Minor Dialogues, Together With the Dialogue on Clemency
utter darkness, we see that with you on earth there is nothing to
be wished for, nothing grand or magnificent, but all is mean, sad,
anxious, and hardly receives a fractional part of the clear light
in which we dwell. I need not say that here are no frantic charges
of rival armies, no fleets shattering one another, no parricides,
actual or meditated, no courts where men babble over lawsuits for
days together, here is nothing underhand, all hearts and minds are
open and unveiled, our life is public and known to all, and that
we command a view of all time and of things to come. I used to take
pleasure in compiling the history of what took place in one century
among {203} a few people in the most out-of-the-way corner of the
world: here I enjoy the spectacle of all the centuries, the whole
chain of events from age to age as long as years have been. I may
view kingdoms when they rise and when they fall, and behold the
ruin of cities and the new channels made by the sea. If it will be
any consolation to you in your bereavement to know that it is the
common lot of all, be assured that nothing will continue to stand
in the place in which it now stands, but that time will lay everything
low and bear it away with itself: it will sport, not only with
men—for how small a part are they of the dominion of Fortune? —but
with districts, provinces, quarters of the world: it will efface
entire mountains, and in other places will pile new rocks on high:
it will dry up seas, change the course of rivers, destroy the
intercourse of nation with nation, and break up the communion and
fellowship of the human race: in other regions it will swallow up
cities by opening vast chasms in the earth, will shake them with
earthquakes, will breathe forth pestilence from the nether world,
cover all habitable ground with inundations and destroy every
creature in the flooded world, or burn up all mortals by a huge
conflagration. When the time shall arrive for the world to be brought
to an end, that it may begin its life anew, all the forces of nature
will perish in conflict with one another, the stars will be dashed
together, and all the lights which now gleam in regular order in
various parts of the sky will then blaze in one fire with all their
fuel burning at once. Then we also, the souls of the blest and the
heirs of eternal life, whenever God thinks fit to reconstruct the
universe, when all things are settling down again, we also, being
a small accessory to the universal wreck,[13] shall be changed into
our old elements. Happy is your son, Marcia, in that he already
knows this.”
[1] See Merivale’s “History of the Romans under the Empire,” ch.
xlv.
[2] If it is a pain to dwell upon the thought of lost friends, of
course you do not continually refresh the memory of them by speaking
of them.
[3] See my note on _invidiam facere alicui_ in Juv. 15.—J. E. B.
Mayor.
[4] Koch declares that this cannot be the true reading, and suggests
_deminutio_, ‘degradation.’
[5] This seems to have been part of the ceremony of dedication.
Pulvillus was dedicating the Temple of Jupiter in the Capitol. See
Livy, ii. 8; Cic. Pro Domo, paragraph cxxi.
[6] Lucius Aemilius Paullus conquered Perses, the last King of
Macedonia, B.C. 168.
[7] “For he had four sons, two, as has been already related, adopted
into other families, Scipio and Fabius; and two others, who were
still children, by his second wife, who lived in his own house. Of
these, one died five days before Aemilius’s triumph, at the age of
fourteen, and the other, twelve years old, died three days after
it: so that there was no Roman that did not grieve for him,”
&c.—Plutarch, “Life of Aemilius,” ch. xxxv.
[8] A. U. C. 695, B.C 59.
[9] Virg. Ae. III. 418.
[10] See Mayor’s note on Juv. i., and above, c. 16, §4.
[11] Lipsius points out that this idea is borrowed from the comic
poet Antiphanes. See Meineke’s “Comic Fragments,” p. 3.
[12] This I believe to be the meaning of the text, but Koch reasonably
conjectures that the true reading is “editur subscriptio,” “an
indictment was made out against him.” See “On Benefits,” iii. 26.
[13] _Ruinae_; Koch’s _urinae_ is a misprint.
{204}
THE SEVENTH BOOK OF THE DIALOGUES OF L. ANNAEUS SENECA, ADDRESSED
TO GALLIO.
OF A HAPPY LIFE.
I. All men, brother Gallio, wish to live happily, but are dull at
perceiving exactly what it is that makes life happy: and so far is
it from being easy to attain to happiness that the more eagerly a
man struggles to reach it the further he departs from it, if he
takes the wrong road; for, since this leads in the opposite direction,
his very swiftness carries him all the further away. We must therefore
first define clearly what it is at which we aim: next we must
consider by what path we may most speedily reach it, for on our
journey itself, provided it be made in the right direction, we shall
learn how much progress we have made each day, and how much nearer
we are to the goal towards which our natural desires urge us. But
as long as we wander at random, not following any guide except the
shouts and discordant clamours of those who invite us to proceed
in different directions, our short life will be wasted in useless
roamings, even if we labour both day and night to get a good
understanding. Let us not therefore decide whither we must tend,
and by what path, without the advice of some experienced person who
has explored the region which we are about to enter, because this
{205} journey is not subject to the same conditions as others; for
in them some distinctly understood track and inquiries made of the
natives make it impossible for us to go wrong, but here the most
beaten and frequented tracks are those which lead us most astray.
Nothing, therefore, is more important than that we should not, like
sheep, follow the flock that has gone before us, and thus proceed
not whither we ought, but whither the rest are going. Now nothing
gets us into greater troubles than our subservience to common rumour,
and our habit of thinking that those things are best which are most
generally received as such, of taking many counterfeits for truly
good things, and of living not by reason but by imitation of others.
This is the cause of those great heaps into which men rush till
they are piled one upon another. In a great crush of people, when
the crowd presses upon itself, no one can fall without drawing some
one else down upon him, and those who go before cause the destruction
of those who follow them. You may observe the same thing in human
life: no one can merely go wrong by himself, but he must become
both the cause and adviser of another’s wrongdoing. It is harmful
to follow the march of those who go before us, and since every one
had rather believe another than form his own opinion, we never pass
a deliberate judgment upon life, but some traditional error always
entangles us and brings us to ruin, and we perish because we follow
other men’s examples: we should be cured of this if we were to
disengage ourselves from the herd; but as it is, the mob is ready
to fight against reason in defence of its own mistake. Consequently
the same thing happens as at elections, where, when the fickle
breeze of popular favour has veered round, those who have been
chosen consuls and praetors are viewed with admiration by the very
men who made them so. That we should all approve and disapprove of
the same things is the end of every {206} decision which is given
according to the voice of the majority.
II. When we are considering a happy life, you cannot answer me as
though after a division of the House, “This view has most supporters;”
because for that very reason it is the worse of the two: matters
do not stand so well with mankind that the majority should prefer
the better course: the more people do a thing the worse it is likely
to be. Let us therefore inquire, not what is most commonly done,
but what is best for us to do, and what will establish us in the
possession of undying happiness, not what is approved of by the
vulgar, the worst possible exponents of truth. By “the vulgar” I
mean both those who wear woollen cloaks and those who wear crowns;[1]
for I do not regard the colour of the clothes with which they are
covered: I do not trust my eyes to tell me what a man is: I have a
better and more trustworthy light by which I can distinguish what
is true from what is false: let the mind find out what is good for
the mind. If a man ever allows his mind some breathing space and
has leisure for communing with himself, what truths he will confess
to himself, after having been put to the torture by his own self!
He will say, “Whatever I have hitherto done I wish were undone:
when I think over what I have said, I envy dumb people: whatever I
have longed for seems to have been what my enemies would pray might
befall me: good heaven, how far more endurable what I have feared
seems to be than what I have lusted after. I have been at enmity
with many men, and have changed my dislike of them into friendship,
if friendship can exist between bad men: yet I have not yet become
reconciled to myself. I have striven with all my strength to raise
myself above the {207} common herd, and to make myself remarkable
for some talent: what have I effected save to make myself a mark
for the arrows of my enemies, and show those who hate me where to
wound me? Do you see those who praise your eloquence, who covet
your wealth, who court your favour, or who vaunt your power? All
these either are, or, which comes to the same thing, may be your
enemies: the number of those who envy you is as great as that of
those who admire you; why do I not rather seek for some good thing
which I can use and feel, not one which I can show? these good
things which men gaze at in wonder, which they crowd to see, which
one points out to another with speechless admiration, are outwardly
brilliant, but within are miseries to those who possess them.”
III. Let us seek for some blessing, which does not merely look fine,
but is sound and good throughout alike, and most beautiful in the
parts which are least seen: let us unearth this. It is not far
distant from us; it can be discovered: all that is necessary is to
know whither to stretch out your hand: but, as it is, we behave as
though we were in the dark, and reach out beyond what is nearest
to us, striking as we do so against the very things that we want.
However, that I may not draw you into digressions, I will pass over
the opinions of other philosophers, because it would take a long
time to state and confute them all: take ours. When, however, I say
“ours,” I do not bind myself to any one of the chiefs of the Stoic
school, for I too have a right to form my own opinion. I shall,
therefore, follow the authority of some of them, but shall ask some
others to discriminate their meaning:[2] perhaps, when after having
{208} reported all their opinions, I am asked for my own, I shall
impugn none of my predecessors’ decisions, and shall say, “I will
also add somewhat to them.” Meanwhile I follow nature, which is a
point upon which every one of the Stoic philosophers are agreed:
true wisdom consists in not departing from nature and in moulding
our conduct according to her laws and model. A happy life, therefore,
is one which is in accordance with its own nature, and cannot be
brought about unless in the first place the mind be sound and remain
so without interruption, and next, be bold and vigorous, enduring
all things with most admirable courage, suited to the times in which
it lives, careful of the body and its appurtenances, yet not
troublesomely careful. It must also set due value upon all the
things which adorn our lives, without over-estimating any one of