L. Annaeus Seneca on Benefits
frenzy for informing, which was more ruinous to the citizens of Rome
than the whole civil war; the talk of drunkards, the frankness of
jesters, was alike reported to the government; nothing was safe; every
opportunity of ferocious punishment was seized, and men no longer waited
to hear the fate of accused persons, since it was always the same. One
Paulus, of the Praetorian guard, was at an entertainment, wearing a
portrait of Tiberius Caesar engraved in relief upon a gem. It would be
absurd for me to beat about the bush for some delicate way of explaining
that he took up a chamber-pot, an action which was at once noticed by
Maro, one of the most notorious informers of that time, and the slave of
the man who was about to fall into the trap, who drew the ring from the
finger of his drunken master. When Maro called the guests to witness
that Paulus had dishonoured the portrait of the emperor, and was already
drawing up an act of accusation, the slave showed the ring upon his
own finger. Such a man no more deserves to be called a slave, than Maro
deserved to be called a guest.
XXVII. In the reign of Augustus men's own words were not yet able to
ruin them, yet they sometimes brought them into trouble. A senator named
Rufus, while at dinner, expressed a hope that Caesar would not return
safe from a journey for which he was preparing, and added that all bulls
and calves wished the same thing. Some of those present carefully noted
these words. At daybreak, the slave who had stood at his feet during the
dinner, told him what he had said in his cups, and urged him to be the
first to go to Caesar, and denounce himself. Rufus followed this advice,
met Caesar as he was going down to the forum, and, swearing that he was
out of his mind the day before, prayed that what he had said might fall
upon his own head and that of his children; he then begged Caesar pardon
him, and to take him back into favour. When Caesar said that he would
do so, he added, "No one will believe that you have taken me back into
favour unless you make me a present of something;" and he asked for and
obtained a sum of money so large, that it would have been a gift not to
be slighted even if bestowed by an unoffended prince. Caesar added: "In
future I will take care never to quarrel with you, for my own sake."
Caesar acted honourably in pardoning him, and in being liberal as well
as forgiving; no one can hear this anecdote without praising Caesar,
but he must praise the slave first. You need not wait for me to tell
you that the slave who did his master this service was set free; yet his
master did not do this for nothing, for Caesar had already paid him the
price of the slave's liberty.
XXVIII. After so many instances, can we doubt that a master may
sometimes receive a benefit from a slave? Why need the person of the
giver detract from the thing which he gives? why should not the gift add
rather to the glory of the giver. All men descend from the same original
stock; no one is better born than another, except in so far as his
disposition is nobler and better suited for the performance of good
actions. Those who display portraits of their ancestors in their halls,
and set up in the entrance to their houses the pedigree of their family
drawn out at length, with many complicated collateral branches, are they
not notorious rather than noble? The universe is the one parent of all,
whether they trace their descent from this primary source through a
glorious or a mean line of ancestors. Be not deceived when men who are
reckoning up their genealogy, wherever an illustrious name is wanting,
foist in that of a god in its place. You need despise no one, even
though he bears a commonplace name, and owes little to fortune. Whether
your immediate ancestors were freedmen, or slaves, or foreigners, pluck
up your spirits boldly, and leap over any intervening disgraces of your
pedigree; at its source, a noble origin awaits you. Why should our
pride inflate us to such a degree that we think it beneath us to receive
benefits from slaves, and think only of their position, forgetting their
good deeds? You, the slave of lust, of gluttony, of a harlot, nay, who
are owned as a joint chattel by harlots, can you call anyone else
a slave? Call a man a slave? why, I pray you, whither are you being
hurried by those bearers who carry your litter? whither are these men
with their smart military-looking cloaks carrying you? is it not to the
door of some door-keeper, or to the gardens of some one who has not even
a subordinate office? and then you, who regard the salute of another
man's slave as a benefit, declare that you cannot receive a benefit from
your own slave. What inconsistency is this? At the same time you despise
and fawn upon slaves, you are haughty and violent at home, while out of
doors you are meek, and as much despised as you despise your slaves;
for none abase themselves lower than those who unconscionably give
themselves airs, nor are anymore prepared to trample upon others than
those who have learned how to offer insults by having endured them.
XXIX. I felt it my duty to say this, in order to crush the arrogance of
men who are themselves at the mercy of fortune, and to claim the right
of bestowing a benefit for slaves, in order that I may claim it also for
sons. The question arises, whether children can ever bestow upon their
parents greater benefits than those which they have received from them.
It is granted that many sons become greater and more powerful than their
parents, and also that they are better men. If this be true, they may
give better gifts to their fathers than they have received from them,
seeing that their fortune and their good nature are alike greater than
that of their father. "Whatever a father receives from his son," our
opponent will urge, "must in any case be lees than what the son received
from him, because the son owes to his father the very power of giving.
Therefore the father can never be surpassed in the bestowal of benefits,
because the benefit which surpasses his own is really his." I answer,
that some things derive their first origin from others, yet are greater
than those others; and a thing may be greater than that from which it
took its rise, although without that thing to start from it never could
have grown so great. All things greatly outgrow their beginnings. Seeds
are the causes of all things, and yet are the smallest part of the
things which they produce. Look at the Rhine, or the Euphrates, or any
other famous rivers; how small they are, if you only view them at the
place from whence they take their rise? they gain all that makes them
terrible and renowned as they flow along. Look at the trees which are
tallest if you consider their height, and the broadest if you look at
their thickness and the spread of their branches; compared with all
this, how small a part of them is contained in the slender fibres of
the root? Yet take away their roots, and no more groves will arise, nor
great mountains be clothed with trees. Temples and cities are supported
by their foundations; yet what is built as the foundation of the entire
building lies out of sight. So it is in other matters; the subsequent
greatness of a thing ever eclipses its origin. I could never have
obtained anything without having previously received the boon of
existence from my parents; yet it does not follow from this that
whatever I obtain is less than that without which I could not obtain it.
If my nurse had not fed me when I was a child, I should not have been
able to conduct any of those enterprises which I now carry on, both with
my head and with my hand, nor should I ever have obtained the fame which
is due to my labours both in peace and war; would you on that account
argue that the services of a nurse were more valuable than the most
important undertakings? Yet is not the nurse as important as the father,
since without the benefits which I have received from each of them
alike, I should have been alike unable to effect anything? If I owe all
that I now can do to my original beginning, I cannot regard my father or
my grandfather as being this original beginning; there always will be a
spring further back, from which the spring next below is derived. Yet no
one will argue that I owe more to unknown and forgotten ancestors
than to my father; though really I do owe them more, if I owe it to my
ancestors that my father begat me.
XXX. "Whatever I have bestowed upon my father," says my opponent,
"however great it may be, yet is less valuable than what my father has
bestowed upon me, because if he had not begotten me, it never could
have existed at all." By this mode of reasoning, if a man has healed
my father when ill, and at the point of death, I shall not be able to
bestow anything upon him equivalent to what I have received from him;
for had my father not been healed, he could not have begotten me. Yet
think whether it be not nearer the truth to regard all that I can do,
and all that I have done, as mine, due to my own powers and my own will?
Consider what the fact of my birth is in itself; you will see that it
is a small matter, the outcome of which is dubious, and that it may lead
equally to good or to evil; no doubt it is the first step to everything,
but because it is the first, it is not on that account more important
than all the others. Suppose that I have saved my father's life, raised
him to the highest honours, and made him the chief man in his city,
that I have not merely made him illustrious by my own deeds, but have
furnished him himself with an opportunity of performing great exploits,
which is at once important, easy, and safe, as well as glorious; that I
have loaded him with appointments, wealth, and all that attracts men's
minds; still, even when I surpass all others, I am inferior to him.
Now if you say, "You owe to your father the power of doing all this," I
shall answer, "Quite true, if to do all this it is only necessary to be
born; but if life is merely an unimportant factor in the art of living
well, and if you have bestowed upon me only that which I have in common
with wild beasts and the smallest, and some of the foulest of creatures,
do not claim for yourself what did not come into being in consequence of
the benefits which you bestowed, even though it could not have come into
being without them."
XXXI. Suppose, father, that I have saved your life, in return for the
life which I received from you: in this case also I have outdone your
benefit, because I have given life to one who understands what I have
done, and because I understood what I was doing, since I gave you your
life not for the sake of, or by the means of my own pleasure; for just
as it is less terrible to die before one has time to fear death, so it
is a much greater boon to preserve one's life than to receive it. I have
given life to one who will at once enjoy it, you gave it to one who knew
not if he should ever live; I have given life to one who was in fear of
death, your gift of life merely enables me to die; I have given you a
life complete, perfect; you begat me without intelligence, a burden upon
others. Do you wish to know how far from a benefit it was to give life
under such conditions? You should have exposed me as a child, for you
did me a wrong in begetting me. What do I gather from this? That the
cohabitation of a father and mother is the very least of benefits to
their child, unless in addition this beginning of kindnesses be followed
up by others, and confirmed by other services. It is not a good thing
to live, but to live well. "But," say you, "I do live well." True, but
I might have lived ill; so that your part in me is merely this, that I
live. If you claim merit to yourself for giving me mere life, bare and