L. Annaeus Seneca on Benefits
a real benefit is as much an ungrateful man as he who mixes a sleeping
draught, believing it to be poison, is a poisoner.
XIV. Cleanthes speaks more impetuously than this. "Granted," says he,
"that what he received was not a benefit, yet he is ungrateful, because
he would not have returned a benefit if he had received one." So he who
carries deadly weapons and has intentions of robbing and murdering, is
a brigand even before he has dipped his hands in blood; his wickedness
consists and is shown in action, but does not begin thereby. Men are
punished for sacrilege, although no one's hands can reach to the gods.
"How," asks our opponent, "can any one be ungrateful to a bad man, since
a bad man cannot bestow a benefit?" In the same way, I answer, because
that which he received was not a benefit, but was called one; if any
one receives from a bad man any of those things which are valued by the
ignorant, and of which bad men often possess great store, it becomes his
duty to make a return in the same kind, and to give back as though they
were truly good those things which he received as though they were
truly good. A man is said to be in debt, whether he owes gold pieces
or leather marked with a state stamp, such as the Lacedaemonians used,
which passes for coined money. Pay your debts in that kind in which you
incurred them. You have nothing to do with the definition of benefits,
or with the question whether so great and noble a name ought to be
degraded by applying it to such vulgar and mean matters as these, nor do
we seek for truth that we may use it to the disadvantage of others;
do you adjust your minds to the semblance of truth, and while you are
learning what is really honourable, respect everything to which the name
of honour is applied.
XV. "In the same way," argues our adversary, "that your school proves
that no one is ungrateful, you afterwards prove that all men are
ungrateful. For, as you say, all fools are bad men; he who has one vice
has all vices; all men are both fools and bad men; therefore all men are
ungrateful." Well, what then? Are they not? Is not this the universal
reproach of the human race? is there not a general complaint that
benefits are thrown away, and that there are very few men who do not
requite their benefactors with the basest ingratitude? Nor need you
suppose that what we say is merely the grumbling of men who think
every act wicked and depraved which falls short of an ideal standard of
righteousness. Listen! I know not who it is who speaks, yet the voice
with which he condemns mankind proceeds, not from the schools of
philosophers, but from the midst of the crowd:
"Host is not safe from guest;
Father-in-law from son; but seldom love
Exists 'twixt brothers; wives long to destroy
Their husbands; husbands long to slay their wives."
This goes even further: according to this, crimes take the place of
benefits, and men do not shrink from shedding the blood of those for
whom they ought to shed their own; we requite benefits by steel and
poison. We call laying violent hands upon our own country, and putting
down its resistance by the fasces of its own lictors, gaining power
and great place; every man thinks himself to be in a mean and degraded
position if he has not raised himself above the constitution; the armies
which are received from the state are turned against her, and a general
now says to his men, "Fight against your wives, fight against your
children, march in arms against your altars, your hearths and homes!"
Yes, [Footnote: I believe, in spite of Gertz, that this is part of
the speech of the Roman general, and that the conjecture of Muretus,
"without the command of the senate," gives better sense.] you, who even
when about to triumph ought not to enter the city at the command of the
senate, and who have often, when bringing home a victorious army, been
given an audience outside the walls, you now, after slaughtering your
countrymen, stained with the blood of your kindred, march into the city
with standards erect. "Let liberty," say you, "be silent amidst the
ensigns of war, and now that wars are driven far away and no ground
for terror remains, let that people which conquered and civilized all
nations be beleaguered within its own walls, and shudder at the sight of
its own eagles."
XVI. Coriolanus was ungrateful, and became dutiful late, and after
repenting of his crime; he did indeed lay down his arms, but only in
the midst of his unnatural warfare. Catilina was ungrateful; he was
not satisfied with taking his country captive without overturning it,
without despatching the hosts of the Allobroges against it, without
bringing an enemy from beyond the Alps to glut his old inborn hatred,
and to offer Roman generals as sacrifices which had been long owing to
the tombs of the Gaulish dead. Caius Marius was ungrateful, when, after
being raised from the ranks to the consulship, he felt that he would not
have wreaked his vengeance upon fortune, and would sink to his original
obscurity, unless he slaughtered Romans as freely as he had slaughtered
the Cimbri, and not merely gave the signal, but was himself the signal
for civil disasters and butcheries. Lucius Sulla was ungrateful, for he
saved his country by using remedies worse than the perils with which it
was threatened, when he marched through human blood all the way from the
citadel of Praeneste to the Colline Gate, fought more battles and caused
more slaughter afterwards within the city, and most cruelly after the
victory was won, most wickedly after quarter had been promised them,
drove two legions into a corner and put them to the sword, and, great
gods! invented a proscription by which he who slew a Roman citizen
received indemnity, a sum of money, everything but a civic crown! Cnaeus
Pompeius was ungrateful, for the return which he made to his country for
three consulships, three triumphs, and the innumerable public offices
into most of which he thrust himself when under age, was to lead others
also to lay hands upon her under the pretext of thus rendering his own
power less odious; as though what no one ought to do became right
if more than one person did it. Whilst he was coveting extraordinary
commands, arranging the provinces so as to have his own choice of them,
and dividing the whole state with a third person, [Footnote: Crassus.]
in such a manner as to leave two-thirds of it in the possession of his
own family, [Footnote: Pompey was married to Caesar's daughter. Cf.
Virg., "Aen.," vi., 831, sq., and Lucan's beautiful verses, "Phars.,"
i., 114.] he reduced the Roman people to such a condition that they
could only save themselves by submitting to slavery. The foe and
conqueror [Footnote: Seneca is careful to avoid the mention of Caesar's
name, which might have given offence to the emperors under whom
he lived, who used the name as a title.] of Pompeius was himself
ungrateful; he brought war from Gaul and Germany to Rome, and he, the
friend of the populace, the champion of the commons, pitched his camp in
the Circus Flaminus, nearer to the city than Porsena's camp had been. He
did, indeed, use the cruel privileges of victory with moderation; as was
said at the time, he protected his countrymen, and put to death no man
who was not in arms. Yet what credit is there in this? Others used their
arms more cruelly, but flung them away when glutted with blood, while
he, though he soon sheathed the sword, never laid it aside. Antonius was
ungrateful to his dictator, who he declared was rightly slain, and whose
murderers he allowed to depart to their commands in the provinces;
as for his country, after it had been torn to pieces by so many
proscriptions, invasions, and civil wars, he intended to subject it
to kings, not even of Roman birth, and to force that very state to pay
tribute to eunuchs, [Footnote: The allusion is to Antonius's connection
with Cleopatra. Cf. Virg. "Aen.," viii., 688.] which had itself restored
sovereign rights, autonomy, and immunities, to the Achaeans, the
Rhodians, and the people of many other famous cities.
XVII. The day would not be long enough for me to enumerate those who
have pushed their ingratitude so far as to ruin their native land.
It would be as vast a task to mention how often the state has been
ungrateful to its best and most devoted lovers, although it has done no
less wrong than it has suffered. It sent Camillus and Scipio into exile;
even after the death of Catiline it exiled Cicero, destroyed his house,
plundered his property, and did everything which Catiline would
have done if victorious; Rutilius found his virtue rewarded with a
hiding-place in Asia; to Cato the Roman people refused the praetorship,
and persisted in refusing the consulship. We are ungrateful in public
matters; and if every man asks himself, you will find that there is
no one who has not some private ingratitude to complain of. Yet it is
impossible that all men should complain, unless all were deserving of
complaint, therefore all men are ungrateful. Are they ungrateful
alone? nay, they are also all covetous, all spiteful, and all cowardly,
especially those who appear daring; and, besides this, all men fawn upon
the great, and all are impious. Yet you need not be angry with them;
pardon them, for they are all mad. I do not wish to recall you to what
is not proved, or to say, "See how ungrateful is youth! what young man,
even if of innocent life, does not long for his father's death? even if
moderate in his desires, does not look forward to it? even if dutiful,
does not think about it? How few there are who fear the death even of
the best of wives, who do not even calculate the probabilities of it.
Pray, what litigant, after having been successfully defended, retains
any remembrance of so great a benefit for more than a few days?" All
agree that no one dies without complaining. Who on his last day dares to
say,
"I've lived, I've done the task which Fortune set me."
Who does not leave the world with reluctance, and with lamentations? Yet
it is the part of an ungrateful man not to be satisfied with the past.
Your days will always be few if you count them. Reflect that length
of time is not the greatest of blessings; make the best of your time,
however short it may be; even if the day of your death be postponed,
your happiness will not be increased, for life is merely made longer,
not pleasanter, by delay. How much better is it to be thankful for the
pleasures which one has received, not to reckon up the years of others,
but to set a high value upon one's own, and score them to one's credit,
saying, "God thought me worthy of this; I am satisfied with it; he might
have given me more, but this, too, is a benefit." Let us be grateful
towards both gods and men, grateful to those who have given us anything,
and grateful even to those who have given anything to our relatives.
XVIII. "You render me liable to an infinite debt of gratitude," says our
opponent, "when you say 'even to those who have given any thing to our
relations,' so fix some limit. He who bestows a benefit upon the son,
according to you, bestows it likewise upon the father: this is the first
question I wish to raise. In the next place I should like to have a
clear definition of whether a benefit, if it be bestowed upon your
friend's father as well as upon himself, is bestowed also upon his
brother? or upon his uncle? or his grandfather? or his wife and his
father-in-law? tell me where I am to stop, how far I am to follow out
the pedigree of the family?"
SENECA. If I cultivate your land, I bestow a benefit upon you; if I
extinguish your house when burning, or prop it so as to save it from
falling, I shall bestow a benefit upon you; if I heal your slave, I