum est ei non nocere cui debeas prodesse! Magna scilicet laus est si homo mansuetus homini est. Praecipiemus ut naufrago manum porrigat, erranti viam monstret, cum esuriente panem suum dividat? Quare omnia quae praestanda ac vitanda sunt dicam? cum possim breviter hanc illi formulam humani offici tradere: [52] omne hoc quod vides, quo divina atque humana conclusa sunt, unum est; membra sumus corporis magni. Natura nos cognatos edidit, cum ex isdem et in eadem gigneret; haec nobis amorem indidit mutuum et sociabiles fecit. Illa aequum iustumque composuit; ex illius constitutione miserius est nocere quam laedi; ex illius imperio paratae sint iuvandis manus. [53] Ille versus et in pectore et in ore sit: Habeamus in commune: <in commune> nati sumus. Societas nostra lapidum fornicationi simillima est, quae, casura nisi in vicem obstarent, hoc ipso sustinetur. [54] Post deos hominesque dispiciamus quomodo rebus sit utendum. In supervacuum praecepta iactabimus nisi illud praecesserit, qualem de quacumque re habere debeamus opinionem, de paupertate, de divitiis, de gloria, de ignominia, de patria, de exilio. Aestimemus singula fama remota et quaeramus quid sint, non quid vocentur. [55] Ad virtutes transeamus. Praecipiet aliquis ut prudentiam magni aestimemus, ut fortitudinem conplectamur, iustitiam, si fieri potest, propius etiam quam ceteras nobis adplicemus; sed nil aget si ignoramus quid sit virtus, una sit an plures, separatae an innexae, an qui unam habet et ceteras habeat, quo inter se differant. [56] Non est necesse fabro de fabrica quaerere quod eius initium, quis usus sit, non magis quam pantomimo de arte saltandi: omnes istae artes se sciunt, nihil deest; non enim ad totam pertinent vitam. Virtus et aliorum scientia est et sui; discendum de ipsa est ut ipsa discatur. [57] Actio recta non erit nisi recta fuerit voluntas; ab hac enim est actio. Rursus voluntas non erit recta nisi habitus animi rectus fuerit; ab hoc enim est voluntas. Habitus porro animi non erit in optimo nisi totius vitae leges perceperit et quid de quoque iudicandum sit exegerit, nisi res ad verum redegerit. Non contingit tranquillitas nisi inmutabile certumque iudicium adeptis: ceteri decidunt subinde et reponuntur et inter missa adpetitaque alternis fluctuantur. [58] Causa his quae iactationis est? quod nihil liquet incertissimo regimine utentibus, fama. Si vis eadem semper velle, vera oportet velis. Ad verum sine decretis non pervenitur: continent vitam. Bona et mala, honesta et turpia, iusta et iniusta, pia et impia, virtutes ususque virtutum, rerum commodarum possessio, existimatio ac dignitas, valetudo, vires, forma, sagacitas sensuum — haec omnia aestimatorem desiderant. Scire liceat quanti quidque in censum deferendum sit. [59] Falleris enim et pluris quaedam quam sunt putas, adeoque falleris ut quae maxima inter nos habentur — divitiae, gratia, potentia — sestertio nummo aestimanda sint. Hoc nescies nisi constitutionem ipsam qua ista inter se aestimantur inspexeris. Quemadmodum folia per se virere non possunt, ramum desiderant cui inhaereant, ex quo trahant sucum, sic ista praecepta, si sola sunt, marcent; infigi volunt sectae. [60] Praeterea non intellegunt hi qui decreta tollunt eo ipso confirmari illa quo tolluntur. Quid enim dicunt? praeceptis vitam satis explicari, supervacua esse decreta sapientiae [id est dogmata]. Atqui hoc ipsum quod dicunt decretum est tam mehercules quam si nunc ego dicerem recedendum a praeceptis velut supervacuis, utendum esse decretis, in haec sola studium conferendum; hoc ipso quo negarem curanda esse praecepta praeciperem. [61] Quaedam admonitionem in philosophia desiderant, quaedam probationem et quidem multam, quia involuta sunt vixque summa diligentia ac summa subtilitate aperiuntur. Si probationes <necessariae sunt>, necessaria sunt et decreta quae veritatem argumentis colligunt. Quaedam aperta sunt, quaedam obscura: aperta quae sensu conprehenduntur, quae memoria; obscura quae extra haec sunt. Ratio autem non impletur manifestis: maior eius pars pulchriorque in occultis est. Occulta probationem exigunt, probatio non sine decretis est; necessaria ergo decreta sunt. [62] Quae res communem sensum facit, eadem perfectum, certa rerum persuasio; sine qua si omnia in animo natant, necessaria sunt decreta quae dant animis inflexibile iudicium. [63] Denique cum monemus aliquem ut amicum eodem habeat loco quo se, ut ex inimico cogitet fieri posse amicum, in illo amorem incitet, in hoc odium moderetur, adicimus 'iustum est, honestum'. Iustum autem honestumque decretorum nostrorum continet ratio; ergo haec necessaria est, sine qua nec illa sunt. [64] Sed utrumque iungamus; namque et sine radice inutiles rami sunt et ipsae radices iis quae genuere adiuvantur. Quantum utilitatis manus habeant nescire nulli licet, aperte iuvant: cor illud, quo manus vivunt, ex quo impetum sumunt, quo moventur, latet. Idem dicere de praeceptis possum: aperta sunt, decreta vero sapientiae in abdito. Sicut sanctiora sacrorum tantum initiati sciunt, ita in philosophia arcana illa admissis receptisque in sacra ostenduntur; at praecepta et alia eiusmodi profanis quoque nota sunt. [65] Posidonius non tantum praeceptionem (nihil enim nos hoc verbo uti prohibet) sed etiam suasionem et consolationem et exhortationem necessariam iudicat; his adicit causarum inquisitionem, aetiologian quam quare nos dicere non audeamus, cum grammatici, custodes Latini sermonis, suo iure ita appellent, non video. Ait utilem futuram et descriptionem cuiusque virtutis; hanc Posidonius 'ethologian' vocat, quidam 'characterismon' appellant, signa cuiusque virtutis ac vitii et notas reddentem, quibus inter se similia discriminentur. [66] Haec res eandem vim habet quam praecipere; nam qui praecipit dicit 'illa facies si voles temperans esse', qui describit ait 'temperans est qui illa facit, qui illis abstinet'. Quaeris quid intersit? alter praecepta virtutis dat, alter exemplar. Descriptiones has et, ut publicanorum utar verbo, iconismos ex usu esse confiteor: proponamus laudanda, invenietur imitator. [67] Putas utile dari tibi argumenta per quae intellegas nobilem equum, ne fallaris empturus, ne operam perdas in ignavo? Quanto hoc utilius est excellentis animi notas nosse, quas ex alio in se transferre permittitur. [68] [69] Dum aliud agit, Vergilius noster descripsit virum fortem: ego certe non aliam imaginem magno viro dederim. Si mihi M. Cato exprimendus <sit> inter fragores bellorum civilium inpavidus et primus incessens admotos iam exercitus Alpibus civilique se bello ferens obvium, non alium illi adsignaverim vultum, non alium habitum. [70] Altius certe nemo ingredi potuit quam qui simul contra Caesarem Pompeiumque se sustulit et aliis Caesareanas opes, aliis Pompeianas [tibi] foventibus utrumque provocavit ostenditque aliquas esse et rei publicae partes. Nam parum est in Catone dicere 'nec vanos horret strepitus'. Quidni? cum veros vicinosque non horreat, cum contra decem legiones et Gallica auxilia et mixta barbarica arma civilibus vocem liberam mittat et rem publicam hortetur ne pro libertate decidat, sed omnia experiatur, honestius in servitutem casura quam itura. [71] Quantum in illo vigoris ac spiritus, quantum in publica trepidatione fiduciaest! Scit se unum esse de cuius statu non agatur; non enim quaeri an liber Cato, sed an inter liberos sit: inde periculorum gladiorumque contemptus. Libet admirantem invictam constantiam viri inter publicas ruinas non labantis dicere 'luxuriatque toris animosum pectus'. [72] Proderit non tantum quales esse soleant boni viri dicere formamque eorum et liniamenta deducere sed quales fuerint narrare et exponere, Catonis illud ultimum ac fortissimum vulnus per quod libertas emisit animam, Laeli sapientiam et cum suo Scipione concordiam, alterius Catonis domi forisque egregia facta, Tuberonis ligneos lectos, cum in publicum sterneret, haedinasque pro stragulis pelles et ante ipsius Iovis cellam adposita conviviis vasa fictilia. Quid aliud paupertatem in Capitolio consecrare? Ut nullum aliud factum eius habeam quo illum Catonibus inseram, hoc parum credimus? censura fuit illa, non cena. [73] O quam ignorant homines cupidi gloriae quid illa sit aut quemadmodum petenda! Illo die populus Romanus multorum supellectilem spectavit, unius miratus est. Omnium illorum aurum argentumque fractum est et [in] milliens conflatum, at omnibus saeculis Tuberonis fictilia durabunt. Vale. Seneca the YoungerThe Latin Library The Classics Page