Minor Dialogues, Together With the Dialogue on Clemency
enjoyment, be misapplied in grieving and torturing others? Life is
a matter which does not admit of waste, and we have no spare time
to throw away. Why do we rush into the fray? why do we go out of
our way to seek disputes? why do we, forgetful of the weakness of
our nature, undertake mighty feuds, and, frail though we be, summon
up all our strength to cut down other men? Ere long, fever or some
other bodily ailment will make us unable to carry on this warfare
of {160} hatred which we so implacably wage: death will soon part
the most vigorous pair of combatants. Why do we make disturbances
and spend our lives in rioting? fate hangs over our heads, scores
up to our account the days as they pass, and is ever drawing nearer
and nearer. The time which you have marked for the death of another
perhaps includes your own.”
XLIII. Instead of acting thus, why do you not rather draw together
what there is of your short life, and keep it peaceful for others
and for yourself? why do you not rather make yourself beloved by
every one while you live, and regretted by every one when you die?
Why do you wish to tame that man’s pride, because he takes too lofty
a tone with you? why do you try with all your might to crush that
other who snaps and snarls at you, a low and contemptible wretch,
but spiteful and offensive to his betters? Master, why are you angry
with your slave? Slave, why are you angry with your master? Client,
why are you angry with your patron? Patron, why are you angry with
your client? Wait but a little while. See, here comes death, who
will make you all equals. We often see at a morning performance in
the arena a battle between a bull and a bear, fastened together,
in which the victor, after he has torn the other to pieces, is
himself slain. We do just the same thing: we worry some one who is
connected with us, although the end of both victor and vanquished
is at hand, and that soon. Let us rather pass the little remnant
of our lives in peace and quiet: may no one loathe us when we lie
dead. A quarrel is often brought to an end by a cry of “Fire!” in
the neighbourhood, and the appearance of a wild beast parts the
highwayman from the traveller: men have no leisure to battle with
minor evils when menaced by some overpowering terror. What have we
to do with fighting and ambuscades? do you want anything more than
death to befall {161} him with whom you are angry? well, even though
you sit quiet, he will be sure to die. You waste your pains: you
want to do what is certain to be done. You say, “I do not wish
necessarily to kill him, but to punish him by exile, or public
disgrace, or loss of property.” I can more easily pardon one who
wishes to give his enemy a wound than one who wishes to give him a
blister: for the latter is not only bad, but petty-minded. Whether
you are thinking of extreme or slighter punishments, how very short
is the time during which either your victim is tortured or you enjoy
an evil pleasure in another’s pain? This breath that we hold so
dear will soon leave us: in the meantime, while we draw it, while
we live among human beings, let us practise humanity: let us not
be a terror or a danger to any one. Let us keep our tempers in spite
of losses, wrongs, abuse or sarcasm, and let us endure with magnanimity
our shortlived troubles: while we are considering what is due to
ourselves, as the saying is, and worrying ourselves, death will be
upon us.
[1] The hook alluded to was fastened to the neck of condemned
criminals, and by it they were dragged to the Tiber. Also the bodies
of dead gladiators were thus dragged out of the arena. The hook by
which the dead bull is drawn away at a modern Spanish bull-fight
is probably a survival of this custom.
[2] Hdt. iii, 34, 35,
[3] Seneca’s own death, by opening his veins, gives a melancholy
interest to this passage.
[4] Hdt. iv. 84.
[5] Hdt. vii. 38, 39.
[6] Plut. Dem. 27.
[7] Hdt. iii. 17, _sqq._
[8] Hdt. i. 189, 190.
[9] A mistake: Antigonus (Monophthalmus) was one of Alexander’s
generals.
[10] _Acerbum_ = ἄωρυν; the funeral of one who has been cut off in
the flower of his youth.
[11] In point of time.
[12] _Consul ordinarius_, a regular consul, one who administered
in office from the first of January, in opposition to _consul
suffectus_, one chosen in the course of the year in the place of
one who had died. The consul ordinarius gave his name to the year.
[13] It seems inconceivable that so small an interest, 1 1/5 per
cent, per an., can be meant.
[14] _Captatis_, Madvig. Adv. II. 394.
[15] See “On Clemency,” i. 18, 2.
{162}
THE SIXTH BOOK OF THE DIALOGUES OF L. ANNAEUS SENECA, ADDRESSED TO
MARCIA.
OF CONSOLATION.
I. Did I not know, Marcia, that you have as little of a woman’s
weakness of mind as of her other vices, and that your life was
regarded as a pattern of antique virtue, I should not have dared
to combat your grief, which is one that many men fondly nurse and
embrace, nor should I have conceived the hope of persuading you to
hold fortune blameless, having to plead for her at such an unfavorable
time, before so partial a judge, and against such an odious charge.
I derive confidence, however, from the proved strength of your mind,
and your virtue, which has been proved by a severe test. All men
know how well you behaved towards your father, whom you loved as
dearly as your children in all respects, save that you did not wish
him to survive you: indeed, for all that I know you may have wished
that also: for great affection ventures to break some of the golden
rules of life. You did all that lay in your power to avert the death
of your father, Aulus Cremutius Cordus;[1] but when it became clear
that, surrounded as he was by the myrmidons of Sejanus, there was
no other way of escape from slavery, you did not {163} indeed approve
of his resolution, but gave up all attempts to oppose it; you shed
tears openly, and choked down your sobs, yet did not screen them
behind a smiling face; and you did all this in the present century,
when not to be unnatural towards one’s parents is considered the
height of filial affection. When the changes of our times gave you
an opportunity, you restored to the use of man that genius of your
father for which he had suffered, and made him in real truth immortal
by publishing as an eternal memorial of him those books which that
bravest of men had written with his own blood. You have done a great
service to Roman literature: a large part of Cordus’s books had
been burned; a great service to posterity, who will receive a true
account of events, which cost its author so dear; and a great service
to himself, whose memory flourishes and ever will flourish, as long
as men set any value upon the facts of Roman history, as long as
any one lives who wishes to review the deeds of our fathers, to
know what a true Roman was like—one who still remained unconquered
when all other necks were broken in to receive the yoke of Sejanus,
one who was free in every thought, feeling, and act. By Hercules,
the state would have sustained a great loss if you had not brought
him forth from the oblivion to which his two splendid qualities,
eloquence and independence, had consigned him: he is now read, is
popular, is received into men’s hands and bosoms, and fears no old
age: but as for those who butchered him, before long men will cease
to speak even of their crimes, the only things by which they are
remembered. This greatness of mind in you has forbidden me to take
into consideration your sex or your face, still clouded by the
sorrow by which so many years ago it was suddenly overcast. See; I
shall do nothing underhand, nor try to steal away your sorrows: I
have reminded you of old hurts, and to prove that your present wound
may be healed, I have {164} shown you the scar of one which was
equally severe. Let others use soft measures and caresses; I have
determined to do battle with your grief, and I will dry those weary
and exhausted eyes, which already, to tell you the truth, are weeping
more from habit than from sorrow. I will effect this cure, if
possible, with your goodwill: if you disapprove of my efforts, or
dislike them, then you must continue to hug and fondle the grief
which you have adopted as the survivor of your son. What, I pray
you, is to be the end of it? All means have been tried in vain: the
consolations of your friends, who are weary of offering them, and
the influence of great men who are related to you: literature, a
taste which your father enjoyed and which you have inherited from
him, now finds your ears closed, and affords you but a futile
consolation, which scarcely engages your thoughts for a moment.
Even time itself, nature’s greatest remedy, which quiets the most
bitter grief, loses its power with you alone. Three years have
already passed, and still your grief has lost none of its first
poignancy, but renews and strengthens itself day by day, and has
now dwelt so long with you that it has acquired a domicile in your
mind, and actually thinks that it would be base to leave it. All
vices sink into our whole being, if we do not crush them before
they gain a footing; and in like manner these sad, pitiable, and
discordant feelings end by feeding upon their own bitterness, until
the unhappy mind takes a sort of morbid delight in grief. I should
have liked, therefore, to have attempted to effect this cure in the
earliest stages of the disorder, before its force was fully developed;
it might have been checked by milder remedies, but now that it has
been confirmed by time it cannot be beaten without a hard struggle.
In like manner, wounds heal easily when the blood is fresh upon
them: they can then be cleared out and brought to the surface, and
admit of being probed by the finger: when disease {165} has turned
them into malignant ulcers, their cure is more difficult. I cannot
now influence so strong a grief by polite and mild measures: it
must be broken down by force.
II. I am aware that all who wish to give any one advice begin with
precepts, and end with examples: but it is sometimes useful to alter
this fashion, for we must deal differently with different people.
Some are guided by reason, others must be confronted with authority
and the names of celebrated persons, whose brilliancy dazzles their
mind and destroys their power of free judgment. I will place before
your eyes two of the greatest examples belonging to your sex and
your century: one, that of a woman who allowed herself to be entirely
carried away by grief; the other, one who, though afflicted by a
like misfortune, and an even greater loss, yet did not allow her
sorrows to reign over her for a very long time, but quickly restored
her mind to its accustomed frame. Octavia and Livia, the former
Augustus’s sister, the latter his wife, both lost their sons when
they were young men, and when they were certain of succeeding to
the throne. Octavia lost Marcellus, whom both his father-in-law and
his uncle had begun to depend upon, and to place upon his shoulders
the weight of the empire—a young man of keen intelligence and firm
character, frugal and moderate in his desires to an extent which
deserved especial admiration in one so young and so wealthy, strong
to endure labour, averse to indulgence, and able to bear whatever
burden his uncle might choose to lay, or I may say to pile upon his
shoulders. Augustus had well chosen him as a foundation, for he
would not have given way under any weight, however excessive. His
mother never ceased to weep and sob during her whole life, never
endured to listen to wholesome advice, never even allowed her
thoughts to be diverted from her sorrow. She remained during her
whole life just as she was during the funeral, with all the {166}