Minor Dialogues, Together With the Dialogue on Clemency
the first to acknowledge it, you cut the ground from under the feet
of those who would sneer and politely insult you; no one is laughed
at who begins by laughing at himself. Tradition tells us that
Vatinius, a man born both to be laughed at and hated, was a witty
and clever jester. He made many jokes about his feet and his short
neck, and thus escaped the sarcasms of Cicero above all, and of his
other enemies, of whom he had more than he had diseases. If he, who
through constant abuse had forgotten how to blush, could do this
by sheer brazenness, why should not he who has made some progress
in the education of a gentleman and the study of philosophy? Besides,
it is a sort of revenge to spoil a man’s {44} enjoyment of the
insult he has offered to us; such men say, “Dear me, I suppose he
did not understand it.” Thus the success of an insult lies in the
sensitiveness and rage of the victim; hereafter the insulter will
sometimes meet his match; some one will be found to revenge you
also.
XVIII. Gaius Caesar, among the other vices with which he overflowed,
was possessed by a strange insolent passion for marking every one
with some note of ridicule, he himself being the most tempting
subject for derision; so ugly was the paleness which proved him
mad, so savage the glare of the eyes which lurked under his old
woman’s brow, so hideous his misshapen head, bald and dotted about
with a few cherished hairs; besides the neck set thick with bristles,
his thin legs, his monstrous feet. It would be endless were I to
mention all the insults which he heaped upon his parents and
ancestors, and people of every class of life. I will mention those
which brought him to ruin. An especial friend of his was Asiaticus
Valerius, a proud-spirited man and one hardly likely to put up with
another’s insults quietly. At a drinking bout, that is, a public
assembly, Gaius, at the top of his voice, reproached this man with
the way his wife behaved in bed. Good gods! that a man should hear
that the emperor knew this, and that he, the emperor, should describe
his adultery and his disappointment to the lady’s husband, I do not
say to a man of consular rank and his own friend. Chaerea, on the
other hand, the military tribune, had a voice not befitting his
prowess, feeble in sound, and somewhat suspicious unless you knew
his achievements. When he asked for the watchword Gaius at one time
gave him “Venus,” and at another “Priapus,” and by various means
reproached the man-at-arms with effeminate vice; while he himself
was dressed in transparent clothes, wearing sandals and jewellery.
Thus he forced him to use his sword, that he might not have to ask
for the watchword oftener; it was Chaerea who {45} first of all the
conspirators raised his hand, who cut through the middle of Caligula’s
neck with one blow. After that, many swords, belonging to men who
had public or private injuries to avenge, were thrust into his body,
but he first showed himself a man who seemed least like one. The
same Gaius construed everything as an insult (since those who are
most eager to offer affronts are least able to endure them). He was
angry with Herennius Macer for having greeted him as Gaius—nor did
the chief centurion of triarii get off scot-free for having saluted
him as Caligula; having been born in the camp and brought up as the
child of the legions, he had been wont to be called by this name,
nor was there any by which he was better known to the troops, but
by this time he held “Caligula” to be a reproach and a dishonour.
Let wounded spirits, then, console themselves with this reflexion,
that, even though our easy temper may have neglected to revenge
itself, nevertheless that there will be some one who will punish
the impertinent, proud, and insulting man, for these are vices which
he never confines to one victim or one single offensive act. Let
us look at the examples of those men whose endurance we admire, as,
for instance, that of Socrates, who took in good part the published
and acted jibes of the comedians upon himself, and laughed no less
than he did when he was drenched with dirty water by his wife
Xanthippe. Antisthenes was reproached with his mother being a
barbarian and a Thracian; he answered that the mother of the gods,
too, came from Mount Ida.
XIX. We ought not to engage in quarrels and wrangling; we ought to
betake ourselves far away and to disregard everything of this kind
which thoughtless people do (indeed thoughtless people alone do
it), and to set equal value upon the honours and the reproaches of
the mob; we ought not to be hurt by the one or to be pleased by the
other. Otherwise we shall neglect many essential points, shall
desert our {46} duty both to the state and in private life through
excessive fear of insults or weariness of them, and sometimes we
shall even miss what would do us good, while tortured by this
womanish pain at hearing something not to our mind. Sometimes, too,
when enraged with powerful men we shall expose this failing by our
reckless freedom of speech; yet it is not freedom to suffer nothing—we
are mistaken—freedom consists in raising one’s mind superior to
injuries and becoming a person whose pleasures come from himself
alone, in separating oneself from external circumstances that one
may not have to lead a disturbed life in fear of the laughter and
tongues of all men; for if any man can offer an insult, who is there
who cannot? The wise man and the would-be wise man will apply
different remedies to this; for it is only those whose philosophical
education is incomplete, and who still guide themselves by public
opinion, who would suppose that they ought to spend their lives in
the midst of insults and injuries; yet all things happen in a more
endurable fashion to men who are prepared for them. The nobler a
man is by birth, by reputation, or by inheritance, the more bravely
he should bear himself, remembering that the tallest men stand in
the front rank in battle. As for insults, offensive language, marks
of disgrace, and such-like disfigurements, he ought to bear them
as he would bear the shouts of the enemy, and darts or stones flung
from a distance, which rattle upon his helmet without causing a
wound; while he should look upon injuries as wounds, some received
on his armour and others on his body, which, he endures without
falling or even leaving his place in the ranks. Even though you be
hard pressed and violently attacked by the enemy, still it is base
to give way; hold the post assigned to you by nature. You ask, what
this post is? it is that of being a man. The wise man has another
help, of the opposite kind to this; you are hard at work, while he
has already won the victory. Do not {47} quarrel with your own good
advantage, and, until you shall have made your way to the truth,
keep alive this hope in your minds, be willing to receive the news
of a better life, and encourage it by your admiration and your
prayers; it is to the interest of the commonwealth of mankind that
there should be some one who is unconquered, some one against whom
fortune has no power.
[1] Xerxes.
[2] Scipio.
[3] The Stoics.
[4] Seneca here speaks of men wearing the toga as officials,
contrasted with the mass of Roman citizens, among whom the wearing
of the toga was already falling into disuse in the time of Augustus.
See Macrob., “Sat.,” vi. 5 extr., and Suetonius, “Life of Octavius,”
40, where the author mentions that Augustus used sarcastically to
apply the verse, Virg., ‘Aen.,’ i. 282, to the Romans of his day.
[5] See note, “De Beneficiis,” vi. 33.
[6] Gertz reads ‘decet emere venalia,’ ‘there is no harm in buying
what is for sale.’
{48}
THE THIRD BOOK OF THE DIALOGUES OF L. ANNAEUS SENECA, ADDRESSED TO
NOVATUS.
OF ANGER.
Book I.
You have demanded of me, Novatus, that I should write how anger may
be soothed, and it appears to me that you are right in feeling
especial fear of this passion, which is above all others hideous
and wild: for the others have some alloy of peace and quiet, but
this consists wholly in action and the impulse of grief, raging
with an utterly inhuman lust for arms, blood and tortures, careless
of itself provided it hurts another, rushing upon the very point
of the sword, and greedy for revenge even when it drags the avenger
to ruin with itself. Some of the wisest of men have in consequence
of this called anger a short madness: for it is equally devoid of
self control, regardless of decorum, forgetful of kinship, obstinately
engrossed in whatever it begins to do, deaf to reason and advice,
excited by trifling causes, awkward at perceiving what is true and
just, and very like a falling rock which breaks itself to pieces
upon the very thing which it crushes. That you may know that they
whom anger possesses are not sane, look at their appearance; for
as there are distinct symptoms which mark madmen, such as a bold
and menacing air, a gloomy {49} brow, a stern face, a hurried walk,
restless hands, changed colour, quick and strongly-drawn breathing;
the signs of angry men, too, are the same: their eyes blaze and
sparkle, their whole face is a deep red with the blood which boils
up from the bottom of their heart, their lips quiver, their teeth
are set, their hair bristles and stands on end, their breath is
laboured and hissing; their joints crack as they twist them about,
they groan, bellow, and burst into scarcely intelligible talk, they
often clap their hands together and stamp on the ground with their
feet, and their whole body is highly-strung and plays those tricks
which mark a distraught mind, so as to furnish an ugly and shocking
picture of self-perversion and excitement. You cannot tell whether
this vice is more execrable or more disgusting. Other vices can be
concealed and cherished in secret; anger shows itself openly and
appears in the countenance, and the greater it is, the more plainly
it boils forth. Do you not see how in all animals certain signs
appear before they proceed to mischief, and how their entire bodies
put off their usual quiet appearance and stir up their ferocity?
Boars foam at the mouth and sharpen their teeth by rubbing them
against trees, bulls toss their horns in the air and scatter the
sand with blows of their feet, lions growl, the necks of enraged
snakes swell, mad dogs have a sullen look—there is no animal so
hateful and venomous by nature that it does not, when seized by
anger, show additional fierceness. I know well that the other
passions, can hardly be concealed, and that lust, fear, and boldness
give signs of their presence and may be discovered beforehand, for
there is no one of the stronger passions that does not affect the
countenance: what then is the difference between them and anger?
Why, that the other passions are visible, but that this is conspicuous.
II. Next, if you choose to view its results and the mischief that
it does, no plague has cost the human race {50} more dear: you will
see slaughterings and poisonings, accusations and counter-accusations,
sacking of cities, ruin of whole peoples, the persons of princes
sold into slavery by auction, torches applied to roofs, and fires
not merely confined within city-walls but making whole tracts of
country glow with hostile flame. See the foundations of the most
celebrated cities hardly now to be discerned; they were ruined by
anger. See deserts extending for many miles without an inhabitant:
they have been desolated by anger. See all the chiefs whom tradition
mentions as instances of ill fate; anger stabbed one of them in his
bed, struck down another, though he was protected by the sacred
rights of hospitality, tore another to pieces in the very home of
the laws and in sight of the crowded forum, bade one shed his own