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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Between Heathenism and Christianity, by 
-Charles William Super and Plutarch and Seneca
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
-most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
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-this ebook.
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-
-
-Title: Between Heathenism and Christianity
-       Being a translation of Seneca's De Providentia, and
-       Plutarch's De sera numinis vindicta, together with notes,
-       additional extracts from these writers and two essays on
-       Graeco-Roman life in the first century after Christ.
-
-Author: Charles William Super
-        Plutarch
-        Seneca
-
-Translator: Charles William Super
-
-Release Date: December 2, 2019 [EBook #60831]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BETWEEN HEATHENISM AND CHRISTIANITY ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Turgut Dincer, David King, and the Online
-Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. (This
-book was produced from images made available by the
-HathiTrust Digital Library.)
-
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-
-
-
-
-                  Between Heathenism and Christianity
-
-                  Between Heathenism and Christianity:
-
-     Being a Translation of Seneca’s De Providentia, and Plutarch’s
-       De Sera Numinis Vindicta, together with Notes, Additional
-                  Extracts from these writers and Two
-                   Essays on Graeco-Roman Life in the
-                      First Century after Christ.
-
-
-                                   BY
-                   CHARLES W. SUPER, Ph. D., LL. D.,
-
-  Ex-President of the Ohio University, and Professor of Greek, ibidem;
-                               translator
-               of Weil’s Order of Words, and author of a
-                    History of the German Language.
-
-    “He who distrusts the light of reason will be the first to follow a
-    more luminous guide; and if with an ardent love for truth he has
-    sought her in vain through the ways of this life, he will but turn
-    with the more hope to that better world where all is simple, true,
-    and everlasting: for there is no parallax at the zenith; it is only
-    near our troubled horizon that objects deceive us into vague and
-    erroneous calculations.”
-
-                       FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY
-                       Chicago, New York, Toronto
-                                  1899
-
-
-
-
-_Copyrighted 1899, by Fleming H. Revell Company_
-
-
-
-
-                                PREFACE.
-
-
-It is admitted by students of history of every shade of belief that the
-origin of Christianity and its rapid spread over the ancient world is
-the most remarkable fact in the recorded annals of the human race. When
-we remember that it was, from the first, more or less closely identified
-with the despised religion of the despised Jews; that largely for this
-reason it had to make its way against a united front, presented by the
-learned and intelligent in the whole gentile world, while the Jews
-themselves almost unanimously repudiated it; that the most efficiently
-organized government that had existed until then, was indifferent or
-hostile; that it set before the heathen world a condition of society in
-which all current economic ideas were transformed, and that it demanded
-a complete renunciation of its time-honored creeds, we may well ask in
-amazement, “How came these things to pass?”
-
-Second in order among the great facts of ancient history is the growth
-of the Roman Empire. Here we see a people at first occupying a few
-square miles of territory, compelled for nearly fifteen generations to
-exert themselves to the utmost to keep their enemies at bay, suddenly
-bursting the barriers that confined them and in less than half this time
-bringing under their scepter almost the whole of the then known world.
-Rome’s conquests have been exceeded in rapidity, but they have never
-been equalled in permanence.
-
-The triumphs of Christianity and those of Roman arms stand in a certain
-relation to each other, notwithstanding the fact that the latter were
-gained with material, the former with spiritual, weapons. When the
-conquests of the one were ended, the other began. When material forces
-had spent themselves, men began to turn, reluctantly indeed, to
-spiritual agencies and undertook to subdue the powers of darkness that
-had so long held sway in the human breast. While the arms of Rome were
-engaged in overcoming the martial opposition of her enemies, Greece was
-occupied with the effort to subjugate the passions of men by the weapons
-of the intellect. By the time Roman conquests had reached their limits
-it had been demonstrated that Greece, too, could go no farther. But
-Greece did not fail because there were no more worlds to conquer: it was
-because men had learned that her weapons were powerless to compass the
-end in view. “He that ruleth his own spirit is mightier than he that
-taketh a city,” was the lesson that the best of the Greek philosophers
-strove to impress upon men, but strove in vain.
-
-It will always remain a matter of interest to study the intellectual
-sphere in which the old doctrines and the new faith conflict. What was
-the best that Greek thought had to offer to the world, and for what
-reasons did the world reject it?
-
-In the following pages I have attempted to put before my readers a
-solution of some of the problems to which this question gives rise. No
-one will deny that Seneca stood on the threshold of Christianity, while
-in the opinion of many he had already passed within; yet all will admit
-that, at best, he fell far short of the standard Christianity sets up
-for its converts. Plutarch is not claimed by Christians, but he
-exemplifies many of their virtues, and commends many of the precepts
-they endeavored to put in practice. These two men best represent the
-strong and the weak points of characters formed under the stimulus of
-earnest effort to lead upright lives and to discharge faithfully their
-duties to themselves, their fellow men, and the higher power that
-controlled their destinies. I have selected a typical work from the
-writings of both as a nucleus around which to group such reflections and
-facts as seem best fitted to illustrate the environment in which they
-lived and the intellectual inheritance to which they had fallen heir,
-while I have allowed each to speak for himself on one of the profoundest
-problems that has ever engaged the serious attention of man.
-
-Surely, it cannot be a merely accidental coincidence that a Greek at
-Delphi, a Roman in his adopted city, a Jew in Alexandria, and another
-Jew in Palestine, who had been converted to Christianity and had adopted
-the profession of a traveling evangelist, should at the same time, yet
-almost or quite independently of each other, maintain the doctrine of a
-divine Providence or preach a gospel that recognized it as a fundamental
-dogma. The treatise of Philo, though no longer extant in the original
-Greek, is more extensive than the tracts here brought together. The
-three united in a single volume would make a remarkable trinity in the
-history of human thought. The feeling was evidently widespread, both
-consciously and unconsciously, that God had never before been so near to
-men, though but a few had learned that the Word had become flesh and
-dwelt among them, full of grace and truth.
-
-C. W. S.
-
-_Athens, O., Thanksgiving Day, 1898._
-
-
-
-
-                               CONTENTS.
-
-
-PREFACE 5
-
-LIST OF THE PRINCIPAL WORKS USED OR CONSULTED ON SENECA 10
-
-SENECA: HIS CHARACTER AND ENVIRONMENT 11
-
-LIST OF SENECA’S EXTANT WORKS 60
-
-SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF SENECA 63
-
-CONCERNING PROVIDENCE 78
-
-NOTES 104
-
-PLUTARCH AND THE GREECE OF HIS AGE 108
-
-LIST OF THE PRINCIPAL WORKS USED OR CONSULTED IN THE STUDY OF PLUTARCH
-160
-
-CONCERNING THE DELAY OF THE DEITY IN PUNISHING THE WICKED 162
-
-NOTES 214
-
-APPENDIX. LIST OF PLUTARCH’S WORKS 218
-
-
-
-
-            THE PRINCIPAL WORKS USED OR CONSULTED ON SENECA.
-
-
-The following are the principal works used or consulted in preparing the
-matter relating to Seneca:
-
-    _Oeuvres complètes de Senèque. Par Charpentier et Lemaistre. 4
-    tomes. Paris, 1885._
-
-    _Oeuvres complètes de Senèque. Publiées sous la direction de M.
-    Nisard. Paris, 1877._
-
-    _L. Annaeus Seneca des Philosophen Werke übersetzt von Pauly und
-    Moser. Stuttgard, 1828-32._
-
-    _Christliche Klänge aus den griechischen und römischen Klassikern.
-    Von R. Schneider. Leipzig, 1877._
-
-    _Lucius Annaeus Seneca und das Christenthum. Von Michael Baumgarten.
-    Rostock, 1895._
-
-    _La Religion romaine. Par Gaston Boissier, 2 tomes. Paris. 1892._
-
-    _History of the Romans under the Empire. By Charles Merivale. 7
-    vols. New York, 1863-5._
-
-    _L. Annaei Senecae opera quae supersunt. Ed. Frid. Haase. Voll. I,
-    II, III. Lipsiae, 1871-62-53._
-
-The two Paris editions have the Latin text and the French translation on
-the same page. Both translations are characteristically French, and
-consequently very smooth and agreeable to read. But they preserve few of
-the salient features of the original, and render the thoughts rather
-than the style of Seneca. To the translation is accorded the place of
-honor both in type and position. The German version holds very close to
-the text and errs, perhaps, somewhat at the other extreme as compared
-with the French. The work of Baumgarten is thorough and painstaking. It
-is not endorsing all the author’s views to say that it is the best
-recent book on Seneca and his times.
-
-
-
-
-                 SENECA: HIS CHARACTER AND ENVIRONMENT.
-
-
-Lucius Annaeus Seneca, surnamed the Philosopher to distinguish him from
-his father the Rhetorician, was born in Corduba,[1] in Spain, about 4 B.
-C.—authorities differ by several years as to the precise date. When
-quite young he was brought to Rome by his father. He devoted himself
-with great zeal and brilliant success to rhetorical and philosophical
-studies. In the reign of Claudius he attained the office of quaestor and
-subsequently rose to the rank of senator. In the year 41 he was banished
-to the island of Corsica on a charge that is admitted to have been
-false, but the nature of which is not clearly understood.
-
-In this barren and inhospitable island he was compelled to remain eight
-years. He was then recalled to Rome and entrusted with the education of
-the young Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, who afterwards became emperor of
-Rome, and notorious as the monster Nero. For five years after his
-accession to the principate, the young emperor treated his former
-teacher with much deference, consulted him on all important matters, and
-seems to have been largely guided by his advice. He also testified his
-regard for him by raising him to the rank of consul. In course of time,
-however, the feelings and conduct of the prince underwent a change. The
-possession of unlimited power by a character that was both weak and
-vain; the adulation of the conscienceless favorites with whom he
-surrounded himself; the intrigues or cabals to whom the high morality of
-the philosopher was a standing rebuke; and the naturally vicious temper
-of Nero, all conspired to prepare the way for the downfall of Seneca.
-When the conspiracy of Calpurnius Piso against the monarch was
-discovered, the charge of participation, or at least of criminal
-knowledge, was brought against Seneca, and he was condemned to die.
-Allowed to choose the means of ending his life, he caused a vein to be
-opened and thus slowly bled to death. It was his destiny to be compelled
-to take his departure from this world in the way he had so often
-commended to others; indeed it is probable that his reiterated encomiums
-upon suicide as an effectual remedy against the ills of this life, was
-not without its influence upon his executioners. They probably wanted to
-give him the opportunity to prove by his works the sincerity of his
-faith.
-
-During the closing scene he told his disconsolate friends that the only
-bequest he was permitted to leave to them was the example of an
-honorable life; and this he besought them to keep in faithful
-remembrance. He implored his weeping wife to restrain the expression of
-her grief, and bade her seek in the recollection of the life and virtues
-of her husband a solace for her loss.
-
-It was the fortune of Seneca not only to be well born, but also to be
-well brought up and carefully educated. That he appreciated the high
-worth of his mother is evident from the words, “best of mothers,” with
-which he addressed her in the Consolation to Helvia. His father, though
-wealthy, was a man of rigid morality, of temperate habits, of great
-industry, and possessed very unusual literary attainments. His older
-brother, better known as Junius Gallio from the name of the family into
-which he was adopted, was for some time proconsul of Achaia, in which
-capacity he is mentioned in the Acts, xviii, 12-17. Seneca’s younger
-brother was the father of Lucan, the well-known author of the poem,
-Pharsalia. Both his mother and his aunt,—he was an especial favorite of
-the latter—were not only women of exalted character, but they had
-acquired an intellectual culture that was very uncommon for their sex in
-their day.
-
-Our authorities for a life of Seneca and for an estimate of his
-character are fairly ample and have been variously interpreted. Nothing
-can be gained by taking up the controversy anew. To some of his
-contemporaries even, he was more or less of an enigma. Others, again,
-regarded him as a time-server, a hypocrite, a man whose professions were
-belied by his actions. Still others,—and they are largely in the
-majority—are more lenient in their judgment; though they cannot
-exculpate him from inconsistencies, they excuse them by pointing to the
-extremely difficult position in which he was placed during the greater
-part of his life. He has strong partisans who are attracted and charmed
-by the sublime sentiments scattered so profusely through his writings;
-his enemies, in forming their opinions, lay the chief stress on what
-they regard as the inexcusable deeds of his life. It is too late to add
-anything to the evidence either pro or contra. All that it is proposed
-to do in this essay is to place before the reader a picture of the man,
-mainly from his own writings, as the chief exponent of the highest
-philosophy reached by the ancient world before this philosophy was
-supplanted by the new religion that was destined to take its place in
-the thought of mankind. Seneca was next to Cicero, or rather along with
-Cicero, the most distinguished Roman philosopher; but as a philosopher
-he has received the far greater share of attention. Both were Romans at
-heart; both were earnestly engaged in the search for the supreme good;
-both were guilty of conduct inconsistent with their professions; both
-tried and tried in vain to combine a life devoted to reflection with
-with an active career in the service of the state; and both failed. But
-Seneca not only had a higher ideal than Cicero; he also came nearer
-attaining it. He was less vain, less hungry for public honors and
-applause, and attached less importance to mere outward display. As a
-thinker Seneca has more originality than Cicero, is less dependent upon
-books, knows better the motives that underlie human conduct. Both were
-essentially Roman in their views of life, and it is only by keeping this
-in mind that we are able to explain, if not to excuse, the lack of
-harmony between what they said and what they did; between what they
-preached and what they practised.
-
-Like that of Cicero, Seneca’s was no adamantine soul, no unyielding
-barrier against which the vices of his time beat in vain. He had the
-Roman liking for what is practical. He tried to be a statesman and was
-somewhat of a courtier when to be a courtier and an upright man was
-impossible. He was no Socrates to whom virtue, the fundamentally and
-intrinsically right, was more important than anything else, than all
-else, even abstention from the political turmoil of his time.
-
-When a long and acrimonious strife is carried on over a man it is
-evidence that he is no ordinary person. This has been the fate of Seneca
-in an eminent degree. During the Middle Ages, and even after their
-close, a great deal of attention was paid to his reputed correspondence
-with St. Paul. The National Library in Paris contains more than sixty
-MSS. of this pseudo-correspondence. That he was claimed as a Christian
-need surprise no one. The poet Virgil shared a similar fate; yet there
-is far less in the writings of Virgil to mark him a Christian, or rather
-as a writer who was in a sense divinely inspired, than there is in
-Seneca to stamp him as a man who had accepted the new faith. The rise
-and persistence of such a literature is not an anomaly in the history of
-thought. It is not out of harmony with the spirit of an age when the
-church was supreme in everything; when all questions were viewed from
-the theological standpoint, and when every means were employed to gain
-support for the existing ecclesiastical organization. It was honestly
-believed that the practice or profession of a high morality, except
-under the sanction and guidance of the church, was impossible. It was
-taken as a matter of course, that a good man, one who eloquently
-preached righteousness, who seemed to be conscious of a struggle within
-himself between the flesh[2] and the spirit, must have been enlightened
-from on high. Given the internal evidence of Seneca’s own writings, it
-was not difficult to supply the complementary external testimony.
-
-This all-embracing and all-absorbing power of the church lasted about a
-thousand years and ended with the Reformation, though it had begun to
-decline some two centuries earlier. For this condition of things the
-Roman empire had prepared the way. It was the prototype to which, in
-part unconsciously and in part consciously, ecclesiastical authority was
-made to conform. Notwithstanding the fact that the Gospel was first
-widely proclaimed in Greek lands and the body of its doctrine formulated
-in the Greek tongue, when the church began to aspire to universal
-dominion it naturally assumed the garb of Roman secular authority. The
-Eastern Empire was regarded as an offshoot from, rather than as a
-continuation of, the empire that had so long ruled the world from the
-great city on the banks of the Tiber. The natural consequence was that
-the Latin language in time supplanted the Greek, and ecclesiastical
-thought flowed in the channels worn by the political thought that had
-preceded it. The struggle in later times for the supremacy of the state
-as against the church was merely the effort to return to a condition of
-things that had existed before the establishment of the church. The
-Greeks were not less patriotic than the Romans. The state occupied just
-as prominent a place in their minds as it did in the minds of the
-Romans. But it was their misfortune to appear upon the scene of history,
-broken up into a large number of small polities of nearly equal
-strength, and the Greek mind never got beyond the particularism thus
-inherited. It was their fundamental concept of government. Rome
-represented a more advanced type of political development than Greece,
-and if it had been permitted to work out its own salvation without
-external interference,—for the city at its worst was hardly more corrupt
-than many a modern capital—it might be in existence to-day. The Roman
-empire endured so long because it was upheld by the patriotism of its
-citizens. This was often narrowly selfish, and frequently grossly unjust
-to foreigners, but it was effectual in maintaining the supremacy of Rome
-against all attempts from within or without to subvert it. The Romans
-that were drawn toward philosophy pursued it in a half-hearted manner
-because the state occupied the first place in their minds. To serve the
-state was the ultimate goal of their ambition. The emperors, even the
-most corrupt, still represented the government and as such received the
-homage of good men. If we keep this fact in mind we shall be able to
-understand the bravery and devotion to duty of many of the officers and
-even soldiers in the imperial forces. More or less out of reach of the
-contaminating influences that were so powerful in the capital, they
-performed the services expected of them as became Romans.
-
-Long, long afterward, and when Rome was nominally a Christian city, a
-German monk left its walls as he was returning to his northern home, a
-far less zealous churchman than he had entered it. Strange coincidence!
-The city that had become the head of a spiritual empire was no less
-corrupt and corrupting than it had been as the head of a temporal
-empire. More than sixteen centuries of experience, some of it of the
-bitterest kind, had wrought no perceptible change. The Christian
-followed in the footsteps of the heathen.
-
-For us who have been brought up in the belief that morality and right
-and justice have a claim to our services for their own sake, without
-accessory support and under all circumstances, the devotion of the Roman
-to his government, even the most unworthy, is not easy to understand.
-Rome owed her greatness more to the bravery of her citizens in war than
-to any other cause. To this virtue they always accorded the foremost
-place, and to those who displayed it, the highest honors the state could
-bestow.
-
-But Seneca was a man of peace. This fact had without doubt something to
-do in producing the unfavorable estimate some of his contemporaries
-formed of him. Tacitus, too, was not a military man; yet he looks with a
-certain disdain upon those who devoted themselves to the arts of peace
-rather than to the profession of arms. He regards with less favor the
-man who has wisely administered a province than him who had extended the
-boundaries of the empire.
-
-We naturally incline to the opinion that no man who respected himself
-could accept service under such a ruler as Nero, or Caligula, or
-Domitian, unless it were in the hope that he might mitigate a ferocious
-temper or avert calamity from personal friends. And yet, many tyrants
-since the dissolution of the Roman empire have been served by honorable
-men; and they have usually requited their services in the same way, with
-exile, or confiscation of goods, or an ignominious death.
-
-The readiness with which many of the best Romans resorted to
-self-destruction as a release from misfortune strikes us with surprise.
-Suicide is often mentioned in the writings of Seneca, and always with
-approval. It is not hard to understand this attitude of mind if we
-recollect the relation the Roman regarded as existing between himself
-and the state. The government was in a sense a part of himself, and an
-essential part. To the Greek there was still something worth living for
-after the loss of country and citizenship. He could devote himself to
-literature, or philosophy, or to some more ignoble means of gaining a
-livelihood. To the Roman such a thing was well-nigh impossible,
-especially if he was a member of one of the ruling families. Exile,
-exclusion from service in the state, was to him the end of every thing.
-Many Romans of whom one would have expected better things are
-inconsolable so long as they are compelled to live away from the capital
-with no certain prospect of return. Need we wonder that to many others
-life was no longer worth living, and that they freely put an end to it
-with their own hand. Often the best men sought surcease of sorrow in
-this unnatural way. Those in whom the moral sense was weak, plunged
-recklessly into debauchery and sensual gratification. Literature, too,
-was corrupted to minister to their corrupt tastes. We know little of the
-life of the average Roman citizen; but there is sufficient evidence
-within reach of the modern reader to prove that the ruling class had few
-redeeming traits. The downward tendency is plainly discernible in the
-last days of the Republic. Julius and Augustus Cæsar were men of
-depraved appetites and low morals. Their talents as military captains
-and administrators, their patronage of letters, and their tastes as
-literary men, have somewhat put their moral delinquencies into the
-background. There is no doubt that the example of these and such men,
-accelerated the evil propensities to which the Roman people were only
-too prone. When the lowest depth of moral degradation was reached, as in
-the declining years of Seneca, crime and debauchery held high carnival
-in the imperial household. There was no wickedness so flagrant, no
-species of immorality so bestial, no deed so horrible, that men shrank
-from it. For, had they not more than once the example of the prince
-himself? It is sometimes charitably said that Nero was insane. There are
-men who think it too degrading to human nature to hold it responsible
-for his crimes and indecencies. Yet Nero’s excesses were the natural
-results of unlimited power in irresponsible hands, when the hands were
-servants of a heart that was thoroughly corrupt, and a character that
-was weak, and vain as it was weak. The same things have often been
-repeated within the last eighteen hundred years; but never was vice so
-rampant and so unblushing, on such a large scale, as it was in Rome in
-the days of Seneca.
-
-We must not believe, however, that there was no decency, no regard for
-morality, no love of culture, to be found in the Roman empire even in
-its worst estate. There were always groups and coteries of noble men and
-women who kept themselves free from the prevailing corruption. There was
-always a saving remnant that remained uncontaminated. Quintillian was
-the center of such a group, and what he was in Rome, Plutarch was in
-another part of the empire, for they were almost exactly contemporaries.
-The belief in God, in the immortality of the human soul, and in man’s
-personal responsibility to a higher power, kept some, perhaps many, who
-were not directly under the degrading influence of the court, or who had
-the moral strength to resist it, from deviating very far from the path
-of rectitude. There were slaves of whom better things could be said than
-of their masters. But what were these among so many?
-
-Seneca and other writers of his time frequently express contempt for
-those men who professed to be philosophers, and whose lives brought only
-disgrace upon the fair name of philosophy. He does not seem to be aware
-that, in a measure at least, he is recording an unfavorable verdict upon
-himself. Does he think that his abstemiousness, his untiring industry,
-his devotion to study ought to cover his shortcomings? It looks so. He
-commends solitude, yet always remained in the noonday of publicity. He
-inveighs against riches, yet was the possessor of vast estates, and was
-not above lending money at usurious rates of interest. He teaches men to
-bear with fortitude the inevitable ills of life, and ends by commending
-suicide as a final resort. Compared with Socrates, to cite but a single
-name, Seneca was a very unworthy exponent of practical philosophy. The
-former took philosophy seriously, so seriously that he not only wanted
-to live for it but was willing to die for it. He kept aloof from
-politics because he felt that a public career would interfere with a
-duty he owed to a higher power. He, too, believed in a Providence, but
-with him this belief amounted to a conviction. All his reported words
-and deeds testify to this, while Seneca acts and writes as if trying to
-convince himself quite as much as others. Socrates had an abiding faith
-in a personal God who not only watched over his life, but cared for him
-in death. Duty was to him a thing of such supreme importance that he
-never hesitated to perform it, no matter what the consequences to
-himself might be. Socrates taught nothing he did not himself practice;
-Seneca, much. Socrates feared neither God nor man; Seneca was afraid of
-both. Socrates expected nothing of others that he did not exact of
-himself; Seneca sets up a higher standard of morals than he, under all
-circumstances, attained. His precepts are better than his practice. His
-fatal mistake lay in trying to do two things that have always been found
-incompatible: to be a successful politician and an upright man. There
-were others besides Socrates, before the days of Seneca, in whose life
-and character philosophy had had more consistent exponents and faithful
-devotees than in him. But when they found that philosophy and a career
-in the service of the state were incompatible and reciprocally
-exclusive, they unhesitatingly gave up the latter. Seneca can always
-admire high ideals, but he cannot always imitate them. He is fascinated
-when he gazes on the lofty heights to which virtue had sometimes
-attained, and he often makes heroic efforts to follow after; but he is
-only now and then successful. It is no wonder, then, that Socrates had
-even in his lifetime many ardent admirers and enthusiastic disciples
-that remained true to his memory, while Seneca had none.
-
-Canon Farrar is mistaken when he calls Seneca a “seeker after God.” God
-was in no man’s thoughts oftener than in his. Nor has any uninspired
-writer given utterance to a larger number of noble sentiments and lofty
-precepts than he. It is easy to extract from his writings a complete
-code of morals, a breviary of human conduct, that would differ but
-little from that contained in the New Testament. He is a conspicuous
-example of the heathen of whom Paul says, they are without excuse. But
-while Seneca is not a seeker after God he can with justice be called a
-seeker after Christ. He is an earnest inquirer after the peace that
-passeth understanding; after that serene confidence that sustained the
-greatest and the least of the Apostles, and the noble army of martyrs no
-less. He lacks that Christian enthusiasm that comes only through faith
-in a living Christ and in His atonement.
-
-Seneca now and then caught a glimpse of that universal kingdom which the
-company of believers expected would one day be established upon the
-earth. He says, “No one can lead a happy life who thinks only of himself
-and turns everything to his own use. If you would live for yourself, you
-must live for others. This bond of fellowship must be diligently and
-sacredly guarded,—the bond that unites us all to all and shows to us
-that there is a right common to all nations which ought to be the more
-sacredly cherished because it leads to that intimate friendship of which
-we were speaking.”
-
-It is hard to see how he could write the following striking passage
-without thinking of himself; for, though guiltless of some of the vices
-he condemns, there are others of which he cannot be acquitted. After
-defining philosophy as nothing else than the right way of living, or the
-science of living honorably, or the art of passing a good life, and
-denouncing the fraudulent professors of it, he proceeds: “Many of the
-philosophers are of this description, eloquent to their own
-condemnation; for if you hear them arguing against avarice, against lust
-and ambition, you would think they were making a public disclosure of
-their own character, so entirely do the censures which they utter in
-public flow back upon themselves; so that it is right to regard them in
-no other light than as physicians whose advertisements contain medicine,
-but their medicine-chests, poison. Some are not ashamed of their vices;
-but they invent defenses for their own baseness, so that they may even
-appear to sin with honor.”
-
-To the same effect is the testimony of Nepos: “So far am I from thinking
-that philosophy is the teacher of life and the completer of happiness,
-that I consider that none have greater need of teachers of living than
-many who are engaged in the discussion of this subject. For I see that a
-great part of those who give most elaborate precepts in their school
-respecting modesty and self-restraint, live at the same time in the
-unrestrained desires of all lusts.”
-
-Both Seneca and Plutarch are firmly convinced that man is the arbiter of
-his own happiness; but the former found great difficulty in making a
-practical application of the doctrine to his own case. Notwithstanding
-the sorry spectacle presented to the world by many professed
-philosophers, neither lost faith in philosophy. It was the court of last
-resort. For the man to whom philosophy will not bring happiness there is
-no happiness in this world. To the importance and benign influence of
-this culture of mind, Seneca reverts again and again. He contends that
-“He who frequents the school of a philosopher ought every day to carry
-away with him something that will be to his profit: he ought to return
-home a wiser man. And he will so return, for such is the power of
-philosophy that it not only benefits those who devote themselves to it,
-but even those who talk about it.” “You must change yourself, not your
-abode. You may cross the sea, or as our Virgil says, ‘Lands and cities
-may vanish from sight, yet wherever you go your vices will follow you.’
-When a certain person made the same complaint to Socrates that you make,
-he answered, ‘Why are you surprised that your travels do you no good,
-when you take yourself with you everywhere?’ If we could look into the
-mind of a good man, what a beautiful vision, what purity, we should
-behold beaming forth from its placid depths! Here justice, there
-fortitude; here self-control, there prudence. Besides these, sobriety,
-continence, frankness and kindliness, and (who would believe it?)
-humaneness, that rare trait in man, shed their luster over him.”
-
-Though Seneca’s life was full of contradictions and inconsistencies when
-measured by the standard of his own writings, it would be unjust to
-charge him with hypocrisy. He was, within certain limits, a man of
-moods; a man in whose mind conflicting desires were continually striving
-for the mastery. It seems to have been a hard matter for him to attain
-settled convictions on a number of important questions. Even the
-immortality of the soul, a subject upon which he has much to say, and
-which to Plutarch is an incontestable dogma, is to Seneca hardly more
-than a hope. His mind matured early and there is almost no evidence of
-development or change of views or of style in his writings. He was such
-a man as nature made him, and he was on the whole pretty well satisfied
-with the product. Though he now and then seems to be conscious of a
-certain lack of constancy, and on the point of confessing his sins, he
-generally ends by excusing them or by trying to show that they are
-venial. Yet the fact that he at times acknowledges a kind of moral
-weakness is perhaps the chief reason why Seneca has been so often
-claimed as a Christian, while no such claim has ever been made for
-Plutarch who sees no defects either in himself or his doctrine.
-
-The chief problem of philosophy has at all times been, how to make the
-judgment supreme in all matters that present themselves before the mind
-and how to make the will carry out the decisions of the critical
-faculty. When the poet says, “Video meliora proboque, Deteriora sequor,”
-he is thinking of this irrepressible conflict. Paul himself was not a
-stranger to it, for he exclaims in a moment of self-abasement when
-writing to Seneca’s fellow citizens, “The good which I would, I do not;
-but the evil which I would not, that I practice.” He, too, finds within
-himself a “law,” a fact of human experience, that the flesh wars against
-the spirit; that the appetencies are hard to reconcile with the
-judgment. Seneca’s own writings furnish abundant evidence that many who
-professed to be philosophers used their intellects solely, or chiefly,
-in devising means for gratifying their desires. To men of his way of
-thinking the Epicureans were a constant object of attack; yet the
-Epicureans were generally consistent from their point of view and in
-accordance with the postulates of their system. The all-important
-question with every man who is in the habit of giving an account to
-himself of his life is how to get the most out of it,—how to formulate a
-system of complete living. If the individual is the goal, considered
-solely from the standpoint of his earthly life, it is evident that he
-will act differently in the same circumstances from him whose aim is the
-good of society considered as an undying entity, or the happiness of the
-individual regarded as an immortal soul. The disagreements of
-philosophers have always hinged on these fundamental problems and it is
-strange that so little note has been made of them. It is too often taken
-for granted that the mere use of the reasoning faculties, that is,
-philosophy _per se_, and without reference to the highest good, is able
-to make men as nearly perfect as they can become in this life, both as
-individuals and as members of the community. It was the conviction that
-philosophy had run its course; that it was “played out,”—to use a phrase
-more expressive than elegant—that made so many of the best men, in the
-first Christian centuries, turn from it and seek refuge in Christianity.
-They had become weary of the ceaseless and acrimonious discussions of
-the different philosophical schools. Disgusted with contradictions and
-inconsistencies, they turned to the Gospel as offering a solution of
-problems at which so many acute thinkers had labored for centuries in
-vain.
-
-It has often been remarked that the Roman world had grown old. Every
-experiment had been tried, every theory had been suggested that might
-lead to complete living; all had ended in failure and disappointment for
-those who had the good of their fellow men at heart. He who would
-perform a successful experiment in physics or chemistry must see to it
-that all the necessary conditions have been provided. If this is not
-done, no amount of care in manipulation will bring about the desired
-result. The mere presence of the proper ingredients, however pure, will
-not insure success. So in society, the existence and vitality of social
-forces will avail the reformer in no wise unless he knows how to put a
-motive force into men’s minds and hearts that will induce them to aid
-him in bringing about the changes he proposes. Some good men have been
-made so by a noble system of philosophy, to the practical
-exemplification of which they have devoted their lives. Both Greece and
-Rome furnished not a few such. On the other hand there have been many
-bad men who were made so by following the tenets of a vicious
-philosophy.
-
-There are two reasons why Seneca has, for more than eighteen hundred
-years, engaged the attention of thinking men. No doubt the most
-important is his extraordinary ability. The world will not willingly
-forget the words of a great man, nor suffer his life to pass into
-oblivion. It clings to thoughts and deeds that are worthy to survive.
-Seneca not only had something to say that men wanted to hear, but he
-knew how to say it in such a way that they were glad to listen. Great as
-has been the evil in the world at all times it has never lacked many men
-who felt that they were made for something better than the daily
-concerns that occupied their time and labor. In their better moments
-they found pleasure in listening to the voices that spoke to them of
-something more abiding than the fleeting affairs of this transitory
-life.
-
-Seneca, too, was intensely human. He frequently furnishes evidence of
-extraordinary mental strength while now and then he sinks down in sheer
-exhaustion. His mind ranges freely along the whole scale of mental
-experiences; and though he dwell, longest on the higher parts, he does
-not always do so. The record of such an experience has an attraction for
-many men. They see in it a counterpart of their own struggles, and are
-rarely without hope that its triumphs may be an earnest of their own.
-
-The scholar in politics is a character of whom we hear a good deal, but
-as a matter of fact, scholarship, in the true sense of the word, and
-successful politics, as the world understands success, are a combination
-that has rarely been made. Again, an ecclesiastical statesman, strictly
-speaking, is an equally rare phenomenon and has been since the days of
-the supremacy of the Romish church. The greater the success of the
-ecclesiastic in statecraft, the farther he departed from the
-prescriptions of the church, or at least of the Gospel. How often has
-the experience of Wolsey been anticipated or repeated; and many men,
-both laics and priests, have felt the truth of Shakespeare’s thoughts,
-if they have not expressed them in his words:
-
-                “Had I but served my God with half the zeal
-                I served my king, he would not in mine age
-                Have left me naked to mine enemies.”
-
-We still hope to find a place for the scholar in politics, but we have
-given up the search so far as the ecclesiastic is concerned. Yet in
-Seneca we have a man who had mastered all the knowledge of his time; who
-was by no means an unsuccessful preacher of righteousness, and who,
-nevertheless, was a successful courtier and statesman during part of his
-life. He might have been both to the ending of his days in peace, had it
-not been his fate to serve one of the worst rulers that ever lived. The
-secret of his undying fame then is his ability and his whilom position
-at the court that ruled the greatest empire of the world. It is probable
-that the cause of his exile, at an age when he had as yet not written
-very much, so far as we know, was his prominence in a way that was
-distasteful to the emperor Claudius. While there was nothing in his past
-life or present conduct to justify putting him to death, his removal
-from Rome seemed desirable to the reigning monarch and his most
-influential advisers. But even in exile Seneca was not a man calmly to
-permit his enemies to forget him; nor would his friends suffer him to be
-forgotten.
-
-Notwithstanding his sudden elevation to a position of great importance
-in the empire, he seems never to have lost sight of the fact that he was
-standing on the edge of a precipice from which he might be thrust at any
-moment, and that he still had need of all the consolation his philosophy
-could afford. Boissier rightly says, “Though praetor and consul he
-remained not the less a sage who gives instruction to his age; while he
-was governing the Romans he preached virtue to them.” And he might have
-added, “to himself,” for it is evident from many passages in his works
-that he had himself in view no less than others. He strove to fortify
-his own soul against temptations by giving expression to the tenets of
-his philosophy, just as men find relief in sorrow by recording the
-thoughts that pass through their minds. We may be certain, too, that to
-his contemporaries his speech often sounded bolder and freer than to us
-with our inadequate knowledge of the inner life of the Roman
-court-circle, and accustomed as we are to the freedom of criticism to
-which all our public characters, not excepting sovereigns, are subject.
-They doubtless saw in many of his pithy sayings, allusions, whether
-always intentional or not, does not matter, to occurrences to which we
-no longer have the key. And we may be sure that he was not without an
-abundance of enemies and detractors. A few of these have left themselves
-on record for us. There were, doubtless, also many persons who were wont
-to sneer at the man who professed to find the highest good in a
-contemplative life; in devotion to an ideal that differed so widely from
-the reality in which he lived; and who could yet maintain his influence
-at a court of which little that was good could be said. Every society
-contains a certain number of members who regard all who endeavor to lead
-a better life than they themselves do, or whose ideals are higher than
-their own, as offering a sort of personal challenge or directing a
-rebuke at them which they must needs resent. Seneca was himself
-conscious that his life and professions were sometimes irreconcilable.
-He says: “To the student who professes his wish and hope to rise to a
-loftier grade of virtue, I would answer that this is my wish also, but I
-dare not hope it. I am preoccupied with vices. All I require of myself
-is, not to be equal to the best, but only to be better than the bad.”
-
-On the much-debated question of Seneca’s responsibility for the vices of
-Nero, Merivale is probably right in saying that he must soon have become
-aware that it was impossible to make even a reasonably virtuous man out
-of his pupil. Under such circumstances it was natural for him to
-conclude that the best thing to be done was to allow the youth to
-indulge in private vices in order to keep him from injuring others. The
-morality he impressed upon Nero, the modern writer sums up in these
-words: “Be courteous and moderate; shun cruelty and rapine; abstain from
-blood; compensate yourself with the pleasures of youth without
-compunction; amuse yourself, but hurt no man.” This principle was a
-dangerous one, as we now know; but it is easy to be wise after the
-event. A philosopher ought to have known that it is never safe to make a
-compromise with vice. Our philosopher did not know it, or, knowing it,
-was willing to take the risk.
-
-It is doubtless some of his detractors that he has in mind in his
-defense of riches. He can see no harm in large possessions when they
-have been honestly, or at least lawfully, acquired and are properly
-used. It may help us to understand his attitude in this matter if we
-compare it with that of some of the ministers of our own day, and with
-some of the ecclesiastical dignitaries of the past. Seneca’s philosophy
-did not come to him as a divine command. It was the fruit of his own
-cogitation in the search for the supreme good. But there are men in our
-day, as there have always been, who are not only members of the church
-but preachers of the Gospel, who are both rich themselves and apologists
-of the rich. Yet they profess to be followers of the Son of God; of Him
-who taught that it is exceedingly difficult for a rich man to enter the
-kingdom of heaven. Seneca did not profess to seek this kingdom. His
-search was after the kingdom of earthly felicity, and he could not see
-why riches should be an obstacle to his entering it.
-
-Seneca was a good exemplar of the truth of a saying quoted by Xenophon
-in his Memorabilia of Socrates to the effect that even an upright man is
-sometimes good, sometimes bad. His writings convey the impression that
-their author is always under stress. The philosophical composure of
-which he has much to say, is an aspiration and a hope, not a fruition.
-When he speaks of the passions he sees them in their intensity. He seems
-to regard all men as either very good or very bad, and finds the latter
-class to include the great body of mankind. He fails to realize that the
-majority belong to neither extreme. The theater on which he saw the game
-of life played probably never had its counterpart in the world. He
-stands at one extreme and Plutarch at the other, just as the social
-circle in which each moved and knew best is the antipode of the other.
-Both looked too intently and exclusively upon the merely external.
-Though Plutarch judges the average man more correctly, neither possessed
-sufficient penetration of intellect to fathom all the passions that
-dominate or agitate the soul. Plutarch was most familiar with the man
-who is concerned with the ordinary affairs of life; Seneca knew best the
-corrupt crowd that sought to ingratiate itself into the favor of those
-who controlled the destinies of all about them, and, in a measure, of
-the entire world. Both were much in the public eye, but the public was a
-widely different one. Plutarch sought to make an impression by the arts
-of persuasion alone; Seneca, by all the arts that are within the power
-of a resourceful intellect. How much he was in the public eye is evident
-from the statement of Tacitus that his last words were written down and
-at once made public. His friends no less than his enemies desired this:
-his enemies, because they were eagerly watching for a final opportunity
-to prove that this famous preacher of an exalted philosophy would, after
-all, prove to be nothing more than a maker of fine phrases when the
-crucial test came; his friends, in order to furnish indubitable evidence
-that he had been true to his teachings to the end.
-
-It is a noteworthy fact that should always be kept in mind in the study
-of the writings of the ancients, and the career of their statesmen, that
-there existed no universal conscience to which men could appeal. Even
-the separate states were without any considerable party among their
-citizens who shared the conviction that there exist eternal principles
-of justice that demand the recognition of rights for all living beings,
-for slaves as well as for brutes, whether they are in position to
-enforce these rights or not. There was an interminable struggle of class
-with class, each striving to wrest from the other the privileges they
-withheld as long as they could, and finally granted only so far as they
-could no longer be withheld. The political economy of the ancients did
-not concern itself with making the public burdens bear as lightly as
-possible on each member of the body politic, and compelling even the
-most refractory to contribute their share; the problem was almost
-invariably how to raise the largest amount of public revenue. Only a
-part,—often but a small part, especially under the later republic—found
-its way into the imperial fisc. Most of it flowed into the coffers of
-the farmers of the revenue, and for this reason their representatives,
-the publicans or tax-gatherers, were so thoroughly detested. Their
-relation to the citizens was entirely different from the modern officers
-of the government who perform the same functions. Every privilege or
-alleviation granted by the governing class was usually wrung from it by
-force or threats on the part of the subject. Generally speaking, the
-empire was more lenient than the republic because the emperors needed
-the support of the mass of their subjects against the turbulent and
-avaricious nobility. The spirit of altruism that is such a powerful
-force in our day is of very modern growth. It was introduced into the
-world by Christianity, but its development was not rapid. Sociology as a
-scientific term is but little older than the present generation; nor
-does the study of political economy as a science extend far into the
-last century. That remarkable people, the Jews, have from time
-immemorial recognized the claims of a brother in the faith, upon every
-other, for aid and sympathy. Their voluntary contributions for the
-maintenance of the temple at Jerusalem and its ritual, no matter how
-widely scattered they might be, is the earliest indication of a spirit
-of altruism, the recognition of an obligation that was coextensive with
-the faith. The Jews, however, made but a faint impression upon the
-thought of antiquity. This is evident from the way they are treated by
-Greek writers without exception. They were perhaps never more numerous
-or more influential than during the last two or three centuries B. C.
-and the first century after Christ, until the destruction of Jerusalem.
-Yet Plutarch, who was the most widely read man of his time, and who
-might easily have obtained his knowledge of their doctrines almost at
-first hand from the Septuagint, does not show in a single line that he
-ever thought this knowledge worth the trouble. When he mentions the Jews
-it is only to disparage them, and to betray the grossest ignorance of
-their religion and their nationality. The same is true of Seneca and the
-other Roman writers. Tacitus, who professes to give an account of their
-origin and of some of the tenets of their religion, shamefully
-misrepresents both, while he holds the people up to the scorn of his
-countrymen. So little are the most intelligent men often aware of the
-occult forces at work in the world, and so ready are they to pour
-contempt upon everything that does not accord with their preconceived
-opinions!
-
-The early Christians, as is well known, were reluctant to believe that
-the new doctrines were intended for Gentiles as well as Jews. Both the
-New Testament and some of the church fathers testify to this fact.
-Merivale makes it clear that Tertullian believed that Christianity must
-always, to some extent, stand apart from the ordinary march of events,
-and that the true faith could only be held by a chosen few. He does not
-intend his words to be understood in their spiritual significance, that
-many are called but few chosen, and he makes this plain by adding that
-the Roman emperors might themselves have been Christians, if governments
-could become Christian; in other words “mankind in general were equally
-incapable of moral renovation and spiritual conversion.”
-
-Though Seneca was, during almost his whole life in the public eye and
-lived amid the toil and turbulence of the busiest city in the world, he
-professed a distaste for crowds. He tries to dissuade those who value
-their peace of mind, but especially those who are truly devoted to
-philosophy, from seeking popular applause. He loves to be the center of
-a circle of choice spirits, to associate on intimate terms with men of
-like aims and tastes with his own. It is almost exclusively against the
-vices of the rich and the great that he declaims. Only in “good society”
-is he at home; in fact he seems to know no other, has nothing in common
-with any other. He is profoundly ignorant, with Plutarch, of the fact
-that society cannot be reformed from the top or from within. Yet the
-refinements of luxury are hateful to him, and from boyhood to the end of
-his days he lived a frugal life.
-
-How easy it is for Seneca to talk, to express himself in words whether
-with tongue or pen, becomes evident not only from a glance at the
-subjects upon which he writes, some of which are of the same tenor with
-those discussed by his equally fluent predecessor, Cicero, but from his
-own direct testimony. At the beginning of the Fifth Book on Benefits he
-tells his readers that he has virtually exhausted the subject. Yet he
-runs on through three more Books, apparently for no other reason than
-because he finds pleasure in discussing every question that has the
-remotest connection with the main theme. The result is that the portion
-which he considers irrelevant is almost as long as the treatise proper.
-
-I have once or twice in the present essay, touched upon the most
-prominent feature of the Roman character, but the phenomenon is so
-important, contributes so much to a proper estimate of the career of
-Seneca, and goes so far toward reconciling the apparent or real
-inconsistencies between his life and his doctrines, between his words
-and his deeds, that it is necessary to dwell upon the point at greater
-length. The Romans were, above everything else, men of the world; men
-who laid the greatest possible stress on practical activity in the
-service of the state; men who were wholly out of their sphere when this
-outlet for their energies was closed to them. Greece gave birth to many
-individuals who lived entirely, or at least chiefly, in the realm of
-their thoughts; or as Jean Paul says of the Germans, the air was their
-domain. The precincts of abstract speculation lay in a region never
-entered by a Roman. A few trod the outer courts under the guidance of
-Greeks, but not one ever penetrated farther. The Romans had no
-literature of their own, no music, no pictorial or plastic arts, no
-architecture. Though so long under the intellectual tutelage of Greece,
-their taste was not refined, nor was a genuine love of culture inherent
-in the nation. It saw no use for these things because they were not
-practical; could not be employed in the service of the government. The
-occasional efforts of the emperors and of some of the leading families
-to elevate the national taste produced but meager results. Such being
-the case, what was there for the average Roman to do when he had become
-rich, or had no public duty to perform, and wanted to “have a good
-time”? There is abundant evidence within our reach to enable us to
-answer this question. He plunged headlong into debaucheries so shameful
-that the modern pen shrinks from describing them, and the mind from
-contemplating them. Fortunes were sometimes spent on a single banquet.
-The Roman baths ministered equally to luxury and licentiousness. In
-short, it seems as if all the ingenuity of the empire had at times been
-exerted to the utmost to devise new methods of sensual gratification.
-
-But he could not indulge incessantly in bacchanalian orgies; the jaded
-body needed some relaxative that could be found neither in sleep nor in
-such business that could not be delegated to a subordinate. There he
-regaled himself with the sight of blood. The huge structures erected for
-the gladiatorial combats testify to the Roman passion for these cruel
-sports. Every living creature that could be induced to fight was
-exhibited in the arena where men and women took equal delight in the
-bloody spectacle. Lecky, in his History of European Morals, sets forth
-in graphic colors the pomp and circumstance with which these horrible
-exhibitions were given. I cannot do better than to transcribe his words:
-“The gladiatorial games form, indeed, the one feature of Roman society
-which to a modern mind is almost inconceivable in its atrocity. That not
-only men, but women, in an advanced period of civilization—men and women
-who not only professed, but very frequently acted upon, a high code of
-morals—should have made the carnage of men their habitual amusement;
-that all this should have continued for centuries, with scarcely a
-protest, is one of the most startling facts in moral history. It is,
-however, perfectly normal, and in no degree inconsistent with the
-doctrine of natural moral perceptions, while it opens out fields of
-ethical enquiry of a very deep, though painful interest.”
-
-“The mere desire for novelty impelled the people to every excess or
-refinement of barbarity. The simple combat became at last insipid, and
-every variety of atrocity was devised to stimulate the flagging
-interest. At one time a bear and a bull, chained together, rolled in
-fierce contest along the sand; at another, criminals dressed in the
-skins of wild beasts, were thrown to bulls, which were maddened by
-red-hot irons, or by darts tipped with burning pitch. Four hundred bears
-were killed in a single day under Caligula; three hundred on another day
-under Claudius. Under Nero, four hundred tigers fought with bulls and
-elephants; four hundred bears and three hundred lions were slaughtered
-by his soldiers. In a single day, at the dedication of the Colosseum by
-Titus, five thousand animals perished. Under Trajan, the games continued
-for one hundred and twenty-three successive days. Lions, tigers,
-elephants, rhinoceroses, hippopotami, giraffes, bulls, stags, even
-crocodiles and serpents, were employed to give novelty to the spectacle.
-Nor was any form of human suffering wanting. The first Gordian, when
-edile, gave twelve spectacles, in each of which from one hundred and
-fifty to five hundred pair of gladiators appeared. Eight hundred pair
-fought at the triumph of Aurelian. Ten thousand men fought during the
-games of Trajan. Nero illumined his gardens during the night by
-Christians burning in their pitchy shirts. Under Domitian, an army of
-feeble dwarfs was compelled to fight, and more than once female
-gladiators descended to perish in the arena.”
-
-“So intense was the craving for blood, that a prince was less unpopular
-if he neglected the distribution of corn than if he neglected the games;
-and Nero himself, on account of his munificence in this respect, was
-probably the sovereign who was most beloved by the Roman multitude.”
-
-“It is well for us to look steadily on such facts as these. They display
-more vividly than any mere philosophical disquisition the abyss of
-depravity into which it is possible for human nature to sink. They
-furnish us with striking proofs of the reality of the moral progress we
-have attained, and they enable us in some degree to estimate the
-regenerating influence that Christianity has exercised in the world. For
-the destruction of the gladiatorial games is all its work. Philosophers,
-indeed, might deplore them, gentle natures might shrink from their
-contagion, but to the multitude they possessed a fascination which
-nothing but the new religion could overcome.”
-
-How deeply the virulent poison of inhumanity and the insatiable thirst
-for blood had infected the Roman people is further evident, not only
-from the means employed to make these sanguinary spectacles as
-fascinating as possible, but also from the impress they made upon the
-current phraseology. Lecky says further: “No pageant has ever combined
-more powerful elements of attraction. The magnificent circus, the
-gorgeous dresses of the assembled court, the contagion of a passionate
-enthusiasm thrilling almost visibly through the mighty throng, the
-breathless silence of expectation, the wild cheers bursting
-simultaneously from eighty thousand tongues, and echoing to the
-fartherest outskirts of the city, the rapid alternations of the fray,
-the deeds of splendid courage that were manifested, were all well fitted
-to entrance the imagination. The crimes and servitude of the gladiator
-were for a time forgotten in the blaze of glory that surrounded him.
-Representing to the highest degree that courage which the Romans deemed
-the first of virtues, the cynosure of countless eyes, the chief object
-of conversation in the metropolis of the universe, destined, if
-victorious, to be immortalized in the mosaic and the sculpture, he not
-unfrequently rose to heroic grandeur.... Beautiful eyes, trembling with
-passion, looked down upon the fight, and the noblest ladies of Rome,
-even the empress herself, had been known to crave the victor’s love. We
-read of gladiators lamenting that the games occurred so seldom,
-complaining bitterly if they were not permitted to descend into the
-arena, scorning to fight except with the most powerful antagonists,
-laughing aloud at their wounds when dressed, and at last, when prostrate
-in the dust, calmly turning their throats to the sword of the conqueror.
-The enthusiasm that gathered round them was so intense that special laws
-were found necessary, and were sometime insufficient, to prevent
-patricians from enlisting in their ranks, while the tranquil courage
-with which they never failed to die, supplied the philosopher with his
-most striking examples. The severe continence that was required before
-the combat, contrasting vividly with the licentiousness of Roman life,
-had even invested them with something of a moral dignity; and it is a
-singularly suggestive fact, that, of all pagan characters, the gladiator
-was selected by the fathers as the closest approximation to a Christian
-model. St. Augustine tells us how one of his friends, being drawn to the
-spectacle, endeavored by closing his eyes to guard against a fascination
-that he knew to be sinful. A sudden cry caused him to break his
-resolution, and he never could withdraw his gaze again.”
-
-The Roman people clung with amazing tenacity to this gruesome sport.
-Nero instituted, in a private way, games after the Grecian model, and
-Hadrian made a similar effort on a larger scale; but the public took
-little interest in them while sturdy Romans protested against these
-Hellenic corruptions.
-
-I have dwelt somewhat at length on this singular institution, both
-because it was peculiar to ancient Rome and because, above everything
-else, it throws light on the character of its populace. It is true that
-men of kindly natures like Virgil and Cicero condemned these atrocious
-pastimes, or at least took no pleasure in them, but their influence
-produced no effect on public opinion. Nothing that Seneca has written is
-more to his credit than the vigorous language he employs in denunciation
-of the gladiatorial combats.
-
-A life devoted to study and speculation was to a Roman citizen
-impossible. Cicero, who did more than any of his countrymen to
-naturalize Greek philosophy on Roman soil through the medium of the
-Latin language, was a practical statesman. When forced to retire from
-the service of the state he longed to return to its labors,
-notwithstanding the dangers to be incurred. Livy and Virgil devoted
-their lives almost exclusively to the glorification of the past in
-extolling the heroes by whose toil, endurance, and self-sacrifice, the
-Rome of their day had become what it was. Though in a sense living in
-retirement, their thoughts were none the less upon the state; their time
-and talents not the less devoted to its service. To a Roman the state
-embodied almost everything worth living for; asceticism was impossible
-for him. Even when not actively engaged in public affairs he found
-pleasure in observing, at close range, the machinery of government in
-action. He longed to live and move in the strife and turmoil of the
-capital. We need not wonder that Ovid, in exile, was ready to submit
-with cheerful alacrity to any moral indignity, and to humiliate himself
-in the dust before his emperor, would he but permit him to return to the
-city which his spirit had never left. Seneca’s conduct, when in
-banishment, was even less to his credit than that of Ovid, inasmuch as
-he professed to be governed by far higher principles. He thought he was
-a philosopher, yet when compelled to live in Corsica where he had all
-his time to devote to study and meditation, he was wretched in the
-extreme; belittled himself by the most degrading exhibition of
-servility; did not scruple to stoop to the most shameful falsehoods and
-the most disgusting flattery in order to bring about his recall. His
-encomium on solitude, and his aversion to crowds, if they are anything
-more than mere theory, are the result of larger experience and of deeper
-insight into the human heart. Yet it is hardly open to doubt that he
-could have gone into voluntary retirement at any period of his life,
-except perhaps near its close.
-
-It has been said of the emperor Marcus Aurelius, that his mind was more
-Greek than Roman. While it is true that he loved philosophy, and studied
-it daily, he did so in the belief that in this way he could the better
-prepare his mind and heart to perform the duties which his exalted
-station imposed upon him. He seems never to have seriously entertained
-the thought that it was in his power at all times to lay down his
-official burdens in order to follow his natural inclinations. His
-highest ideal of virtue was to cultivate and strengthen his sense of
-duty; but this duty was primarily political.
-
-There is little doubt that the conspicuous place occupied by the state
-in the mind of every Roman citizen prepared the way for the deification
-of the emperors, a form of adulation that in the course of time wrought
-untold mischief, and led to the most abject servility on the part of men
-of whom one would have expected better things. Baumgarten devotes many
-pages to a discussion of this curious feature of Roman politics. In the
-nature of the case this deification had no regard whatever to the
-personal character of the sovereign. It elevated him to the skies,
-solely as the personification of the largest possible power entrusted to
-a mortal. When in the course of time all the functions of the government
-were concentrated in the hands of a single individual, it was natural
-that he should become an object of worship, at least in a sense, even
-during his lifetime, and as a matter of course placed among the gods at
-his death. We shall find this transition easy if we consider further the
-character of the gods of antiquity. They were not distinguished from
-mortals by higher attributes, but only by the possession of greater
-power. A god, in the popular estimation, was not necessarily any better
-than a man—he was only stronger. His good-will was to be gained and his
-ill-will averted by precisely the same means that were employed in the
-case of men. The Roman gods were, in a far larger measure than those of
-the Greeks, personifications of abstract qualities. There was thus a
-wide scope for projecting into their character the salient traits of the
-worshiper.
-
-The gods, then, being an abstraction, and the state being the mightiest
-visible representation of human power, it required no great effort of
-the imagination to regard its head as divine, in the sense which the
-Romans attached to the term. The unthinking multitude naturally fell in
-with the ideas of their leaders, and even the better class of men rarely
-protested because they considered the ceremony of little moment, or
-because protests would have been unavailing.
-
-Strangely, too, the belief in fate, in an inevitable destiny, did much
-to paralize the free action of many of the bravest men. The fate of the
-republic, the destiny of the Roman people, regarded as an immutable law
-of nature, the utter insignificance of the individual either expressed
-or implied, are ideas that figure prominently in the literature of
-ancient Rome. It has been truly said that Rome attained its greatness
-without great men. Almost from its remotest beginnings it was like an
-organism in which each separate cell, though incapable of life by
-itself, performs its function as part of a whole and contributes to its
-life and growth. In this case the cell, as we may designate each
-individual moral entity, though conscious in a sense of a life apart,
-was powerless to modify the whole organism.
-
-To what extent the Roman emperors took their apotheosis seriously we
-have scant means of knowing. It is well established that a few of them
-regarded it as a huge joke. But it is beyond question that on the great
-mass of the people it had a most deleterious effect. How could it be
-otherwise, when some of them reached the lowest depths of degradation to
-which human nature could sink? When the monarch in his official capacity
-was recognized not only as the political and military head of the
-government but also its divine head, it is easy to imagine what the
-effect of such a recognition must be upon the average Roman, in
-contracting his spiritual outlook. As long as the gods were mere
-abstract qualities, or even to some extent personal beings like those of
-the Greeks, there was a sort of indistinctness in which they were veiled
-that did not invite imitation. But a deified emperor was, or had been, a
-creature of flesh and blood; no matter what he might do, there would be
-many ready to tread in his footsteps, so far as they could. The
-pernicious influence of the ancient mythology engaged the attention of
-thoughtful men from the remotest times. How much worse, then, would this
-influence be when the vilest that tradition reported of the gods was
-actually done by men in flesh and blood. “Like priest, like people,” is
-a true saying even when both priest and people are pagans.
-
-Aside from the restraints of religion, there is, in modern times, in all
-civilized countries, a certain restraining influence exercised by public
-opinion that keeps the rich, who are inclined to a lax personal
-morality, within reasonable bounds. But so far as we can discover, the
-inhibitive force of public opinion in Rome upon the individual in the
-matter of ethics was very slight, especially under the empire. It is
-plain then where a debauched public sentiment placed no check upon any
-form of vice from without, and but few individuals yielded to moral
-restraints from within, the condition of society was such that it could
-hardly have been worse.
-
-We are sometimes inclined to wonder that so few protests were made by
-enlightened Romans against the deification of the emperors. The
-explanation may be found in the prevailing rationalism of the age. To
-the majority of those men one religion was just as good as another, and
-all religions were but forms of superstition. The persecutions directed
-against the early Christians were urged on the general ground that the
-failure to follow the multitude was a mark of treason against the
-government, and for this reason the best men were naturally the
-instigators. To perform the religious functions enjoined by the state
-was regarded as a mark of loyalty; to refuse, the badge of disloyalty.
-It is not necessary to go back to ancient Rome and to heathen religions
-to find parallels for treating the externals of worship as matters of
-indifference, or for requiring the subject, under penalties, to conform
-to the creed of the sovereign.
-
-When we come to speak of the relation of Seneca to Christianity, but
-especially of his conversion by St. Paul, a thesis laboriously defended
-by more than one modern writer, we cannot do better than to transcribe a
-passage from Merivale setting forth clearly the courses that led men
-into a very natural error. After calling attention to the fact that both
-Seneca and Paul were moral reformers, he proceeds: “There is so much in
-their principles, so much even in their language, which agrees together,
-so that one has been thought, though it must be allowed without adequate
-reason, to have borrowed directly from the other. But the philosopher,
-be it remembered, discoursed to a large and not inattentive audience,
-and surely the soil was not all unfruitful on which this seed was
-scattered, when he proclaimed that _God dwells not in temples of wood or
-stone, nor wants the ministration of human hands; that He has no delight
-in the blood of victims; that He is near to all His creatures; that His
-spirit resides in men’s hearts; that all men are truly His offspring;
-that we are members of one body, which is God or nature; that men must
-believe in God before they can approach Him; that the true service of
-God is to be like unto Him; that all men have sinned, and none performed
-all the works of the law; that God is no respecter of nations, ranks, or
-conditions, but all, barbarian and Roman, bond and free, are alike under
-His all-seeing providence._ St. Paul enjoined submission and obedience
-even to the tyranny of Nero, and Seneca fosters no ideas subversive of
-political subjection. Endurance is the paramount virtue of the Stoic. To
-forms of government the wise man was wholly indifferent; they were among
-the external circumstances above which his spirit soared in serene
-self-contemplation. We trace in Seneca no yearning for a restoration of
-political freedom, nor does he ever point to the senate, after the
-manner of the patriots of the day, as a legitimate check to the
-autocracy of the despot. The only mode, in his view, of tempering
-tyranny is to educate the tyrant himself in virtue. His was the
-self-denial of the Christians, but without their anticipated
-compensation. It seems impossible to doubt that in his highest flights
-of rhetoric—and no man ever recommended the unattainable with a finer
-grace—Seneca must have felt that he was laboring to build up a house
-without foundations; that his system, as Caius said of his style, was
-sand without lime. He was surely not unconscious of the inconsistency of
-his own position, as a public man and a minister, with the theories to
-which he had wedded himself; and of the impossibility of preserving in
-it the purity of his character as a philosopher or a man. He was aware
-that in the existing state of society at Rome, wealth was necessary to
-men high in station; wealth alone could retain influence, and a poor
-minister became at once contemptible. Both Cicero and Seneca were men of
-many weaknesses, and we remark them the more because both were
-pretenders to unusual strength of character: but while Cicero lapsed
-into political errors, Seneca cannot be absolved of actual crime.
-Nevertheless, if we may compare the greatest masters of Roman wisdom
-together, the Stoic will appear, I think, the more earnest of the two,
-the more anxious to do his duty for its own sake, the more sensible of
-the claims of mankind upon him for such precepts of virtuous living as
-he had to give. In an age of unbelief and compromise, he taught that
-Truth was positive and Virtue objective. He conceived, what never
-entered Cicero’s mind, the idea of improving his fellow creatures; he
-had, what Cicero had not, a heart for conversion to Christianity.”
-
-Notwithstanding the many points of contact between the doctrines of the
-New Testament and the teachings of Seneca, no competent judge now holds
-that he was a Christian. The wonder is that there should ever have
-arisen any serious controversy on the subject. The very fact that
-Seneca’s faith underwent no change from first to last ought to be
-decisive. He did not pass through the experience of conversion; he shows
-no vicissitudes of intellectual or moral growth; he never wavered in his
-faith in philosophy, and in the power of man to attain the supreme good
-by mere force of will. Yet Seneca is, to the Christian, unquestionably,
-the most interesting personality that heathen antiquity has produced.
-His philosophy and his morality show, in a striking way, that a man may
-approach very close to the boundary line of Christianity without
-crossing it; without even knowing what is before him. The best thought
-of the age clearly proves that Greek philosophy had, in a sense,
-prepared a few noble minds for the reception of the ethical and
-altruistic precepts of the Gospel; but it was in no sense the harbinger
-of its spiritual doctrines.
-
-It remains yet to consider briefly an institution which, while not
-peculiar to Rome, was, nevertheless, here characterized by some features
-that were unique in their influences for evil. Slavery rested like a
-horrible incubus upon the ancient world, though few persons seem to have
-been aware of it. It placed a curse upon labor and almost prevented the
-development of the mechanic arts. It seriously impeded the growth of the
-moral sentiments by the hindrances it placed in the way of free
-discussion, and by the opportunities it afforded the basely inclined for
-the gratification of carnal lusts. It placed a large part of the
-population virtually beyond the range of human sympathy by branding the
-expression of such sympathy as a symptom of treason. While it did these
-things everywhere, in Rome it made a people that were naturally coarse
-and brutal still more so, by placing within the easy reach of every
-slave-owner helpless objects upon which he could vent his rage, and
-whose services he could exploit in the most unfeeling manner. A lurid
-light is thrown on the barbarity of the Romans toward their slaves by an
-occurrence that took place in the later years of Seneca. A plain
-statement of the facts is more impressive than many pages of theory. A
-prefect of the city, Pedanius Secundus by name, was murdered by one of
-his slaves and the criminal could not be apprehended. According to law,
-all the bondmen of the murdered man, four hundred in number, were to be
-put to death. The populace, to their honor be it said, more humane than
-the senators, raised a tumult of protest against the execution of the
-sentence. Their sympathy availed nothing; the unhappy victims were led
-away to die. One of the senators even proposed a decree that all the
-freedmen belonging to the household of the late prefect should be
-transported beyond the confines of Italy. But the emperor, and that
-emperor was Nero, more humane than the optimates, alleged that the laws
-were already severe enough, and that it would be cruel to add to their
-severity by fresh enactments. The decree of expulsion was not passed.
-Yet Tacitus, from whom this narrative is taken, a writer who never tires
-of lamenting the degeneracy of his age, has not a word of compassion for
-the unfortunate sufferers, nor a syllable of condemnation for an
-atrocious law.
-
-Still it must be said that some of the Roman philosophers, especially
-Cicero and Seneca, lay stress in their writings, upon the universal
-brotherhood of man. They have much to say about the intrinsic worth of
-the human soul. While these ideas are largely borrowed from the Greeks,
-or at least suggested by Greek philosophers, the Romans are singularly
-eloquent in proclaiming them. But slavery is never attacked by name. It
-is doubtful whether a passage can be found in any Greek or Roman writer
-explicitly asserting that it is wrong for one man to hold another in
-bondage. This may be due to the conviction that such a doctrine would be
-extremely dangerous among a large servile population, even if the
-government allowed entire freedom of speech. The New Testament is almost
-silent about slavery. Its authors did not wish to give utterance to any
-views that could be used by their enemies as the basis for a charge of
-disaffection with the “powers that be.”
-
-Again, slavery in some form was universal. Servitude was held to be the
-proper condition of a large part of the human race. No man who lived
-during the existence of the Roman empire would have ventured to predict
-the ultimate downfall of slavery. It is interesting to note in this
-connection that Basil Hall, writing as late as 1828, while admitting
-everything that could be alleged on the evils of slavery, thought that
-to do away with it seemed “so completely beyond the reach of any human
-exertions that I consider the abolition of slavery as one of the most
-profitless of all possible subjects of discussion.”
-
-On the supposition, then, that slavery must continue indefinitely, if it
-could ever be abolished, it was the duty of the philanthropist to do
-what he could to ameliorate the condition of the servile class by
-educating their masters in the principles of a humane philosophy, rather
-than to incur the risk of making it worse by the suggestion of
-emancipation. If the good man is kind to his beast, he cannot fail to
-treat kindly his bondman. It does not seem inconsistent with the general
-tenor of Seneca’s writings to assume that he thought the best way to
-mitigate the condition of the slaves was to indoctrinate their owners
-with a philosophy that would accord to them kind treatment, rather than
-to seek to bring about their liberation.
-
-Besides, the slaves themselves were not often conscious of their
-unfortunate legal status. The best they desired for themselves was that
-they might fall into the hands of a good master. That such men were not
-altogether wanting, even among the Romans, is evident from the many
-instances of rare devotion shown by their slaves.
-
-It is one of the surprising things in the history of mankind that the
-progress of the anti-slavery sentiment was so rapid when the cause of
-the slave had obtained a hearing before the bar of public conscience.
-Slavery had existed from time immemorial. The wrongs it condoned, the
-evils entailed upon its victims, attracted but little attention until
-the close of the last century. Within less than a hundred years after
-the agitation had begun there was not a slave recognized as such by law
-in Christendom. The contemplation of this fact may well teach political
-prophets to be careful in their predictions as to what will or will not
-happen in the future.
-
-                  *       *       *       *       *
-
-In the foregoing essay I have, for the most part omitted such
-biographical data as may be found in any encyclopedia, and have confined
-myself chiefly to a study of the society in which Seneca moved, and to a
-consideration of some of the leading characteristics of the age in which
-he lived. Every man should be judged by his times, for no man is
-uninfluenced by them. It is only men of the strongest character that
-rise far above the manners and thoughts of their contemporaries. Seneca
-was not one of these. Though endowed with a penetrating intellect and
-strong moral convictions he sometimes yielded to temptations against the
-protest of his better judgment. He compelled his intellect to sanction
-or at least to excuse conduct that he felt to be unworthy of the
-philosophy he professed and taught. Yet after making all due allowance
-for his shortcomings, I am persuaded that one cannot long study his
-writings and his career without reaching the conviction that among the
-great men of Rome none towered above him in moral grandeur and but few
-surpassed him in intellectual stature. If I may be allowed to express a
-personal opinion I do not hesitate to affirm that in the first thousand
-years of its history no more interesting and attractive character lived
-and died in the City of the Seven Hills than the philosopher Seneca.
-
-Footnote 1:
-
-  It is a noteworthy fact that many of Rome’s great men were Spaniards,
-  while many others were not natives of the city. Among the former were
-  the emperors Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus and Marcus Aurelius. The two
-  Senecas, Lucan, Martial and Quintillian were also Spaniards. Vespasian
-  was born at Reate; Livy, in Padua; Horace, at Venusia; Virgil, in
-  Mantua; Cicero, at Arpinum; the emperor Claudius, at Lugdunum; the two
-  Plinys, at Comum, etc.
-
-Footnote 2:
-
-  Seneca is generally regarded as the first Roman writer who used
-  _caro_, flesh, as distinct from, and opposed to, spirit.
-
-
-
-
-The following is a list of Seneca’s extant works:
-
-    _De Providentia_, (On Providence).
-
-    _De Constantia Sapientis_, (On the Constancy of the Sage).
-
-    _De Ira_, (On Anger).
-
-    _De Vita beata_, (On a happy life).
-
-    _De Otio_, (On Leisure).
-
-    _De Tranquillitate Animi_, (On Peace of Mind).
-
-    _De Brevitate Vitae_, (On the Shortness of Life).
-
-    _De Beneficiis_, (On Beneficence).
-
-    _De Clementia_, (On Clemency).
-
-    _Ad Marciam de Consolatione_, (A Letter of Condolence to Marcia).
-
-    _Ad Polybium de Consolatione_, (A Letter of Condolence to Polybius).
-
-    _Ad Helviam matrem de Consolatione._ (A Letter of Condolence to his
-    mother Helvia).
-
-    _Apocolocynthosis_, (Pumpkinfication, as it may be translated by a
-    parody on Deification; or we may call it Pumpkinosis to correspond
-    with Apotheosis).
-
-    _Epistolae Morales ad Lucilium_, (Letters to Lucilius on the Conduct
-    of Life).
-
-    _Quaestiones Naturales_, (Questions relating to Physical Phenomena).
-    This is the only work of the kind belonging to Latin literature.
-    During the Middle Ages it was much used as a text-book.
-
-In the Charpentier-Lemaistre edition the letters to Lucilius fill the
-first volume and a little more than half of the second. The first Book
-on Beneficence is in the third volume; the remainder with the Problems
-in Physics fill the fourth and last. The smaller treatises occupy the
-rest of the four volumes. A number of Tragedies with Greek titles are
-also attributed to our Seneca, probably with justice.
-
-    Note:—To translate Seneca adequately is not an easy task. While his
-    meaning is usually plain, the modern reader is not in all cases
-    certain that he clearly apprehends the exact signification of his
-    words when taken separately. He is thus in danger of reading into
-    them ideas that savor more of modern theology than the author
-    intended,—a common fault of interpreters. It has been demonstrated
-    that Seneca knew nothing of the Gospels directly, yet he has often
-    been claimed as a Christian. Evidently, then, there must be a good
-    deal in his writings that can be used to support such a claim.
-    Attention has already been called to his use of _caro_. He seems
-    also to be the first Roman who uses Providentia to designate an
-    intelligent guide and guardian of the affairs of the world. There
-    are other terms to which he gives a signification not found in the
-    profane writers of ancient Rome.
-
-    But the chief obstacle the translator has to contend against is his
-    diction. This is highly rhetorical and very difficult to transfer
-    into another language, unless the translator has at command all the
-    resources of his mother tongue. Such a wealth of resources, I do not
-    hesitate to confess, is not within my reach. If a translation is to
-    make the same impression on the reader or hearer that is made by the
-    original, it is as important to preserve the peculiarities of a
-    writer’s style as to render accurately the meaning of the separate
-    words. While I flatter myself that I have been fairly successful in
-    the interpretation of Seneca’s words, I am not equally sanguine as
-    to his diction. I believe, however, that I have in no case strayed
-    very far afield and that the reading of the following pages will
-    convey not only a fairly correct idea of what Seneca thought on many
-    important problems, but also of the manner in which he expressed
-    himself. I hope at some future time, if life and health are
-    vouchsafed to me, to prepare a complete translation of Seneca’s
-    moral writings.
-
-
-
-
- SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF SENECA, TO WHICH PASSAGES MORE OR LESS
-                 CLOSELY AKIN OCCUR IN THE SCRIPTURES.
-
-
-                     FROM THE LETTERS TO LUCILIUS.
-
-
-A holy spirit dwells within us, the observer and keeper of the evil and
-the good; it treats us just as it is treated by us.
-
-If you do what is right, let all men know it; if what is wrong, does it
-matter that no one knows it, since you know it yourself? O what a
-wretched man you are if you disregard such a witness!
-
-The human mind has come down from the spirit that dwells on high.
-
-Fortune exempts many from punishment; from fear, no one.
-
-It is natural for those who have done wrong to be afraid.
-
-The light is irksome to a bad conscience.
-
-The guilty have sometimes the good fortune not to be found out; never
-the certainty of it.
-
-Good precepts, if you often reflect upon them, will profit you equally
-with good examples.
-
-If thou wouldst gain the favor of the gods, be good.
-
-He adequately worships the gods who imitates them.
-
-It suffices God that he be worshiped and loved; love cannot be mixed
-with fear.
-
-What thou hast learned, confirm by doing.
-
-A great and holy spirit, it is true, holds converse with us, but it
-cleaves to its origin.
-
-Let the young reverence and look up to their teachers.
-
-How wisely you live is an important matter: not, how long.
-
-It is not a good thing to live; it is, to live wisely.
-
-He who would live for himself must live for others.
-
-He who has much covets more.
-
-No one is worthy of God save him who contemns riches.
-
-Dare to contemn riches and thus to make thyself worthy of God.
-
-The shortest road to riches is to contemn riches.
-
-Not he who has little but he who covets more is poor.
-
-Thin is the texture of a lie; it is easily seen through if closely
-examined.
-
-The praise is not in the deed but in the way it is done.
-
-To be master of one’s self is the greatest mastery.
-
-One cause of the evils of our time is that we live after the example of
-others. We are not guided by reason but led astray by custom.
-
-Money never made anybody rich.
-
-Why did God create the world? He is good; a good being feels no aversion
-to anything that is good. Therefore He made the world as good as
-possible. _Quoted from Plato._
-
-Some of our time is filched from us, some is stolen outright, some
-passes unnoticed. But most reprehensible of all things is to lose it by
-mere negligence; and if you will note carefully, men spend a great part
-of life in doing evil, the greatest part in doing nothing the whole of
-it doing something else than they ought. Whom will you name that places
-any value on time? Who prizes a day? Who realizes that he is dying
-daily? For we err when we regard death as something in the future; a
-great part of it has already passed; the portion of our life that is
-behind us, death holds. Do, therefore, Lucilius, what you write that you
-are doing, husband every hour; you will be less dependent upon to-morrow
-if you seize to-day. Everything else belongs to others, time only is
-ours.
-
-There is a great difference between not wanting to sin and not knowing
-how.
-
-If thou wouldst get rid of thy vices keep out of bad company.
-
-He worships God who knows Him.
-
-No one commits wrongs for himself alone; he communicates them to others
-and is in turn led astray by others.
-
-Our minds are dazzled when they look upon truth.
-
-No virtue remains hidden, and it suffers no damage by having been
-hidden.
-
-Nature has given to all the fundamental principles and seeds of virtue.
-
-Nature does not make us virtuous; it is an art to become good.
-
-If what you are doing is right, all men may know it.
-
-The reward of all the virtues is in the virtues themselves. The
-recompense of a good deed is to have done it.
-
-Virtue alone brings lasting and sure happiness.
-
-He errs who thinks the gods intentionally inflict injuries on any one;
-they cannot do so; they can neither receive nor do injury.
-
-So live with men as if God saw thee; so talk with God as if men heard
-thee.
-
-God has no need of ministering servants: He Himself ministers to men; is
-present everywhere and in everything.
-
-The gods extend a helping hand to those who would rise. Do you wonder
-that man goes to the gods? God comes to men, and what is more, He comes
-into men. No mind is good without God.
-
-All men, if they are traced to their first origin, are from the gods.
-
-Every day, every hour, reminds us of our nothingness and, by some fresh
-admonition, warns those of their frailty who are prone to forget it.
-
-Give heed to each day as if it were your whole life. Nothing will so
-much enable you to exercise control over yourself in all things as to
-think often of the uncertainty and brevity of life.
-
-You will grant that the greatest piety toward the gods is a
-characteristic of a good man; and so whatever may befall him he will
-bear with equanimity, for he will know that it has happened in harmony
-with that divine law by which all things are governed.
-
-No one is strong enough to rise by his own strength; every man needs
-some one to extend a hand, some one to lead him.
-
-So let us live, so let us talk, that our destiny may find us prepared
-and ready to follow it. Great is the soul that has yielded itself to
-God; on the other hand, that one is cowardly and degenerate that
-resists, that finds fault with the order of the world, and is more ready
-to set the the gods right than itself.
-
-We ought to have before our minds some one whom we revere; some one
-whose influence makes even our most secret thoughts holier.
-
-Long is a way by precepts; short and effectual, by examples.
-
-Weaker minds, however, have need of some one to go before who shall say,
-“This avoid, this do.”
-
-The community of which we form a part is very much like an arch built of
-stone; it would at once fall down if one did not support another.
-
-We are members of an immense body. Nature begat us as kinsmen, since it
-formed us of the same elements and for the same end.
-
-What is it that draws us in one direction when we would go in another,
-that urges us on when we want to resist, that strives against our
-desires and does not permit us to do what we purpose?
-
-If thou wishest to be loved, love!
-
-No one is free that is the slave of his body.
-
-We ought to live in this thought: I was not born for a corner only; my
-country is this entire world.
-
-The beginning of salvation is the knowledge of sin. _Quoted from
-Epicurus._
-
-Philosophy sheds its light upon all men.
-
-It is so difficult for us to get well because we do not know that we are
-sick.
-
-It is the strongest evidence that our mind is directed toward its own
-improvement when we see faults that we had not before observed.
-
-It is an infirmity of mind not to be able to bear riches.
-
-To live right is in the power of everybody.
-
-The acknowledgement of a fault is the beginning of a better life.
-
-He who does not admit his proneness to do wrong has no desire to be
-corrected. You must recognize your errors before you can correct them.
-
-The ancients held the first requisite of repentance to be an examination
-of one’s self, especially since without this, life would not be worth
-living.
-
-There is no vice without some excuse.
-
-You ask me what you should particularly avoid. (I answer,) a crowd. You
-cannot with safety to yourself mingle in a large company. I must verily
-confess my own weakness. I never bring back the same character that I
-took with me; something which I had banished, returns; something else
-that I had quieted, is aroused.... But nothing is so damaging to a good
-character as to spend much time at public spectacles, for with the
-pleasure we receive vices the more easily creep in unawares.
-
-It is a large part of goodness to desire to become good.
-
-There is a certain fitness in the feeling of sorrow; this the sage ought
-to heed, and just as in everything else so in grief there is a proper
-mean.
-
-What fate did not give it did not take away.
-
-To obey God is liberty.
-
-No one is out of the reach of the temptation of vice unless he has
-banished it wholly from his breast; and no one has banished it wholly
-until he has put wisdom in its stead.
-
-Great is the praise if man is helpful to man. We admonish you to extend
-a hand to the shipwrecked; to point out the way to the lost; to share
-your bread with the hungry.
-
-No one ever renders a service to another without also rendering a
-service to himself.
-
-Often what is given is a small matter; what follows from it, a great
-one.
-
-When we reason upon the immortality of the soul, we do not regard as of
-little weight the universal belief of men who either fear or revere the
-gods of the lower world.
-
-That day which thou dreadest as if it were thy last is the day of the
-birth into eternity.
-
-A time will come that shall unite us and bring us into each other’s
-company.
-
-Then shall our soul have reason to rejoice because, freed from this
-darkness in which it is involved, it shall see the light, no longer with
-feeble vision, but in all the brightness of day, and it will have
-returned to its own heaven since it will again occupy the place which
-belongs to it by right of birth. Its origin calls it on high.
-
-Let another begin a quarrel, but let reconciliation begin with thee.
-
-What else is nature than God and the divine reason that permeates the
-whole world and all its parts. Whithersoever thou turnest thou wilt see
-Him before thee; there is no place where He is not; He Himself fills all
-His work.
-
-Every crime is committed before the deed is done.
-
-The human mind has come down from the spirit that dwells on high.
-
-Believe me, the creator of this vast universe, whoever he may have been,
-whether it was a god, master of everything, whether it was an
-incorporeal intelligence able to bring forth the most brilliant marvels,
-whether it was a divine spirit diffused with equal energy in the
-smallest and the largest things, whether it was destiny and an immutable
-concatenation of causes linked together: this sovereign potentate did
-not wish to leave us dependent upon any one else even in the smallest
-matters.
-
-Stars shall impinge upon stars and all matter that now delights us with
-its beautiful order will burn in one huge conflagration.
-
-How often he who refuses pardon to others begs it for himself!
-
-It is base to say one thing and mean another; it is baser to write one
-thing and mean another.
-
-A wise man will pardon an injury, though it be great, and if he can do
-it without breach of piety and fidelity, that is, if the whole injury
-pertains to himself.
-
-As far as thou canst, accuse thyself, try thyself, discharge the office,
-first of a prosecutor, then of a judge, lastly of an intercessor.
-
-We can never quarrel enough with our vices, which, I beseech thee,
-persecute perpetually. Cast from thee everything that corrupts the
-heart; and if thou canst not otherwise get rid of it, spare not the
-heart itself.
-
-
-
-
-                          FROM DE BENEFICIIS.
-
-
-Nature is not without God nor is God without nature. Both are the same
-and their functions are the same. So, too, nature, destiny, fortune, are
-all the names of the same God.
-
-It is the mark of a noble and generous soul to be helpful, to do good;
-he who confers favors, imitates the gods.
-
-Beneficence always makes haste; what one does willingly one does
-quickly.
-
-We owe no thanks for a favor that has for a long time adhered to the
-hands of the giver, as it were; which he seems to have let go with
-reluctance and which one might almost say had been wrested from him.
-
-Those favors are most gratifying to us that are deliberately and
-willingly offered, and in connection with which the only hesitancy is on
-the part of the recipient.
-
-I do not make the favors I confer a matter of public record.
-
-He who intends to be grateful ought to think about requiting a favor as
-soon as he receives it.
-
-This is the law of beneficence between two persons: the one should
-forthwith forget that he has given; the other should never forget that
-he has received.
-
-You buy from the physician a thing that is above price, life and health;
-from the teacher of belles-lettres, acquaintance with the liberal arts.
-Yet it is not the value of these things that you pay for but their
-pains, because when they are serving us they give up their private
-business to devote themselves to us.
-
-The sun rises for the evil also.
-
-God has given certain benefactions to all men, and from which none are
-excluded.
-
-Who is so wretched, so despised, who born to so hard and sorrowful a
-destiny that he has never perceived the munificence of the gods? Seek
-out even those who bewail their fate and who are always complaining, you
-will not find among the entire number one who has not experienced the
-beneficence of heaven; there is not one for whom there has not flowed
-something from the most inexhaustible of all fountains.
-
-Add, now, that external circumstances do not coerce the gods, but their
-sempiternal will is their law. They have established an order of events
-which they do not change. The gods never repent of their first purpose.
-
-Beneficence consists not in what is done or given, but in the spirit of
-the doer or giver.
-
-It is a most glorious work to save even the unwilling and refractory.
-
-The door to virtue is closed to no one; it is open to all, admits all;
-virtue invites everybody, free-born, freedmen, slaves, kings and exiles.
-It selects neither class nor condition, it seeks the man only.
-
-Nature directs us to do good to all men whether bond or free, free-born
-or emancipated slaves. Wherever there is a human being, there is a place
-for beneficence.
-
-He who reasons thus (like Epicurus), does not hear the voices of
-supplicants and the prayers offered everywhere, in public and private,
-with hands outstretched toward heaven. This could not be, nor is it
-possible that all men should have willingly consented to the folly of
-addressing deaf divinities and powerless gods, if they had not
-recognized their benefactions, sometimes given spontaneously, sometimes
-in answer to prayer, always great, timely, averting by their
-intervention impending disasters.
-
-
-                         FROM VARIOUS SOURCES.
-
-
-It is easy to form the mind while it is still tender; but it is
-difficult to root out those vices that have grown up with it.
-
-It is a great thing to know when to speak and when to be silent.
-
-The vices of others we have before our eyes; our own, behind our backs.
-
-Use your ears oftener than your tongue.
-
-Nothing is more out of place in him who is inflicting punishment than
-anger.
-
-It is not the issue of a thing that ought to be taken into account, but
-the purpose.
-
-Every crime is committed before the deed is done.
-
-To cupidity nothing is enough; to nature even a little is enough.
-
-Vice takes possession of us unconsciously; virtue is difficult to find,
-and we need a guide and teacher. Vices are learned without a teacher.
-
-Stars shall impinge upon stars and all matter that now delights us with
-its beautiful order shall burn in one huge conflagration.
-
-All that is best can neither be given to men nor taken from them.
-
-There are two things, the most precious of all, that attend us
-whithersoever we turn our steps: common nature and personal virtue.
-These things are so, believe me, because they were so willed by the
-creator of the universe, whether it is that God who controls everything,
-or incorporeal reason, the artificer of great works, or the divine
-spirit that pervades equally the greatest and the smallest things.
-
-If the dead have any feeling, the soul of my brother, now set free from
-a long imprisonment, is at length in the full enjoyment of his freedom
-and his majority; he beholds with delight the nature of things and looks
-down upon human affairs from his high abode; but things divine, the
-causes of which he so long sought out in vain, he now beholds at close
-range. Why then do I pine away in sorrow for him who is either blessed
-or not all? To mourn for one who is in bliss is envy; for one who is
-not, folly.
-
-Borne on high, he soars among beatified spirits, and a sanctified
-company welcomes him—the Scipios, the Catos, released by the beneficence
-of death. There thy father devotes himself to his grandson, resplendent
-in the new light even though in that place all are known to each. He
-explains to him the motions of the stars around him; not from
-conjectures, but, versed in the knowledge of all things, he gladly
-inducts him into the arcana of nature.
-
-If you will believe those who have looked more deeply into the truth,
-our whole life is a punishment.
-
-For those who sail this sea so stormy, so exposed to every tempest,
-there is no harbor except death.
-
-He now enjoys a serene and cloudless heaven. From this humble and low
-abode, he has sped swiftly into that region, wherever it may be, where
-souls, freed from their chains, are received into the abode of the
-blest. He now roams about at will, and beholds with supremest delight
-all that is good in the universe.... He has not left us; he has gone
-before.
-
-
-
-
-   DE PROVIDENTIA SIVE QUARE ALIQUA INCOMMODA BONIS VIRIS ACCIDANTCUM
-                            PROVIDENTIA SIT.
-
-
-    NOTE:—This monograph is addressed to the same Lucilius, procurator
-    of Sicily, to whom Seneca also dedicates his letters and his
-    Problems in Physics. The date of composition is not known, but it
-    probably belongs to the later years of the author’s life. The
-    opening sentences seem to make it a part of a larger work on ethics,
-    or rather of a theodicy, which was either never completed or has not
-    come down to us. This is a serious loss both to us and to Seneca: to
-    us, because such a work would doubtless have placed before us a
-    complete theory of human conduct as conceived by a man who was
-    thoroughly conversant with the motives that dominate men; to Seneca,
-    because it would in all probability have explained if not justified
-    some of the inconsistencies that have so sadly marred his career.
-    Indeed the fundamental proposition of the essay is inconsistent,
-    since the conclusion does not follow from the premises. For if the
-    patient endurance of tribulation is the supreme test of a good man,
-    how is he justified in avoiding that test, as our author proposes,
-    by taking his own life?
-
-
-                                   I.
-
-
-You have asked me, Lucilius, why it is, if the world is governed by a
-Providence, that so many misfortunes befall good men. To this an answer
-would more properly be given in a work in which I should undertake to
-prove that a Providence presides over the affairs of men, and that God
-dwells among us. But since you deem it best to take a small portion of
-the whole subject, and to settle this single disputed question, the main
-proposition meanwhile being left untouched, I shall undertake a case of
-little difficulty: I shall plead the cause of the gods.
-
-2. It is superfluous to show at the present time that so great a work
-does not stand fast and firm without an overseer; that the regular
-course of the heavenly bodies is not a fortuitous concourse of atoms;
-that those objects which chance puts in motion are subject to frequent
-disturbances and sudden collisions; that this harmonious velocity is
-under the sway of an eternal law governing everything on land and sea,
-no less than the brilliant luminaries which shine according to a
-prearranged plan; that this order is not the result of elements moving
-about at random, neither can fortuitous aggregations of matter cohere
-with such art that the immense mass of the earth remains motionless
-while beholding the rapid gyrations of the heavenly bodies about itself;
-that the seas poured into the valleys to fructify the soil never feel
-any increase from rivers; or that enormous vegetation grows from the
-minutest seeds.
-
-3. Not even those things that appear to be uncertain and without
-regularity—I mean rains and clouds and the bolts of lightning darting
-from the clouds, and fires poured from the cleft summits of mountains,
-and the quakings of the tottering ground, and such other disturbances of
-the earth about us—are without a rational explanation, unforeseen though
-they be. These things, too, have their causes, not less those which,
-when they appear in unexpected places, are regarded as prodigies, such
-as warm springs among the billows or new insular lands rising up in the
-vast expanse of the sea.
-
-4. Moreover, if one has observed the beach laid bare by the waves of the
-retiring sea and covered again within a brief space of time, does he
-believe that the waves have been contracted and drawn inward by a kind
-of blind restlessness, to burst forth again to seek with a mighty onset
-their accustomed seats, especially since the waters increase at regular
-intervals and move according to a fixed day and hour just as the lunar
-star attracts them more or less, under whose influence the ocean
-regulates its ebb and flow? However, these questions had better be
-reserved for their proper place, since you do not deny the existence of
-a providence, but only bring complaints against it.
-
-5. I wish to reconcile you with the gods since they regard the best men
-with the most favor. For in the nature of things, what is good can never
-harm the good. Between good men and the gods a friendship exists, virtue
-being the bond of amity. Friendship, do I say? nay, more; it is a near
-relationship and likeness, since the good man differs from God only in
-time; he is His pupil and imitator, His true offspring, whom his august
-father, no lenient trainer in the virtues, brings up somewhat rigorously
-after the manner of stern parents.
-
-6. Accordingly, when you see good men, the favorites of the gods,
-toiling, sweating, ascending by hard paths, and the bad living in
-licentious indulgence and growing effeminate in luxury, consider that we
-too are gratified with the sobriety of our sons, but with the wantonness
-of our household slaves; that the former gain greater self-control by
-the sterner discipline, the latter are confirmed in their presumption.
-The same thing is true in regard to God; He does not support the good
-man in enervating ease; He tries him, hardens him, prepares him for
-Himself.
-
-
-                                  II.
-
-
-“Why do the good meet with so many adversities?” (you ask). No evil
-thing can befall a good man; things in their nature contradictory may
-not be commingled. Just as so many rivers, so much water falling from
-the clouds above, so great a number of springs impregnated with mineral
-substances, do not change the saltness of the sea, do not even dilute
-it; so the assaults of adversity produce no change in the spirit of a
-brave man. He remains steadfast, and whatever betides he gains for his
-colors, for he is stronger than all external circumstances. I do not, it
-is true, say, that he is insensible to them, but that he triumphs over
-them, and, moreover, remains calm and serene in spite of obstacles. All
-untoward events he regards as so much drill. Besides, is there any man
-who is only an admirer of noble deeds, that is not eager for honest
-toil, or ready to do his duty with alacrity even in the face of danger?
-To what industrious man is not inactivity a punishment? We see athletes,
-whose purpose is to develop their bodily strength, matching themselves
-with the most doughty antagonists, and requiring those who prepare them
-for a contest to use all their strength against their pupils; they allow
-themselves to be smitten and buffeted, and if they do not find suitable
-single antagonists they pit themselves against several at the same time.
-
-3. When virtue has no antagonist it becomes enervated; then only does it
-appear what its true character is, how strong, how virile it is when
-patient endurance shows what it can accomplish. You surely know that
-good men must do the same thing, to the end that they may not fear what
-is hard or formidable, nor complain about fate. Whatever happens, let
-the good bear it patiently and turn it to good uses. Not what we bear
-but how we bear it, is the important thing. Do you not see how
-differently fathers and mothers show their love for their children? The
-former want their sons to be aroused early in order that they may betake
-themselves to their studies; their vacations even they would not have
-them pass in idleness, and they draw sweat and sometimes even tears from
-the youths; but mothers want to fondle them on their bosom, keep them in
-the shade; they would never have them weep, never be sad, never undergo
-toil.
-
-4. God has a father’s feelings toward good men and ardently loves them,
-and says: “By labors, sorrows, privations, let them be tried in order
-that they may gain real strength.” Animals that are being fattened grow
-languid by their inactivity, and by the weight of their own bodies
-become incapable not only of work, but of movement. Unalloyed felicity
-cannot withstand any shock, but a constant struggle against obstacles
-hardens a man against injuries, and he does not succumb to any disaster,
-for even if he falls, he fights on his knees.
-
-5. Are you surprised if God, who is a most devoted friend of the good,
-and who wishes them to attain the highest degree of perfection, assigns
-them a place in which they are to be disciplined? Verily, I am not
-surprised that sometimes a desire seizes the the gods to behold great
-men struggling against some misfortune. To us mortals it at times
-affords pleasure to see a courageous youth await with the hunting spear,
-the onset of some wild beast, or if with unblanched cheek he thrusts
-back the attack of a lion; and the spectacle is agreeable in proportion
-to the rank of him who exhibits it.
-
-6. These are not the sights that attract the attention of the gods, but
-childish pastimes and the pleasures of men who have no serious aims.
-Behold a spectacle worthy of a god who is intensely interested in his
-work; behold a pair of champions worthy of god, a brave man pitted
-against adverse fortune, especially if he himself be the challenging
-party. I do not see, I say, what more agreeable sight on earth Jupiter
-can look upon, if he turns his attention thither, than to behold Cato,
-after his party had been more than once defeated, standing erect,
-nevertheless, amid the ruins of the republic.
-
-7. Said he, “Though everything has yielded to the behests of one man;
-though the lands be guarded by legions and the seas by fleets and the
-soldiers of Caesar keep watch at our gates, there is a way of escape for
-Cato. Single-handed will he make a broad way for liberty; this sword,
-pure and untarnished even in civil strife, shall at length perform a
-worthy and noble deed; the liberty it could not give to his country, it
-shall give to Cato. Perform my soul, a deed long meditated, free thyself
-from earthly concerns!
-
-8. Already Petreius and Juba have turned their swords against each other
-and lie dead, slain with mutual hands. A brave and glorious covenant to
-die was that, but one that was unworthy of my greatness; it is as
-ignoble for Cato to beg for death at the hands of another as (to beg
-for) life.” I am sure the gods looked with keen satisfaction when that
-hero, the intrepid liberator of himself, takes counsel for the safety of
-others and provides a way of escape for the fugitives; when he pursues
-his studies far even into that final night; when he thrusts the sword
-into his own sacred breast; when he disembowels himself and sets free
-with his own hand that purest spirit unworthy to be contaminated with a
-sword.
-
-9. Hence I would fain believe that the thrust was badly directed and the
-wound not fatal; it was not enough for the immortal gods to have beheld
-Cato once only; his courage was restrained and called back that it might
-show itself in a more difficult part. For death may be said not so much
-to have come upon so great a soul as to have been sought by it. Why
-should they not rejoice to see their favorite pass from life in a way so
-glorious and memorable? Death deifies those whose departure fills with
-admiration even those who stand aghast at the manner of it.
-
-
-                                  III.
-
-
-But as I proceed with my discourse, I shall show that not all those
-things which seem to be evils are such. For the present, I affirm that
-the conditions you call hard, adverse, and terrible, are in the first
-place best for those very persons whom they befall; and in the second,
-for all men, since the gods are more concerned for mankind as a whole
-than for the individual; and lastly; that they happen either with their
-approval, or to men who are worthy of them, if without their approval.
-To these propositions I shall add that such things take place in the
-fixed order of the world and rightly happen to the good, in virtue of
-the same law which makes them good. From this point of view I shall then
-convince you that you never need feel pity for the good man; for though
-he may be called unfortunate, he never is so.
-
-2. The most difficult of the affirmations I have made seems to be the
-first, to wit, that it is for our own good these very things happen
-which we dread and shudder at. Is it good for anybody, you say, to be
-driven into exile, to see his children reduced to want, to bear a wife
-to the grave, to be disgraced, maimed? If you are surprised that this
-should result in good to any one, then you will be surprised that
-persons are sometimes cured by cutting and burning not the less than by
-hunger and thirst. But if you will reflect that as remedial measures,
-the bones have to be laid bare or taken out, veins to be extracted, and
-even members to be amputated, because they cannot be allowed to remain
-attached to it without detriment to the whole body; you will also admit
-that some unpleasant things are an advantage to those whom they befall,
-no less than that some things which are accounted good and are sought
-after, are an injury to those who find pleasure in them, such as eating
-and drinking to excess and other things that kill by the gratification
-they afford.
-
-3. Among the many noteworthy sayings of our friend Demetrius there is
-one that is fresh in my mind and keeps sounding and ringing in my ears.
-“There is no being,” says he, “more unfortunate than the man who never
-felt adversity.” For he has never had an opportunity to test himself.
-Though everything may have come to him when he wished it or even before
-he wished it, the gods have nevertheless not thought well of him. They
-have adjudged him unworthy of a struggle with adversity lest he be
-overcome by it, for it avoids all cowards as if saying, Why should I
-choose such an antagonist? he lays down his arms forthwith; there is no
-need of all my strength against him; he is beaten by a feeble onset; he
-cannot bear even a look.
-
-4. Let another be selected for the struggle. It is a shame to fight with
-a man who wants to be beaten. A gladiator regards it as a disgrace to be
-pitted against an inferior antagonist for he knows there is no glory in
-overcoming one who is vanquished without danger. Adversity does
-likewise; it seeks out foemen worthy of their antagonist and passes by
-some with disdain. It always attacks the doughtiest and boldest for a
-trial of its strength.
-
-5. It tries Mucius with fire, Fabricius with poverty, Regulus with
-torture, Socrates with poison, Cato with death. It is misfortune alone
-that finds noble examples. Is Mucius to be commiserated because he put
-his hand into an enemy’s fire and punished himself for his mistake?
-because he vanquished with a burned hand a king whom he could not
-vanquish with it armed? Would he have been happier if he had warmed it
-in the bosom of a mistress?
-
-6. Is Fabricius to be pitied because he tilled his own field when not
-engaged in public duties? because he waged war against riches as well as
-against Pyrrhus? because he ate, by his own fireside, the same roots and
-herbs that his triumphant old age pulled up on his farm? Can we say that
-he would have been happier if he had filled his stomach with fish from a
-far off strand and with exotic birds? or if he had stimulated his jaded
-and nauseated stomach with oysters from the Upper and the Lower sea? or
-if he had encircled with a huge pile of different fruits, the finest
-game captured at the cost of many a huntsman’s life?
-
-7. Is Rutilius unfortunate because those who condemned him decided a
-case against themselves for all time to come? because he was more
-willing to be deprived of his country than to be recalled from exile?
-because he alone dared to deny anything to the dictator Sulla, and when
-invited to return, not only refused, but fled farther? “Let those manage
-affairs,” said he, “whom thy good fortune keeps in Rome! Let them look
-upon the pool of blood in the Forum and the heads of senators floating
-on the Servilian lake,—for that was the field of carnage of those
-proscribed by Sulla—and the bands of assassins roaming through the city,
-and the many thousands of Roman citizens slain in one place after
-pledges of immunity had been given, yes, because of those very pledges!
-Let those look upon these things who are not able to endure exile.”
-
-8. Shall we say that Sulla is to be congratulated because, when he
-descends to the Forum, a way is opened for him with the sword? because
-he allows the heads of men of consular rank to be shown him in public,
-and paid the price of their slaughter by the hand of the quaestor and
-from the fisc? And he who did these things is the same man that enacted
-the Cornelian law! Let us return to Regulus. What injury did his destiny
-do him by making him, the well-known exemplar of good faith, an exemplar
-of patient endurance? Nails pierce his skin, and whatever way he lays
-down his weary body he lies on a wound, while his open eyes doom him to
-perpetual wakefulness.
-
-9. The greater the anguish, the greater will be the glory. Wouldst thou
-know how little he regretted the high value he set on fortitude? Heal
-his wounds and send him back to the senate—he will give the same advice
-(as before). Dost thou think Maecenas happier when a prey to the
-torments of love and when grieving over the daily repulses of a wayward
-wife, he courts sleep amid the sound of symphonies softly sounding in
-the distance? Though he stupify himself with wine, and seek diversion in
-the murmur of waters, or trick his troubled mind with a thousand
-pastimes, he lies awake on his bed of down no less than the other on his
-bed of torture. But for the former there is the solace that he is
-enduring hardness for a noble purpose, and he can look away from his
-pain to its cause; the latter, surfeited with pleasures, weighed down by
-an excess of good fortune, is more tormented by the cause of his
-sufferings than by the sufferings themselves.
-
-10. Not yet has vice so completely taken possession of the human race as
-to make it doubtful that the majority, if they had the choice of their
-lot, would prefer that of Regulus to that of Maecenas. Or, if there
-should be anybody who had presumption enough to say that he had rather
-be born a Maecenas than a Regulus, the same person, even though he might
-not openly admit it, would also rather be born a Terentia. Do you
-pronounce Socrates unfortunate because he drained the executioner’s cup
-as if it had been the draught of immortality, and discoursed about death
-up to the moment it overtook him? Was his lot an unhappy one because his
-blood congealed and his vital force stopped by the gradually advancing
-rigor of death?
-
-11. How much more is he to be envied than those who are served from
-goblets studded with gems, for whom a male prostitute, accustomed to
-submit to every kind of abuse, whose virility is gone or at least
-doubtful, dissolves the snow that floats in a golden chalice? Whatever
-they drink they vomit up, to their chagrin, and taste again mixed with
-bile; but he willingly and with joy drains the poisonous draught. For
-Cato it is sufficient that the unanimous verdict of mankind has raised
-him to the pinnacle of felicity; him destiny selected as one who was
-fitted to contend against everything that is to be dreaded.
-
-12. Is the enmity of the powers that be a serious matter? let him be
-opposed at the same time by Pompey, Caesar, Crassus. Is it hard to bear
-when one is less honored than worse men? let him be sacrificed for
-Vatinius. Is it a hard thing to be involved in civil wars? throughout
-the whole world let him fight for the good cause, equally renowned for
-his misfortunes as for his bravery. Is it hard to take one’s own life?
-let him do it. What do I wish to prove by these things? I would have all
-men know that those vicissitudes of which Cato was deemed worthy, cannot
-be regarded as evils.
-
-
-                                  IV.
-
-
-Prosperity comes to ordinary people and to men of mean abilities, but it
-is the prerogative of a great man to overcome the calamities and terrors
-that frighten mortals. In truth, to be always happy and to pass one’s
-life without mental anxiety, is to be ignorant of half of man’s destiny.
-Thou art a great man; yet how am I to know it unless fate gives thee an
-opportunity to show thy worth?
-
-2. Thou didst enter the Olympian games as a contestant; if there was
-none beside thyself, thou hast the crown, thou hast not the victory. I
-congratulate thee, not as a brave man, but as one who has gained the
-consulship or the praetorship: thou hast won political honors. I can say
-the same thing to a good man, unless some more than ordinary emergency
-has given him an opportunity to show his strength of soul.
-
-3. Unhappy do I adjudge thee, if thou hast never been unhappy; thou hast
-passed thy life without an adversary. No one knows what thou mightest
-have done; thou dost not even know it thyself. We need to be tried that
-we may find out what we are; what a man can do can be ascertained only
-by trial. For this reason men have sometimes voluntarily encountered
-obstacles that seemed to evade them and sought an opportunity for
-demonstrating to others the virtue that was passing into oblivion.
-
-4. I assert that great men sometimes rejoice in tribulation like valiant
-soldiers in battles. I heard Triumphus, a gladiator under Caius Caesar
-(Caligula) complain because he had so little to do. “How my best days
-are speeding away,” said he! Courage is eager for danger and looks to
-the end in view, not at what it is likely to encounter, for the reason
-that what it encounters is part of the glory. Warriors are proud of
-their wounds; joyfully they point to the blood it was their good fortune
-to shed. Those who return from the combat unscathed may have been just
-as brave—it is the wounded man that is the observed of all eyes.
-
-God shows his good will to those whom he would have attain the highest
-excellence every time he gives them an opportunity to display courage
-and endurance; this is possible only in some contingency beset with
-difficulties. You form your opinion of a pilot in a storm; of a soldier,
-in battle. By what test am I to know how thou wilt bear up against
-poverty, if thou aboundest in wealth? By what test am I to know how thou
-wilt bear up under ignominy and disgrace and popular hatred, if thou
-growest old amid public applause? if a strong and unswerving popular
-partiality supports thee in all thou doest?
-
-6. How am I to know with what equanimity thou wilt bear the loss of
-children, if thou seest about thee all those thou hast begotten? I have
-listened to thee when thou wert offering consolation to others; then
-should I have seen thee when thou wert thyself in need of consolation;
-when thou wert trying to restrain thyself from sorrowing. Do not, I
-beseech thee, shrink from these things which the immortal gods send upon
-thee as stimuli to thy courage. A disaster is an occasion of virtue.
-Those persons one can rightly call wretched who grow effeminate in
-superabounding prosperity; whom a dead calm bears along, as it were, in
-a motionless sea.
-
-7. No matter what befalls them, they are unprepared for it. Hardships
-bear heaviest on those who have never known them; heavy lies the yoke on
-the neck that has not felt it. The mere thought of a wound makes the raw
-recruit turn pale; the veteran looks without blanching upon his own
-blood because he knows that he has often gained a victory at the price
-of it. Then it is that God trains and hardens those whom he has chosen,
-whom he loves and wishes well to; but those whom he seems to treat with
-indulgence, whom he spares, he keeps tender for the evils to come. For
-you are mistaken if you conclude that any one is exempt; he who has long
-basked in the sunshine of fortune will have his turn.
-
-Every one that thinks he is discharged has been placed among the
-reserves. (You ask) why does God afflict every good man with ill health
-or sorrow or other misfortune? Because in camp-life the most perilous
-duties are also laid on the bravest; the commander sends picked men to
-fall upon the enemy from a nocturnal ambuscade, or to explore a route,
-or to carry by assault an outpost. No one of those who go forth says,
-“The general has a poor opinion of me,” but, “He has judged wisely and
-well,” And so let all say who are ordered to undergo what to the coward
-and the slothful seem to be painful experiences: God has accounted us
-worthy to be used as examples by which to show how much human nature can
-endure. Flee from pleasure, from that unmanly felicity in which the
-active powers of the mind grow torpid, unless something intervenes to
-recall man’s lot, by a sort of perpetual intoxication.
-
-9. Him whom glass windows protect against every breath of air; whose
-feet are kept warm by fomentations periodically renewed; whose
-dining-rooms are made always comfortable by heat within the walls and
-under the floor—such a person, not even a gentle breeze passes over
-without danger. Though everything that transcends the bounds of
-moderation is hurtful, the most perilous intemperance is that of good
-fortune. It excites the brain, awakens idle fancies in the mind, puts
-dense darkness between the false and the true.
-
-10. Which is better, to bear up under continuous misfortune that incites
-us to do our best, or to be crushed under unbounded and inexhaustible
-riches? Death comes gently when the stomach is empty; it is from
-repletion that men die like beasts. Accordingly the gods follow the same
-method with good men that teachers follow with good pupils—they require
-the hardest labor from those of whom they cherish the highest hopes.
-Dost thou believe that it is out of hatred for their children that the
-Lacedaemonians try, by public scourgings, what stuff they are made of?
-Their own fathers exhort them to bear bravely their flagellations, and
-ask them, when bleeding and half dead, to proffer unflinchingly their
-wounds for fresh wounds.
-
-11. Why is it strange if God sends severe trials upon noble spirits? a
-test of one’s courage is never an easy matter. Is it destiny that
-scourges and lacerates us? let us endure it; ’tis not wanton cruelty, it
-is a contest; the oftener we enter it, the stronger we shall become. The
-solidest part of the body, frequent use has made so. We must be
-subjected to the buffetings of fortune in order that in this way we may
-become callous to it. Little by little, fortune makes us a match for
-itself; contempt of dangers results from often braving them. In this way
-sailors inure their bodies to the sea; the hands of the husbandman are
-calloused; the arms of the soldier are strong from hurling javelins; the
-limbs of runners are agile. That part of everybody is the strongest that
-has exercised the most.
-
-12. The soul acquires the strength to brave misfortune by patient
-endurance; what it can effect in us thou mayst know, if thou dost but
-consider what hardship does for those peoples that go about without
-clothing and are strong by their very indigence. Consider all the
-nations over whom the sway of Rome does not extend, I mean the Germans
-and every nomad tribe along the Danube. Perpetual winter, a severe
-climate, bear hard upon them, a sterile soil grudgingly supports them, a
-hut or branches of trees protect them against the rain, they roam over
-marshes hardened by frost, for food they capture wild beasts.
-
-13. Dost thou think them wretched? No one is wretched when he performs
-what habit has made second nature to him; for by degrees we find
-pleasure in doing what we began to do from necessity. These peoples have
-no houses and no resting place except as weariness finds them from day
-to day; their food is cheap and obtained only as wanted; their naked
-bodies are exposed to the terrible extremes of a horrid climate; what
-thou regardest as a frightful calamity is the whole life of many
-peoples.
-
-14. Why dost thou wonder that good men are called upon to undergo
-violent shocks to the end that they may stand the more firmly? A tree
-does not take deep root, or grow strong, unless it is frequently shaken
-by the wind; for as a result of violent agitation its fiber is toughened
-and its roots more firmly set. Those are fragile that grow up in
-sheltered valleys. It is therefore a boon to good men, as it makes them
-fearless amid danger, to become familiar with hardships and to bear with
-equanimity those things that are not ills, except when they are borne
-with an ill grace.
-
-
-                                   V.
-
-
-Add, now, that it is best for all that every good man should, so to
-speak, be always under arms and in action. It is the purpose of God,
-just as if He were a wise man, to demonstrate that those things which
-the average man longs for, which he fears, are neither good nor evil;
-but it will be evident that those things are good that are sent upon
-good men, and those evil, that fall upon the bad. Blindness would be
-dreadful, if nobody had lost his sight except those who deserved to have
-their eyes put out. Accordingly, let Appius and Metellus be deprived of
-eyesight. Riches are not a good.
-
-2. And so even the procurer Elius is rich in order that money to which
-men have given a sacred character in temples may also be found in a
-brothel. In no way is God better able to expose to contempt those things
-that men covet than by bestowing them upon the vilest and taking them
-from the worthiest. “But,” sayst thou, “it is unjust that a good man
-should suffer mutilation, or be crucified, or be bound in fetters, while
-the bad strut proudly at large and live in luxury.”
-
-3. What then? is it not also unjust when brave men are required to take
-up arms, to pass the night in camps and to defend the outposts, though
-the bandages are still on their wounds, while in the city, eunuchs and
-debauchees by profession go about in security. What further? is it not
-unjust that the noblest virgins should be aroused at night to perform
-their sacred duties while impure women are enjoying sound sleep? Toil
-claims the best men. The senate is often in session during the entire
-day, when at the same time all the vilest men are either taking their
-ease in the Campus Martius, or loitering in eating-houses, or wasting
-their time in idle gossip. It is just so in the world at large—good men
-toil, sacrifice themselves or are sacrificed, and willingly at that.
-They are not dragged along by destiny, they follow it and keep pace with
-it; had they known whither it would lead them, they would have preceded
-it.
-
-4. I remember also to have heard these encouraging words from that
-noblest of men, Demetrius. “This one complaint,” said he, “I have to
-make against you, ye immortal gods: it is that ye did not sooner make
-known to me your will; for of my own accord I would have come to those
-things to which I am now summoned. Do you wish to take away my children?
-For you I have brought them up. Do you wish any portion of my body? Take
-it. No great thing it is that I am offering you; soon I shall resign it
-entirely to you. Do you wish my life? Why not? I shall not be slow to
-give back to you what ye have entrusted to my keeping; ye shall find me
-willing to give up anything ye ask. Still I should rather have proferred
-it to you than given it up. What need was there to take what you could
-have had as a gift. Yet not even now do ye need to constrain me, since
-that is not taken from a man which he does not try to retain. I am in no
-sense the victim of constraint or violence, nor am I God’s slave, but I
-am in accord with Him, and this all the more cheerfully because I know
-that everything takes its course in accordance with an immutable law
-established from all eternity.”
-
-5. The fates lead us, and our lot is assigned to us from the very hour
-of our birth. Cause depends upon cause; an unbroken chain of events
-links together public and private affairs. We ought therefore to bear
-with fortitude whatever befalls us because everything takes place, not
-as we think, by chance, but in its due order. A long time in advance,
-all our pleasures and our pains have been determined, and although in
-the great diversity of individual lives, one life may seem to stand
-apart, it all comes to this: transitory beings ourselves we have entered
-into a transitory inheritance.
-
-6. Why then does this disquiet us? Why indulge in complaints? it is the
-law of our existence. Let nature use our bodies, which are its own, as
-it wishes; let us cheerfully and bravely meet whatever comes, bearing in
-mind that what we lose is not our property. What is the duty of a good
-man? To resign himself to his destiny. It is a great consolation to
-share the fate of the universe. Whatever it be that decrees how we are
-to live, how to die, it binds even the gods by the same inexorable law;
-an irresistible current bears along terrestrial and celestial things.
-
-The creator and governor of the universe has indeed prescribed the
-course of events, but He Himself follows them; He obeys always, He
-commanded but once.
-
-7. “But why was God so unjust in the destinies he prescribed for
-mortals, as to send upon good men poverty, wounds, and cruel deaths”?
-The artisan cannot change matter; it is passive. There are some things
-that cannot be separated from others; they are bound together and
-indivisible. Sluggish natures and such as are prone to sink into slumber
-or into a state closely akin to slumber, are conjoined of inert
-elements; to form a man who is really worthy of the name a more heroic
-destiny is needed. His path will not be smooth; he must go up-hill and
-down-hill, be tossed on the waves, and guide his bark through turbid
-waters; in spite of changing fortune, he must hold on his way.
-
-8. He will meet many obstacles hard to remove or surmount, but he will
-himself remove them and smooth his path. Gold is tried by fire; brave
-men by misfortune. Behold to what heights virtue may climb; thou
-shouldst know that it cannot go by ways that are free from dangers.
-
-         Hard is the way at first: though drawn by prancing steeds,
-         Slow, up the sky, the shining car proceeds;—
-         On land and sea I gaze from heaven’s high crest;
-         Fear and emotion fill my heaving breast.
-         Steep is the downward way, and with tight rein
-         I must the ardor of my steeds restrain;
-         E’en Tethys, wont to greet me ’neath the waves,
-         Fears lest we plunge headlong to wat’ry graves.
-
-9. When the high-spirited youth heard these words he said, “I like the
-way; I shall ascend it even though I fall forthwith in so doing.” The
-sun-god still tries to dissuade him from his rash purpose by exciting
-his fears:
-
-             Hold straight thy course nor turn for aught aside,
-             Through Taurus’ horns adverse thy coursers guide,
-             And Haemon’s bow and Leo’s searching face.
-
-To this he replied, “Yoke the steeds to the chariot; by the very words
-which you seek to deter me, you incite me. I long to stand where Sol
-himself quakes with fear; it is only ignoble and weak souls that journey
-on safe roads; courage ventures on giddy heights.”
-
-
-                                  VI.
-
-
-“But why does God suffer any evil to befall the good”? Verily, He does
-not suffer it. He wards off from them all evils, crimes and misdeeds and
-impure thoughts and avaricious designs and unbridled passions and lust
-after other men’s property; He watches over and protects them. Will any
-one in addition to this demand of God that He shall also bear the
-luggage of good men (as if He were a slave)! They themselves cast this
-burden upon God; mere externals they make light of. Democritus threw
-away his riches, thinking them a fardel upon his noble soul. Why do you
-wonder that God sometimes suffers that to come upon a good man which he
-himself desires?
-
-2. “Good men sometimes lose their children.” Why not, when they
-sometimes even put them to death? “They are sent into exile.” Why not,
-when they sometimes leave their country, voluntarily, never to return?
-“They are put to death.” Why not, when they sometimes lay violent hands
-on themselves? “Why do they suffer many hardships?” That they may teach
-others to suffer patiently; they are born to be examples.
-
-3. Think of God as speaking to them thus: “What right have ye to
-complain of me, ye who take pleasure in doing right? Other men I have
-encompassed with seductive pleasures and their torpid souls I have
-lulled into a long and delusive sleep; gold, silver and ivory I have
-lavished upon them; yet at heart they are good for nothing. Those men
-whom you look upon as fortunate, if you regard them, not with respect to
-what is external but what is concealed, are wretched, unclean, deformed,
-adorned on the outside after the similitude of their own walls. Their
-good fortune is not substantial and unalloyed; it is a mere crust and a
-thin one at that.
-
-4. Accordingly, as long as they are allowed to stand and to show
-themselves as they wish to appear, they make a brilliant and imposing
-display; but when something occurs that disarranges their plans and
-discloses their true character, then it becomes apparent how real and
-deep their foulness. To you I have given a genuine, an abiding good; the
-more one turns it about and looks at it from every side, the greater and
-better it appears. I have given you the strength to contemn what other
-men fear; to make of little account what others long for. You do not
-shine because of externals; it is the kingdom within you that is your
-highest good. Thus does the world disdain what is on the outside because
-happy in the contemplation of itself; within you have I placed all real
-good; not to need happiness is your happiness.”
-
-5. “But many sad occurrences take place, things from which we shrink in
-terror, and which are hard to bear.” “Because I am not able to ward them
-off from you, I have armed you against all changes of fortune. Endure
-bravely; in this you may surpass God: He is exempt from suffering, you
-are superior to it. Contemn poverty; no one lives so poor as he is born.
-Contemn pain; either it will end or you. Contemn fortune; I have given
-to it no weapon with which to wound the soul. Contemn death; it either
-ends your existence or transfers it.
-
-6. Before all things, I took care that no one should keep you here
-against your will; the way for your departure is open. If you do not
-want to fight, you can run away. Therefore, with all the restrictions I
-have placed upon you, I have made nothing easier for you than death.
-Only look and you will see how short and easy is the way to liberty. I
-have made the way shorter for those who wish to go out of the world than
-for those who are entering it; besides, destiny would have had great
-power over you, if it were as hard for a man to die as to be born.
-
-7. Every moment of time, every place, can teach you how easy it is to
-quit nature’s service and to return to her her gift. At the very foot of
-the altar and amid the solemnities of those who are offering sacrifices
-for the preservation of life, learn to know death. The huge bodies of
-bulls drop from the effects of a little wound, and beasts of enormous
-strength are felled by a blow from a human hand; with a little piece of
-iron the jointures of the vertabrae are severed, and when the ligature
-that binds the head and neck is cut asunder, the huge mass falls dead to
-the ground.
-
-8. The breath does not lurk in some secret hiding place, nor must it
-necessarily be sought out with the sword; there is no need of piercing
-the vitals with a deep wound; death is close at hand. I have not
-designated any particular place for the fatal thrust, it may enter
-anywhere. What is called death, that time in which the spirit leaves the
-body, is so brief that its fleetness cannot be perceived. Whether it be
-a noose that strangles you, or water that suffocates you, or a fall upon
-the hard earth that dashes the life out of you, or fire drawn in with
-the breath that cuts off its return—whatever it be, its effect is
-speedy. Are you not ashamed to fear so long what may be done so
-quickly?”
-
-
-NOTES.
-
-
-A few notes have been added to the translation. They bear chiefly on
-obscure allusions in Seneca’s treatise, as the necessary biographical
-data may be found in almost any encyclopedia. The notes are placed by
-themselves so as not to interrupt the reader, who may omit them, if he
-chooses.
-
-
-    I.
-
-
-    2. It was held by some of the Greek philosophers, notably Epicurus,
-    that the universe was built up by a fortuitous concourse of atoms.
-
-    4. Some texts have _quaeris_, you are seeking information.
-
-    6. _Vernae_ were slaves born in the household of their masters,
-    sometimes his own children by a female slave. The _licentia
-    vernularum_ was proverbial in Rome. The _vernae_ and _vernulae_ were
-    allowed privileges not accorded to slaves obtained by purchase.
-
-
-    II.
-
-
-    _In suum colorem_, to its colors. The parties represented in the
-    race-course were distinguished by different colors. The significance
-    of the expression is therefore evident. Another less probable
-    explanation of the passage is that the author has reference to the
-    effect of red wine when mixed with liquids of another color.
-
-    3. As the holidays in Rome were very numerous much time was lost by
-    those who spent all of them in idleness.
-
-    7. Cato, surnamed Uticensis, is here meant. He was the patron saint
-    of the Roman Stoics.
-
-    9. The sentence here translated, “For death,” etc., may also mean,
-    “For it requires less courage to meet death (once) than to seek it a
-    second time.”
-
-
-    III.
-
-
-    6. The wild boar roasted whole was generally placed on the center of
-    the table. Around it were piled fruits, vegetables, etc.
-
-    7. _Tua felicitas._ Sulla called himself FELIX, and in the next
-    section we find this epithet applied to him. The atrocities he
-    committed are familiar to every reader of Roman history.
-
-    8. The Cornelian law. The Roman Legal Code was greatly modified
-    under the inspiration of Sulla. The statute here referred to, fixed
-    the penalty for homicide and similar crimes. It bore its author’s
-    gentile name.
-
-    The familiar story of Regulus was accepted as true by the Romans,
-    and, in fact, by the world generally, until recent times. It is
-    interesting as showing the high estimate placed upon patriotism by
-    the Romans from their point of view. Though narrow it was intense
-    and played a conspicuous part in the growth of the Roman state.
-
-    9. Maecenas the well-known Premier of the emperor Augustus was
-    passionately attached to his wife Terentia; but her fidelity was
-    more than suspected, a condition of things that led to many quarrels
-    with her husband.
-
-    11. The writer refers here to the disgusting practice of the Romans,
-    who, at their feasts, frequently ate and drank to excess, then
-    produced vomiting in order to be able to begin eating and drinking
-    over again.
-
-    12. Vatinius was a worthless fellow who defeated Cato in the contest
-    for the praetorship.
-
-
-    IV.
-
-
-    12. The Romans were wilfully blind as to the climate and soil of
-    Germany. It was a case of “sour grapes.” After vainly endeavoring to
-    conquer its inhabitants, they decided that they were not worth the
-    trouble of conquest.
-
-
-    V.
-
-
-    6. “Whatever it be” etc. The First Cause, about which Seneca is in
-    some doubt, whether it is personal or impersonal, material or
-    immaterial; whether matter exists of necessity or is created. In 4
-    he uses _mundus_ in a personal sense. He is also inconsistent in his
-    attitude toward suicide; for after assuring us in the strongest
-    language, that it is every man’s duty to endure whatever Providence
-    or Fate or Destiny or Chance sends upon him, he ends by telling him
-    that if the service is too hard he is at perfect liberty to run away
-    from it. Gréard rightly says, “He confuses God with the world,
-    Providence with destiny; he admits and does not admit the
-    immortality of the soul; he proclaims the freedom of the will, and
-    denies it.”
-
-    8. 9. Dr. Lodge, (1614) translates the two extracts from Ovid’s
-    Metamorphoses as follows:
-
-            “The first which with unwearied steeds I clime,
-            Is such a iourney that their ceaseless toyle
-            Can scarcily reach before the morrowes prime;
-            The next is highest heau’n from whence the soyle
-            And spacious seas, I see with dreadfull eye
-            And fearfull heart; the next whereto I hie
-            Is steep and prone and craues a cunning guide;
-            And then dothe Thetis shake herselfe for dread,
-            Lest headlong I should fall and downward glide,
-            And burie in her waues my golden head.”
-
-            “And that thou mayst continue in the way,
-            Be carefull lest thy posting steeds doe stray;
-            Yet shalt thou pass by Taurus, who will bend
-            His hornes to cross thee, whither thou dost tend;
-            Th’ Aemonian Archer and the Lion fell
-            Shall stay thy course and fright thee where they dwell.”
-
-    See also the classical dictionary under Phaethon.
-
-
-    VI.
-
-
-    6. An inclined plane down which an object may be easily started to
-    roll.
-
-    8. The final sentence more literally translated would read, Are you
-    not ashamed? what is so quickly done you fear so long?
-
-
-
-
-                  PLUTARCH AND THE GREECE OF HIS AGE.
-
-
-Ever since I have known enough about Greek literature to form an opinion
-of my own on its merits, it has been a matter of surprise to me that the
-authors who flourished in the century or two immediately preceding and
-succeeding the Christian era, are treated with so much neglect. The
-histories of Greek literature, whose name is legion, frequently end with
-Grecian independence; or if they continue the subject some centuries
-longer, treat the later periods in a half-hearted and perfunctory
-manner, as if they were deserving of nothing better. While it is true,
-that in some departments the field is relatively infertile, there are
-many writers well worth a careful study, and several eminently so. The
-storm and stress period is over; the centuries of vigorous productions
-well-nigh past; yet the Greek mind is not dead; the field of authorship
-still bears many fine ears and occasionally a large sheaf for the
-careful gleaner. The times that could produce a Polybius, a Plutarch, an
-Epictetus, an Arrian, a Dion Chrysostomus, a Lucian, to say nothing of
-Josephus and Philo, together with others, a score or more in number,
-cannot justly be charged with intellectual stagnation. If the form in
-which the later writers express their thoughts has no longer the
-elegance, nor the thoughts themselves the profundity, of their
-predecessors, they are far from being unworthy of painstaking study. If
-men reflected less, they did more, or were at least active in a larger
-sphere. Greeks were now to be found in all parts of the civilized world;
-they still provided its intellectual nourishment; Athens was still its
-university and it is of the Greeks of these centuries more than of the
-earlier that Horace could say,
-
-                 Graeca capta ferum victorem cepit et artes
-                 Intulit agresti Latio.
-
-Greek culture had become so widespread that a sojourn in Athens was no
-longer necessary for those who were ambitious to learn the language in
-its purest form. Though this city was still looked upon with a certain
-filial regard, half a score of rivals had sprung up in three continents
-that at times seriously threatened its prestige. The centuries that meet
-at the birth of Christ are the link that unites the golden age of Greek
-literature with the Renaissance. In them was coined much of the small
-change of Greek thought, which was by reason of its form the more widely
-circulated. That much of it was silver, so to speak, only made it the
-more generally available.
-
-But while the writings of these three or four centuries have suffered
-greatly from neglect at the hands of the moderns, the language in its
-narrower sense, except that of the New Testament, has been almost wholly
-ignored. It needs but a brief examination of the current Greek
-dictionaries to convince the student that here is an ample field for
-profitable work. Even the great Thesaurus of Stephanus often leaves one
-sadly in the lurch; besides, it is both too extensive and too expensive
-for general use. What we need is a careful lexicographical and
-grammatical study of the individual authors and the presentation of the
-results in as succinct a form as possible.
-
-It is a pleasure to note the signs of a revival in this quarter—for that
-it is not a misnomer to speak of a revival will be evident to those who
-know that the reader of some of the authors above named, together with
-others, is largely compelled to rely on texts that are more than half a
-century old, in some cases much more. In this laudable work of
-rediscovery, Professor Mahaffy in Great Britain, and Professor
-Krumbacher in Germany, may be regarded as the leaders. The former, by
-his various works upon the Greeks under Roman sway, and the latter by
-his masterly _Geschichte der Byzantinischen Litteratur_ and his
-_Byzantinische Zeitschrift_ have done more than any two writers in the
-present century to awaken an interest in a subject that has long been in
-a comatose condition. The present volume, though bearing upon the
-general theme, is concerned with but a small portion of it. I have tried
-to throw a little light upon two authors, in whose writings are many
-passages that put them in some sort of relation to nascent Christianity.
-While it is almost absolutely certain that neither Seneca nor Plutarch
-had any knowledge of the new doctrines first preached in their time, it
-ought surely to be a matter of interest to every thinking man to note
-how closely the best that is in the old philosophy approached the new
-religion; or, to state the case somewhat differently, that the old
-philosophy and the new religion are in many points identical.
-
-The French have, almost from the beginning of their national literature,
-been ardent admirers of Plutarch. Amyot reduced some of his precepts to
-rhyme in order that they might the more readily be taught to children,
-and regarded his writings as more profitable than any other except the
-Scriptures. Gui-Patin makes Pliny, Aristotle, Plutarch, and Seneca
-constitute an entire family,—father, mother, older and younger
-brother—and thus in a sense represent the whole circle of literature.
-Rollin copies his Parallel Lives almost literally into his Ancient
-History. Rousseau cites him among the few authors that he read in his
-old age. He is the last consolation of St. Pierre. Laharpe regards him
-as by nature the most moral man that ever lived; and Joubert calls him
-the Herodotus of Philosophy, and deems his Lives the wisdom of antiquity
-in its entirety. Montaigne says, “I never settled myself to the reading
-of any authors but Plutarch and Seneca.” Again, “Plutarch had rather we
-should applaud his judgment than commend his knowledge, and had rather
-leave us with an appetite to read more, than glutted with that we have
-already read. He knew very well that a man may say too much even upon
-the best subjects, and that Alexandrides did justly reproach him who
-made very elegant but too long speeches to the Ephori, when he said: ‘O
-stranger, thou speakest the things thou oughtest to speak, but not after
-the manner thou shouldst speak them.’” Elsewhere he recurs to the
-subject with these words, “As to what concerns my other reading that
-mixes a little more profit with the pleasure and whence I learn how to
-marshal my opinions, the books that serve me to this purpose are
-Plutarch and Seneca. Both of them have this great convenience suited to
-my humor, that the knowledge I there seek is discoursed in some pieces
-that do not require any great trouble of reading long, of which I am
-incapable.” In his Essays, Montaigne refers to or quotes Plutarch more
-than two hundred times, and Seneca almost as often. So far as Plutarch’s
-Lives are concerned, the translation published by Jacques Amyot, bishop
-of Auxerre, in 1559, is still regarded as a masterpiece. This version is
-of special interest to English-speaking people, because from it Sir
-Thomas North made his translation, published some twenty years later,
-and Shakespeare, in turn, took the material for his plays dealing with
-antique life. Of later English translations, that of the Langhorne is
-undoubtedly the most popular, though the one known as Dryden’s, albeit
-he had little to do with it, as revised by A. H. Clough, is much read.
-That of Stewart and Long is not generally known. There seems to be no
-English translation of Plutarch’s Moral Writings except that made by a
-number of Oxford scholars some two centuries since and edited by
-Professor Goodwin. The German version made by Kaltwasser just one
-hundred years ago, is an excellent piece of work. The Lives have been
-frequently translated.
-
-About sixty miles northwest of the city of Athens near the road leading
-from Delphi to Lebadeia, midway between the gulf of Corinth and the
-northern end of the Euripus, lies to-day the town of Chaeroneia, or
-rather its modern representative, Capraena. Though never a municipality
-of much importance, its inhabitants, before the time of Plutarch, had
-been the spectators of many stirring events. Epaminondas called the
-plain near it the dancing-plot of Ares, an epithet that was abundantly
-justified by preceding and succeeding occurrences. Lying in a measure
-between northern and southern Greece it was rich in historical
-reminiscences and in traditions. Already known to Homer as Arne, it
-subsequently witnessed the countless hosts of Dareius and Xerxes pass
-beneath its walls. Near it Philip of Macedon completely overthrew the
-allied Thebans and Athenians, B. C. 338. In Plutarch’s time the mound
-erected in honor of the king’s soldiers who lost their lives here, was
-still in a fair state of preservation, and the oak under which Alexander
-had erected his tent was yet standing. In 279 the Gauls passed over the
-plain of Chaeroneia leaving desolation in their track. Twenty-eight
-years later the Boeotians were defeated near the town in a battle with
-the Aetolians. Still later, by a century and a half, Sulla inflicted a
-crushing blow on his enemies, for the most part Greeks, under the
-command of Archelaus, the lieutenant of Mithridates. It was two citizens
-of Chaeroneia who performed for the Roman general a service similar to
-that rendered to Xerxes by Ephialtes. In order to leave a memorial of
-his success he erected a trophy on the summit of an adjacent hill.
-Another trophy, dating from this time and of special significance to the
-Chaeroneans, was the statue of Lucius Lucullus, a Roman commander, that
-stood in their marketplace. They had become involved in a quarrel with
-their old enemies, the Orchomenians, on the charge of having caused the
-death of a Roman officer and several of his attendants; but through the
-interposition of Lucullus had obtained a verdict from the home
-government in their favor.
-
-But the pen is mightier than the sword. Posterity is not greatly
-interested in wars and battles in which no great principles are
-involved; besides, all sanguinary conflicts are of more or less local
-significance. Hence it is that Chaeroneia is chiefly known, not because
-of the two hundred thousand men who lost their lives or limbs near it,
-but as the birthplace and lifelong residence of one of the best-known
-characters in the literary history of the world. About half a score of
-years after the crucifixion, this august yet kindly personage, first saw
-the light in what was, even for Greece, an obscure town, but which he
-never left for any considerable time, until the day of his death, at a
-ripe old age. The visible remains of the first great battle fought here
-in historic times are the fragments of a colossal lion erected to
-commemorate, not a victory, but the valor of those who fell fighting for
-their country and for what they believed to be its freedom. There is
-also a village of some fifty houses, a church, a schoolhouse and a stone
-seat which its inhabitants fondly imagine to have been the property of
-their illustrious fellow townsman, and which they eagerly show as such,
-to the traveler. Small as the village is to-day, it can never have been
-a place of much importance, a fact that is attested by the scant remains
-of its ancient theater, one of the smallest in Greece.
-
-In Plutarch’s time the chief industry of his native town consisted in
-its trade in oil and the manufacture of perfumes and unguents from the
-numerous flowers and herbs that grew in the vicinity. In conformity to
-ancient usage, this business was chiefly carried on by slaves, while its
-citizens, having no political affairs to engage their attention, and but
-little interest in philosophical discussion, gave themselves up largely
-to gossip and other equally profitless ways of passing time.
-
-Plutarch was descended from one of the most prominent families of his
-native town. He received an excellent education, according to the
-standard of his day. He also seems to have given instruction informally
-and without pay, as he shared the prejudices of his countrymen against
-receiving compensation for such service. We do not know much of his
-private life or of his family connections. Living as he did the quiet
-life of a peaceable man, absorbed in his books and his studies and only
-appearing in public when his duties as a good citizen called him forth,
-there was little in his career to attract the attention of a biographer.
-Almost all that we know about him has to be gleaned from occasional
-references in his own writings. It has been aptly said of him that the
-prince of biographers is himself without a biographer. His father’s name
-is not recorded. That of his grandfather was Lamprias. We do not know
-how many brothers and sisters he had, though he speaks of two brothers
-with whom he lived on the most amicable terms. Of these, Timon is an
-interlocutor in the dialogue De Sera. His wife’s name was Timoxena. By
-her he had four sons and one daughter. The latter and the oldest son
-died when quite young.
-
-Plutarch’s wife seems to have been an excellent woman and to have shared
-her husband’s views as to the proper conduct of life. She was plain in
-dress and appearance, averse to show and parade, devoted to her husband,
-her children, and her household affairs.
-
-Plutarch made some journeys beyond the bounds of his native land; one at
-least as far as Alexandria in Egypt. He spent some time in Rome where he
-gave lectures in Greek; for as he himself tells us he never learned the
-Latin language well. He went thither on public business, and is thought
-to have visited other parts of Italy on a similar errand. His fame had
-preceded him to the imperial city where he was already known by
-reputation to some of the literati, and he embraced the opportunity to
-enlarge the circle of his acquaintances. Athens he visited a number of
-times, and Sparta at least once. Yet, notwithstanding his celebrity in
-his lifetime, and in striking contrast to his fame in modern times, he
-is not quoted by any extant Roman writer, and but rarely by his own
-countrymen.
-
-As a patriotic citizen and an admirer of all that was venerable and
-worthy of preservation in the history no less than in the traditions of
-Greece, Plutarch felt it incumbent upon him to discharge both civil and
-religious duties as occasion called him. He was a priest of Apollo to
-whose worship he was ardently devoted and to whom he frequently refers
-in his works, among others in the De Sera. As a consequence he
-interested himself greatly in the religious festivals that occurred so
-frequently in Delphi near by. It is also plain from his writings that he
-kept open house. People who desired to learn, and all who took life
-seriously, were always welcome. In some of the young men who came to him
-for enlightenment, whom, nevertheless, we cannot regard as his pupils
-except in the Socratic sense, he took a lifelong interest. The choice of
-many of the subjects discussed in his lectures was probably accidental.
-They were proposed by persons who visited him, talked over at the time,
-but afterwards more fully investigated and the results written out. It
-this way light was thrown upon them both by the oral contributions of an
-intelligent company and also by the aid of books, of which he had a
-large collection.[3]
-
-Plutarch was a man who strove not only to make others wiser, but also to
-become wiser himself. His aim was to be a living exemplar of the
-doctrines he professed and taught. He was a firm believer in plain
-living and high thinking. He disliked as strongly as he disliked
-anything the costly and luxurious banquets so much affected by the rich
-Romans of his day. The little company that so frequently came together
-under his hospitable roof met, not to eat and drink, but to engage in
-serious and profitable conversation. The viands were plain—a secondary
-matter; the chief thing was the discussion. This often turned on the
-most trivial subjects, for the host seems to have thought with Terence:
-
-               “Homo sum, et nihil humani a me alienum puto.”
-
-Practical politics for a Greek of Plutarch’s day did not mean serious
-business, especially for the citizen of a small municipality like
-Chaeroneia. He had therefore ample time for studying, lecturing and
-formulating his numerous writings. He was not only so fortunate as to
-have a good memory, but he began at an early age to take notes on what
-he read; in this way he accumulated the large stock of quotations so
-profusely scattered through his writings. In fact this practice of
-depending upon others for his information must have done a good deal
-toward weakening his power of original thought, and he usually enforces
-a precept by an apt quotation rather than by arguments that he has
-himself elaborated. On the other hand, his frequent reference to older
-authors has given a special value to his writings in the eyes of the
-moderns. Though not quoted by any extant Roman writer and rarely by a
-Greek he must have been much read soon after his death, and at no time
-was he wholly forgotten. His early and continued popularity doubtless
-contributed not a little to the preservation of so large a portion of
-his writings; but it also put into circulation under his name a number
-of spurious works—just how many cannot be determined. Yet it is certain
-that some genuine writings have been lost. Among the earliest printed
-books were portions of Plutarch.
-
-Plutarch is a prolix but not a pedantic nor a tedious writer. Though he
-displays immense erudition he does so without effort. An apt quotation
-from one of the poets, a telling anecdote of some celebrated man or
-woman, or historical incident seems always ready to his hand, and
-waiting for a suitable place to be used. He is completely master of the
-extensive stock of knowledge stored up in his mind or his notes. He is a
-capital story-teller. He knows how to seize the salient features of a
-situation, and can place them before the reader in the most effective
-light. A large proportion of the anecdotes of illustrious men, belonging
-to a remoter antiquity, current in modern literature, have found their
-way into it through the medium of his writings. He often reminds one of
-Herodotus notwithstanding his antipathy to this author, and whose
-veracity he vigorously impeaches in one of his essays—assuming, of
-course, that De Malignitate is really the work of Plutarch. Like
-Herodotus, he often wanders from the main theme of his narrative, but
-never loses sight of it, and always returns to it without unduly
-distracting the reader’s attention. Like Herodotus, he is often reminded
-of a “little story” that he forthwith proceeds to tell; and, as in the
-case of Herodotus, the reader feels that something of value has been
-added to the narrative by the story. Like Herodotus, too, he exhibits a
-strange mixture of credulity with sterling good sense. So it happens
-that the Father of History and the man whom Jean Paul Richter calls the
-Biographical Shakespeare of Universal History often meet on common
-ground, in spite of the aversion of the one to the other. Of course the
-canvas on which the historian paints is much larger; the interests he
-discusses are much more momentous; but he does not treat them with
-greater seriousness than does the biographer and moralist.
-
-Perhaps the most succinct statement of Plutarch’s creed is a passage in
-Isis and Osiris. He says: “For God is not a being that is without
-intelligence, without a soul, and subject to men, but we regard these as
-gods who constantly and in sufficient measure furnish us these fruits,
-and there are neither different gods among different peoples, some
-barbarian some Greek, some northern, some southern; but just as the sun
-and moon, heaven and earth and sea are common to all, but are
-differently designated by different peoples, so there is but one
-intelligence that arranges all those things about us in order and one
-Providence to which other powers that direct all things are made
-subordinate, some of which have, by custom, received different honors
-and appellations among different peoples. The initiates also employ
-different symbols, some clearer, others more obscure, that lead the mind
-to what is divine, though not without risk (of being misunderstood). For
-some, being altogether led astray, fall into superstition; others again,
-having steered clear of superstition, as if it were a bog, fall into
-atheism as from a precipice. On this account it is especially important
-to take reason that is born of philosophy, as a guide through these
-mysteries, in order that we may comprehend rightly everything that is
-said and done, in its true significance.”
-
-Plutarch is a philosopher in the sense that every man of sound mind may
-be a philosopher; but he is not, strictly speaking, a philosophical
-thinker. He does not hold to any carefully elaborated and consistent
-system. While he has much to say about character and conduct, he rarely
-attempts to fathom the motives that underlie and influence conduct. He
-is at times inconsistent with himself because his views on
-transcendental problems have not been systematically wrought out and
-firmly fixed. If he can quote the authority of some great name in
-support of a position he takes, it generally suffices him. Not
-unfrequently he cites contradictory authorities both for facts and
-opinions, then declares which he prefers without giving a reason for his
-preference.
-
-Plutarch’s Moralia or Moral Writings are so called for the reason that
-they are more or less concerned with ethical problems. But they also
-treat incidentally of matters religious, political, literary,
-psychological, physical and metaphysical or philosophical. Many of his
-treatises are in the form of dialogues, in which he doubtless had before
-his mind’s eye his great prototype Plato, little as he is able to fathom
-his speculative profundity. Sometimes his discussions are addressed to a
-real or imaginary interlocutor, who has, however, little to say. His
-discourses may be regarded as sermons or lectures addressed to a small
-circle of interested listeners, or even to a single person, though in
-reality intended for a larger public. The homiletic character of many of
-Plutarch’s discourses is also attested by the fact that he regards
-morals as closely connected with religion. He is the bitter enemy of
-atheism, because, as he maintains, it leads to a dissolute and aimless
-life. He was, however, in no sense an innovator, but ardently attached
-to the traditions of his countrymen. He seeks to discover a hidden
-meaning in the popular myths and cults, and to explain them on
-philosophical grounds. His attitude in this respect has contributed a
-good deal to the popular interest in the man. He is a self-consecrated
-priest of the established religion which he defended, not because it was
-to his personal profit to do so, but from conviction. As he will not or
-can not discard the cults of his day, or treat them as founded on mere
-figments of the imagination, it is incumbent upon him to explain them as
-best he can. And he seems to be convinced that he has been entirely
-successful.
-
-Not only is he an avowed foe of atheism, but he is an equally vigorous
-opponent of superstition. Yet it is often impossible to see where he
-draws the line between what he regards as rational faith and mere
-credulity; between his own creed and that of the populace. In truth, the
-task is not an easy one for anybody. The German nicely designates the
-close proximity of faith and credulity by the two terms _Glaube_ and
-_Aberglaube_. There was hardly a man in the ancient world of whom we
-have any considerable knowledge, even though he may have been an avowed
-atheist, who was wholly without superstition. The destiny of individuals
-and nations was so often decided by influences so mysterious and
-inscrutable that it might well be attributed to the miraculous
-interposition of the gods. Even in our day, when the laws of nature are
-better understood than ever before, men still feel themselves the sport
-of unseen forces and powers that often seem to be malevolent or
-benevolent for no discoverable reason, and which, it is hard to believe,
-are not controlled by a supernal will.
-
-Plutarch’s merits as a historical writer are seriously impaired by his
-readiness to believe everything that comes to him through tradition or
-record. Still one ought not to blame him for not being what he does not
-profess to be. His main purpose is not to attain historical truth, but
-to discover what will “point a moral, or adorn a tale.” Had he been
-other than he was he would never have been so assiduously read.
-
-Plutarch fully recognized the importance of the family in the social
-fabric. This is the more to his credit for the reason that the trend of
-public opinion was against him in this respect. All the evidence we have
-goes to show that he was a judicious father, a loving husband, a dutiful
-son, and an affectionate brother. He is thus a zealous defender of the
-virtues he himself exemplified. A knowledge of his character, as shown
-by his conduct, contributes not a little to the pleasure the modern
-reader finds in the perusal of his pages. How often, alas! do we
-discover on closer examination a great gulf between what men write and
-what they do! How often does a knowledge of the private life of a great
-writer mar the interest we take in what he writes!
-
-Though a man of kind heart and polished manners, judged by the standard
-of his time, Plutarch was no reformer. Indeed, no reform was possible by
-means of his didactic method. He does not denounce vigourously the
-corruptions of his time. He is far from employing the drastic speech of
-his Roman contemporaries. It is probable that in his secluded home he
-did not know or even suspect the moral degradation of the world around
-him; it is certain he had not fathomed it. He knows something of the
-Jewish religion, and might have known more, had he cared to inform
-himself. He might have heard Paul’s preaching; and Christianity had
-gained a firm foothold in Greece before Plutarch’s death. But he was too
-much of a Greek to take any interest in what had no relation either to
-Greek religion or tradition. The new faith in virtue of its origin, was
-foolishness to him. He considered the Hellenic religion good enough for
-anybody and everybody. It might indeed need purification from some of
-its grosser elements and exotic excrescences; but more than this was
-wholly unnecessary.
-
-Nothing that Plutarch says exhibits in a more striking light the
-humaneness of his disposition than his exhortations to the kind
-treatment of brutes. He believes that the good man is kind to his beast.
-He regards it a duty to care for the horse and the dog that have served
-him well, when they become old and useless. He seems to think that
-animals are not without a measure of reason and that they have to a
-limited extent, the power to decide between right and wrong. Though
-possessed of only a modicum of intelligence, this at least cannot be
-entirely denied to them, any more than it can be denied to a bad man. A
-certain measure of reason is the gift of nature; perfect and virtuous
-reason is the result of practice and instruction. The reasoning powers
-of many animals are, to an extent, on a level with those of man; they
-differ not so much in quality as in quantity. It is right, therefore, to
-use but not to abuse them. Cruelty to animals is evidence of a base
-heart. Those who treat them harshly usually accentuate their bad traits
-in their dealings with men. Our treatment of animals is, therefore, in
-some sort and often to a considerable extent, an index of how we treat
-our fellow beings. Plutarch finds the lower animals in some respects
-more rational than men. They never eat or drink more than enough to
-satisfy hunger and thirst; nor do they give way to any unnatural or
-excessive appetites. He is somewhat inclined to condemn the use of
-animal food; but, at any rate, animals must not be cruelly dealt with to
-make them more palatable, nor put to death by lingering and inhuman
-methods. He had in view more particularly some of the practices
-prevalent in Rome in his day,—practices that were, in truth, horrible in
-the extreme. It is no wonder that he names them only to condemn them.
-The extreme modernness of Plutarch in this matter becomes the more
-strikingly evident when we remember that classical antiquity not only
-very seldom has a kind word for irrational creatures, but was wont to
-treat them with extreme harshness. This was particularly the case among
-the Romans.
-
-Plutarch regards the soul as composed of two parts. One part seeks after
-truth and light; the other is under the influence of the passions, and
-liable to error. The first is divine, the second carnal. In so far as a
-man heeds the monitions of the former he will follow the path of virtue.
-Practical virtue, virtue in action, is wisdom; vice is error. In order
-to be virtuous it is only necessary to listen to the voice of reason.
-Plutarch does not doubt that virtue can be taught. To teach virtue
-consists largely in making it attractive to the young. Reason does not
-annihilate the passions; it merely directs them toward a goal that it
-has marked out. Virtue consists in “the golden mean”—μηδὲν ἄγαν—in doing
-neither too much nor too little. Bravery is a virtue whose place is
-between cowardice and rashness. Mildness or kindness is a virtue: its
-place is between stolidity and cruelty, just as the place of liberality
-is midway between the extremes, stinginess and prodigality. He adduces a
-number of proofs to establish the position that the passions are
-corporeal and the reason supersensuous; in a correct system of pedagogy
-a proper use is to be made of the latter for controlling and wisely
-directing the former toward rational ends. It is in every man’s power to
-be virtuous under all circumstances, but happiness, or rather good
-fortune, is dependent upon many things. A virtuous man may enjoy peace
-of mind at all times, while the largest possessions are of no real value
-to a bad man. Vice is an anomaly in the constitution of society.
-Tranquillity of mind, calmness of soul, are not to be sought in a state
-of inactivity and in retirement. The affirmative of this proposition has
-led many people into error. Disgusted with the world, they seek peace by
-withdrawing from its turmoil and hurly-burly, too often only to meet
-with disappointment. There is not a condition in life from which no
-consolation can be extracted, and it is the province of reason to
-discover how this may be done. In what way this is possible he shows by
-a number of examples from biography. What many persons at first looked
-upon as misfortunes not unfrequently turned out to be a blessing to
-themselves and to the world. On the other hand, many persons who were
-regarded by almost every one as among the most fortunate, were found to
-have a skeleton in their closet. When the sage suffers a loss, he does
-not grieve over it, but places a higher value on what is left to him. No
-man is so poor, no man has lost so much, but that there remains in his
-possession something for which he can felicitate himself. Neither is any
-one so destitute but that he might be still worse off, and the most
-wretched are certain to meet with others more needy than themselves. On
-the physical side of our nature we are all subject to what, for want of
-a better name, may be called _chance_; but this is not true of our moral
-and intellectual side. It is therefore within our power to secure
-indestructible and inalienable possessions: insight, love of knowledge,
-virtue, the consciousness of being and doing right. Not even the fear of
-death disquiets the good man, for he knows that after his dissolution he
-shall enter into a better state of existence than this life; the bad man
-clings to life because of the dread uncertainty before him after death.
-As a last resource, if a man’s sufferings become too great to be
-endured, he can make an end of them with his own hand.
-
-To Plutarch, no riches, no purely external possessions, are so conducive
-to peace of mind and cheerfulness of heart, as a soul that has kept
-itself free from evil thoughts and acts. For a soul that has held itself
-aloof from contamination every day is a festival; the world, a temple in
-which God dwells and which he has adapted to the fulfilment of man’s
-wants. By the proper use of reason men may control their passions and
-find satisfaction in the enjoyment of what is within their reach. They
-may reflect with complacency on the past and look forward to the future
-with hope. A man’s unhappiness is caused rather by the pains of the soul
-than those of the body. Diseases of the body are due to its nature, but
-disease of the soul is man’s own work. Moreover the maladies of the soul
-are curable, a condition of things that ought to afford us much
-consolation. Though the sufferings and diseases to which the body is
-subject take many forms, those that a corrupt heart and a debased soul
-send forth, as from a perennial fountain, are much more numerous. Again,
-corporal diseases may be detected by their external symptoms; the
-maladies of the soul are hidden. They are the more dangerous from the
-fact that, in most instances, the patient himself is not aware of them.
-The greatest malady of the soul is the want of reason and good sense,
-because they disqualify men from recognizing their own baseness and the
-remedies necessary for a cure. Few persons who are guilty of wrong-doing
-realize that they have committed transgressions; oftentimes they even
-think they have acted wisely and judiciously. They call their anger,
-bravery; their envy and jealousy, emulation; their cowardice, prudence;
-while it never occurs to them to seek the aid of a philosopher for the
-diseases of the soul until they are incurable and have become so
-virulent that they drive the patient to the commission of the most
-diabolical crimes.
-
-From these premises there follows the inevitable conclusion that the
-chief end of man is progress in virtue, or, we might better say, in all
-the virtues, though virtue in reality is but one. Our progress in
-philosophy is the result of constant and uninterrupted effort. Parallel
-to this is our progress in virtue; if we relax our efforts for a moment
-we incur the danger of letting vice get a hold upon us. He who is always
-in conflict with vice, with his evil passions, may rest assured that he
-is making progress in virtue. But our love for virtue must partake of
-the nature of a passion; in it we ought to find our highest
-gratification, so that if we are interrupted in our pursuit we shall
-long to return to it. The aim and purpose of our philosophy must be
-practical, and it is chiefly in our activity as a citizen and a man in
-all the multiplex relations of life, that we may test our love for it.
-Yet, the true philosopher is not ostentatious, and it makes little
-difference to him whether the world recognizes him as such or not. He
-ought to seek internal satisfaction, not public acknowledgement. Herein
-Plutarch takes his stand in opposition to many of his countrymen who
-aspired to the name and title of philosophers, but did little to deserve
-them. How men of sense regarded them has been pointed out elsewhere.
-
-We may also measure our progress in philosophy, that is, in virtue, by
-our love of the beautiful and the good; by our attitude towards praise
-and blame. We ought neither to seek the one nor avoid the other. If we
-really desire to correct our faults and shortcomings, we will be ready
-at all times to listen to advice and to heed criticism; nor will we
-conceal any part of our nature or cover up any of our acts in order to
-seem what we are not. Nevertheless, when we are firmly convinced that we
-are in the right, it is our duty to go forward in the course we have
-marked out for ourselves, no matter what others may think or say.
-
-There is no stronger incentive to noble deeds and an upright life than
-the lives of the great and the good of all ages. It was mainly under the
-impulse of this belief that Plutarch compiled his parallel biographies.
-In the nature of the case their value as truthful records is greatly
-impaired by the standpoint from which they were written; but it is this
-fact that has given them an attractiveness and a currency such as no
-other works of their kind have equalled. Plutarch’s Lives have for
-centuries been the monitors of youth and the solace of the aged. They
-have been read and admired wherever men have honored courage, fortitude,
-intrepidity, self-control, patriotism, humaneness—in short, every trait
-of character that can be classed among the virtues. Greeks and Romans,
-ancients and moderns, learned and illiterate, rich and poor, have been
-fascinated by them, and it is on them that their author’s fame chiefly
-rests. To many persons, in fact to the great majority of readers,
-Plutarch is known only as the writer of charming biographies; yet these
-constitute a good deal less than half his extant works.
-
-Plutarch holds that men find the path of virtue and continue to walk in
-it, by reflection, deliberation, introspection; by a systematic, rigid
-and continued self-examination—in other words, by a practical
-application of the methods that philosophy points out. Man is sane and
-sound only so long as he puts into practice the principles of virtue. So
-long as he is the slave of his passions he is in need of a physician.
-Philosophy is the sanitation of the soul; the genuine philosopher is the
-real physician of the soul. In pursuance of his chosen vocation,
-Plutarch wrote a number of essays for the purpose of giving instruction
-upon the best methods of controlling the different passions to which men
-are subject. Their purport easily becomes evident from a glance at their
-titles. They show that he has carefully observed and studied men, at
-least those that constitute the various higher classes and give the
-prevailing tone to society. Many of these essays are still of interest
-and well repay perusal. They contain many acute observations and piquant
-remarks.
-
-For Plutarch the old mythology is sufficient as a basis for a religious
-belief. Like most of the Greek philosophers who incline toward theism,
-he maintains that myths are, to a greater or less extent, corruptions of
-primitive verities. These originated in the popular mind and received
-artistic form at the hands of the poets. Underlying them all there is
-truth enough and beauty enough to show the aspiration of the soul after
-higher things, and they form the basis of a purely theistic belief.
-Plutarch’s unbounded faith in human reason leads him to believe that it
-alone is entirely sufficient to enable any and every man to lead a
-virtuous life. His advice to every one is, in substance: get all the
-light you can; use the reason you are endowed with by the creator;
-acquire additional knowledge and wisdom every day; make your inward life
-an object of daily study and reflection,—if you do these things you will
-lead a virtuous life. Those persons who have no love for the beautiful
-and the good, no desire to become virtuous, fail because they neglect to
-cultivate the reason with which every man is originally endowed. They
-grope in the darkness cast about them by their own passions, and refuse
-to follow the lamp that reason holds up before them. Plutarch’s
-optimism; his faith in the power of the intellect to make the world
-better, is especially remarkable in view of the fact that his
-countrymen, notwithstanding their general intelligence, notwithstanding
-the large number of great men in almost every department of knowledge
-born in Greek lands, in spite of the fact that Greece was the native
-hearth of philosophy, had for centuries been retrograding morally,
-intellectually and politically. So hard is it to divorce most men from a
-theory to which they have attached themselves. His mistake arose from
-his seeing all men in the mirror of his own thoughts. He believed that
-the whole human race could be influenced by the motives that influenced
-himself, and that all could, if they wished, be constantly engaged in
-the search for light and wisdom in the way he sought them. This radical
-error he inherited from his master, Plato, and it is strange that he did
-not detect it. He seems never to have suspected that he might be
-mistaken.
-
-Plutarch’s religion is wholly without enthusiasm and his morality has in
-it not a tinge of emotion. Do right always, because by such a course of
-life you will enjoy the largest measure of mundane happiness that can
-fall to the lot of a mortal, and be a benefactor to all who come within
-the circle of your influence. Make the best of every situation in which
-you may be placed. Do not take too seriously the hindrances to a
-virtuous life that you may find in your way, because you can remove them
-if you will. No matter what your station in life, do not expect your
-path to be always a smooth one. If you keep these things in mind you
-will probably live long,—you are sure to live happily.
-
-Plutarch’s views regarding the education of women are far in advance of
-his age. He follows his master, Plato, in vindicating for them the same
-virtues that belong to men. His treatise often designated The Virtues of
-Women is chiefly a record of heroic deeds that have been performed by
-the so-called weaker sex. He admits that the worth or efficiency of
-women is not necessarily of the same quality as that of men, but he
-contends that its ethical value is equal and its intrinsic merit in no
-wise inferior. The woman who has performed a noble deed is entitled to
-just as much credit as a a man. He takes issue with Thucydides for
-saying that the best woman is the one of whom least is said either for
-good or evil. He also takes issue with the thoroughly Greek sentiment,
-though perhaps more pronounced in Athens than elsewhere, that woman is
-at most little else than a plaything and a convenience for man; and that
-her highest function is to bear legitimate male children. According to
-Plutarch the wife is to be the equal partner in the management of the
-household. When it is well conducted she deserves equal commendation
-with the husband. He would open a wider sphere for women; train them
-intellectually, and awaken in them an interest in the larger affairs of
-life. Consistently with these views, Plutarch assigned to his wife an
-honorable place in his household. She received guests in her husband’s
-absence; sat at table with him and interested herself in public as well
-as private affairs. While this was in contravention of the custom of his
-day, it was in harmony with a faintly discernible trend of public
-opinion, probably the result of Roman influence. That the innovation
-made slow progress is plain not only from the later history of Greece
-but also from Greek social usages in our own day. When we take
-cognizance of the unhappy state of his country we are inclined to wonder
-at Plutarch’s uniform serenity of mind. He never indulges in satire or
-sneer, while many of his contemporaries did both. But we must remember
-that his philosophy had, above and beyond everything else, a practical
-purpose, and that in a rather material sense. Men’s misfortunes are
-their own fault and therefore preventible; or they are not their own
-fault and therefore unavoidable. In either case nothing is gained by
-grieving over them.
-
-It will be evident from a perusal of the De Sera that optimism is the
-basis of Plutarch’s philosophy. Men can do right if they will, and if
-they do right they can not fail to be happy. There is a superintending
-Providence that in the end rectifies all wrong and injustice. He seems
-to hold with Goethe that “Every sin is punished here below,” though the
-punishment does not end in this life. Retribution is not delayed until
-after death; it visits the sinner in this world. Or if he is so
-fortunate as to end his days in peace, so far as mortals can see, he
-entails a curse upon his descendants. The iniquities of the fathers are
-visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generation. But the
-punishment of the wicked does not end with this life. The soul bears the
-imprint of its crimes after it has left the body. That God sometimes
-permits a wicked man to end his days in peace but that He has fastened a
-curse on his offspring, is a prominent article in the creed of many of
-the older Greek writers. It is often referred to by Herodotus. So firmly
-convinced is he that all wrong-doing must be atoned for that when he
-finds an instance where the law does not appear to hold good he
-confesses himself at a loss to account for the failure of its operation.
-Not only individuals but nations as well must expiate crimes committed
-and wrongs done by their representatives in an official capacity. And
-there is no doubt that the influence of this belief was most wholesome.
-Much of what Plutarch says on this point is probably fanciful,
-especially when he appeals to the testimony of history; but what he
-records is in keeping with his philosophy and has therefore a strong
-personal interest. Moreover, he furnishes us with some interesting
-testimony as to the prevalence of a belief in rewards and punishments
-among men outside the pale of Christianity.
-
-Plutarch’s ideal of duty is a high one. The fulfilment of some duty is
-incumbent upon every man so long as he lives. It is as imperative in old
-age as in early life. When a man is quit of his obligations to his
-children, he owes a service to his country and to his fellow citizens in
-a narrower sense. From this service, only the impairment of his
-facilities or death may release him. As every man is born into the
-state, and as, in a certain sense, he is a man only in so far as he
-discharges his obligations to the state, he has no choice in the matter.
-Herein lies a duty from which there is no possible escape. But the mere
-holding of an office is not the only or even the chief test of the good
-citizen. His duties in a private capacity are no less important, and if
-less conspicuous are equally far reaching. The good citizen is the
-philosopher in his true sphere: good citizenship is philosophy in
-action—applied philosophy. It is only in actual life that the
-philosopher can put his theories to the test. The form of government is
-a matter of minor importance. Plutarch regards monarchy, as on the
-whole, the best, but he is not radical. In this he agrees with the
-majority of Greek philosophers, most of whom were generally more or less
-dissatisfied with the turbulent Athenian democracy. That monarchy is
-best where the head of the state is what Plutarch would have him be, a
-philosopher. But even the most absolute monarch should not regard
-himself above law; he is to be its executor. Moreover, it is his duty
-not only to obey cheerfully the written law that binds prince and people
-alike, but also that unwritten law that reason has implanted in the soul
-of every man of sound mind. Rulers are in a sense the servants of God
-whose duty it is to apportion rewards and punishments according to their
-deserts, to all that are under their authority.
-
-After all, man’s first and chief duty is to himself. His quest for
-light, for knowledge, for truth is never to be intermitted. He is to
-take his bearings, as it were, frequently, in order to see what progress
-he is making. If his aims are noble, his purposes right, and his motives
-pure, he will not only make daily progress in virtue, but when he is
-called to leave this world he can depart in peace because he will have
-the consciousness that it is the better for his having lived in it.
-
-Having thus given a short sketch of Plutarch as a man and a citizen let
-us proceed to examine briefly the times in which he lived as
-supplementary to what has already been said under this general head in
-treating of Seneca. What had Roman rule done for his country? What was
-the social and economic condition of Greece and Greek lands in the first
-century of the Christian era? Unfortunately our information on these
-points is exceedingly scanty. In fact, political economy is a recent
-science; in ancient times the lot of the poor was little taken note of.
-It was everywhere a hard one, and the care of the indigent, so much
-insisted on in the New Testament, is almost the first sign of an
-awakening in this respect. But it did not originate with the government;
-that had other ends in view. That the Roman policy toward the
-proletariat in the imperial capital only made matters worse, is well
-known. When we remember how much has been done in recent years by
-legislation in every civilized country for the amelioration of the
-condition of the lowest classes and how much still remains to be done,
-we can picture to ourselves the state of society where all this was
-omitted.
-
-When we remember further that up to a comparatively recent period
-commerce, trade and manufactures flourished, in so far as they can be
-said to have flourished, not because they were fostered by governments,
-but almost in spite of them, it is not surprising that they received
-little attention at the hands of the Greeks and Romans, either
-individually or collectively. It has already been stated that the sole
-object of the ruling powers was to raise the largest amount of revenue,
-not to equalize the burdens on all the subjects. On no question is
-ancient thought so crude as upon economics. The blight of slavery that
-made free labor to a certain extent disgraceful, and a condition of
-things that hindered the establishment of manufacturies on a large
-scale, tells the sorrowful story.
-
-In his attitude toward slavery, Plutarch does not seem to hold as
-advanced views as Seneca and some of the better men of his age and
-preceding times. Yet he did not endorse the prevalent opinion, embodied
-in legislation, that a slave is a soulless thing, though the justice of
-emancipation occupied his attention but little. Here again we find his
-practical ideas in the foreground. He is concerned to make the best of
-the situation as he finds it. Slavery exists, is an ineradicable element
-of organized society and is coextensive with the human race. The best
-that the philosopher can do is to make sages of slave-holders, to the
-end that they treat their bondmen with justice and humaneness. Compare
-the anecdotes of Plato and Archytas in De Sera, Chap. 5. According to
-Plutarch slaves have souls like other human beings, and are capable of
-mental and moral improvement; consequently masters have duties to
-perform toward them that are just as plain and just as imperative as
-those due to persons on the same social level with themselves.
-
-The prosperity of nations rests mainly upon the numbers and intelligence
-of its middle classes. It can everywhere be measured by the rise of this
-class. What wonder then that the nations were poor among whom it
-scarcely existed? Rome could not go on plundering interminably, and the
-riches of its provinces in time became exhausted because not
-replenished. All that the ancient world has left upon record for us,
-proceeds upon the assumption of a large body of slaves and a small body
-of free citizens, and breathes a contempt for labor and trade. In most
-of the Greek states the commercial and manufacturing class consisted
-chiefly of resident aliens who were also slave-holders, and no citizen
-was so poor that he did not own at least one slave. To be a slave-owner
-was a badge of respectability even for those who were not citizens. In
-the Greek states, so long as they were free polities, war and religion
-occupied all the time and attention of the citizens, except that small
-body that were interested in philosophical pursuits. When they were no
-longer free and no longer had serious affairs in which to employ their
-time, they spent most of it in idle gossip or as the Acts tell us, “in
-hearing or telling some new thing.” What legislation they were still
-permitted to engage in never concerned matters of grave import. They
-decreed crowns and statues to real or supposed benefactors, only to
-annul their decrees when those whom they were intended to honor happened
-to incur the displeasure of the legislators or to fall into disgrace
-with the higher powers. Then there were deputations between different
-states about boundary disputes, about festivals, about claims and
-counter claims of all sorts, the sending of which was often debated with
-a solemnity that makes us wonder how the participants could themselves
-fail to see their farcical character. Generally the game at stake was
-the favor of the emperor, each party striving to outbid the other in
-professions of loyalty or to outvie it in the length of its bill for
-services rendered. When, as was frequently the case, these delegations
-did not find the emperor in Rome, they had, of course, to follow him
-into provinces or to await his return. This required time that, we may
-be sure, was in most cases ungrudgingly given. Instead of directing
-their energies into channels of activity and trying by honest work to
-better their worldly condition it was talk, talk with the Greeks, and
-talk without end.
-
-There is no stronger evidence of their fondness for discussion and for
-listening to the spoken word than Greek literature itself. The
-historians are in the habit of stating the case of opposing parties by
-harangues which they put into the mouth of a representative of each.
-Greek poetry consists in a great measure of dialogue. Philosophy was
-chiefly developed by means of oral discussion. Comedy, even after it was
-no longer represented on the stage, still appears as dialogue and not in
-the usual form of the satire. Among its richest legacies to posterity is
-its oratory, and in it we have the spoken word in its most effective
-form; but it still represents words rather than deeds, and belongs for
-the most part to the declining age of Greece. A solitary thinker like
-Kant was wholly foreign to Greek ideas. So persistently has this trait
-remained a characteristic of the Hellenes that many of their best
-friends deplore their fondness for petty politics; their sleepless
-anxiety to assist in the management of the government instead of turning
-their attention to bettering their material condition by a steady
-devotion to private business. Many of the rich and well-to-do Greeks
-live outside the kingdom of Greece where their lingual activity is
-circumscribed and they are compelled by circumstances to turn their
-energies into more profitable channels. Rarely has a man, distinguished
-for eloquence alone, profoundly influenced the course of human events.
-Contemporaries are unanimous in ascribing to Julius Caesar oratorical
-gifts of the highest order; but he preferred to make his mark as a doer
-of deeds rather than as a maker of phrases.
-
-In Rome the economic conditions were somewhat different from those
-prevailing in Greece and the East, yet Rome was not a commercial state.
-It was founded on military power, extended by valor and endurance in
-war, and when there were no more worlds to conquer, the forces that had
-been turned against external enemies began to be turned against herself.
-Rome was rich while she had other countries to plunder; when this was no
-longer possible her decay began. And these countries, by which we mean
-all the provinces outside of the city, were rich so long as the
-fertility of their soil continued and their mines were productive. That
-Rome’s moral decline antedated her economic retrogression by centuries
-is familiar to every reader of ancient history, but it is only the
-latter that we are concerned with here.
-
-Money was not used for purposes of production, but for the purchase of
-articles of luxury and display. Much of what had been accumulated in the
-capital flowed eastward and disappeared. Italy gradually passed into the
-hands of a small number of largelanded proprietors, whose vast estates
-were cultivated by persons who had no interest in maintaining their
-fertility. Great numbers of free citizens flocked to Rome to enjoy the
-doles distributed to the populace at stated intervals; to feast their
-eyes on the bloody spectacles, so frequently and so magnificently given;
-and to die, only to leave room to be filled by the constantly inflowing
-stream. The empire existed for the City, its capital. We have already
-spoken of the strange fascination it exercised over all who had once
-been under its spell. We may safely assume that of the eighty thousand
-Romans put to death by Mithridates in his dominions, a considerable
-portion had gone abroad in the hope of enriching themselves in order to
-spend their gains in the capital. Doubtless, too, so far afield, trade
-was less despised than at the seat of government. The empire built, and
-for a time kept in repair, those magnificent highways that are still the
-admiration of all who see them. But they served military purposes almost
-exclusively. When no longer needed they were suffered to fall into
-decay. They were not constructed to facilitate commercial intercourse,
-and contributed little to the economic welfare of the empire. When the
-lack of local improvements was sufficiently felt and the people were not
-too much impoverished, which was seldom the case, to bear the necessary
-financial burdens these were undertaken by the local authorities. But
-there is reason to believe that some of the provinces, notably the
-Grecian, became poorer and poorer from year to year. The capital drained
-the province; the people lost heart, and gave themselves up to the
-apathy of indifference or despair.
-
-It was the evil destiny of the Greek polities that they could never be
-brought to act together for any length of time; nor did all of them ever
-act together in any common enterprise. And they learned nothing from
-experience. The misfortunes resulting from this centripetal tendency
-were pointed out time and again by writers and orators, but to no
-purpose. Local pride always outweighed the dictates of reason or even of
-common prudence. Had Greece presented a united front, under competent
-leadership, it would have been a hard task for even Rome to subdue it.
-But it was impossible for the different states to forget their
-reciprocal animosities: the increasing prosperity of one was usually the
-signal for others to turn their arms against it. In this way all of them
-were gradually weakened and thus became a comparatively easy prey to any
-strong foreign foe that might choose to attack them. Their subjugation
-by Rome was by far the greatest misfortune that ever befell them. Philip
-of Macedon and his successors were at least more than half Greeks, and
-had a good deal of sympathy with Greek ideas. The Romans had none
-whatever. Still, cruelly as they carried out the work of subjugation in
-certain localities, when their first animosity was appeased they seem
-not to have interfered systematically with existing municipal
-administrations. Yet the financial pressure became harder as the people
-grew poorer, and matters went from bad to worse. The wickedness of
-Corinth, the most Roman of Greek cities after it had been rebuilt under
-imperial auspices, affords striking evidence of what Roman influence
-meant on the morals of a Greek polity.
-
-It is a matter of common knowledge what Roman internecine war brought
-upon Italy. To a certain extent the same evils were shared by Greece.
-Three of the fiercest battles between the contestants for the principate
-were fought in or near Greece. The Greeks were always on the losing
-side, though her soldiers were not numerously represented in the Roman
-armies. These battles did but accelerate a retrograde movement that had
-been quite marked at least since the Mithridatic war, though it did not
-begin then. The population was rapidly decreasing. Plutarch says that in
-his time all Greece could not furnish three thousand heavy-armed
-soldiers. This statement must not be taken too literally; it can hardly
-mean that there were not this number of able-bodied men in the whole of
-Greece; it must mean that it did not contain three thousand citizens
-sufficiently well-to-do to enable them to support themselves in the
-field. In the days of their glory some of the smallest Greek states were
-better off than this would indicate. It is certainly proof positive of
-poverty, if not of a very sparse population. But this, too, had greatly
-decreased in some places. In the time of Augustus, Thebes had ceased to
-be anything more than a large village—the same Thebes that had played so
-prominent a part in legend and history. With a few exceptions, the
-larger Boeotian towns were in the same sad plight. Cities without
-inhabitants, or only a few; cattle grazing in the deserted streets, and
-even in the market-place, seem to have been a common sight. What had
-become of the inhabitants? We only know that they were gone, most of
-them, doubtless, to their graves.
-
-In Greece, Sparta excepted, slavery was of a rather mild type, and it
-was unusual for a Greek to sell a slave to a foreigner. Neither did
-gladiatorial combats flourish among the Greeks. Even Corinth, that in
-later times contained a large admixture of Romans, could not acclimate
-them. While it is true that the Greeks made light of human life and took
-it upon the slightest pretext, it was rarely done by the cruel methods
-of the Romans. With all their faults and frailties they belonged to a
-distinctly higher type of men, and their civilization at a very early
-period began to move along lines afterward followed by the progressive
-nations of the world. How infinitely better were their peaceful contests
-than the bloody spectacles that were the delight of Rome!
-
-Just as the Greeks were reluctant to admit foreigners to citizenship,
-they were also reluctant to admit exotic gods into their pantheon. In
-both, their policy was diametrically opposed to that of Rome. Their
-exclusiveness in the former regard was due to their belief in their own
-superiority; in the latter, to the conviction that their national gods
-were sufficient for all human needs. Friedlaender is probably right in
-his contention that the period here under consideration shows no decay
-in what we may call religion, either in Greece or Rome. Its external
-forms and traditional rites were sedulously kept up and scrupulously
-maintained. Plutarch likewise bears testimony to this condition of
-things. Scoffers and infidels had become more numerous, mainly because
-the Romans were more tolerant in such matters than the Greeks. To the
-ruling class all cults were alike; consequently they made no objections
-to anything that was spoken or written, so long as their authority was
-not directly or indirectly attacked. In the various controversies about
-religion mentioned in the New Testament, the attitude of the government
-is always one of indifference except as to the maintenance of public
-order.
-
-The Greeks, generally speaking, preferred, like Plutarch, the limited
-sphere of local political activity to the larger one offered at Rome.
-The provincials who came to honor on the other side of the Adriatic were
-few in number.
-
-In the main the provinces fared better under the imperial government
-than under the republic. There was a higher degree of probability that
-wrongs would be redressed. A case in point is that of the apostle Paul
-who appealed to Caesar even when the Caesar was Nero.
-
-It is a well-known fact of ancient history that property in transit,
-either by land or sea, was at no time particularly safe at a distance
-from the centers of population. The thief and the robber are familiar
-figures in both sacred and profane writings. Pompey’s extensive crusade
-against the pirates that infested all parts of the Mediterranean forms
-an important episode in the records of the Roman navy. Even in the
-cities, the unlighted streets afforded frequent opportunities for
-plunder and murder to those who had no scruples about taking life or
-property. As domestic affairs from time to time engrossed the attention
-of the imperial administration, the outlying provinces were not
-carefully looked after; roads were neglected and became insecure; the
-police force lacked efficiency, and commercial intercourse between the
-different parts of the empire was reduced to a minimum. The people were
-driven to agriculture as their only means of support, which, in Greece
-particularly, was never a profitable industry. Nothing affords a more
-striking contrast between the police system of ancient and modern times
-than the frequency with which robberies are mentioned in the former and
-their rarity in the other. Paul tells us that he had been in peril by
-robbers; we know, too, from the writings of Josephus and others that the
-conflicts between this class of outlaws and the Roman government were by
-no means infrequent. Those who had been engaged in rebellion, or who
-were among the vanquished in battle, or who had become voluntary or
-compulsory exiles, often felt that they had a right to prey on orderly
-society.
-
-It is a recognized fact that the monarchical system of the East tended
-to encourage immorality, a condition of things that usually exists where
-there is no strong and wholesome public opinion. The usurpers in the
-Greek cities, and later, the Roman provincial governors, were, with rare
-exceptions, men of loose morals if not worse. The private life of its
-representatives was a matter with which the home government did not
-concern itself, and the subjects were constrained to be dumb. Now and
-then one of these petty sovereigns ruled wisely according to the
-standards of the time, and the public was satisfied, especially if they
-knew how to maintain brilliant courts, and to adorn their capitals with
-imposing structures. It was so easy to trump up the charge of sedition
-against persons who refused to be servile flatterers, that only the most
-courageous dared to stand aloof. Finlay, though somewhat given to
-painting in strong colors, is probably not far wrong when he says: “It
-is difficult to imagine a society more completely destitute of moral
-restraint than that in which the Asiatic Greeks lived. Public opinion
-was powerless to enforce even an outward respect for virtue; military
-accomplishments, talents for civil administration, literary eminence and
-devotion to the power of an arbitrary sovereign, were the direct roads
-to distinction and wealth; honesty and virtue were very secondary
-qualities. In old countries or societies where a class becomes
-predominant, a conventional character is formed, according to the
-exigencies of the case, as the standard of an honorable man; and it is
-usually very different indeed from what is really necessary to
-constitute a virtuous or even an honest citizen.”
-
-The student of Greek history is often inclined to believe that the bane
-of Hellenic statesmanship was the bitter rivalry that always existed
-between the different polities. From the standpoint of the philosopher
-this view is correct. If the energies devoted to the means and methods
-of mutual destruction had been expended on the arts of peace, not only
-Greece, but the entire world would, to-day, present a widely different
-aspect. However much the moralist may deplore the existing conditions,
-the man who takes the world as it is cannot fail to see that the utmost
-strength of a nation is always put forth in war and for warlike
-purposes. It was so with the Greeks. Political rivalry was the strongest
-stimulus under which they acted. It was their life and growth, and to a
-large extent the measure of their prosperity. When political rivalries
-were extinguished by Alexander, and more effectually by the Romans, the
-spirit of Greece, too, died out. The Romans, especially in their first
-contact with Greece, were too much barbarians to have any sympathy with
-the best that Greece had to offer. A genius for government is not
-necessarily a mark of advanced civilization. It is true there were at
-all times men among the Romans able to appreciate the proud preeminence
-of the Greeks in arts and letters, but their numbers were too few to
-make any general impression. The leading families, including most of the
-emperors, were familiar with the Greek language and used it with ease;
-but there were few Romans who did not despise the Greeks and regard them
-as inferiors. Nations, like individuals, feel more or less contempt for
-those whose tastes are different from their own; and in the case before
-us, the Greeks being the weaker, were the chief sufferers. But just as
-rich men sometimes buy books and statuary of which they do not know the
-value, and collect libraries which they cannot read, because intelligent
-people take pleasure in these things, so a certain class of Romans
-affected a fondness for Greek art and literature and philosophy. An
-enormous quantity of works of Greek art was transported across the
-Adriatic by the Romans with small advantage to the pillagers or to the
-nation. Notwithstanding the predilection of some of the leading families
-for Greek culture, their influence made no deep and lasting impression
-on Roman thought, in the better sense. Rome always showed itself much
-more receptive toward what is debasing than for what was ennobling.
-
-After this hasty survey of the condition of Plutarch’s countrymen we are
-more than ever inclined to be surprised at his optimism. Yet the
-explanation is not far to seek, and is consistent with his philosophy.
-He had an abiding faith in a divine Providence who orders all things for
-the best. He holds that men are free and therefore responsible. The ills
-that afflict them are chiefly of their own making; why then should a
-wise man grieve over them? It is man’s chief business to free himself
-from unholy desires; to control the volcanic and perturbing impulses of
-his nature by means of philosophy, which when rightly apprehended is
-divine. As man is in the last analysis an ethical being, the fundamental
-problem of philosophy is how to carry out in practice those ethical
-principles in the observance of which man only can be truly happy. If,
-then, men’s misfortunes are the natural consequence and result of their
-own perverseness, there is no reason why we should grieve over them. So
-far as political conditions are concerned, he doubtless felt that the
-rule of the Roman emperors had at last given peace to his long
-distracted country, on as favorable terms as could be expected.
-
-It has been said of Plutarch that there is not a new thought in all his
-writings,—and this by way of disparagement. The charge is probably true.
-The men who have put new ideas into the world are few indeed. The world
-is far less in need of instruction than of reminding. Besides, there is
-no reason why an artist should not deal with a familiar subject in his
-own way. If he can tell an old story so as to give it a new interest, or
-treat a well-worn theme so as to make it seem fresh, he is not the least
-among his brethren. It is especially writers upon ethics that are apt to
-be tedious. The more honor to him who can make his preaching attractive
-and interesting.
-
-Perhaps the chief charm of Plutarch’s writings is the assumption on his
-part that he is a reasonable man himself and is talking to reasonable
-men; for as we have already seen, he has always hearers in mind rather
-than readers. We can imagine him ever and anon saying, You either know
-what is right, what your duty is, or you want to know. The rules of
-conduct are plain and simple; you have but to obey them and you will be
-happy. Perform the duties incumbent upon you, to the gods, to your
-fellow citizens, to the members of your family, to yourself, and you
-will be content with the present order of things, and your fellow men
-with you. If you want to lead a moral life, be humane, be truthful, be
-sympathetic, be chaste, deal honestly with your fellow men, follow your
-rational nature rather than your emotions, and you will have no reason
-to regret that you have lived; your fellow men will be glad that you
-have for a time sojourned among them, and have left behind you the light
-of your example to shine for those who come after you.
-
-Lecky in his History of European Morals, already cited, has some
-interesting passages on the relation of Seneca and Plutarch to certain
-phases of the thought of their time, a few of which may properly find a
-place here. He says: “A class of writers began to arise, who, like the
-Stoics, believed virtue rather than enjoyment, to be the supreme good,
-and who acknowledged that virtue consisted solely of the control which
-the enlightened will exercises over the desires, but who at the same
-time gave free scope to the benevolent affections, and a more religious
-and mystical tone to the whole scheme of morals.”
-
-“Plutarch, whose fame as a biographer has, I think, unduly eclipsed his
-reputation as a moralist, may be justly regarded as the leader of this
-movement, and his moral writings may be profitably compared with those
-of Seneca, the most ample exponent of the sterner school. Seneca is not
-unfrequently self-conscious, theatrical, and over-strained. His precepts
-have something of the affected ring of a popular preacher. The imperfect
-fusion of his short sentences gives his style a disjointed and, so to
-speak, granulated character, which the emperor Caligula happily
-expressed when he compared it to sand without cement; yet he often rises
-to a majesty of eloquence, a grandeur both of thought and expression,
-that few moralists have ever rivaled. Plutarch, though far less sublime,
-is more sustained, equable and uniformly pleasing. The Montaigne of
-antiquity, his genius coruscates playfully and gracefully around his
-subject; he delights in illustrations which are often singularly vivid
-and original, but which by their excessive multiplication appear
-sometimes rather the texture than the ornament of his discourse. A
-gentle, tender spirit, and a judgment equally free from paradox,
-exaggeration, and excessive subtilty, are characteristics of all he
-wrote. Plutarch excels most in collecting motives of consolation; Seneca
-in forming characters that need no consolation. There is something of
-the woman in Plutarch; Seneca is all man.[4] The writings of the first
-resemble the strains of the flute, to which the ancients attributed the
-power of calming the possessions and chasing away the clouds of sorrow,
-and drawing men by gentle suasion into the paths of virtue; the writings
-of the other are like the trumpet blast which kindles the soul with
-heroic courage. The first is more fitted to console a mother sorrowing
-over her dead child; the second to nerve a brave man, without flinching
-and without illusion, to grapple with an inevitable fate. The elaborate
-letters which Seneca has left us on distinctive tenets of the Stoical
-school, such as the equality of the vices, or the evil of the
-affections, have now little more than an historic interest; but the
-general tone of his writings gives them a permanent importance, for they
-reflect and foster a certain type of excellence which, since the
-extinction of Stoicism, has had no adequate expression in literature.
-The prevailing moral tone of Plutarch, on the other hand, being formed
-mainly on the prominence of the amiable virtues has been eclipsed or
-transcended by the Christian writers, but his definite contribution to
-philosophy and morals are more important than those of Seneca. He has
-left us one of the best works on Superstition, and one of the most
-ingenious on Providence, we possess. He was probably the first writer
-who advocated very strongly humanity to animals on the broad ground of
-universal benevolence, as distinguished from the Pythagorean doctrine of
-transmigration, as he was also remarkable, beyond all his contemporaries
-for his high sense of female excellence, and of the sanctity of female
-love.”
-
-Seneca, Plutarch, and the Apostle Paul were in a sense contemporaries.
-All three did what they could to make the world better in their time and
-after them. All three were preachers of righteousness, each in his way.
-All three wrote much that has engaged the attention of the world, and
-stimulated its thought. But how great the contrast between the projects
-of these men, especially the two last! Plutarch was wholly lacking in
-Paul’s devotion to an idea. He would have scouted the suggestion that a
-man should give up friends, social position, country, kindred,
-everything, to go forth to preach a new doctrine. How widely apart, how
-almost diametrically opposite the methods of two men who are in a sense
-seeking the same end! The thoughts of the philosopher, his intellectual
-vision, was turned toward the setting sun. At most he could only hope,
-as we now see, to prolong the dim twilight that still hovered over the
-earth. The world had well-nigh lost faith in the power of human reason
-to regenerate mankind. The spiritual eyes of the Christian were on the
-rising sun. Though he saw that it was as yet shining but dimly, he had
-no doubt that in time it would rise to noonday splendor. The pillar of
-fire that led and lighted the way for the saint; the beatific vision
-that always stood before his enraptured gaze; the world-embracing
-panorama that kept growing larger and larger as the little Christian
-colonies were planted one after another in Asia Minor, in Greece, in
-Rome, had no existence for the philosopher. He has, it is true, a belief
-in an overruling Providence, but it lacks clearness, because weakened by
-a polytheistic creed, or at least by the remnants of such a creed. To it
-he still tenaciously clings, though it may be half unconsciously. He too
-had a belief in an existence after death; but it was not of the sort
-that made him feel that all the tribulations of this world which were
-but for a moment were not to be compared with the glory that should
-follow.
-
-If we would personify Christianity and Philosophy as they met each other
-at the close of the first century of our era, we may designate the one
-as the young man, who, though poor in this world’s goods, is strong in
-hope, in faith, in himself and in his cause. His superb physique, his
-capital digestion, make him ready for any enterprise, any sacrifice that
-shall promise success. Any field in which he may display his splendid
-energies is welcome to him, for he lives not in the past, but in the
-future. The other is the old man who has, in the main, lived a useful
-and honorable life, who has performed some noble deeds, and whose chief
-anxiety is to give the rising generation the benefit of the wisdom that
-has come to him in a life of study and observation. But, as is usually
-the case with the aged, his advice has become commonplace and the rising
-generation passes him by almost unheeded. Few have now any confidence in
-his teachings, while many of his former disciples have deserted him. It
-is his sad fate, to see himself jostled at first and finally thrust
-aside by the passing stream of humanity.
-
-Footnote 3:
-
-  Students of German literature are reminded of a certain moral and
-  intellectual similarity between Plutarch and Gellert. The latter,
-  though a man of much less natural ability, had all of Plutarch’s
-  kindliness, moral and religious earnestness, sympathy for those in
-  distress, and the same popularity among all classes from prince to
-  peasant. Both were equally religious, though one was a heathen and the
-  other a Christian; both preserved the same serenity of mind and
-  cheerfulness of heart in a time of national degradation and
-  immorality.
-
-Footnote 4:
-
-  “When Plutarch, after the death of his daughter; was writing a letter
-  of consolation to his wife, we find him turning away from all the
-  commonplaces of the stoics as the recollection of one simple trait of
-  his little child rushed upon his mind:—‘She desired her nurse to press
-  even her dolls to her breast. She was so loving that she wished
-  everything that gave her pleasure to share in the best she had.’” The
-  statement that Seneca is all man will be questioned by those who know
-  that two of his Letters of Condolence are addressed to women. These
-  are almost the only writings in Roman literature so addressed.
-
-                  *       *       *       *       *
-
-
-The principal works used in the study of Plutarch here placed before the
-reader are the following:
-
-    _Plutarchi Chaeronensis Moralia. Edidit Daniel Wyttenbach. 8 voll.
-    Oxonii, 1795-1821._
-
-    _R. Volkmann. Leben und Schriften des Plutarch von Chaeronea.
-    Berlin, 1869._
-
-    _O. Grèard. De la Morale de Plutarque. Cinquiéme edition. Paris,
-    1892._
-
-    _Plutarch’s Werke übersetzt von Klaiber, Bähr, u. A. Stuttgart,
-    1837-57._
-
-    _Plutarchi Chaeronensis Moralia. Recognovit Gregorius N.
-    Bernardakis. Lipsiae, 1888-96. 7 voll._
-
-The last named contains a revised text only; from it my translation of
-the De Sera was made. The German translation of Bähr, the well-known
-Heidelberg professor, in the collection above cited, follows the
-original very closely and has been of much service to me by its
-interpretation of obscure passages.
-
-A complete catalogue of Plutarch’s Moralia is given in the appendix. The
-list is borrowed from the edition of Bernardakis and the question of
-authenticity is not taken into account.
-
-    NOTE:—To translate Plutarch is a very different task from that of
-    translating Seneca. The style of the latter is terse and
-    epigrammatic; clauses and sentences often follow each other without
-    connectives, and are in the main short. That of the former is the
-    reverse. Most of his sentences are long, many of them very long.
-    These, as well as clauses and words, are often strung together with
-    the participles καὶ and γὰρ, or other connectives, until the reader
-    sometimes wonders whether they will ever end. Seneca is full of
-    pithy sayings well suited for quotation; in Plutarch they are rare.
-    The style of both writers is highly rhetorical, but, if we except
-    the evident striving after effect, they have little else in common.
-
-    As in the case of Seneca, it has been my aim to preserve for the
-    English reader the peculiarities of the Greek, so far as possible.
-    There is much to be said in favor of making a translation, above
-    everything else, readable; but in the effort to do so, the
-    translator is constantly exposed to the danger of displacing the
-    style of the original with his own. I hope I have in a measure, at
-    least, succeeded in putting before the English reader, not only what
-    Plutarch said in the following Tract, but also how he said it.
-
-    “Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily,
-    therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do
-    evil.”
-
-
-
-
-       CONCERNING THE DELAY OF THE DEITY IN PUNISHING THE WICKED.
-
-
-DRAMATIS PERSONAE.
-
-PLUTARCH. PATROCLEAS, his son-in-law. TIMON, his brother. OLYMPICHUS.
-
-    The scene is the portico of the temple of Apollo at Delphi. The
-    tract is dedicated to a certain Quintus, whose name seems to
-    indicate that he was a Roman, but of whom nothing definite is known.
-
-When Epicurus had thus spoken, O Quintus, and before any one had
-replied, he went hurriedly away, as we were now at the end of the porch.
-We stood for some time in speechless wonder at the strange conduct of
-the man and looking at one another, then turned back to resume our walk.
-Thereupon Patrocleas first broke the silence: “Pray, what shall we do?”
-said he, “Shall we drop the inquiry, or shall we answer the arguments of
-the speaker who is not present as if he were?” “It would not be fitting
-to leave the dart he discharged, as he departed, sticking in the wound.
-Brasidas, as we are told, drew the shaft from his body, and with the
-same weapon slew the man who had hit him. It is not worth our while, of
-course, to defend ourselves against all those who assail us with
-ill-grounded or fallacious arguments, but it will suffice us if we cast
-them from us before they become firmly fixed in our minds.” “What was
-there then,” said I, “in what he said that most impressed you? For many
-things and without any order, one here, another there, the man kept
-charging against Providence, with anger and vituperation at the same
-time.”
-
-2. Hereupon Patrocleas said: “The tardiness and delay of the Deity in
-punishing the wicked seems to me a matter of special importance; and
-now, by the arguments that have been advanced, I have been led anew and,
-as it were, a stranger, to the question; but long ago I was offended
-when I read in Euripides,
-
-‘He procrastinates, and this is the manner of the Deity.’ Yet God ought,
-least of all things, to be slack towards the wicked, as they are neither
-slack nor dilatory about doing evil, but are impelled by their
-unrestrained passions to acts of injustice. And in truth, the
-retribution, which Thucydides says follows close upon the commission of
-a crime, forthwith bars the way for those who usually prosper in
-successful villainy. For there is no debt like overdue justice that
-makes him who has been wronged so faint-hearted and discouraged, while
-it emboldens the wicked man in his audacity and violence; but the
-punishments that follow close upon the commission of crimes are
-restraints upon those who are meditating wrongs against others, and
-there is the greatest consolation in this for those who have suffered
-injustice. So, then, the remark of Bias often troubles me when I reflect
-upon it; for he said, according to report, to a certain reprobate, that
-he did not fear lest he might not suffer the punishment of his misdeeds,
-but only that he might not himself (Bias) live to see it. What profit
-was it to the Messenians, who were long since dead, that Aristokrates
-was punished for betraying them at the battle of Taphros, when the
-matter remained undiscovered for more than twenty years, during which
-time he had been king of the Arcadians, though he was finally detected
-and punished, when they were no longer alive? Or what consolation was it
-to the Orchomenians who had lost children and friends and kinsmen
-through the treason of Lykiscus, that he was seized a long time
-afterwards by a disease which gradually ate up his body?—this man who
-was always dipping his feet into the river to wet them and calling down
-a curse upon himself, praying that he might rot if he had betrayed and
-wronged them. And the casting forth of the bodies of the accursed from
-Athens and their transportation beyond the boundaries was an act that
-not even the children of those who had been slain were permitted to
-behold. Wherefore, Euripides inappropriately uses these lines to deter
-men from the commission of crime, ‘Fear not lest injustice overtake thee
-and smite thee down, unjust man; but in silence and with slow step it
-will overtake the wicked when the time is ripe.’ For verily, no other
-consideration but just such as these, the bad will naturally use to
-encourage themselves and take as pledges of security in villainy, on the
-ground that wrong-doing brings forth early and evident fruit, while the
-penalty comes late, and long after the satisfaction (that arises from
-success in crime).”
-
-3. When Patrocleas had concluded his remarks, Olympichus spoke up and
-said, “To what great absurdities do the delays and postponements of the
-Deity in such matters lead! Because this tardiness destroys faith in
-Providence, and the fact that retribution does not closely follow each
-particular act of wrong-doing but is later, thus making room for chance,
-men, by calling it a misfortune, not a penalty, are they in any wise
-bettered? Even though they may be grieved at what has befallen them, do
-they feel regret at what they have done? For just as the immediate
-stroke of the whip or the spur laid quickly to the horse that makes a
-false step or stumbles brings it to a sense of duty, but all the
-subsequent jerking and tugging at the reins and shouting seem rather to
-be done for some other reason than correction, because they produce pain
-but not betterment; so vice, if lashed and beaten for each act of
-villainy committed, would speedily become repentant and humble and
-fearful of God who beholds men’s acts and sufferings, if He did not
-postpone justice. And justice that according to Euripides procrastinates
-and with slow pace overtakes the wicked, seems more like an affair of
-chance than of Providence, because there is about it so much
-uncertainty, delay and lack of system. The result is that I do not see
-what use there is in the saying that the mills of the gods grind late,
-both because they obscure justice and take away the fear of evil-doing.”
-
-4. Thereupon in reply to these remarks and while I was still absorbed in
-reflection, Timon said: “Shall I now add to the discussion the climax of
-my own perplexity or shall I pass it over until after the disposal of
-the main argument?” “What is the use,” said I, “of sending along a third
-wave to wash away the subject-matter, if it be found impossible to
-refute and invalidate the first objection? First, then, beginning, as we
-say, at the ingle-side and with the caution of the philosophers of the
-Academy in regard to the divinity, let us beware of assuming that we
-know just what to say on this subject. In truth, an affair of more
-serious moment is the consideration of supernal and divine things, for
-us who are human beings, than when one who has no ear for music
-discusses this art, or when one who has never served in the army
-discourses on military affairs; because, though ignorant of the plan of
-the artificer, we assume to be able to fathom his designs from what we
-suppose to be probable and fitting. It is not hard for one unacquainted
-with the healing art to comprehend the reasoning of a physician as to
-why he did not sooner perform a certain amputation rather than later, or
-why he ordered a bath yesterday and not to-day; in respect to God, on
-the other hand, it is not easy for a mortal to say any thing positive
-except that, knowing best the proper occasion for curing a man of his
-vices, He administers to each person chastisements as medicaments, but
-not equally severe in all cases nor at one and the same time. For that
-the healing art when applied to the soul is called right and
-righteousness and is the greatest of all arts, Pindar in addition to
-thousands of others, affirms, when he calls God the ruler and custodian
-of the whole universe, the ‘master builder,’ for the reason that He is
-the guardian of justice according to which it shall be determined when
-and how and to what degree every wicked man is to be punished. And of
-this art Plato says that Minos the son of Jove was a student, as it is
-not possible to properly dispense justice, or to recognize what is just
-unless one has learned and acquired a knowledge of the same. Not even
-the laws that men enact have always their clear and plain justification
-and some enactments even seem at first sight ridiculous. For instance,
-in Lacedaemon, the ephors, immediately upon taking office, issue an
-edict that no one is to wear a mustache and that the laws are to be
-obeyed in order that none may feel their severity. The Romans inflict a
-slight blow with a twig upon those whom they intend to emancipate; and
-when they make a will they bequeath their property to some persons as
-their heirs, but sell it to others,—which seems to be absurd. But most
-absurd one would think the law of Solon to be to the effect that he
-shall be deprived of civil rights, who, when there are parties and
-factions in the state, take sides with neither. In short, one could name
-many anomalies in law, if he did not know the intentions of the
-law-maker, and did not understand the reason for every single part of
-the decrees that have been issued. What wonder is it then, if, when it
-is so hard to see through human purposes, that it is not easy to say
-with respect to the gods for what reason they punish some transgressors
-later, others sooner.
-
-5. These things are no excuse for shunning an investigation, but a plea
-for indulgence, so that the discussion, looking as it were, toward a
-harbor and port of refuge, may move forward with the greater confidence,
-in the midst of perplexities. Then consider first this fact, that
-according to Plato, God having placed Himself in the midst of all that
-is enchantingly fair, as a sort of model, gives to human worth, which is
-in some measure an image of Himself, an exemplar which all are to follow
-so far as they are able. For the universe, being in its natural state
-devoid of order, began to change and to be transformed into a cosmos
-when it participated in, and became assimilated to, the divine idea and
-virtue. This same man also says that nature kindles in us the germ of
-vision so that by beholding the heavenly bodies borne along in their
-courses, and by admiration of the same, the soul becomes habituated to
-take pleasure in and to love what is orderly and systematically
-arranged, but that it hates all disorderly and uncontrolled passion, and
-shuns the purposeless and hit-or-miss as being the origin of all vice
-and discord. It is impossible for man, by his very nature, to have a
-completer enjoyment of God than when seeking and earnestly striving
-after virtue by imitating everything that is good and noble. For this
-reason also God punishes the wicked in due time and with deliberation;
-not because He is Himself afraid of making a mistake by chastising any
-one too soon or because He might repent of it, but in order to remove
-from us what is brutal and hasty in the infliction of punishment, and to
-teach us not to chastise in anger nor when greatly excited and
-indignant, ‘rage o’erleaps the bounds of reason’; as if, in order to
-satisfy our hunger or quench our thirst we rushed upon those who have
-done us an injury, but imitating His goodness and long-suffering and
-taking time as our adviser, that gives least room for repentance, we
-should proceed to inflict punishments in accordance with justice. For,
-as Socrates said, it is less mischievous to drink murky water,
-heedlessly, than when one is in a perturbed state of mind and under the
-influence of anger and has lost the power of self-control before the
-mind has become calm and clear, to vent one’s wrath on the person of a
-kinsman or friend. For vengeance does not belong close upon the inquiry,
-as Thucydides says, but is most in place when as far from it as
-possible. Since anger, according to Melanthius ‘commits terrible deeds
-when it has displaced self-control’; so, likewise, reason does what is
-just and fitting when it has put aside anger and excitement. Further
-also, men are made humane by the example of others when they learn, for
-instance, that Plato, after raising his staff to strike his slave,
-remained standing for a long time, as he himself says, in this way
-chastening his anger. And Archytas, on learning that his servants were
-negligent and disorderly in his fields, but noticing that he was greatly
-angered and incensed at them, did nothing but remark as he walked away,
-‘You are lucky that I am very wroth at you.’ If, therefore, the reported
-sayings of men, treasured up for us, deter us from harshness and the
-violence resulting from passion; much more does it become us, as we look
-upon God who lacks nothing and who knows no repentance for any deed, yet
-postpones punishment to the future and bides His time, to be on our
-guard in such matters. We ought also to look upon mildness and
-long-suffering as the divine part of the virtue which God Himself
-exemplifies (in His dealings with men), and to remember that few are
-made better by swift chastisement, but that many are profited and
-admonished by tardiness in punishing.
-
-6. In the second place, let us remember that punishments among men,
-having regard solely to the infliction of injuries to others, cease with
-the malefactor and go no further; therefore, like a barking dog they
-(the penalties) cling to the heels of the transgression and follow up
-actions closely. But God, as seems reasonable, discerns the passions of
-the diseased soul upon which He wishes to visit punishment, whether in
-any way, perchance, it may turn to repentance, and He gives time for
-amendment to those whose vices are not ineradicable and incurable. For,
-knowing (as He does) what portion of virtue souls going forth from Him
-to be born, carry with them, and how strong and ineffaceable is the
-nobleness implanted in them, and that virtue yields to vice contrary to
-its nature because corrupted by food and evil communications, and that
-some, after undergoing a cure, again resume their former nature, He does
-not inflict upon all a penalty equally severe. But him who is
-incorrigible He removes forthwith from life and cuts off, because
-constant association with wickedness is very harmful to others, and in
-the highest degree harmful to the soul itself. On the contrary, to those
-who from ignorance of the good rather than from a predilection for evil
-and to whom it is only second nature to go astray, He gives time for
-repentance. But if they remain obdurate He visits these also with
-punishment, for, of course, He has no fear lest they may escape Him.
-Consider also what transformations have taken place in the character of
-men and in their life; for which reason also this change and character
-(ἦθος) is called a turning (τρόπος) as habit (ἔθος) for the most part
-shapes it and by laying hold of it controls it. I think, therefore, that
-the ancients represented Kecrops dual in form (a combination of man and
-dragon), not as some say, because, after he had been an excellent king
-he became a cruel and ruthless tyrant, but for the opposite reason,
-namely, that after having been unjust and merciless he turned out to be
-gentle and kindly, when he had got into power. If this is not certain,
-we know, at least, that Gelo and Hiero, both Sicilians, and Peisistratus
-the son of Hippokrates, all men who had put themselves at the head of
-affairs by base methods, used their power for the furtherance of
-virtuous ends; and though they had attained power illegally, they
-nevertheless became just and popular rulers. They promoted good order
-and the cultivation of the soil; made temperate and industrious citizens
-out of men who had been gossipers and idlers; and Gelo, after fighting
-bravely and defeating the Carthaginians in a great battle, would not
-make the peace with them which they sued for until they had pledged
-themselves to cease from sacrificing their children to Kronos. In
-Megalopolis, Lydiades was a usurper; but when at the height of his power
-a change came over him and, having conceived a loathing for iniquity, he
-gave a constitution to the citizens, then in a battle with the enemies
-of his country met a glorious death. If some one had slain the usurper
-Miltiades in the Chersonesus, or had prosecuted Kimon for incest with
-his sister, or had driven Themistocles from the city by an indictment,
-when he was indulging in drunken revelries and insulting people in the
-market place, as was afterwards done with Alkibiades, would we not have
-lost the heroes of Marathon, of the Eurymedon and fair Artemisium,
-‘where the sons of the Athenians laid the glorious corner-stone of
-liberty?’ Men cast in a large mold neither do anything in a small way,
-nor do the vehemence and energy of their titanic natures suffer them to
-be inactive; but they are tossed to and fro like a ship on the waves
-until they settle down into a fixed and well-grounded character. Just as
-a person who was ignorant of agriculture would not take a fancy to land,
-if he saw it overgrown with weeds and brambles, full of wild animals,
-running water and marshes; while to one who has learned to discriminate
-and to judge, these very things show the strength and goodness of the
-soil; so men cast in a large mold commit irregularities and follies—men
-whose volcanic and vehement natures we cannot endure, and think they
-ought to be cut off or kept in check. But the better judge, he who in
-spite of these things discerns innate worth and nobility, waits until
-age and maturity become the co-workers of reason and virtue, when nature
-shall bring forth her proper fruit.”
-
-7. “So much, then, on this point. And do you not think certain of the
-Greeks have done wisely in adopting the Egyptian law that forbids the
-execution of a woman condemned to death during pregnancy, until after
-her delivery?” “Most assuredly,” they said. “If then,” said I, “a person
-is big, not with a child, but with a deed or a secret project which he
-may in the course of time bring into the world and put into execution,
-or if he might disclose some hidden crime, or be the author of some
-judicious counsel or the discoverer of some useful invention, would it
-not be better to await a seasonable time for removing him (than to do it
-prematurely)? To me at least it seems so,” I said. “And to us also,”
-replied Patrocleas. “Very good,” said I. “Now consider that if Dionysius
-had been punished at the beginning of his usurped power, no Greek would
-have settled in Sicily, though it had been laid waste by the
-Carthaginians; nor would Greeks have settled in Apollonia or in
-Anaktorium or in the peninsula of Leukadia, if Periander had not
-received his punishment a long time after (his accession to power). And
-I believe also that the day of reckoning for Kasander was postponed in
-order that Thebes might be rebuilt. Of the mercenaries that had assisted
-in plundering the temple here the greater part accompanied Timoleon on
-an expedition to Sicily where they conquered the Carthaginians and
-overthrew the tyrants; then the miserable wretches died a miserable
-death. There is no doubt that the Deity sometimes employs certain men
-after the manner of public executioners, to be the avengers of other
-villains, then destroys them as I think He does most tyrants. For just
-as the gall of the hyena and the beestings (or rennet) of the seal and
-other parts of repulsive animals have a property that is useful for the
-cure of diseases, so God inflicts on some persons who need a drastic
-remedy and chastisement, a stern and hard tyrant; nor does He release
-them from their grievous and melancholy state until He has cured their
-disease and purified them. Such a medicine was Phalaris to the
-Akragantines, and to the Romans, Marius. To the Sikyonians also the god
-declared explicitly that their city needed a scourge for taking away
-from the Kleonians the boy Teletias, crowned in the Pythian games, as
-their own fellow-citizen, and putting him to death. So, sure enough,
-when Orthagoras had become tyrant of Sikyon, and after him Myron and
-Kleisthenes, he and his successors made an end of their lasciviousness;
-the Kleonians, however, not receiving such curative treatment, sank into
-insignificance. You know that Homer somewhere says, ‘From him, a far
-baser father, was born a son better in all manner of excellence’; yet
-that son of Kopreus performed no brilliant or even noteworthy exploit.
-But the descendants of Sisyphus and of Autolycus and of Phlegyas were
-conspicuous for the deeds and virtues of great kings. Pericles of
-Athens, also sprang from a house on which rested a curse; while in Rome,
-Pompey the Great was the son of Strabo whose corpse the Roman people, in
-their hatred, cast out and trampled under foot. Why should it then be
-thought strange, if, just as the husbandman does not dig up the thorns
-lest he destroy the asparagus, and the Lydians do not burn the shrub
-until they have gathered the gum from it; so God should in like manner
-delay to extirpate the evil and corrupt root of an illustrious and
-kingly house until the proper fruit has grown from it? It was better for
-the Phokians to lose the countless herds of kine and horses belonging to
-Iphitus, as also that much gold and silver should be taken from Delphi,
-than not to have had Ulysses or Asklepias born among them, or the other
-distinguished and noble-minded men whose ancestors had been evil-doers
-and reprobates.
-
-8. Do you not think it better that retribution should come in due season
-and in a fitting way, than immediately and all at once? As, for
-instance, in the case of Kalippus, who, supposed to be the friend of
-Dion, killed him with the same sword with which he was afterward
-dispatched by his friends; and that of Mitias the Argive who had been
-slain in a tumult and whose brazen statue in the market-place fell on
-the slayer of Mitias during a dramatic performance and killed him. And
-the stories of Bessus, the Paeonian, and of Aristo the Oetaean, the
-leaders of the mercenaries, you, of course, know, Patrocleas.” “I do
-not,” said he, “but I would like to hear them.” “Aristo,” I said,
-“having taken away the ornaments of Eriphyle lying here (in this
-temple), with the permission of the authorities, presented them to his
-wife; but his son, angered at his mother from some cause, set the house
-on fire and burned up all who were in it. And Bessus, as the story goes,
-having killed his own father, was not found out for a long time, but
-finally, going to a banquet with some friends and happening to strike a
-nest of young swallows with his spear, knocked it down and killed the
-fledglings. When those who were present said, as was natural, ‘Man, what
-possessed you to do such an ill-omened deed?’ he replied, ‘Have they not
-this long time been falsely accusing me and crying out against me for
-killing my father’? The astonished company reported the remark to the
-king, and after the case had been investigated Bessus received his just
-deserts.”
-
-9. “We say these things,” I continued, “on the assumption that there is
-a postponement of punishment for the wicked; on the other hand, it is
-proper to hear what Hesiod says, who does not think with Plato that
-punishment is a pain which follows injustice, but that it is something
-of equal age with it; that it springs from the same root and place, for
-he says,
-
-‘Evil counsel is most hurtful to him who has given it,’ and,
-
-‘He who lays plots for another, lays a plot against himself.’
-
-The cantharis, you know, is said to contain within itself the antidote
-(for the pain it inflicts), and villainy, by engendering within itself
-both pain and punishment, pays the penalty for evil-doing, not at a
-subsequent time, but in the outrage itself. Every malefactor who is
-punished by the infliction of pain on his body bears his own cross, and
-vice wreaks upon itself, out of itself, its own vengeance, because it is
-in a sense a creator of the woes of life that it brings into existence,
-together with the accompanying disgrace, many sorrows, fears and violent
-passions and regrets and unceasing restlessness. Some people are in no
-wise different from children, who, on seeing malefactors in the theaters
-often clad in gilded and purple garments, crowned and dancing about, are
-delighted and admire them as fortunate mortals, until they are seen
-goaded and scourged, while the fire breaks forth from their splendid and
-costly attire. For many of the wicked are the owners of fine mansions,
-and, as they hold magistracies and other responsible positions, no one
-is aware that they are undergoing punishment until they are put to death
-or hurled from rocks. This, one ought not to call punishment, but the
-consummation and fulfilment of punishment. For as Herodicus of
-Selymbria, who had been attacked by consumption, an incurable disease,
-was the first to combine gymnastics with the healing art, and of whom
-Plato says, that (in so doing) he protracted his own death, and that of
-all who were similarly diseased; so malefactors who are seen to have
-escaped immediate punishment, expiate their crimes by a longer, not by a
-shorter penalty; nor after a longer time but during a longer time; they
-are not punished after they have grown old, but they grow old during
-their punishment. And I say _a long time_ with reference to ourselves,
-for to the gods the span of human life is nothing,—now, but not thirty
-years ago is the same as to say, that in the evening, but not in the
-morning, the malefactor, is to be tortured or hanged, especially since
-man is shut up in this life just as in a prison from which there is no
-migration to another place or escape, but which in the meanwhile allows
-time for many enjoyments and the transaction of business, the bestowing
-and receiving of honors and favors, and for diversions; just as persons
-in prison are allowed to play at dice or draughts, though the noose is
-all the while dangling above their heads.
-
-10. Moreover, what reason is there for saying that those who lie in
-prison under sentence of death do not receive their punishment until
-they are decapitated? or that he who has drunk the hemlock-juice, but is
-still walking about waiting for the heaviness to get into his legs,
-until he is seized by anaesthesia and the rigor of death, (has not
-received his?) If we regard the consummation of the punishment as the
-punishment itself, we overlook the intervening sufferings and fears, as
-well as the apprehension and regret with which every evil-doer is
-harassed. Is not this just as if we were to say of the fish that has
-swallowed the hook, that it is not caught until we see it broiled or cut
-up by the cooks? Every one who has committed a crime is firmly held by
-justice and has then and there fastened within himself, like a bait the
-sweet morsel of iniquity. Having an avenging conscience in his breast,
-‘Like a frantic tunny he spins round in the sea.’ For the well-known
-reckless audacity and over-confidence of vice is active and ardent until
-the evil deed has been done; then the passion subsiding like a wind,
-sinks down weak and cowed under the weight of fears and superstitions;
-so that it is entirely in accordance with the event and the truth that
-Stesichorus attributes a dream to Klytemnestra in about these words:
-‘She thought a dragon with gory head approached her, and from it
-Pleisthenades came forth.’ For visions by night and apparitions by day
-and oracles and celestial portents and whatever other phenomenon is
-regarded as caused by the direct interposition of God, cause anxieties
-and fears to persons who have a guilty conscience. For example, it is
-said, that Apollodorus once in a dream saw himself flayed by the
-Scythians, then boiled, and heard his heart speaking from the caldron
-and saying, ‘I am the cause of all this’; and that at another time he
-saw his daughters all ablaze, their bodies encircled with flame, running
-about him. Hipparchus also, the son of Peisistratus, a little before his
-death saw Aphrodite flinging blood in his face from a kind of basin; and
-the favorites of Ptolemy the Thunderer, saw him summoned before a
-tribunal by Seleucus where vultures and wolves were the judges,
-distributing many pieces of flesh among his enemies. Pausanias,
-likewise, having caused a free maiden to be brought by force from
-Byzantium in order to pass the night with her, but when she was come,
-owing to some perturbation of mind and suspicion, had her put to
-death—this maiden he frequently saw in a dream calling to him, ‘Hasten
-to judgment; assuredly lust brings sorrow on men.’ As the apparition did
-not cease to haunt him, it is said that he set sail for the oracle of
-the dead at Heracleia where he called up the ghost of the damsel by
-expiatory rites and libations. Appearing before him, she said that he
-would be freed from his troubles when he came to Lacedaemon; but as soon
-as he arrived there he died.
-
-11. If then the soul has no sensation after death, and dissolution is
-the end of all rewards and punishments, one might rather say that the
-divinity deals kindly and indulgently with the wicked who are speedily
-chastised and die. For if we were to assert nothing more than that as
-long as they live and during the present existence no evil befalls the
-bad, but that when vice is exposed and is seen to be a fruitless and
-barren thing, that it brings nothing good or worth an effort, in spite
-of many severe agonies of mind—the recognition of these facts renders
-life an uneasy one. A case in point is the story told of Lysimachus that
-under stress of thirst he gave up his body and his dominions to the
-Getae, but that when he had got into their hands and received a draught
-he cried out, ‘Shame on my baseness for depriving myself of such a
-kingdom for so short-lived a pleasure.’ Yet it is exceedingly difficult
-to resist the needs of our physical nature; but when a man, either for
-the sake of money or from avidity for political honors or influence,
-commits a lawless and wicked act, and when, after the thirst and madness
-of his passion have been allayed, he finds, in the course of time, that
-the ignominy and the bitter sorrow for his crimes remain behind, and
-that villainy has been neither advantageous nor necessary nor
-profitable, must not the thought, so servile and mean, often occur to
-him, that for empty glory or fleeting enjoyment he has trampled under
-foot the dearest and highest rights of mankind, only to fill his life
-with shame and confusion. For as Simonides jestingly said, that he
-always found the chest he kept for money full and the one he kept for
-gratitude empty; so wicked men, when they examine their own evil hearts,
-discover that for the sake of a pleasure which directly proves to be an
-empty one, they find them void of hope but full of sorrows and pain,
-unpleasant memories, and anxiety for the future, but big with distrust
-of the present. Just as we hear Ino crying out in the theater when
-filled with regret for what she had done, ‘Dear women, how can I again
-dwell in the house of Athamas? Would that I had done none of the deeds I
-committed!’ So the soul of every villain ought to consider well and
-reflect how it may rid itself of the memory of its iniquities and
-exorcise a bad conscience, undergo a process of purification and live
-life over again. When the bad is deliberately preferred, it shows a lack
-of confidence and firmness and strength and stability—unless, forsooth,
-we admit that evil-doers are a class of sages. Wherever there exists an
-uncontrollable love of money and pleasure, and insatiable avarice
-coupled with malice or a bad character, there you will find also, if you
-look closely, latent superstitions and an aversion to labor and fear of
-death and sudden gusts of passion and an eagerness to be talked about
-joined to a penchant for boasting. Such men fear those who censure them
-and are afraid of those who praise them as persons who have been wronged
-by deception; they are particularly hostile to the wicked because they
-freely praise those who have the reputation of being virtuous. For that
-which hardens men in vice is like the brittleness in poor iron and is
-easily shivered. Whence it comes that as they, in the course of time,
-gain a deeper insight into the nature of things, are weighed down with
-sorrow and become morose and abhor their own past life. It surely cannot
-be but that a bad man who has restored a trust, or become surety for a
-friend, or who from a love of glory or fame has given and contributed
-something to his country, will forthwith regret what he has done,
-because he is unstable in his ways and fickle in his purpose; sometimes
-persons of this kind, even when applauded in the theaters, groan
-inwardly because the love of money has supplanted the love of glory; nor
-can it be that those who have sacrificed men for the attainment of
-sovereignty or to carry out a conspiracy, as did Apollodorus, or who
-have taken away money from their friends, as did Glaucus, do not repent,
-nor hate themselves, and do not feel regret for what they have done. I,
-for my part, do not believe, if I may say so, that there is need of any
-god or man to punish the impious, but that their life, ruined and made
-uneasy by vice, is fully sufficient.”
-
-12. “Consider, however,” I said, “whether we are not examining the
-argument at greater length than its importance demands.” To this Timon
-replied, “It may be, in view of what is yet to come and of what has been
-omitted. For I shall now bring up as a sort of reserve the final
-difficulty, since we have in a measure worked our way through those that
-preceded. What Euripides alleges against the gods when he boldly charges
-them with turning ‘the transgressions of the parents over to their
-children,’ this, believe me, we also tacitly impute to them as an
-injustice. For, if those who have committed offenses have themselves
-expiated them, there is no further need of punishing those who have
-committed none, since it is not just to punish a second time for the
-same crime those who are innocent; or if through negligence they have
-failed to punish the real criminals, and long after visit the penalty
-upon the innocent, they do not justly make up for their tardiness by
-injustice. Something of this kind is told of Aesop who, it is said, came
-here (to Delphi) with gold from Crœsus in order to make a magnificent
-oblation to the god and to distribute to each of the Delphians four
-minae; but some difficulty arising, as it seems, and he having got into
-a quarrel with the parties here, performed the sacrifice but sent the
-money back to Sardis, alleging that the men were not worthy to receive
-it; thereupon they trumped up a charge of temple-robbery against him and
-put him to death by hurling him from the rock called Hyampeia. For this
-the god is said to have become incensed at them and to have sent a
-famine upon the land, together with all manner of strange diseases; so
-that they went around to the Hellenic festivals proclaiming and making
-known everywhere that whoever wished might wreak vengeance upon them for
-the wrong they had done to Aesop. In the third generation came one
-Iadmon, a man in no way related to Aesop, but a descendant of those who
-had bought him in Samos; and to this man, having in some way made
-satisfaction (for the wrong done to Aesop), the Delphians were released
-from their calamities. After that date also, they say, the punishment of
-temple-robbery was transferred to Nauplia from Hyampeia. Those who are
-great admirers of Alexander, of which number we also are, do not commend
-him for destroying the city of the Branchidae and putting them all to
-death, without distinction of age or sex, because their forefathers had
-betrayed the temple at Miletus. Agathocles, too, the usurper of
-Syracuse, mockingly told the Corcyreans, in answer to the question why
-he had laid waste their island, ‘That it most assuredly was because
-their fathers had kindly received Ulysses.’ To the people of Ithaca he
-likewise replied when they expostulated with him because his soldiers
-carried off their sheep, ‘Your king also came to us and even blinded the
-shepherd.’ And is not Apollo even more unreasonable if he is destroying
-the present generation of Pheneatae by blocking up the barathrum and
-inundating their entire territory, because a thousand years ago, as they
-say, Hercules carried off the prophetic tripod and took it to Pheneus?
-or when he foretold to the Sybarites a release from their ills, whenever
-they had appeased the anger of the Leucadian Hera, by a demolition three
-times repeated? And in truth, it is not long since the Lacedaemonians
-ceased to send virgins to Troy ‘who without upper garments and with bare
-feet, like slaves, at early dawn swept around the altar of Athena,
-without the wimple, even though old age bore heavy upon them,’ on
-account of the lasciviousness of Ajax. Where, pray, is the logic or
-justice of these things? We do not approve the custom of the Thracians,
-who even at the present day tattoo their wives for the purpose of
-avenging Orpheus, nor that of the barbarians along the Po for wearing
-black garments in token of mourning for Pentheus, as they say. And it
-would have been still more ridiculous, I think, if the men who lived at
-the time when Phaethon perished had not concerned themselves about him,
-but those who were born five or ten generations after his death had
-begun to change their garments for his sake and to put on mourning.
-Nevertheless this is merely silly and has nothing pernicious or
-irremediable about it. But with what reason does the anger of the gods
-sometimes suddenly disappear like certain rivers, only to break out
-afterwards against others in order to plunge them into the direst
-misfortunes?”
-
-13. As soon as he ceased, I, fearing lest he might again proceed anew to
-more and greater absurdities, spoke up and asked him: “Very well, but do
-you accept all these things as true?” To which he replied, “Even if not
-all, but only some of them are true, do you not think the question
-presents the same difficulty?” “Perhaps,” said I, “and yet when persons
-are suffering from a high fever, the same or nearly the same heat
-remains whether they have on them one or more garments; nevertheless it
-affords some relief (to the patient) to remove what is superfluous.
-Still, if you do not wish to go on, we will let this matter pass; at any
-rate, these stories look like fables and inventions; remember, however,
-the festival of Theoxenia, recently celebrated, and the honorable place
-the heralds assign to the descendants of Pindar; how imposing and
-delightful the ceremony appeared to you. Who would not, I said, be
-charmed with the bestowal of this honor, so entirely in harmony with the
-spirit of Greek antiquity, unless his ‘black heart had been forged with
-cold flame,’ to use one of Pindar’s own expressions? Then I forbear to
-mention, I said, a proclamation similar to this in Sparta called, After
-the Lesbian Bard, in honor and memory of Terpander the Ancient, for the
-argument is the same. And you too, descendants of Opheltas, forsooth,
-claim somewhat more consideration than others among the Boeotians and at
-the hands of the Phokians because of Diophantus; besides, you were
-present and were the first to support me when I upheld the traditional
-honor of Herakles and the right to wear a crown which the Lycormae and
-the Satilaiae laid claim to; for I said it was altogether proper that
-the descendants of Herakles should enjoy unimpaired honors and benefits
-for services which he had rendered to the Greeks, but for which he had
-not himself received adequate recognition and requital.” “You have
-recalled to my mind a noble contest,” he said, “and one well worthy of a
-philosopher.” “Retract, then, my friend,” said I, “this serious charge,
-and do not take it ill if the descendants of wicked or base men are
-sometimes punished; or cease to speak with approval of the honors
-conferred upon those who are of noble ancestry. For it is incumbent upon
-us, if we are to requite to their descendants, the services of their
-forefathers, as a matter of consistency not to think that punishment
-ought to cease or be discontinued at once after the crime, but that it
-ought to run along with it and render a recompense corresponding to it.
-He who is pleased to see the family Kimon honored at Athens, but feels
-sore and aggrieved when the descendants of Lachares or Aristo are
-expelled, is very weak and inconsistent; or rather, he is captious and
-hypercritical as regards the deity: for he finds fault if the
-grand-children of a wicked and unjust man seem to meet with good
-fortune, and he finds fault again, if the offspring of the vicious are
-cut off and blotted out. He blames God equally whether the children of a
-good man or a bad man fare ill.”
-
-14. “Let these things,” I said, “serve you as a sort of bulwark against
-those over hasty and carping critics; but let us take up again, as one
-may say, the beginning of the thread of this obscure problem concerning
-the Deity, with its many windings and ramifications, and let us follow
-them up with care but without fear, to what is probable as well as what
-is reasonable; this at least is clear and well established, that even in
-those things which we ourselves do, we cannot always give the reason.
-For example, why do we direct the children of those who have died of
-consumption or dropsy to sit with both feet in the water until the
-corpse is buried? for it is believed that in this way the disease will
-not pass to them or come near them. Again, for what reason does a whole
-herd of goats stand still if one of their number gets eryngo in its
-mouth, until the herdsman comes up and takes it out? And there are other
-forces in nature that interact among each other and pass back and forth
-with incredible swiftness through a great extent of space. Yet we are
-surprised at intervals of time, but not those of space. With all that,
-it is more wonderful if Athens is infected with a disease that had its
-origin in Ethiopia and of which Pericles died and from which Thucydides
-suffered than if the penalty for the crimes committed by the Delphians
-or Sybarites should be carried down to and visited upon their children.
-The forces of nature have certain connections, and inter-relations with
-each other extending from their farthest endings to their very
-beginnings, the cause of which, though unknown by us, silently produce
-their proper effects.
-
-15. And, in truth, the wrath of the gods, when it falls upon a whole
-city, has its justification. For a city is a unit and an entirety, just
-like an animal, that does not lose its identity with the passing of the
-years, nor is transformed from one thing into something different in the
-course of time, but is always affected by like feelings and has a
-character peculiar to itself. It merits all the praise and all the blame
-for what it has done in its sovereign capacity, so long as the community
-which makes it one and binds it together preserves its unity. To make
-one city, in the course of time, consist of many cities, or rather, of a
-countless number, is like dividing one man into many because he is now
-older, but was formerly younger, and still earlier, a stripling. This is
-altogether like the well-known argument of Epicharmus, the so-called
-increasing syllogism, much used by the Sophists, that the man who had
-incurred a debt some time ago does not owe it now as he has become
-another man, and that he who was invited to a banquet yesterday comes
-to-day an unbidden guest because he is another person. Advancing age
-produces greater changes in each one of us than in the general character
-of cities. Any one would recognize Athens if he saw it thirty years ago;
-the customs of to-day, the motions, the sports, the occupations, the
-likes and dislikes of the people are precisely the same they were in
-former times; but a man whom a relative or a friend might chance to meet
-after an interval of time, he would scarcely recognize, and the change
-of character easily seen in every remark and occupation and in the
-feelings and habits have, even for those who are about us all the time,
-something strange and striking by their novelty. Nevertheless a man is
-regarded as one person from his birth to his death; and in like manner
-we think it right that the city, which remains the same, ought to be
-held responsible for the transgressions of its former citizens with the
-same show of reason that it shares in their glory and prestige;
-otherwise we shall, without being aware of it, cast everything into the
-river of Heracleitus into which he says nothing goes twice because
-nature keeps all things in motion and changes their form.
-
-16. If then a city is a unit and a continuous thing, the same is
-undoubtedly true of the family that springs from one and the same
-beginning and engenders a certain power and a natural bond of sympathy
-between all its members. That which is begotten is not as if it were the
-handiwork of an artisan, separate from him who begets, for it is
-something that proceeds out of him, not something framed by him;
-consequently it possesses and bears within itself some portion of its
-original that may rightfully be chastised or honored. If I were not
-afraid I should be thought to be jesting I would say that the statue of
-Kasander has suffered a greater wrong at the hands of the Athenians when
-it was melted down, and the body of Dionysius when after death it was
-carried beyond their boundary by the Syracusans, than their descendants
-in paying the penalty for the deeds of these men. For in a statue of
-Kasander there was no part of him, and the soul of Dionysius had left
-the dead body long previously; but in the case of Nysaeus and of
-Apollokrates and of Antipater and of Philip and of all other persons in
-like manner who are the children of vicious parents, nature has
-implanted this predominant principle and it is ever present with them;
-is not dormant or inoperative, but they live in it and are nurtured by
-it; with them it abides and it directs their actions. It is not cruel or
-unreasonable if the children of these men share their destiny. All
-things considered, here, as in the healing art, what is advantageous is
-just, and he would make himself ridiculous who should affirm that in
-diseases of the hip-joint it was wrong to cauterize the thumb, and in
-the case of an ulcerated liver, to make an incision in the belly, and to
-anoint the tips of the horns of cattle if their hoofs are soft. So in
-the matter of punishments; he who thinks anything else is just than what
-will cure vice, and is scandalized if the healing is affected on one
-party for the sake of another,—like the opening of a vein to relieve the
-eyes—evidently sees no farther than what is plain to the senses. He does
-not take into account that even a schoolmaster, when he punishes one
-pupil also corrects others, and that a general who decimates his army
-punishes all his soldiers. Likewise, certain qualities, good as well as
-bad, are transmitted not only from one body to another, but even more
-readily from one soul to another. For in the one case it seems
-reasonable that the same conditions should also produce the same change,
-while in the other, the soul impelled by motives and impulses is
-naturally inclined by boldness or timidity to become worse or better.”
-
-17. While I was yet speaking, Olympichus interrupting me, said, “You
-seem, in your discourse, to proceed on a weighty assumption, namely, the
-continued existence of the soul.” “You will surely grant this,” I
-replied, “or rather, have granted it, for my argument has proceeded from
-the beginning on the hypothesis that God distributes to us all rewards
-and punishments according to our deserts.”
-
-Hereupon he replied, “Do you then think it follows of necessity, from
-the fact that because the gods observe all our actions, and apportion
-rewards and punishments, that souls are either altogether incorruptible,
-or that they continue to exist for some time after death?” “My good
-friends,” said I, “God is not impatient, or so occupied with trifles,
-that if there were not something of the divinity in us, something at
-least in a measure similar to Himself, but if, like unto leaves, as
-Homer says, we are altogether transitory, and doomed to perish in a
-little while, He would treat us with so much consideration—like those
-women who plant the gardens of Adonis in fragments of pottery and bestow
-pains on them—cherishing those ephemeral souls of ours, that dwell in a
-frail body, and when they are sprung up have no firm root in life, but
-are forever extinguished by any sudden calamity. But if you are agreed,
-let us pass over the other gods and let us consider ours here (in
-Delphi), whether you think, if he were aware that the souls of those who
-have passed from life, forthwith dissolve into nothing, like clouds or
-smoke, as soon as they leave the body, he would have instituted so many
-ceremonies for the dead, and would still require large gifts and honors
-for the deceased, merely to impose upon and delude the credulous. For my
-part, I could never give up (my faith in) the immortality of the soul
-unless some one should again, like another Herakles, take away the
-tripod of the Pythia, and eradicate and destroy the oracle. So long as
-even in our day many such oracular responses are rendered, as they say
-were given to Korax the Naxian, it is impious to assert that the soul
-can die.” Here Patrocleas asked, “What was the response and who was this
-Korax? for to me both the name and the circumstance are unknown.” “Not
-at all,” said I, “but I am to blame for using a cognomen instead of a
-name. The man who slew Archilochus in battle was called Kalondas, as you
-know; but he bore the eponym, Korax. Repelled at first by the Pythia for
-killing a devotee of the Muses, he next had recourse to prayers and
-humble supplications in order to secure his restoration to favor, then
-was commanded to repair to the habitation of Tettix, in order to appease
-the soul of Archilochus. This was at Taenarus, for thither, they say,
-Tettix the Cretan came with his fleet, founded a city and settled near
-an oracle of the dead. In like manner, also, an oracle came to the
-Spartans, bidding them conciliate the soul of Pausanias, persons who
-could evoke the dead having been sent for to Italy; these, after
-offering sacrifice, conjured up the ghost of the dead man in the temple.
-
-18. This, then is one argument which establishes the providence of God
-and at the same time the immortality of the soul, and it is not possible
-to reject the one and accept the other. Now if the soul survives after
-the death of the body, it is also quite reasonable that it shares the
-rewards and punishments (of the latter). For in this life it is engaged
-in a contest, like an athlete, and when the contest is ended it receives
-its deserts. To the rewards and punishments meted out when existing
-there by itself (separate from the body) for the deeds of the previous
-life, the living attach no importance; they are concealed from our
-knowledge, and discredited. But those that are transmitted to children
-and through successive generations, being plainly evident to all who
-live here, turn many bad men from their ways and hold them in check.
-There is no more grievous chastisement, and none that reaches more to
-the quick, than for men to see their descendants in misfortune on their
-account; and when the soul of an impious and unjust man beholds, after
-death, not statues overturned and honors annulled, but children and
-friends and his own household overwhelmed with calamities and paying the
-penalty for crimes that he has himself committed,—there is no one who
-would again be unjust, or who would yield to his unbridled passion, for
-the honors of Zeus. I have also a story to tell that I recently heard,
-but I hesitate to do so lest you think it a fable, I will therefore keep
-to what is probable. “By no means,” said Olympichus, “but repeat it
-entire.” When the others also joined in the request, I said, “Permit me
-to repeat what is probable in the story and afterward, if you like, we
-will take up the fable, granting, of course, that it is a fable.”
-
-19. Now Bion says for a god to punish the children of bad men would be
-more ridiculous than if a physician were to administer medicine to the
-son or grandson, for the disease of the grandfather, or the father. In
-one respect the conditions are unlike, in another they are alike, or
-similar. Administering medicine to one man for the disease of another
-does not, it is true, cure the patient, and a person who is suffering
-from a disease of the eyes, or a fever, does not get better when he sees
-another annointed or having a plaster put on him; but the punishments of
-the wicked make it evident to all men that it is the purpose of
-wisely-directed justice to restrain some by the correction of others. In
-what respect the comparison made by Bion is pertinent to the inquiry, he
-himself failed to notice; for suppose, now, a man falls sick of a
-painful but by no means incurable disease, then gives himself up to
-intemperance and effeminate habits, and dies; and suppose, again, that
-his son does not have the same disease but only a predisposition to
-it,—would not a physician, or a trainer, or even a careful master, on
-learning this fact, put him on a frugal diet, and keep him from dainties
-and pastry, from drink and women, and by enjoining the continuous use of
-remedies and the exercise of the body in gymnastics, scatter and
-eradicate the little germ of a big disorder, before it had reached the
-serious stage? Forsooth, do not we admonish those who are born of
-diseased fathers or mothers, to take heed to themselves, and to be on
-their guard against neglecting themselves, and forthwith to expel the
-inbred evil while its germ is yet undeveloped, and thus take the danger
-by the forelock? “Most assuredly,” said they. “Then,” replied I, “we are
-not doing an absurd but a necessary thing; not something ridiculous but
-something useful, when we recommend to the children of epileptics and
-hypochondriacs and gouty persons, physical exercise and wholesome diet
-and medicaments, not because they are sick, but to the end that they may
-not become sick. The body that is born of an unsound body does not need
-chastisement but medical treatment and good regimen. If anybody calls
-the interdiction of pleasures and the imposition of toil and labor,
-punishment, he does so because he is inept and effeminate, and no
-attention need be paid to him. Shall we say, then, that a body born of
-an unsound body is worthy of care and attention, but the congenital
-seeds of vice that germinate and spring up in the young character, we
-are to let alone and wait and dally, until the evil passions break forth
-openly,—‘show forth the malignant fruit of the heart,’ as Pindar says?
-
-20. Of a truth, in this matter is the Deity any wiser than Hesiod when
-he exhorts and advises us ‘Not when returned from the sorrowful burial,
-to propagate the race, but after the feast of the immortals?’ on the
-ground that not only vice and virtue, but sorrow and joy and all
-qualities, are transferred to the offspring in procreation; that at such
-a time men should be jocund and in good spirits and merry. But it does
-not follow, according to Hesiod, nor is it the work of human wisdom, but
-of God, to see through and understand similarities and differences of
-human nature, before they have led to great crimes and are thus made
-plain to all men. For while the cubs of bears and the whelps of wolves
-and monkeys immediately disclose their inborn nature because there is
-nothing to conceal or disguise it, the natural disposition of man
-conforms to customs and opinions and laws, and thus frequently puts a
-mask on what is evil and imitates the good. In this way it altogether
-expunges or eradicates the inborn taint of vice, or hides it for a long
-time by cunningly disguising itself under the cloak of virtue; inasmuch
-as we hardly take note of any particular act of villainy, unless it
-falls upon us or strikes us; or, rather, we are for the most part
-accustomed to regard men as bad only when they do a bad deed, licentious
-when they indulge their lusts, and cowards when they run away. This is
-doing as if we believed scorpions had a sting only when they strike, and
-serpents were poisonous only when they bite,—a foolish notion, verily!
-The man who proves to be a villain does not become so just at the moment
-he is found out, but he had in him from his birth the germs of iniquity,
-the thief merely seizing the opportunity or using his power to steal,
-and the tyrant to override the law. But God, depend upon it, is not
-ignorant of the inclinations and nature of any man because He looks to
-the soul rather than the body; He does not wait to punish deeds of
-violence, until they are done with the hands, or impurity until it is
-uttered with the tongue, or lasciviousness until it is committed with
-the sexual organs. He does not take vengeance on the evil-doer from any
-wrong he has himself suffered, neither is He incensed at the robber,
-because he has been roughly handled, nor does He hate the adulterer
-because of the disgrace; yet, for the sake of betterment, He often
-punishes the adulterer and the miser and the unjust man, thus cutting
-off vice, as if it were an epilepsy, before it becomes firmly rooted.
-
-21. A little while ago we expressed our ill-will at the late and tardy
-punishment of the wicked; now we find fault because in some cases, even
-before they perpetrate any evil deed, God checks the natural bent and
-disposition of men, though we are aware that the future is often worse
-and more to be feared than the past, and what is dormant than what is
-apparent. We are not able to fathom the reasons why it is sometimes
-better to let men commit crimes and sometimes better to anticipate them
-while they are merely deliberating and contriving; just as some
-medicines are not adapted to certain patients, though helpful to others
-who are not actually sick, and yet in a worse condition than the former.
-For this reason the gods do not ‘turn all the transgressions of the
-parents upon their offspring,’ but if a virtuous son is begotten by a
-wicked father, as it were, a sound man, by one who is diseased, he
-averts the penalty from the house, the offspring of one being, so to
-speak, adopted into another. But it is fitting that a young man who
-conforms himself to the likeness of a corrupt family should also share
-the chastisement of its villainies as a debt incurred by inheritance.
-Antigonus was not punished on account of Demetrius, any more than the
-heroes of the olden time, Phyleus and Nestor, for the sake of Augeas and
-Neleus; since these men, though sprung from wicked fathers, were
-themselves good men. But those who cherish and take naturally to the
-baseness that is born in them must also expect to be pursued to the end
-by that justice which the likeness of vice demands. For just as warts
-and livid spots and freckles that fathers sometimes have, are not on
-their sons, but afterwards reappear on the grandsons, and
-granddaughters; and a certain Greek woman who had given birth to a black
-child for which she was charged with adultery until she proved that she
-was descended from an Ethiopian in the fourth generation; and one of the
-sons of Pytho of Nisibis, who recently died, and who was said to be
-sprung from the Sparti, was born with the print of a spear on his
-body—in which case the family likeness reappeared and came to the
-surface as out of the deep, after such a long space of time,—so in like
-manner the character and passions of the soul are often concealed in the
-first generations and remain unknown, but some time afterward and in
-other persons nature springs up and asserts its power, either for virtue
-or vice.”
-
-22. When he had spoken thus he held his peace, whereupon Olympichus
-said with a smile, “We do not give you our approval lest we shall seem
-to excuse you from telling the story, on the ground that the case has
-been sufficiently proved; but we shall only then render our verdict
-when we have heard that.” In this wise I accordingly began:
-“Thespesius of Soli, a kinsman and friend of the Protagenes who spent
-some time here with us, having passed the first part of his life in
-great dissoluteness, and having speedily squandered all his patrimony,
-now pressed by the exigencies of his situation, for some time led a
-vicious life; besides repenting of his bad management, he also sought
-in every way to recover what he had lost, and acted just like those
-libertines who care nothing for their wives so long as they are in
-possession of them, but after they are divorced and married to other
-men, basely try to corrupt them. Accordingly, by holding aloof from no
-act of meanness that brought either gratification or gain, he acquired
-in a short time not only very great possessions, but also the
-reputation of being a thorough scoundrel. Above all, an oracle brought
-from Amphilochus gave him a bad name; for having asked the god through
-a messenger, as we are told, whether he would lead a better life in
-the future, the answer came back that it would be better with him
-after he was dead. And in a measure this turned out to be true, not
-long after. For happening to fall on his head from a height he lay
-like one dead from the shock alone, for he had received no wound, and
-on the third day was already carried forth for burial. Then all at
-once recovering strength and coming to himself, he showed a most
-astonishing change in his manner of life; for the Cilicians know of no
-man of his time more just in dealings between man and man, none more
-reverent toward the gods, none more dreaded by his enemies, or more
-faithful to his friends. Consequently all who knew him were eager to
-hear the cause of this transformation, as they thought such an
-alteration of character could not be a mere matter of chance—which was
-in fact the case, as he himself related to Protagenes and other
-equally intimate friends. For when he lost consciousness,—(literally,
-when his rational soul left his body)—he at first experienced about
-the same sensation as the result of the change that a pilot would feel
-who should be hurled from a ship into the deep; afterwards, having
-recovered a little, he thought he had entirely regained his breath and
-was able to see on every side with his soul opened as if it were all
-one eye. Yet he beheld none of the former things, but the objects he
-recognized were stars of immense magnitude at immeasurable distances
-from one another, and a radiance proceeding from them, surprising in
-its brilliancy and color, in which his soul moved about with facility
-just as a man in a calm moves a ship in any direction, easily and
-quickly. Though he omitted most of what he saw, he said that the souls
-of the dead, rising from below, made flame-like bubbles as they
-displaced the air before them; then, as each bubble noiselessly burst,
-the souls came forth, human in form but of a smaller size. Their
-movements, however, were not alike, for some started forth with
-surprising fleetness and darted straight up, while others whirled
-round in a circle just like spindles, and whisking, now upward, now
-downward, with a kind of confused and aimless motion, they came to
-rest only after a long time and with great difficulty. Respecting most
-of the souls, however, he was in ignorance as to who they were; but
-recognizing two or three of his acquaintances, he tried to approach
-and address them, yet they neither heard him nor were in their right
-mind, but beside themselves and dazed, trying to avoid all notice and
-intercourse, moving aimlessly about, at first alone by themselves,
-then encountering many who were in a like condition, they joined
-themselves to these, and, tossed about in a disorderly manner in all
-directions, they uttered unintelligible cries that sounded like
-mingled screams of lamentation and fear. Others, again, were seen at
-the very summit of the upper air, radiant with joy, frequently
-approaching each other with signs of affection, but avoiding the
-disorderly ones and testifying their aversion, as he thought, by
-drawing themselves together, but their delight and satisfaction, by
-expanding and extending themselves. Here, he said, he recognized the
-soul of one of his kinsmen, though not quite distinctly, for he had
-died when yet very young; but drawing near it saluted him with, ‘Hail,
-Thespesius!’ When he, in surprise, rejoined that his name was not
-Thespesius, but Aridaeus. ‘Formerly, it is true,’ replied the spirit,
-‘that was thy name, but henceforth it is Thespesius (the Divine). For
-thou didst not die, but through the interposition of God art come
-hither in the full possession of thy faculties; the other part of thy
-soul thou hast left behind in thy body, as it were an anchor; and let
-this be a token to thee both, now, and henceforth, that the souls of
-the departed neither cast a shadow nor move the eyelids.’ On hearing
-this, Thespesius, who had by this time somewhat recovered
-consciousness, looked and beheld a kind of faint line about himself,
-while the rest were completely encircled with a radiance and
-diaphanous, though not all in the same manner, for some, like the moon
-in her brightest splendor, had a uniformly smooth and even color,
-while others were marked with a kind of spots or faint weals; others
-again were all variegated and strange to look upon; while still others
-were marked with livid fleckings like vipers, and some even showed
-slight scarifications. The kinsman of Thespesius explained these
-things in detail (for there is nothing to hinder us from calling the
-souls of men by the name they themselves bore during life) by reciting
-that Adrastea, the daughter of Necessity and Zeus, had been placed in
-the highest seat as the avenger of all crimes, and that there is no
-wicked man so powerful or so insignificant as to be able, either by
-craft or by force, to escape her. Three attendants wait upon her to
-each of whom has been assigned a different mode of inflicting
-punishment: those who are to be chastised while yet in the body and by
-means of the body, swift Poena (Punishment) seizes, though in a rather
-mild way that still leaves behind many things needing expiation; those
-whose cure is a matter of greater difficulty on account of their
-vices, the daemon hands over, after death, to Dike (Justice), while
-those that Dike gives up as entirely incorrigible, the third and most
-terrible of the attendants of Adrastea, Erinys (the Fury), pursues,
-and after hounding them as they rush about trying to escape her in one
-way or another, she puts them all out of sight in a pitiless and awful
-way by thrusting them into a nameless and invisible abyss. Of the
-other punishments, said he, that inflicted by Poena in this life is
-like those of the non-Greeks. For as among the Persians the clothes
-and tiaras of those who are undergoing chastisement are pulled off and
-they are scourged, while the culprits beg with tears that their
-castigation may be ended; so the punishments suffered in body or
-estate are no severe affliction, nor do they touch vice itself, but
-are chiefly for appearance sake and for the outward sense. But him who
-comes hither from there, unpunished and unpurged, Dike seizes and
-exposes his soul in all its nakedness, and there is no place where it
-can hide or go into concealment or cover up its baseness, but it is
-completely seen on all sides and by everybody. At first Dike shows
-this soul to honest parents, if such he had, or to ancestors, as a
-detestable creature and unworthy (of such ancestry); but if they were
-likewise wicked, he sees them undergoing chastisement, while he is in
-turn beheld by them receiving his deserts and expiating, for a long
-time, each of his evil passions with pains and torments which as far
-exceed in sharpness those endured in the flesh as the reality exceeds
-in distinctness the mere vision (before you). The stripes and weals
-for each of the passions remain on some a longer, on others a shorter
-time.” ‘Observe also,’ said he, ‘the variegated and party-colored
-appearance of the souls; the darkish and filthy hue is the mark of
-fraud and avarice, while the blood-red and flame-colored indicates
-cruelty and ugliness of temper; where the soul has a bluish color, a
-lack of self-control as against lust has not been wholly eradicated
-from it; inherent malevolence combined with envy give out the violet
-color and festering appearance underneath, just as the cuttle-fish
-sets free its black fluid. For yonder (in the world), vice, when the
-soul is changed by its passions and changes the body, occasions a
-variety of colors, but here (in the realm of departed spirits) there
-is an end of purification and punishment, and when the passions are
-purged out, the soul recovers entirely its native luster and uniform
-color. Until this takes place, paroxysms of passion break forth,
-causing relapses and heart-throbs, in some cases faint and easily
-recovered from, in others exceedingly violent. Some of the souls,
-after undergoing repeated castigations resume their natural character
-and disposition; others again are carried away into the bodies of
-animals by the force and power of ignorance and the innate love of
-sensual gratification; for, owing to the weakness of the reasoning
-faculty and a disinclination to discursive thought, one is impelled by
-its active principle to procreation, while another, though lacking an
-instrument of sensual gratification, yet longs to satisfy its desires
-with worldly pleasures and to attain its ends by means of the body,
-for in this place there is only a kind of imperfect shadow and vision
-of joys that can have no reality.’ When the spirit had thus spoken, it
-conducted him (Thespesius) swiftly through boundless space, as he
-thought, easily and without deviation, borne up by the beams of light
-as if on wings, until he came to a wide and deep chasm where the power
-that supported him gave way; he saw, too, that the other souls had a
-like experience at that place, for these, crowding together like
-birds, and darting downward, flew about the chasm,—for they dared not
-venture to pass directly across it—which he saw was decorated within
-like the grottoes of Bacchus, with shrubbery and plants and with all
-sorts of green twigs bearing flowers; it also sent forth a gentle and
-agreeable breeze which was singularly pleasant and which produced the
-same effect that wine does on those who are addicted to it, for the
-souls that inhaled these fragrant odors were in ecstasies of joy and
-embraced one another. All around this place there was revelry and
-laughter, together with every kind of enjoyment and merry-making. He
-said that here Dionysus had ascended and had afterwards fetched up
-Semele and that it was called the place of Forgetfulness (Lethe).
-Here, too, Thespesius desired to tarry, but his conductor would not
-allow it, and hurried him forcibly away, at the same time telling him
-that the rational soul is melted and dissolved under the influence of
-pleasure, but that the irrational and carnal part, moistened and
-clothed in flesh, revives the memory of the body, and as a result of
-this reminiscense, a desire and a concupiscence that incites to
-procreation; for which reason it is called an _inclination toward the
-earth_ because the soul is weighed down with moisture. Passing next
-over another way of equal extent, he thought he saw a huge goblet into
-which streams flowed, of which one was of a whiter color than the foam
-of the sea or snow; another, purple like the iris; while others again
-showed, from afar, different hues, each of which shone with its own
-particular luster, yet when he came near, the ambient air became more
-and more rarified, the colors became fainter, and the goblet lost its
-brilliant tints, except the white. Here he saw three supernatural
-beings (daemons) sitting by one another in the form of a triangle,
-mixing together the streams with certain measures. The conductor of
-the soul of Thespesius said that to this point Orpheus had advanced
-when he was following after the soul of his wife, but because his
-memory partly failed him he brought back to men an incorrect account
-when he said that the oracle at Delphi was the common property of
-Apollo and Night, when in sooth, there is nothing in common between
-Apollo and Night. ‘But this oracle,’ the spirit said, ‘is common to
-night and the moon; it gives response nowhere upon the earth and has
-no fixed abode, but roams about everywhere among men, in dreams and
-apparitions; and emanating from it, as thou seest, dreams mixed up
-with the plain and simple truth, spread abroad trickery and fraud. But
-that of Apollo thou didst not see,’ it said, ‘nor wilt thou be able to
-see it, for the earthly part of the soul neither strives toward what
-is higher nor does it release (the spiritual part), but it tends
-downward as long as it is joined to the body.’ At the same time the
-spirit leading him (Thespesius) nearer tried to show him the light
-issuing from the tripod which, as he said, passed through the bosom of
-Themis and reached as far as Parnassus. Though greatly desiring to see
-it, he was not able to do so because of its brilliancy; but as he
-passed by he heard the shrill voice of a woman chanting in verse some
-other things, and the time of his death, as he thought. The
-supernatural being (daemon) said it was the Sibyl, and that she
-foretold future events as she was whirled about on the face of the
-moon. Though wishing to hear more, he was carried round to the
-opposite side by the rotary motion of the moon and caught but a few
-words; among which was the prediction about Mount Vesuvius and the
-impending destruction of Dicaearchea by fire, and a verse about the
-reigning emperor, thus:
-
-‘Though he is good, disease shall end his reign.’ Next in order they
-turned to look upon those who were undergoing punishments. From the very
-first they beheld nothing but repulsive and pitiable sights; then
-Thespesius quite unexpectedly came upon kindred and acquaintances and
-former companions who were in terrible sufferings and undergoing
-horrible torments and pains, and who besought him with loud lamentations
-to have pity on them. Finally, he recognized his own father coming up
-from a kind of abyss, all covered with marks and wounds, stretching out
-his hands to him; nor did those who directed his castigations suffer him
-to hold his peace, but they compelled him to confess that he had been
-guilty of a base crime against some guests, for their gold, by taking
-them off with poison, and that, though the deed was unknown to everybody
-in the world above, it was known to those below. (He also said) that he
-had already undergone some torments, but was being dragged away to
-suffer others. Smitten with fear and horror he durst not offer
-supplications and intercessions for his father; but wanting to turn
-about and flee, he no longer saw his kind and familiar guide, and felt
-himself urged forward by other beings horrible to look upon, by whom he
-was compelled to pass among and behold the chastisements of others of
-his acquaintances who had openly led a wicked life, though the shade of
-those who had been punished in the world was less grievously tormented
-than the rest, and not in the same way, as they were merely condemned to
-severe toil for the irrational nature and the passions. On the other
-hand, those who had worn the garb and assumed the name of virtue, but
-had in secret led corrupt lives, were forced by other tormentors, with
-severe exertion and great pain, to turn the inner parts of the soul
-outward; which action being so contrary to their nature, they performed
-it with wrigglings and contortions like those made by the marine
-scolopendra when they have swallowed the hook; some, their tormentors
-flayed and laid open in order to show how corrupt and flecked they were,
-and that their iniquity had its root in the reason which is the noblest
-part of the soul. Other souls, he also said, he observed coiled about
-each other by twos and threes and even more, gnawing one another on the
-score of old grudges for the deeds of malice they had suffered or
-committed in life. And he noticed further, some lakes alongside of each
-other, one of which was of seething gold, another of exceeding cold
-lead, and still another of hard iron; that over these stood certain
-demons who in turn, like smiths, seized with tongs the souls of those
-who had been guilty of insatiable greed and avarice, drawing them out
-and thrusting them in. When they had become heated through and
-diaphanous in the gold from the effects of the burning, they were
-plunged into the sea of lead; having become congealed here and hard as
-hailstones, they were next thrust into the lake of iron, where they
-turned completely black, and were then twisted round and round because
-of their hard-heartedness, and rubbed together until they lost all
-semblance of their former selves. They were then put once more into the
-lake of gold to undergo, as he said, awful torments by the change. But
-he said those endured the keenest anguish, who, supposing they had been
-released by Justice (Dike) were seized anew: these were the souls of
-those for whose transgressions their descendants or children had to pay
-the penalty. For whenever one of these arrived and encountered the
-other, he fell upon the shade in great wrath, uttering loud cries and
-showing the marks of what he had endured, at the same time execrating
-and pursuing it while it endeavored to flee away and hide itself, yet
-could not. For swiftly did the avengers of justice pursue such, dragging
-them back again amid loud lamentations because they foreknew their
-impending doom. To some of the souls, he said, many of their descendants
-at the same time attached themselves like bees or bats, uttering shrill
-cries and falling into transports of rage at the recollection of what
-they had endured for their sakes; and last of all he saw the souls of
-those who were undergoing the preparation for a second birth by a forced
-transformation into all sorts of animals, and by metempsychosis at the
-hands of those who were appointed to the task. These, by the use of
-certain tools, and with blows, hammered together entire members, turned
-others round, scraped down or removed others entirely in order to adapt
-them to different modes of life, among which also appeared the soul of
-Nero that had already undergone the other castigations, and had been
-transfixed with red-hot nails. When the workmen had begun to prepare the
-figure of a Pindaric viper, in which it was destined to live after it
-had been conceived and had eaten its way out of its mother, he said that
-a great light appeared and a voice came out of the light commanding that
-it be transformed into some more gentle creature and made over into an
-animal that is wont to chant around marshes and ponds, as he had already
-expiated his crimes, and some consideration was due him at the hands of
-the gods for freeing Greece, the land in which dwelt the best and most
-god-favored of his subjects. Thus far now Thespesius was an eyewitness;
-but when he was about to turn back, he got into the utmost perplexity
-through fright; for a woman, imposing by her stature and beauty, taking
-hold of him, said, ‘Pray come hither, my friend, in order that you may
-the better remember everything’ (you have seen). And as she was about to
-apply to him a little red-hot iron rod such as the painters in encaustic
-are wont to use, another woman interfered. But he himself was carried
-away all at once by a sudden and very violent gust of wind, as if blown
-through a tube, and so lighting again in his own body, he was restored
-to life, as it were, on the very brink of the grave.”
-
-
-NOTES.
-
-
-A few notes of general character are here appended. Biographical and
-mythological details may be found in classical dictionaries. They are,
-however, rarely necessary to make clear the object of the author’s
-allusions. A word or a phrase not in the original has, in a few cases,
-been inserted in the translation to preclude the necessity of a note.
-
-    Τοῦ θείου of the title. It is not clear from the writings of
-    Plutarch to what extent he was a monotheist. He uses θεὸς both with
-    and without the article. In some cases his meaning is perfectly
-    clear; in others not. The New Testament writers, whose monotheism is
-    beyond question, frequently use the article before the name of God.
-    In like manner proper names sometimes have the article and sometimes
-    are without it. Thus we have Παῦλος and ὁ Παῦλος, Πιλᾶτος usually
-    has the article while Τίτος never has it, etc.
-
-    CHAP. 3. The thought here expressed regarding the mills of the gods
-    has been put into the form of a couplet by Longfellow in his Poetic
-    Aphorisms, thus:
-
-                  “Though the mills of God grind slowly
-                    yet they grind exceeding small;
-                  Though with patience He stands waiting,
-                    with exactness grinds He all.”
-
-    The purport of the passage is plain, but the parallelism between the
-    fact and the figure is not very close. The idea is much older than
-    Plutarch.
-
-    CHAP. 4. “The ingle-side” or ancestral hearth. According to the
-    ancients the hearth was the center and beginning of the family and
-    the state. The expression, which is often used by Plato and others,
-    is equivalent to the _remotest beginning_. Compare also the Roman
-    Vesta.
-
-    5. “God having placed Himself,” etc. The following extract from the
-    Timaeus of Plato will serve to illustrate our author’s meaning. “Let
-    me tell you then why the Creator made this world of generation. He
-    was good, and the good can never have any jealousy of anything. And
-    being free from jealousy, he desired that all things should be as
-    like himself as they could be. This is in the truest sense the
-    origin of creation and of the world, as we shall do well in
-    believing on the testimony of wise men. God desired that all things
-    should be good and nothing bad, so far as this was attainable.
-    Wherefore also finding the whole visible sphere not at rest, but
-    moving in an irregular and disorderly fashion, out of disorder he
-    brought order, considering that this was in every way better than
-    the other. Now the deeds of the best could never be or have been
-    other than the fairest and best; and the Creator, reflecting on the
-    things which are by nature visible, found that no unintelligent
-    creature taken as a whole was fairer than the intelligent taken as a
-    whole; and that intelligence could not be present in anything which
-    was devoid of soul. For which reason, when he was framing the
-    universe, he put intelligence in soul, and soul in body, that he
-    might be the creator of a work which was, by nature, fairest.
-    Wherefore, using the language of probability, we may say that the
-    world became a living creature, truly endowed with soul and
-    intelligence by the providence of God.”
-
-    6. “Souls going forth from him.” The idea here is, that the human
-    soul existed previous to its incarnation in the human body, and that
-    it is a direct emanation from the Deity. This doctrine is fully
-    expounded by Plato. How to establish the immortality of the soul, if
-    it comes into existence with the body, was a serious problem with
-    the ancients. Plutarch seems to have regarded both the soul and the
-    body as eternal and uncreated, but the latter without form until it
-    was united with the soul. Or we may put the case otherwise by saying
-    that the soul, upon entering into a conscious existence, shapes the
-    hitherto formless body into an abode for itself. He also holds that
-    the soul consists of two parts: The one part seeks after truth and
-    has an affection for the beautiful; the other is subject to the
-    passions and under the dominion of error. “For which reason,” the
-    author here assumes that the words ἔθος and ἦθος are from the same
-    root. The former means, use and wont; the latter was originally
-    applied to the haunts or abodes of animals; then the manners,
-    habits, and dispositions of men. Aristotle says, ἡ δ᾽ ἠθικὴ ἐξ ἔθους
-    περιγίνεται, ὅθεν καὶ τοῦνομα ἔσχηκε μικρὸν περικλῖνον ἀπὸ τοῦ
-    ἤθους. (Ethical is from ἔθος, for which reason the word differs but
-    slightly from ἤθος.) Plutarch himself says that custom is second
-    nature. It is easy to trace the connection between a man’s acts and
-    the psychical forces, the character, that produces them.
-
-    8. “An ill-omened deed.” It was a prevalent belief in antiquity that
-    misfortunes fell upon those who were concerned in disturbing a
-    swallow’s nest.
-
-    10. Near the end. The Greeks ventured to consult oracles of the dead
-    only on rare and extraordinary occasions. They probably borrowed the
-    custom from the East.
-
-    11. The story of Glaucus is told at length by Herodotus in the third
-    book of his history and is often alluded to by later writers. The
-    ethical import of the anecdote is far-reaching.
-
-    17. “Gardens of Adonis.” Shakespeare probably had these in mind when
-    he wrote (King Henry VI. Part 1, scene sixth): “Thy promises are
-    like Adonis’ gardens, That one day bloomed and fruitful were the
-    next.” At Taenarus, the most southern point of the Peloponnesus,
-    there was believed to be an entrance to the lower world.
-
-    22. “None more dreaded by his enemies.” To return good for good and
-    evil for evil was a fundamental article of Greek ethics. It is more
-    than once alluded to in the Anabasis, and is found in nearly all
-    Greek writers. Socrates, however, takes a firm stand against the
-    principle and maintains that whatever is intrinsically wrong can
-    never under any circumstances become right.
-
-    “An inclination toward the earth.” The author here assumes that
-    γένεσις, procreation, beginning, is both in fact and etymologically,
-    connected with νεῦσις ἐπὶ γῆν, an inclination or tendency toward the
-    earth. It need hardly be said that his idea is pure fancy.
-
-    This eruption of Vesuvius, as is well known, took place in the year
-    79. Decaearchea or Puteoli was one of the cities destroyed together
-    with Herculaneum, Pompei and others. Vespasian was one of the few
-    Roman emperors, who, up to his time, died a natural death.
-
-    What is meant by a Pindaric viper is not known. Plutarch is
-    evidently of the opinion that its young gnaw their way out of the
-    mother’s womb instead of being born in the natural way, and the
-    allusion to Nero’s treatment of his mother is plain. Nero’s love for
-    music and his proficiency in the musical art are evidently held up
-    to ridicule in this passage.
-
-
-
-
-                               APPENDIX.
-
-
-A list of Plutarch’s works in the order of Bernardakis’ edition.
-Lipsiae, 1888-96.
-
-
-VOLUME I.
-
-    _De liberis educandis_, (On the education of children).
-
-    _Quomodo adolescens poetas audire debeat_, (How a young man ought to
-    hear poems).
-
-    _De recta ratione audiendi_, (How one ought to hear lectures).
-
-    _Quomodo adulator ab amico internoscatur_, (How one may distinguish
-    a flatterer from a friend).
-
-    _Quomodo quis suos in virtute sentiat profectus_, (How one may know
-    whether he is making progress in virtue).
-
-    _De capienda ex inimicis utilitate_, (How one may profit by his
-    enemies).
-
-    _De amicorum multitudine_, (On the abundance of friends).
-
-    _De fortuna_, (On good and ill fortune).
-
-    _De virtute et vitio_, (On virtue and vice).
-
-    _Consolatio ad Apollonium_, (Consolation for Apollonius).
-
-    _De tuenda sanitate præcepta_, (Precepts on the preservation of
-    health).
-
-    _Conjugalia præcepta_, (Precepts on matrimony).
-
-    _Septem sapientum convivium_, (The banquet of the seven sages).
-
-    _De superstitione_, (On superstition).
-
-
-VOLUME II.
-
-    _Regum et imperatorum apophthegmata_, (Memorable sayings of kings
-    and commanders).
-
-    _Apophthegmata Laconica_, (Memorable sayings of Spartans).
-
-    _Instituta Laconica_, (The ancient customs of the Lacedaemonians).
-
-    _Lacænarum apophthegmata_, (Memorable sayings of Spartan women).
-
-    _Mulierum virtutes_, (Heroic deeds of women).
-
-    _Ætia Romana_, (A list of topics, Roman).
-
-    _Ætia Græca_, (A list of topics, Greek).
-
-    _Parallela Græca et Romana_, (A collection of Greek and Roman
-    historical parallels).
-
-    _De fortuna Romanorum_, (On the good fortune of the Romans).
-
-    _De Alexandri magni fortuna aut virtute, oratio I et II_, (On the
-    good fortune or valor of Alexander the Great, discourses I and II).
-
-    _Bellone an pace clariores fuerint Athenienses_, (Were the Athenians
-    more distinguished in war or in wisdom)?
-
-    _De Iside et Osiride,_ (Concerning Isis and Osiris).
-
-
-VOLUME III.
-
-    _De E apud Delphos_, (On the E at Delphi).
-
-    _De Pythia oraculis_, (On the cessation of the Pythian oracles in
-    meter).
-
-    _De defectu oraculorum_, (On the cessation of oracles).
-
-    _An virtus doceri possit_, (Can virtue be taught)?
-
-    _De virtute morali_, (On moral virtue).
-
-    _De cohibenda ira_, (On the control of the temper).
-
-    _De tranquillitate animi_, (On peace of mind).
-
-    _De fraterno amore_, (On fraternal love).
-
-    _De amore prolis_, (On the love of offspring).
-
-    _An vitiositas ad infelicitatem sufficiat_, (Does vice of itself
-    make men unhappy)?
-
-    _Animine an corporis affectiones sint peiores_, (Are the sufferings
-    of the mind more grievous than those of the body)?
-
-    _De garrulitate_, (On talkativeness).
-
-    _De curiositate_, (On meddlesomness).
-
-    _De cupiditate divitiarum_, (On the love of riches).
-
-    _De vitioso pudore_, (On excess of modesty).
-
-    _De invidia et odio_, (Concerning envy and hatred).
-
-    _De se ipsum citra invidiam laudando_, (On praising one’s self
-    without reproach).
-
-    _De sera numinis vindicta_, (Concerning those whom God is slow to
-    punish).
-
-    _De fato_, (On fate).
-
-    _De genio Socratis_, (On the tutelary deity of Socrates).
-
-    _De exilio_, (On exile).
-
-    _Consolatio ad uxorem_, (A letter of condolence to his wife).
-
-
-VOLUME IV.
-
-    _Questionum convivialium libri IX_, (Nine books of table-talk).
-
-    _Amatorius_, (A dialogue on love).
-
-    _Amatoriae narrationes_, (Love stories).
-
-
-VOLUME V.
-
-    _Maxime cum principibus philosopho esse disserendum_, (On the
-    proposition that the philosopher ought chiefly to converse with
-    rulers).
-
-    _Ad principem ineruditum_, (To an uneducated ruler).
-
-    _An seni res publica gerenda sit_, (Should an old man hold a public
-    office)?
-
-    _Praecepta gerendae rei publicae_, (Political precepts).
-
-    _De unius in re publica dominatione, populari statu et paucorum
-    imperio_, (On monarchy, democracy, and oligarchy).
-
-    _De vitando aere alieno_, (On avoiding debts).
-
-    _X oratorum vitae_, (The lives of the ten orators).
-
-    _De comparatione Aristophanis et Menandri epitome_ (Abstract of a
-    comparison between Aristophanes and Menander).
-
-    _De Herodoti malignitate_, (On the malice of Herodotus).
-
-    _De placitis philosophorum libri V_, (Five books of maxims of the
-    philosophers).
-
-    _Aetia physica_, (Problems in physics).
-
-    _De facie quae in orbe lunae apparet_, (Concerning the face that
-    appears on the moon’s disk).
-
-    _De primo frigido_, (On the origin of cold).
-
-
-VOLUME VI.
-
-    _Aquane an ignis sit utilior_, (Is fire or water the more useful)?
-
-    _Terrestriane an aquatilia animalia sint callidiora_, (Are water or
-    land animals the more cunning)?
-
-    _Bruta animalia ratione uti_, (On the use of reason by brutes).
-
-    _De esu carnium, orationes duo_, (On the eating of flesh, two
-    discourses).
-
-    _Platonicae quaestiones_, (Platonic questions).
-
-    _De animae procreatione in Timaeo_, (On the origin of the soul in
-    the Timaeus).
-
-    _Epitome libri de animae procreatione in Timaeo_, (Abstract of the
-    book on the origin of the soul in the Timaeus).
-
-    _De Stoicorum repugnantiis_, (On contradictions of the Stoics).
-
-    _Compendium libri cui argumentum fuit, Stoicos absurdiora poetis
-    dicere_, (Synopsis of the book the argument of which was, The Stoics
-    utter greater absurdities than the poets).
-
-    _De communibus notitiis adversus Stoicos_, (Concerning the common
-    conceptions against the Stoics).
-
-    _Non posse suaviter vivi secundum Epicurum_, (That it is not
-    possible to live pleasurably according to Epicurus).
-
-    _Adversus Coloten_, (Against Colotes).
-
-    _An recte dictum sit latenter vivendum esse_, (Is it a true saying
-    that one ought to live in seclusion)?
-
-    _De musica_, (On music).
-
-
-VOLUME VII.
-
-    _De fluviorum et montium nominibus et de iis quæ in illis
-    inveniuntur_, (On the names of rivers and mountains and those things
-    that are found in them).
-
-    _De vita et poesi Homeri, Lib. I et II_, (On the life and poetry of
-    Homer).
-
-The two treatises last named fill more than one-third of the volume, the
-remainder being chiefly taken up with fragments, some of them only a few
-lines in length. It also contains the so-called catalogue of Lamprias
-which, including the Parallel lives, assigns 227 different works to
-Plutarch. Volume seven concludes with an index of names. As these
-treatises are usually cited by their Latin titles, they only are given
-above. A complete edition of Plutarch’s Morals, with an introduction by
-R. W. Emerson was published in Boston about twenty-five years ago, under
-the editorial supervision of Professor Goodwin of Harvard University.
-The translations were made by a number of English scholars near the
-close of the seventeenth century. In their revised form they are in the
-main correct and some of them are vigorous and readable.
-
-
-
-
- ● Transcriber’s Notes:
-    ○ Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected.
-    ○ Typographical errors were silently corrected.
-    ○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only
-      when a predominant form was found in this book.
-    ○ Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
-    ○ Footnotes have been moved to follow the sections in which they are
-      referenced.
-
-
-
-
-
-End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Between Heathenism and Christianity, by 
-Charles William Super and Plutarch and Seneca
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