Minor Dialogues, Together With the Dialogue on Clemency
befall them with their own good will, and that men deserve to endure
misfortunes, if they are unwilling to receive them. To this I shall
add, that misfortunes proceed thus by destiny, and that they befall
good men by the same law which makes them good. After this, I shall
prevail upon you never to pity any good man; for though he may be
called unhappy, he cannot be so.
Of all these propositions that which I have stated first appears
the most difficult to prove. I mean, that the things which we dread
and shudder at are to the advantage of those to whom they happen.
“Is it,” say you, “to their advantage to be driven into exile, to
be brought to want, to carry out to burial their children and wife,
to be publicly disgraced, to lose their health?” Yes! if you are
surprised at these being to any man’s advantage, you will also be
surprised at any man being benefited by the knife and cautery, or
by hunger and thirst as well. Yet if you consider that some men,
in order to be cured, have their bones scraped, and pieces of them
extracted, that their veins are pulled out {7} and that some have
limbs cut off, which could not remain in their place without ruin
to the whole body, you will allow me to prove to you this also,
that some misfortunes are for the good of those to whom they happen,
just as much, by Hercules, as some things which are praised and
sought after are harmful to those who enjoy them like indigestions
and drunkenness and other matters which kill us through pleasure.
Among many grand sayings of our Demetrius is this, which I have but
just heard, and which still rings and thrills in my ears: “No one,”
said he, “seems to me more unhappy than the man whom no misfortune
has ever befallen.” He never has had an opportunity of testing
himself; though everything has happened to him according to his
wish, nay, even before he has formed a wish, yet the gods have
judged him unfavourably; he has never been deemed worthy to conquer
ill fortune, which avoids the greatest cowards, as though it said,
“Why should I take that man for my antagonist? He will straightway
lay down his arms: I shall not need all my strength against him:
he will be put to flight by a mere menace: he dares not even face
me; let me look around for some other with whom I may fight hand
to hand: I blush to join battle with one who is prepared to be
beaten.” A gladiator deems it a disgrace to be matched with an
inferior, and knows that to win without danger is to win without
glory. Just so Fortune; she seeks out the bravest to match herself
with, passes over some with disdain, and makes for the most unyielding
and upright of men, to exert her strength against them. She tried
Mucius fire, Fabricius by poverty, Rutilius by exile, Regulus by
torture, Socrates by poison, Cato by death: it is ill fortune alone
that discovers these glorious examples. Was Mucius unhappy, because
he grasped the enemy’s fire with his right hand, and of his own
accord paid the penalty of his mistake? because he overcame the
King with his hand when it was burned, though he could {8} not when
it held a sword? Would he have been happier, if he had warmed his
hand in his mistress’s bosom? Was Fabricius unhappy, because when
the state could spare him, he dug his own land? because he waged
war against riches as keenly as against Pyrrhus? because he supped
beside his hearth off the very roots and herbs which he himself,
though an old man, and one who had enjoyed a triumph, had grubbed
up while clearing his field of weeds? What then? would he have been
happier if he had gorged himself with fishes from distant shores,
and birds caught in foreign lands? if he had roused the torpor of
his queasy stomach with shellfish from the upper and the lower sea?
if he had piled a great heap of fruits round game of the first head,
which many huntsmen had been killed in capturing? Was Rutilius
unhappy, because those who condemned him will have to plead their
cause for all ages? because he endured the loss of his country more
composedly than that of his banishment? because he was the only man
who refused anything to Sulla the dictator, and when recalled from
exile all but went further away and banished himself still more.
“Let those,” said he, “whom thy fortunate reign catches at Rome,
see to the Forum drenched with blood,[3] and the heads of Senators
above the Pool of Servilius—the place where the victims of Sulla’s
proscriptions were stripped—the bands of assassins roaming at large
through the city, and many thousands of Roman citizens slaughtered
in one place, after, nay, by means of a promise of quarter. Let
those who are unable to go into exile behold these things.” Well!
is Lucius Sulla happy, because when he comes down into the Forum
room is made for him with sword-strokes, because he allows the heads
of consulars to be shown to him, and counts out the price of blood
through the quaestor and the state exchequer? {9} And this, this
was the man who passed the Lex Cornelia! Let us now come to Regulus:
what injury did fortune do him when she made him an example of good
faith, an example of endurance? They pierce his skin with nails:
wherever he leans his weary body, it rests on a wound; his eyes are
fixed for ever open; the greater his sufferings, the greater is his
glory. Would you know how far he is from regretting that he valued
his honour at such a price? heal his wounds and send him again into
the senate-house; he will give the same advice. So, then, you think
Maecenas a happier man, who when troubled by love, and weeping at
the daily repulses of his ill-natured wife, sought for sleep by
listening to distant strains of music? Though he drug himself with
wine, divert himself with the sound of falling waters, and distract
his troubled thoughts with a thousand pleasures, yet Maecenas will
no more sleep on his down cushions than Regulus on the rack. Yet
it consoles the latter that he suffers for the sake of honour, and
he looks away from his torments to their cause: whilst the other,
jaded with pleasures and sick with over-enjoyment, is more hurt by
the cause of his sufferings than by the sufferings themselves. Vice
has not so utterly taken possession of the human race that, if men
were allowed to choose their destiny, there can be any doubt but
that more would choose to be Reguluses than to be Maecenases: or
if there were any one who dared to say that he would prefer to be
born Maecenas than Regulus that man, whether he says so or not,
would rather have been Terentia (than Cicero).
Do you consider Socrates to have been badly used, because he took
that draught which the state assigned to him as though it were a
charm to make him immortal, and argued about death until death
itself? Was he ill treated, because his blood froze and the current
of his veins gradually stopped as the chill of death crept over
them? How much more is this man to be envied than he who is {10}
served on precious stones, whose drink a creature trained to every
vice, a eunuch or much the same, cools with snow in a golden cup?
Such men as these bring up again all that they drink, in misery and
disgust at the taste of their own bile, while Socrates cheerfully
and willingly drains his poison. As for Cato, enough has been said,
and all men must agree that the highest happiness was reached by
one who was chosen by Nature herself as worthy to contend with all
her terrors: “The enmity,” says she, “of the powerful is grievous,
therefore let him be opposed at once by Pompeius, Caesar, and
Crassus: it is grievous, when a candidate for public offices, to
be defeated by one’s inferiors; therefore let him be defeated by
Vatinius: it is grievous to take part in civil wars, therefore let
him fight in every part of the world for the good cause with equal
obstinacy and ill-luck: it is grievous to lay hands upon one’s self,
therefore let him do so. What shall I gain by this? That all men
may know that these things, which I have deemed Cato worthy to
undergo, are not real evils.”
IV. Prosperity comes to the mob, and to low-minded men as well as
to great ones; but it is the privilege of great men alone to send
under the yoke[4] the disasters and terrors of mortal life: whereas
to be always prosperous, and to pass through life without a twinge
of mental distress, is to remain ignorant of one half of nature.
You are a great man; but how am I to know it, if fortune gives you
no opportunity of showing your virtue? You have entered the arena
of the Olympic games, but no one {11} else has done so: you have
the crown, but not the victory: I do not congratulate you as I would
a brave man, but as one who has obtained a consulship or praetorship.
You have gained dignity. I may say the same of a good man, if
troublesome circumstances have never given him a single opportunity
of displaying the strength of his mind. I think you unhappy because
you never have been unhappy: you have passed through your life
without meeting an antagonist: no one will know your powers, not
even you yourself. For a man cannot know himself without a trial:
no one ever learnt what he could do without putting himself to the
test; for which reason many have of their own free will exposed
themselves to misfortunes which no longer came in their way, and
have sought for an opportunity of making their virtue, which otherwise
would have been lost in darkness, shine before the world. Great
men, I say, often rejoice at crosses of fortune just as brave
soldiers do at wars. I remember to have heard Triumphus, who was a
gladiator[5] in the reign of Tiberius Caesar, complaining about the
scarcity of prizes; “What a glorious time,” said he, “is past.”
Valour is greedy of danger, and thinks only of whither it strives
to go, not of what it will suffer, since even what it will suffer
is part of its glory. Soldiers pride themselves on their wounds,
they joyously display their blood flowing over their breastplate.[6]
Though those who return unwounded from battle may have done as
bravely, yet he who returns wounded is more admired. God, I say,
favours those whom He wishes to enjoy the greatest honours, whenever
He affords them the means of performing some exploit with spirit
and courage, something which is not easily to be accomplished: you
can judge of a pilot in a storm, of a soldier in a battle. How can
I know with {12} how great a spirit you could endure poverty, if
you overflow with riches? How can I tell with how great firmness
you could bear up against disgrace, dishonour, and public hatred,
if you grow old to the sound of applause, if popular favour cannot
be alienated from you, and seems to flow to you by the natural bent
of men’s minds? How can I know how calmly you would endure to be
childless, if you see all your children around you? I have heard
what you said when you were consoling others: then I should have
seen whether you could have consoled yourself, whether you could
have forbidden yourself to grieve. Do not, I beg you, dread those
things which the immortal gods apply to our minds like spurs:
misfortune is virtue’s opportunity. Those men may justly be called
unhappy who are stupified with excess of enjoyment, whom sluggish
contentment keeps as it were becalmed in a quiet sea: whatever
befalls them will come strange to them. Misfortunes press hardest
on those who are unacquainted with them: the yoke feels heavy to
the tender neck. The recruit turns pale at the thought of a wound:
the veteran, who knows that he has often won the victory after
losing blood, looks boldly at his own flowing gore. In like manner
God hardens, reviews, and exercises those whom He tests and loves:
those whom He seems to indulge and spare, He is keeping out of
condition to meet their coming misfortunes: for you are mistaken
if you suppose that any one is exempt from misfortune: he who has