{"schema_version":1,"access":"public","rights":"Public-domain or compatibly licensed source editions; provenance is retained per record.","work":{"slug":"cicero-tusculan","title":"Tusculan Disputations","author":"Marcus Tullius Cicero","tradition":"roman","language":"la","genre":"philosophical dialogue","period":"45 BCE","source_url":"https://raw.githubusercontent.com/PerseusDL/canonical-latinLit/8b536bdf3ed1f43494055efe112433b4a58eab67/data/phi0474/phi049/phi0474.phi049.perseus-lat2.xml","original":{"text":"### Book 1, Chapter 1\n\nSECTION 1\nCum defensionum laboribus senatoriisque muneribus aut omnino aut magna ex parte essem aliquando liberatus, rettuli me, Brute, te hortante maxime ad ea studia, quae retenta animo, remissa temporibus, longo intervallo intermissa revocavi, et cum omnium artium, quae ad rectam vivendi viam pertinerent, ratio et disciplina studio sapientiae, quae philosophia dicitur, contineretur, hoc mihi Latinis litteris inlustrandum putavi, non quia philosophia Graecis et litteris et doctoribus percipi non posset, sed meum semper iudicium fuit omnia nostros aut invenisse per se sapientius quam Graecos aut accepta ab illis fecisse meliora, quae quidem digna statuissent, in quibus elaborarent.\n\nSECTION 2\nNam mores et instituta vitae resque domesticas ac familiaris nos profecto et melius tuemur et lautius, rem vero publicam nostri maiores certe melioribus temperaverunt et institutis et legibus. quid loquar de re militari?  in qua cum virtute nostri multum valuerunt, tum plus etiam disciplina. iam illa, quae natura, non litteris adsecuti sunt, neque cum Graecia neque ulla cum gente sunt conferenda. quae enim tanta gravitas, quae tanta constantia, magnitudo animi, probitas, fides, quae tam excellens in omni genere virtus in ullis fuit, ut sit cum maioribus nostris comparanda?\n\nSECTION 3\nDoctrina Graecia nos et omni litterarum genere superabat; in quo erat facile vincere non repugnantes. nam cum apud Graecos antiquissimum e doctis genus sit poëtarum, siquidem Homerus fuit et Hesiodus ante Romam conditam, Archilochus regnante Romulo, serius poëticam nos accepimus. annis fere cccccx  post Romam conditam Livius fabulam dedit C. Claudio, Caeci filio, M. Tuditano cos. anno ante natum Ennium. qui fuit maior natu quam Plautus et Naevius.\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 2\n\nsero igitur a nostris poëtae vel cogniti vel recepti. quamquam est in Originibus solitos esse in epulis canere convivas ad tibicinem de clarorum hominum virtutibus; honorem tamen huic generi non fuisse declarat oratio Catonis, in qua obiecit ut probrum M. Nobiliori, quod is in provinciam poëtas duxisset; duxerat autem consul ille in Aetoliam, ut scimus, Ennium. quo minus igitur honoris erat poëtis, eo minora studia fuerunt, nec tamen, si qui magnis ingeniis in eo genere extiterunt,\n\nSECTION 4\nnon satis Graecorum gloriae responderunt. an censemus, si Fabio, nobilissimo homini, laudi datum esset, quod pingeret, non multos etiam apud nos futuros Polyclitos et Parrhasios fuisse? honos alit artes, omnesque incenduntur  ad studia gloria, iacentque ea semper, quae apud quosque improbantur. summam eruditionem Graeci sitam censebant in nervorum vocumque cantibus; igitur et Epaminondas, princeps meo iudicio Graeciae, fidibus praeclare cecinisse dicitur, Themistoclesque aliquot ante annos cum in epulis recusaret lyram, est habitus indoctior. ergo in Graecia musici floruerunt, discebantque id omnes, nec qui nesciebat satis excultus doctrina putabatur.\n\nSECTION 5\nin summo apud illos honore geometria fuit, itaque nihil mathematicis inlustrius; at nos metiendi ratiocinandique utilitate huius artis terminavimus modum.\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 3\n\nAt contra oratorem celeriter complexi sumus, nec eum primo eruditum, aptum tamen ad dicendum, post autem eruditum.  nam Galbam Africanum Laelium doctos fuisse traditum est, studiosum autem eum, qui is aetate anteibat, Catonem, post vero Lepidum Carbonem Gracchos, inde ita magnos nostram ad aetatem, ut non multum aut nihil omnino Graecis cederetur. Philosophia iacuit usque ad hanc aetatem nec ullum habuit lumen litterarum Latinarum; quae inlustranda et excitanda nobis est, ut, si occupati profuimus aliquid civibus nostris, prosimus etiam, si possumus, otiosi.\n\nSECTION 6\nin quo eo magis nobis est elaborandum, quod multi iam esse libri Latini dicuntur scripti inconsiderate ab optimis illis quidem viris, sed non satis eruditis. fieri autem potest, ut recte quis sentiat et id  quod sentit polite eloqui non possit; sed mandare quemquam litteris cogitationes suas, qui eas nec disponere nec inlustrare possit nec delectatione aliqua allicere lectorem, hominis est intemperanter abutentis et otio et litteris. itaque suos libros ipsi legunt cum suis, nec quisquam attingit praeter eos, qui eandem licentiam scribendi sibi permitti volunt. quare si aliquid oratoriae laudis nostra attulimus industria, multo studiosius philosophiae fontis aperiemus, e quibus etiam illa manabant.\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 4\n\nSECTION 7\nSed ut Aristoteles, vir summo ingenio, scientia, copia, cum motus esset Isocratis rhetoris gloria, dicere docere etiam coepit adulescentes et prudentiam cum eloquentia iungere, sic nobis placet nec pristinum dicendi studium deponere et in hac maiore et uberiore arte versari. hanc enim perfectam philosophiam semper iudicavi, quae de maximis quaestionibus copiose posset ornateque dicere; in quam exercitationem ita nos studiose [operam] dedimus, ut iam etiam scholas Graecorum more habere auderemus. ut nuper tuum post discessum in Tusculano cum essent complures mecum familiares, temptavi, quid in eo genere possem. ut enim antea declamitabam causas, quod nemo me diutius fecit, sic haec mihi nunc senilis est declamatio. ponere iubebam, de quo quis audire vellet; ad id aut sedens aut ambulans disputabam.\n\nSECTION 8\nitaque dierum quinque scholas, ut Graeci appellant, in totidem libros contuli. fiebat autem ita ut, cum is qui audire  vellet dixisset, quid sibi videretur, tum ego contra dicerem. haec est enim, ut scis, vetus et Socratica ratio contra alterius opinionem disserendi. nam ita facillime, quid veri simillimum esset, inveniri posse Socrates arbitrabatur. Sed quo commodius disputationes nostrae explicentur, sic eas exponam, quasi agatur res, non quasi narretur. ergo ita nascetur exordium:\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 5\n\nMalum mihi videtur esse mors.\n\nSECTION 9\nIsne, qui mortui sunt, an is, quibus moriendum est?\n\nUtrisque.\n\nEst miserum igitur, quoniam malum.\n\nCerte.\n\nErgo et i, quibus evenit iam ut morerentur, et i, quibus eventurum est, miseri.\n\nMihi ita videtur.\n\nNemo ergo non miser.\n\nProrsus nemo.\n\nEt quidem, si tibi constare vis, omnes, quicumque nati sunt eruntve, non solum miseri, sed etiam semper miseri. nam si solos eos diceres miseros quibus moriendum esset, neminem tu quidem eorum qui viverent exciperes—moriendum est enim omnibus—, esset tamen miseriae finis in morte. quoniam autem etiam mortui miseri sunt, in miseriam nascimur sempiternam. necesse est enim miseros esse eos qui centum milibus annorum ante occiderunt, vel potius omnis, quicumque nati sunt.\n\nIta prorsus existimo.\n\nDic quaeso:\n\nSECTION 10\nnum te illa terrent, triceps apud inferos Cerberus, Cocyti fremitus, travectio  Acherontis, ‘mento summam aquam  attingens enectus siti’ Tantalus?   tum  illud, quod ‘Sisyphus versat saxum sudans nitendo neque proficit hilum?’  fortasse etiam inexorabiles iudices, Minos et Rhadamanthus? apud quos nec te L. Crassus defendet nec M. Antonius nec, quoniam apud Graecos iudices res agetur, poteris adhibere Demosthenen; tibi ipsi pro te erit maxima corona causa dicenda. haec fortasse metuis et idcirco mortem censes esse sempiternum malum.\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 6\n\nAdeone me delirare censes, ut ista esse credam?\n\nAn tu haec non credis?\n\nMinime vero.\n\nMale hercule narras.\n\nCur? quaeso.\n\nQuia disertus esse possem, si contra ista dicerem.\n\nQuis enim non in eius modi causa? aut quid negotii est haec poëtarum et pictorum portenta convincere?\n\nSECTION 11\nAtqui pleni libri sunt contra ista ipsa disserentium philosophorum.\n\nInepte sane. quis enim est tam excors, quem ista moveant?\n\nSi ergo apud inferos miseri non sunt, ne sunt quidem apud inferos ulli.\n\nIta prorsus existimo.\n\nUbi sunt ergo i, quos miseros dicis, aut quem locum incolunt? si enim sunt, nusquam esse non possunt.\n\nEgo vero nusquam esse illos puto.\n\nIgitur ne esse quidem?\n\nProrsus isto modo, et tamen miseros ob id ipsum quidem, quia nulli sint.\n\nSECTION 12\nIam mallem Cerberum metueres quam ista tam inconsiderate diceres.\n\nQuid tandem?\n\nQuem esse negas, eundem esse dicis. ubi est acumen tuum? cum enim miserum esse dicis, tum eum qui non sit dicis esse.\n\nNon sum ita hebes, ut istud dicam.\n\nQuid dicis igitur?\n\nMiserum esse verbi causa M. Crassum, qui illas fortunas morte dimiserit, miserum Cn. Pompeium, qui tanta gloria sit orbatus, omnis denique miseros, qui hac luce careant.\n\nRevolveris eodem. sint enim oportet, si miseri sunt; tu autem modo negabas eos esse, qui mortui essent. Si igitur non sunt, nihil possunt esse; ita ne miseri quidem sunt.\n\nNon dico fortasse etiam, quod sentio; nam istuc ipsum, non esse, cum fueris, miserrimum puto.\n\nQuid?\n\nSECTION 13\nmiserius quam omnino numquam fuisse? ita, qui nondum nati sunt, miseri iam sunt, quia non sunt, et nos, si post mortem miseri futuri sumus, miseri fuimus ante quam nati. ego autem non commemini, ante quam sum natus, me miserum; tu si meliore memoria es, velim scire, ecquid de te recordere.\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 7\n\nIta iocaris, quasi ego dicam eos miseros, qui nati non sint, et non eos miseros, qui mortui sunt.\n\nEsse ergo eos dicis.\n\nImmo, quia non sint, cum fuerint, eo miseros esse.\n\nPugnantia te loqui non vides? quid enim tam pugnat, quam non modo miserum, sed omnino quicquam esse, qui non sit? an tu egressus porta Capena cum Calatini Scipionum Serviliorum Metellorum sepulcra vides, miseros putas illos?\n\nQuoniam me verbo premis, posthac non ita dicam, miseros esse, sed tantum miseros, ob id ipsum, quia non sint.\n\nNon dicis igitur: ‘miser est M. Crassus’, sed tantum: ‘miser M. Crassus’?\n\nIta plane.\n\nQuasi non necesse sit, quicquid isto modo pronunties, id aut esse aut non esse! an tu dialecticis ne imbutus quidem es?\n\nSECTION 14\nin primis enim hoc traditur: omne pronuntiatum (sic enim mihi in praesentia occurrit ut appellarem ἀξίωμα, utar post alio, si invenero melius) —id ergo est pronuntiatum, quod est verum aut falsum. cum igitur dicis: ‘miser M. Crassus’, aut hoc dicis: ‘miser est Crassus’, ut possit iudicari, verum id falsumne sit, aut nihil dicis omnino.\n\nAge, iam concedo non esse miseros, qui mortui sint, quoniam extorsisti, ut faterer, qui omnino non essent, eos ne miseros quidem esse posse. quid? qui vivimus, cum moriendum sit, nonne miseri sumus? quae enim potest in vita esse iucunditas, cum dies et noctes cogitandum sit iam iamque esse moriendum?\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 8\n\nEcquid ergo intellegis, quantum mali de humana condicione deieceris?\n\nSECTION 15\nQuonam modo?\n\nQuia, si mors etiam mortuis miserum esset, infinitum quoddam et sempiternum malum haberemus in vita; nunc video calcem, ad quam cum sit decursum, nihil sit praeterea extimescendum. sed tu mihi videris Epicharmi, acuti nec insulsi hominis ut Siculi, sententiam sequi.\n\nQuam? non enim novi.\n\nDicam, si potero, Latine. scis enim me Graece loqui in Latino sermone non plus solere quam in Graeco Latine.\n\nEt recte quidem. sed quae tandem est Epicharmi ista sententia?\nÉmori noló, sed me esse mórtuum nihil aéstimo.\n\nIam adgnosco Graecum. sed quoniam coëgisti, ut concederem, qui mortui essent, eos miseros non esse, perfice, si potes, ut ne moriendum quidem esse miserum putem.\n\nSECTION 16\nIam istuc quidem nihil negotii est, sed ego maiora molior.\n\nQuo modo hoc nihil negotii est? aut quae sunt tandem ista maiora?\n\nQuia, quoniam post mortem mali nihil est, ne mors quidem est malum, cui proxumum tempus est post mortem, in quo mali nihil esse concedis: ita ne moriendum quidem esse malum est; id  est enim perveniendum esse ad id, quod non esse malum confitemur.\n\nUberius ista, quaeso. haec enim spinosiora, prius ut confitear me cogunt quam ut adsentiar. sed quae sunt ea, quae dicis te maiora moliri?\n\nUt doceam, si possim, non modo malum non esse, sed bonum etiam esse mortem.\n\nNon postulo id quidem, aveo tamen audire. ut enim non efficias quod vis, tamen, mors ut malum non sit, efficies. sed nihil te interpellabo; continentem orationem audire malo.\n\nQuid, si te rogavero aliquid?\n\nSECTION 17\nnonne respondebis?\n\nSuperbum id quidem est, sed, nisi quid necesse erit, malo non roges.\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 9\n\nGeram tibi morem et ea quae vis, ut potero, explicabo, nec tamen quasi Pythius Apollo, certa ut sint et fixa, quae dixero, sed ut homunculus unus e multis probabilia coniectura sequens. ultra enim quo progrediar, quam ut veri similia videam, non habeo; certa dicent i, qui et percipi ea posse dicunt et se sapientis esse profitentur.\n\nTu, ut videtur; nos ad audiendum parati sumus.\n\nSECTION 18\nMors igitur ipsa, quae videtur notissima res esse, quid sit, primum est videndum. sunt enim qui discessum animi a corpore putent esse mortem; sunt qui nullum censeant fieri discessum, sed una animum et corpus occidere, animumque in corpore extingui. qui discedere animum censent, alii statim dissipari, alii diu permanere, alii semper. quid sit porro ipse animus aut ubi aut unde, magna dissensio est. aliis cor  ipsum animus videtur, ex quo excordes, vecordes concordesque dicuntur et Nasica ille prudens bis consul ‘Corculum’ et ‘egregie cordatus homo, catus Aelius Sextus’. Empedocles animum esse censet cordi suffusum sanguinem; aliis pars quaedam cerebri visa est animi principatum tenere; aliis nec cor ipsum placet nec cerebri quandam partem esse animum,\n\nSECTION 19\nsed alii in corde, alii in cerebro dixerunt animi esse sedem et locum; animum autem alii animam, ut fere nostri— declarat nomen: nam et agere animam et efflare dicimus et animosos et bene animatos et ex animi sententia; ipse autem animus ab anima dictus est—; Zenoni Stoico animus ignis videtur.\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 10\n\nsed haec quidem quae dixi, cor, cerebrum, animam, ignem volgo, reliqua fere singuli. ut multo ante veteres, proxime autem Aristoxenus, musicus idemque philosophus, ipsius corporis intentionem quandam, velut in cantu et fidibus quae ἁρμονία  dicitur: sic ex corporis totius natura et figura varios motus cieri tamquam in cantu sonos.\n\nSECTION 20\nhic ab artificio suo non recessit et tamen dixit aliquid, quod ipsum quale esset erat multo ante et dictum et explanatum a Platone. Xenocrates animi figuram et quasi corpus negavit esse ullum, numerum dixit esse, cuius vis, ut iam ante Pythagorae visum erat, in natura maxuma esset. eius doctor Plato triplicem finxit animum, cuius principatum, id est rationem, in capite sicut in arce posuit, et duas partes parere voluit, iram et  cupiditatem, quas locis disclusit: iram in pectore, cupiditatem supter praecordia locavit.\n\nSECTION 21\nDicaearchus  autem in eo sermone, quem Corinthi habitum tribus libris exponit, doctorum hominum disputantium primo libro multos loquentes facit; duobus Pherecratem quendam Phthiotam senem, quem ait a Deucalione ortum, disserentem inducit nihil esse omnino animum, et hoc esse nomen totum inane, frustraque animalia et animantis appellari, neque in homine inesse animum vel animam nec in bestia, vimque omnem eam, qua vel agamus quid vel sentiamus, in omnibus corporibus vivis aequabiliter esse fusam nec separabilem a corpore esse, quippe quae nulla sit, nec sit quicquam nisi corpus unum et simplex, ita figuratum ut temperatione naturae vigeat et sentiat.\n\nSECTION 22\nAristoteles, longe omnibus—Platonem semper excipio—praestans et ingenio et diligentia, cum quattuor nota illa genera principiorum esset complexus, e quibus omnia orerentur, quintam quandam naturam censet esse, e qua  sit mens; cogitare enim et providere et discere et docere et invenire aliquid et tam multa [alia] meminisse, amare odisse, cupere timere, angi laetari, haec et similia eorum in horum quattuor generum inesse nullo putat; quintum genus adhibet vacans nomine et sic ipsum  animum ἐνδελέχειαν  appellat novo nomine quasi quandam continuatam motionem et perennem.\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 11\n\nNisi quae me forte fugiunt, haec sunt fere de animo sententiae. Democritum enim, magnum illum quidem virum, sed levibus et rotundis corpusculis efficientem animum concursu quodam fortuito, omittamus; nihil est enim apud istos, quod non atomorum turba conficiat.\n\nSECTION 23\nHarum sententiarum quae vera sit, deus aliqui viderit; quae veri simillima, magna quaestio est. utrum igitur inter has sententias diiudicare malumus an ad propositum redire?\n\nCuperem equidem utrumque, si posset, sed est difficile confundere. quare si, ut ista non disserantur, liberari mortis metu possumus, id agamus; sin id non potest nisi hac quaestione animorum explicata, nunc, si videtur, hoc, illud alias.\n\nQuod malle te intellego, id puto esse commodius; efficiet enim ratio ut, quaecumque vera sit earum sententiarum quas exposui, mors aut malum non sit aut sit bonum potius.\n\nSECTION 24\nnam si cor aut sanguis aut cerebrum est animus, certe, quoniam est corpus, interibit cum reliquo corpore; si anima est, fortasse dissipabitur; si ignis, extinguetur; si est Aristoxeni harmonia, dissolvetur. quid de Dicaearcho dicam, qui nihil omnino animum dicat esse? his sententiis omnibus nihil post mortem pertinere ad quemquam potest; pariter enim cum vita sensus amittitur; non sentientis  autem nihil est ullam in partem quod intersit. reliquorum sententiae spem adferunt, si te hoc forte delectat, posse animos, cum e corporibus excesserint, in caelum quasi in domicilium suum pervenire.\n\nMe vero delectat, idque primum ita esse velim, deinde, etiamsi non sit, mihi persuaderi tamen velim.\n\nQuid tibi ergo opera nostra opus est? num eloquentia Platonem superare possumus? evolve diligenter eius eum librum, qui est de animo: amplius quod desideres nihil erit.\n\nFeci mehercule, et quidem saepius; sed nescio quo modo, dum lego, adsentior, cum posui librum et mecum ipse de inmortalitate animorum coepi cogitare, adsensio omnis illa elabitur.\n\nQuid?\n\nSECTION 25\nhoc dasne aut manere animos post mortem aut morte ipsa interire?\n\nDo vero.\n\nQuid, si maneant?\n\nBeatos esse concedo.\n\nSin intereant?\n\nNon esse miseros, quoniam ne sint quidem; iam istuc coacti a te paulo ante concessimus.\n\nQuo modo igitur aut cur mortem malum tibi videri dicis? quae aut beatos nos efficiet animis manentibus aut non miseros sensu carentis.\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 12\n\nSECTION 26\nExpone igitur, nisi molestum est,\nprimum, si potes, animos remanere post mortem, tum, si minus id obtinebis—est enim arduum—, docebis carere omni malo mortem.\nego enim istuc ipsum vereor ne malum sit non dico carere sensu, sed carendum esse.\n\nAuctoribus quidem ad istam sententiam, quam vis obtineri, uti optimis possumus, quod in omnibus causis  et debet et solet valere plurimum, et primum quidem omni antiquitate, quae quo propius aberat ab ortu et divina progenie, hoc melius ea fortasse quae erant vera cernebant.\n\nItaque unum illud erat insitum priscis illis, quos cascos appellat Ennius, esse in morte sensum neque excessu vitae sic deleri hominem, ut funditus interiret;\n\nSECTION 27\nidque cum multis aliis rebus, tum e pontificio iure et e caerimoniis sepulcrorum intellegi licet, quas maxumis ingeniis praediti nec tanta cura coluissent nec violatas tam inexpiabili religione sanxissent, nisi haereret in eorum mentibus mortem non interitum esse omnia tollentem atque delentem, sed quandam quasi migrationem commutationemque vitae, quae in claris viris et feminis dux in caelum soleret esse, in ceteris humi retineretur et permaneret tamen.\n\nSECTION 28\nex hoc et nostrorum opinione ‘Romulus in caelo cum diis agit aevum’, ut famae adsentiens dixit Ennius, et apud Graecos indeque perlapsus ad nos et usque ad Oceanum Hercules tantus et tam praesens habetur deus; hinc Liber Semela natus eademque famae celebritate Tyndaridae fratres, qui non modo adiutores in proeliis victoriae populi Romani, sed etiam nuntii fuisse perhibentur. quid? Ino Cadmi filia nonne Λευκοθέα nominata a Graecis Matuta habetur a nostris? quid? totum prope caelum, ne pluris persequar, nonne humano genere completum est?\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 13\n\nSECTION 29\nsi vero scrutari vetera et ex is ea quae scriptores Graeciae prodiderunt eruere  coner, ipsi illi maiorum gentium dii qui habentur hinc nobis profecti in caelum reperientur. quaere, quorum demonstrentur  sepulcra in Graecia; reminiscere, quoniam es initiatus, quae tradantur mysteriis: tum denique, quam hoc late pateat, intelleges. sed qui nondum ea quae multis post annis <homines> tractare coepissent physica didicissent, tantum sibi persuaserant, quantum natura admonente cognoverant, rationes et causas rerum non tenebant, visis quibusdam saepe movebantur, isque maxime nocturnis, ut viderentur ei,  qui vita excesserant, vivere.\n\nSECTION 30\nUt porro firmissimum hoc adferri videtur cur deos esse credamus, quod nulla gens tam fera, nemo omnium tam sit inmanis, cuius mentem non imbuerit deorum opinio (multi de diis prava sentiunt—id enim vitioso more effici solet—, omnes tamen esse vim et naturam divinam arbitrantur, nec vero id conlocutio hominum aut consessus efficit, non institutis opinio est confirmata, non legibus; omni autem in re consensio omnium gentium lex naturae putanda est)—quis est igitur, qui suorum mortem primum non eo lugeat, quod eos orbatos vitae commodis arbitretur? tolle  hanc opinionem, luctum sustuleris. nemo enim maeret suo incommodo: dolent fortasse et anguntur, sed illa lugubris lamentatio fletusque maerens ex eo est, quod eum, quem dileximus, vitae commodis privatum arbitramur idque sentire. atque haec ita sentimus natura duce, nulla ratione nullaque doctrina.\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 14\n\nSECTION 31\nMaxumum vero argumentum est naturam ipsam de inmortalitate animorum tacitam iudicare, quod omnibus curae sunt, et maxumae quidem, quae post mortem futura sint. ‘serit arbores, quae alteri saeclo prosint’, ut ait <Statius> in Synephebis, quid spectans nisi etiam postera saecula ad se pertinere? ergo arbores seret diligens agricola, quarum aspiciet bacam ipse numquam; vir magnus leges instituta rem publicam non seret?  quid procreatio liberorum, quid propagatio nominis, quid adoptationes filiorum, quid testamentorum diligentia, quid ipsa sepulcrorum monumenta elogia significant nisi nos futura etiam cogitare?\n\nQuid?\n\nSECTION 32\nillud num dubitas, quin specimen naturae capi deceat ex optima quaque natura? quae est melior igitur in hominum genere natura quam eorum, qui se natos ad homines iuvandos tutandos conservandos arbitrantur? abiit ad deos Hercules: numquam abisset, nisi, cum inter homines esset, eam sibi viam munivisset. vetera iam ista et religione omnium consecrata:\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 15\n\nquid in hac re p. tot tantosque viros ob rem p. interfectos cogitasse arbitramur? isdemne ut finibus nomen suum quibus vita terminaretur? nemo umquam sine magna spe inmortalitatis se pro patria offerret  ad mortem.\n\nSECTION 33\nlicuit esse otioso Themistocli, licuit Epaminondae, licuit, ne et vetera et externa quaeram, mihi; sed nescio quo modo inhaeret in mentibus quasi saeclorum quoddam augurium futurorum, idque in maximis ingeniis altissimisque animis et existit maxime et apparet facillime. quo quidem dempto quis tam esset amens, qui semper in laboribus et periculis viveret?\n\nSECTION 34\nloquor de principibus; quid? poëtae nonne post mortem nobilitari volunt? unde ergo illud:\nAspicite, o cives, senis Enni  imaginis formam:\nHic vestrum panxit maxima facta patrum?\nmercedem gloriae flagitat ab is quorum patres adfecerat gloria, idemque:\nNemo me lacrimis […]\nCur? volito vivos per ora virum.\nsed quid poëtas? opifices post mortem nobilitari volunt. quid enim Phidias sui similem speciem inclusit in clupeo Minervae, cum inscribere <nomen>  non liceret? quid? nostri philosophi nonne in is libris ipsis, quos scribunt de contemnenda gloria, sua nomina inscribunt?\n\nSECTION 35\nQuodsi omnium consensus naturae vox est, omnesque qui ubique sunt consentiunt esse aliquid, quod ad eos pertineat qui vita cesserint, nobis quoque idem existimandum est, et si, quorum aut ingenio aut virtute  animus excellit, eos arbitrabimur, quia natura optima sint, cernere naturae vim maxume, veri simile est, cum optumus quisque maxume posteritati serviat, esse aliquid, cuius is post mortem sensum sit habiturus.\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 16\n\nSECTION 36\nSed ut deos esse natura opinamur, qualesque sint, ratione cognoscimus, sic permanere animos arbitramur consensu nationum omnium, qua in sede maneant qualesque sint, ratione discendum est. cuius ignoratio finxit inferos easque formidines, quas tu contemnere non sine causa videbare. in terram enim cadentibus corporibus isque humo tectis, e quo dictum est humari, sub terra censebant reliquam vitam agi mortuorum; quam eorum opinionem magni errores consecuti sunt, quos auxerunt poëtae.\n\nSECTION 37\nfrequens enim consessus  theatri, in quo sunt mulierculae et pueri, movetur audiens tam grande carmen:\nÁdsum atque advenio Ácherunte víx via alta atque árdua\nPér speluncas sáxis structas ásperis pendéntibus\nMáxumis, ubi rígida constat crássa caligo ínferum,\ntantumque valuit error—qui mihi quidem iam sublatus videtur—, ut, corpora cremata cum scirent, tamen ea fieri apud inferos fingerent, quae sine corporibus nec fieri possent nec intellegi. animos enim per se ipsos viventis non poterant mente complecti, formam aliquam figuramque quaerebant. inde Homeri tota νέκυια, inde ea quae meus amicus Appius νεκυομαντεῖα faciebat, inde in vicinia nostra Averni lacus,\núnde animae excitántur obscura úmbra opertae,  imágines\nmórtuorum, alto óstio  Acherúntis, salso sánguine.\nhas tamen imagines loqui volunt, quod fieri nec sine lingua nec sine palato nec sine faucium laterum pulmonum vi et figura potest. nihil enim animo videre poterant, ad oculos omnia referebant.\n\nSECTION 38\nMagni autem est ingenii sevocare mentem a sensibus et cogitationem ab consuetudine abducere.  itaque credo equidem etiam alios tot saeculis, sed quod litteris exstet, Pherecydes Syrius primus dixit animos esse hominum sempiternos, antiquus sane; fuit enim meo regnante gentili. hanc opinionem discipulus eius Pythagoras maxime confirmavit, qui cum Superbo regnante in Italiam venisset, tenuit Magnam illam Graeciam cum [honore] disciplina, tum etiam auctoritate, multaque saecula postea sic viguit Pythagoreorum nomen, ut nulli alii docti viderentur.\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 17\n\nsed redeo ad antiquos. rationem illi sententiae suae non fere reddebant, nisi quid erat numeris aut descriptionibus explicandum:\n\nSECTION 39\nPlatonem ferunt, ut Pythagoreos cognosceret, in Italiam venisse et didicisse Pythagorea omnia primumque  de animorum aeternitate non solum sensisse idem quod Pythagoram, sed rationem etiam attulisse. quam, nisi quid dicis, praetermittamus et hanc totam spem inmortalitatis relinquamus.\n\nAn tu cum me in summam exspectationem adduxeris, deseris? errare mehercule  malo cum Platone, quem tu quanti facias scio et quem ex tuo ore admiror, quam cum istis vera sentire.\n\nSECTION 40\nMacte virtute! ego enim ipse cum eodem ipso non invitus erraverim. num igitur dubitamus—? an sicut pleraque? quamquam hoc quidem minime; persuadent enim mathematici terram in medio mundo sitam ad universi caeli complexum quasi puncti instar optinere, quod κέντρον  illi vocant; eam porro naturam esse quattuor omnia gignentium corporum, ut, quasi partita habeant inter se ac divisa momenta, terrena et umida suopte nutu et suo pondere ad paris angulos in terram et in mare ferantur, reliquae duae partes, una ignea altera animalis, ut illae superiores in medium locum mundi gravitate ferantur et pondere, sic hae rursum rectis lineis in caelestem locum subvolent, sive ipsa natura superiora adpetente sive quod a gravioribus leviora natura repellantur. quae cum constent, perspicuum debet esse animos, cum e corpore excesserint, sive illi sint animales, id est spirabiles,  sive ignei, sublime ferri.\n\nSECTION 41\nsi vero aut numerus quidam sit animus, quod subtiliter magis quam dilucide dicitur, aut quinta illa non nominata magis quam non intellecta natura, multo etiam integriora ac puriora sunt, ut a terra longissime se ecferant.  Horum igitur aliquid […] animus, ne tam vegeta  mens aut in corde cerebrove aut in Empedocleo sanguine demersa iaceat.\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 18\n\nDicaearchum vero cum Aristoxeno aequali et condiscipulo suo, doctos sane homines, omittamus; quorum alter ne condoluisse quidem umquam videtur, qui animum se habere non sentiat, alter ita delectatur suis cantibus, ut eos etiam ad haec transferre conetur. harmonian  autem ex intervallis sonorum nosse possumus, quorum varia compositio etiam harmonias efficit pluris; membrorum vero situs et figura corporis vacans animo quam possit harmoniam efficere, non video. sed hic quidem, quamvis eruditus sit, sicut est, haec magistro concedat Aristoteli, canere ipse doceat; bene enim illo Graecorum proverbio praecipitur: ‘quam quisque norit artem, in hac se exerceat.’\n\nSECTION 42\nillam vero funditus eiciamus individuorum corporum levium et rutundorum concursionem fortuitam, quam tamen Democritus concalefactam et spirabilem, id est animalem, esse volt. is autem animus, qui, si est horum quattuor generum, ex quibus omnia constare  dicuntur, ex inflammata anima constat, ut potissimum videri video Panaetio, superiora capessat necesse est. nihil enim habent haec duo genera proni et supera semper petunt. ita, sive dissipantur, procul a terris id evenit, sive permanent et conservant habitum suum, hoc etiam magis necesse est ferantur ad caelum et ab is perrumpatur et dividatur crassus hic et concretus aër, qui est terrae proximus. calidior est enim vel potius ardentior animus quam est hic aër, quem modo dixi crassum atque concretum; quod ex eo sciri potest, quia corpora nostra terreno principiorum genere confecta ardore animi concalescunt.\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 19\n\nSECTION 43\naccedit ut eo facilius animus evadat ex hoc aëre, quem saepe iam appello, eumque perrumpat, quod nihil est animo velocius, nulla est celeritas quae possit cum animi celeritate contendere. qui si permanet incorruptus suique similis, necesse est ita feratur, ut penetret et dividat omne caelum hoc, in quo nubes imbres ventique coguntur, quod et umidum  et caliginosum est propter exhalationes terrae.\n\nQuam regionem cum superavit animus naturamque sui similem contigit et adgnovit, iunctis ex anima tenui et ex ardore solis temperato ignibus insistit et finem altius se ecferendi facit. cum enim sui similem et levitatem et calorem adeptus <est>, tamquam paribus examinatus ponderibus nullam in partem movetur, eaque ei demum naturalis est sedes, cum ad sui simile penetravit; in quo nulla re egens aletur et sustentabitur isdem rebus, quibus astra sustentantur et aluntur.\n\nCumque corporis facibus inflammari soleamus ad omnis fere cupiditates eoque magis incendi, quod is aemulemur, qui ea habeant quae nos habere cupiamus, profecto beati erimus, cum corporibus relictis et cupiditatum et aemulationum erimus expertes;\n\nSECTION 44\nquodque nunc facimus, cum laxati curis sumus, ut spectare aliquid velimus et visere, id multo tum faciemus liberius totosque nos in contemplandis rebus perspiciendisque ponemus, propterea quod et natura inest in mentibus nostris insatiabilis quaedam cupiditas veri videndi et orae ipsae locorum illorum, quo pervenerimus, quo faciliorem nobis cognitionem rerum caelestium, eo maiorem cognoscendi cupiditatem dabant.\n\nSECTION 45\nhaec enim pulchritudo etiam in terris ‘patritam’  illam et ‘avitam’, ut ait Theophrastus, philosophiam cognitionis cupiditate incensam excitavit. praecipue vero fruentur ea, qui tum etiam, cum has terras incolentes circumfusi erant caligine, tamen acie mentis dispicere cupiebant.\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 20\n\nEtenim si nunc aliquid adsequi se putant, qui ostium Ponti viderunt et eas angustias, per quas penetravit ea quae est nominata\nArgó, quia Argivi ín ea delectí viri\nVectí petebant péllem inauratam árietis,\naut i qui Oceani freta illa viderunt, ‘Europam Libyamque rapax ubi dividit unda’, quod tandem spectaculum fore putamus, cum totam terram contueri licebit eiusque cum situm, formam, circumscriptionem, tum et habitabiles regiones et rursum omni cultu propter vim frigoris aut caloris vacantis?\n\nSECTION 46\nnos enim ne  nunc quidem oculis cernimus ea quae videmus; neque est enim ullus sensus in corpore, sed, ut non physici solum docent verum etiam medici, qui ista aperta et patefacta viderunt, viae quasi quaedam sunt ad oculos, ad auris, ad naris a sede animi perforatae. itaque saepe aut cogitatione aut aliqua vi morbi impediti apertis atque integris et oculis et auribus nec videmus nec audimus, ut facile intellegi possit animum et videre et audire, non eas partis quae quasi fenestrae sint animi, quibus tamen sentire nihil queat mens, nisi id agat et adsit. quid, quod eadem mente res dissimillimas comprendimus, ut colorem, saporem, calorem, odorem, sonum? quae numquam quinque nuntiis animus cognosceret, nisi ad eum omnia referrentur et is omnium iudex solus esset. atque ea profecto tum multo puriora et dilucidiora cernentur, cum, quo natura fert, liber animus pervenerit.\n\nSECTION 47\nnam nunc quidem, quamquam foramina illa, quae patent ad animum a corpore, callidissimo artificio natura fabricata est, tamen terrenis concretisque corporibus sunt intersaepta quodam modo: cum autem nihil erit praeter animum, nulla res obiecta impediet, quo minus percipiat, quale quidque sit.\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 21\n\nQuamvis copiose haec diceremus, si res postularet, quam multa, quam varia, quanta spectacula animus in locis caelestibus esset habiturus.\n\nSECTION 48\nquae quidem cogitans soleo saepe mirari non nullorum insolentiam philosophorum, qui naturae cognitionem admirantur eiusque inventori et principi gratias exultantes agunt eumque venerantur ut deum; liberatos enim se per  eum dicunt gravissimis dominis, terrore sempiterno et diurno ac nocturno metu. quo terrore? quo metu? quae est anus tam delira quae timeat ista, quae vos videlicet, si physica non didicissetis, timeretis, ‘Acherunsia templa alta Orci, pallida leti, nubila tenebris loca’? non pudet philosophum in eo gloriari, quod haec non timeat et quod falsa esse cognoverit? e quo intellegi potest, quam acuti natura sint, quoniam haec sine doctrina credituri fuerunt.\n\nSECTION 49\npraeclarum autem nescio quid adepti sunt, quod didicerunt se, cum tempus mortis venisset, totos esse perituros. quod ut ita sit —nihil enim pugno—, quid habet ista res aut laetabile aut gloriosum? Nec tamen mihi sane quicquam occurrit, cur non Pythagorae sit et Platonis vera sententia. ut enim rationem Plato nullam adferret—vide, quid homini tribuam—, ipsa auctoritate me frangeret: tot autem rationes attulit, ut velle ceteris, sibi certe persuasisse videatur.\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 22\n\nSECTION 50\nSed plurimi contra nituntur animosque quasi capite damnatos morte multant, neque aliud est quicquam cur incredibilis is animorum videatur aeternitas, nisi quod nequeunt qualis animus sit vacans corpore intellegere et cogitatione comprehendere. quasi vero intellegant, qualis sit in ipso corpore, quae conformatio, quae magnitudo, qui locus; ut, si iam possent in homine vivo cerni omnia quae nunc tecta sunt, casurusne in conspectum videatur animus, an tanta  sit eius tenuitas, ut fugiat aciem?\n\nSECTION 51\nhaec reputent isti qui negant animum sine corpore se intellegere posse: videbunt, quem in ipso corpore intellegant. mihi quidem naturam animi intuenti multo difficilior occurrit cogitatio, multo obscurior, qualis animus in corpore sit tamquam alienae domi, quam qualis, cum exierit et in liberum caelum quasi domum suam venerit. si enim, quod numquam vidimus, id quale sit intellegere non possumus, certe et deum ipsum et divinum animum corpore liberatum cogitatione complecti possumus. Dicaearchus quidem et Aristoxenus, quia difficilis erat animi quid aut qualis esset intellegentia, nullum omnino animum esse dixerunt.\n\nSECTION 52\nest illud quidem vel maxumum animo ipso animum videre, et nimirum hanc habet vim praeceptum Apollinis, quo monet ut se quisque noscat. non enim credo id praecipit, ut membra nostra aut staturam figuramve noscamus; neque nos corpora sumus, nec ego tibi haec dicens corpori tuo dico. cum igitur ‘nosce te’ dicit, hoc dicit: ‘nosce animum tuum.’ nam corpus quidem quasi vas est aut aliquod animi receptaculum; ab animo tuo quicquid agitur, id agitur a te. hunc igitur nosse nisi divinum esset, non esset hoc acrioris cuiusdam animi praeceptum tributum deo [sc. hoc se ipsum posse cognoscere].\n\nSECTION 53\nSed si, qualis sit animus, ipse animus nesciet, dic  quaeso, ne esse quidem se sciet, ne moveri quidem se? ex quo illa ratio nata est Platonis, quae a Socrate est in Phaedro explicata, a me autem posita est in sexto libro de re p.:\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 23\n\n“Quod semper movetur, aeternum est; quod autem motum adfert alicui quodque ipsum agitatur aliunde, quando finem habet motus, vivendi finem habeat necesse est. solum igitur, quod se ipsum movet, quia numquam deseritur a se, numquam ne moveri quidem desinit; quin etiam ceteris quae moventur hic fons, hoc principium est movendi.\n\nSECTION 54\nprincipii autem nulla est origo; nam e principio oriuntur omnia, ipsum autem nulla ex re alia nasci potest; nec enim esset id principium, quod gigneretur aliunde. quod si numquam oritur, ne occidit quidem umquam; nam principium extinctum nec ipsum ab alio renascetur nec ex se aliud creabit, siquidem necesse est a principio oriri omnia. ita fit, ut motus principium ex eo sit, quod ipsum a se movetur; id autem nec nasci potest nec mori, vel concidat omne caelum omnisque natura <et>  consistat necesse est nec vim ullam nanciscatur, qua a primo inpulsa moveatur. cum pateat igitur aeternum id esse, quod se ipsum moveat, quis est qui hanc naturam animis esse tributam neget? inanimum est enim omne, quod pulsu agitatur externo; quod autem est animal, id motu cietur interiore  et suo; nam haec est propria natura animi atque vis. quae si est una ex omnibus quae se ipsa [semper]\n\nSECTION 55\nmoveat,  neque nata certe est et aeterna est.” licet concurrant omnes plebei philosophi—sic enim i, qui a Platone et Socrate et ab ea familia dissident, appellandi videntur—, non modo nihil umquam tam eleganter explicabunt, sed ne hoc quidem ipsum quam subtiliter conclusum sit intellegent. sentit igitur animus se moveri; quod cum sentit, illud una sentit, se vi sua, non aliena moveri, nec accidere posse ut ipse umquam a se deseratur. ex quo efficitur aeternitas, nisi quid habes ad haec.\n\nEgo vero facile sim passus ne in mentem quidem mihi aliquid contra venire; ita isti faveo sententiae.\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 24\n\nQuid?\n\nSECTION 56\nilla tandem num leviora censes, quae declarant inesse in animis hominum divina quaedam? quae si cernerem quem ad modum nasci possent, etiam quem ad modum interirent viderem. nam sanguinem bilem pituitam ossa nervos venas, omnem denique membrorum et totius corporis figuram videor posse dicere unde concreta et quo modo facta sint: animum ipsum—si nihil esset in eo nisi id, ut per eum viveremus, tam natura putarem hominis vitam sustentari quam vitis, quam arboris; haec enim etiam dicimus vivere. item si nihil haberet animus hominis nisi ut appeteret aut fugeret, id quoque esset ei commune cum bestiis.\n\nSECTION 57\nHabet primum memoriam, et eam infinitam  rerum innumerabilium. quam quidem Plato recordationem esse volt vitae superioris. nam in illo libro, qui inscribitur Menon, pusionem quendam Socrates interrogat quaedam geometrica de dimensione quadrati. ad ea sic ille respondet ut puer, et tamen ita faciles interrogationes sunt, ut gradatim respondens eodem perveniat, quo si geometrica didicisset. ex quo effici volt Socrates, ut discere nihil aliud sit nisi recordari. quem locum multo etiam accuratius explicat in eo sermone, quem habuit eo ipso die, quo excessit e vita; docet enim quemvis, qui omnium rerum rudis esse videatur, bene interroganti respondentem declarare se non tum illa discere, sed reminiscendo recognoscere, nec vero fieri ullo modo posse, ut a pueris tot rerum atque tantarum insitas et quasi consignatas in animis notiones, quas ἐννοίας  vocant, haberemus, nisi animus, ante quam in corpus intravisset, in rerum cognitione viguisset.\n\nSECTION 58\ncumque nihil esset […], ut omnibus locis a Platone disseritur—nihil enim putat esse, quod oriatur et intereat, idque solum esse, quod semper tale sit quale est (ἰδέαν appellat ille, nos speciem)—, non potuit animus haec in corpore inclusus adgnoscere,  cognita attulit; ex quo tam multarum rerum cognitionis admiratio tollitur. neque ea plane  videt animus, cum repente in tam insolitum tamque perturbatum domicilium inmigravit, sed cum se collegit atque recreavit, tum adgnoscit illa reminiscendo.\n\nSECTION 59\nita nihil est aliud discere nisi recordari. Ego autem maiore etiam quodam modo memoriam admiror. quid est enim illud quo meminimus, aut quam habet vim aut unde nat[ur]am? non quaero, quanta memoria Simonides fuisse dicatur, quanta Theodectes, quanta is, qui a Pyrrho legatus ad senatum est missus, Cineas, quanta nuper Charmadas, quanta, qui modo fuit, Scepsius Metrodorus, quanta noster Hortensius: de communi hominum memoria loquor, et eorum maxume qui in aliquo maiore studio et arte versantur, quorum quanta mens sit, difficile est existimare; ita multa meminerunt.\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 25\n\nSECTION 60\nQuorsus igitur haec spectat oratio? quae sit illa vis et unde sit, intellegendum puto. non est certe nec cordis nec sanguinis nec cerebri nec atomorum; animae sit ignisne nescio, nec me pudet ut istos fateri nescire quod nesciam: illud, si ulla alia de re obscura adfirmare possem, sive anima sive ignis sit animus, eum iurarem esse divinum. quid enim, obsecro te, terrane tibi hoc nebuloso et caliginoso caelo aut sata aut concreta videtur tanta vis memoriae? si quid sit  hoc non vides, at quale sit vides; si ne id quidem, at quantum sit profecto vides.\n\nSECTION 61\nquid igitur? utrum capacitatem aliquam in animo putamus esse, quo tamquam in aliquod vas ea quae meminimus infundantur? absurdum id quidem; qui enim fundus aut quae talis animi figura intellegi potest aut quae tanta omnino capacitas? an inprimi quasi ceram animum putamus, et esse memoriam signatarum rerum in mente vestigia? quae possunt verborum, quae rerum ipsarum esse vestigia, quae porro tam inmensa magnitudo, quae illa tam multa possit effingere?\n\nQuid?\n\nSECTION 62\nilla vis quae tandem est quae investigat occulta, quae inventio atque excogitatio dicitur? ex hacne tibi terrena mortalique natura et caduca concreta ea videtur? aut qui primus, quod summae sapientiae Pythagorae visum est, omnibus rebus imposuit nomina? aut qui dissipatos homines congregavit et ad societatem vitae convocavit, aut qui sonos vocis, qui infiniti videbantur, paucis litterarum notis terminavit, aut qui errantium stellarum cursus praegressiones insti[tu]tiones notavit? omnes magni; etiam superiores, qui fruges, qui vestitum, qui tecta, qui cultum vitae, qui praesidia contra feras invenerunt, a quibus mansuefacti et exculti a necessariis artificiis ad elegantiora defluximus. nam et auribus oblectatio magna parta est inventa et temperata varietate et natura sonorum, et astra suspeximus cum ea quae sunt infixa certis locis, tum illa non re sed vocabulo  errantia, quorum conversiones omnisque motus qui animo vidit, is docuit similem animum suum eius esse, qui ea fabricatus esset in caelo.\n\nSECTION 63\nnam cum Archimedes lunae solis quinque errantium motus in sphaeram inligavit, effecit idem quod ille, qui in Timaeo mundum aedificavit, Platonis deus, ut tarditate et celeritate dissimillimos motus una regeret conversio. quod si in hoc mundo fieri sine deo non potest, ne in sphaera quidem eosdem motus Archimedes sine divino ingenio potuisset imitari.\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 26\n\nSECTION 64\nMihi vero ne haec quidem notiora et inlustriora carere vi divina videntur, ut ego aut poëtam grave plenumque carmen sine caelesti aliquo mentis instinctu putem fundere, aut eloquentiam sine maiore quadam vi fluere abundantem sonantibus verbis uberibusque sententiis. philosophia vero, omnium mater artium, quid est aliud nisi, ut Plato, donum, ut ego, inventum deorum? haec nos primum ad illorum cultum, deinde ad ius hominum, quod situm est in generis humani societate, tum ad modestiam magnitudinemque animi erudivit, eademque ab animo tamquam ab oculis caliginem dispulit, ut omnia supera infera prima ultima media videremus.\n\nSECTION 65\nprorsus haec divina mihi videtur vis, quae tot res efficiat et tantas. quid est enim memoria rerum et verborum? quid porro inventio? profecto id, quo ne in deo quidem quicquam maius intellegi potest. non enim ambrosia deos aut nectare aut Iuventate pocula ministrante laetari arbitror, nec Homerum audio, qui Ganymeden ab dis raptum ait propter formam, ut Iovi bibere ministraret; non iusta causa, cur Laomedonti  tanta fieret iniuria. fingebat haec Homerus et humana ad deos transferebat:  divina mallem ad nos. quae autem divina? vigere, sapere, invenire, meminisse. ergo animus qui..., ut ego dico, divinus est, ut Euripides dicere audet, deus. Et quidem, si deus aut anima aut ignis est, idem est animus hominis. nam ut illa natura caelestis et terra vacat et umore, sic utriusque harum rerum humanus animus est expers; sin autem est quinta quaedam natura, ab Aristotele inducta primum, haec et deorum est et animorum. Hanc nos sententiam secuti his ipsis verbis in Consolatione hoc expressimus:\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 27\n\nSECTION 66\n‘Animorum nulla in terris origo inveniri potest; nihil enim est in animis mixtum atque concretum aut quod ex terra natum atque fictum esse videatur, nihil ne aut umidum quidem aut flabile aut igneum. his enim in naturis nihil inest, quod vim memoriae mentis cogitationis habeat, quod et praeterita teneat et futura provideat et complecti possit praesentia. quae sola divina sunt, nec invenietur umquam, unde ad hominem venire possint nisi a deo.  singularis est igitur quaedam natura atque vis animi seiuncta ab his usitatis notisque naturis. ita, quicquid est illud, quod sentit quod sapit quod vivit quod viget, caeleste et divinum ob eamque rem aeternum sit necesse  est. nec vero deus ipse, qui intellegitur a nobis, alio modo intellegi potest nisi mens soluta quaedam et libera, segregata ab omni concretione mortali, omnia sentiens et movens ipsaque praedita motu sempiterno.  hoc e genere atque eadem e natura est humana mens.’\n\nUbi igitur aut qualis est ista mens?\n\nSECTION 67\n—ubi tua aut qualis? potesne dicere? an, si omnia ad intellegendum non habeo quae habere vellem, ne is quidem quae habeo mihi per te uti licebit? non valet tantum animus, ut se ipse videat, at ut oculus, sic animus se non videns alia cernit. non videt autem, quod minimum est, formam suam (quamquam fortasse id quoque, sed relinquamus); vim certe, sagacitatem, memoriam, motum, celeritatem videt. haec magna, haec divina, haec sempiterna sunt; qua facie quidem sit aut ubi habitet, ne quaerendum quidem est.\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 28\n\nSECTION 68\nUt cum videmus speciem primum candoremque caeli, dein conversionis celeritatem tantam quantam cogitare non possumus, tum vicissitudines dierum ac noctium commutationesque temporum quadrupertitas ad maturitatem frugum et ad temperationem  corporum aptas eorumque omnium moderatorem et ducem  solem, lunamque adcretione et deminutione  luminis quasi fastorum notantem et significantem dies, tum in eodem orbe in duodecim partes distributo quinque stellas ferri eosdem cursus constantissime servantis disparibus inter se motibus, nocturnamque caeli formam undique sideribus ornatam, tum globum terrae eminentem e mari, fixum in medio mundi universi loco, duabus oris distantibus habitabilem et cultum, quarum altera, quam nos incolimus,\nSub áxe posita ad stéllas septem, unde hórrifer,\nAquilónis stridor gélidas molitúr nives,\naltera australis, ignota nobis, quam vocant Graeci ἀντίχθονα, ceteras partis incultas,\n\nSECTION 69\nquod aut frigore rigeant aut urantur calore; hic autem, ubi habitamus, non intermittit suo tempore\nCaelúm nitescere, árbores frondéscere,\nVités laetificae pámpinis pubéscere,\nRamí bacarum ubértate incurvéscere,\nSegetés largiri frúges, florere ómnia,\nFontés scatere, herbis práta convestírier,\ntum multitudinem pecudum partim ad vescendum, partim ad cultus agrorum, partim ad vehendum, partim ad corpora vestienda, hominemque ipsum quasi contemplatorem caeli ac deorum cultorem atque hominis utilitati agros omnis et maria parentia—:\n\nSECTION 70\nhaec igitur et alia innumerabilia cum cernimus, possumusne dubitare quin is praesit aliquis vel effector, si haec nata sunt, ut Platoni videtur, vel, si semper fuerunt,  ut Aristoteli placet, moderator tanti operis et muneris? sic mentem hominis, quamvis eam non videas, ut deum non vides, tamen, ut deum adgnoscis  ex operibus eius, sic ex memoria rerum et inventione et celeritate motus omnique  pulchritudine virtutis vim divinam mentis adgnoscito.\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 29\n\nIn quo igitur loco est? credo equidem in capite et cur credam adferre possum. sed alias, ubi sit animus; certe quidem in te est. quae est eius natura? propria, puto, et sua. sed fac igneam, fac spirabilem: nihil ad id de quo agimus. illud modo videto, ut deum noris, etsi eius ignores et locum et faciem, sic animum tibi tuum notum esse oportere, etiamsi ignores et locum et formam.\n\nSECTION 71\nin animi autem cognitione dubitare non possumus, nisi plane in physicis plumbei sumus, quin nihil sit animis admixtum, nihil concretum, nihil copulatum, nihil coagmentatum, nihil duplex: quod cum ita sit, certe nec secerni nec dividi nec discerpi nec distrahi potest, ne interire <quidem> igitur. est enim interitus quasi discessus et secretio ac diremptus earum partium, quae ante interitum iunctione aliqua tenebantur.\n\nHis et talibus rationibus adductus Socrates nec patronum quaesivit ad iudicium capitis nec iudicibus supplex fuit adhibuitque liberam contumaciam a magnitudine animi ductam, non a superbia, et supremo vitae die de hoc ipso multa disseruit et paucis ante diebus, cum facile posset educi e custodia, noluit, et  tum, paene in manu iam mortiferum illud tenens poculum, locutus ita est, ut non ad mortem trudi, verum in caelum videretur escendere.\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 30\n\nSECTION 72\nIta enim censebat itaque disseruit, duas esse vias duplicesque cursus animorum e corpore excedentium: nam qui se humanis vitiis contaminavissent et se totos libidinibus dedissent, quibus caecati vel domesticis vitiis atque flagitiis se inquinavissent vel re publica violanda fraudes inexpiabiles concepissent, is devium quoddam iter esse, seclusum a concilio deorum; qui autem se integros castosque servavissent, quibusque fuisset minima cum corporibus contagio seseque ab is semper sevocavissent essentque in corporibus humanis vitam imitati deorum, is ad illos a quibus essent profecti reditum facilem patere.\n\nSECTION 73\nItaque commemorat, ut cygni, qui non sine causa Apollini dicati sint, sed quod ab eo divinationem habere videantur, qua providentes quid in morte boni sit cum cantu et voluptate moriantur, sic omnibus bonis et doctis esse faciendum. (nec vero de hoc quisquam dubitare posset, nisi idem nobis accideret diligenter de animo cogitantibus, quod is saepe usu venit, qui [cum]  acriter oculis deficientem solem intuerentur, ut aspectum omnino amitterent; sic mentis acies se ipsa intuens non numquam hebescit, ob eamque causam contemplandi diligentiam amittimus. itaque dubitans circumspectans haesitans, multa adversa reverens tamquam in rate in mari inmenso\n\nSECTION 74\nnostra vehitur oratio). sed haec et vetera et a Graecis; Cato autem sic abiit e vita, ut causam moriendi nactum se esse gauderet. vetat enim dominans ille in nobis deus iniussu hinc nos suo demigrare; cum vero causam iustam deus ipse dederit, ut tunc Socrati, nunc Catoni, saepe multis, ne ille me Dius Fidius vir sapiens laetus ex his tenebris in lucem illam excesserit, nec tamen ille vincla carceris ruperit—leges enim vetant—, sed tamquam a magistratu aut ab aliqua potestate legitima, sic a deo evocatus atque emissus exierit. Tota enim philosophorum vita, ut ait idem, commentatio mortis est.\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 31\n\nSECTION 75\nnam quid aliud agimus, cum a voluptate, id est a corpore, cum a re familiari, quae est ministra et famula corporis, cum a re publica, cum a negotio omni sevocamus  animum, quid, inquam, tum agimus nisi animum ad se ipsum advocamus, secum esse cogimus maximeque a corpore abducimus? secernere autem a corpore animum, nec quicquam aliud, est mori discere. quare hoc commentemur, mihi crede, disiungamusque nos a corporibus, id est consuescamus mori. hoc, et dum erimus in terris, erit illi caelesti vitae simile, et cum illuc ex his vinclis emissi feremur, minus tardabitur cursus animorum.  nam qui in compedibus corporis semper fuerunt, etiam cum soluti sunt, tardius ingrediuntur, ut i qui ferro vincti multos annos fuerunt. quo cum venerimus, tum denique vivemus. nam haec quidem vita mors est, quam lamentari possem, si liberet.\n\nSatis tu quidem in Consolatione es lamentatus;\n\nSECTION 76\nquam cum lego, nihil malo quam has res relinquere, his vero modo auditis multo magis.\n\nVeniet tempus, et quidem celeriter, sive retractabis sive properabis; volat enim aetas. tantum autem abest ab eo ut malum mors sit, quod tibi dudum videbatur, ut verear ne homini nihil sit non malum aliud certius, nihil bonum aliud potius, si quidem vel di ipsi vel cum dis futuri sumus […]\n\nQuid refert?\n\nAdsunt enim, qui haec non probent. ego autem numquam ita te in hoc sermone dimittam, ulla uti ratione mors tibi videri malum possit.\n\nQui potest, cum ista cognoverim?\n\nQui possit, rogas?\n\nSECTION 77\ncatervae veniunt contra dicentium, nec solum Epicureorum, quos equidem non despicio, sed nescio quo modo doctissimus quisque [contemnit], acerrume autem deliciae meae Dicaearchus contra hanc inmortalitatem disseruit. is enim tris libros scripsit, qui Lesbiaci vocantur quod Mytilenis sermo habetur, in quibus volt efficere animos esse mortalis. Stoici autem usuram nobis largiuntur tamquam  cornicibus: diu mansuros aiunt animos, semper negant.\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 32\n\nnum non vis igitur audire, cur, etiamsi ita sit, mors tamen non sit in malis?\n\nUt videtur, sed me nemo de inmortalitate depellet.\n\nLaudo id quidem, etsi nihil nimis oportet confidere;\n\nSECTION 78\nmovemur enim saepe aliquo acute concluso, labamus mutamusque sententiam clarioribus etiam in rebus; in his est enim aliqua obscuritas. id igitur si acciderit, simus armati.\n\nSane quidem, sed ne accidat, providebo.\n\nNum quid igitur est causae, quin amicos nostros Stoicos dimittamus? eos dico, qui aiunt manere animos, cum e corpore excesserint, sed non semper.\n\nIstos vero qui, quod tota in hac causa difficillimum est, suscipiant, posse animum manere corpore vacantem, illud autem, quod non modo facile ad credendum est, sed eo concesso, quod volunt, consequens, id vero non dant, ut, cum diu permanserit, ne intereat.\n\nSECTION 79\nBene reprehendis, et se isto modo res habet. credamus igitur Panaetio a Platone suo dissentienti? quem enim omnibus locis divinum, quem sapientissimum, quem sanctissimum, quem Homerum philosophorum appellat, huius hanc unam sententiam de inmortalitate animorum non probat. volt enim, quod nemo negat, quicquid natum sit interire; nasci autem animos, quod declaret eorum similitudo qui procreentur, quae etiam in ingeniis, non solum in corporibus appareat. alteram autem adfert rationem, nihil esse quod doleat, quin id aegrum esse quoque possit; quod autem in morbum cadat, id etiam interiturum; dolere autem  animos, ergo etiam interire.\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 33\n\nSECTION 80\nhaec refelli possunt: sunt enim ignorantis, cum de aeternitate animorum dicatur, de mente dici, quae omni turbido motu semper vacet, non de partibus is, in quibus aegritudines irae libidinesque versentur, quas is, contra quem haec dicuntur, semotas a mente et disclusas putat. iam similitudo magis apparet in bestiis, quarum animi sunt rationis expertes; hominum autem similitudo in corporum figura magis exstat, et ipsi animi magni refert quali in corpore locati sint. multa enim e corpore existunt, quae acuant mentem, multa, quae obtundant. Aristoteles quidem ait omnis ingeniosos melancholicos esse, ut ego me tardiorem esse non moleste feram. enumerat multos, idque quasi constet, rationem cur ita fiat adfert. quod si tanta vis est ad habitum mentis in is quae gignuntur in corpore, ea sunt autem, quaecumque sunt, quae similitudinem faciant, nihil necessitatis adfert, cur nascantur animi, similitudo. omitto dissimilitudines.\n\nSECTION 81\nvellem adesse posset Panaetius—vixit cum Africano—, quaererem ex eo, cuius suorum similis fuisset Africani fratris nepos, facie vel patris, vita omnium perditorum ita similis, ut esset facile deterrimus; cuius etiam similis P. Crassi, et sapientis et eloquentis et primi hominis, nepos multorumque aliorum clarorum virorum, quos nihil attinet nominare, nepotes et filii.\n\nSed quid agimus? oblitine sumus\nhoc nunc nobis esse propositum, cum satis de aeternitate  dixissemus, ne si interirent quidem animi, quicquam mali esse in morte?\n\nEgo vero memineram, sed te de aeternitate dicentem aberrare a proposito facile patiebar.\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 34\n\nSECTION 82\nVideo te alte spectare et velle in caelum migrare. spero fore ut contingat id nobis. sed fac, ut isti volunt, animos non remanere post mortem: video nos, si ita sit, privari spe beatioris vitae; mali vero quid adfert ista sententia? fac enim sic animum interire ut corpus: num igitur aliquis dolor aut omnino post mortem sensus in corpore est? nemo id quidem dicit, etsi Democritum insimulat Epicurus, Democritii  negant. ne in animo quidem igitur sensus remanet; ipse enim nusquam est. ubi igitur malum est, quoniam nihil tertium est? an quod ipse animi discessus a corpore non fit sine dolore? ut credam ita esse, quam est id exiguum! sed falsum esse arbitror, et fit plerumque sine sensu, non numquam etiam cum voluptate, totumque hoc leve est, qualecumque est;\n\nSECTION 83\nfit enim ad punctum temporis. ‘Illud angit vel potius excruciat, discessus ab omnibus is quae sunt bona in vita’. vide ne ‘a malis’  dici verius possit. quid ego nunc lugeam vitam hominum? vere et iure possum; sed quid necesse est, cum id agam ne post mortem miseros nos putemus fore, etiam vitam efficere deplorando miseriorem? fecimus hoc in eo libro, in quo nosmet ipsos, quantum potuimus, consolati sumus. a malis igitur mors abducit, non a bonis, verum si quaerimus. et quidem hoc a Cyrenaico Hegesia sic copiose disputatur, ut is a rege Ptolomaeo prohibitus esse dicatur illa in scholis dicere,  quod multi is auditis mortem sibi ipsi consciscerent.\n\nSECTION 84\nCallimachi quidem epigramma in Ambraciotam Theombrotum est, quem ait, cum ei nihil accidisset adversi, e muro se in mare abiecisse lecto Platonis libro. eius autem, quem dixi, Hegesiae liber est Ἀποκαρτερῶν, quo a vita quidem per inediam discedens revocatur ab amicis; quibus respondens vitae humanae enumerat incommoda. possem idem facere, etsi minus quam ille, qui omnino vivere expedire nemini putat. mitto alios: etiamne nobis expedit? qui et domesticis et forensibus solaciis ornamentisque privati certe si ante occidissemus, mors nos a malis, non a bonis abstraxisset.\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 35\n\nSECTION 85\nSit igitur aliquis, qui nihil mali habeat, nullum a fortuna volnus acceperit: Metellus ille honoratis quattuor filiis aut quinquaginta Priamus, e quibus septemdecim iusta uxore natis; in utroque eandem habuit fortuna potestatem, sed usa in altero est: Metellum enim multi filii filiae nepotes neptes in rogum inposuerunt, Priamum tanta progenie orbatum, cum in aram confugisset, hostilis manus interemit. hic si vivis filiis incolumi regno occidisset\nastánte ope bárbarica\nTectís caelatis láqueatis,\nutrum tandem a bonis an a malis discessisset? tum profecto videretur a bonis. at certe ei melius evenisset nec tam flebiliter illa canerentur:\nHaec ómnia vidi inflámmari,\nPriamó vi vitam evítari,\nIovis áram sanguine túrpari.\nquasi vero ista vi quicquam tum potuerit ei melius accidere! quodsi ante occidisset, talem eventum omnino amisisset; hoc autem tempore sensum amisit malorum.\n\nSECTION 86\nPompeio, nostro familiari, cum graviter aegrotaret Neapoli, melius est factum. coronati Neapolitani fuerunt, nimirum etiam Puteolani; volgo ex oppidis publice gratulabantur: ineptum sane negotium et Graeculum, sed tamen fortunatum. utrum igitur, si tum esset extinctus, a bonis rebus an a malis discessisset? certe a miseris. non enim cum socero bellum gessisset, non inparatus arma sumpsisset, non domum reliquisset, non ex Italia fugisset, non exercitu amisso nudus in servorum ferrum et manus incidisset, †non liberi defleti, non fortunae omnes a victoribus possiderentur. qui, si mortem tum obisset, in amplissimis fortunis occidisset, is propagatione vitae quot, quantas, quam incredibilis hausit calamitates!\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 36\n\nhaec morte effugiuntur, etiamsi non evenerunt, tamen, quia possunt evenire; sed homines ea sibi accidere posse non cogitant: Metelli sperat sibi quisque fortunam, proinde quasi aut plures fortunati sint quam infelices aut certi quicquam sit in rebus humanis aut sperare sit prudentius quam timere.\n\nSed hoc ipsum concedatur, bonis rebus homines morte privari:\n\nSECTION 87\nergo etiam carere mortuos vitae commodis idque esse miserum? certe ita dicant necesse est. an potest is, qui non est, re ulla carere? triste enim est nomen ipsum carendi, quia subicitur haec vis: habuit, non habet; desiderat requirit indiget. haec, opinor, incommoda sunt carentis: caret oculis, odiosa caecitas; liberis, orbitas. valet hoc in vivis, mortuorum autem non modo vitae commodis, sed ne vita quidem ipsa quisquam caret. de mortuis loquor, qui nulli sunt: nos, qui sumus, num aut cornibus caremus aut pinnis? ecquis id dixerit? certe nemo. quid ita? quia, cum id non habeas quod tibi nec usu nec natura sit aptum, non careas, etiamsi sentias te non habere.\n\nSECTION 88\nhoc premendum etiam atque etiam est et urguendum confirmato illo, de quo, si mortales animi sunt, dubitare non possumus, quin tantus interitus in morte sit, ut ne minima quidem suspicio sensus relinquatur—hoc igitur probe stabilito et fixo illud excutiendum est, ut sciatur, quid sit carere, ne relinquatur aliquid erroris in verbo. carere igitur hoc significat: egere eo quod habere velis; inest enim velle in carendo, nisi cum sic tamquam in febri dicitur alia quadam notione verbi. dicitur enim alio modo etiam carere, cum aliquid non habeas et non habere te sentias, etiamsi id facile patiare. <ita>  carere in morte non dicitur; nec enim esset dolendum; dicitur illud:  ‘bono carere’, quod est malum. sed ne vivus quidem bono caret, si eo non indiget; sed in vivo intellegi tamen potest regno te carere—dici autem hoc in te satis subtiliter non potest; posset in Tarquinio, cum regno esset expulsus—: at in mortuo ne intellegi quidem. carere enim sentientis est; nec sensus in mortuo: ne carere quidem igitur in mortuo est.\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 37\n\nQuamquam quid opus est in hoc philosophari, cum rem non magnopere philosophia egere videamus?\n\nSECTION 89\nquotiens non modo ductores nostri, sed universi etiam exercitus ad non dubiam mortem concurrerunt! quae quidem si timeretur, non Lucius Brutus arcens eum reditu tyrannum, quem ipse expulerat, in proelio concidisset; non cum Latinis decertans pater Decius, cum Etruscis filius, cum Pyrrho nepos se hostium telis obiecissent; non uno bello pro patria cadentis Scipiones Hispania vidisset, Paulum et Geminum Cannae, Venusia Marcellum, Litana Albinum, Lucani Gracchum. num quis horum miser hodie? ne tum quidem post spiritum extremum; nec enim potest esse miser quisquam sensu perempto.\n\nSECTION 90\n‘At id ipsum odiosum est, sine sensu esse.’ odiosum, si id esset carere; cum vero perspicuum sit nihil posse in eo esse qui ipse non sit, quid potest esse in eo odiosum qui nec careat nec sentiat? quamquam hoc quidem nimis saepe, sed eo quod in hoc inest omnis animi contractio ex metu mortis. qui enim satis viderit, id quod est luce clarius, animo et corpore consumpto totoque animante deleto et facto interitu universo illud animal, quod fuerit, factum esse nihil, is plane perspiciet inter Hippocentaurum, qui numquam fuerit, et regem Agamemnonem  nihil interesse, nec pluris nunc facere M. Camillum hoc civile bellum, quam ego illo vivo fecerim Romam captam. Cur igitur et Camillus doleret, si haec post trecentos et quinquaginta fere annos eventura putaret, et ego doleam, si ad decem milia annorum gentem aliquam urbe nostra potituram putem? quia tanta caritas patriae est, ut eam non sensu nostro, sed salute ipsius metiamur.\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 38\n\nitaque non deterret sapientem mors,\n\nSECTION 91\nquae propter incertos casus cotidie imminet, propter brevitatem vitae numquam potest longe abesse, quo minus in omne tempus rei p. suisque  consulat, cum posteritatem ipsam, cuius sensum habiturus non sit, ad se putet pertinere. quare licet etiam mortalem esse animum iudicantem aeterna moliri, non gloriae cupiditate, quam sensurus non sis, sed virtutis, quam necessario gloria, etiamsi tu id non agas, consequatur.\n\nNatura vero <si>  se sic habet, ut, quo modo initium nobis rerum omnium ortus noster adferat, sic exitum mors, ut nihil pertinuit ad nos ante ortum, sic nihil post mortem pertinebit. in quo quid potest esse mali, cum mors nec ad vivos pertineat nec ad mortuos?\n\nSECTION 92\nalteri nulli sunt, alteros non attinget. quam qui leviorem faciunt, somni simillimam volunt esse: quasi vero quisquam ita nonaginta annos velit vivere, ut, cum sexaginta confecerit, reliquos dormiat; ne sui quidem id velint, non modo ipse. Endymion vero, si fabulas  audire volumus, ut nescio quando in Latmo obdormivit, qui est mons Cariae, nondum, opinor, est experrectus. num igitur eum curare censes, cum Luna laboret, a qua consopitus putatur, ut eum dormientem oscularetur? quid curet autem, qui ne sentit quidem? habes somnum imaginem mortis eamque cotidie induis: et dubitas quin sensus in morte nullus sit, cum in eius simulacro videas esse nullum sensum?\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 39\n\nSECTION 93\nPellantur ergo istae ineptiae paene aniles, ante tempus mori miserum esse. quod tandem tempus? naturaene? at ea quidem dedit usuram vitae tamquam pecuniae nulla praestituta die. quid est igitur quod querare, si repetit, cum volt? ea enim condicione acceperas. Idem, si puer parvus occidit, aequo animo ferendum putant, si vero in cunis, ne querendum quidem. atqui ab hoc acerbius exegit natura quod dederat. ‘nondum gustaverat’, inquit, ‘vitae suavitatem; hic autem iam sperabat magna, quibus frui coeuperat.’ at id quidem in ceteris rebus melius putatur, aliquam partem quam nullam attingere: cur in vita secus? (quamquam non male ait Callimachus multo saepius lacrimasse Priamum quam Troilum). eorum autem, qui exacta aetate moriuntur, fortuna laudatur.\n\nSECTION 94\ncur? nam, reor, nullis, si vita longior daretur, posset esse iucundior; nihil enim est profecto homini prudentia dulcius, quam, ut cetera auferat, adfert certe senectus. Quae vero aetas longa est, aut quid omnino homini longum? nonne\nMódo pueros, modo ádulescentes ín cursu a tergo ínsequens\nNéc opinantis ádsecuta est\nsenectus? sed quia ultra nihil habemus, hoc longum dicimus. Omnia ista, perinde ut cuique data sunt pro rata parte, ita aut longa aut brevia dicuntur. apud Hypanim fluvium, qui ab Europae parte in Pontum influit, Aristoteles ait bestiolas quasdam nasci, quae unum diem vivant. ex his igitur hora VIII quae mortua est, provecta aetate mortua est; quae vero occidente sole, decrepita, eo magis, si etiam solstitiali die. confer nostram longissimam aetatem cum aeternitate: in eadem propemodum brevitate qua illae bestiolae reperiemur.\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 40\n\nSECTION 95\nContemnamus igitur omnis ineptias—quod enim levius huic levitati nomen inponam?—totamque vim bene vivendi in animi robore ac magnitudine et in omnium rerum humanarum contemptione ac despicientia et in omni virtute ponamus.  nam nunc quidem cogitationibus mollissimis effeminamur, ut, si ante mors adventet quam Chaldaeorum promissa consecuti sumus, spoliati magnis quibusdam bonis, inlusi destitutique videamur.\n\nSECTION 96\nquodsi expectando et desiderando pendemus animis, cruciamur, angimur, pro di inmortales, quam illud iter iucundum esse debet, quo confecto nulla reliqua cura, nulla sollicitudo futura sit! quam me delectat Theramenes! quam elato animo  est! etsi enim flemus, cum legimus, tamen non miserabiliter vir clarus emoritur: qui cum coniectus in carcerem triginta iussu tyrannorum venenum ut sitiens obduxisset, reliquum sic e poculo eiecit, ut id resonaret, quo sonitu reddito adridens ‘propino’ inquit ‘hoc pulchro Critiae’, qui in eum fuerat taeterrimus. Graeci enim <in>  conviviis solent nominare, cui poculum tradituri sint. lusit vir egregius extremo spiritu, cum iam praecordiis conceptam mortem contineret, vereque ei, cui venenum praebiberat, mortem eam est auguratus, quae brevi consecuta est.\n\nQuis hanc maximi animi aequitatem in ipsa morte laudaret, si mortem malum iudicaret?\n\nSECTION 97\nvadit enim in eundem carcerem atque in eundem paucis post annis scyphum Socrates, eodem scelere iudicum quo tyrannorum Theramenes. quae est igitur eius oratio, qua facit eum Plato usum apud iudices iam morte multatum?\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 41\n\n‘magna me’ inquit ‘spes tenet, iudices, bene mihi evenire, quod mittar ad mortem. necesse est enim sit alterum de duobus, ut aut sensus omnino omnes mors auferat aut in alium quendam locum ex his locis morte migretur. quam ob rem, sive sensus extinguitur morsque ei somno similis est, qui non numquam etiam sine visis somniorum placatissimam quietem adfert, di boni, quid lucri est emori! aut quam multi dies reperiri possunt, qui tali nocti anteponantur! cui si similis est perpetuitas omnis consequentis temporis, quis me beatior?’\n\nSECTION 98\n“sin vera sunt quae dicuntur, migrationem esse mortem in eas oras, quas  qui e vita excesserunt incolunt, id multo iam beatius est. tene, cum ab is, qui se iudicum numero haberi volunt, evaseris, ad eos venire, qui vere iudices appellentur, Minoem Rhadamanthum Aeacum Triptolemum, convenireque eos qui iuste <et>  cum fide vixerint— haec peregrinatio mediocris vobis videri potest? ut vero conloqui cum Orpheo Musaeo Homero Hesiodo liceat, quanti tandem aestimatis? equidem saepe emori, si fieri posset, vellem, ut ea quae dico mihi liceret invisere. quanta delectatione autem adficerer, cum Palamedem, cum Aiacem, cum alios iudicio iniquo circumventos convenirem! temptarem etiam summi regis, qui maximas copias duxit ad Troiam, et Ulixi Sisyphique prudentiam, nec ob eam rem, cum haec exquirerem sicut hic faciebam, capite damnarer.—Ne vos quidem, iudices i qui me absolvistis, mortem timueritis.”\n\nSECTION 99\n“nec enim cuiquam bono mali quicquam evenire potest nec vivo nec mortuo, nec umquam eius res a dis inmortalibus neglegentur, nec mihi ipsi hoc accidit fortuito. nec vero ego is, a quibus accusatus aut a quibus condemnatus sum, habeo quod suscenseam, nisi quod mihi nocere se crediderunt.” et haec quidem hoc modo; nihil autem melius extremo: ‘sed tempus est’ inquit ‘iam hinc abire, me, ut moriar, vos, ut vitam agatis. utrum autem sit melius, dii inmortales sciunt, hominem quidem scire arbitror neminem.’\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 42\n\nNe ego haud paulo hunc animum malim quam eorum omnium fortunas, qui de hoc iudicaverunt. etsi,  quod praeter deos negat scire quemquam, id scit ipse utrum sit melius—nam dixit ante—, sed suum illud, nihil ut adfirmet, tenet ad extremum;\n\nSECTION 100\nnos autem teneamus, ut nihil censeamus esse malum, quod sit a natura datum omnibus, intellegamusque, si mors malum sit, esse sempiternum malum. nam vitae miserae mors finis esse videtur; mors si est misera, finis esse nullus potest.\n\nSed quid ego Socratem aut Theramenem, praestantis viros virtutis et sapientiae gloria, commemoro, cum Lacedaemonius quidam, cuius ne nomen quidem proditum est, mortem tantopere contempserit, ut, cum ad eam duceretur damnatus ab ephoris et esset voltu hilari atque laeto dixissetque ei quidam inimicus: ‘contemnisne leges Lycurgi?’, responderit: ‘ego vero illi maximam gratiam habeo, qui me ea poena multaverit, quam sine mutuatione et sine versura possem dissolvere.’ o virum Sparta dignum! ut mihi quidem, qui tam magno animo fuerit, innocens damnatus esse videatur. talis innumerabilis nostra civitas tulit.\n\nSECTION 101\nsed quid duces et principes nominem, cum legiones scribat Cato  saepe alacris in eum locum profectas, unde redituras se non arbitrarentur? pari animo Lacedaemonii in Thermopylis occiderunt, in quos Simonides:\nDic, hospes, Spartae nos te hic vidisse iacentis,\nDum sanctis patriae legibus obsequimur.\nquid ille dux Leonidas dicit?  ‘pergite animo forti, Lacedaemonii,  hodie apud inferos fortasse cenabimus.’ fuit haec gens fortis, dum Lycurgi leges vigebant.  e quibus unus, cum Perses hostis in conloquio dixisset glorians: ‘solem prae iaculorum multitudine et sagittarum non videbitis’, ‘in umbra igitur’ inquit ‘pugnabimus.’\n\nSECTION 102\nviros commemoro: qualis tandem Lacaena? quae cum filium in proelium misisset et interfectum audisset, ‘idcirco’ inquit ‘genueram, ut esset, qui pro patria mortem non dubitaret occumbere’.\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 43\n\nEsto: fortes et duri Spartiatae; magnam habet vim rei p. disciplina. quid? Cyrenaeum Theodorum, philosophum non ignobilem, nonne miramur? cui cum Lysimachus rex crucem minaretur, ‘istis, quaeso’ inquit ‘ista horribilia minitare purpuratis tuis: Theodori quidem nihil interest, humine an sublime putescat.’\n\nCuius hoc dicto admoneor, ut aliquid etiam de humatione et sepultura dicendum existimem, rem non difficilem, is praesertim cognitis, quae de nihil sentiendo paulo ante dicta sunt. de qua Socrates quidem quid senserit, apparet in eo libro in quo moritur, de quo iam tam multa diximus.\n\nSECTION 103\ncum enim de inmortalitate animorum disputavisset et iam moriendi tempus urgeret, rogatus a Critone, quem ad modum sepeliri  vellet, ‘multam vero’ inquit ‘operam, amici, frustra consumpsi; Critoni enim nostro non persuasi me hinc avolaturum neque mei quicquam relicturum. verum tamen, Crito, si me adsequi potueris aut sicubi nanctus eris, ut tibi videbitur, sepelito. sed, mihi crede,  nemo me vestrum, cum hinc excessero, consequetur.’ praeclare is quidem, qui et amico permiserit et se ostenderit de hoc toto genere nihil laborare.\n\nSECTION 104\ndurior Diogenes, et is quidem eadem sentiens, sed ut Cynicus asperius: proici se iussit inhumatum. tum amici: ‘volucribusne et feris?’ ‘minime vero’ inquit, ‘sed bacillum propter me, quo abigam, ponitote.’ ‘qui poteris?’   illi, ‘non enim senties.’ ‘quid igitur mihi ferarum laniatus oberit nihil sentienti?’  praeclare Anaxagoras, qui cum Lampsaci moreretur, quaerentibus amicis, velletne Clazomenas in patriam, si quid accidisset, auferri, ‘nihil necesse est’ inquit, ‘undique enim ad inferos tantundem viae est.’ totaque de ratione humationis unum tenendum est, ad corpus illam pertinere, sive occiderit animus sive vigeat. in corpore autem perspicuum est vel extincto animo vel elapso nullum residere sensum.\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 44\n\nSed plena errorum sunt omnia.\n\nSECTION 105\ntrahit Hectorem ad currum religatum Achilles: lacerari eum et sentire, credo, putat. ergo hic ulciscitur, ut quidem sibi videtur; at illa sicut acerbissimam rem maeret:\nVidí, videre quód me passa aegérrume,\nHectórem curru quádriiugo raptárier.\nquem Hectorem, aut quam diu ille erit Hector? melius Accius et aliquando sapiens Achilles:\nImmo enimvero córpus Priamo réddidi, Hectora ábstuli.\nnon igitur Hectora traxisti, sed corpus quod fuerat  Hectoris.\n\nSECTION 106\necce alius exoritur e terra, qui matrem dormire non sinat:\nMatér, te appello, tú, quae curam sómno suspensám levas,\nNeque té mei miseret, súrge et sepeli nátum—!\nhaec cum pressis et flebilibus modis, qui totis theatris maestitiam inferant, concinuntur, difficile est non eos qui inhumati sint miseros iudicare. ‘prius quám ferae volucrésque—’ metuit, ne laceratis membris minus bene utatur; ne combustis, non extimescit.\nNeu réliquias semésas sireis dénudatis óssibus\nPer térram sanie délibutas foéde divexárier—\nnon intellego, quid metuat, cum tam bonos septenarios fundat ad tibiam. Tenendum est igitur nihil curandum esse post mortem, cum multi inimicos etiam mortuos poeniuntur.  exsecratur luculentis sane versibus apud Ennium Thyestes, primum ut naufragio pereat Atreus: durum hoc sane; talis enim interitus non est sine gravi sensu; illa inania:\nIpse summis sáxis fixus ásperis, evísceratus,\nLátere pendens, sáxa spargens tábo, sanie et sánguine atro—\n\nSECTION 107\nnon ipsa saxa magis sensu omni vacabunt quam ille ‘latere pendens’, cui se hic cruciatum censet optare. quae essent dura, si sentiret, <sunt> nulla sine sensu. illud vero perquam inane:\nNéque sepulcrum, quó recipiat, hábeat, portum córporis,\nÚbi remissa humána vita córpus requiescát malis.\nvides, quanto haec in errore versentur: portum esse corporis et requiescere in sepulcro putat mortuum; magna culpa Pelopis, qui non erudierit filium nec docuerit, quatenus esset quidque curandum.\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 45\n\nSECTION 108\nSed quid singulorum opiniones animadvertam, nationum varios errores perspicere cum liceat? condiunt Aegyptii mortuos et eos servant domi; Persae etiam cera circumlitos condunt, ut quam maxime permaneant diuturna corpora. Magorum mos est non humare corpora suorum, nisi a feris sint ante laniata; in Hyrcania plebs publicos alit canes, optumates domesticos: nobile autem genus canum illud scimus esse, sed pro sua quisque facultate parat a quibus lanietur, eamque optumam illi esse censent sepulturam. permulta alia colligit Chrysippus, ut est in omni historia curiosus, sed ita taetra sunt quaedam, ut ea fugiat et reformidet oratio. totus igitur hic locus est contemnendus in nobis, non neglegendus in nostris, ita tamen, ut mortuorum corpora nihil sentire vivi sentiamus;\n\nSECTION 109\nquantum autem consuetudini famaeque dandum sit, id curent vivi, sed ita, ut intellegant nihil id ad mortuos pertinere.\n\nSed profecto mors tum aequissimo animo oppetitur, cum suis se laudibus vita occidens consolari potest. nemo parum diu vixit, qui virtutis perfectae perfecto functus est munere. multa mihi ipsi ad mortem tempestiva fuerunt. quam utinam potuissem obire! nihil  enim iam adquirebatur, cumulata erant officia vitae, cum fortuna bella restabant. quare si ipsa ratio minus perficiat, ut mortem neglegere possimus, at vita acta perficiat, ut satis superque vixisse videamur. quamquam enim sensus abierit, tamen suis et propriis bonis laudis et gloriae, quamvis non sentiant, mortui non carent. etsi enim nihil habet in se gloria cur expetatur, tamen virtutem tamquam umbra sequitur.\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 46\n\nSECTION 110\nverum multitudinis iudicium de bonis <bonum> si quando est, magis laudandum est quam illi ob eam rem beati. non possum autem dicere, quoquo modo hoc accipietur, Lycurgum Solonem legum et publicae disciplinae carere gloria, Themistoclem Epaminondam bellicae virtutis. ante enim Salamina  ipsam Neptunus obruet quam Salaminii tropaei memoriam, priusque e Boeotia Leuctra tollentur quam pugnae Leuctricae gloria. multo autem tardius fama deseret Curium Fabricium Calatinum, duo Scipiones duo Africanos, Maximum Marcellum Paulum, Catonem Laelium, innumerabilis alios; quorum similitudinem aliquam qui arripuerit, non eam fama populari, sed vera bonorum laude metiens, fidenti animo, si ita res feret, gradietur ad mortem; in qua aut summum bonum aut nullum malum esse cognovimus. secundis vero suis  rebus volet etiam mori; non enim tam cumulus bonorum iucundus esse potest quam molesta decessio. hanc sententiam significare videtur Laconis illa vox, qui, cum Rhodius Diagoras, Olympionices nobilis, uno die duo suos filios victores Olympiae vidisset, accessit ad senem et gratulatus:\n\nSECTION 111\n‘morere, Diagora’ inquit; ‘non enim in caelum ascensurus es.’ magna haec, et nimium fortasse, Graeci putant vel tum potius putabant, isque, qui hoc Diagorae dixit, permagnum existimans tris Olympionicas una e domo prodire cunctari illum diutius in vita fortunae obiectum inutile putabat ipsi.\n\nEgo autem tibi quidem, quod satis esset, paucis verbis, ut mihi videbar, responderam—concesseras enim nullo in malo mortuos esse—; sed ob eam causam contendi ut plura dicerem, quod in desiderio et luctu haec est consolatio maxima. nostrum enim et nostra causa susceptum dolorem modice ferre debemus, ne nosmet ipsos amare videamur; illa suspicio intolerabili dolore cruciat, si opinamur eos quibus orbati sumus esse cum aliquo sensu in is malis quibus volgo opinantur. hanc excutere opinionem mihimet volui radicitus, eoque fui fortasse longior.\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 47\n\nTu longior?\n\nSECTION 112\nnon mihi quidem. prior enim pars orationis tuae faciebat, ut mori cuperem, posterior, ut modo non nollem, modo non laborarem; omni autem oratione illud certe perfectum est, ut mortem non ducerem in malis.\n\nNum igitur etiam rhetorum epilogum desideramus? an hanc iam artem plane relinquimus?\n\nTu vero istam ne reliqueris, quam semper ornasti, et quidem iure; illa enim te, verum si loqui volumus,  ornaverat. sed quinam est iste epilogus? aveo enim audire, quicquid est.\n\nSECTION 113\nDeorum inmortalium iudicia solent in scholis proferre de morte, nec vero ea fingere ipsi, sed Herodoto auctore aliisque pluribus. primum Argiae sacerdotis Cleobis et Bito filii praedicantur. nota fabula est. cum enim illam ad sollemne et statu[tu]m sacrificium curru vehi ius esset satis longe ab oppido ad fanum morarenturque iumenta, tum iuvenes i quos modo nominavi veste posita corpora oleo perunxerunt, ad iugum accesserunt. ita sacerdos advecta in fanum, cum currus esset ductus a filiis, precata a dea dicitur, ut id illis praemii daret pro pietate, quod maxumum homini dari posset a deo; post epulatos cum matre adulescentis somno se dedisse, mane inventos esse mortuos.\n\nSECTION 114\nsimili precatione Trophonius et Agamedes usi dicuntur; qui cum Apollini Delphis templum exaedificavissent, venerantes deum petiverunt mercedem non parvam quidem operis et laboris sui: nihil certi, sed quod esset optimum homini. quibus Apollo se id daturum ostendit post eius diei diem tertium; qui ut inluxit, mortui sunt reperti. iudicavisse deum dicunt, et eum quidem deum, cui reliqui dii concessissent, ut praeter ceteros divinaret.\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 48\n\nadfertur etiam de Sileno fabella quaedam; qui cum a Mida captus esset, hoc ei muneris pro sua missione dedisse scribitur: docuisse regem non nasci homini longe optimum  esse, proximum autem quam primum mori.\n\nSECTION 115\nqua est sententia in Cresphonte usus Euripides:\nNam nós decebat coétus celebrantís domum\nLugére, ubi esset áliquis in lucem éditus,\nHumánae vitae vária reputantís mala;\nAt, quí labores mórte finissét gravis,\nHunc ómni amicos laúde et laetitia éxsequi.\nsimile quiddam est in Consolatione Crantoris: ait enim Terinaeum quendam Elysium, cum graviter filii mortem maereret, venisse in psychomantium quaerentem, quae fuisset tantae calamitatis causa; huic in tabellis tris huius modi versiculos datos:\nIgnaris homines in vita mentibus errant:\nEuthynous potitur fatorum numine leto.\nSic fuit utilius finiri ipsique tibique.\n\nSECTION 116\nhis et talibus auctoribus usi confirmant causam rebus a diis inmortalibus iudicatam. Alcidamas quidem, rhetor antiquus in primis nobilis, scripsit etiam laudationem mortis, quae constat ex enumeratione humanorum malorum; cui rationes eae quae exquisitius a philosophis colliguntur defuerunt, ubertas orationis non defuit. Clarae vero mortes pro patria oppetitae non solum gloriosae rhetoribus, sed etiam beatae videri solent. repetunt ab Erechtheo, cuius etiam filiae cupide mortem expetiverunt pro vita civium; <commemorant> Codrum, qui se in medios inmisit hostis veste famulari, ne posset adgnosci, si esset ornatu  regio, quod oraculum erat datum, si rex interfectus esset, victrices Athenas fore; Menoeceus non praetermittitur, qui item oraculo edito largitus est patriae suum sanguinem; <nam>  Iphigenia Aulide duci se immolandam iubet, ut hostium eliciatur suo. veniunt inde ad propiora:\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 49\n\nHarmodius in ore <est>  et Aristogiton; Lacedaemonius Leonidas, Thebanus Epaminondas viget. nostros non norunt, quos enumerare magnum est: ita sunt multi, quibus videmus optabilis mortes fuisse cum gloria.\n\nQuae cum ita sint, magna tamen eloquentia est utendum atque ita velut superiore e loco contionandum, ut homines mortem vel optare incipiant vel certe timere desistant?\n\nSECTION 117\nnam si supremus ille dies non extinctionem, sed commutationem adfert loci, quid optabilius? sin autem perimit ac delet omnino, quid melius quam in mediis vitae laboribus obdormiscere et ita coniventem somno consopiri sempiterno? quod si fiat, melior Enni quam Solonis oratio. hic enim noster: ‘nemo me lacrimis decoret’  inquit ‘nec funera fletu faxit!’ at vero ille sapiens:\nMors mea ne careat lacrimis: linquamus amicis\nMaerorem, ut celebrent funera cum gemitu.\n\nSECTION 118\nnos vero, si quid tale acciderit, ut a deo denuntiatum videatur ut exeamus e vita, laeti et agentes gratias pareamus emittique nos e custodia et levari vinclis arbitremur, ut aut in aeternam et plane in nostram  domum remigremus aut omni sensu molestiaque careamus; sin autem nihil denuntiabitur, eo tamen simus animo, ut horribilem illum diem aliis nobis faustum putemus nihilque in malis ducamus, quod sit vel a diis inmortalibus vel a natura parente omnium constitutum. non enim temere nec fortuito sati et creati sumus, sed profecto fuit quaedam vis, quae generi consuleret humano nec id gigneret aut aleret, quod cum exanclavisset omnes labores, tum incideret in mortis malum sempiternum: portum potius paratum nobis et perfugium putemus.\n\nSECTION 119\nquo utinam velis passis pervehi liceat! sin reflantibus ventis reiciemur, tamen eodem paulo tardius referamur necesse est. quod autem omnibus necesse est, idne miserum esse uni potest? Habes epilogum, ne quid praetermissum aut relictum putes.\n\nEgo vero, et quidem fecit etiam iste me epilogus firmiorem.\n\nOptime, inquam. sed nunc quidem valetudini tribuamus aliquid, cras autem et quot dies erimus in Tusculano, agamus haec et ea potissimum, quae levationem habeant aegritudinum formidinum cupiditatum, qui omnis philosophiae  est fructus uberrimus.\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 1\n\nSECTION 1\nNeoptolemus quidem apud Ennium philosophari sibi ait necesse esse, sed paucis; nam omnino haud placere: ego autem, Brute, necesse mihi quidem esse arbitror philosophari—nam quid possum, praesertim nihil agens, agere melius?—sed non paucis, ut ille. difficile est enim in philosophia pauca esse ei nota, cui non sint aut pleraque aut omnia. nam nec pauca nisi e multis eligi possunt nec, qui pauca perceperit, non idem reliqua eodem studio persequetur.\n\nSECTION 2\nsed tamen in vita occupata atque, ut Neoptolemi tum erat, militari pauca ipsa multum saepe prosunt et ferunt fructus, si non tantos quanti ex universa philosophia percipi possunt, tamen eos quibus aliqua ex parte interdum aut cupiditate aut aegritudine aut metu liberemur. velut ex ea disputatione, quae mihi nuper habita est in Tusculano, magna videbatur mortis effecta contemptio, quae non minimum valet ad animum metu liberandum. nam qui id quod vitari non potest metuit, is vivere animo quieto nullo modo  potest; sed qui non modo quia necesse est mori, verum etiam quia nihil habet mors quod sit horrendum, mortem non timet, magnum is sibi praesidium ad beatam vitam comparavit.\n\nSECTION 3\nQuamquam non sumus ignari multos studiose contra esse dicturos; quod vitare nullo modo potuimus, nisi nihil omnino scriberemus. etenim si orationes, quas nos multitudinis iudicio probari volebamus (popularis est enim illa facultas, et effectus eloquentiae est audientium adprobatio)—sed si reperiebantur non nulli, qui nihil laudarent nisi quod se imitari posse confiderent, quemque sperandi sibi, eundem bene dicendi finem proponerent, et cum obruerentur copia sententiarum atque verborum, ieiunitatem et famem se malle quam ubertatem et copiam dicerent, unde erat exortum genus Atticorum is ipsis, qui id sequi se profitebantur, ignotum, qui iam conticuerunt paene ab ipso foro inrisi:\n\nSECTION 4\nquid futurum putamus, cum adiutore populo, quo utebamur antea, nunc minime nos uti posse videamus? est enim philosophia paucis contenta iudicibus, multitudinem consulto ipsa fugiens eique ipsi et suspecta et invisa, ut, vel si quis universam velit vituperare, secundo id populo facere possit, vel si in eam quam nos maxime sequimur conetur invadere, magna habere possit auxilia e reliquorum philosophorum disciplinis.\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 2\n\nNos autem universae philosophiae vituperatoribus respondimus in Hortensio, pro Academia autem quae dicenda essent, satis accurate in  Academicis quattuor libris explicata arbitramur; sed tamen tantum abest ut scribi contra nos nolimus, ut id etiam maxime optemus. in ipsa enim Graecia philosophia tanto in honore numquam fuisset, nisi doctissimorum contentionibus dissensionibusque viguisset.\n\nSECTION 5\nQuam ob rem hortor omnis, qui facere id possunt, ut huius quoque generis laudem iam languenti Graeciae eripiant et transferant in hanc urbem, sicut reliquas omnis, quae quidem erant expetendae, studio atque industria sua maiores nostri transtulerunt. atque oratorum quidem laus ita ducta ab humili venit ad summum, ut iam, quod natura fert in omnibus fere rebus, senescat brevique tempore ad nihilum ventura videatur, philosophia nascatur Latinis quidem litteris ex his temporibus, eamque nos adiuvemus nosque ipsos redargui refellique patiamur. quod i ferunt animo iniquo, qui certis quibusdam destinatisque sententiis quasi addicti et consecrati sunt eaque necessitate constricti, ut etiam, quae non probare soleant, ea cogantur constantiae causa defendere: nos, qui sequimur probabilia nec ultra [quam] id quod veri simile occurrit progredi possumus, et refellere sine pertinacia et refelli sine iracundia parati sumus.\n\nSECTION 6\nQuodsi haec studia traducta erunt ad nostros, ne bibliothecis quidem Graecis egebimus, in quibus multitudo infinita librorum propter eorum est multitudinem, qui scripserunt. eadem enim dicuntur a multis, ex quo libris omnia referserunt. quod accidet etiam nostris, si ad haec studia plures confluxerint. sed eos, si possumus, excitemus, qui liberaliter eruditi adhibita etiam disserendi elegantia ratione et via philosophantur.\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 3\n\nSECTION 7\nest enim quoddam genus eorum qui se philosophos appellari volunt, quorum dicuntur esse Latini sane multi libri; quos non contemno equidem, quippe quos numquam legerim; sed quia profitentur ipsi illi, qui eos scribunt, se neque distincte neque distribute neque eleganter neque ornate scribere, lectionem sine ulla delectatione neglego. quid enim dicant et quid sentiant i qui sunt ab ea disciplina, nemo <ne>  mediocriter quidem doctus ignorat. quam ob rem, quoniam quem ad modum dicant ipsi non laborant, cur legendi sint nisi ipsi inter se qui idem sentiunt, non intellego.\n\nSECTION 8\nnam, ut Platonem reliquosque Socraticos et deinceps eos, qui ab his profecti sunt, legunt omnes, etiam qui illa aut non adprobant aut non studiosissime consectantur,  Epicurum autem et Metrodorum non fere praeter suos quisquam in manus sumit, sic hos Latinos i soli legunt, qui illa recte dici putant. nobis autem videtur, quicquid litteris mandetur, id commendari omnium eruditorum lectioni decere; nec, si id ipsi minus consequi possumus, idcirco  minus id ita faciendum esse sentimus.\n\nSECTION 9\nItaque mihi semper Peripateticorum Academiaeque consuetudo de omnibus rebus in contrarias partis disserendi non ob eam causam solum placuit, quod aliter non posset, quid in quaque re veri simile esset, inveniri, sed etiam quod esset ea maxuma dicendi exercitatio. qua princeps usus est Aristoteles, deinde eum qui secuti sunt. nostra autem memoria Philo, quem nos frequenter audivimus, instituit alio tempore rhetorum praecepta tradere, alio philosophorum: ad quam nos consuetudinem a familiaribus nostris adducti in Tusculano, quod datum est temporis nobis, in eo consumpsimus. itaque cum ante meridiem dictioni operam dedissemus, sicut pridie feceramus, post meridiem in Academiam descendimus. in qua disputationem habitam non quasi narrantes exponimus, sed eisdem fere verbis, ut actum disputatumque est.\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 4\n\nEst igitur ambulantibus ad hunc modum sermo ille nobis institutus et a tali quodam ductus exordio:\n\nSECTION 10\nDici non potest, quam sim hesterna disputatione tua delectatus vel potius adiutus. etsi enim mihi sum conscius numquam me nimis    vitae cupidum fuisse, tamen interdum obiciebatur animo metus quidam et dolor cogitanti  fore aliquando finem huius lucis et amissionem omnium vitae commodorum. hoc genere molestiae sic, mihi crede, sum liberatus, ut nihil minus curandum putem.\n\nMinime mirum id quidem;\n\nSECTION 11\nnam efficit hoc philosophia:  medetur animis, inanes sollicitudines detrahit, cupiditatibus liberat, pellit timores. sed haec eius vis non idem potest apud omnis: tum valet multum, cum est idoneam complexa naturam. fortis enim non modo fortuna adiuvat, ut est in vetere proverbio, sed multo magis ratio, quae quibusdam quasi praeceptis confirmat vim fortitudinis. te natura excelsum quendam videlicet et altum et humana despicientem genuit; itaque facile in animo forti contra mortem habita insedit oratio. sed haec eadem num censes apud eos ipsos valere nisi admodum paucos, a quibus inventa disputata conscripta sunt? quotus enim quisque philosophorum invenitur, qui sit ita moratus, ita animo ac vita constitutus, ut ratio postulat? qui disciplinam suam  non ostentationem scientiae, sed legem vitae putet? qui obtemperet ipse sibi et decretis suis pareat?\n\nSECTION 12\nvidere licet alios tanta levitate et iactatione, ut iis  fuerit non didicisse melius, alios pecuniae cupidos, gloriae non nullos, multos libidinum servos, ut cum eorum vita mirabiliter pugnet oratio. quod quidem mihi videtur esse turpissimum. ut enim si grammaticum se professus quispiam barbare loquatur, aut si absurde canat is qui se haberi velit musicum, hoc turpior sit, quod in eo ipso peccet, cuius profitetur scientiam, sic philosophus in vitae ratione peccans hoc turpior est, quod in officio, cuius magister esse vult, labitur artemque vitae professus delinquit in vita.\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 5\n\nNonne verendum est igitur, si est ita, ut dicis, ne  philosophiam falsa gloria exornes? quod est enim maius argumentum nihil eam prodesse, quam quosdam perfectos philosophos turpiter vivere?\n\nSECTION 13\nNullum vero id quidem argumentum est. nam ut agri non omnes frugiferi sunt qui coluntur, falsumque illud Acci:\nProbae étsi in segetem súnt deteriorém datae\nFrugés, tamen ipsae suápte natura énitent\n, sic animi non omnes culti fructum ferunt. atque, ut in eodem simili verser, ut ager quamvis fertilis sine cultura fructuosus esse non potest, sic sine doctrina animus; ita est utraque res sine altera debilis. cultura autem animi philosophia est; haec extrahit vitia radicitus et praeparat animos ad satus accipiendos eaque mandat  is et, ut ita dicam, serit, quae adulta fructus uberrimos ferant. Agamus igitur, ut coepimus. dic, si vis, de quo disputari velis.\n\nSECTION 14\nDolorem existimo maxumum malorum omnium.\n\nEtiamne maius quam dedecus?\n\nNon audeo id dicere equidem, et me pudet tam cito de sententia esse deiectum.\n\nMagis esset pudendum, si in sententia permaneres. quid enim minus est dignum quam tibi peius quicquam videri dedecore flagitio turpitudine? quae ut effugias, quis est non modo recusandus, sed non ultro adpetendus subeundus excipiendus dolor?\n\nIta prorsus existimo. quare ne sit sane summum malum dolor, malum certe est.\n\nVidesne igitur, quantum breviter admonitus de doloris terrore deieceris?\n\nSECTION 15\nVideo plane, sed plus desidero.\n\nExperiar equidem; sed magna res est, animoque mihi opus est non repugnante.\n\nHabebis id quidem. ut enim heri feci, sic nunc rationem, quo ea me cumque ducet, sequar.\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 6\n\nPrimum igitur de inbecillitate multorum et de variis disciplinis philosophorum loquar. quorum princeps et auctoritate et antiquitate Socraticus Aristippus non dubitavit summum malum dolorem dicere. deinde ad hanc enervatam muliebremque sententiam satis docilem se Epicurus praebuit. hunc post Rhodius Hieronymus dolore vacare  summum bonum dixit: tantum in dolore duxit mali. ceteri praeter Zenonem, Aristonem, Pyrrhonem idem fere quod modo tu: malum illud quidem, sed alia peiora.\n\nSECTION 16\nergo id quod natura ipsa et quaedam generosa virtus statim respuit, ne scilicet dolorem summum malum diceres oppositoque dedecore sententia depellerere, in eo magistra vitae philosophia tot saecula permanet. quod huic officium, quae laus, quod decus erit tanti, quod adipisci cum dolore corporis velit, qui dolorem summum malum sibi esse persuaserit? quam porro quis ignominiam, quam turpitudinem non pertulerit, ut effugiat  dolorem, si id summum malum esse decreverit? quis autem non miser non modo tunc, cum premetur summis doloribus, si in his est summum malum, sed etiam cum sciet id sibi posse evenire? et quis est, cui non possit? ita fit, ut omnino nemo esse possit beatus.\n\nSECTION 17\nMetrodorus quidem perfecte eum beatum putat, cui corpus bene constitutum sit et exploratum ita semper fore. quis autem est iste, cui id exploratum possit esse?\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 7\n\nEpicurus vero ea dicit, ut mihi quidem risus captare videatur. adfirmat enim quodam loco, si uratur sapiens, si crucietur—expectas fortasse, dum dicat: ‘patietur, perferet, non succumbet’; magna mehercule laus et eo ipso, per quem iuravi, Hercule, digna; sed Epicuro, homini aspero et duro, non est hoc satis: in Phalaridis tauro si erit, dicet: ‘quam suave est, quam hoc non curo!’  suave etiam? an parum est, si non amarum? at id quidem illi ipsi, qui dolorem malum esse negant, non solent dicere, cuiquam suave esse cruciari: asperum, difficile, odiosum, contra naturam dicunt, nec tamen malum. hic, qui solum hoc malum dicit et malorum omnium extremum, sapientem censet id suave dicturum.\n\nSECTION 18\nego a te non postulo, ut dolorem eisdem  verbis adficias quibus voluptatem Epicurus, homo, ut scis, voluptarius. ille dixerit sane idem in Phalaridis tauro, quod, si esset in lectulo; ego tantam vim non tribuo sapientiae contra dolorem. si fortis est in perferendo, officio satis est; ut laetetur etiam, non postulo. tristis enim res est sine  dubio, aspera, amara, inimica naturae, ad patiendum tolerandumque difficilis.\n\nAspice Philoctetam, cui concedendum est gementi;\n\nSECTION 19\nipsum enim Herculem viderat in Oeta magnitudine dolorum eiulantem. nihil igitur hunc virum sagittae, quas ab Hercule acceperat, tum consolabantur, cum\nE víperino mórsu venae víscerum\nVenéno inbutae taétros cruciatús cient.\nitaque exclamat auxilium expetens,  mori cupiens;\nHeu, quí salsis fluctíbus mandet\nMe ex súblimo    vertíce saxi!\nIam iam ábsumor; confícit animam\nVis vólneris, ulceris aéstus.\ndifficile dictu videtur eum non in malo esse, et magno quidem, qui ita clamare cogatur.\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 8\n\nSECTION 20\nSed videamus Herculem ipsum, qui tum dolore frangebatur, cum inmortalitatem ipsa morte quaerebat: quas hic voces apud Sophoclem in Trachiniis edit! cui cum Deianira sanguine Centauri tinctam tunicam induisset inhaesissetque ea visceribus, ait ille:\nO múlta dictu grávia, perpessu áspera,\nQuae córpore exancláta atque animo pértuli!\nNec míhi Iunonis térror inplacábilis\nNec tántum invexit trístis Eurystheús mali,\nQuantum úna vaecors Oénei partu édita.\nHaec me ínretivit véste furiali ínscium,\nQuae látere inhaerens mórsu lacerat víscera\nUrgénsque graviter púlmonum haurit spíritus:\nIam décolorem sánguinem omnem exórbuit.\nSic córpus clade horríbili absumptum éxtabuit,\nIpse ínligatus péste interimor téxtili.\nHos nón hostilis déxtra, non Terra édita\nMolés Gigantum, nón biformato ímpetu\nCentaúrus ictus córpori inflixít  meo,\nNon Gráia vis, non bárbara ulla inmánitas,\nNon saéva terris géns relegata últimis,\nQuas péragrans undique ómnem ecferitatem  éxpuli,\nSed féminae vir féminea interimór manu.\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 9\n\nO náte, vere hoc nómen usurpá patri,\nNe me óccidentem mátris superet cáritas.\nHuc árripe ad me mánibus abstractám piis;\nIam cérnam, mene an íllam potiorém putes.\n\nSECTION 21\nPerge, aúde, nate! inlácrima patris péstibus,\nMiserére: gentes nóstras flebunt míserias.\nHeu, vírginalem me óre ploratum édere,\nQuem vídit nemo ulli íngemescentém malo!\nEcféminata vírtus adflicta óccidit.\nAccéde, nate, adsíste, miserandum áspice\nEvísceratum córpus laceratí patris!\nVidéte, cuncti, túque, caelestúm sator,\nIace, óbsecro, in me vím coruscam fúlminis!\nNunc, núnc dolorum anxíferi torquent vértices,\nNunc sérpit ardor. o ánte victricés manus,\n\nSECTION 22\nO péctora, o terga, ó lacertorúm tori,\nVestróne pressu quóndam Nemeaeús leo\nFrendéns efflavit gráviter extremum hálitum?\nHaec déxtra Lernam taétra  mactata éxcetra\nPacávit?   haec bicórporem adflixít manum?\nErymánthiam haec vastíficam abiecit béluam?\nHaec é Tartarea ténebrica abstractúm plaga\nTricípitem eduxit Hýdra generatúm canem?\nHaec ínteremit tórtu multiplicábili\nDracónem auriferam optútu adservantem árborem?\nMulta ália victrix nóstra lustravít manus,\nNec quísquam e nostris spólia cepit laúdibus.\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 10\n\nPossumusne nos contemnere dolorem, cum ipsum Herculem tam intoleranter dolere  videamus?\n\nSECTION 23\nVeniat Aeschylus, non poëta solum, sed etiam Pythagoreus; sic enim accepimus. quo modo fert apud eum Prometheus dolorem, quem excipit ob furtum Lemnium,\nUnde ígnis cluet  mortálibus clam\nDivísus; eum doctús Prometheus\nClepsísse dolo poenásque Iovi\nFato éxpendisse suprémo?\nhas igitur poenas pendens adfixus ad Caucasum dicit haec:\nTitánum suboles,  sócia nostri sánguinis,\nGeneráta Caelo, aspícite religatum ásperis\nVinctúmque  saxis, návem ut horrisonó freto\nNoctém paventes tímidi adnectunt návitae.\nSatúrnius me síc infixit Iúppiter,\nIovísque numen Múlciberi adscivít manus.\nHos ílle cuneos fábrica crudeli ínserens\nPerrúpit artus; quá miser sollértia\nTransvérberatus cástrum hoc Furiarum íncolo.\n\nSECTION 24\nIam tértio me quóque funestó die\nTristi ádvolatu adúncis lacerans únguibus\nIovís satelles pástu dilaniát fero.\nTum iécore   opimo fárta et satiata ádfatim\nClangórem fundit vástum et sublime ávolans\nPinnáta cauda nóstrum adulat sánguinem.\nCum véro adesum inflátu renovatúmst iecur,\nTum rúrsum taetros ávida se ad pastús refert.\nSic hánc custodem maésti cruciatús alo,\nQuae  mé perenni vívum foedat míseria.\nNamque, út videtis, vínclis constrictús Iovis\nArcére nequeo díram volucrem   a péctore.\n\nSECTION 25\nSic me ípse viduus péstes excipio ánxias\nAmóre mortis términum anquiréns mali;\nSed lónge a leto númine aspellór Iovis,\nAtque haéc vetusta, saéclis glomerata hórridis,\nLuctífica clades nóstro infixa est córpori;\nE quó liquatae sólis ardore éxcidunt\nGuttaé, quae saxa adsídue instillant Caúcasi.\nvix igitur posse videmur ita adfectum non miserum dicere et, si nunc miserum, certe dolorem malum.\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 11\n\nSECTION 26\nTu quidem adhuc meam causam agis, sed hoc mox videro; interea, unde isti versus? non enim adgnosco.\n\nDicam hercle; etenim recte requiris. videsne abundare me otio?\n\nQuid tum?\n\nFuisti saepe, credo, cum Athenis esses, in scholis philosophorum.\n\nVero, ac libenter quidem.\n\nAnimadvertebas igitur, etsi tum nemo erat admodum copiosus, verum tamen versus ab is admisceri orationi.\n\nAc multos quidem a Dionysio Stoico.\n\nProbe dicis. sed is quasi dictata, nullo dilectu, nulla elegantia:  Philo et †proprium nrt et lecta poëmata et loco adiungebat. itaque postquam adamavi hanc quasi senilem declamationem, studiose equidem utor nostris poëtis; sed sicubi illi defecerunt—verti enim multa de Graecis, ne quo ornamento in hoc genere disputationis careret Latina oratio.\n\nSed videsne, poëtae quid mali adferant?\n\nSECTION 27\nlamentantis inducunt fortissimos viros, molliunt animos nostros, ita sunt deinde dulces, ut non legantur modo, sed etiam ediscantur. sic ad malam domesticam disciplinam vitamque umbratilem et delicatam cum accesserunt etiam poëtae, nervos omnis virtutis elidunt.  recte igitur a Platone eiciuntur ex ea civitate, quam finxit ille, cum optimos mores et optimum rei p. statum exquireret. at vero nos, docti scilicet a Graecia, haec [et] a pueritia legimus ediscimus, hanc eruditionem liberalem et doctrinam putamus.\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 12\n\nSed quid poëtis irascimur?\n\nSECTION 28\nvirtutis magistri, philosophi, inventi sunt, qui summum malum dolorem dicerent. at tu, adulescens, cum id tibi paulo ante dixisses videri, rogatus a me, etiamne maius quam dedecus, verbo de sententia destitisti. roga  hoc idem Epicurum: maius dicet esse malum mediocrem dolorem quam maxumum dedecus; in ipso enim dedecore mali nihil esse, nisi sequantur dolores. quis igitur Epicurum sequitur dolor, cum hoc ipsum dicit, summum malum esse dolorem? quo dedecus maius a philosopho nullum expecto. quare satis mihi dedisti, cum respondisti maius tibi videri malum dedecus quam dolorem. hoc ipsum enim si tenebis, intelleges quam sit obsistendum dolori; nec tam quaerendum est, dolor malumne sit, quam firmandus animus ad dolorem ferendum.\n\nConcludunt ratiunculas Stoici, cur non sit malum;\n\nSECTION 29\nquasi de verbo, non de re laboretur. quid me decipis, Zeno? nam cum id, quod mihi horribile videtur, tu omnino malum negas esse, capior et scire cupio, quo modo id, quod ego miserrimum existimem, ne malum quidem sit. ‘nihil est’ inquit ‘malum nisi quod turpe atque vitiosum est.’  ad ineptias redis; illud enim, quod me angebat, non eximis. scio dolorem non esse nequitiam;  desine id me docere: hoc doce, doleam necne doleam, nihil interesse. ‘numquam quicquam’ inquit ‘ad beate quidem vivendum, quod est in una virtute positum; sed est tamen reiciendum.’ cur? ‘asperum est, contra naturam, difficile perpessu, triste, durum.’\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 13\n\nSECTION 30\nhaec est copia verborum, quod omnes uno verbo malum appellamus, id tot modis posse dicere. definis tu mihi, non tollis dolorem, cum dicis asperum, contra naturam, vix quod ferri tolerarique possit; nec mentiris; sed re succumbere non oportebat verbis gloriantem. ‘dum nihil bonum nisi quod honestum, nihil malum nisi quod turpe—’ optare hoc quidem est, non docere; illud et melius et verius, omnia quae natura aspernetur in malis esse, quae adsciscat, in bonis. hoc posito et verborum concertatione sublata tantum tamen excellet illud quod recte amplexantur isti, quod honestum, quod rectum, quod decorum appellamus, quod idem interdum virtutis nomine amplectimur, ut omnia praeterea, quae bona corporis et fortunae putantur, perexigua et minuta videantur, <igitur> ne malum quidem ullum, nec si in unum locum conlata omnia sint, cum turpitudinis malo comparanda.\n\nSECTION 31\nquare si, ut  initio concessisti, turpitudo peius est quam dolor, nihil est plane dolor. nam dum tibi turpe nec dignum viro videbitur gemere, eiulare, lamentari, frangi, debilitari  dolore, dum honestas, dum dignitas, dum decus aderit, tuque in ea intuens  te continebis, cedet profecto virtuti dolor et animi inductione languescet.\n\nAut enim nulla virtus est aut contemnendus omnis dolor. prudentiamne vis esse, sine qua ne intellegi quidem ulla virtus potest? quid ergo? ea patieturne te quicquam facere nihil proficientem et <frustra>  laborantem? an temperantia sinet te inmoderate  facere quicquam? an coli iustitia poterit ab homine propter vim doloris enuntiante commissa, prodente conscios, multa officia relinquente?  quid? fortitudini comitibusque eius, magnitudini animi, gravitati, patientiae, rerum humanarum despicientiae, quo modo respondebis?\n\nSECTION 32\nadflictusne  et iacens et lamentabili voce deplorans audieris: ‘o virum fortem!’? te vero ita adfectum ne virum quidem quisquam dixerit. amittenda igitur fortitudo est aut sepeliendus dolor.\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 14\n\nEcquid scis igitur, si quid   de Corinthiis tuis amiseris, posse habere te reliquam supellectilem salvam, virtutem autem si unam amiseris—etsi amitti non potest virtus, sed si unam confessus eris te non habere, nullam esse te habiturum?\n\nSECTION 33\nnum igitur fortem virum, num magno animo, num patientem, num gravem, num humana contemnentem potes dicere aut Philoctetam  illum—? a te enim malo discedere, sed ille certe non fortis, qui iacet\nin tecto úmido,\nQuod éiulatu, quéstu, gemitu, frémitibus\nResonándo mutum flébilis vocés refert.\nnon ego dolorem dolorem esse nego—cur enim fortitudo desideraretur?—sed eum opprimi dico patientia, si modo est aliqua patientia; si nulla est, quid exornamus philosophiam aut quid eius nomine gloriosi sumus? pungit  dolor, vel fodiat sane: si nudus es, da iugulum; sin tectus Volcaniis armis, id est fortitudine, resiste; haec enim te, nisi ita facies, custos dignitatis relinquet et deseret.\n\nSECTION 34\nCretum quidem leges, quas <sive Iuppiter> sive Minos sanxit de Iovis quidem sententia, ut poëtae ferunt, itemque Lycurgi laboribus erudiunt iuventutem, venando currendo, esuriendo sitiendo, algendo aestuando. Spartae vero pueri ad aram sic verberibus accipiuntur, ‘ut multus e visceribus sanguis exeat,’   non numquam etiam, ut, cum ibi essem, audiebam, ad necem; quorum non modo nemo exclamavit umquam, sed ne ingemuit quidem. quid ergo? hoc pueri possunt, viri non poterunt? et mos valet, ratio non valebit?\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 15\n\nSECTION 35\nInterest aliquid inter laborem et dolorem. sunt finitima omnino, sed tamen differt aliquid. labor est functio quaedam vel animi vel corporis gravioris operis et muneris, dolor autem motus asper in corpore alienus a sensibus. haec duo Graeci illi, quorum copiosior est lingua quam nostra, uno nomine appellant. itaque industrios homines illi studiosos vel potius  amantis doloris appellant, nos commodius laboriosos: aliud est enim laborare, aliud dolere. o verborum inops interdum, quibus abundare te semper putas, Graecia! aliud, inquam, est dolere, aliud laborare. cum varices secabantur C. Mario, dolebat; cum aestu magno ducebat agmen, laborabat. est inter haec quaedam tamen similitudo: consuetudo enim laborum perpessionem dolorum efficit faciliorem.\n\nSECTION 36\nitaque illi, qui  Graeciae formam rerum publicarum dederunt, corpora iuvenum firmari labore voluerunt; quod Spartiatae etiam in feminas transtulerunt, quae ceteris in urbibus mollissimo cultu ‘parietum umbris occuluntur’. illi autem voluerunt nihil horum simile esse\nápud Lacaenas vírgines,\nQuibus mágis palaestra Euróta sol pulvís labor\nMilítia in studio est quám fertilitas bárbara.\nergo his laboriosis exercitationibus et dolor intercurrit non numquam, inpelluntur feriuntur abiciuntur cadunt, et ipse labor quasi callum quoddam obducit  dolori.\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 16\n\nSECTION 37\nMilitiam vero—nostram dico, non Spartiatarum, quorum procedit ad modum <acies>  ac tibiam,  nec adhibetur ulla sine anapaestis pedibus hortatio—, nostri exercitus primum unde nomen habeant, vides; deinde qui labor, quantus agminis: ferre plus dimidiati mensis cibaria, ferre, si quid ad usum velint, ferre vallum (nam scutum gladium galeam in onere  nostri milites non plus numerant quam umeros lacertos manus: arma enim membra militis esse dicunt; quae quidem ita geruntur apte, ut, si usus fuerit, abiectis oneribus expeditis armis ut membris pugnare possint). quid? exercitatio legionum, quid? ille cursus concursus clamor quanti laboris est! ex hoc ille animus in proeliis paratus ad volnera. adduc pari animo inexercitatum militem:\n\nSECTION 38\nmulier videbitur. cur tantum interest inter novum et veterem exercitum, quantum experti sumus? aetas tironum plerumque melior, sed ferre laborem, contemnere volnus consuetudo docet. quin etiam videmus ex acie efferri saepe saucios, et quidem rudem illum et inexercitatum quamvis levi ictu ploratus turpissimos edere: at vero ille exercitatus et vetus ob eamque rem fortior medicum modo requirens, a quo obligetur:\n‘O Pátricoles’  inquit, ‘ad vós adveniens aúxilium et vestrás manus’\n‘Petó, prius quam oppetó malam pestem mándatam hostilí manu,’\n‘[…]’\n‘Neque sánguis ullo pótis est pacto prófluens consístere,’\n‘Si quí sapientiá magis vestra mórs devitarí potest.’\n‘Namque Aésculapi líberorum saúcii opplent pórticus;’\n‘Non pótest accedi.—’\n‘Cérte Eurypylus híc quidem est. hominem exércitum!’\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 17\n\nSECTION 39\n<non minus autem exercitatum>: ubi tantum luctus continuatur, vide quam non flebiliter respondeat, rationem etiam adferat cur aequo animo sibi ferendum sit:\nQui álteri exitiúm parat,\nEum scíre oportet síbi paratum, péstem ut participét parem.\nabducet Patricoles, credo, ut conlocet in cubili, ut volnus obliget. siquidem homo esset; sed nihil vidi minus.  quaerit enim, quid actum sit:\nElóquere eloquere, rés Argivum proélio ut se sústinet.—\nNon pótest ecfari   tántum dictis, quántum factis súppetit\nLabóris.\nquiesce igitur et volnus alliga. etiamsi Eurypylus posset, non posset Aesopus:\nUbi fortuna Hectóris nostram acrem áciem inclinatám […]\net cetera explicat in dolore; sic est enim intemperans militaris in forti viro gloria. ergo haec veteranus miles facere poterit, doctus vir sapiensque non poterit?\n\nSECTION 40\nille vero melius, ac non paulo quidem. Sed adhuc de consuetudine exercitationis loquor, nondum de ratione et sapientia. aniculae saepe inediam biduum aut triduum ferunt; subduc cibum unum diem athletae:  Iovem, Iovem Olympium, eum ipsum, cui se exercebit, inplorabit, ferre  non posse clamabit. consuetudinis magna vis est: pernoctant venatores in nive in montibus; uri se patiuntur Indi; pugiles caestibus contusi ne ingemescunt quidem.\n\nSECTION 41\nsed quid hos, quibus Olympiorum victoria consulatus ille antiquus videtur? gladiatores, aut perditi homines aut barbari, quas plagas perferunt! quo modo illi, qui bene instituti sunt, accipere plagam malunt quam turpiter vitare! quam saepe apparet nihil eos malle quam vel domino satis facere vel populo! mittunt etiam volneribus confecti ad dominos, qui quaerant quid velint: si satis is factum sit, se velle decumbere. quis mediocris gladiator ingemuit, quis vultum mutavit umquam? quis non modo stetit, verum etiam decubuit turpiter? quis, cum decubuisset, ferrum recipere iussus collum contraxit? tantum exercitatio meditatio consuetudo valet. ergo hoc poterit ‘Samnis, spurcus homo, vita illa dignus locoque’; vir natus ad gloriam ullam partem animi tam mollem habebit, quam non meditatione et ratione conroboret? crudele gladiatorum spectaculum et inhumanum non nullis videri solet, et haud scio an ita sit, ut nunc fit; cum vero sontes ferro depugnabant, auribus fortasse multae, oculis quidem nulla poterat esse fortior contra dolorem et mortem disciplina.\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 18\n\nSECTION 42\nDe exercitatione et consuetudine et commentatione  dixi. age sis,  nunc de ratione videamus, nisi quid vis ad haec.\n\nEgone ut te interpellem? ne hoc quidem vellem: ita me ad credendum tua ducit oratio.\n\nSitne igitur malum dolere necne, Stoici viderint, qui contortulis quibusdam et minutis conclusiunculis nec ad sensus permanantibus effici volunt non esse malum dolorem. ego illud, quicquid sit, tantum esse, quantum videatur, non puto, falsaque eius visione et specie moveri homines dico vehementius, doloremque [eius] omnem esse tolerabilem.\n\nUnde igitur ordiar? an eadem breviter attingam, quae modo dixi, quo facilius oratio progredi possit longius?\n\nSECTION 43\ninter omnis igitur hoc constat, nec doctos homines solum sed etiam indoctos, virorum esse fortium et magnanimorum et patientium et humana vincentium toleranter dolorem pati; nec vero quisquam fuit, qui eum, qui ita pateretur, non laudandum putaret. quod ergo et postulatur a fortibus et laudatur, cum fit, id aut extimescere veniens aut non ferre praesens nonne turpe est? atqui vide ne, cum omnes rectae animi adfectiones virtutes appellentur, non sit hoc proprium nomen omnium, sed ab ea quae una ceteris excellebat omnes nominatae sint. appellata est enim ex viro virtus; viri autem propria maxime est  fortitudo, cuius munera duo sunt maxima: mortis dolorisque contemptio. utendum est igitur his, si virtutis compotes vel potius si viri volumus esse, quoniam a viris virtus nomen est mutuata.\n\nQuaeres fortasse, quo modo, et recte: talem enim medicinam philosophia profitetur.\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 19\n\nSECTION 44\nvenit Epicurus, homo minime malus vel potius vir optimus; tantum monet, quantum intellegit. ‘neglege’ inquit ‘dolorem.’ quis hoc dicit? idem, qui dolorem summum malum? vix satis constanter. audiamus. ‘si summus dolor est’ inquit, ‘brevem necesse est esse.’ ‘iteradum eadem ista mihi!’ non enim satis intellego, quid summum dicas esse, quid breve. ‘summum, quo nihil sit superius, breve, quo nihil brevius. contemno magnitudinem doloris, a qua me brevitas temporis vindicabit ante paene quam venerit.’ sed si est tantus dolor, quantus Philoctetae? ‘bene plane magnus mihi quidem videtur, sed tamen non summus; nihil enim dolet nisi pes: possunt oculi, potest caput latera pulmones, possunt omnia; longe igitur abest a summo dolore. ergo’ inquit ‘dolor diuturnus habet laetitiae plus quam molestiae.’\n\nSECTION 45\nnunc ego non possum tantum hominem nihil sapere dicere, sed nos ab eo derideri puto. ego summum dolorem—summum autem dico, etiamsi decem atomis est maior alius—non continuo esse dico brevem multosque possum bonos viros nominare, qui complures annos doloribus podagrae crucientur  maximis. sed homo catus numquam terminat nec magnitudinis nec diuturnitatis modum,  ut sciam, quid summum dicat in dolore, quid breve in tempore. omittamus hunc igitur nihil prorsus dicentem cogamusque confiteri non esse ab eo doloris remedia quaerenda, qui dolorem malorum omnium maxumum dixerit, quamvis idem forticulum se in torminibus et in stranguria sua praebeat. Aliunde igitur est quaerenda medicina, et maxime quidem, si, quid maxime consentaneum sit, quaerimus, ab is quibus, quod honestum sit, summum bonum, quod turpe, summum videtur malum. his tu praesentibus gemere et iactare te non audebis profecto;\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 20\n\nSECTION 46\nloquetur enim eorum voce Virtus ipsa tecum: ‘tune, cum pueros Lacedaemone, adulescentis Olympiae, barbaros in harena videris excipientis gravissimas plagas et ferentis silentio, si te forte dolor aliquis pervellerit, exclamabis ut mulier, non constanter et sedate feres?’ ‘fieri non potest; natura non patitur.’ audio. pueri ferunt gloria  ducti, ferunt pudore alii, multi metu, et tamen veremur, ut hoc, quod a tam multis et quod tot locis perferatur, natura patiatur? illa vero non modo patitur, verum etiam postulat: nihil enim habet praestantius, nihil quod magis expetat quam honestatem, quam  laudem, quam dignitatem, quam decus. hisce ego pluribus nominibus unam rem declarari volo, sed utor, ut quam maxime significem, pluribus. volo autem dicere illud homini longe optumum esse, quod ipsum sit optandum per se, a virtute profectum vel in ipsa virtute situm, sua sponte laudabile, quod idem citius dixerim solum quam non summum bonum. atque ut haec de honesto, sic de turpi contraria: nihil tam taetrum, nihil tam aspernandum, nihil homine indignius.\n\nSECTION 47\nQuod si tibi persuasum est—principio enim dixisti plus in dedecore mali tibi videri quam in dolore—, reliquum est, ut tute tibi imperes. quamquam hoc nescio quo modo dicatur. quasi duo simus, ut alter imperet, alter pareat!\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 21\n\nnon inscite tamen dicitur. est enim animus in partis tributus duas, quarum altera rationis est particeps, altera expers. cum igitur praecipitur, ut nobismet ipsis imperemus, hoc praecipitur, ut ratio coërceat temeritatem. est in animis omnium fere natura molle quiddam, demissum, humile, enervatum quodam modo et languidum. si nihil esset aliud, nihil esset homine deformius. sed praesto est domina omnium et regina ratio, quae conixa per se et progressa longius fit perfecta virtus. haec ut imperet illi parti animi, quae oboedire debet, id videndum est viro. ‘quonam modo?’ inquies.\n\nSECTION 48\nvel ut dominus  servo vel ut imperator militi vel ut parens filio.  si turpissime se illa pars animi geret, quam dixi esse mollem, si se lamentis muliebriter lacrimisque dedet, vinciatur et constringatur amicorum propinquorumque custodiis; saepe enim videmus fractos pudore, qui ratione nulla vincerentur. ergo hos quidem ut famulos vinclis prope ac custodia, qui autem erunt firmiores nec tamen robustissimi, hos admonitu oportebit ut bonos milites revocatos dignitatem tueri. non nimis in Niptris ille sapientissimus Graeciae saucius lamentatur vel modice potius: ‘pedetemptim,’ inquit,\nite et sedató nisu\nNe súccussu arripiát maior\nDolor\n\nSECTION 49\n(Pacuvius hoc melius quam Sophocles; apud illum enim perquam flebiliter Ulixes lamentatur in volnere); tamen huic leviter gementi illi ipsi, qui ferunt saucium, personae gravitatem intuentes non dubitant dicere:\nTu quóque, Ulixes, quamquám graviter\nCernímus ictum, nimis paéne animo es\nMollí, qui consuetús in armis\nAevom ágere […]\nintellegit poëta prudens ferendi doloris consuetudinem esse non contemnendam magistram.\n\nSECTION 50\natque ille non inmoderate magno in dolore:\nRetinéte, tenete! opprímit ulcus;\nNudáte! heu miserum me: éxcrucior.\nincipit labi, deinde ilico desinit:\nOperíte, abscedite iám iam!\nMittíte! nam attrectatu ét quassu\nSaevum ámplificatis dolórem.\nvidesne, ut obmutuerit non sedatus corporis, sed castigatus animi dolor? itaque in extremis Niptris alios quoque obiurgat, idque moriens:\nCónqueri fortúnam adversam, nón lamentarí decet;\nId viri est offícium, fletus múliebri ingenio ádditus.\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 22\n\nSECTION 51\nHuius animi pars illa mollior rationi sic paruit ut severo imperatori miles pudens.  in quo vero erit perfecta sapientia—quem adhuc nos quidem vidimus neminem; sed philosophorum sententiis, qualis hic futurus sit, si modo aliquando fuerit, exponitur—, is igitur sive ea ratio, quae erit in eo perfecta atque absoluta, sic illi parti imperabit inferiori ut iustus parens probis filiis; nutu, quod volet, conficiet, nullo labore, nulla molestia; eriget ipse se, suscitabit, instruet, armabit, ut tamquam hosti sic obsistat dolori. quae sunt ista arma? contentio confirmatio sermoque intumus, cum ipse secum:\n\nSECTION 52\n‘cave turpe quicquam, languidum, non virile.’ obversentur   species honestae animo: Zeno proponatur Eleates, qui perpessus est omnia potius quam conscios delendae tyrannidis indicaret; de Anaxarcho Democritio cogitetur, qui cum  Cypri  in manus Timocreontis  regis incidisset, nullum genus supplicii deprecatus est neque recusavit. Callanus Indus, indoctus ac barbarus, in radicibus Caucasi natus, sua voluntate vivus combustus est; nos, si pes condoluit, si dens [sed fac totum    dolere  corpus], ferre non possumus. opinio est enim quaedam effeminata ac levis—nec in dolore magis quam eadem in voluptate—, qua cum liquescimus fluimusque mollitia, apis aculeum sine clamore ferre non possumus.\n\nSECTION 53\nat vero C. Marius, rusticanus vir, sed plane vir, cum secaretur, ut supra dixi, principio vetuit se alligari, nec quisquam ante Marium solutus dicitur esse sectus. cur ergo postea alii? valuit auctoritas. videsne igitur opinionis esse, non naturae malum? et tamen fuisse acrem morsum doloris idem Marius ostendit; crus enim alterum non praebuit. ita et tulit dolorem ut vir et ut homo maiorem ferre sine causa necessaria noluit.\n\nTotum igitur in eo est, ut tibi imperes. ostendi autem, quod esset imperandi genus; atque haec cogitatio, quid patientia, quid fortitudine, quid magnitudine animi dignissimum sit, non solum animum comprimit, sed ipsum etiam dolorem nescio quo pacto mitiorem facit.\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 23\n\nSECTION 54\nut enim fit in proelio, ut ignavus miles ac timidus, simul ac viderit hostem, abiecto scuto fugiat quantum possit, ob eamque causam pereat non numquam etiam integro corpore, cum ei qui steterit nihil  tale evenerit, sic qui doloris speciem ferre non possunt, abiciunt se atque ita adflicti et exanimati iacent; qui autem restiterunt, discedunt saepissime superiores. sunt enim quaedam animi similitudines cum corpore. ut onera contentis corporibus facilius feruntur, remissis opprimunt, simillime animus intentione sua depellit pressum omnem ponderum,\n\nSECTION 55\nremissione autem sic urgetur, ut se nequeat extollere. et si verum quaerimus, in omnibus officiis persequendis animi est adhibenda contentio; ea est sola officii tamquam custodia. sed hoc idem in dolore maxume est providendum, ne quid abiecte, ne quid timide, ne quid ignave, ne quid serviliter muliebriterve faciamus, in primisque refutetur ac reiciatur Philocteteus ille clamor. Ingemescere non numquam viro concessum est, idque raro, eiulatus ne mulieri quidem; et hic nimirum est ‘lessus’, quem duodecim tabulae in funeribus adhiberi vetuerunt.\n\nSECTION 56\nnec vero umquam ne ingemescit quidem vir fortis ac sapiens, nisi forte ut se intendat ad firmitatem, ut in stadio cursores exclamant quam maxime possunt. faciunt idem, cum exercentur, athletae;    pugiles vero, etiam cum feriunt adversarium, in iactandis caestibus ingemescunt,   non quod doleant animove succumbant, sed quia profundenda voce omne corpus intenditur venitque plaga vehementior.\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 24\n\nquid? qui volunt exclamare maius, num satis habent latera  fauces linguam intendere, e quibus elici vocem et fundi videmus? toto corpore atque omnibus ungulis, ut dicitur, contentioni vocis adserviunt.\n\nSECTION 57\ngenu mehercule M. Antonium vidi, cum contente  pro se ipse lege Varia diceret, terram tangere. ut enim ballistae lapidum et reliqua tormenta telorum eo graviores emissiones habent, quo sunt contenta atque adducta vehementius, sic vox, sic cursus, sic plaga hoc gravior, quo est missa contentius. cuius contentionis cum tanta vis sit, si gemitus in dolore ad confirmandum animum valebit, utemur; sin erit ille gemitus elamentabilis, si inbecillus, si abiectus, si flebilis, ei qui se dederit, vix eum virum dixerim. qui quidem gemitus si levationis aliquid adferret,  tamen videremus, quid esset fortis et animosi viri; cum vero nihil imminuat doloris, cur frustra turpes esse volumus? quid est enim fletu muliebri viro turpius?\n\nSECTION 58\natque hoc praeceptum, quod de dolore datur, patet latius: omnibus enim rebus, non solum dolori, simili contentione animi resistendum est. ira exardescit, libido concitatur: in eandem arcem confugiendum est, eadem sunt arma sumenda. sed quoniam de dolore loquimur, illa omittamus.\n\nAd ferendum igitur dolorem placide atque sedate plurimum proficit toto pectore, ut dicitur, cogitare, quam id honestum sit. sumus enim natura, ut ante dixi—dicendum est enim saepius—, studiosissimi adpetentissimique honestatis, cuius si quasi lumen  aliquod aspeximus, nihil est quod, ut eo potiamur, non parati simus  et ferre et perpeti. ex hoc cursu atque impetu animorum ad veram laudem atque honestatem illa pericula adeuntur in proeliis, non sentiunt viri fortes in acie volnera, vel sentiunt, sed mori malunt quam tantum modo de dignitatis gradu demoveri.\n\nSECTION 59\nfulgentis gladios hostium videbant Decii, cum in aciem eorum inruebant. his levabat omnem volnerum metum nobilitas mortis et gloria. num tum ingemuisse Epaminondam putas, cum una cum sanguine vitam effluere sentiret? imperantem enim patriam Lacedaemoniis relinquebat, quam acceperat servientem. haec sunt solacia, haec fomenta summorum dolorum.\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 25\n\nSECTION 60\nDices: quid in pace, quid domi, quid in lectulo? ad philosophos me revocas, qui in aciem non saepe prodeunt. e quibus homo sane levis, Heracleotes Dionysius,  cum a Zenone fortis esse didicisset, a dolore dedoctus est. nam cum ex renibus laboraret, ipso in eiulatu clamitabat falsa esse illa, quae antea de dolore ipse sensisset. quem cum Cleanthes condiscipulus rogaret, quaenam ratio eum de sententia deduxisset, respondit: ‘quia, <si,> cum tantulum operae philosophiae dedissem, dolorem tamen ferre non possem, satis esset argumenti malum esse dolorem. plurimos autem annos in philosophia consumpsi nec ferre possum. malum est igitur dolor.’ tum Cleanthem,  cum pede terram percussisset, versum ex Epigonis  ferunt dixisse:\naudísne haec, Amphiaráe sub terram ábdite?\nZenonem significabat, a quo illum degenerare dolebat.\n\nSECTION 61\nat non noster Posidonius; quem et ipse saepe vidi et id dicam, quod solebat narrare Pompeius, se, cum Rhodum venisset decedens ex Syria, audire voluisse Posidonium; sed cum audisset eum graviter esse aegrum, quod vehementer eius artus laborarent, voluisse tamen nobilissimum philosophum visere: quem ut vidisset et salutavisset honorificisque verbis prosecutus esset molesteque se dixisset ferre, quod eum non posset audire, at ille: ‘tu vero’ inquit ‘potes, nec committam, ut dolor corporis efficiat, ut frustra tantus vir ad me venerit.’ itaque narrabat eum graviter et copiose de hoc ipso, nihil esse bonum nisi quod esset honestum, cubantem disputavisse, cumque quasi faces ei doloris admoverentur, saepe dixisse:\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 26\n\nSECTION 62\n‘nihil agis, dolor! quamvis sis molestus, numquam te esse confitebor malum.’ Omninoque omnes clari et nobilitati labores continuo fiunt etiam tolerabiles. videmusne [ut], apud quos eorum ludorum, qui gymnici nominantur, magnus honos sit, nullum ab is, qui in id certamen descendant, devitari dolorem? apud quos autem venandi et equitandi laus viget, qui hanc petessunt,  nullum fugiunt dolorem. quid de nostris ambitionibus, quid de cupiditate honorum loquar? quae flamma est, per quam non cucurrerint  i qui haec olim punctis singulis colligebant? itaque semper Africanus Socraticum Xenophontem in manibus habebat, cuius in primis laudabat illud, quod diceret eosdem labores non esse aeque gravis imperatori et militi, quod ipse honos laborem leviorem faceret imperatorium.\n\nSECTION 63\nsed tamen hoc evenit, ut in vulgus insipientium opinio valeat honestatis, cum ipsam videre non possint. itaque fama et multitudinis iudicio moventur, cum id honestum putent, quod a plerisque laudetur. te autem, si in oculis sis multitudinis, tamen eius iudicio stare nolim nec, quod illa putet, idem putare pulcherrimum. tuo tibi iudicio est utendum; tibi si recta probanti placebis, tum non modo tete viceris, quod paulo ante praecipiebam, sed omnis et omnia.\n\nSECTION 64\nhoc igitur tibi propone: amplitudinem animi et quasi quandam exaggerationem quam altissimam animi, quae maxime eminet contemnendis et despiciendis doloribus, unam esse omnium rem pulcherrimam, eoque pulchriorem, si vacet populo neque plausum captans se tamen ipsa delectet. quin etiam mihi quidem laudabiliora videntur omnia, quae sine venditatione et sine populo teste fiunt, non quo fugiendus sit—omnia enim bene facta in luce se conlocari volunt—, sed tamen nullum theatrum virtuti conscientia maius est.\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 27\n\nSECTION 65\nAtque in primis meditemur illud, ut haec patientia  dolorum, quam saepe iam animi intentione dixi esse firmandam, in omni genere se aequabilem praebeat. saepe enim multi, qui aut propter victoriae cupiditatem aut propter gloriae aut etiam, ut ius suum et libertatem tenerent, volnera exceperunt fortiter et tulerunt, idem omissa contentione dolorem morbi ferre non possunt; neque enim illum, quem facile tulerant, ratione aut sapientia tulerant, sed studio potius et gloria. itaque barbari quidam et inmanes ferro decertare acerrume possunt, aegrotare viriliter non queunt. Graeci autem homines, non satis animosi, prudentes, ut est captus hominum, satis, hostem aspicere non possunt: eidem morbos toleranter atque humane ferunt. at Cimbri et Celtiberi in proeliis exultant, lamentantur in morbo. nihil enim potest esse aequabile, quod non a certa ratione proficiscatur.\n\nSECTION 66\nsed cum videas eos, qui aut studio aut opinione ducantur, in eo persequendo atque adipiscendo dolore non frangi, debes existimare aut non esse malum dolorem aut, etiamsi, quicquid asperum alienumque natura sit, id appellari placeat malum, tantulum tamen esse, ut a virtute ita obruatur, ut nusquam  appareat. quae meditare quaeso dies et noctes. latius enim manabit haec ratio et aliquanto maiorem locum quam de uno dolore occupabit. nam si omnia fugiendae turpitudinis adipiscendaeque honestatis causa faciemus, non modo stimulos doloris, sed etiam fulmina fortunae  contemnamus  licebit, praesertim cum paratum sit illud ex hesterna disputatione perfugium.\n\nSECTION 67\nut enim si cui naviganti, praedones <si>  insequantur, deus qui dixerit: ‘eice te navi; praesto est qui excipiat: vel delphinus, ut Arionem Methymnaeum, vel equi Pelopis illi Neptunii, qui per undas currus suspensos rapuisse dicuntur, excipient te et quo velis perferent’, omnem omittat timorem, sic urguentibus asperis et odiosis doloribus, si tanti sint, ut ferendi non sint, quo sit confugiendum, tu vides.\n\nHaec fere hoc tempore putavi esse dicenda. sed tu fortasse in sententia permanes.\n\nMinime vero, meque biduo duarum rerum, quas maxime timebam, spero liberatum metu.\n\nCras ergo ad clepsydram; sic enim diximus, et tibi hoc video non posse deberi.\n\nIta prorsus; et illud quidem ante meridiem, hoc eodem tempore.\n\nSic faciemus tuisque optumis studiis obsequemur.\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 1\n\nSECTION 1\nQuidnam esse, Brute, causae putem, cur, cum constemus ex animo et corpore, corporis curandi tuendique causa quaesita sit ars atque eius utilitas deorum inmortalium inventioni consecrata, animi autem medicina nec tam desiderata sit, ante quam inventa, nec tam culta, posteaquam cognita est, nec tam multis grata et probata, pluribus etiam suspecta et invisa? an quod corporis gravitatem et dolorem animo iudicamus, animi morbum corpore non sentimus? ita fit ut animus de se ipse tum iudicet, cum id ipsum, quo iudicatur, aegrotet.\n\nSECTION 2\nQuodsi talis nos natura genuisset, ut eam ipsam intueri et perspicere eademque optima duce cursum vitae conficere possemus, haut   erat sane quod quisquam rationem ac doctrinam requireret. nunc parvulos nobis dedit igniculos, quos celeriter malis moribus opinionibusque depravati sic restinguimus, ut nusquam naturae lumen appareat. sunt enim ingeniis  nostris semina innata virtutum, quae si adolescere liceret, ipsa nos ad beatam vitam natura perduceret. nunc autem, simul atque editi in lucem et suscepti sumus, in omni continuo pravitate et in summa opinionum perversitate versamur, ut paene cum lacte nutricis errorem suxisse videamur. cum vero parentibus redditi, dein magistris traditi sumus, tum ita variis imbuimur erroribus, ut vanitati veritas et opinioni confirmatae natura ipsa cedat.\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 2\n\nSECTION 3\naccedunt etiam poëtae, qui cum magnam speciem doctrinae sapientiaeque prae se tulerunt, audiuntur leguntur ediscuntur et inhaerescunt penitus in mentibus. cum vero eodem quasi maxumus quidam magister populus accessit atque omnis undique ad vitia consentiens multitudo, tum plane inficimur opinionum pravitate a naturaque desciscimus, ut nobis optime naturae vim vidisse videantur, qui nihil melius homini, nihil magis expetendum, nihil praestantius honoribus, imperiis, populari gloria iudicaverunt. ad quam fertur optumus quisque veramque illam honestatem expetens, quam unam natura maxime anquirit, in summa inanitate versatur consectaturque nullam eminentem effigiem virtutis, sed adumbratam imaginem gloriae. est enim gloria solida quaedam res et expressa, non adumbrata; ea est consentiens laus bonorum, incorrupta vox bene iudicantium de excellenti virtute, ea virtuti resonat  tamquam imago; quae quia recte factorum plerumque comes est, non est bonis viris repudianda.\n\nSECTION 4\nilla autem, quae se eius imitatricem esse volt, temeraria atque inconsiderata et plerumque peccatorum vitiorumque laudatrix, fama popularis, simulatione honestatis formam eius pulchritudinemque corrumpit. qua caecitate homines, cum quaedam etiam praeclara cuperent eaque nescirent nec ubi nec qualia essent, funditus alii everterunt suas civitates, alii ipsi occiderunt. atque hi quidem optuma petentes non tam voluntate quam cursus errore falluntur. quid? qui pecuniae cupiditate, qui voluptatum libidine feruntur, quorumque ita perturbantur animi, ut non multum absint ab insania, quod insipientibus contingit omnibus, is nullane est adhibenda curatio? utrum quod minus noceant animi aegrotationes quam corporis, an quod corpora curari possint, animorum medicina nulla sit?\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 3\n\nSECTION 5\nat et morbi perniciosiores pluresque sunt animi quam corporis; hi enim ipsi odiosi sunt, quod ad animum pertinent eumque sollicitant, ‘animusque aeger’, ut ait Ennius, ‘semper errat neque pati neque perpeti potest, cupere numquam desinit.’ quibus duobus morbis, ut omittam alios, aegritudine et cupiditate, qui tandem possunt in corpore esse graviores? qui vero probari potest ut sibi mederi animus non possit, cum ipsam medicinam corporis animus invenerit, cumque ad corporum sanationem multum ipsa corpora et natura valeat  nec omnes, qui curari se passi sint, continuo etiam convalescant, animi autem, qui se sanari voluerint praeceptisque sapientium paruerint, sine ulla dubitatione sanentur?\n\nSECTION 6\nest profecto animi medicina, philosophia; cuius auxilium non ut in corporis morbis petendum est foris, omnibusque opibus viribus, ut nosmet ipsi nobis mederi possimus, elaborandum est. Quamquam de universa philosophia, quanto opere et expetenda esset et colenda, satis, ut arbitror, dictum est in Hortensio. de maxumis autem rebus nihil fere intermisimus postea nec disputare nec scribere. his autem libris exposita sunt ea quae a nobis cum familiaribus nostris in Tusculano erant disputata. sed quo niam duobus superioribus de morte et de dolore dictum est, tertius dies disputationis hoc tertium volumen efficiet.\n\nSECTION 7\nut enim in Academiam nostram descendimus inclinato iam in postmeridianum tempus die, poposci eorum aliquem, qui aderant, causam disserendi. tum res acta sic est:\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 4\n\nVidetur mihi cadere in sapientem aegritudo.\n\nNum reliquae quoque perturbationes animi, formidines libidines iracundiae? haec enim fere sunt eius modi, quae Graeci πάθη  appellant; ego poteram ‘morbos’, et id verbum esset e verbo, sed in consuetudinem nostram non caderet. nam misereri, invidere, gestire, laetari, haec omnia morbos Graeci appellant, motus animi rationi non obtemperantis, nos autem hos eosdem motus concitati animi recte, ut opinor, perturbationes dixerimus, morbos autem non satis usitate,  nisi quid aliud tibi videtur.\n\nMihi vero isto modo.\n\nSECTION 8\nHaecine igitur cadere in sapientem putas?\n\nProrsus existimo.\n\nNe ista gloriosa sapientia non magno aestimanda est, siquidem non multum differt ab insania.\n\nQuid? tibi omnisne animi commotio videtur insania?\n\nNon mihi quidem soli, sed, id quod admirari saepe soleo, maioribus quoque nostris hoc ita visum intellego multis saeculis ante Socratem, a quo haec omnis, quae est de vita et de moribus, philosophia manavit.\n\nQuonam tandem modo?\n\nQuia nomen insaniae significat mentis aegrotationem et morbum, id est insanitatem et aegrotum animum, quam appellarunt insaniam.\n\nSECTION 9\n(omnis autem perturbationes animi morbos philosophi appellant negantque stultum quemquam his morbis vacare. qui autem in morbo sunt, sani non sunt; et omnium insipientium animi in morbo sunt: omnes insipientes igitur insaniunt). sanitatem enim animorum positam in tranquillitate quadam constantiaque censebant; his rebus mentem vacuam appellarunt insaniam, propterea quod in perturbato animo sicut in corpore sanitas esse non posset.\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 5\n\nSECTION 10\nnec minus illud acute, quod animi adfectionem lumine mentis carentem nominaverunt amentiam eandemque dementiam. ex quo intellegendum est eos qui haec rebus nomina posuerunt sensisse hoc idem,  quod a Socrate acceptum diligenter Stoici retinuerunt, omnis insipientes esse non sanos. qui est enim animus in aliquo morbo—morbos autem hos perturbatos motus, ut modo dixi, philosophi appellant—, non magis est sanus quam id corpus quod in morbo est. ita fit ut sapientia sanitas sit animi, insipientia autem quasi insanitas quaedam, quae est insania eademque dementia; multoque melius haec notata sunt verbis Latinis quam Graecis.\n\nSECTION 11\nquod aliis quoque multis locis reperietur; sed id alias, nunc, quod instat. totum igitur id quod quaerimus quid et quale sit, verbi vis ipsa declarat. eos enim sanos quoniam intellegi necesse est, quorum mens motu quasi morbo perturbata nullo sit, qui contra adfecti sint, hos insanos appellari necesse est. itaque nihil melius, quam quod est in consuetudine sermonis Latini, cum exisse ex potestate dicimus eos, qui ecfrenati feruntur aut libidine aut iracundia— quamquam ipsa iracundia libidinis est pars; sic enim definitur: iracundia ulciscendi libido—; qui igitur exisse ex potestate dicuntur, idcirco dicuntur, quia non sint in potestate mentis, cui regnum totius animi a natura tributum est. Graeci autem μανίαν  unde appellent, non facile dixerim; eam tamen ipsam distinguimus nos melius quam illi. hanc enim insaniam, quae iuncta stultitiae patet latius, a furore disiungimus. Graeci volunt illi quidem, sed parum valent verbo:  quem nos furorem, μελαγχολίαν  illi vocant; quasi vero atra bili solum mens ac non saepe vel iracundia graviore vel timore vel dolore moveatur; quo genere Athamantem Alcmaeonem Aiacem Orestem furere dicimus. qui ita sit adfectus, eum dominum esse rerum suarum vetant duodecim tabulae; itaque non est scriptum ‘si insanus’, sed ‘si furiosus escit’. stultitiam enim censuerunt constantia, id est sanitate, vacantem posse tamen tueri mediocritatem officiorum et vitae communem cultum atque usitatum; furorem autem esse rati sunt mentis ad omnia caecitatem. quod cum maius esse videatur quam insania, tamen eius modi est, ut furor in sapientem cadere possit, non possit insania.  sed haec alia quaestio est; nos ad propositum revertamur.\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 6\n\nSECTION 12\nCadere, opinor, in sapientem aegritudinem tibi dixisti videri.\n\nEt vero ita existimo.\n\nHumanum id quidem, quod ita existumas. non enim silice nati sumus, sed est naturale in animis tenerum quiddam atque molle, quod aegritudine quasi tempestate quatiatur, nec absurde Crantor ille, qui in  nostra Academia vel in primis fuit nobilis, ‘minime’ inquit ‘adsentior is qui istam nescio quam indolentiam magno opere laudant, quae nec potest ulla esse nec debet. ne aegrotus sim; si’  inquit ‘fuero, sensus adsit, sive secetur quid sive avellatur a corpore. nam istuc nihil dolere non sine magna mercede contingit inmanitatis in animo, stuporis in corpore.’\n\nSECTION 13\nsed videamus ne haec oratio sit hominum adsentantium nostrae inbecillitati et indulgentium mollitudini; nos autem audeamus non solum ramos amputare miseriarum, sed omnis radicum fibras evellere. tamen aliquid relinquetur fortasse; ita sunt altae stirpes stultitiae; sed relinquetur id solum quod erit necessarium. Illud quidem sic habeto, nisi sanatus animus sit, quod sine philosophia fieri non potest, finem miseriarum nullum fore. quam ob rem, quoniam coepimus, tradamus nos ei curandos: sanabimur, si volemus. et progrediar quidem longius: non enim de aegritudine solum, quamquam id quidem primum, sed de omni animi, ut ego posui, perturbatione, morbo, ut Graeci volunt, explicabo. et primo, si placet, Stoicorum more agamus, qui breviter astringere solent argumenta; deinde nostro instituto vagabimur.\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 7\n\nSECTION 14\nQui fortis est, idem est fidens (quoniam confidens mala consuetudine loquendi in vitio ponitur, ductum verbum a confidendo, quod laudis est). qui autem est fidens, is profecto non extimescit; discrepat enim a timendo confidere. atqui, in quem cadit aegritudo, in eundem timor; quarum enim rerum praesentia sumus in aegritudine, easdem inpendentes et venientes timemus. ita fit ut fortitudini aegritudo repugnet. veri simile est igitur, in quem cadat aegritudo, cadere in eundem timorem et infractionem quidem animi et demissionem. quae in quem cadunt, in eundem cadit, ut serviat, ut victum, si quando, se esse fateatur. quae qui recipit, recipiat idem necesse est timiditatem et ignaviam. non cadunt autem haec in virum fortem: igitur ne aegritudo quidem. at nemo sapiens nisi fortis: non cadet ergo in sapientem aegritudo.\n\nSECTION 15\nPraeterea necesse est, qui fortis sit, eundem esse magni animi; qui magni animi sit, invictum; qui invictus sit, eum res humanas despicere atque infra se positas arbitrari. despicere autem nemo potest eas res, propter quas aegritudine adfici potest; ex quo efficitur fortem virum aegritudine numquam adfici. omnes autem sapientes fortes: non cadit igitur in sapientem aegritudo. Et quem ad modum oculus conturbatus non est probe adfectus ad suum munus fungendum, et reliquae partes totumve corpus statu cum est motum, deest officio suo et muneri,  sic conturbatus animus non est aptus ad exequendum munus suum. munus autem animi est ratione bene uti; et sapientis animus ita semper adfectus est, ut ratione optime utatur; numquam igitur est perturbatus. at aegritudo perturbatio est animi: semper igitur ea sapiens vacabit.\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 8\n\nSECTION 16\nVeri etiam simile illud est, qui sit temperans— quem Graeci σώφρονα appellant eamque virtutem σωφροσύνην vocant, quam soleo equidem tum temperantiam, tum moderationem appellare, non numquam etiam modestiam; sed haud scio an recte ea virtus frugalitas appellari possit, quod angustius apud Graecos valet, qui frugi homines χρησίμους appellant, id est tantum modo utilis; at illud est latius; omnis enim abstinentia, omnis innocentia (quae apud Graecos usitatum nomen nullum habet, sed habere potest ἀβλάβειαν; nam est innocentia adfectio talis animi quae noceat nemini)—reliquas etiam virtutes frugalitas continet. quae nisi tanta esset, et si is angustiis, quibus plerique putant, teneretur, numquam esset L. Pisonis cognomen tanto opere laudatum.\n\nSECTION 17\nsed quia, nec qui propter metum praesidium reliquit, quod est ignaviae, nec qui propter avaritiam clam depositum non reddidit, quod est iniustitiae, nec qui propter temeritatem male rem gessit, quod est stultitiae, frugi appellari solet, eo tris virtutes, fortitudinem iustitiam prudentiam, frugalitas complexa est (etsi hoc quidem commune est virtutum; omnes enim inter se nexae  et iugatae sunt): reliqua igitur et quarta virtus sit ipsa frugalitas. eius enim videtur esse proprium motus animi adpetentis regere et sedare semperque adversantem libidini moderatam in omni re servare constantiam. cui contrarium vitium nequitia dicitur.\n\nSECTION 18\nfrugalitas, ut opinor, a fruge, qua nihil melius e terra, nequitia ab eo (etsi erit hoc fortasse durius, sed temptemus: lusisse putemur, si nihil sit) ab eo, quod nequicquam est in tali homine, ex quo idem ‘nihili’  dicitur.—qui sit frugi igitur vel, si mavis, moderatus et temperans, eum necesse est esse constantem; qui autem constans, quietum; qui quietus, perturbatione omni vacuum, ergo etiam aegritudine. et sunt illa sapientis: aberit igitur a sapiente aegritudo.\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 9\n\nItaque non inscite Heracleotes Dionysius ad ea disputat, quae apud Homerum Achilles queritur hoc, ut opinor, modo:\nCorque meum penitus turgescit tristibus iris,\nCum decore atque omni me orbatum laude recordor.\nnum manus adfecta recte est, cum in tumore est, aut num aliud quodpiam membrum tumidum ac turgidum non vitiose se habet?\n\nSECTION 19\nsic igitur inflatus et tumens animus in vitio est. sapientis autem animus semper vacat vitio, numquam turgescit, numquam tumet; at irati animus eius modi est: numquam igitur sapiens irascitur. nam si irascitur, etiam concupiscit; proprium  est enim irati cupere, a quo laesus videatur, ei quam maxumum dolorem inurere. qui autem id concupierit, eum necesse est, si id consecutus sit, magno opere laetari. ex quo fit, ut alieno malo gaudeat; quod quoniam non cadit in sapientem, ne ut irascatur quidem cadit. sin autem caderet in sapientem aegritudo, caderet etiam iracundia; qua quoniam vacat, aegritudine etiam vacabit.\n\nSECTION 20\nEtenim si sapiens in aegritudinem incidere posset, posset etiam in misericordiam, posset in invidentiam (non dixi ‘invidiam’, quae tum est, cum invidetur; ab invidendo autem invidentia recte dici potest, ut effugiamus ambiguum nomen invidiae. quod verbum ductum est a nimis intuendo fortunam alterius, ut est in Melanippo: ‘quisnam florem liberum invidit meum?’ male Latine videtur, sed praeclare Accius; ut enim ‘videre’, sic ‘invidere florem’  rectius quam ‘flori’. nos consuetudine prohibemur;\n\nSECTION 21\npoëta ius suum tenuit et dixit audacius)—\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 10\n\ncadit igitur in eundem et misereri et invidere. nam qui dolet rebus alicuius adversis, idem alicuius etiam secundis dolet, ut Theophrastus interitum deplorans Callisthenis sodalis sui, rebus Alexandri prosperis angitur, itaque dicit Callisthenem incidisse in hominem summa potentia summaque fortuna, sed ignarum quem ad modum rebus secundis uti conveniret. atqui, quem ad modum  misericordia aegritudo est ex alterius rebus adversis, sic invidentia aegritudo est ex alterius rebus secundis. in quem igitur cadit misereri, in eundem etiam invidere; non cadit autem invidere in sapientem: ergo ne misereri quidem. quodsi aegre ferre  sapiens soleret, misereri etiam soleret. abest ergo a sapiente aegritudo.\n\nSECTION 22\nHaec sic dicuntur a Stoicis concludunturque contortius. sed latius aliquando dicenda sunt et diffusius; sententiis tamen utendum eorum potissimum, qui maxime forti et, ut ita dicam, virili utuntur ratione atque sententia. nam Peripatetici, familiares nostri, quibus nihil est uberius, nihil eruditius, nihil gravius, mediocritates vel perturbationum vel morborum animi mihi non sane probant. omne enim malum, etiam mediocre, malum est; nos autem id agimus, ut id in sapiente nullum sit omnino. nam ut corpus, etiamsi mediocriter aegrum est, sanum non est, sic in animo ista mediocritas caret sanitate. itaque praeclare nostri, ut alia multa, molestiam sollicitudinem angorem propter similitudinem corporum aegrorum aegritudinem nominaverunt.\n\nSECTION 23\nhoc propemodum verbo Graeci omnem animi perturbationem appellant; vocant enim πάθος, id est morbum, quicumque est motus in animo turbidus. nos melius: aegris enim corporibus simillima animi est aegritudo, at non similis aegrotationis est libido, non inmoderata laetitia, quae est voluptas animi elata et gestiens. ipse etiam metus non est morbi admodum similis, quamquam aegritudini est finitimus, sed proprie, ut aegrotatio in corpore, sic aegritudo  in animo nomen habet non seiunctum a dolore. doloris huius igitur origo nobis explicanda est, id est causa efficiens aegritudinem in animo tamquam aegrotationem in corpore. nam ut medici causa morbi inventa curationem esse inventam putant, sic nos causa aegritudinis reperta medendi facultatem reperiemus.\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 11\n\nSECTION 24\nEst igitur causa omnis in opinione, nec vero aegritudinis solum, sed etiam reliquarum omnium perturbationum, quae sunt genere quattuor, partibus plures. nam cum omnis perturbatio sit animi motus vel rationis expers vel rationem aspernans vel rationi non oboediens, isque motus aut boni aut mali opinione citetur bifariam, quattuor perturbationes aequaliter distributae sunt. nam duae sunt ex opinione boni; quarum altera,\nvoluptas gestiens\n, id est praeter modum elata laetitia, opinione praesentis magni alicuius boni, altera,\ncupiditas\n, quae recte vel libido dici potest, quae est inmoderata adpetitio opinati magni boni rationi non obtemperans,\n\nSECTION 25\n—ergo haec duo genera, voluptas gestiens et libido, bonorum opinione turbantur, ut duo reliqua, metus et aegritudo, malorum. nam et metus opinio magni mali inpendentis et\naegritudo\nest opinio magni mali praesentis, et quidem recens opinio talis mali, ut in eo rectum  videatur esse angi, id autem est, ut  is qui doleat oportere opinetur se dolere. his autem perturbationibus, quas in  vitam hominum stultitia quasi quasdam Furias inmittit atque incitat, omnibus viribus atque opibus repugnandum est, si volumus hoc, quod datum est vitae, tranquille placideque traducere.\n\nSed cetera alias; nunc aegritudinem, si possumus, depellamus. id enim sit propositum, quandoquidem eam tu videri tibi in sapientem cadere dixisti, quod ego nullo modo existimo; taetra enim res est, misera, detestabilis, omni contentione, velis, ut ita dicam, remisque fugienda.\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 12\n\nSECTION 26\nqualis enim tibi ille videtur\nTántalo prognátus, Pelope nátus, qui quondam á socru\nOénomao rege Híppodameam ráptis nanctus núptiis—?\nIovis iste quidem pronepos. tamne ergo abiectus tamque fractus?\n‘Nolíte’ inquit ‘hospités ad me adíre, ilico ístic,’\n‘Ne cóntagió mea bonís umbrave óbsit.’\n‘Tanta vis scéleris in córpore haéret.’\ntu te, Thyesta, damnabis orbabisque luce propter vim sceleris alieni? quid? illum filium Solis nonne patris ipsius luce indignum putas?\nRefúgere oculi, córpus macie extábuit,\nLacrimaé peredere úmore exanguís genas,\nSitum ínter oris bárba paedore hórrida atque\nIntónsa infuscat péctus inluvié scabrum.\nhaec mala, o stultissime Aeeta, ipse tibi addidisti; non inerant in is quae tibi casus invexerat, et quidem inveterato malo, cum tumor animi resedisset—est autem aegritudo, ut docebo, in opinione mali recentis —; sed maeres videlicet regni desiderio, non filiae. illam enim oderas, et iure fortasse; regno non aequo animo carebas. est autem inpudens luctus maerore se conficientis, quod imperare non liceat liberis.\n\nSECTION 27\nDionysius quidem tyrannus Syracusis expulsus Corinthi pueros docebat: usque eo imperio carere non poterat. Tarquinio vero quid impudentius, qui bellum gereret cum is qui eius non tulerant superbiam? is cum restitui in regnum nec Veientium nec Latinorum armis potuisset, Cumas contulisse se dicitur inque ea urbe senio et aegritudine esse confectus.\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 13\n\nHoc tu igitur censes sapienti accidere posse, ut aegritudine opprimatur, id est miseria? nam cum omnis perturbatio miseria est, tum carnificina est aegritudo. habet ardorem libido, levitatem laetitia gestiens, humilitatem metus, sed aegritudo maiora quaedam, tabem cruciatum adflictationem foeditatem, lacerat exest animum planeque conficit. hanc nisi exuimus sic ut abiciamus, miseria carere non possumus.\n\nSECTION 28\nAtque hoc quidem perspicuum est, tum aegritudinem existere, cum quid ita visum sit, ut magnum quoddam  malum adesse et urgere videatur. Epicuro autem placet opinionem mali aegritudinem esse natura, ut, quicumque intueatur in aliquod maius malum, si id sibi accidisse opinetur, sit continuo in aegritudine. Cyrenaici non omni malo aegritudinem effici censent, sed insperato et necopinato malo. est id quidem non mediocre ad aegritudinem augendam: videntur enim omnia repentina graviora. ex hoc et illa iure laudantur:\nÉgo cum genui, túm morituros scívi et ei rei sústuli.\nPraéterea ad Troiám cum misi ob défendendam Graéciam,\nScíbam me in mortíferum bellum, nón in epulas míttere.\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 14\n\nSECTION 29\nhaec igitur praemeditatio futurorum malorum lenit eorum adventum, quae venientia longe ante videris. itaque apud Euripiden a Theseo dicta laudantur; licet enim, ut saepe facimus, in Latinum illa convertere:\nNam qui haéc audita a dócto meminissém viro,\nFutúras mecum cómmentabar míserias:\nAut mórtem acerbam aut éxili maestám fugam\nAut sémper aliquam mólem meditabár mali,\nUt, sí qua invecta díritas casú foret,\nNe me ínparatum cúra lacerarét repens.\n\nSECTION 30\nquod autem Theseus a docto se audisse dicit, id de se ipso loquitur Euripides. fuerat enim auditor Anaxagorae, quem ferunt nuntiata morte filii dixisse: ‘sciebam me genuisse mortalem.’ quae vox declarat is esse  haec acerba, quibus non fuerint cogitata. ergo id quidem non dubium, quin omnia, quae mala putentur, sint inprovisa graviora. itaque quamquam non haec una res efficit maximam aegritudinem, tamen, quoniam multum potest provisio animi et praeparatio ad minuendum dolorem, sint semper omnia homini humana meditata. et nimirum haec est illa praestans et divina sapientia, et perceptas penitus et pertractatas res humanas habere, nihil admirari, cum acciderit, nihil, ante quam evenerit, non evenire posse arbitrari.\nQuam ob rem ómnis, cum secúndae res sunt máxume, tum máxume\nMeditári secum opórtet, quo pacto ádversam aerumnám ferant.\nPerícla, damna péregre rediens sémper secum cógitet,\nAut fíli peccatum aút uxoris mórtem aut morbum fíliae,\nCommúnia esse haec, né quid horum umquam áccidat animó novum;\nQuicquíd praeter spem evéniat, omne id députare esse ín lucro.\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 15\n\nergo hoc Terentius a philosophia sumptum cum tam commode dixerit, nos, e quorum fontibus id haustum est, non et dicemus hoc melius et constantius sentiemus?\n\nSECTION 31\nhic est enim ille voltus semper idem, quem dicitur Xanthippe praedicare solita in viro suo fuisse Socrate:  eodem semper se vidisse exeuntem illum domo et revertentem. Nec vero ea frons erat, quae M. Crassi illius veteris, quem semel ait in omni vita risisse Lucilius, sed tranquilla et serena; sic enim accepimus. iure autem erat semper idem voltus, cum mentis, a qua is fingitur, nulla fieret mutatio. quare accipio equidem a Cyrenaicis haec arma contra casus et eventus, quibus eorum advenientes impetus diuturna praemeditatione frangantur, simulque iudico malum illud opinionis esse, non naturae; si enim in re esset, cur fierent provisa leviora?\n\nSECTION 32\nSed est, isdem de rebus quod dici possit subtilius, si prius Epicuri sententiam viderimus. qui censet necesse esse omnis in aegritudine esse, qui se in malis esse arbitrentur, sive illa ante provisa et expectata sint sive inveteraverint. nam neque vetustate minui mala nec fieri praemeditata leviora, stultamque etiam esse meditationem futuri mali aut fortasse ne futuri quidem: satis esse odiosum malum omne, cum venisset; qui autem semper cogitavisset accidere posse aliquid adversi, ei fieri illud sempiternum malum; si vero ne futurum quidem sit, frustra suscipi miseriam voluntariam; ita semper angi aut accipiendo aut cogitando malo.\n\nSECTION 33\nLevationem autem aegritudinis in duabus rebus ponit, avocatione a cogitanda molestia et revocatione ad contemplandas voluptates. parere enim censet animum rationi posse et, quo illa ducat, sequi. vetat igitur ratio intueri molestias, abstrahit ab acerbis  cogitationibus, hebetem aciem ad miserias contemplandas facit; a quibus cum cecinit receptui, inpellit rursum et incitat ad conspiciendas totaque mente contrectandas varias voluptates, quibus ille et praeteritarum memoria et spe consequentium sapientis vitam refertam putat. Haec nostro more nos diximus, Epicurii dicunt suo; sed quae dicant, videamus, quo modo, neglegamus.\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 16\n\nSECTION 34\nPrincipio male reprehendunt praemeditationem rerum futurarum. nihil est enim quod tam optundat elevetque aegritudinem quam perpetua in omni vita cogitatio nihil esse quod non accidere possit, quam meditatio condicionis humanae, quam vitae lex commentatioque parendi, quae non hoc adfert, ut semper maereamus, sed ut numquam. neque enim, qui rerum naturam, qui vitae varietatem, qui inbecillitatem generis humani cogitat, maeret, cum haec cogitat, sed tum vel maxime sapientiae fungitur munere: utrumque enim consequitur, ut et considerandis rebus humanis proprio philosophiae fruatur officio et adversis casibus triplici consolatione sanetur, primum quod <nihil ei accidit nisi quod> posse accidere diu cogitaverit, quae cogitatio una maxime molestias omnis extenuat et diluit, deinde quod humana humane ferenda intellegit, postremo quod videt malum nullum  esse nisi culpam, culpam autem nullam esse, cum id, quod ab homine non potuerit praestari, evenerit.\n\nSECTION 35\nNam revocatio illa, quam adfert, cum a contuendis nos malis avocat, nulla est. non est enim in nostra potestate fodicantibus is rebus, quas malas esse opinemur, dissimulatio vel oblivio: lacerant, vexant, stimulos admovent, ignis adhibent, respirare non sinunt, et tu oblivisci iubes, quod contra naturam est, qui, <quod> a natura datum est, auxilium extorqueas inveterati doloris? est enim tarda illa quidem medicina, sed tamen magna, quam adfert longinquitas et dies. Iubes me bona cogitare, oblivisci malorum. diceres aliquid, et magno quidem philosopho dignum, si ea bona esse sentires, quae essent homine dignissima.\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 17\n\nPythagoras mihi si diceret aut Socrates aut Plato:\n\nSECTION 36\n‘quid iaces aut quid maeres aut cur succumbis cedisque fortunae? quae pervellere te forsitan potuerit et pungere, non potuit certe vires frangere. magna vis est in virtutibus; eas excita, si forte dormiunt. iam tibi aderit princeps fortitudo, quae te animo tanto esse coget, ut omnia, quae possint homini evenire, contemnas et pro nihilo putes. aderit temperantia, quae est eadem moderatio, a me quidem paulo ante appellata frugalitas, quae te turpiter et nequiter facere nihil patietur. quid est autem nequius aut turpius ecfeminato viro? ne iustitia quidem sinet te ista facere, cui minimum esse videtur in hac causa loci; quae tamen ita dicet dupliciter esse te iniustum, cum et alienum adpetas, qui mortalis natus condicionem postules inmortalium et graviter feras te, quod utendum  acceperis, reddidisse.’\n\nSECTION 37\n‘prudentiae vero quid respondebis docenti virtutem sese esse contentam, quo modo ad bene vivendum, sic etiam ad beate? quae si extrinsecus religata pendeat et non et oriatur a se et rursus ad se revertatur et omnia sua complexa nihil quaerat aliunde, non intellego, cur aut verbis tam vehementer ornanda aut re tantopere expetenda videatur’—ad haec bona me si revocas, Epicure, pareo, sequor, utor te ipso duce, obliviscor etiam malorum, ut iubes, eoque facilius, quod ea ne in malis quidem ponenda censeo. sed traducis cogitationes meas ad voluptates. quas? corporis, credo, aut quae propter corpus vel recordatione vel spe cogitentur. num quid est aliud? rectene interpretor sententiam tuam? solent enim isti negare nos intellegere, quid dicat Epicurus.\n\nSECTION 38\nhoc dicit, et hoc ille acriculus me audiente Athenis senex Zeno, istorum acutissimus, contendere et magna voce dicere solebat: eum esse beatum, qui praesentibus voluptatibus frueretur confideretque se fruiturum aut in omni aut in magna parte vitae dolore non interveniente, aut si interveniret, si summus foret, futurum brevem, sin productior, plus habiturum iucundi quam mali; haec cogitantem fore beatum, praesertim cum et ante perceptis bonis contentus esset <et> nec mortem nec deos extimesceret. habes formam Epicuri vitae beatae verbis Zenonis expressam, nihil ut possit negari.\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 18\n\nQuid ergo?\n\nSECTION 39\nhuiusne vitae propositio et cogitatio aut Thyestem levare poterit aut Aeetam, de quo paulo ante dixi, aut Telamonem pulsum patria exulantem atque egentem? in quo haec admiratio fiebat:\nHícine est ille Télamon, modo quem glória ad caelum éxtulit,\nQuem áspectabant, cuíus ob os Grai óra obvertebánt sua?\n\nSECTION 40\nquodsi cui, ut ait idem, ‘simul animus cum re concidit’, a gravibus illis antiquis philosophis petenda medicina est, non  ab his voluptariis. quam enim isti bonorum copiam dicunt? fac sane esse summum bonum non dolere—quamquam id non vocatur voluptas, sed non necesse est nunc omnia—: idne est, quo traducti luctum levemus? sit sane summum malum dolere: in eo igitur qui non est, si malo careat, continuone fruitur summo bono?\n\nSECTION 41\nQuid tergiversamur, Epicure, nec fatemur eam nos dicere voluptatem, quam tu idem, cum os perfricuisti, soles dicere? sunt haec tua verba necne? in eo quidem libro, qui continet omnem disciplinam tuam,—fungar enim iam interpretis munere, ne quis me putet fingere—dicis haec: ‘nec equidem habeo, quod intellegam bonum illud, detrahens eas voluptates quae sapore percipiuntur, detrahens eas quae rebus percipiuntur veneriis, detrahens eas quae auditu e cantibus, detrahens eas etiam quae ex formis percipiuntur oculis suavis motiones, sive quae aliae voluptates in toto homine gignuntur quolibet sensu. nec vero ita dici potest, mentis laetitiam solam esse in bonis. laetantem enim mentem ita novi: spe eorum omnium, quae supra dixi, fore ut natura is potiens dolore careat.’\n\nSECTION 42\natque haec quidem his verbis, quivis ut intellegat, quam voluptatem norit  Epicurus. deinde paulo infra: ‘saepe quaesivi’ inquit ‘ex is qui appellabantur sapientes, quid haberent quod in bonis relinquerent, si illa detraxissent, nisi si vellent voces inanis fundere: nihil ab is potui cognoscere. qui si virtutes ebullire volent et sapientias, nihil aliud dicent nisi eam viam, qua efficiantur eae voluptates quas supra dixi.’ quae secuntur, in eadem sententia sunt, totusque liber, qui est de summo bono, refertus est et verbis et sententiis talibus.\n\nSECTION 43\nad hancine igitur vitam Telamonem illum revocabis, ut leves aegritudinem, et si quem tuorum adflictum maerore videris, huic acipenserem potius quam aliquem Socraticum libellum dabis? hydrauli hortabere ut audiat voces potius quam Platonis? expones, quae spectet, florida et varia? fasciculum ad naris admovebis? incendes odores et sertis redimiri iubebis et rosa? si vero aliquid etiam—, tum plane luctum omnem absterseris.\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 19\n\nSECTION 44\nhaec Epicuro confitenda sunt aut ea, quae modo expressa ad verbum dixi, tollenda de libro vel totus liber potius abiciundus; est enim confertus voluptatibus. Quaerendum igitur, quem ad modum aegritudine privemus eum qui ita dicat:\nPol míhi fortuna mágis nunc defit quám genus.\nNámque regnum súppetebat mi, út scias, quanto é loco,\nQuántis opibus, quíbus de rebus lápsa fortuna áccidat.\nquid? huic calix mulsi impingendus est, ut plorare desinat, aut aliquid eius modi? ecce tibi ex altera parte ab eodem poëta; ‘ex opibus summis opis egens, Hector, tuae’—huic subvenire debemus; quaerit enim auxilium:\nQuíd petam praésidi aut éxequar quóve nunc\nAúxilio éxili aút fugae fréta sim?\nÁrce et urbe órba sum. quo áccidam? quo ápplicem?\nCuí nec arae pátriae domi stant, fráctae et disiectaé iacent,\nFána flamma déflagrata, tósti alti stant párietes\nDéformati atque ábiete crispa—\nscitis quae sequantur, et illa in primis:\nO páter, o patria, o Príami domus,\nSaeptum áltisono cardíne templum!\nVidi égo te adstante ope bárbarica\nTectís caelatis láqueatis,\nAuro ébore instructam régifice.\n\nSECTION 45\no poëtam egregium! quamquam ab his cantoribus Euphorionis contemnitur. sentit omnia repentina et necopinata esse graviora; exaggeratis igitur regiis opibus, quae videbantur sempiternae fore, quid adiungit?\nHaec ómnia vidi inflámmari,\nPriamó vi vitam evítari,\nIovis áram sanguine túrpari.\n\nSECTION 46\npraeclarum carmen! est enim et rebus et verbis et modis lugubre. Eripiamus huic aegritudinem. quo modo?  conlocemus in culcita plumea, psaltriam adducamus,  demus hedycrum, <odorum> incendamus scutellam, dulciculae potionis aliquid videamus et cibi? haec tandem bona sunt, quibus aegritudines gravissumae detrahantur? tu enim paulo ante ne intellegere quidem te alia ulla dicebas. revocari igitur oportere a maerore ad cogitationem bonorum conveniret mihi cum Epicuro, si, quid esset bonum, conveniret.\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 20\n\nDicet aliquis: quid ergo? tu Epicurum existimas ista voluisse, aut libidinosas eius fuisse sententias? ego vero minime; video enim ab eo dici multa severe, multa praeclare. itaque, ut saepe dixi, de acumine agitur eius, non de moribus; quamvis spernat voluptates eas quas modo laudavit, ego tamen meminero quod videatur ei summum bonum. non enim verbo solum posuit voluptatem, sed explanavit quid diceret: ‘saporem’ inquit ‘et corporum complexum et ludos atque cantus et formas eas quibus oculi iucunde moveantur.’ num fingo, num mentior? cupio refelli. quid enim laboro nisi ut veritas in omni quaestione explicetur?\n\nSECTION 47\n‘at idem ait non crescere voluptatem dolore detracto, summamque esse voluptatem nihil dolere.’ paucis verbis tria magna peccata: unum, quod secum ipse pugnat. modo enim ne suspicari quidem se  quicquam bonum, nisi sensus quasi titillarentur voluptate; nunc autem summam voluptatem esse dolore carere: potestne magis secum ipse pugnare? alterum peccatum, quod, cum in natura tria sint, unum gaudere, alterum dolere, tertium nec gaudere nec dolere, hic primum et tertium putat idem esse nec distinguit a non dolendo voluptatem. tertium peccatum commune cum quibusdam, quod, cum virtus maxime expetatur eiusque adipiscendae causa philosophia quaesita sit, ille a virtute summum bonum separavit.\n\nSECTION 48\n‘at laudat saepe virtutem’. et quidem C. Gracchus, cum largitiones maximas fecisset et effudisset aerarium, verbis tamen defendebat aerarium. quid verba audiam, cum facta videam? L. Piso ille Frugi semper contra legem frumentariam dixerat. is lege lata consularis ad frumentum accipiundum venerat. animum advertit Gracchus in contione Pisonem stantem; quaerit audiente p. R., qui sibi constet, cum ea lege frumentum petat, quam dissuaserit. ‘nolim’ inquit ‘mea bona, Gracche, tibi viritim dividere libeat, sed, si facias, partem petam.’ parumne declaravit vir gravis et sapiens lege Sempronia patrimonium publicum dissupari? lege orationes Gracchi, patronum aerarii esse dices.\n\nSECTION 49\nnegat Epicurus iucunde posse vivi, nisi cum virtute vivatur, negat ullam in sapientem vim esse fortunae, tenuem victum antefert copioso, negat ullum esse tempus, quo sapiens non beatus sit. omnia philosopho digna, sed cum voluptate pugnantia. ‘non istam dicit voluptatem’. dicat quamlibet; nempe eam dicit, in qua virtutis nulla pars insit. age, si voluptatem non intellegimus, ne dolorem  quidem? nego igitur eius esse, qui dolore summum malum metiatur, mentionem facere virtutis.\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 21\n\nSECTION 50\nEt queruntur quidam Epicurei, viri optimi—nam nullum genus est minus malitiosum—, me studiose dicere contra Epicurum. ita credo, de honore aut de dignitate contendimus. mihi summum in animo bonum videtur, illi autem in corpore, mihi in virtute, illi in voluptate. et illi pugnant, et quidem vicinorum fidem implorant—multi autem sunt, qui statim convolent —; ego sum is qui dicam me non laborare, actum habiturum, quod egerint.\n\nSECTION 51\nquid enim? de bello Punico agitur? de quo ipso cum aliud M. Catoni, aliud L. Lentulo videretur, nulla inter eos concertatio umquam fuit. hi nimis iracunde agunt, praesertim cum ab is non sane animosa defendatur sententia, pro qua non in senatu, non in contione, non apud exercitum neque ad censores dicere audeant. sed cum istis alias, et eo quidem animo, nullum ut certamen instituam, verum dicentibus facile cedam; tantum admonebo, si maxime verum sit ad corpus omnia referre sapientem sive, ut honestius dicam, nihil facere nisi quod expediat, sive omnia referre ad utilitatem suam, quoniam haec plausibilia non sunt, ut in sinu gaudeant, gloriose loqui desinant.\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 22\n\nCyrenaicorum restat sententia;\n\nSECTION 52\nqui tum aegritudinem censent existere, si necopinato quid evenerit. est id quidem magnum, ut supra dixi; etiam Chrysippo  ita videri scio, quod provisum ante non sit, id ferire vehementius; sed non sunt in hoc omnia. quamquam hostium repens adventus magis aliquanto conturbat  quam expectatus, et maris subita tempestas quam ante provisa terret navigantes vehementius, et eius modi sunt pleraque. sed cum diligenter necopinatorum naturam consideres, nihil aliud reperias nisi omnia videri subita maiora, et quidem ob duas causas, primum quod, quanta sint quae accidunt, considerandi spatium non datur, deinde, cum videtur praecaveri potuisse, si provisum esset, quasi culpa contractum malum aegritudinem acriorem facit.\n\nSECTION 53\nQuod ita esse dies declarat, quae procedens ita mitigat, ut isdem malis manentibus non modo leniatur aegritudo, sed in plerisque tollatur. Karthaginienses multi Romae servierunt, Macedones rege Perse capto; vidi etiam in Peloponneso, cum essem adulescens, quosdam Corinthios. hi poterant omnes eadem illa de Andromacha deplorare: ‘haec omnia vidi […]’, sed iam decantaverant fortasse. eo enim erant voltu, oratione, omni reliquo motu et statu, ut eos Argivos aut Sicyonios diceres, magisque me moverant Corinthi subito aspectae parietinae quam ipsos Corinthios, quorum animis diuturna cogitatio callum vetustatis obduxerat.\n\nSECTION 54\nlegimus librum Clitomachi, quem ille eversa Karthagine misit consolandi causa ad captivos, cives suos; in eo est disputatio scripta Carneadis, quam se ait in commentarium rettulisse. cum ita positum esset, videri fore in aegritudine sapientem patria capta, quae Carneades contra dixerit, scripta sunt. tanta igitur calamitatis praesentis adhibetur a philosopho medicina, quanta inveteratae ne desideratur quidem, nec, si aliquot annis post idem ille liber captivis missus esset, volneribus mederetur, sed cicatricibus. sensim  enim et pedetemptim progrediens extenuatur dolor, non quo ipsa res immutari soleat aut possit, sed id, quod ratio debuerat, usus docet, minora esse ea quae sint visa maiora.\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 23\n\nQuid ergo opus est, dicet aliquis, omnino ratione aut consolatione illa, qua solemus uti, cum levare dolorem maerentium volumus?\n\nSECTION 55\nhoc enim fere tum habemus in promptu, nihil oportere inopinatum videri. aut qui tolerabilius feret incommodum, qui cognoverit necesse esse homini tale aliquid accidere? haec enim oratio de ipsa summa mali nihil detrahit, tantum modo adfert, nihil evenisse quod non opinandum fuisset. neque tamen genus id orationis in consolando non valet, sed id haud sciam an plurimum. * ergo ista necopinata non habent tantam vim, ut aegritudo ex is omnis oriatur; feriunt enim fortasse gravius, non id efficiunt, ut ea, quae accidant maiora videantur: quia recentia sunt, maiora videntur, non quia repentina.\n\nSECTION 56\n* Duplex est igitur ratio veri reperiendi non in is solum, quae mala, sed in is etiam, quae bona videntur. nam aut ipsius rei natura qualis et quanta sit, quaerimus, ut de paupertate non numquam, cuius onus disputando levamus docentes,  quam parva et quam pauca sint quae natura desideret, aut a disputandi subtilitate orationem ad exempla traducimus. hic Socrates commemoratur, hic Diogenes, hic Caecilianum  illud: ‘saepe est etiam sub palliolo sordido sapientia.’ cum enim paupertatis una eademque sit vis, quidnam dici potest, quam ob rem C. Fabricio tolerabilis ea fuerit, alii negent se ferre posse?\n\nSECTION 57\nhuic igitur alteri generi similis est ea ratio consolandi, quae docet humana esse quae acciderint. non enim id solum continet ea disputatio, ut cognitionem adferat generis humani, sed significat tolerabilia esse, quae et tulerint et ferant ceteri.\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 24\n\nde paupertate agitur: multi patientes pauperes commemorantur; de contemnendo honore: multi inhonorati proferuntur, et quidem propter id ipsum beatiores, eorumque, qui privatum otium negotiis publicis antetulerunt, nominatim vita laudatur, nec siletur illud potentissimi regis anapaestum, qui laudat senem et fortunatum esse dicit, quod inglorius  sit atque ignobilis ad supremum diem perventurus;\n\nSECTION 58\nsimiliter commemorandis exemplis orbitates quoque liberum praedicantur, eorumque, qui gravius ferunt, luctus aliorum exemplis leniuntur. sic perpessio ceterorum facit, ut ea quae acciderint multo minora quam quanta sint existimata, videantur. ita fit, sensim cogitantibus ut, quantum sit ementita opinio, appareat. atque hoc idem et Telamo ille declarat: ‘ego cum genui […]’ et Theseus: ‘futuras mecum commentabar miserias’  et Anaxagoras: ‘sciebam me genuisse mortalem.’  hi enim omnes diu cogitantes de rebus humanis  intellegebant eas nequaquam pro opinione volgi esse extimescendas. et mihi quidem videtur idem fere accidere is qui ante meditantur, quod is quibus medetur dies, nisi quod ratio quaedam sanat illos, hos ipsa natura intellecto eo quod rem continet, illud malum, quod opinatum sit esse maxumum, nequaquam esse tantum, ut vitam beatam possit evertere.\n\nSECTION 59\nhoc igitur efficitur, ut ex illo necopinato plaga maior sit, non, ut illi putant, ut, cum duobus pares casus evenerint, is modo aegritudine adficiatur, cui ille necopinato casus evenerit.\n\nItaque dicuntur non nulli in maerore, cum de hac communi hominum condicione audivissent, ea lege esse nos natos, ut nemo in perpetuum esse posset expers mali, gravius etiam tulisse.\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 25\n\nquocirca Carneades, ut video nostrum scribere Antiochum, reprendere Chrysippum solebat laudantem Euripideum carmen illud:\nMortális nemo est quém non attingát dolor\nMorbúsque; multis súnt humandi líberi,\nRursúm creandi, mórsque est finita ómnibus.\nQuae géneri humano angórem nequicquam ádferunt:\nReddénda terrae est térra, tum vita ómnibus\nMeténda ut fruges. síc iubet Necéssitas.\n\nSECTION 60\nnegabat genus hoc orationis quicquam omnino ad levandam aegritudinem pertinere. id enim ipsum dolendum esse dicebat, quod in tam crudelem necessitatem incidissemus; nam illam quidem orationem ex commemoratione  alienorum malorum ad malivolos consolandos  esse accommodatam. Mihi vero longe videtur secus. nam et necessitas ferendae condicionis humanae quasi cum deo pugnare prohibet admonetque esse hominem, quae cogitatio magno opere luctum levat, et enumeratio exemplorum, non ut animum malivolorum oblectet, adfertur, sed ut ille qui maeret ferundum sibi id censeat, quod videat multos moderate et tranquille tulisse.\n\nSECTION 61\nOmnibus enim modis fulciendi sunt, qui ruunt nec cohaerere possunt propter magnitudinem aegritudinis. ex quo ipsam aegritudinem λύπην  Chrysippus quasi solutionem totius hominis appellatam putat. Quae tota poterit evelli explicata, ut principio dixi, causa aegritudinis; est enim nulla alia nisi opinio et iudicium magni praesentis atque urgentis mali. itaque et dolor corporis, cuius est morsus acerrumus, perferetur spe proposita boni, et acta aetas honeste ac splendide tantam adfert consolationem, ut eos qui ita vixerint aut non attingat aegritudo aut perleviter pungat animi dolor.\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 26\n\nSed ad hanc opinionem magni mali cum illa etiam opinio accessit oportere, rectum esse, ad officium pertinere ferre illud aegre quod acciderit, tum denique efficitur illa gravis aegritudinis perturbatio.\n\nSECTION 62\nex hac opinione sunt illa varia et detestabilia genera lugendi: paedores, muliebres lacerationes genarum, pectoris feminum capitis percussiones; hinc ille Agamemno Homericus et idem Accianus ‘scindens dolore identidem intonsam comam’; in quo facetum illud Bionis, perinde  stultissimum regem in luctu capillum sibi evellere, quasi calvitio maeror levaretur.\n\nSECTION 63\nSed haec omnia faciunt opinantes ita fieri oportere. itaque et Aeschines in Demosthenem invehitur, quod is septimo die post filiae mortem hostias immolavisset. at quam rhetorice, quam copiose! quas sententias colligit, quae verba contorquet! ut licere quidvis rhetori intellegas. quae nemo probaret, nisi insitum illud in animis haberemus, omnis bonos interitu suorum quam gravissime maerere oportere. ex hoc evenit, ut in animi doloribus alii solitudines captent, ut ait Homerus de Bellerophonte:\nQui miser in campis maerens errabat Aleis\nIpse suum cor edens, hominum vestigia vitans;\net Nioba fingitur lapidea propter aeternum, credo, in luctu silentium, Hecubam autem putant propter animi acerbitatem quandam et rabiem fingi in canem esse conversam. sunt autem alii, quos in luctu cum ipsa solitudine loqui saepe delectat, ut illa apud Ennium nutrix:\nCupído cepit míseram nunc me próloqui\nCaelo átque terrae Médeai míserias.\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 27\n\nSECTION 64\nhaec omnia recta vera debita putantes faciunt in dolore, maximeque declaratur hoc quasi officii iudicio fieri, quod, si qui forte, cum se in luctu esse vellent, aliquid fecerunt humanius aut si hilarius locuti sunt, revocant se rursus ad maestitiam peccatique se insimulant, quod dolere intermiserint. pueros vero matres et magistri castigare etiam solent, nec verbis solum, sed etiam verberibus, si quid in domestico luctu  hilarius ab is factum est aut dictum, plorare cogunt. Quid? ipsa remissio luctus cum est consecuta intellectumque est nihil profici maerendo, nonne res declarat fuisse totum illud voluntarium?\n\nSECTION 65\nQuid ille Terentianus  ‘ipse se poeniens’, id est ἑαυτὸν τιμωρούμενος?\nDecrévi tantispér me minus iniúriae,\nChremés, meo gnato fácere, dum fiám miser.\nhic decernit, ut miser sit. num quis igitur quicquam decernit invitus? ‘malo quidem me quovis dignum deputem—’ malo se dignum deputat, nisi miser sit. vides ergo opinionis esse, non naturae malum. Quid, quos res ipsa lugere prohibet? ut apud Homerum cotidianae neces interitusque multorum sedationem maerendi adferunt, apud quem ita dicitur:\nNamque nimis multos atque omni luce cadentis\nCernimus, ut nemo possit maerore vacare.\nQuo magis est aequum tumulis mandare peremptos\nFirmo animo et luctum lacrimis finire diurnis.\n\nSECTION 66\nErgo in potestate est abicere dolorem, cum velis, tempori servientem. an est ullum tempus, quoniam quidem res in nostra potestate est, cui non ponendae curae <et> aegritudinis causa serviamus? constabat eos, qui concidentem volneribus Cn. Pompeium vidissent, cum in illo ipso acerbissimo miserrimoque spectaculo sibi timerent, quod se classe hostium circumfusos viderent, nihil aliud tum egisse, nisi ut remiges hortarentur et ut salutem adipiscerentur fuga; posteaquam Tyrum venissent, tum adflictari lamentarique coepisse. timor igitur ab his aegritudinem potuit repellere,  ratio ab sapienti viro non poterit?\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 28\n\nQuid est autem quod plus valeat ad ponendum dolorem, quam cum est intellectum nil profici et frustra esse susceptum? si igitur deponi potest, etiam non suscipi potest; voluntate igitur et iudicio suscipi aegritudinem confitendum est.\n\nSECTION 67\nIdque indicatur eorum patientia, qui cum multa sint saepe perpessi, facilius ferunt quicquid accidit, obduruisseque iam sese contra fortunam arbitrantur, ut ille apud Euripidem:\nSi míhi nunc tristis prímum inluxissét dies\nNec tam aérumnoso návigavissém salo,\nEssét dolendi caúsa, ut iniecto éculei\nFrenó repente táctu exagitantúr novo;\nSed iám subactus míseriis optórpui.\ndefetigatio igitur miseriarum aegritudines cum faciat leniores, intellegi necesse est non rem ipsam causam atque fontem esse maeroris.\n\nSECTION 68\nPhilosophi summi nequedum tamen sapientiam consecuti nonne intellegunt in summo se malo esse? sunt enim insipientes, neque insipientia ullum maius malum est. neque tamen lugent. quid ita? quia huic generi malorum non adfingitur illa opinio, rectum esse et aequum et ad officium pertinere aegre ferre, quod sapiens non sis, quod idem adfingimus huic aegritudini, in qua luctus inest, quae omnium maxuma est.\n\nSECTION 69\nitaque Aristoteles veteres philosophos accusans, qui existumavissent philosophiam suis ingeniis esse perfectam, ait eos aut stultissimos aut  gloriosissimos fuisse; sed se videre, quod paucis annis magna accessio facta esset, brevi tempore philosophiam plane absolutam fore. Theophrastus autem moriens accusasse naturam dicitur, quod cervis et cornicibus vitam diuturnam, quorum id nihil interesset, hominibus, quorum maxime interfuisset, tam exiguam vitam dedisset; quorum si aetas potuisset esse longinquior, futurum fuisse ut omnibus perfectis artibus omni doctrina hominum vita erudiretur. querebatur igitur se tum, cum illa videre coepisset, extingui. quid? ex ceteris philosophis nonne optumus et gravissumus quisque confitetur multa se ignorare et multa sibi etiam atque etiam esse discenda?\n\nSECTION 70\nneque tamen, cum se in media stultitia, qua nihil est peius, haerere intellegant, aegritudine premuntur; nulla enim admiscetur opinio officiosi doloris. Quid, qui non putant lugendum viris? qualis fuit Q. Maxumus efferens filium consularem, qualis L. Paulus duobus paucis diebus amissis filiis, qualis M. Cato praetore designato mortuo filio, quales reliqui, quos in Consolatione conlegimus.\n\nSECTION 71\nquid hos aliud placavit nisi quod luctum et maerorem esse non putabant viri? ergo id, quod alii rectum opinantes aegritudini se solent dedere, id hi turpe putantes aegritudinem reppulerunt. ex quo intellegitur non in natura, sed in opinione esse aegritudinem.\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 29\n\nContra dicuntur haec: quis tam demens, ut sua voluntate maereat? natura adfert dolorem, cui quidem Crantor, inquiunt, vester cedendum putat; premit enim atque instat, nec resisti potest. itaque Oileus ille apud  Sophoclem, qui Telamonem antea de Aiacis morte consolatus esset, is cum audivisset de suo, fractus est. de cuius commutata mente sic dicitur:\nNec véro tanta praéditus sapiéntia\nQuisquám est, qui aliorum aerúmnam dictis ádlevans\nNon ídem, cum fortúna mutata ímpetum\nConvértat, clade súbita frangatúr sua,\nUt ílla ad alios dícta et praecepta éxcidant.\nhaec cum disputant, hoc student efficere, naturae obsisti nullo modo posse; idem tamen fatentur graviores aegritudines suscipi, quam natura cogat. quae est igitur amentia—? ut nos quoque idem ab illis requiramus.\n\nSECTION 72\nSed plures sunt causae suscipiendi doloris: primum illa opinio mali, quo viso atque persuaso aegritudo insequitur necessario. deinde etiam gratum mortuis se facere, si graviter eos lugeant, arbitrantur. accedit superstitio muliebris quaedam; existumant enim diis inmortalibus se facilius satis facturos, si eorum plaga perculsi adflictos se et stratos esse fateantur. sed haec inter se quam repugnent, plerique non vident. laudant enim eos, qui aequo animo moriantur; qui alterius mortem aequo animo ferant, eos putant vituperandos. quasi fieri ullo modo possit, quod in amatorio sermone dici solet, ut quisquam plus alterum diligat quam se.\n\nSECTION 73\npraeclarum illud est et, si quaeris, rectum quoque et verum, ut eos, qui nobis carissimi esse debeant, aeque ac nosmet ipsos amemus; ut vero plus, fieri nullo pacto potest. ne optandum quidem est in amicitia, ut me ille plus quam se, ego illum plus quam me; perturbatio vitae, si ita sit, atque officiorum omnium  consequatur.\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 30\n\nsed de hoc alias; nunc illud satis est, non attribuere ad amissionem amicorum miseriam nostram, ne illos plus quam ipsi velint, si sentiant, plus certe quam nosmet ipsos diligamus. Nam quod aiunt plerosque consolationibus nihil levari adiunguntque consolatores ipsos confiteri se miseros, cum ad eos impetum suum fortuna converterit, utrumque dissolvitur. sunt enim ista non naturae vitia, sed culpae. stultitiam autem accusare quamvis copiose licet. nam et qui non levantur, ipsi <se> ad miseriam invitant, et qui suos casus aliter ferunt atque ut auctores aliis ipsi fuerunt, non sunt vitiosiores quam fere plerique, qui avari avaros, gloriae cupidos gloriosi reprehendunt. est enim proprium stultitiae aliorum vitia cernere, oblivisci suorum.\n\nSECTION 74\nSed nimirum hoc maxume est exprimendum, cum constet aegritudinem vetustate tolli, hanc vim non esse in die positam, sed in cogitatione diuturna. nam si et eadem res est et idem est homo, qui potest quicquam de dolore mutari, si neque de eo, propter quod dolet, quicquam est mutatum neque de eo, qui dolet? cogitatio igitur diuturna nihil esse in re mali dolori medetur, non ipsa diuturnitas.\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 31\n\nHic mihi adferunt mediocritates. quae si naturales sunt, quid opus est consolatione? natura enim ipsa terminabit modum; sin opinabiles, opinio tota tollatur.\n\nSatis dictum esse arbitror aegritudinem esse opinionem  mali praesentis, in qua opinione illud insit, ut aegritudinem suscipere oporteat.\n\nSECTION 75\nadditur ad hanc definitionem a Zenone recte, ut illa opinio praesentis mali sit recens. hoc autem verbum sic interpretantur, ut non tantum illud recens esse velint, quod paulo ante acciderit, sed quam diu in illo opinato malo vis quaedam insit, ut vigeat et habeat quandam viriditatem, tam diu appelletur recens. ut Artemisia illa, Mausoli Cariae regis uxor, quae nobile illud Halicarnasi fecit sepulcrum, quam diu vixit, vixit in luctu eodemque etiam confecta contabuit. huic erat illa opinio cotidie recens; quae tum denique non appellatur recens, cum vetustate exaruit.\n\nHaec igitur officia sunt consolantium, tollere aegritudinem funditus aut sedare aut detrahere quam plurumum aut supprimere nec pati manare longius aut ad alia traducere.\n\nSECTION 76\nsunt qui unum officium consolantis putent malum illud omnino non esse, ut Cleanthi placet; sunt qui non magnum malum, ut Peripatetici; sunt qui abducant a malis ad bona, ut Epicurus; sunt qui satis putent ostendere nihil inopinati accidisse, <ut Cyrenaici […]> nihil mali. Chrysippus autem caput esse censet in consolando detrahere illam opinionem maerentis, qua se officio fungi putet iusto atque  debito. sunt etiam qui haec omnia genera consolandi colligant—alius enim alio modo movetur—, ut fere nos in Consolatione omnia in consolationem unam coniecimus; erat enim in tumore animus, et omnis in eo temptabatur curatio. sed sumendum tempus est non minus in animorum morbis quam in corporum; ut Prometheus ille Aeschyli, cui cum dictum esset:\nAtquí, Prometheu, te hóc tenere exístimo,\nMedéri posse rátionem iracúndiae,\nrespondit:\nSiquidém qui tempestívam medicinam ádmovens\nNon ádgravescens vólnus inlidát manu.\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 32\n\nSECTION 77\nErit igitur in consolationibus prima medicina docere aut nullum malum esse aut admodum parvum, altera et de communi condicione vitae et proprie, si quid sit de ipsius qui maereat disputandum, tertia summam esse stultitiam frustra confici maerore, cum intellegas nihil posse profici. nam Cleanthes quidem sapientem consolatur, qui consolatione non eget. nihil enim esse malum, quod turpe non sit, si lugenti persuaseris, non tu illi luctum, sed stultitiam detraxeris; alienum autem tempus docendi. et tamen non satis mihi videtur vidisse hoc Cleanthes, suscipi aliquando aegritudinem posse ex eo ipso, quod esse summum malum Cleanthes  ipse fateatur. quid enim dicemus, cum Socrates Alcibiadi persuasisset, ut accepimus, eum nihil hominis  esse nec quicquam inter Alcibiadem summo loco natum et quemvis baiolum interesse, cum se Alcibiades adflictaret lacrimansque Socrati supplex esset, ut sibi virtutem traderet turpitudinemque depelleret,—quid dicemus, Cleanthe? tum in illa re, quae aegritudine Alcibiadem adficiebat, mali nihil fuisse?\n\nSECTION 78\nquid? illa Lyconis qualia sunt? qui aegritudinem extenuans parvis ait eam rebus moveri, fortunae et corporis incommodis, non animi malis. quid ergo? illud, quod Alcibiades dolebat, non ex animi malis vitiisque constabat? ad Epicuri consolationem satis est ante dictum.\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 33\n\nSECTION 79\nne illa quidem firmissima consolatio est, quamquam et usitata est et saepe prodest: ‘non tibi hoc soli.’ prodest haec quidem, ut dixi, sed nec semper nec omnibus; sunt enim qui respuant; sed refert, quo modo adhibeatur. ut enim tulerit quisque eorum qui sapienter tulerunt, non quo quisque incommodo adfectus sit, praedicandum est. Chrysippi ad veritatem firmissima est, ad tempus aegritudinis difficilis. magnum opus est probare maerenti illum suo iudicio et, quod se ita putet oportere facere, maerere. Nimirum igitur, ut in causis non semper utimur eodem statu—sic enim appellamus controversiarum genera—, sed ad tempus, ad controversiae naturam, ad personam accommodamus, sic in aegritudine lenienda, quam quisque curationem recipere possit, videndum est.\n\nSECTION 80\nSed nescio quo pacto ab eo, quod erat a te propositum, aberravit oratio. tu enim de sapiente quaesieras, cui aut malum videri nullum potest, quod vacet  turpitudine, aut ita parvum malum, ut id obruatur sapientia vixque appareat, qui nihil opinione adfingat adsumatque ad aegritudinem nec id putet esse rectum, se quam maxume excruciari luctuque confici, quo pravius nihil esse possit. edocuit tamen ratio, ut mihi quidem videtur, cum hoc ipsum proprie non quaereretur hoc tempore, num quod esset malum nisi quod idem dici turpe posset, tamen ut videremus, quicquid esset in aegritudine mali, id non naturale esse, sed voluntario iudicio et opinionis errore contractum.\n\nSECTION 81\nTractatum est autem a nobis id genus aegritudinis, quod unum est omnium maxumum, ut eo sublato reliquorum remedia ne magnopere quaerenda arbitraremur.\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 34\n\nsunt enim certa, quae de paupertate certa, quae de vita inhonorata et ingloria dici soleant; separatim certae scholae sunt de exilio, de interitu patriae, de servitute, de debilitate, de caecitate, de omni casu, in quo nomen poni solet calamitatis. haec Graeci in singulas scholas et in singulos libros dispertiunt; opus enim quaerunt (quamquam plenae disputationes delectationis sunt);\n\nSECTION 82\net tamen, ut medici toto corpore curando minimae etiam parti, si condoluit, medentur, sic philosophia cum universam aegritudinem sustulit, <sustulit>  etiam, si quis error alicunde extitit, si paupertas momordit, si ignominia pupugit, si quid tenebrarum obfudit exilium, aut eorum quae modo dixi si quid extitit. etsi singularum rerum sunt propriae consolationes,  de quibus audies tu quidem, cum voles. sed ad eundem fontem revertendum est, aegritudinem omnem procul abesse a sapiente, quod inanis sit, quod frustra suscipiatur, quod non natura exoriatur, sed iudicio, sed opinione, sed quadam invitatione ad dolendum, cum id decreverimus ita fieri oportere.\n\nSECTION 83\nHoc detracto, quod totum est voluntarium, aegritudo erit sublata illa maerens, morsus tamen et contractiuncula quaedam animi relinquetur. hanc dicant sane naturalem, dum aegritudinis nomen absit grave taetrum funestum, quod cum sapientia esse atque, ut ita dicam, habitare nullo modo possit. At quae stirpes sunt aegritudinis, quam multae, quam amarae! quae ipso trunco everso omnes eligendae sunt et, si necesse erit, singulis disputationibus. superest enim nobis hoc, cuicuimodi est, otium. sed ratio una omnium est aegritudinum, plura nomina. nam et invidere aegritudinis est et aemulari et obtrectare et misereri et angi, lugere, maerere, aerumna adfici, lamentari, sollicitari, dolere, in molestia esse, adflictari, desperare.\n\nSECTION 84\nHaec omnia definiunt Stoici, eaque verba quae dixi singularum rerum sunt, non, ut videntur, easdem res significant, sed aliquid differunt; quod alio loco fortasse tractabimus. haec sunt illae fibrae stirpium, quas initio dixi, persequendae et omnes eligendae, ne umquam ulla possit existere. magnum opus et difficile, quis negat? quid  autem praeclarum non idem arduum? sed tamen id se effecturam philosophia profitetur, nos modo curationem eius recipiamus.\n\nVerum haec quidem hactenus, cetera, quotienscumque voletis, et hoc loco et aliis parata vobis erunt.\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 1\n\nSECTION 1\nCum multis locis nostrorum hominum ingenia virtutesque, Brute, soleo mirari, tum maxime in is studiis, quae sero admodum expetita in hanc civitatem e Graecia transtulerunt. nam cum a primo urbis ortu regiis institutis, partim etiam legibus auspicia, caerimoniae, comitia, provocationes, patrum consilium, equitum peditumque discriptio, tota res militaris divinitus esset constituta, tum progressio admirabilis incredibilisque cursus ad omnem excellentiam factus est dominatu regio re p. liberata. nec vero hic locus est, ut de moribus institutisque maiorum et disciplina ac temperatione civitatis loquamur; aliis haec locis satis accurate a nobis dicta sunt maximeque in is sex libris, quos de re publica scripsimus.\n\nSECTION 2\nhoc autem loco consideranti mihi studia doctrinae multa sane occurrunt, cur ea quoque arcessita aliunde neque solum expetita, sed etiam conservata et culta videantur. erat enim illis paene in conspectu praestanti sapientia et nobilitate Pythagoras, qui fuit in Italia temporibus isdem quibus  L. Brutus patriam liberavit, praeclarus auctor nobilitatis tuae. Pythagorae autem doctrina cum longe lateque flueret, permanavisse mihi videtur in hanc civitatem, idque cum coniectura probabile est, tum quibusdam etiam vestigiis indicatur. quis enim est qui putet, cum floreret in Italia Graecia potentissumis et maximis urbibus, ea quae magna dicta est, in isque primum ipsius Pythagorae, deinde postea Pythagoreorum tantum nomen esset, nostrorum hominum ad eorum doctissimas voces aures clausas fuisse?\n\nSECTION 3\nquin etiam arbitror propter Pythagoreorum admirationem Numam quoque regem Pythagoreum a posterioribus existimatum. nam cum Pythagorae disciplinam et instituta cognoscerent regisque eius aequitatem et sapientiam a maioribus suis accepissent, aetates autem et tempora ignorarent propter vetustatem, eum, qui sapientia excelleret, Pythagorae auditorem crediderunt fuisse.\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 2\n\net de coniectura quidem hactenus. vestigia autem Pythagoreorum quamquam multa colligi possunt, paucis tamen utemur, quoniam non id agitur hoc tempore. nam cum carminibus soliti illi esse dicantur [et] praecepta quaedam occultius tradere et mentes suas a cogitationum intentione cantu fidibusque ad tranquillitatem traducere, gravissumus auctor in Originibus dixit Cato morem apud maiores hunc epularum fuisse, ut deinceps, qui accubarent, canerent ad tibiam clarorum virorum laudes atque virtutes; ex quo perspicuum est et cantus tum fuisse discriptos vocum sonis et carmina.\n\nSECTION 4\nquamquam id quidem etiam duodecim tabulae declarant,  condi iam tum solitum esse carmen; quod ne liceret fieri ad alterius iniuriam, lege sanxerunt. nec vero illud non eruditorum temporum argumentum est, quod et deorum pulvinaribus et epulis magistratuum fides praecinunt, quod proprium eius fuit, de qua loquor, disciplinae. mihi quidem etiam Appii Caeci carmen, quod valde Panaetius laudat epistola quadam, quae est ad Q. Tuberonem, Pythagoreum videtur. multa etiam sunt in nostris institutis ducta ab illis; quae praetereo, ne ea, quae repperisse ipsi putamur, aliunde didicisse videamur.\n\nSECTION 5\nSed ut ad propositum redeat oratio, quam brevi tempore quot et quanti poëtae, qui autem oratores extiterunt! facile ut appareat nostros omnia consequi potuisse, simul ut velle coepissent.\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 3\n\nSed de ceteris studiis alio loco et dicemus, si usus fuerit, et saepe diximus. sapientiae studium vetus id quidem in nostris, sed tamen ante Laelii aetatem et Scipionis non reperio quos appellare possim nominatim. quibus adulescentibus Stoicum Diogenen et Academicum Carneadem video ad senatum ab Atheniensibus missos esse legatos, qui cum rei publicae nullam umquam partem attigissent essetque eorum alter Cyrenaeus alter Babylonius, numquam profecto scholis essent excitati neque ad illud munus electi, nisi in quibusdam principibus temporibus illis fuissent studia doctrinae. qui cum cetera litteris mandarent, alii ius civile, alii orationes suas, alii monumenta maiorum, hanc amplissimam omnium artium, bene vivendi disciplinam,  vita magis quam litteris persecuti sunt.\n\nSECTION 6\nitaque illius verae elegantisque philosophiae, quae ducta a Socrate in Peripateticis adhuc permansit et idem alio modo dicentibus Stoicis, cum Academici eorum controversias disceptarent, nulla fere sunt aut pauca admodum Latina monumenta sive propter magnitudinem rerum occupationemque hominum, sive etiam quod imperitis ea probari posse non arbitrabantur, cum interim illis silentibus C. Amafinius extitit dicens, cuius libris editis commota multitudo contulit se ad eam potissimum disciplinam, sive quod erat cognitu perfacilis, sive quod invitabantur inlecebris blandis voluptatis, sive etiam, quia nihil erat prolatum melius, illud quod erat tenebant.\n\nSECTION 7\npost Amafinium autem multi eiusdem aemuli rationis multa cum scripsissent, Italiam totam occupaverunt, quodque maxumum argumentum est non dici illa subtiliter, quod et tam facile ediscantur et ab indoctis probentur, id illi firmamentum esse disciplinae putant.\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 4\n\nSed defendat, quod  quisque sentit; sunt enim iudicia libera: nos institutum tenebimus nullisque unius disciplinae legibus adstricti, quibus in philosophia necessario pareamus, quid sit in quaque re maxime probabile, semper requiremus. quod cum saepe alias, tum nuper in Tusculano studiose egimus. itaque expositis tridui disputationibus quartus dies hoc libro concluditur. ut enim in inferiorem ambulationem descendimus, quod feceramus idem superioribus diebus, acta res est sic:\n\nDicat, si quis volt, qua de re disputari velit.\n\nSECTION 8\nNon mihi videtur omni animi perturbatione posse sapiens vacare.\n\nAegritudine quidem hesterna disputatione videbatur, nisi forte temporis causa nobis adsentiebare.\n\nMinime vero; nam mihi egregie probata est oratio tua.\n\nNon igitur existumas cadere in sapientem aegritudinem?\n\nProrsus non arbitror.\n\nAtqui, si ista perturbare animum sapientis non potest, nulla poterit. quid enim? metusne conturbet? at earum rerum est absentium metus, quarum praesentium est aegritudo; sublata igitur aegritudine sublatus est metus. restant duae perturbationes, laetitia gestiens et libido; quae si non cadent in sapientem, semper mens erit tranquilla sapientis.\n\nSECTION 9\nSic prorsus intellego.\n\nUtrum igitur mavis? statimne nos vela facere an quasi e portu egredientis paululum remigare?\n\nQuidnam est istuc? non enim intellego.\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 5\n\nQuia Chrysippus et Stoici cum de animi perturbationibus disputant, magnam partem in his partiendis et definiendis occupati sunt, illa eorum perexigua oratio est, qua medeantur animis nec eos turbulentos esse patiantur, Peripatetici autem ad placandos animos multa adferunt, spinas partiendi et definiendi praetermittunt. quaerebam igitur, utrum panderem vela orationis statim an eam ante paululum dialecticorum remis propellerem.\n\nIsto modo vero; erit enim hoc totum, quod quaero, ex utroque perfectius.\n\nEst id quidem rectius;\n\nSECTION 10\nsed post requires, si quid fuerit obscurius.\n\nFaciam equidem; tu tamen, ut soles, dices ista ipsa obscura planius quam dicuntur a Graecis.\n\nEnitar equidem, sed intento opus est animo, ne omnia dilabantur, si unum aliquid effugerit. Quoniam, quae Graeci πάθη vocant, nobis perturbationes appellari magis placet quam morbos, in his explicandis veterem illam equidem Pythagorae primum, dein Platonis discriptionem sequar, qui animum in duas partes dividunt: alteram rationis participem faciunt, alteram expertem; in participe rationis ponunt tranquillitatem, id est placidam quietamque constantiam, in illa altera motus turbidos cum irae tum cupiditatis, contrarios inimicosque rationi.\n\nSECTION 11\nsit igitur hic fons; utamur tamen in his perturbationibus describendis Stoicorum definitionibus et partitionibus, qui mihi videntur in hac quaestione versari acutissime.\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 6\n\nEst igitur Zenonis haec definitio, ut\nperturbatio\nsit, quod πάθος  ille dicit, aversa a recta ratione contra naturam animi commotio. quidam brevius perturbationem esse adpetitum vehementiorem, sed vehementiorem eum volunt esse, qui longius discesserit a naturae constantia. partes autem perturbationum volunt ex duobus opinatis bonis nasci et ex duobus opinatis malis; ita esse quattuor, ex bonis\nlibidinem\net\nlaetitiam\n,  ut sit laetitia praesentium bonorum, libido futurorum, ex malis metum et\naegritudinem\nnasci censent, metum futuris, aegritudinem praesentibus; quae enim venientia metuuntur, eadem adficiunt aegritudine instantia.\n\nSECTION 12\nlaetitia autem et libido in bonorum opinione versantur, cum libido ad id, quod videtur bonum, inlecta et inflammata rapiatur, laetitia ut adepta iam aliquid concupitum ecferatur et gestiat. natura enim omnes ea, quae bona videntur, secuntur fugiuntque contraria; quam ob rem simul obiecta species est cuiuspiam, quod bonum videatur, ad id adipiscendum impellit ipsa natura. id cum constanter prudenterque fit, eius modi adpetitionem Stoici βούλησιν  appellant, nos appellemus\nvoluntatem\n, eam illi putant in solo esse sapiente; quam sic definiunt: voluntas est, quae quid cum ratione desiderat. quae autem ratione adversante incitata est vehementius, ea libido est vel cupiditas effrenata, quae in omnibus stultis invenitur.\n\nSECTION 13\nitemque cum ita movemur, ut in bono simus aliquo, dupliciter id contingit. nam cum ratione animus movetur placide atque constanter, tum illud\ngaudium\ndicitur; cum autem inaniter et effuse animus exultat, tum illa laetitia gestiens vel nimia dici potest, quam ita definiunt: sine ratione animi elationem. quoniamque, ut bona natura adpetimus, sic a malis natura declinamus, quae declinatio [si] cum ratione fiet,\ncautio\nappelletur, eaque intellegatur in solo esse sapiente; quae autem sine ratione et cum exanimatione humili atque fracta, nominetur metus;  est igitur metus <a>  ratione aversa cautio.\n\nSECTION 14\npraesentis autem mali sapientis adfectio nulla est, stultorum aegritudo est, eaque adficiuntur in malis opinatis animosque demittunt et contrahunt rationi non obtemperantes. itaque haec prima definitio est, ut aegritudo sit animi adversante ratione contractio. sic quattuor perturbationes sunt, tres constantiae, quoniam aegritudini nulla constantia opponitur.\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 7\n\nSed omnes perturbationes iudicio censent fieri et opinione. itaque eas definiunt pressius, ut intellegatur, non modo quam vitiosae, sed etiam quam in nostra sint potestate. est ergo\naegritudo\nopinio recens mali praesentis, in quo demitti contrahique animo rectum esse videatur,\nlaetitia\nopinio recens boni praesentis, in quo ecferri rectum esse videatur,\nmetus\nopinio impendentis mali, quod intolerabile esse videatur,\nlibido\nopinio venturi boni, quod sit ex usu iam praesens esse atque adesse.\n\nSECTION 15\nsed quae iudicia quasque opiniones perturbationum esse dixi, non in eis perturbationes solum positas esse dicunt, verum illa etiam quae efficiuntur perturbationibus, ut aegritudo quasi morsum aliquem doloris efficiat, metus recessum quendam animi et fugam, laetitia profusam hilaritatem, libido effrenatam adpetentiam. opinationem autem, quam in omnis definitiones superiores inclusimus, volunt esse inbecillam adsensionem.\n\nSECTION 16\nSed singulis perturbationibus partes eiusdem generis plures subiciuntur, ut\naegritudini\ninvidentia—  utendum est enim docendi causa verbo minus usitato, quoniam invidia non in eo qui invidet solum dicitur, sed etiam in eo cui invidetur—, aemulatio, obtrectatio, misericordia, angor, luctus, maeror, aerumna, dolor, lamentatio, sollicitudo, molestia, adflictatio, desperatio, et si quae sunt de genere eodem. sub\nmetum\nautem subiecta sunt pigritia, pudor, terror, timor, pavor, exanimatio, conturbatio, formido,\nvoluptati\nmalivolentia laetans malo alieno, delectatio, iactatio et similia,\nlubidini\nira, excandescentia, odium, inimicitia, discordia, indigentia, desiderium et cetera eius modi.\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 8\n\nHaec autem definiunt hoc modo: invidentiam esse dicunt\naegritudinem\nsusceptam propter alterius res secundas, quae nihil noceant invidenti.\n\nSECTION 17\n(nam si qui doleat eius rebus secundis a quo ipse laedatur, non recte dicatur invidere, ut si Hectori Agamemno; qui autem, cui alterius commoda nihil noceant, tamen eum doleat is frui, is invideat profecto.) aemulatio autem dupliciter illa quidem dicitur, ut et in laude et in vitio nomen hoc sit; nam et imitatio virtutis aemulatio dicitur— sed ea nihil hoc loco utimur; est enim laudis—, et est aemulatio aegritudo, si eo quod concupierit alius potiatur, ipse careat. obtrectatio autem est, ea quam intellegi ζηλοτυπίαν  volo, aegritudo ex eo, quod alter quoque  potiatur eo quod ipse concupiverit.\n\nSECTION 18\nmisericordia est aegritudo ex miseria alterius iniuria laborantis (nemo enim parricidae aut proditoris supplicio misericordia commovetur); angor aegritudo premens, luctus aegritudo ex eius qui carus fuerit interitu acerbo, maeror aegritudo flebilis, aerumna aegritudo laboriosa, dolor aegritudo crucians, lamentatio aegritudo cum eiulatu, sollicitudo aegritudo cum cogitatione, molestia aegritudo permanens, adflictatio aegritudo cum vexatione corporis, desperatio aegritudo sine ulla rerum expectatione meliorum. Quae autem subiecta sunt sub metum, ea sic definiunt: pigritiam metum consequentis laboris,\n\nSECTION 19\n[…] terrorem metum concutientem, ex quo fit ut pudorem rubor, terrorem pallor et tremor et dentium crepitus consequatur, timorem metum mali adpropinquantis, pavorem metum mentem loco moventem, ex quo illud Ennius: ‘tum pavor sapientiam omnem mi exanimato expectorat’, exanimationem metum subsequentem et quasi comitem pavoris, conturbationem metum excutientem cogitata, formidinem metum permanentem.\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 9\n\nSECTION 20\nVoluptatis autem partes hoc modo describunt, ut malevolentia sit voluptas ex malo alterius sine emolumento suo, delectatio voluptas suavitate  auditus animum deleniens; et qualis est haec aurium, tales sunt oculorum et tactionum et odorationum et saporum, quae sunt omnes unius generis ad perfundendum animum tamquam inliquefactae voluptates. iactatio est voluptas gestiens et se efferens insolentius.\n\nSECTION 21\nQuae autem\nlibidini\nsubiecta sunt, ea sic definiuntur, ut ira sit libido poeniendi eius qui videatur laesisse iniuria, excandescentia autem sit ira nascens et modo existens, quae θύμωσις Graece dicitur, odium ira inveterata, inimicitia ira ulciscendi tempus observans, discordia ira acerbior intimo animo et corde concepta, indigentia libido inexplebilis, desiderium libido eius, qui nondum adsit, videndi. distinguunt illud etiam, ut libido sit earum rerum, quae dicuntur de quodam aut quibusdam, quae κατηγορήματα  dialectici appellant, ut habere divitias, capere honores, indigentia rerum ipsarum sit, ut honorum, ut pecuniae.\n\nSECTION 22\nOmnium autem perturbationum fontem esse dicunt intemperantiam, quae est [a]  tota mente a recta ratione defectio sic aversa a praescriptione rationis, ut nullo modo adpetitiones animi nec regi nec contineri queant. quem ad modum igitur temperantia sedat adpetitiones et efficit, ut eae rectae rationi pareant, conservatque considerata iudicia mentis, sic huic inimica  intemperantia omnem animi statum inflammat conturbat incitat, itaque et aegritudines et metus et reliquae perturbationes omnes gignuntur ex ea.\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 10\n\nQuem ad modum, cum sanguis corruptus est aut pituita redundat aut bilis, in corpore morbi aegrotationesque nascuntur, sic pravarum opinionum conturbatio et ipsarum inter se repugnantia sanitate spoliat animum morbisque perturbat;\n\nSECTION 23\nex perturbationibus autem primum\nmorbi\nconficiuntur, quae vocant illi νοσήματα, eaque quae sunt eis morbis contraria, quae habent ad res certas vitiosam\noffensionem\natque fastidium, deinde\naegrotationes\n, quae appellantur a Stoicis ἀρρωστήματα, isque item oppositae contrariae offensiones. hoc loco nimium operae consumitur a Stoicis, maxime a Chrysippo, dum morbis corporum comparatur morborum animi similitudo; qua oratione praetermissa minime necessaria ea, quae rem continent, pertractemus.\n\nSECTION 24\nintellegatur igitur perturbationem iactantibus se opinionibus inconstanter et turbide in motu esse semper; cum autem hic fervor concitatioque animi inveteraverit et tamquam in venis medullisque insederit, tum existet et morbus et aegrotatio et offensiones eae, quae sunt eis morbis aegrotationibusque contrariae.\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 11\n\nHaec, quae dico, cogitatione inter se differunt, re quidem copulata sunt, eaque oriuntur ex libidine et ex laetitia. nam cum est concupita pecunia  nec adhibita continuo ratio quasi quaedam Socratica medicina, quae sanaret eam cupiditatem, permanat in venas et inhaeret in visceribus illud malum, existitque morbus et aegrotatio, quae evelli inveterata non possunt, eique morbo nomen est avaritia;\n\nSECTION 25\nsimiliterque ceteri morbi, ut gloriae cupiditas, ut mulierositas, ut ita appellem eam quae Graece φιλογυνία  dicitur, ceterique similiter morbi aegrotationesque nascuntur. quae autem sunt his contraria, ea nasci putantur a metu, ut odium mulierum, quale in μισογύνῳ Atili est,  ut in hominum universum genus, quod accepimus de Timone qui μισάνθρωπος appellatur,  ut inhospitalitas est: quae omnes aegrotationes animi ex quodam metu nascuntur earum rerum quas fugiunt et oderunt.\n\nSECTION 26\ndefiniunt autem animi\naegrotationem\nopinationem vehementem de re non expetenda, tamquam valde expetenda sit, inhaerentem et penitus insitam. quod autem nascitur ex\noffensione\n, ita definiunt: opinionem vehementem de re non fugienda inhaerentem et penitus insitam tamquam fugienda; haec autem opinatio est iudicatio se scire, quod nesciat. aegrotationi autem talia quaedam subiecta sunt: avaritia, ambitio, mulierositas, pervicacia, ligurritio, vinulentia, cuppedia,  et si qua similia. est autem avaritia opinatio vehemens de pecunia, quasi valde expetenda sit, inhaerens et penitus insita, similisque est eiusdem generis definitio reliquarum.\n\nSECTION 27\noffensionum autem definitiones sunt eius  modi, ut inhospitalitas sit opinio vehemens valde fugiendum esse hospitem, eaque inhaerens et penitus insita; similiterque definitur et mulierum odium, ut Hippolyti,  et, ut Timonis, generis humani.\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 12\n\nAtque ut ad valetudinis similitudinem veniamus eaque conlatione utamur aliquando, sed parcius quam solent Stoici: ut sunt alii ad alios morbos procliviores —itaque dicimus gravidinosos quosdam, <quosdam> torminosos,  non quia iam sint, sed quia saepe sint—, <sic>  alii ad metum, alii ad aliam perturbationem; ex quo in aliis anxietas, unde anxii, in aliis iracundia dicitur. quae ab ira differt, estque aliud iracundum esse, aliud iratum, ut differt anxietas ab angore (neque enim omnes anxii, qui anguntur aliquando, nec, qui anxii, semper anguntur), ut inter ebrietatem <et ebriositatem> interest, aliudque est amatorem esse, aliud amantem. atque haec aliorum ad alios morbos proclivitas late patet; nam pertinet ad omnes perturbationes;\n\nSECTION 28\nin multis etiam vitiis apparet, sed nomen res non habet. ergo et invidi et malivoli et libidinosi et timidi et misericordes, quia proclives ad eas perturbationes <sunt>, non quia semper feruntur. haec igitur proclivitas ad suum quodque genus a similitudine  corporis aegrotatio dicatur, dum ea intellegatur ad aegrotandum proclivitas. sed haec in bonis rebus, quod alii ad alia bona sunt aptiores,\nfacilitas\nnominetur, in malis\nproclivitas\n, ut significet lapsionem, in neutris habeat superius nomen.\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 13\n\nQuo modo autem in corpore est morbus, est aegrotatio, est vitium, sic in animo. morbum appellant totius corporis corruptionem,\naegrotationem\nmorbum cum imbecillitate, vitium, cum partes corporis inter se dissident, ex quo pravitas membrorum, distortio, deformitas.\n\nSECTION 29\nitaque illa duo, morbus et aegrotatio, ex totius valetudinis corporis conquassatione et perturbatione gignuntur, vitium autem integra valetudine ipsum ex se cernitur. sed in animo tantum modo cogitatione possumus morbum ab aegrotatione seiungere, vitiositas autem est habitus aut adfectio in tota vita inconstans et a se ipsa dissentiens. ita fit, ut in altera corruptione opinionum morbus efficiatur et aegrotatio, in altera inconstantia et repugnantia. non enim omne vitium paris habet dissensiones, ut eorum, qui non longe a sapientia absunt, adfectio est illa quidem discrepans sibi ipsa, dum est insipiens, sed non distorta nec prava. morbi autem et aegrotationes partes sunt vitiositatis, sed perturbationes sintne eiusdem partes, quaestio est.\n\nSECTION 30\nvitia enim adfectiones sunt manentes, perturbationes autem moventes, ut non possint adfectionum manentium partes esse. Atque ut in malis attingit animi naturam corporis similitudo, sic in bonis. sunt enim in corpore praecipua, pulchritudo, vires, valetudo, firmitas, velocitas, sunt item in animo. <ut> enim corporis temperatio,  cum ea congruunt inter se e quibus constamus, sanitas, sic animi dicitur, cum eius iudicia opinionesque concordant, eaque animi est virtus, quam alii ipsam temperantiam dicunt esse, alii obtemperantem temperantiae praeceptis et eam subsequentem nec habentem ullam speciem suam, sed sive hoc sive illud sit, in solo esse sapiente. est autem quaedam animi sanitas, quae in insipientem etiam cadat, cum curatione et purgatione medicorum conturbatio mentis aufertur.\n\nSECTION 31\net ut corporis est quaedam apta figura membrorum cum coloris quadam suavitate eaque dicitur pulchritudo, sic in animo opinionum iudiciorumque aequabilitas et constantia cum firmitate quadam et stabilitate virtutem subsequens aut virtutis vim ipsam continens pulchritudo vocatur. itemque viribus corporis et nervis et efficacitati similes similibus quoque verbis animi vires nominantur. velocitas autem corporis celeritas appellatur, quae eadem ingenii etiam laus habetur propter animi multarum rerum brevi tempore percursionem.\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 14\n\nIllud animorum corporumque dissimile, quod animi valentes morbo temptari non possunt, corpora possunt; sed corporum offensiones sine culpa accidere possunt, animorum non item, quorum omnes morbi et perturbationes ex aspernatione rationis eveniunt. itaque in hominibus solum existunt; nam bestiae simile quiddam faciunt, sed in perturbationes non incidunt.\n\nSECTION 32\ninter acutos autem et inter hebetes interest, quod ingeniosi, ut aes Corinthium in aeruginem, sic illi in morbum et incidunt tardius et recreantur ocius, hebetes non item. nec vero in omnem morbum ac perturbationem animus ingeniosi cadit; †non enim multa ecferata et immania; quaedam autem humanitatis quoque habent primam speciem, ut misericordia aegritudo metus. Aegrotationes autem morbique animorum difficilius evelli posse putantur quam summa illa vitia, quae virtutibus sunt contraria. morbis enim manentibus vitia sublata esse [non] possunt, quia non tam celeriter sanantur quam illa tolluntur.\n\nSECTION 33\nHabes ea quae de perturbationibus enucleate disputant Stoici, quae λογικά  appellant, quia disseruntur subtilius. ex quibus quoniam tamquam ex scrupulosis  cotibus enavigavit oratio, reliquae disputationis cursum teneamus, modo satis illa dilucide dixerimus pro rerum obscuritate.\n\nProrsus satis; sed si quae diligentius erunt cognoscenda, quaeremus alias, nunc vela, quae modo dicebas, expectamus et cursum.\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 15\n\nSECTION 34\nQuando, ut aliis locis de virtute et diximus et saepe dicendum erit—pleraeque enim quaestiones, quae ad vitam moresque pertinent, a virtutis fonte ducuntur—, quando igitur virtus est adfectio animi constans conveniensque, laudabiles efficiens eos, in quibus est, et ipsa per se sua sponte separata etiam utilitate laudabilis, ex ea proficiscuntur honestae voluntates sententiae  actiones omnisque recta ratio (quamquam ipsa virtus brevissume recta ratio dici potest). huius igitur virtutis contraria est vitiositas—sic enim malo quam malitiam appellare eam quam Graeci κακίαν  appellant; nam malitia certi cuiusdam vitii nomen est, vitiositas omnium—; ex qua concitantur perturbationes, quae sunt, ut paulo ante diximus, turbidi animorum concitatique motus, aversi a ratione et inimicissimi mentis vitaeque tranquillae. inportant enim aegritudines anxias atque acerbas animosque adfligunt et debilitant metu; idem inflammant adpetitione nimia, quam tum cupiditatem tum libidinem dicimus, inpotentiam quandam animi a temperantia et moderatione plurimum dissidentem.\n\nSECTION 35\nquae si quando adepta erit  id quod ei fuerit concupitum, tum ecferetur alacritate, ut ‘nihil ei constet’, quod agat, ut ille, qui ‘voluptatem animi nimiam summum esse errorem’ arbitratur. eorum igitur malorum in una virtute posita sanatio est.\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 16\n\nQuid autem est non miserius solum, sed foedius etiam et deformius quam aegritudine quis adflictus debilitatus iacens? cui miseriae proxumus est is qui adpropinquans aliquod malum metuit exanimatusque pendet animi. quam vim mali significantes poëtae impendere apud inferos saxum Tantalo faciunt ‘ob scelera animique inpotentiam et superbiloquentiam.’ ea communis poena stultitiae est. omnibus enim, quorum mens abhorret a ratione, semper aliqui talis terror  impendet.\n\nSECTION 36\natque ut haec tabificae mentis perturbationes sunt, aegritudinem dico et metum, sic hilariores illae, cupiditas avide semper aliquid expetens et inanis alacritas, id est laetitia gestiens, non multum differunt ab amentia. ex quo intellegitur, qualis ille sit, quem tum moderatum, alias modestum temperantem, alias constantem continentemque dicimus; non numquam haec eadem vocabula ad frugalitatis nomen tamquam ad caput referre volumus. quodnisi eo nomine virtutes continerentur, numquam ita pervolgatum illud esset, ut iam proverbii locum optineret, ‘hominem frugi omnia recte facere’. quod idem cum Stoici de sapiente dicunt, nimis admirabiliter nimisque magnifice dicere videntur.\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 17\n\nSECTION 37\nErgo hic, quisquis est, qui moderatione et constantia quietus animo est sibique ipse placatus, ut nec tabescat molestiis nec frangatur timore nec sitienter quid expetens ardeat desiderio nec alacritate futtili gestiens deliquescat, is est sapiens quem quaerimus, is est beatus, cui nihil humanarum rerum aut intolerabile ad demittendum animum aut nimis laetabile ad ecferendum videri potest. quid enim videatur ei magnum in rebus humanis, cui aeternitas omnis totiusque mundi nota sit magnitudo? nam quid aut in studiis humanis aut in tam exigua brevitate vitae magnum sapienti videri potest, qui semper animo sic  excubat, ut ei nihil inprovisum accidere possit, nihil inopinatum, nihil omnino novum?\n\nSECTION 38\natque idem ita acrem in omnis partis aciem intendit, ut semper videat sedem sibi ac locum sine molestia atque angore vivendi, ut, quemcumque casum fortuna invexerit, hunc apte et quiete ferat. quod qui faciet, non aegritudine solum vacabit, sed etiam perturbationibus reliquis omnibus. his autem vacuus animus perfecte atque absolute beatos efficit, idemque concitatus et abstractus ab integra certaque ratione non constantiam solum amittit, verum etiam sanitatem.\n\nQuocirca mollis et enervata putanda est Peripateticorum ratio et oratio, qui perturbari animos necesse dicunt esse, sed adhibent modum quendam, quem ultra progredi non oporteat.\n\nSECTION 39\nmodum tu adhibes vitio? an vitium nullum est non parere rationi? an ratio parum praecipit nec bonum illud esse, quod aut cupias ardenter aut adeptus ecferas te insolenter, nec porro malum, quo aut oppressus iaceas aut, ne opprimare, mente vix constes? eaque omnia aut nimis tristia aut nimis laeta errore fieri, qui [si] error stultis extenuetur die, ut, cum res eadem maneat, aliter ferant inveterata aliter recentia, sapientis ne attingat quidem omnino?\n\nSECTION 40\nEtenim quis erit tandem modus iste? quaeramus enim modum aegritudinis, in qua operae plurimum ponitur. aegre tulisse P. Rupilium fratris repulsam consulatus scriptum apud Fannium est. sed tamen transisse videtur modum, quippe qui ob eam causam a vita recesserit; moderatius igitur ferre debuit. quid, si, cum id ferret modice, mors liberorum accessisset?  ‘nata esset aegritudo nova, sed ea modica.’ magna tamen facta esset accessio. quid, si deinde dolores graves corporis, si bonorum amissio, si caecitas, si exilium? si pro singulis malis aegritudines accederent, summa ea fieret, quae non sustineretur.\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 18\n\nSECTION 41\nQui modum igitur vitio quaerit, similiter facit, ut si posse putet eum qui se e Leucata praecipitaverit sustinere se, cum velit. ut enim id non potest, sic animus perturbatus et incitatus nec cohibere se potest nec, quo loco vult, insistere. omninoque, quae crescentia perniciosa sunt, eadem sunt vitiosa nascentia;\n\nSECTION 42\naegritudo autem ceteraeque perturbationes amplificatae certe pestiferae sunt: igitur etiam susceptae continuo in magna pestis parte versantur. etenim ipsae se impellunt, ubi semel a ratione discessum est, ipsaque sibi imbecillitas indulget in altumque provehitur imprudens nec reperit locum consistendi. quam ob rem nihil interest, utrum moderatas perturbationes adprobent an moderatam iniustitiam, moderatam ignaviam, moderatam intemperantiam; qui enim vitiis modum apponit, is partem suscipit vitiorum; quod cum ipsum per se odiosum est, tum eo molestius, quia sunt in lubrico incitataque semel proclivi labuntur sustinerique nullo modo possunt.\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 19\n\nQuid, quod idem Peripatetici perturbationes istas, quas nos extirpandas putamus, non modo naturalis esse dicunt, sed etiam utiliter a natura datas?\n\nSECTION 43\nquorum est talis oratio: primum multis verbis iracundiam laudant, cotem fortitudinis esse dicunt, multoque et in hostem et in inprobum civem vehementioris iratorum  impetus esse, levis autem ratiunculas eorum, qui ita cogitarent: ‘proelium rectum est hoc fieri, convenit dimicare pro legibus, pro libertate, pro patria;’ haec nullam habent vim, nisi ira excanduit fortitudo. nec vero de bellatoribus solum disputant: imperia severiora nulla esse putant sine aliqua acerbitate iracundiae; oratorem denique non modo accusantem, sed ne defendentem quidem probant sine aculeis iracundiae, quae etiamsi non adsit, tamen verbis atque motu simulandam arbitrantur, ut auditoris iram oratoris incendat actio. virum denique videri negant qui irasci nesciet, eamque, quam lenitatem nos dicimus, vitioso lentitudinis nomine appellant.\n\nSECTION 44\nNec vero solum hanc libidinem laudant—est enim ira, ut modo definivi, ulciscendi libido—, sed ipsum illud genus vel libidinis vel cupiditatis ad summam utilitatem esse dicunt a natura datum; nihil enim quemquam nisi quod lubeat praeclare facere posse. noctu ambulabat in publico Themistocles, quod somnum capere non posset, quaerentibusque respondebat Miltiadis tropaeis se e somno suscitari. cui non sunt auditae Demosthenis vigiliae? qui dolere se aiebat, si quando opificum antelucana victus esset industria. philosophiae denique ipsius principes numquam in suis studiis tantos progressus sine flagranti cupiditate facere potuissent.  ultimas terras lustrasse Pythagoran Democritum Platonem accepimus. ubi enim quicquid esset quod disci posset, eo veniendum iudicaverunt. num putamus haec fieri sine summo cupiditatis ardore potuisse?\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 20\n\nSECTION 45\nIpsam aegritudinem, quam nos ut taetram et inmanem beluam fugiendam diximus, non sine magna utilitate a natura dicunt constitutam, ut homines castigationibus reprehensionibus ignominiis adfici se in delicto dolerent. impunitas enim peccatorum data videtur eis qui ignominiam et infamiam ferunt sine dolore; morderi est melius conscientia. ex quo est illud e vita ductum ab Afranio: nam cum dissolutus filius: ‘heu me miserum!’ tum severus pater: ‘dum modo doleat aliquid, doleat quidlubet.’\n\nSECTION 46\nReliquas quoque partis aegritudinis utilis esse dicunt, misericordiam ad opem ferendam et calamitates hominum indignorum sublevandas; ipsum illud aemulari obtrectare non esse inutile, cum aut se non idem videat consecutum, quod alium, aut alium idem, quod se; metum vero si qui sustulisset, omnem vitae diligentiam sublatam fore, quae summa esset in eis qui leges, qui magistratus, qui paupertatem, qui ignominiam, qui mortem, qui dolorem timerent. Haec tamen ita disputant, ut resecanda esse fateantur, evelli penitus dicant nec posse nec opus esse et in omnibus fere rebus mediocritatem esse optumam existiment. quae cum exponunt, nihilne tibi videntur an aliquid dicere?\n\nMihi vero dicere aliquid, itaque expecto, quid ad ista.\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 21\n\nReperiam fortasse, sed illud ante:\n\nSECTION 47\nvidesne, quanta fuerit apud Academicos verecundia? plane enim dicunt,  quod ad rem pertineat: Peripateticis respondetur a Stoicis; digladientur illi per me licet, cui nihil est necesse nisi, ubi sit illud, quod veri simillimum videatur, anquirere. quid est igitur quod occurrat in hac quaestione, e quo possit attingi aliquid veri simile, quo longius mens humana progredi non potest? definitio perturbationis, qua recte Zenonem usum puto. ita enim definit, ut perturbatio sit aversa <a>  ratione contra naturam animi commotio, vel brevius, ut perturbatio sit adpetitus vehementior, vehementior autem intellegatur is qui procul absit a naturae constantia.\n\nSECTION 48\nquid ad has definitiones possim dicere? atque haec pleraque sunt prudenter acuteque disserentium, illa quidem ex rhetorum pompa: ‘ardores animorum cotesque virtutum.’ an vero vir fortis, nisi stomachari coepit, non potest fortis esse? gladiatorium id quidem. quamquam in eis ipsis videmus saepe constantiam: ‘conlocuntur, congrediuntur, quaerunt aliquid, postulant,’ ut magis placati quam irati esse videantur, sed in illo genere sit sane Pacideianus aliquis hoc animo, ut narrat Lucilius:\n‘Occidam illum equidem et vincam, si id quaeritis’ inquit,\n‘Verum illud credo fore: in os prius accipiam ipse\nQuam gladium in stomacho furi ac pulmonibus sisto.\nOdi hominem, iratus pugno, nec longius quicquam\nNobis, quam dextrae gladium dum accommodet alter;\nUsque adeo studio atque odio illius ecferor ira;’\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 22\n\nat sine hac gladiatoria iracundia videmus progredientem apud Homerum Aiacem multa cum hilaritate, cum depugnaturus esset cum Hectore;\n\nSECTION 49\ncuius, ut arma sumpsit, ingressio laetitiam attulit sociis, terrorem autem hostibus, ut ipsum Hectorem, quem ad modum est apud Homerum, toto pectore trementem provocasse ad pugnam paeniteret. atque hi conlocuti inter se, prius quam manum consererent, leniter et quiete nihil ne in ipsa quidem pugna iracunde rabioseve fecerunt. ego ne Torquatum quidem illum, qui hoc cognomen invenit, iratum existimo Gallo torquem detraxisse, nec Marcellum apud Clastidium ideo fortem fuisse, quia fuerit iratus.\n\nSECTION 50\nde Africano quidem, quia notior est nobis propter recentem memoriam, vel iurare possum non illum iracundia tum inflammatum fuisse, cum in acie M. Alliennium Paelignum scuto protexerit gladiumque hosti in pectus infixerit. de L. Bruto fortasse dubitarim, an propter infinitum odium tyranni ecfrenatius in Arruntem invaserit; video enim utrumque comminus ictu cecidisse contrario. quid igitur huc adhibetis iram? an fortitudo, nisi insanire coepit, impetus suos non habet? quid? Herculem, quem in caelum ista ipsa, quam vos iracundiam esse vultis, sustulit fortitudo, iratumne censes conflixisse cum Erymanthio  apro aut leone Nemeaeo? an etiam Theseus Marathonii tauri cornua conprehendit iratus? vide ne fortitudo minime sit rabiosa sitque iracundia tota levitatis.\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 23\n\nSECTION 51\nNeque enim est ulla fortitudo, quae rationis est expers. ‘contemnendae res humanae sunt, neglegenda mors est, patibiles et dolores et labores putandi’— haec cum constituta sunt iudicio atque sententia, tum est robusta illa et stabilis fortitudo, nisi forte, quae vehementer acriter animose fiunt, iracunde fieri suspicamur. mihi ne Scipio quidem ille pontufex maxumus, qui hoc Stoicorum verum esse declaravit, numquam privatum esse sapientem, iratus videtur fuisse Ti. Graccho tum, cum consulem languentem reliquit atque ipse privatus, ut si consul esset, qui rem publicam salvam esse vellent, se sequi iussit.\n\nSECTION 52\nnescio, ecquid ipsi nos fortiter in re p. fecerimus: si quid fecimus, certe irati non fecimus. an est quicquam similius insaniae quam ira? quam bene Ennius ‘initium’ dixit ‘insaniae.’ color, vox, oculi, spiritus, inpotentia dictorum ac factorum quam partem habent sanitatis? quid Achille Homerico foedius, quid Agamemnone in iurgio? nam Aiacem quidem ira ad furorem mortemque perduxit. non igitur desiderat fortitudo advocatam iracundiam; satis est instructa parata armata per sese. nam isto quidem modo licet dicere utilem vinulentiam ad fortitudinem, utilem etiam dementiam, quod et insani  et ebrii multa faciunt saepe vehementius. semper Aiax fortis, fortissimus tamen in furore; nam\nFácinus fecit máximum, cum Dánais inclinántibus\nSummám rem perfecít manu.\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 24\n\nproelium restituit insaniens:\n\nSECTION 53\ndicamus igitur utilem insaniam? Tracta definitiones fortitudinis: intelleges eam stomacho non egere. fortitudo est igitur ‘adfectio animi legi summae in perpetiendis rebus obtemperans’ vel ‘conservatio stabilis iudicii in eis rebus quae formidolosae videntur subeundis et repellendis’ vel ‘scientia rerum formidolosarum contrariarumque aut omnino neglegendarum conservans earum rerum stabile iudicium’ vel brevius, ut Chrysippus (nam superiores definitiones erant Sphaeri, hominis in primis bene definientis, ut putant Stoici; sunt enim omnino omnes fere similes, sed declarant communis notiones alia magis alia)—quo modo igitur Chrysippus? ‘fortitudo est’ inquit ‘scientia rerum perferendarum vel adfectio animi in patiendo ac perferendo summae legi parens sine timore.’ quamvis licet insectemur istos, ut Carneades solebat, metuo ne soli philosophi sint. quae enim istarum definitionum non aperit notionem nostram, quam habemus omnes de fortitudine tectam atque involutam? qua aperta quis est qui aut bellatori aut imperatori aut oratori quaerat aliquid neque eos existumet sine rabie quicquam fortiter facere posse?\n\nSECTION 54\nQuid? Stoici, qui omnes insipientes insanos  esse dicunt, nonne ista conligunt? remove perturbationes maxumeque iracundiam: iam videbuntur monstra dicere. nunc autem ita disserunt, sic se dicere omnes stultos insanire, ut male olere omne caenum. ‘at non semper.’ commove: senties. sic iracundus non semper iratus est; lacesse: iam videbis furentem. Quid? ista bellatrix iracundia, cum domum rediit, qualis est cum uxore, cum liberis, cum familia? an tum quoque est utilis? est igitur aliquid quod perturbata mens melius possit facere quam constans? an quisquam potest sine perturbatione mentis irasci? bene igitur nostri, cum omnia essent in moribus vitia, quod nullum erat iracundia foedius, iracundos solos morosos nominaverunt.\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 25\n\nSECTION 55\nOratorem vero irasci minime decet, simulare non dedecet.  an tibi irasci tum videmur, cum quid in causis acrius et vehementius dicimus? quid? cum iam rebus transactis et praeteritis orationes scribimus, num irati scribimus? ‘ecquis hoc animadvertit?  vincite!’—num aut egisse umquam iratum Aesopum aut scripsisse existimas iratum Accium? aguntur ista praeclare, et ab oratore quidem melius, si modo est orator, quam ab ullo histrione, sed aguntur leniter et mente tranquilla.\n\nLibidinem vero laudare cuius est libidinis? Themistoclem mihi et Demosthenen profertis, additis Pythagoran Democritum Platonem. quid? vos studia libidinem vocatis? quae vel optimarum rerum, ut ea  sunt quae profertis, sedata tamen et tranquilla esse debent. Iam aegritudinem laudare, unam rem maxime detestabilem, quorum est tandem philosophorum? at commode dixit Afranius: ‘dum modo doleat aliquid, doleat quidlibet.’ dixit enim de adulescente perdito ac dissoluto, nos autem de constanti viro ac sapienti quaerimus. et quidem ipsam illam iram centurio habeat aut signifer vel ceteri, de quibus dici non necesse est, ne rhetorum aperiamus mysteria. utile est enim uti motu animi, qui uti ratione non potest. nos autem, ut testificor saepe, de sapiente quaerimus.\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 26\n\nSECTION 56\nAt etiam aemulari utile est, obtrectare, misereri. cur misereare potius quam feras opem, si id facere possis? an sine misericordia liberales esse non possumus? non enim suscipere ipsi aegritudines propter alios debemus, sed alios, si possumus, levare aegritudine. obtrectare vero alteri aut illa vitiosa aemulatione, quae rivalitati similis est, aemulari quid habet utilitatis, cum sit aemulantis angi alieno bono quod ipse non habeat, obtrectantis autem angi alieno bono, quod id etiam alius habeat? qui id adprobari possit, aegritudinem suscipere pro experientia, si quid habere velis? nam solum habere velle summa dementia est.\n\nMediocritates autem malorum quis laudare recte possit?\n\nSECTION 57\nquis enim potest, in quo libido cupiditasve sit, non libidinosus et cupidus esse? in quo ira, non iracundus? in quo angor, non anxius? in quo timor, non timidus? libidinosum igitur et iracundum et anxium et timidum censemus esse sapientem? de cuius excellentia multa quidem dici quamvis fuse lateque possunt,  sed brevissime illo modo, sapientiam esse rerum divinarum et humanarum scientiam cognitionemque, quae cuiusque rei causa sit; ex quo efficitur, ut divina imitetur, humana omnia inferiora virtute ducat. in hanc tu igitur tamquam in mare, quod est ventis subiectum, perturbationem cadere tibi dixisti videri? quid est quod tantam gravitatem constantiamque perturbet? an inprovisum aliquid aut repentinum? quid potest accidere tale ei, cui nihil, quod homini evenire possit<, non praemeditatum sit>? nam quod aiunt nimia resecari oportere, naturalia relinqui, quid tandem potest esse naturale, quod idem nimium esse possit? sunt enim omnia ista ex errorum orta radicibus, quae evellenda et extrahenda penitus, non circumcidenda nec amputanda sunt.\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 27\n\nSECTION 58\nSed quoniam suspicor te non tam de sapiente quam de te ipso quaerere—illum enim putas omni perturbatione esse liberum, te vis—,\nvideamus, quanta sint quae <a>  philosophia remedia morbis animorum adhibeantur.\nest enim quaedam medicina certe, nec tam fuit hominum generi infensa atque inimica natura, ut corporibus tot res salutaris, animis nullam invenerit; de quibus hoc etiam est merita melius, quod corporum adiumenta adhibentur extrinsecus, animorum salus inclusa in is ipsis est. sed quo maior est in eis praestantia et divinior, eo maiore indigent diligentia. itaque bene adhibita ratio cernit, quid optumum sit, neglecta multis implicatur erroribus.\n\nSECTION 59\nad te igitur mihi iam convertenda omnis  oratio est; simulas enim quaerere te de sapiente, quaeris autem fortasse de te.\n\nEarum igitur perturbationum, quas exposui, variae sunt curationes. nam neque omnis aegritudo una ratione sedatur (alia est enim lugenti, alia miseranti aut invidenti adhibenda medicina); est etiam in omnibus quattuor perturbationibus illa distinctio, utrum ad universam perturbationem, quae est aspernatio rationis aut adpetitus vehementior, an ad singulas, ut ad metum lubidinem reliquas melius adhibeatur oratio, et utrum illudne non videatur aegre ferundum, ex quo suscepta sit aegritudo, an omnium rerum tollenda omnino aegritudo, ut, si quis aegre ferat se pauperem esse, idne disputes, paupertatem malum non esse, an hominem aegre ferre nihil oportere. nimirum hoc melius, ne, si forte de paupertate non persuaseris, sit aegritudini concedendum; aegritudine autem sublata propriis rationibus, quibus heri usi sumus, quodam modo etiam paupertatis malum tollitur.\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 28\n\nSECTION 60\nsed omnis eius modi perturbatio animi placatione abluatur illa quidem, cum doceas nec bonum illud esse, ex quo laetitia aut libido oriatur, nec malum, ex quo aut metus aut aegritudo; verum tamen haec est certa et propria sanatio, si doceas ipsas perturbationes per se esse vitiosas nec habere quicquam aut naturale aut necessarium, ut ipsam aegritudinem leniri videmus, cum obicimus maerentibus imbecillitatem animi ecfeminati, cumque eorum gravitatem constantiamque laudamus, qui non turbulente humana patiantur. quod quidem solet eis etiam accidere, qui  illa mala esse censent, ferenda tamen aequo animo arbitrantur. putat aliquis esse voluptatem bonum, alius autem pecuniam; tamen et ille ab intemperantia et hic ab avaritia avocari potest. illa autem altera ratio et oratio, quae simul et opinionem falsam tollit et aegritudinem detrahit, est ea quidem utilior, sed raro proficit neque est ad volgus adhibenda.\n\nSECTION 61\nquaedam autem sunt aegritudines, quas levare illa medicina nullo modo possit, ut, si quis aegre ferat nihil in se esse virtutis, nihil animi, nihil officii, nihil honestatis, propter mala is quidem angatur, sed alia quaedam sit ad eum admovenda curatio, et talis quidem, quae possit esse omnium etiam de ceteris rebus discrepantium philosophorum. inter omnis enim convenire oportet commotiones animorum a recta ratione aversas esse vitiosas, ut, etiamsi vel mala sint illa, quae metum aegritudinemve, vel bona, quae cupiditatem laetitiamve moveant, tamen sit vitiosa ipsa commotio. constantem enim quendam volumus, sedatum, gravem, humana omnia spernentem illum esse, quem magnanimum et fortem virum dicimus. talis autem nec maerens nec timens nec cupiens nec gestiens esse quisquam potest. eorum enim haec sunt, qui eventus humanos superiores quam suos animos esse ducunt.\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 29\n\nSECTION 62\nQuare omnium philosophorum, ut ante dixi, una ratio est medendi, ut nihil, quale sit illud quod perturbet animum, sed de ipsa sit perturbatione dicendum. itaque primum in ipsa cupiditate, cum id solum agitur ut ea tollatur, non est quaerendum, bonum illud necne sit quod lubidinem moveat, sed lubido ipsa tollenda est, ut, sive, quod honestum est, id sit summum bonum sive voluptas sive horum utrumque coniunctum sive tria illa genera bonorum, tamen, etiamsi virtutis ipsius vehementior adpetitus sit, eadem sit omnibus ad deterrendum adhibenda oratio. continet autem omnem sedationem animi humana in conspectu posita natura; quae quo facilius expressa cernatur, explicanda est oratione communis condicio lexque vitae.\n\nSECTION 63\nitaque non sine causa, cum Orestem fabulam doceret Euripides, primos tris versus revocasse dicitur Socrates:\nNeque tám terribilis úlla fando orátio est,\nNec fórs nec ira caélitum invectúm malum,\nQuod nón natura humána patiendo écferat.\nest autem utilis ad persuadendum ea quae acciderint ferri et posse et oportere enumeratio eorum qui tulerunt. etsi aegritudinis sedatio et hesterna disputatione explicata est et in Consolationis libro, quem in medio—non enim sapientes eramus—maerore et dolore conscripsimus; quodque vetat Chrysippus, ad  recentis quasi tumores animi remedium adhibere, id nos fecimus naturaeque vim attulimus, ut magnitudini medicinae doloris magnitudo concederet.\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 30\n\nSECTION 64\nSed aegritudini, de qua satis est disputatum, finitimus est metus, de quo pauca dicenda sunt. est enim metus, ut aegritudo praesentis, sic ille futuri mali. itaque non nulli aegritudinis partem quandam metum esse dicebant, alii autem metum praemolestiam appellabant, quod esset quasi dux consequentis molestiae. quibus igitur rationibus instantia feruntur, eisdem contemnuntur sequentia. nam videndum est in utrisque, ne quid humile summissum molle ecfeminatum fractum abiectumque faciamus. sed quamquam de ipsius metus inconstantia inbecillitate levitate dicendum est, tamen multum prodest ea, quae metuuntur, ipsa contemnere. itaque sive casu accidit sive consilio, percommode factum est, quod eis de rebus quae maxime metuuntur, de morte et de dolore, primo et proxumo die disputatum est. quae si probata sunt, metu magna ex parte liberati sumus.\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 31\n\nAc de malorum opinione hactenus;\n\nSECTION 65\nvideamus nunc de bonorum, id est de laetitia et de cupiditate. mihi quidem in tota ratione ea, quae pertinet ad animi perturbationem, una res videtur causam continere, omnis eas esse in nostra potestate, omnis iudicio susceptas, omnis voluntarias. hic igitur error est eripiendus, haec detrahenda opinio atque ut in malis opinatis tolerabilia, sic in bonis sedatiora sunt efficienda ea quae magna  et laetabilia ducuntur. atque hoc quidem commune malorum et bonorum, ut, si iam difficile sit persuadere nihil earum rerum, quae perturbent animum, aut in bonis aut in malis esse habendum, tamen alia ad alium motum curatio sit adhibenda aliaque ratione malevolus, alia amator, alia rursus anxius, alia timidus corrigendus.\n\nSECTION 66\natque erat facile sequentem eam rationem, quae maxume probatur de bonis et malis, negare umquam laetitia adfici posse insipientem, quod nihil umquam haberet boni; sed loquimur nunc more communi. sint sane ista bona, quae putantur, honores divitiae voluptates cetera, tamen in eis ipsis potiundis exultans gestiensque laetitia turpis est, ut, si ridere concessum sit, vituperetur tamen cachinnatio. eodem enim vitio est ecfusio animi in laetitia quo in dolore contractio, eademque levitate cupiditas est in appetendo qua laetitia in fruendo, et ut nimis adflicti molestia, sic nimis elati laetitia iure iudicantur leves; et, cum invidere aegritudinis sit, malis autem alienis voluptatem capere laetitiae, utrumque immanitate et feritate quadam proponenda castigari solet; atque ut cavere decet, timere non decet, sic gaudere decet, laetari non decet, quoniam docendi causa a gaudio laetitiam distinguimus;\n\nSECTION 67\nillud iam supra diximus, contractionem animi recte fieri numquam posse, elationem posse. aliter enim Naevianus ille gaudet Hector:\nLaétus sum laudári me abs te, páter, a laudató viro,\naliter ille apud Trabeam:\nLéna deleníta argento nútum observabít meum,\nQuíd velim, quid stúdeam. adveniens dígito impellam iánuam,\nFóres patebunt. de ínproviso Chrýsis ubi me aspéxerit,\nÁlacris ob viám mihi veniet cómplexum exoptáns meum,\nMíhi se dedet.\nquam haec pulchra putet, ipse iam dicet:\nFórtunam ipsam anteíbo fortunís meis.\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 32\n\nSECTION 68\nHaec laetitia quam turpis sit, satis est diligenter attendentem penitus videre.\n\nEt ut turpes sunt, qui ecferunt se laetitia tum cum fruuntur Veneriis voluptatibus, sic flagitiosi, qui eas inflammato animo concupiscunt. totus vero iste, qui volgo appellatur amor—nec hercule invenio, quo nomine alio possit appellari—, tantae levitatis est, ut nihil videam quod putem conferendum. quem Caecilius ‘deum qui non summum putet, aut stultum aut rerum esse imperitum’ existumat,\nCui ín manu sit, quem ésse dementém velit,\nQuem sápere, quem sanári, quem in morbum ínici,\n[…]\nQuem cóntra amari, quem éxpeti, quem arcéssier.\n\nSECTION 69\nO praeclaram emendatricem vitae poëticam, quae amorem flagitii et levitatis auctorem in concilio deorum  conlocandum putet! de comoedia loquor, quae, si haec flagitia non probaremus, nulla esset omnino; quid ait ex tragoedia princeps ille Argonautarum?\nTú me amoris mágis quam honoris sérvavisti grátia.\nquid ergo? hic amor Medeae quanta miseriarum excitavit incendia! atque ea tamen apud alium poëtam patri dicere audet se ‘coniugem’ habuisse ‘illum, Amor quem dederat, qui plus pollet potiorque est patre.’\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 33\n\nSECTION 70\nSed poëtas ludere sinamus, quorum fabulis in hoc flagitio versari ipsum videmus Iovem: ad magistros virtutis philosophos veniamus, qui amorem negant stupri esse et in eo litigant cum Epicuro non multum, ut opinio mea fert, mentiente. quis est enim iste amor amicitiae? cur neque deformem adulescentem quisquam amat neque formosum senem? mihi quidem haec in Graecorum gymnasiis nata consuetudo videtur, in quibus isti liberi et concessi sunt amores. bene ergo Ennius:\nFlágiti princípium est nudare ínter civis córpora.\nqui ut sint, quod fieri posse video, pudici, solliciti tamen et anxii sunt, eoque magis, quod se ipsi continent et coërcent.\n\nSECTION 71\natque, ut muliebris amores omittam, quibus maiorem licentiam natura concessit, quis aut de Ganymedi raptu dubitat, quid poëtae velint, aut non intellegit, quid apud Euripidem et loquatur et cupiat Laius? quid denique homines doctissimi et summi poëtae de se ipsis et carminibus edunt et cantibus? fortis vir in sua re p. cognitus quae de iuvenum amore scribit Alcaeus! nam Anacreontis quidem tota poësis est amatoria. maxume vero omnium flagrasse amore Reginum  Ibycum apparet ex scriptis.\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 34\n\nAtque horum omnium lubidinosos esse amores videmus: philosophi sumus exorti, et auctore quidem nostro Platone, quem non iniuria Dicaearchus accusat, qui amori auctoritatem tribueremus.\n\nSECTION 72\nStoici vero et sapientem amaturum esse dicunt et amorem ipsum ‘conatum amicitiae faciendae ex pulchritudinis specie’ definiunt. qui si quis est in rerum natura sine sollicitudine, sine desiderio, sine cura, sine suspirio, sit sane; vacat enim omni libidine; haec autem de libidine oratio est. sin autem est aliquis amor, ut est certe, qui nihil absit aut non multum ab insania, qualis in Leucadia est: ‘si quidem sit quisquam deus, cui ego sim curae’—\n\nSECTION 73\nat id erat deis omnibus curandum, quem ad modum hic frueretur voluptate amatoria! ‘heu me infelicem!’—nihil verius. probe et ille: ‘sanusne es, qui temere lamentare?’ sic insanus videtur etiam suis. at quas tragoedias efficit!\nTe, Apóllo sancte, fér opem, teque, amnípotens\nNeptune, ínvoco, Vosque ádeo, Venti!\nmundum totum se ad amorem suum sublevandum conversurum putat, Venerem unam excludit ut iniquam: ‘nam quid ego te appellem, Venus?’ eam prae lubidine negat curare quicquam: quasi vero ipse non propter lubidinem tanta flagitia et faciat et dicat.\n\nSECTION 74\n—\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 35\n\nsic igitur adfecto haec adhibenda curatio est, ut et illud quod cupiat ostendatur quam leve, quam contemnendum, quam nihili sit omnino, quam facile vel aliunde vel alio modo perfici vel omnino neglegi  possit; abducendus etiam est non numquam ad alia studia sollicitudines curas negotia, loci denique mutatione tamquam aegroti non convalescentes saepe curandus est;\n\nSECTION 75\netiam novo quidam amore veterem amorem tamquam clavo clavum eiciendum putant; maxume autem admonendus <est>, quantus sit furor amoris. omnibus enim ex animi perturbationibus est profecto nulla vehementior, ut, si iam ipsa illa accusare nolis, stupra dico et corruptelas et adulteria, incesta denique, quorum omnium accusabilis est turpitudo,—sed ut haec omittas, perturbatio ipsa mentis in amore foeda per se est.\n\nSECTION 76\nnam ut illa praeteream, quae sunt furoris, haec ipsa per sese quam habent levitatem, quae videntur esse mediocria,\nIniúriae\nSuspíciones ínimicitiae indútiae\nBellúm pax rursum! incérta haec si tu póstules\nRatióne certa fácere, nihilo plús agas,\nQuam sí des operam, ut cúm ratione insánias.\nhaec inconstantia mutabilitasque mentis quem non ipsa pravitate deterreat? est etiam illud, quod in omni perturbatione dicitur, demonstrandum, nullam esse nisi opinabilem, nisi iudicio susceptam, nisi voluntariam. etenim si naturalis amor esset, et amarent omnes et semper amarent et idem amarent, neque alium pudor, alium cogitatio, alium satietas deterreret.\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 36\n\nIra vero, quae quam diu perturbat animum, dubitationem insaniae non habet, cuius inpulsu existit etiam inter fratres tale iurgium:\n\nSECTION 77\nQuís homo te exsuperávit usquam géntium impúdentia?\n\nQuis aútem malitiá te?—\nnosti, quae secuntur; alternis enim versibus intorquentur inter fratres gravissimae contumeliae, ut facile appareat Atrei filios esse, eius qui meditatur poenam in fratrem novam:\nMaiór mihi moles, máius miscendúmst malum,\nQui illíus acerbum cór contundam et cómprimam\n. quo igitur haec erumpit moles? audi Thyestem:\nIpsus hortatúr me frater, út meos malís miser\nMánderem natós—\neorum viscera apponit. quid est enim quo non progrediatur eodem ira, quo furor? itaque iratos proprie dicimus exisse de potestate, id est de consilio, de ratione, de mente; horum enim potestas in totum animum esse debet.\n\nSECTION 78\nHis aut subtrahendi sunt ei, in quos impetum conantur facere, dum se ipsi conligant, —quid est autem se ipsum colligere nisi dissupatas animi partis rursum in suum locum cogere?—aut rogandi orandique sunt, ut, si quam habent ulciscendi vim, differant in tempus aliud, dum defervescat ira. defervescere autem certe significat ardorem animi invita ratione excitatum. ex quo illud laudatur Archytae, qui cum vilico factus esset iratior, ‘quo te modo’ inquit ‘accepissem, nisi iratus essem!’\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 37\n\nSECTION 79\nUbi sunt ergo isti, qui iracundiam utilem dicunt —potest utilis esse insania?—aut naturalem? an quicquam  est secundum naturam, quod fit repugnante ratione? quo modo autem, si naturalis esset ira, aut alius alio magis iracundus esset, aut finem haberet prius quam esset ulta, ulciscendi lubido, aut quemquam paeniteret, quod fecisset per iram? ut Alexandrum regem videmus, qui cum interemisset Clitum familiarem suum, vix a se manus abstinuit; tanta vis fuit paenitendi. quibus cognitis quis est qui dubitet quin hic quoque motus animi sit totus opinabilis ac voluntarius? Quis enim dubitarit quin aegrotationes animi, qualis est avaritia, gloriae cupiditas, ex eo, quod magni aestumetur ea res ex qua animus aegrotat, oriantur? unde intellegi debet perturbationem quoque omnem esse in opinione.\n\nSECTION 80\nEt si fidentia, id est firma animi confisio, scientia quaedam est et opinio gravis non temere adsentientis, metus quoque est diffidentia  expectati et impendentis mali, et si spes est expectatio boni, mali expectationem esse necesse est metum. ut igitur metus, sic reliquae perturbationes sunt in malo. ergo ut constantia scientiae, sic perturbatio erroris est. Qui autem natura dicuntur iracundi aut misericordes aut invidi aut tale quid, ei sunt constituti quasi mala valetudine animi, sanabiles tamen,  ut Socrates dicitur: cum multa in conventu vitia conlegisset in eum Zopyrus, qui se naturam cuiusque ex forma perspicere profitebatur, derisus est a ceteris, qui illa in Socrate vitia non agnoscerent, ab ipso autem Socrate sublevatus, cum illa sibi sic nata, sed ratione a se deiecta diceret.\n\nSECTION 81\nergo ut optuma quisque valetudine adfectus potest videri [ut] natura ad aliquem morbum proclivior, sic animus alius ad alia vitia propensior. qui autem non natura, sed culpa vitiosi esse dicuntur, eorum vitia constant e falsis opinionibus rerum bonarum et malarum, ut sit alius ad alios motus perturbationesque proclivior. inveteratio autem, ut in corporibus, aegrius depellitur quam perturbatio, citiusque repentinus oculorum tumor sanatur quam diuturna lippitudo depellitur.\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 38\n\nSECTION 82\nSed cognita iam causa perturbationum, quae omnes oriuntur ex iudiciis opinionum et voluntatibus, sit iam huius disputationis modus. scire autem nos oportet cognitis, quoad possunt ab homine cognosci, bonorum et malorum finibus nihil a philosophia posse aut maius aut utilius optari quam haec, quae a nobis hoc quadriduo disputata sunt. morte enim contempta et dolore ad patiendum levato adiunximus sedationem aegritudinis, qua nullum homini malum maius est. etsi enim omnis animi perturbatio gravis est nec multum differt ab amentia, tamen [ita]  ceteros, cum sunt in aliqua perturbatione aut metus aut laetitiae aut cupiditatis, commotos modo et perturbatos dicere solemus,  at eos, qui se  aegritudini dediderunt, miseros adflictos aerumnosos calamitosos.\n\nSECTION 83\nitaque non fortuito factum videtur, sed a te ratione propositum, ut separatim de aegritudine et de ceteris perturbationibus disputaremus; in ea est enim fons miseriarum et caput. sed et aegritudinis et reliquorum animi morborum una sanatio est, omnis opinabilis esse et voluntarios ea reque suscipi, quod ita rectum esse videatur. hunc errorem quasi radicem malorum omnium stirpitus philosophia se extracturam pollicetur.\n\nSECTION 84\ndemus igitur nos huic excolendos patiamurque nos sanari. his enim malis insidentibus non modo beati, sed ne sani quidem esse possumus. aut igitur negemus quicquam ratione confici, cum contra nihil sine ratione recte fieri possit, aut, cum philosophia ex rationum conlatione constet, ab ea, si et boni et beati volumus esse, omnia adiumenta et auxilia petamus bene beateque vivendi.\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 1\n\nSECTION 1\nQuintus hic dies, Brute, finem faciet Tusculanarum disputationum, quo die est a nobis ea de re, quam tu ex omnibus maxime probas, disputatum. placere enim tibi admodum sensi et ex eo libro, quem ad me accuratissime scripsisti, et ex multis sermonibus tuis virtutem ad beate vivendum se ipsa esse contentam. quod etsi difficile est probatu propter tam varia et tam multa tormenta fortunae, tale tamen est, ut elaborandum sit, quo facilius probetur. nihil est enim omnium quae in philosophia tractantur, quod gravius magnificentiusque dicatur.\n\nSECTION 2\nnam cum ea causa impulerit eos qui primi se ad philosophiae studium contulerunt, ut omnibus rebus posthabitis totos se in optumo vitae statu exquirendo conlocarent, profecto spe beate vivendi tantam in eo studio curam operamque posuerunt. quodsi ab is inventa et perfecta virtus  est, et si praesidii ad beate vivendum in virtute satis est, quis est qui non praeclare et ab illis positam et a nobis susceptam operam philosophandi arbitretur? sin autem virtus subiecta sub varios incertosque casus famula fortunae est nec tantarum virium est, ut se ipsa tueatur, vereor ne non tam virtutis fiducia nitendum nobis ad spem beate vivendi quam vota facienda videantur.\n\nSECTION 3\nequidem eos casus, in quibus me fortuna vehementer exercuit, mecum ipse considerans huic incipio sententiae diffidere interdum et humani generis imbecillitatem fragilitatemque extimescere. vereor enim ne natura, cum corpora nobis infirma dedisset isque et morbos insanabilis et dolores intolerabilis adiunxisset, animos quoque dederit et corporum doloribus congruentis et separatim suis angoribus et molestiis implicatos.\n\nSECTION 4\nsed in hoc me ipse castigo, quod ex aliorum et ex nostra fortasse mollitia, non ex ipsa virtute de virtutis robore existumo.  illa enim, si modo est ulla virtus, quam dubitationem avunculus tuus, Brute, sustulit, omnia, quae cadere in hominem possunt, subter se habet eaque despiciens casus contemnit humanos culpaque omni carens praeter se ipsam nihil censet ad se pertinere. nos autem omnia adversa cum venientia metu augentes, tum maerore praesentia rerum naturam quam errorem nostrum damnare malumus.\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 2\n\nSECTION 5\nSed et huius culpae et ceterorum vitiorum peccatorumque nostrorum omnis a philosophia petenda correctio est. cuius in sinum cum a primis temporibus aetatis nostra voluntas studiumque nos compulisset,  his gravissimis casibus in eundem portum, ex quo eramus egressi, magna iactati tempestate confugimus. o vitae philosophia dux, o virtutis indagatrix expultrixque vitiorum! quid non modo nos, sed omnino vita hominum sine te esse potuisset? tu urbis peperisti, tu dissipatos homines in societatem vitae convocasti, tu eos inter se primo domiciliis, deinde coniugiis, tum litterarum et vocum communione iunxisti, tu inventrix legum, tu magistra morum et disciplinae fuisti; ad te confugimus, a te opem petimus, tibi nos, ut antea magna ex parte, sic nunc penitus totosque tradimus. est autem unus dies bene et ex praeceptis tuis actus peccanti inmortalitati anteponendus.\n\nSECTION 6\ncuius igitur potius opibus utamur quam tuis, quae et vitae tranquillitatem largita nobis es et terrorem mortis sustulisti? Ac philosophia quidem tantum abest ut proinde ac de hominum est vita merita laudetur, ut a plerisque neglecta a multis etiam vituperetur. vituperare quisquam vitae parentem et hoc parricidio se inquinare audet et tam impie ingratus esse, ut eam accuset, quam vereri deberet, etiamsi minus percipere potuisset? sed, ut opinor, hic error et haec indoctorum animis offusa caligo est, quod tam longe retro respicere non possunt nec eos, a quibus vita hominum instructa primis sit, fuisse philosophos  arbitrantur.\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 3\n\nSECTION 7\nQuam rem antiquissimam cum videamus, nomen tamen esse confitemur recens. nam sapientiam quidem ipsam quis negare potest non modo re esse antiquam, verum etiam nomine? quae divinarum humanarumque rerum, tum initiorum causarumque cuiusque rei cognitione hoc pulcherrimum nomen apud antiquos adsequebatur. itaque et illos septem, qui a Graecis σοφοί, sapientes a nostris et habebantur et nominabantur, et multis ante saeculis Lycurgum, cuius temporibus Homerus etiam fuisse ante hanc urbem conditam traditur, et iam heroicis aetatibus Ulixem et Nestorem accepimus et fuisse et habitos esse sapientis.\n\nSECTION 8\nnec vero Atlans sustinere caelum nec Prometheus adfixus Caucaso nec stellatus Cepheus cum uxore genero filia traderetur, nisi caelestium divina cognitio nomen eorum ad errorem fabulae traduxisset. a quibus ducti deinceps omnes, qui in rerum contemplatione studia ponebant, sapientes et habebantur et nominabantur, idque eorum nomen usque ad Pythagorae manavit aetatem. quem, ut scribit auditor Platonis Ponticus Heraclides, vir doctus in primis, Phliuntem  ferunt venisse, eumque cum Leonte, principe Phliasiorum, docte et copiose disseruisse quaedam. cuius ingenium et eloquentiam cum admiratus esset Leon, quaesivisse ex eo, qua maxime arte confideret; at illum: artem quidem se scire nullam, sed esse philosophum. admiratum Leontem novitatem nominis  quaesivisse, quinam essent philosophi, et quid inter eos et reliquos interesset;\n\nSECTION 9\nPythagoram autem respondisse similem sibi videri vitam hominum et mercatum eum, qui haberetur maxumo ludorum apparatu totius Graeciae celebritate; nam ut illic alii corporibus exercitatis gloriam et nobilitatem coronae peterent, alii emendi aut vendendi quaestu et lucro ducerentur, esset autem quoddam genus eorum, idque vel maxime ingenuum, qui nec plausum nec lucrum quaererent, sed visendi causa venirent studioseque perspicerent, quid ageretur et quo modo, item nos quasi in mercatus quandam celebritatem ex urbe aliqua sic in hanc vitam ex alia vita et natura profectos alios gloriae servire, alios pecuniae, raros esse quosdam, qui ceteris omnibus pro nihilo habitis rerum naturam studiose intuerentur; hos se appellare sapientiae studiosos—id est enim philosophos—; et ut illic liberalissimum esset spectare nihil sibi adquirentem, sic in vita longe omnibus studiis contemplationem rerum cognitionemque praestare.\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 4\n\nSECTION 10\nNec vero Pythagoras nominis solum inventor, sed rerum etiam ipsarum amplificator fuit. qui cum post hunc Phliasium sermonem in Italiam venisset, exornavit eam Graeciam, quae magna dicta est, et privatim et publice praestantissumis et institutis et artibus. cuius de disciplina aliud tempus fuerit fortasse dicendi. sed ab antiqua philosophia usque ad Socratem, qui Archelaum, Anaxagorae discipulum, audierat, numeri motusque tractabantur, et unde omnia orerentur quove reciderent, studioseque ab is siderum magnitudines intervalla cursus anquirebantur et cuncta caelestia.  Socrates autem primus philosophiam devocavit e caelo et in urbibus conlocavit et in domus etiam introduxit et coëgit de vita et moribus rebusque bonis et malis quaerere.\n\nSECTION 11\ncuius multiplex ratio disputandi rerumque varietas et ingenii magnitudo Platonis memoria et litteris consecrata plura genera effecit dissentientium philosophorum, e quibus nos id potissimum consecuti sumus, quo Socratem usum arbitrabamur, ut nostram ipsi sententiam tegeremus, errore alios levaremus et in omni disputatione, quid esset simillimum veri, quaereremus. quem morem cum Carneades acutissime copiosissimeque tenuisset, fecimus et alias saepe et nuper in Tusculano, ut ad eam consuetudinem disputaremus. et quadridui quidem sermonem superioribus ad te perscriptum libris misimus, quinto autem die cum eodem in loco consedissemus, sic est propositum, de quo disputaremus:\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 5\n\nSECTION 12\nNon mihi videtur ad beate vivendum satis posse virtutem.\n\nAt hercule Bruto meo videtur, cuius ego iudicium, pace tua dixerim, longe antepono tuo.\n\nNon dubito, nec id nunc agitur, tu illum quantum ames, sed hoc, quod mihi dixi videri, quale sit, de quo a te disputari volo.\n\nNempe negas ad beate vivendum satis posse virtutem?\n\nProrsus nego.\n\nQuid? ad recte honeste laudabiliter, postremo ad bene vivendum satisne est praesidi in virtute?\n\nCerte satis.\n\nPotes igitur aut, qui male vivat, non eum miserum  dicere aut, quem bene fateare, eum negare beate vivere?\n\nQuidni possim? nam etiam in tormentis recte honeste laudabiliter et ob eam rem bene vivi potest, dum modo intellegas, quid nunc dicam ‘bene.’ dico enim constanter graviter sapienter fortiter.\n\nSECTION 13\nhaec etiam in eculeum coiciuntur, quo vita non adspirat beata.\n\nQuid igitur? solane beata vita, quaeso, relinquitur extra ostium limenque carceris, cum constantia gravitas fortitudo sapientia reliquaeque virtutes rapiantur ad tortorem nullumque recusent nec supplicium nec dolorem?\n\nTu, si quid es facturus, nova aliqua conquiras oportet; ista me minime movent, non solum quia pervulgata sunt, sed multo magis, quia, tamquam levia quaedam vina nihil valent in aqua, sic Stoicorum ista magis gustata quam potata delectant. velut iste chorus virtutum in eculeum impositus imagines constituit ante oculos cum amplissima dignitate, ut ad eas cursim perrectura nec eas beata vita a se desertas passura videatur;\n\nSECTION 14\ncum autem animum ab ista pictura imaginibusque virtutum ad rem veritatemque traduxeris, hoc nudum relinquitur, possitne quis beatus esse, quam diu torqueatur. quam ob rem hoc nunc quaeramus; virtutes autem noli vereri ne expostulent et querantur se a beata vita esse relictas. si enim nulla virtus prudentia vacat, prudentia ipsa hoc videt, non omnis bonos esse etiam beatos, multaque de M. Atilio Q. Caepione M’. Aquilio recordatur, beatamque vitam,  si imaginibus potius uti quam rebus ipsis placet, conantem ire in eculeum retinet ipsa prudentia negatque ei cum dolore et cruciatu quicquam esse commune.\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 6\n\nSECTION 15\nFacile patior te isto modo agere, etsi iniquum est praescribere mihi te, quem ad modum a me disputari velis. sed quaero, utrum aliquid actum superioribus diebus an nihil arbitremur.\n\nActum vero, et aliquantum quidem.\n\nAtqui, si ita est, profligata iam haec et paene ad exitum adducta quaestio est.\n\nQuo tandem modo?\n\nQuia motus turbulenti iactationesque animorum incitatae et impetu inconsiderato elatae rationem omnem repellentes vitae beatae nullam partem relinquunt. quis enim potest mortem aut dolorem metuens, quorum alterum saepe adest, alterum semper impendet, esse non miser? quid, si idem, quod plerumque fit, paupertatem ignominiam infamiam timet, si debilitatem caecitatem, si denique, quod non singulis hominibus, sed potentibus populis saepe contigit, servitutem?\n\nSECTION 16\npotest ea timens esse quisquam beatus? quid, qui non modo ea futura timet, verum etiam fert sustinetque praesentia—adde eodem exilia luctus orbitates: qui rebus his fractus aegritudine eliditur, potest tandem esse non miserrimus? quid vero? illum, quem libidinibus inflammatum et furentem videmus, omnia rabide adpetentem cum inexplebili cupiditate, quoque affluentius voluptates undique hauriat, eo gravius ardentiusque  sitientem, nonne recte miserrimum dixeris? quid? elatus ille levitate inanique laetitia exultans et temere gestiens nonne tanto miserior, quanto sibi videtur beatior? ergo ut hi miseri, sic contra illi beati, quos nulli metus terrent, nullae aegritudines exedunt, nullae libidines incitant, nullae futtiles laetitiae exultantes languidis liquefaciunt voluptatibus. ut maris igitur tranquillitas intellegitur nulla ne minima quidem aura fluctus commovente, sic animi quietus et placatus status cernitur, cum perturbatio nulla est, qua moveri queat. quodsi est qui vim fortunae, qui omnia humana, quae cuique accidere possunt, tolerabilia ducat, ex quo nec timor eum nec angor attingat, idemque si nihil concupiscat, nulla ecferatur animi inani voluptate, quid est cur is non beatus sit?\n\nSECTION 17\net si haec virtute efficiuntur, quid est cur virtus ipsa per se non efficiat beatos?\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 7\n\nAtqui alterum dici non potest, quin i, qui nihil metuant, nihil angantur,  nihil concupiscant, nulla impotenti laetitia ecferantur,  beati sint, itaque id tibi concedo; alterum autem iam integrum non est. superioribus enim disputationibus effectum est vacare omni animi perturbatione sapientem.\n\nNimirum igitur confecta res est;\n\nSECTION 18\nvidetur enim ad exitum venisse quaestio.\n\nPropemodum id quidem.\n\nVerum tamen mathematicorum iste mos est, non est philosophorum. nam geometrae cum aliquid docere volunt, si quid ad eam rem pertinet eorum quae ante docuerunt, id sumunt pro concesso et probato,  illud modo explicant, de quo ante nihil scriptum est; philosophi quamcumque rem habent in manibus, in eam quae conveniunt, congerunt omnia, etsi alio loco disputata sunt. quod ni ita esset, cur Stoicus, si esset quaesitum, satisne ad beate vivendum virtus posset, multa diceret? cui satis esset respondere se ante docuisse nihil bonum esse nisi quod honestum esset, hoc probato consequens esse beatam vitam virtute esse contentam, et quo modo hoc sit consequens illi, sic illud huic, ut, si beata vita virtute contenta sit, nisi honestum quod sit, nihil aliud sit bonum.\n\nSECTION 19\nsed tamen non agunt sic; nam et de honesto et de summo bono separatim libri sunt, et cum ex eo efficiatur satis magnam in virtute ad beate vivendum esse vim, nihilo minus  hoc agunt separatim. propriis enim et suis argumentis et admonitionibus tractanda quaeque res est, tanta praesertim. cave enim putes ullam in philosophia vocem emissam clariorem ullumve esse philosophiae promissum uberius aut maius. Nam quid profitetur? o dii boni! perfecturam se, qui legibus suis paruisset, ut esset contra fortunam semper armatus, ut omnia praesidia haberet in se bene beateque vivendi, ut esset semper denique beatus.\n\nSECTION 20\nsed videro, quid efficiat; tantisper hoc ipsum magni aestumo, quod pollicetur. nam Xerxes quidem refertus omnibus praemiis donisque fortunae, non equitatu, non pedestribus copiis, non navium multitudine, non infinito pondere auri contentus praemium proposuit, qui invenisset novam voluptatem—qua ipsa non fuit contentus; neque enim umquam finem inveniet libido—, nos vellem praemio  elicere possemus, qui nobis aliquid attulisset, quo hoc firmius crederemus.\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 8\n\nSECTION 21\nVellem id quidem, sed habeo paulum, quod requiram. ego enim adsentior eorum quae posuisti alterum alteri consequens esse, ut, quem ad modum, si, quod honestum sit, id solum sit bonum, sequatur vitam beatam virtute confici, sic, si vita beata in virtute sit, nihil esse nisi virtutem bonum. sed Brutus tuus auctore Aristo et Antiocho non sentit hoc; putat enim, etiamsi sit bonum aliquod praeter virtutem.\n\nQuid igitur?\n\nSECTION 22\ncontra Brutumne me dicturum putas?\n\nTu vero, ut videtur; nam praefinire non est meum.\n\nQuid cuique igitur consentaneum sit, alio loco. nam ista mihi et cum Antiocho saepe et cum Aristo nuper, cum Athenis imperator apud eum deversarer, dissensio fuit. mihi enim non videbatur quisquam esse beatus posse, cum in malis esset; in malis autem sapientem esse posse, si essent ulla corporis aut fortunae mala. dicebantur haec, quae scripsit etiam Antiochus locis pluribus, virtutem ipsam per se beatam vitam efficere posse neque tamen beatissimam; deinde ex maiore parte plerasque res nominari, etiamsi quae pars abesset, ut vires, ut valetudinem, ut divitias, ut honorem, ut gloriam, quae genere, non numero cernerentur; item beatam vitam, etiamsi ex aliqua parte clauderet, tamen ex multo maiore parte optinere nomen suum.\n\nSECTION 23\nhaec  nunc enucleare non ita necesse est, quamquam non constantissime dici mihi videntur. nam et, qui beatus est, non intellego quid requirat, ut sit beatior—si est enim quod desit, ne beatus quidem est—, et quod ex maiore parte unam quamque rem appellari spectarique dicunt, est ubi id isto modo valeat; cum vero tria genera malorum esse dicant, qui duorum generum malis omnibus urgeatur, ut omnia advorsa sint in fortuna, omnibus oppressum corpus et confectum doloribus, huic paulumne ad beatam vitam deesse dicemus, non modo ad beatissimam?\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 9\n\nSECTION 24\nHoc illud est, quod Theophrastus sustinere non potuit. nam cum statuisset verbera, tormenta, cruciatus, patriae eversiones, exilia, orbitates magnam vim habere ad male misereque vivendum, non est ausus elate et ample loqui, cum humiliter demisseque sentiret. quam bene, non quaeritur, constanter quidem certe. itaque mihi placere non solet consequentia reprehendere, cum prima concesseris. hic autem elegantissimus omnium philosophorum et eruditissimus non magnopere reprehenditur, cum tria genera dicit bonorum, vexatur autem ab omnibus primum in eo libro quem scripsit de vita beata, in quo multa disputat, quam ob rem is, qui torqueatur qui crucietur, beatus esse non possit. in eo etiam putatur dicere in rotam— id est genus quoddam tormenti apud Graecos—beatam vitam non escendere. non usquam id quidem dicit omnino, sed quae dicit, idem valent.\n\nSECTION 25\npossum igitur,  cui concesserim in malis esse dolores corporis, in malis naufragia fortunae, huic suscensere dicenti non omnis bonos esse beatos, cum in omnis bonos ea, quae ille in malis numerat, cadere possint? vexatur idem Theophrastus et libris et scholis omnium philosophorum, quod in Callisthene suo laudarit illam sententiam:\nVitám regit fortúna, non sapiéntia.\nnegant ab ullo philosopho quicquam dictum esse languidius. recte id quidem, sed nihil intellego dici potuisse constantius. si enim tot sunt in corpore bona, tot extra corpus in casu atque fortuna, nonne consentaneum est plus fortunam, quae domina rerum sit et externarum et ad corpus pertinentium, quam consilium valere?\n\nSECTION 26\nAn malumus Epicurum imitari? qui multa praeclare saepe dicit; quam enim sibi constanter convenienterque dicat, non laborat. laudat tenuem victum. philosophi id quidem, sed si Socrates aut Antisthenes diceret, non is qui finem bonorum voluptatem esse dixerit. negat quemquam iucunde posse vivere, nisi idem honeste sapienter iusteque vivat. nihil gravius, nihil philosophia dignius, nisi idem hoc ipsum ‘honeste sapienter iuste’ ad voluptatem referret. Quid melius quam: fortunam exiguam intervenire sapienti? sed hoc isne  dicit, qui, cum dolorem non modo maxumum malum, sed solum malum etiam dixerit, toto corpore opprimi possit doloribus acerrumis tum, cum maxime contra  fortunam glorietur? quod idem melioribus etiam verbis Metrodorus:\n\nSECTION 27\n‘occupavi te’ inquit, ‘Fortuna, atque cepi omnisque aditus tuos interclusi, ut ad me adspirare non posses.’ praeclare, si Aristo Chius aut si Stoicus Zenon diceret, qui, nisi quod turpe esset, nihil malum duceret; tu vero, Metrodore, qui omne bonum in visceribus medullisque condideris et definieris summum bonum firma corporis adfectione explorataque <eius>  spe contineri, Fortunae aditus interclusisti? quo modo? isto enim bono iam exspoliari potes.\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 10\n\nAtqui his capiuntur imperiti, et propter huius modi sententias istorum hominum est multitudo;\n\nSECTION 28\nacute autem disputantis illud est, non quid quisque dicat, sed quid cuique dicendum sit, videre. velut in ea ipsa sententia, quam in hac disputatione suscepimus, omnis bonos semper beatos volumus esse. quos dicam bonos, perspicuum est; omnibus enim virtutibus instructos et ornatos tum sapientis, tum viros bonos dicimus. videamus, qui dicendi sint beati.\n\nSECTION 29\nequidem eos existimo, qui sint in bonis nullo adiuncto malo; neque ulla alia huic verbo, cum beatum dicimus, subiecta notio est nisi secretis malis omnibus cumulata bonorum complexio. hanc assequi virtus, si quicquam praeter ipsam boni est, non potest. aderit enim malorum, si mala illa ducimus, turba quaedam: paupertas, ignobilitas, humilitas, solitudo, amissio suorum, graves dolores corporis, perdita valetudo, debilitas, caecitas, interitus patriae, exilium, servitus denique.  in his tot et tantis—atque etiam plura possunt accidere—potest esse sapiens; nam haec casus importat, qui in sapientem potest incurrere. at si ea mala sunt, quis potest praestare semper sapientem beatum fore, cum vel in omnibus is uno tempore esse possit?\n\nSECTION 30\nnon igitur facile concedo neque Bruto meo neque communibus magistris nec veteribus illis, Aristoteli Speusippo Xenocrati Polemoni, ut, cum ea quae supra enumeravi in malis numerent, idem dicant semper beatum esse sapientem. quos si titulus hic delectat insignis et pulcher, Pythagora Socrate Platone dignissimus, inducant animum illa, quorum splendore capiuntur, vires valetudinem pulchritudinem divitias honores opes contemnere eaque, quae is contraria sunt, pro nihilo ducere: tum poterunt clarissima voce profiteri se neque fortunae impetu nec multitudinis opinione nec dolore nec paupertate terreri, omniaque sibi in sese esse posita, nec esse quicquam extra suam potestatem, quod ducant in bonis.\n\nSECTION 31\nnunc et haec loqui, quae sunt magni cuiusdam et alti viri, et eadem, quae vulgus, in malis et bonis numerare concedi nullo modo potest. qua gloria commotus Epicurus exoritur; cui etiam, si dis placet, videtur semper sapiens beatus. hic dignitate huius sententiae capitur, sed numquam id diceret, si ipse se audiret. quid est enim quod minus conveniat, quam ut is, qui vel summum vel solum malum dolorem esse dicat, idem censeat ‘quam hoc suave est!’ tum, cum dolore crucietur, dicturum esse sapientem? non  igitur ex singulis vocibus philosophi spectandi sunt, sed ex perpetuitate atque constantia.\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 11\n\nSECTION 32\nAdducis me, ut tibi adsentiar. sed tua quoque vide ne desideretur constantia.\n\nQuonam modo?\n\nQuia legi tuum nuper quartum de finibus; in eo mihi videbare contra Catonem disserens hoc velle ostendere—quod mihi quidem probatur—inter Zenonem et Peripateticos nihil praeter verborum novitatem interesse. quod si ita est, quid est causae quin, si Zenonis rationi consentaneum sit satis magnam vim in virtute esse ad beate vivendum, liceat idem Peripateticis dicere? rem enim opinor spectari oportere, non verba.\n\nSECTION 33\nTu quidem tabellis obsignatis agis mecum et testificaris, quid dixerim aliquando aut scripserim. cum aliis isto modo, qui legibus impositis disputant: nos in diem vivimus; quodcumque nostros animos probabilitate percussit, id dicimus, itaque soli sumus liberi. verum tamen, quoniam de constantia paulo ante diximus, non ego hoc loco id quaerendum puto, verumne sit, quod Zenoni placuerit quodque eius auditori Aristoni, bonum esse solum, quod honestum esset, sed si ita esset, tum <fueritne consentaneum>, ut totum hoc beate vivere in una virtute poneret.\n\nSECTION 34\nquare demus hoc sane Bruto, ut sit beatus semper sapiens—quam sibi conveniat, ipse viderit; gloria quidem huius sententiae quis est illo viro dignior?—, nos tamen teneamus, ut sit idem beatissimus.\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 12\n\nEt si Zeno Citieus, advena quidam et ignobilis verborum opifex, insinuasse se in antiquam philosophiam videtur, huius sententiae gravitas a Platonis auctoritate repetatur, apud quem saepe haec oratio usurpata est, ut nihil praeter virtutem diceretur bonum. velut in Gorgia Socrates, cum esset ex eo quaesitum, Archelaum Perdiccae filium, qui tum fortunatissimus haberetur, nonne beatum putaret, ‘haud scio’ inquit;\n\nSECTION 35\n‘numquam enim cum eo conlocutus sum.—ain tu? an aliter id scire non potes?—nullo modo.—tu igitur ne de Persarum quidem rege magno potes dicere, beatusne sit?—an ego possim, cum ignorem, quam sit doctus, quam vir bonus?—quid? tu in eo sitam vitam beatam putas?—ita prorsus existimo, bonos beatos, improbos miseros.—miser ergo Archelaus?—certe, si iniustus.’\n\nSECTION 36\nvideturne omnem hic beatam vitam in una virtute ponere? Quid vero? in Epitaphio quo modo idem? ‘nam cui viro’ inquit ‘ex se ipso apta sunt omnia, quae ad beate vivendum ferunt, nec suspensa aliorum aut bono casu aut contrario pendere ex alterius eventis et errare coguntur, huic optume vivendi ratio comparata est. hic est ille moderatus, hic fortis, hic sapiens, hic et nascentibus et cadentibus cum reliquis commodis, tum maxime liberis parebit et oboediet praecepto illi veteri: neque enim laetabitur umquam nec maerebit nimis, quod semper in se ipso omnem spem reponet sui.’ ex hoc igitur Platonis quasi quodam sancto augustoque fonte nostra omnis manabit oratio.\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 13\n\nUnde igitur ordiri rectius possumus quam a communi parente natura?\n\nSECTION 37\nquae, quicquid genuit, non modo animal, sed etiam quod ita ortum esset e terra, ut stirpibus suis niteretur, in suo quidque genere perfectum esse voluit. itaque et arbores et vites et ea, quae sunt humiliora neque se tollere a terra altius possunt, alia semper virent, alia hieme nudata verno tempore tepefacta frondescunt, neque est ullum quod non ita vigeat interiore quodam motu et suis in quoque seminibus inclusis, ut aut flores aut fruges fundat aut bacas, omniaque in omnibus, quantum in ipsis sit, nulla vi impediente perfecta sint.\n\nSECTION 38\nfacilius vero etiam in bestiis, quod is sensus a natura est datus, vis ipsius naturae perspici potest. namque alias bestias nantis aquarum incolas esse voluit, alias volucres caelo frui libero, serpentis quasdam, quasdam esse gradientis, earum ipsarum partim solivagas, partim congregatas, inmanis alias, quasdam autem cicures, non nullas abditas terraque tectas. atque earum quaeque suum tenens munus, cum in disparis animantis vitam transire non possit, manet in lege naturae. et ut bestiis aliud alii praecipui a natura datum est, quod suum quaeque retinet nec discedit ab eo, sic homini multo quiddam praestantius; etsi praestantia debent ea dici, quae habent aliquam comparationem, humanus autem animus decerptus ex mente divina cum alio nullo nisi cum ipso deo, si hoc fas est dictu, comparari potest.\n\nSECTION 39\nhic igitur si est excultus et si eius acies ita curata est, ut ne caecaretur erroribus, fit perfecta mens, id est absoluta ratio, quod est idem virtus. et si omne beatum est, cui nihil deest,  et quod in suo genere expletum atque cumulatum est, idque virtutis est proprium, certe omnes virtutis compotes beati sunt.\n\nEt hoc quidem mihi cum Bruto convenit, id est cum Aristotele Xenocrate Speusippo Polemone. sed mihi videntur etiam beatissimi.\n\nSECTION 40\nquid enim deest ad beate vivendum ei, qui confidit suis bonis? aut, qui diffidit, beatus esse qui potest? at diffidat necesse est, qui bona dividit tripertito.\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 14\n\nqui enim poterit aut corporis firmitate aut fortunae stabilitate confidere? atqui nisi stabili et fixo et permanente bono beatus esse nemo potest. quid ergo eius modi istorum est? ut mihi Laconis illud dictum in hos cadere videatur, qui glorianti cuidam mercatori, quod multas navis in omnem oram maritimam demisisset, ‘non sane optabilis quidem ista’ inquit ‘rudentibus apta fortuna.’ an dubium est quin nihil sit habendum in eo genere, quo vita beata compleatur, si id possit amitti? nihil enim interarescere, nihil extingui, nihil cadere debet eorum, in quibus vita beata consistit. nam qui timebit ne quid ex is deperdat, beatus esse non poterit.\n\nSECTION 41\nvolumus enim eum, qui beatus sit, tutum esse, inexpugnabilem, saeptum atque munitum, non ut parvo metu praeditus sit, sed ut nullo. ut enim innocens is dicitur, non qui leviter nocet, sed qui nihil nocet, sic sine metu is habendus est, non qui parva metuit, sed qui omnino metu vacat. quae est enim alia fortitudo nisi animi adfectio cum in adeundo  periculo et in labore ac dolore patiens, tum procul ab omni metu? atque haec certe non ita se haberent, nisi omne bonum in una honestate consisteret.\n\nSECTION 42\nqui autem illam maxume optatam et expetitam securitatem— securitatem autem nunc appello vacuitatem aegritudinis, in qua vita beata posita est—habere quisquam potest, cui aut adsit aut adesse possit multitudo malorum? qui autem poterit esse celsus et erectus et ea, quae homini accidere possunt, omnia parva ducens, qualem sapientem esse volumus, nisi omnia sibi in se posita censebit? an Lacedaemonii Philippo minitante per litteras se omnia quae conarentur prohibiturum quaesiverunt, num se esset etiam mori prohibiturus: vir is, quem quaerimus, non multo facilius tali animo reperietur quam civitas universa? quid? ad hanc fortitudinem, de qua loquimur, temperantia adiuncta, quae sit moderatrix omnium commotionum, quid potest ad beate vivendum deesse ei, quem fortitudo ab aegritudine et a metu vindicet, temperantia cum a libidine avocet, tum insolenti alacritate gestire non sinat? haec efficere virtutem ostenderem, nisi superioribus diebus essent explicata.\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 15\n\nSECTION 43\nAtque cum perturbationes animi miseriam, sedationes autem vitam efficiant beatam, duplexque ratio perturbationis sit, quod aegritudo et metus in malis opinatis, in bonorum autem errore laetitia gestiens libidoque versetur, quae omnia cum consilio et ratione pugnent, his tu tam gravibus concitationibus  tamque ipsis inter se dissentientibus atque distractis quem vacuum solutum liberum videris, hunc dubitabis beatum dicere? atqui sapiens semper ita adfectus est; semper igitur sapiens beatus est.\n\nAtque etiam omne bonum laetabile est; quod autem laetabile, id praedicandum et prae se ferendum; quod tale autem, id etiam gloriosum; si vero gloriosum, certe laudabile; quod laudabile autem, profecto etiam honestum;\n\nSECTION 44\nquod bonum igitur, id honestum. at quae isti bona numerant, ne ipsi quidem honesta dicunt; solum igitur bonum, quod honestum; ex quo efficitur honestate una vitam contineri beatam. Non sunt igitur ea bona dicenda nec habenda, quibus abundantem licet esse miserrimum.\n\nSECTION 45\nan dubitas quin praestans valetudine, viribus, forma, acerrumis integerrumisque sensibus, adde etiam, si lubet, pernicitatem et velocitatem, da divitias, honores, imperia, opes, gloriam—si fuerit is, qui haec habet, iniustus, intemperans, timidus, hebeti ingenio atque nullo, dubitabisne eum miserum dicere? qualia igitur ista bona sunt, quae qui habeat miserrimus esse possit? Videamus ne, ut acervus ex sui generis granis, sic beata vita ex sui similibus partibus effici debeat. quod si ita est, ex bonis, quae sola honesta sunt, efficiendum est beatum; ea mixta ex dissimilibus si erunt, honestum ex is effici nihil poterit; quo detracto quid poterit beatum intellegi? Etenim, quicquid est, quod bonum sit, id expetendum est; quod autem expetendum, id certe adprobandum; quod vero  adprobaris, id gratum acceptumque habendum; ergo etiam dignitas ei tribuenda est. quod si ita est, laudabile sit necesse est; bonum igitur omne laudabile. ex quo efficitur, ut, quod sit honestum, id sit solum bonum.\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 16\n\nSECTION 46\nQuod ni ita tenebimus, multa erunt, quae nobis bona dicenda sint; omitto divitias—quas cum quivis quamvis indignus habere possit, in bonis non numero; quod enim est bonum, id non quivis habere potest—, omitto nobilitatem famamque popularem stultorum inproborumque consensu excitatam: haec, quae sunt minima, tamen bona dicantur necesse est, candiduli dentes, venusti oculi, color suavis et ea quae Anticlea laudat Ulixi pedes abluens:\nLénitudo orátionis, móllitudo córporis.\nea si bona ducemus, quid erit in philosophi gravitate quam in volgi opinione stultorumque turba quod dicatur aut gravius aut grandius?\n\nSECTION 47\nAt enim eadem Stoici ‘praecipua’ vel ‘producta’ dicunt, quae ‘bona’ isti. dicunt illi quidem, sed is vitam beatam compleri negant; hi autem sine is esse nullam putant aut, si sit beata, beatissimam certe negant. nos autem volumus beatissimam, idque nobis Socratica illa conclusione confirmatur. sic enim princeps ille philosophiae disserebat: qualis cuiusque animi adfectus esset, talem esse hominem; qualis autem homo ipse esset, talem eius esse orationem; orationi autem facta similia, factis vitam. adfectus autem animi in bono  viro laudabilis; et vita igitur laudabilis boni viri; et honesta ergo, quoniam laudabilis. ex quibus bonorum beatam vitam esse concluditur.\n\nSECTION 48\nEtenim, pro deorum atque hominum fidem! parumne cognitum est superioribus nostris disputationibus, an delectationis et otii consumendi causa locuti sumus, sapientem ab omni concitatione animi, quam perturbationem voco, semper vacare, semper in animo eius esse placidissimam pacem? vir igitur temperatus, constans, sine metu, sine aegritudine, sine alacritate futtili, sine libidine nonne beatus? at semper sapiens talis; semper igitur beatus. Iam vero qui potest vir bonus non ad id, quod laudabile sit, omnia referre, quae agit quaeque sentit? refert autem omnia ad beate vivendum; beata igitur vita laudabilis; nec quicquam sine virtute laudabile: beata igitur vita virtute conficitur.\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 17\n\nSECTION 49\nAtque hoc sic etiam concluditur: nec in misera vita quicquam est praedicabile aut gloriandum nec in ea, quae nec misera sit nec beata. et est in aliqua vita praedicabile aliquid et gloriandum ac prae se ferendum, ut Epaminondas:\nConsiliis nostris laus est attonsa Laconum,\nut Africanus:\nA sole exoriente supra Maeotis paludes\nNemo est qui factis aequiperare queat.\n\nSECTION 50\nquod si <est>, beata vita glorianda et praedicanda et prae se ferenda est; nihil est enim aliud quod praedicandum et prae se ferendum sit. quibus positis intellegis quid sequatur. Et quidem, nisi ea vita beata est, quae est eadem honesta, sit aliud necesse est melius vita beata; quod erit enim honestum, certe fatebuntur esse melius. ita erit beata vita melius aliquid; quo quid potest dici perversius? Quid? cum fatentur satis magnam vim esse in vitiis ad miseram vitam, nonne fatendum est eandem vim <in> virtute esse ad beatam vitam? contrariorum enim contraria sunt consequentia.\n\nSECTION 51\nQuo loco quaero, quam vim habeat libra illa Critolai, qui cum in alteram lancem animi bona imponat, in alteram corporis et externa, tantum propendere illam bonorum animi  lancem putet, ut terram et maria deprimat.\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 18\n\nquid ergo aut hunc prohibet aut etiam Xenocratem illum gravissumum philosophorum, exaggerantem tantopere virtutem, extenuantem cetera et abicientem, in virtute non beatam modo vitam, sed etiam beatissimam ponere?\n\nSECTION 52\nquod quidem nisi fit, virtutum interitus consequetur. nam in quem cadit aegritudo, in eundem metum cadere necesse est (est enim metus futurae aegritudinis sollicita expectatio); in quem autem metus, in eundem formido timiditas pavor ignavia; ergo, ut idem vincatur interdum nec putet ad se praeceptum illud Atrei pertinere:\nProinde íta parent se in víta, ut vinci nésciant.\nhic autem vincetur, ut dixi, nec modo vincetur, sed  etiam serviet; at nos [autem] virtutem semper liberam volumus, semper invictam; quae nisi sunt, sublata virtus est.\n\nSECTION 53\nAtque si in virtute satis est praesidii ad bene vivendum, satis est etiam ad beate; satis est enim certe in virtute, ut fortiter vivamus; si fortiter, etiam ut magno animo, et quidem ut nulla re umquam terreamur semperque simus invicti. sequitur, ut nihil paeniteat, nihil desit, nihil obstet; ergo omnia profluenter absolute prospere, igitur beate. satis autem virtus ad fortiter vivendum potest; satis ergo etiam ad beate.\n\nSECTION 54\nEtenim ut stultitia, etsi adepta est quod concupivit, numquam se tamen satis consecutam putat, sic sapientia semper eo contenta est quod adest, neque eam umquam sui paenitet.\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 19\n\nSimilemne putas C. Laelii unum consulatum fuisse, et eum quidem cum repulsa (si, cum sapiens et bonus vir, qualis ille fuit, suffragiis praeteritur, non populus [a bono consule] potius quam ille [a bono populo] repulsam fert)—sed tamen utrum malles te, si potestas esset, semel ut Laelium consulem an ut Cinnam quater?\n\nSECTION 55\nnon dubito, tu quid responsurus sis; itaque video, cui committam. non quemvis hoc idem interrogarem; responderet enim alius fortasse se non modo quattuor consulatus uni anteponere, sed unum diem Cinnae multorum et clarorum virorum totis aetatibus. Laelius si digito quem attigisset, poenas dedisset; at Cinna collegae sui consulis Cn. Octavii praecidi caput iussit,  P. Crassi L. Caesaris, nobilissimorum  hominum, quorum virtus fuerat domi militiaeque cognita, M. Antonii, omnium eloquentissimi quos ego audierim, C. Caesaris, in quo mihi videtur specimen fuisse humanitatis salis suavitatis leporis. beatusne igitur, qui hos interfecit? mihi contra non solum eo videtur miser, quod ea fecit, sed etiam quod ita se gessit, ut ea facere ei liceret (etsi peccare nemini licet; sed sermonis errore labimur; id enim licere dicimus,\n\nSECTION 56\nquod cuique conceditur). utrum tandem beatior C. Marius tum, cum Cimbricae victoriae gloriam cum collega Catulo communicavit, paene altero Laelio—nam hunc illi duco simillimum—, an cum civili bello victor iratus necessariis Catuli deprecantibus non semel respondit, sed saepe: ‘moriatur’? in quo beatior ille, qui huic nefariae voci paruit, quam is, qui tam scelerate imperavit. nam cum accipere quam facere praestat iniuriam, tum morti iam ipsi adventanti paulum procedere ob viam, quod fecit Catulus, quam quod Marius, talis viri interitu sex suos obruere consulatus et contaminare extremum tempus aetatis.\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 20\n\nSECTION 57\nDuodequadraginta annos tyrannus Syracusanorum fuit Dionysius, cum quinque et viginti natus annos dominatum occupavisset. qua pulchritudine urbem, quibus autem opibus praeditam servitute oppressam tenuit civitatem! atqui de hoc homine a bonis auctoribus sic scriptum accepimus, summam fuisse eius in victu temperantiam in rebusque gerundis virum acrem et industrium, eundem tamen maleficum natura et  iniustum; ex quo omnibus bene veritatem intuentibus videri necesse est miserrimum. ea enim ipsa, quae concupierat, ne tum quidem, cum omnia se posse censebat, consequebatur.\n\nSECTION 58\nqui cum esset bonis parentibus atque honesto loco natus—etsi id quidem alius alio modo tradidit—abundaretque et aequalium familiaritatibus et consuetudine propinquorum, haberet etiam more Graeciae  quosdam adulescentis amore coniunctos, credebat eorum nemini, sed is quos ex familiis locupletium servos delegerat, quibus nomen servitutis ipse detraxerat, et quibusdam convenis et feris barbaris corporis custodiam committebat. ita propter iniustam dominatus cupiditatem in carcerem quodam modo ipse se incluserat. quin etiam ne tonsori collum committeret, tondere filias suas docuit. ita sordido ancillarique artificio regiae virgines ut tonstriculae tondebant barbam et capillum patris. et tamen ab is ipsis, cum iam essent adultae, ferrum removit instituitque, ut candentibus iuglandium putaminibus barbam sibi et capillum adurerent.\n\nSECTION 59\ncumque duas uxores haberet, Aristomachen civem suam, Doridem autem Locrensem, sic noctu ad eas ventitabat, ut omnia specularetur et perscrutaretur ante. et cum fossam latam cubiculari lecto circumdedisset eiusque fossae transitum ponticulo ligneo coniunxisset, eum ipsum, cum forem cubiculi clauserat, detorquebat. idemque cum in communibus  suggestis consistere non auderet, contionari ex turri alta solebat.\n\nSECTION 60\natque is cum pila ludere vellet —studiose enim id factitabat—tunicamque poneret, adulescentulo, quem amabat, tradidisse gladium dicitur. hic cum quidam familiaris iocans dixisset: ‘huic quidem certe vitam tuam committis’ adrisissetque adulescens, utrumque iussit interfici, alterum, quia viam demonstravisset interimendi sui, alterum, quia dictum id risu adprobavisset. atque eo facto sic doluit, nihil ut tulerit gravius in vita; quem enim vehementer amarat, occiderat. sic distrahuntur in contrarias partis impotentium cupiditates. cum huic obsecutus sis, illi est repugnandum.\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 21\n\nSECTION 61\nQuamquam hic quidem tyrannus ipse iudicavit, quam esset beatus. nam cum quidam ex eius adsentatoribus, Damocles, commemoraret in sermone copias eius, opes, maiestatem dominatus, rerum abundantiam, magnificentiam aedium regiarum negaretque umquam beatiorem quemquam fuisse, ‘visne igitur’ inquit, ‘o Damocle, quoniam te haec vita delectat, ipse eam degustare et fortunam experiri meam?’ cum se ille cupere dixisset, conlocari iussit hominem in aureo lecto strato pulcherrimo textili stragulo, magnificis operibus picto, abacosque compluris ornavit argento auroque caelato. tum ad mensam eximia forma pueros delectos iussit consistere eosque nutum illius intuentis diligenter ministrare.\n\nSECTION 62\naderant unguenta coronae, incendebantur odores, mensae conquisitissimis epulis extruebantur. fortunatus sibi Damocles videbatur. in hoc medio apparatu fulgentem gladium e lacunari saeta equina  aptum demitti  iussit, ut impenderet illius beati cervicibus. itaque nec pulchros illos ministratores aspiciebat nec plenum artis argentum nec manum porrigebat in mensam; iam ipsae defluebant coronae; denique exoravit tyrannum, ut abire liceret, quod iam beatus nollet esse. satisne videtur declarasse Dionysius nihil esse ei beatum, cui semper aliqui terror impendeat? atque ei ne integrum quidem erat, ut ad iustitiam remigraret, civibus libertatem et iura redderet; is enim se adulescens inprovida aetate inretierat erratis eaque commiserat, ut salvus esse non posset, si sanus esse coepisset.\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 22\n\nSECTION 63\nQuantopere vero amicitias desideraret, quarum infidelitatem extimescebat, declaravit in Pythagoriis duobus illis, quorum cum alterum vadem mortis accepisset, alter, ut vadem suum liberaret, praesto fuisset ad horam mortis destinatam, ‘utinam ego’ inquit ‘tertius vobis amicus adscriberer!’ quam huic erat miserum carere consuetudine amicorum, societate victus, sermone omnino familiari, homini praesertim docto a puero et artibus ingenuis erudito, musicorum vero perstudioso; poëtam etiam tragicum—quam bonum, nihil ad rem; in hoc enim genere nescio quo pacto magis quam in aliis suum cuique pulchrum est; adhuc neminem cognovi poëtam (et mihi fuit cum Aquinio amicitia), qui sibi non optumus videretur; sic se res habet: te tua, me delectant mea—sed ut ad Dionysium redeamus: omni cultu et victu humano carebat; vivebat  cum fugitivis, cum facinerosis, cum barbaris; neminem, qui aut libertate dignus esset aut vellet omnino liber esse, sibi amicum arbitrabatur.\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 23\n\nNon ego iam cum huius vita, qua taetrius miserius detestabilius excogitare nihil possum, Platonis aut Archytae vitam comparabo, doctorum hominum et plane sapientium:\n\nSECTION 64\nex eadem urbe humilem homunculum a pulvere et radio excitabo, qui multis annis post fuit, Archimedem. cuius ego quaestor ignoratum ab Syracusanis, cum esse omnino negarent, saeptum undique et vestitum vepribus et dumetis indagavi sepulcrum. tenebam enim quosdam senariolos, quos in eius monumento esse inscriptos acceperam, qui declarabant in summo sepulcro sphaeram esse positam cum cylindro.\n\nSECTION 65\nego autem cum omnia conlustrarem oculis—est enim ad portas Agragantinas  magna frequentia sepulcrorum—, animum adverti columellam non multum e dumis eminentem, in qua inerat sphaerae figura et cylindri. atque ego statim Syracusanis— erant autem principes mecum—dixi me illud ipsum arbitrari esse, quod quaererem. inmissi cum falcibus multi purgarunt et aperuerunt locum.\n\nSECTION 66\nquo cum patefactus esset aditus, ad adversam basim accessimus. apparebat epigramma exesis posterioribus partibus versiculorum dimidiatum fere. ita nobilissima Graeciae civitas, quondam vero etiam doctissima, sui civis  unius acutissimi monumentum ignorasset, nisi ab homine Arpinate didicisset. sed redeat, unde aberravit oratio: quis est omnium, qui modo cum Musis, id est cum humanitate et cum doctrina, habeat aliquod commercium, qui se non hunc mathematicum malit quam illum tyrannum? si vitae modum actionemque quaerimus, alterius mens rationibus agitandis exquirendisque alebatur cum oblectatione sollertiae, qui est unus suavissimus pastus animorum, alterius in caede et iniuriis cum et diurno et nocturno metu. age confer Democritum Pythagoram, Anaxagoram: quae regna, quas opes studiis eorum et delectationibus antepones?\n\nSECTION 67\nEtenim, quae pars optuma est in homine, in ea situm esse necesse est illud, quod quaeris, optumum. quid est autem in homine sagaci ac bona mente melius? eius bono fruendum est igitur, si beati esse volumus; bonum autem mentis est virtus; ergo hac beatam vitam contineri necesse est. hinc omnia, quae pulchra honesta praeclara sunt, ut supra dixi, sed dicendum idem illud paulo uberius videtur, plena gaudiorum sunt. ex perpetuis autem plenisque gaudiis cum perspicuum sit vitam beatam existere, sequitur ut ea existat ex honestate.\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 24\n\nSECTION 68\nSed ne verbis solum attingamus ea quae volumus ostendere, proponenda quaedam quasi moventia sunt, quae nos magis ad cognitionem intellegentiamque convertant. sumatur enim nobis quidam praestans vir optumis artibus, isque animo parumper et cogitatione fingatur. primum ingenio eximio sit necesse est; tardis  enim mentibus virtus non facile comitatur; deinde ad investigandam veritatem studio incitato. ex quo triplex ille animi fetus existet, unus in cognitione rerum positus et in explicatione naturae, alter in discriptione expetendarum fugiendarumque rerum <et in ratione be>ne vivendi, tertius in iudicando,  quid cuique rei sit consequens quid repugnans, in quo inest omnis cum subtilitas disserendi, tum veritas iudicandi.\n\nSECTION 69\nquo tandem igitur gaudio adfici necesse est sapientis animum cum his habitantem pernoctantemque curis! ut, cum totius mundi motus conversionesque perspexerit  sideraque viderit innumerabilia caelo inhaerentia cum eius ipsius motu congruere certis infixa sedibus, septem alia suos quaeque tenere cursus multum inter se aut altitudine aut humilitate distantia, quorum vagi motus rata tamen et certa sui cursus spatia definiant—horum nimirum aspectus impulit illos veteres et admonuit, ut plura quaererent; inde est indagatio nata initiorum et tamquam seminum, unde essent omnia orta generata concreta, quaeque cuiusque generis vel inanimi vel animantis vel muti vel loquentis  origo, quae vita, qui interitus quaeque ex alio in aliud vicissitudo atque mutatio, unde terra et quibus librata ponderibus, quibus cavernis maria sustineantur, qua omnia delata gravitate medium mundi locum semper expetant, qui est idem infimus in rutundo.\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 25\n\nSECTION 70\nhaec tractanti animo et noctes et dies cogitanti existit illa <a>  deo Delphis praecepta cognitio, ut ipsa se mens agnoscat coniunctamque cum divina mente se sentiat, ex quo insatiabili gaudio compleatur. ipsa enim cogitatio de vi et natura deorum studium incendit illius aeternitatem imitandi, neque se in brevitate vitae conlocatam putat, cum rerum causas alias ex aliis aptas et necessitate nexas videt, quibus ab aeterno tempore fluentibus in aeternum ratio tamen mensque moderatur.\n\nSECTION 71\nHaec ille intuens atque suspiciens vel potius omnis partis orasque circumspiciens quanta rursus animi tranquillitate humana et citeriora considerat! hinc illa cognitio virtutis existit, efflorescunt genera partesque virtutum, invenitur, quid sit quod natura spectet extremum in bonis, quid in malis ultumum, quo referenda sint officia, quae degendae aetatis ratio deligenda. quibus et talibus rebus exquisitis hoc vel maxime efficitur, quod hac disputatione agimus, ut virtus ad beate vivendum sit se ipsa contenta.\n\nSECTION 72\nSequitur tertia, quae per omnis partis sapientiae manat et funditur, quae  rem definit, genera dispertit, sequentia adiungit, perfecta concludit, vera et falsa diiudicat, disserendi ratio et scientia. ex qua cum summa utilitas existit ad res ponderandas, tum maxume ingenua delectatio et digna sapientia. Sed haec otii. transeat idem iste sapiens ad rem publicam tuendam. quid eo possit esse praestantius, cum †contineri prudentia utilitatem civium cernat, iustitia nihil in suam domum inde derivet, reliquis utatur tot tam variisque virtutibus? adiunge fructum amicitiarum, in quo doctis positum est cum consilium omnis vitae consentiens et paene conspirans, tum summa iucunditas e cotidiano cultu atque victu. Quid haec tandem vita desiderat, quo sit beatior? cui refertae tot    tantisque gaudiis Fortuna ipsa cedat necesse est. quodsi gaudere talibus bonis animi, id est virtutibus, beatum est omnesque sapientes is gaudiis perfruuntur, omnis eos beatos esse confiteri necesse est.\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 26\n\nEtiamne in cruciatu atque tormentis?\n\nSECTION 73\nAn tu me in viola putabas aut in rosa dicere? an Epicuro, qui tantum modo induit personam philosophi et sibi ipse hoc nomen inscripsit, dicere licebit, quod quidem, ut habet se res, me tamen plaudente dicit, nullum sapienti esse tempus, etiamsi uratur torqueatur secetur, quin possit exclamare: ‘quam pro nihilo puto!’ cum praesertim omne malum dolore definiat bonum voluptate, haec nostra honesta turpia inrideat  dicatque nos in vocibus occupatos inanis sonos fundere, neque quicquam ad nos pertinere nisi quod aut leve aut asperum in corpore sentiatur: huic ergo, ut dixi, non multum differenti a iudicio ferarum oblivisci licebit sui et tum fortunam contemnere, cum sit omne et bonum eius et malum in potestate fortunae, tum dicere se beatum in summo cruciatu atque tormentis, cum constituerit non modo summum malum esse dolorem, sed etiam solum?\n\nSECTION 74\nnec vero illa sibi remedia comparavit ad tolerandum dolorem, firmitatem animi, turpitudinis verecundiam, exercitationem consuetudinemque patiendi, praecepta fortitudinis, duritiam virilem, sed una se dicit recordatione adquiescere praeteritarum voluptatium, ut si quis aestuans, cum vim caloris non facile patiatur, recordari velit sese aliquando in Arpinati nostro gelidis fluminibus circumfusum fuisse. non enim video, quo modo sedare possint mala praesentia praeteritae voluptates—\n\nSECTION 75\nsed cum is dicat semper beatum esse sapientem, cui dicere hoc, si sibi constare vellet, non liceret, quidnam faciendum est is qui nihil expetendum, nihil in bonis ducendum, quod honestate careat, existumant? Me quidem auctore etiam Peripatetici veteresque Academici balbuttire aliquando desinant aperteque et clara voce audeant dicere beatam vitam in Phalaridis taurum descensuram.\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 27\n\nSECTION 76\nsint enim tria genera bonorum, ut iam a laqueis  Stoicorum, quibus usum me pluribus quam soleo intellego, recedamus, sint sane illa genera bonorum, dum corporis <et>  externa iaceant humi et tantum modo, quia sumenda sint, appellentur bona, animi autem illa divina longe lateque se pandant caelumque contingant; ut, ea qui adeptus sit, cur eum beatum modo et non beatissimum etiam dixerim?\n\nDolorem vero sapiens extimescet? is enim huic maxime sententiae repugnat. nam contra mortem nostram atque nostrorum contraque aegritudinem et reliquas animi perturbationes satis esse videmur superiorum dierum disputationibus armati et parati; dolor esse videtur acerrumus virtutis adversarius; is ardentis faces intentat, is fortitudinem, magnitudinem animi, patientiam se debilitaturum minatur.\n\nSECTION 77\nhuic igitur succumbet virtus, huic beata sapientis et constantis viri vita cedet? quam turpe, o dii boni! pueri Spartiatae non ingemescunt verberum dolore laniati. adulescentium greges Lacedaemone vidimus ipsi incredibili contentione certantis pugnis calcibus unguibus morsu denique, cum exanimarentur prius quam victos se faterentur. quae barbaria India vastior aut agrestior? in ea tamen gente primum ei, qui sapientes habentur, nudi aetatem agunt et Caucasi nives hiemalemque vim perferunt sine dolore, cumque ad flammam se adplicaverunt, sine gemitu aduruntur.\n\nSECTION 78\nmulieres vero in India, cum est cuius earum vir mortuus, in certamen iudiciumque veniunt, quam plurumum ille dilexerit—  plures enim singulis solent esse nuptae—; quae est victrix, ea laeta prosequentibus suis una cum viro in rogum imponitur, illa victa maesta discedit. numquam naturam mos vinceret; est enim ea semper invicta; sed nos umbris deliciis otio languore desidia animum infecimus, opinionibus maloque more delenitum mollivimus. Aegyptiorum morem quis ignorat? quorum inbutae mentes pravitatis erroribus quamvis carnificinam prius subierint quam ibim aut aspidem aut faelem aut canem aut corcodillum violent, quorum etiamsi inprudentes quippiam fecerint, poenam nullam recusent.\n\nSECTION 79\nde hominibus loquor; quid? bestiae non frigus, non famem, non montivagos atque silvestris cursus lustrationesque patiuntur? non pro suo partu ita propugnant, ut vulnera excipiant, nullos impetus nullos ictus reformident? omitto, quae perferant quaeque patiantur ambitiosi honoris causa, laudis studiosi gloriae gratia, amore incensi cupiditatis. plena vita exemplorum est.\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 28\n\nSECTION 80\nSed adhibeat oratio modum et redeat illuc, unde deflexit. dabit, inquam, se in tormenta vita beata nec iustitiam temperantiam in primisque fortitudinem, magnitudinem animi, patientiam prosecuta, cum tortoris os viderit, consistet virtutibusque omnibus sine ullo animi terrore ad cruciatum profectis resistet extra  fores, ut ante dixi, limenque carceris. quid enim ea foedius, quid deformius sola relicta, <a>  comitatu pulcherrimo segregata? quod tamen fieri nullo pacto potest; nec enim virtutes sine beata vita cohaerere possunt nec illa sine virtutibus.\n\nSECTION 81\nitaque eam tergiversari non sinent secumque rapient, ad quemcumque ipsae dolorem cruciatumque ducentur. sapientis est enim proprium nihil quod paenitere possit facere, nihil invitum, splendide constanter graviter honeste omnia, nihil ita expectare quasi certo futurum, nihil, cum acciderit, admirari, ut inopinatum ac novum accidisse videatur, omnia ad suum arbitrium referre, suis stare iudiciis. quo quid sit beatius, mihi certe in mentem venire non potest.\n\nSECTION 82\nStoicorum quidem facilis conclusio est; qui cum finem bonorum esse senserint congruere naturae cumque ea convenienter vivere, cum id sit in sapientis situm non officio solum, verum etiam potestate, sequatur necesse est, ut, cuius in potestate summum bonum, in eiusdem vita beata sit. ita fit semper vita beata sapientis.\n\nHabes, quae fortissime de beata vita dici putem et, quo modo nunc est, nisi quid tu melius attuleris, etiam verissime.\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 29\n\nMelius equidem adferre nihil possum, sed a te impetrarim lubenter, ut, nisi molestum sit, quoniam te nulla vincula impediunt ullius certae disciplinae libasque ex omnibus, quodcumque te maxime specie veritatis movet,—quod paulo ante Peripateticos veteremque Academiam hortari videbare, ut sine retractatione libere  dicere auderent sapientis esse semper beatissimos, id velim audire, quem ad modum his putes consentaneum esse id dicere. multa enim a te contra istam sententiam dicta sunt et Stoicorum ratione conclusa.\n\nSECTION 83\nUtamur igitur libertate, qua nobis solis in philosophia licet uti, quorum oratio nihil ipsa iudicat, sed habetur in omnis partis, ut ab aliis possit ipsa per sese nullius auctoritate adiuncta iudicari. Et quoniam videris hoc velle, ut,\nquaecumque dissentientium philosophorum sententia sit de finibus, tamen virtus satis habeat ad vitam beatam praesidi\ni, quod quidem Carneadem disputare solitum accepimus; sed is ut contra Stoicos, quos studiosissime semper refellebat et contra quorum disciplinam ingenium eius exarserat; nos illud quidem cum pace agemus—si enim Stoici finis bonorum recte posiverunt, confecta res est: necesse est semper beatum esse sapientem—,\n\nSECTION 84\nsed quaeramus unam quamque reliquorum sententiam, si fieri potest, ut hoc praeclarum quasi decretum beatae vitae possit omnium sententiis et disciplinis convenire.\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 30\n\nSunt autem haec de finibus, ut opinor, retentae defensaeque sententiae: primum simplices quattuor, nihil bonum nisi honestum, ut Stoici, nihil bonum nisi voluptatem, ut Epicurus, nihil bonum nisi vacuitatem <doloris>, ut Hieronymus, nihil bonum nisi naturae primis bonis  aut omnibus aut maxumis frui, ut Carneades contra Stoicos disserebat.\n\nSECTION 85\nhaec igitur simplicia, illa mixta: tria genera bonorum, maxuma animi, secunda corporis, externa tertia, ut Peripatetici nec multo veteres Academici secus; voluptatem cum honestate Dinomachus et Callipho copulavit, indolentiam autem honestati Peripateticus Diodorus adiunxit. haec sunt sententiae, quae stabilitatis aliquid habeant; nam Aristonis Pyrrhonis Erilli non nullorumque aliorum evanuerunt. hi quid possint optinere, videamus omissis Stoicis, quorum satis videor defendisse sententiam.\n\nEt Peripateticorum quidem explicata causa est praeter Theophrastum et si qui illum secuti imbecillius horrent dolorem et reformidant; reliquis quidem licet facere id quod fere faciunt, ut gravitatem dignitatemque virtutis exaggerent. quam cum ad caelum extulerunt, quod facere eloquentes homines copiose solent, reliqua ex conlatione facile est conterere atque contemnere. nec enim licet is, qui laudem cum dolore petendam esse dicant, negare eos esse beatos, qui illam adepti sunt. quamquam enim sint in quibusdam malis, tamen hoc nomen beati longe et late patet.\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 31\n\nSECTION 86\nnam ut quaestuosa mercatura, fructuosa aratio dicitur, non si altera semper omni damno, altera omni tempestatis calamitate semper vacat, sed si multo maiore ex parte exstat in utraque felicitas, sic vita non solum si undique referta bonis est, sed si multo maiore et graviore ex parte bona propendent, beata recte dici potest.\n\nSECTION 87\nsequetur  igitur horum ratione vel ad supplicium beata vita virtutem cumque ea descendet in taurum Aristotele Xenocrate Speusippo Polemone auctoribus nec eam minis blandimentisve corrupta deseret. Eadem Calliphontis erit Diodorique sententia, quorum uterque honestatem sic complectitur, ut omnia, quae sine ea sint, longe [et] retro ponenda censeat. Reliqui habere se videntur angustius, enatant tamen, Epicurus Hieronymus et si qui sunt qui desertum illum Carneadeum <finem>  curent defendere; nemo est enim eorum quin bonorum animum putet esse iudicem eumque condocefaciat, ut ea, quae bona malave videantur, possit contemnere.\n\nSECTION 88\nnam quae tibi Epicuri videtur, eadem erit Hieronymi et Carneadis causa et hercule omnium reliquorum. quis enim parum est contra mortem aut dolorem paratus?\n\nOrdiamur ab eo, si placet, quem mollem, quem voluptarium dicimus. quid? is tibi mortemne videtur aut dolorem timere, qui eum diem, quo moritur, beatum appellat maxumisque doloribus adfectus eos ipsos inventorum suorum memoria et recordatione confutat? nec haec sic agit, ut ex tempore quasi effuttire videatur. de morte enim ita sentit, ut dissoluto animante  sensum extinctum putet, quod autem sensu careat, nihil ad nos id iudicet pertinere. item <in>  dolore certa habet quae sequatur, cuius magnitudinem brevitate consolatur, longinquitatem levitate.\n\nSECTION 89\nqui tandem isti grandiloqui contra haec duo, quae maxime angunt,  melius se habent quam Epicurus?\n\nAn ad cetera, quae mala putantur, non et Epicurus et reliqui philosophi satis parati videntur? quis non paupertatem extimescit? neque tamen quisquam philosophorum.\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 32\n\nhic vero ipse quam parvo est contentus! nemo de tenui victu plura dixit. etenim, quae res pecuniae cupiditatem adferunt, ut amori, ut ambitioni, ut cotidianis sumptibus copiae suppetant, cum procul ab his omnibus rebus absit, cur pecuniam magnopere desideret vel potius cur curet omnino?\n\nSECTION 90\nan Scythes Anacharsis potuit pro nihilo pecuniam ducere, nostrates philosophi facere non poterunt? illius epistula fertur his verbis: ‘Anacharsis Hannoni salutem. Mihi amictui est Scythicum tegimen, calciamentum solorum callum, cubile terra, pulpamentum  fames, lacte caseo carne vescor. quare ut ad quietum me licet venias. munera autem ista, quibus es delectatus, vel civibus tuis vel diis inmortalibus dona.’ omnes fere philosophi omnium disciplinarum, nisi quos a recta ratione natura vitiosa detorsisset, eodem hoc animo esse potuerunt.\n\nSECTION 91\nSocrates, in pompa cum magna vis auri argentique ferretur, ‘quam multa non desidero!’ inquit. Xenocrates, cum legati ab Alexandro quinquaginta ei talenta attulissent, quae erat pecunia temporibus illis, Athenis praesertim, maxuma, abduxit legatos  ad cenam in Academiam; is apposuit tantum, quod satis esset, nullo apparatu. cum postridie rogarent eum, cui numerari iuberet, ‘quid? vos hesterna’ inquit ‘cenula non intellexistis me pecunia non egere?’ quos cum tristioris vidisset, triginta minas accepit, ne aspernari regis liberalitatem videretur.\n\nSECTION 92\nat vero Diogenes liberius, ut Cynicus, Alexandro roganti, ut diceret, si quid opus esset, ‘nunc quidem paululum’ inquit ‘a sole.’ offecerat videlicet apricanti. et hic quidem disputare solebat, quanto regem Persarum vita fortunaque superaret; sibi nihil deesse, illi nihil satis umquam fore; se eius voluptates non desiderare, quibus numquam satiari ille posset, suas eum consequi nullo modo posse.\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 33\n\nVides, credo, ut Epicurus cupiditatum genera diviserit, non nimis fortasse subtiliter, utiliter tamen:\n\nSECTION 93\npartim esse naturales et necessarias, partim  naturales et non necessarias, partim neutrum; necessarias satiari posse paene nihilo; divitias enim naturae esse parabiles; secundum autem genus cupiditatum nec ad potiendum difficile esse censet nec vero ad carendum; tertias, quod essent plane inanes neque necessitatem modo, sed ne naturam quidem attingerent, funditus eiciendas putavit.\n\nSECTION 94\nhoc loco multa ab Epicureis disputantur, eaeque voluptates singillatim extenuantur, quarum genera non contemnunt, <non>  quaerunt tamen  copiam. nam et obscenas voluptates, de quibus multa ab illis habetur oratio, facilis communis in medio sitas esse dicunt, easque si natura requirat, non genere aut loco aut ordine, sed forma aetate figura metiendas putant, ab isque abstinere minime esse difficile, si aut valetudo aut officium aut fama postulet, omninoque genus hoc voluptatum optabile esse, si non obsit, prodesse numquam.\n\nSECTION 95\nTotumque hoc de voluptate sic ille praecipit, ut voluptatem ipsam per se, quia voluptas sit, semper optandam <et>  expetendam putet, eademque ratione dolorem ob id ipsum, quia dolor sit, semper esse fugiendum; itaque hac usurum compensatione sapientem, <ut> et voluptatem fugiat, si ea maiorem dolorem effectura sit, et dolorem suscipiat maiorem efficientem voluptatem; omniaque iucunda, quamquam sensu corporis iudicentur, ad animum referri tamen.\n\nSECTION 96\nquocirca corpus gaudere tam diu, dum praesentem sentiret voluptatem, animum et praesentem percipere pariter cum corpore et prospicere venientem nec praeteritam praeterfluere sinere. ita perpetuas et contextas voluptates in sapiente fore semper, cum expectatio speratarum voluptatum <cum>  perceptarum memoria iungeretur.\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 34\n\nSECTION 97\nAtque his similia ad victum etiam transferuntur, extenuaturque magnificentia et sumptus epularum, quod parvo cultu natura contenta sit. etenim quis hoc non videt, desideriis omnia ista condiri? Darius in fuga cum aquam turbidam  et cadaveribus inquinatam bibisset, negavit umquam se bibisse iucundius. numquam videlicet sitiens biberat. nec esuriens Ptolomaeus ederat; cui cum peragranti Aegyptum comitibus non consecutis cibarius in casa panis datus esset, nihil visum est illo pane iucundius. Socraten ferunt, cum usque ad vesperum contentius ambularet quaesitumque esset ex eo, quare id faceret, respondisse se, quo melius cenaret, obsonare ambulando famem.\n\nSECTION 98\nquid? victum Lacedaemoniorum in philitiis nonne videmus? ubi cum tyrannus cenavisset Dionysius, negavit se iure illo nigro, quod cenae caput erat, delectatum. tum is qui illa coxerat: ‘minime mirum; condimenta enim defuerunt.’ ‘quae tandem?’ inquit ille. ‘labor in venatu, sudor, cursus ad Eurotam, fames, sitis. his enim rebus Lacedaemoniorum epulae condiuntur.’ atque hoc non ex hominum more solum, sed etiam ex bestiis intellegi potest, quae, ut quicquid obiectum est, quod modo a natura non sit alienum, eo contentae non quaerunt amplius.\n\nSECTION 99\ncivitates quaedam universae more doctae parsimonia delectantur, ut de Lacedaemoniis paulo ante diximus. Persarum a Xenophonte victus exponitur, quos negat ad panem adhibere quicquam praeter nasturcium. quamquam, si quaedam etiam suaviora natura desideret, quam multa ex terra arboribusque gignuntur cum copia facili, tum  suavitate praestanti! adde siccitatem, quae consequitur hanc continentiam in victu, adde integritatem valetudinis; confer sudantis ructantis refertos epulis tamquam opimos boves:\n\nSECTION 100\ntum intelleges, qui voluptatem maxime sequantur, eos minime consequi, iucunditatemque victus esse in desiderio, non in satietate.\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 35\n\nTimotheum, clarum hominem Athenis et principem civitatis, ferunt, cum cenavisset apud Platonem eoque convivio admodum delectatus esset vidissetque eum postridie, dixisse: ‘vestrae quidem cenae non solum in praesentia, sed etiam postero die iucundae sunt.’ quid quod ne mente quidem recte uti possumus multo cibo et potione completi? est praeclara epistula Platonis ad Dionis propinquos, in qua scriptum est his fere verbis: ‘quo cum venissem, vita illa beata, quae ferebatur, plena Italicarum Syracusiarumque mensarum, nullo modo mihi placuit, bis in die saturum fieri nec umquam pernoctare solum ceteraque, quae comitantur huic vitae, in qua sapiens nemo efficietur umquam, moderatus vero multo minus. quae enim natura tam mirabiliter temperari potest?’\n\nSECTION 101\nquo modo igitur iucunda vita potest esse, a qua absit prudentia, absit moderatio? ex quo Sardanapalli, opulentissimi Syriae regis, error adgnoscitur, qui incidi iussit in busto:\nHaec habeo, quae edi, quaeque exsaturata libido\nHausit; at illa iacent multa et praeclara relicta.\n‘quid aliud’ inquit Aristoteles ‘in bovis, non in regis sepulcro inscriberes? haec habere se mortuum dicit, quae ne vivus quidem diutius habebat quam fruebatur.’\n\nSECTION 102\nCur igitur divitiae desiderentur, aut ubi paupertas beatos esse non sinit? signis, credo, tabulis studes. si quis est qui his delectetur, nonne melius tenues homines fruuntur quam illi qui is abundant?  est enim earum rerum omnium <in> nostra  urbe summa in publico copia. quae qui privatim habent, nec tam multa et raro vident, cum in sua rura venerunt; quos tamen pungit aliquid, cum, illa unde habeant, recordantur. dies deficiat, si velim paupertatis causam defendere. aperta enim res est, et cotidie nos ipsa natura admonet, quam paucis, quam parvis rebus egeat, quam vilibus.\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 36\n\nNum igitur ignobilitas aut humilitas aut etiam popularis offensio sapientem beatum esse prohibebit?\n\nSECTION 103\nvide ne plus commendatio in vulgus et haec, quae expetitur, gloria molestiae habeat quam voluptatis. leviculus sane noster Demosthenes, qui illo susurro delectari se dicebat aquam ferentis mulierculae, ut mos in Graecia est, insusurrantisque alteri: ‘hic est ille Demosthenes.’ quid hoc levius? at quantus orator! sed apud alios loqui videlicet didicerat, non multum ipse secum.\n\nSECTION 104\nintellegendum est igitur nec gloriam popularem ipsam per sese expetendam nec ignobilitatem extimescendam. ‘veni Athenas’  inquit Democritus ‘neque me quisquam ibi adgnovit.’  constantem hominem et gravem,  qui glorietur a gloria se afuisse!  an tibicines ique, qui fidibus utuntur, suo, non multitudinis arbitrio cantus numerosque moderantur, vir sapiens multo arte maiore praeditus non quid verissimum sit, sed quid velit vulgus, exquiret? an quicquam stultius quam, quos singulos sicut operarios barbarosque contemnas, eos aliquid putare esse universos? ille vero nostras ambitiones levitatesque contemnet honoresque populi etiam ultro delatos repudiabit; nos autem eos nescimus, ante quam paenitere coepit, contemnere. est apud Heraclitum physicum de principe Ephesiorum Hermodoro;\n\nSECTION 105\nuniversos ait Ephesios esse morte multandos, quod, cum civitate expellerent Hermodorum, ita locuti sint: ‘nemo de nobis unus excellat; sin quis extiterit, alio in loco et apud alios sit.’ an hoc non ita fit omni in populo? nonne omnem exsuperantiam virtutis oderunt? quid? Aristides—malo enim Graecorum quam nostra proferre—nonne ob eam causam expulsus est patria, quod praeter modum iustus esset? quantis igitur molestiis vacant, qui nihil omnino cum populo contrahunt! quid est enim dulcius otio litterato? is dico litteris, quibus infinitatem rerum atque naturae et in hoc ipso mundo caelum terras maria cognoscimus.\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 37\n\nContempto igitur honore, contempta etiam pecunia quid relinquitur quod extimescendum sit?\n\nSECTION 106\nexilium, credo, quod in maxumis malis ducitur. id si propter alienam et offensam populi voluntatem malum est,  quam sit ea contemnenda, [sicut a] paulo ante dictum est. sin abesse patria miserum est, plenae miserorum provinciae sunt, ex quibus admodum pauci in patriam revertuntur.\n\nSECTION 107\n‘at multantur bonis exules’. quid tum? parumne multa de toleranda paupertate dicuntur? iam vero exilium, si rerum naturam, non ignominiam nominis quaerimus, quantum tandem a perpetua peregrinatione differt? in qua aetates suas philosophi nobilissimi consumpserunt, Xenocrates Crantor Arcesilas Lacydes Aristoteles Theophrastus Zeno Cleanthes Chrysippus Antipater Carneades Clitomachus Philo Antiochus Panaetius Posidonius, innumerabiles alii, qui semel egressi numquam domum reverterunt. ‘at enim sine ignominia’. <an potest exilium ignominia>  adficere sapientem? de sapiente enim haec omnis oratio est, cui iure id accidere non possit; nam iure exulantem consolari non oportet.\n\nSECTION 108\npostremo ad omnis casus facillima ratio est eorum, qui ad voluptatem ea referunt quae secuntur in vita, ut, quocumque haec loco suppeditetur, ibi beate queant vivere. itaque ad omnem rationem Teucri vox accommodari potest:\nPátria est, ubicumque ést bene.\nSocrates quidem cum rogaretur, cuiatem se esse diceret, ‘mundanum’ inquit; totius enim mundi se incolam  et civem arbitrabatur. quid? T. Albucius nonne animo aequissimo Athenis exul philosophabatur? cui tamen illud ipsum non accidisset, si in re p. quiescens Epicuri legibus paruisset.\n\nSECTION 109\nqui enim beatior Epicurus, quod in patria vivebat, quam, quod Athenis, Metrodorus? aut Plato Xenocratem vincebat aut Polemo Arcesilam, quo esset beatior? quanti vero ista civitas aestimanda est, ex qua boni sapientesque pelluntur? Damaratus quidem, Tarquinii nostri regis pater, tyrannum Cypselum quod ferre non poterat, fugit Tarquinios Corintho et ibi suas fortunas constituit ac liberos procreavit. num stulte anteposuit exilii libertatem domesticae servituti?\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 38\n\nSECTION 110\nIam vero motus animi, sollicitudines aegritudinesque  oblivione leniuntur traductis animis ad voluptatem. non sine causa igitur Epicurus ausus est dicere semper in pluribus bonis esse sapientem, quia semper sit in voluptatibus. ex quo effici putat ille, quod quaerimus, ut sapiens semper beatus sit.\n\nSECTION 111\n‘etiamne, si sensibus carebit oculorum, si aurium?’ etiam; nam ista ipsa contemnit. primum enim horribilis ista caecitas quibus tandem caret voluptatibus? cum quidam etiam disputent ceteras voluptates in ipsis habitare sensibus, quae autem aspectu percipiantur, ea non versari in oculorum ulla iucunditate, ut ea, quae gustemus olfaciamus tractemus audiamus, in ea ipsa, ubi sentimus, parte versentur. in oculis tale nil fit; animus accipit, quae videmus. animo autem multis modis variisque  delectari licet, etiamsi non adhibeatur aspectus. loquor enim de docto homine et erudito, cui vivere est cogitare. sapientis autem cogitatio non ferme ad investigandum adhibet oculos advocatos.\n\nSECTION 112\netenim si nox non adimit vitam beatam, cur dies nocti similis adimat? nam illud Antipatri Cyrenaici est quidem paulo obscenius, sed non absurda sententia est; cuius caecitatem cum mulierculae lamentarentur, ‘quid agitis?’ inquit, ‘an vobis nulla videtur voluptas esse nocturna?’ Appium quidem veterem illum, qui caecus annos multos fuit, et ex magistratibus et ex rebus gestis intellegimus in illo suo casu nec privato nec publico muneri defuisse. C. Drusi  domum compleri a consultoribus solitam accepimus; cum, quorum res esset, sua ipsi non videbant, caecum adhibebant ducem. pueris nobis Cn. Aufidius praetorius et in senatu sententiam dicebat nec amicis deliberantibus deerat et Graecam scribebat historiam et videbat in litteris.\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 39\n\nSECTION 113\nDiodotus Stoicus caecus multos annos nostrae domi vixit. is vero, quod credibile vix esset, cum in philosophia multo etiam magis assidue quam antea versaretur et cum fidibus Pythagoreorum more uteretur cumque ei libri noctes et dies legerentur, quibus in studiis oculis non egebat, tum, quod sine oculis fieri posse vix videtur, geometriae munus tuebatur verbis praecipiens discentibus, unde quo quamque lineam scriberent. Asclepiadem ferunt, non ignobilem Eretricum philosophum, cum  quidam quaereret, quid ei caecitas attulisset, respondisse, puero ut uno esset comitatior. ut enim vel summa paupertas tolerabilis sit, si liceat quod quibusdam Graecis cotidie, sic caecitas ferri facile possit, si non desint subsidia valetudinum.\n\nSECTION 114\nDemocritus luminibus amissis alba scilicet discernere et atra non poterat, at vero bona mala, aequa iniqua, honesta turpia, utilia inutilia, magna parva poterat, et sine varietate colorum licebat vivere beate, sine notione rerum non licebat. atque hic vir impediri etiam animi aciem aspectu oculorum arbitrabatur, et cum alii saepe, quod ante pedes esset,  non viderent, ille  <in>  infinitatem omnem peregrinabatur, ut nulla in extremitate consisteret. traditum est etiam Homerum caecum fuisse; at eius picturam, non poësin videmus: quae regio, quae ora, qui locus Graeciae, quae species formaque pugnae, quae acies, quod remigium, qui motus hominum, qui ferarum non ita expictus est, ut, quae ipse non viderit, nos ut videremus, effecerit? quid ergo? aut Homero delectationem animi ac voluptatem aut cuiquam docto defuisse umquam arbitramur?\n\nSECTION 115\naut, ni ita se res haberet, Anaxagoras aut hic ipse Democritus agros et patrimonia sua reliquissent, huic discendi quaerendique divinae delectationi toto se animo dedissent? itaque augurem Tiresiam, quem sapientem fingunt poëtae, numquam inducunt deplorantem  caecitatem suam; at vero Polyphemum Homerus cum inmanem ferumque finxisset, cum ariete etiam conloquentem facit eiusque laudare fortunas, quod, qua vellet, ingredi posset et, quae vellet, attingere. recte hic quidem; nihilo enim erat ipse Cyclops quam aries ille prudentior.\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 40\n\nSECTION 116\nIn surditate vero quidnam est mali? erat surdaster M. Crassus,  sed aliud molestius, quod male audiebat, etiamsi, ut mihi videbatur, iniuria. [Epicurei] nostri Graece fere nesciunt nec Graeci Latine. ergo hi in illorum et illi in horum sermone surdi, omnesque item nos in is linguis quas non intellegimus, quae sunt innumerabiles, surdi profecto sumus. ‘at vocem citharoedi non audiunt’. ne stridorem quidem serrae, tum cum acuitur, aut grunditum, cum iugulatur, suis nec, cum quiescere volunt, fremitum murmurantis maris; et si cantus eos forte delectant, primum cogitare debent, ante quam hi sint inventi, multos beate vixisse sapientes, deinde multo maiorem percipi posse legendis his quam audiendis voluptatem.\n\nSECTION 117\ntum, ut paulo ante caecos ad aurium traducebamus voluptatem, sic licet surdos ad oculorum. etenim, qui secum loqui poterit, sermonem alterius non requiret.\n\nCongerantur  in unum omnia, ut idem oculis et auribus captus sit, prematur etiam doloribus acerrumis corporis. qui primum per se ipsi plerumque conficiunt  hominem; sin forte longinquitate producti vehementius tamen torquent, quam ut causa sit cur ferantur, quid est tandem, dii boni, quod laboremus? portus enim praesto est, quoniam mors †ibidem est, aeternum nihil sentiendi receptaculum.\n\nSECTION 118\nTheodorus Lysimacho mortem minitanti ‘magnum vero’ inquit ‘effecisti, si cantharidis vim consecutus es’, Paulus Persi deprecanti, ne in triumpho duceretur, ‘in tua id quidem potestate est.’ multa primo die, cum de ipsa morte quaereremus, non pauca etiam postero, cum ageretur de dolore, sunt dicta de morte, quae qui recordetur, haud sane periculum est ne non mortem aut optandam aut certe non timendam putet.\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 41\n\nmihi quidem in vita servanda videtur illa lex, quae in Graecorum conviviis optinetur: ‘aut bibat’ inquit ‘aut abeat.’  et recte. aut enim fruatur aliquis pariter cum aliis voluptate potandi aut, ne sobrius in violentiam vinolentorum incidat, ante discedat. sic iniurias fortunae, quas ferre nequeas, defugiendo relinquas. Haec eadem, quae Epicurus, totidem verbis dicit Hieronymus.\n\nSECTION 119\nQuodsi is philosophis, quorum ea sententia est, ut virtus per se ipsa nihil valeat, omneque, quod honestum  nos et laudabile esse dicamus, id illi cassum quiddam et inani vocis sono decoratum esse dicant,— <si> i tamen semper beatum censent esse sapientem, quid tandem a Socrate et Platone profectis philosophis faciendum videtur? quorum alii tantam praestantiam in bonis animi esse dicunt, ut ab is corporis et externa obruantur,  alii autem haec ne bona quidem ducunt, in animo reponunt omnia.\n\nSECTION 120\nquorum controversiam solebat tamquam honorarius arbiter iudicare Carneades. nam cum, quaecumque bona Peripateticis, eadem Stoicis commoda viderentur neque tamen Peripatetici plus tribuerent divitiis bonae valetudini ceteris rebus generis eiusdem quam Stoici, cum ea re, non verbis ponderarentur, causam esse dissidendi negabat. quare hunc locum ceterarum disciplinarum philosophi quem ad modum optinere possint, ipsi viderint; mihi tamen gratum est, quod de sapientium perpetua bene vivendi facultate dignum quiddam philosophorum voce profitentur.\n\nSECTION 121\nSed quoniam mane est eundum, has quinque dierum disputationes memoria comprehendamus. equidem me etiam conscripturum arbitror—ubi enim melius uti possumus hoc, cuicuimodi est, otio?—, ad Brutumque nostrum hos libros alteros quinque mittemus, a quo non modo inpulsi sumus ad philosophiae  scriptiones, verum etiam lacessiti. in quo quantum ceteris profuturi simus, non facile dixerim, nostris quidem acerbissimis doloribus variisque et undique circumfusis molestiis alia nulla potuit inveniri levatio.","download_url":"https://mouseia.org/api/works/cicero-tusculan/original.txt"},"translations":[{"id":"trn_cicero_tusculan_mouseia","translator":"Mouseia","kind":"curated","note":"Complete machine-assisted translation from the Latin. Latin transcription by the Perseus Project, Trustees of Tufts University, CC BY-SA 4.0.","text":"### Book 1, Chapter 1\n\nSECTION 1\nWhen at last I was wholly, or at least largely, released from the labor of defending cases and my duties in the Senate, I returned, Brutus, chiefly at your urging, to those studies I had kept in my heart but set aside under the pressure of events, and took them up again after a long interruption. The theory and training of every art that leads to the right way of life are contained in the pursuit of wisdom, which is called philosophy; I therefore thought I should bring this pursuit to light in Latin literature. Not that philosophy could not be learned from Greek books and teachers; but I have always held that our people have either shown greater wisdom than the Greeks in making discoveries for themselves, or improved on what they received from them—whatever, that is, they considered worth devoting their efforts to.\n\nSECTION 2\nFor we certainly preserve our customs, our ways of life, and our domestic and family affairs better and with greater dignity; and our ancestors undoubtedly regulated the state with better institutions and laws. What need I say of warfare? In that field our people have been powerful through courage, but still more through discipline. Then there are the qualities they attained by nature, not by learning, in which neither Greece nor any other nation can be compared with them. What people ever possessed such dignity, such steadfastness, greatness of soul, integrity, loyalty—such outstanding virtue of every kind—as to bear comparison with our ancestors?\n\nSECTION 3\nGreece surpassed us in learning and in every branch of literature; but it was easy to defeat opponents who offered no resistance. For while poets are the oldest class of learned men among the Greeks—Homer and Hesiod lived before Rome was founded, Archilochus in the reign of Romulus—we received poetry rather late. About 510 years after Rome’s foundation, Livius produced a play in the consulship of Gaius Claudius, the son of Caecus, and Marcus Tuditanus, the year before Ennius was born. Ennius was older than Plautus and Naevius.\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 2\n\nOur people, then, were slow either to recognize poets or to welcome them. Admittedly, the Origins tells us that guests at banquets used to sing of famous men’s virtues to the accompaniment of a flute. Yet the lack of honor accorded to this art is clear from a speech of Cato, in which he reproached Marcus Nobilior for taking poets to his province. As we know, Nobilior had taken Ennius to Aetolia during his consulship. The less honor poets received, therefore, the less enthusiasm there was for poetry. Yet whenever men of great gifts did emerge in this field,\n\nSECTION 4\nthey were fully equal to the glory of the Greeks. Do we suppose that, if Fabius, a man of the highest rank, had been praised for his painting, there would not have been many a Polyclitus and Parrhasius among us too? Honor nourishes the arts; glory fires everyone’s enthusiasm for study, while pursuits disapproved of in any society always languish. The Greeks thought the highest culture lay in music for strings and voice. Thus Epaminondas, in my judgment the foremost man of Greece, is said to have played the lyre magnificently; and some years earlier Themistocles was considered rather uneducated because he declined the lyre at a banquet. Musicians therefore flourished in Greece; everyone studied music, and anyone who did not know it was thought insufficiently cultivated.\n\nSECTION 5\nGeometry was held in the highest honor among them, and so no one was more distinguished than their mathematicians. We, however, confined that art to its usefulness in measurement and calculation.\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 3\n\nBy contrast, we soon embraced the orator: at first he was not learned, but still had an aptitude for speaking; later he was learned too. For Galba, Africanus, and Laelius are said to have been men of learning, while Cato, who preceded them in age, was devoted to study; later came Lepidus, Carbo, and the Gracchi, and from then down to our own day there were men so great that we yielded little or nothing at all to the Greeks. Philosophy has lain neglected until our time, without any illumination from Latin literature. We must bring it to light and rouse it to life, so that, if we have been of some service to our fellow citizens while occupied with public affairs, we may also, if possible, serve them in our leisure.\n\nSECTION 6\nWe must work all the harder at this because there are said to be many Latin books already, written without due thought by excellent men, to be sure, but men insufficiently educated. It is possible to think soundly and yet be unable to express one’s thoughts with elegance. But for a man to commit his thoughts to writing when he can neither arrange them nor illuminate them, nor draw the reader in with any pleasure, is an unrestrained abuse of both leisure and literature. Accordingly, these writers read their books themselves, along with their own circle; no one else touches them except those who want the same license to write allowed to themselves. So if our industry has brought us any distinction in oratory, we shall labor much more eagerly to open the springs of philosophy, from which that eloquence itself once flowed.\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 4\n\nSECTION 7\nJust as Aristotle, a man of supreme genius, knowledge, and abundant resources, was stirred by the fame of the rhetorician Isocrates to begin teaching young men to speak as well, and to unite wisdom with eloquence, so I have resolved not to abandon my former devotion to oratory while engaging in this greater and more fruitful art. For I have always considered that philosophy complete which could discuss the greatest questions richly and gracefully. I have devoted myself to this exercise with such eager [effort] that I have now even ventured to hold discussions in the Greek manner. Recently, after your departure, when several friends were with me at Tusculum, I tried what I could do in this field. In earlier days I used to practice pleading cases—no one did so longer than I—and this is now my exercise in old age. I would ask someone to state what he wished to hear discussed, and then, sitting or walking, I would argue the subject.\n\nSECTION 8\nI have therefore gathered the discussions of five days—“schools,” as the Greeks call them—into as many books. The procedure was this: after the person who wished to listen had said what he thought, I would argue against him. This, as you know, is the old Socratic method of disputing another person’s opinion. Socrates thought this the easiest way to discover what was most like the truth. But to unfold our discussions more conveniently, I shall present them as though they were taking place, rather than being reported. Our opening will therefore run as follows:\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 5\n\n“Death seems to me an evil.”\n\nSECTION 9\n“For those who are dead, or for those who must die?”\n\n“For both.”\n\n“Then it is a misery, since it is an evil.”\n\n“Certainly.”\n\n“So both those who have already met their death and those who will meet it are miserable.”\n\n“That is how it seems to me.”\n\n“Then no one is free from misery.”\n\n“No one at all.”\n\n“And indeed, if you wish to be consistent, everyone who has been or will be born is not merely miserable but miserable forever. If you called only those who must die miserable, you would certainly exempt none of the living—for everyone must die—but at least misery would end in death. But since the dead too are miserable, we are born into everlasting misery. Those who died a hundred thousand years ago must be miserable—or rather, everyone who has ever been born.”\n\n“That is precisely what I think.”\n\n“Tell me, please:\n\nSECTION 10\n“Are you frightened by those tales—three-headed Cerberus in the underworld, the roaring of Cocytus, the crossing of Acheron, Tantalus ‘with the water touching his chin, dying of thirst’? Or that story of how ‘Sisyphus sweats and strains to roll his stone, yet makes not the slightest progress’? Perhaps you fear the implacable judges too, Minos and Rhadamanthus? Before them neither Lucius Crassus nor Marcus Antonius will defend you; nor, though your case will be heard by Greek judges, will you be able to retain Demosthenes. You yourself will have to plead your case before an enormous audience. Perhaps these are the things you fear, and that is why you consider death an everlasting evil.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 6\n\n“Do you think me so deranged that I believe those things exist?”\n\n“Then you do not believe them?”\n\n“Certainly not.”\n\n“By Hercules, that is bad news.”\n\n“Why, may I ask?”\n\n“Because I could be eloquent if I were arguing against them.”\n\n“Who could not, in a case like that? What difficulty is there in refuting these monsters of poets and painters?”\n\nSECTION 11\n“And yet whole books of philosophers argue against just these things.”\n\n“Foolishly enough. Who is so mindless as to be troubled by them?”\n\n“Then if there are no miserable people in the underworld, there are no people in the underworld at all.”\n\n“That is precisely what I think.”\n\n“Where, then, are those you call miserable? What place do they inhabit? If they exist, they cannot be nowhere.”\n\n“But I think they are nowhere.”\n\n“Then they do not even exist?”\n\n“Exactly so; and yet they are miserable for that very reason, because they do not exist.”\n\nSECTION 12\n“I would now rather you were afraid of Cerberus than speak so thoughtlessly.”\n\n“How so?”\n\n“You say that the very person whose existence you deny exists. Where is your sharpness of mind? When you say that someone is miserable, you are saying that someone who does not exist does exist.”\n\n“I am not so dull as to say that.”\n\n“What do you say, then?”\n\n“That Marcus Crassus, for example, is miserable because death deprived him of his great wealth; that Gnaeus Pompey is miserable because he was stripped of such glory; in short, that everyone deprived of this daylight is miserable.”\n\n“You return to the same point. They must exist if they are miserable; but just now you denied that the dead exist. If, then, they do not exist, they cannot be anything; and so they cannot be miserable either.”\n\n“Perhaps I am still not saying what I mean. What I consider most miserable is precisely this: not to exist after having existed.”\n\n“What?\n\nSECTION 13\n“More miserable than never to have existed at all? Then those not yet born are miserable already, because they do not exist; and if we are to be miserable after death, we were miserable before we were born. I, however, do not remember being miserable before I was born. If your memory is better, I should like to know whether you recall anything about yourself.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 7\n\n“You joke as though I were saying that those who have not been born are miserable, rather than those who have died.”\n\n“Then you say that they exist.”\n\n“No: they are miserable because they do not exist after having existed.”\n\n“Do you not see that you contradict yourself? What could be more contradictory than for someone who does not exist to be not merely miserable, but anything at all? When you go out through the Capena Gate and see the tombs of Calatinus, the Scipios, the Servilii, and the Metelli, do you think those men miserable?”\n\n“Since you press me on a word, from now on I shall not say that they ‘are miserable,’ but simply ‘miserable’—precisely because they do not exist.”\n\n“So you do not say, ‘Marcus Crassus is miserable,’ but simply, ‘Miserable Marcus Crassus’?”\n\n“Exactly.”\n\n“As though anything you express in that way did not necessarily either exist or not exist! Have you not even had an introduction to dialectic?\n\nSECTION 14\n“One of its first lessons is this: every proposition—for that is the word that occurs to me at present for the Greek ἀξίωμα, an assertion; I shall use another later if I find a better one—every proposition, then, is something either true or false. So when you say ‘Miserable Marcus Crassus,’ either you are saying ‘Crassus is miserable,’ so that it can be judged true or false, or you are saying nothing at all.”\n\n“Come, I now concede that the dead are not miserable, since you have wrung from me the admission that those who do not exist at all cannot even be miserable. But what about us who are alive? Since we must die, are we not miserable? What pleasure can there be in life, when day and night we must think that at any moment we have to die?”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 8\n\n“Do you understand, then, how much evil you have removed from the human condition?”\n\nSECTION 15\n“How?”\n\n“Because if death were a misery even for the dead, we would face an infinite and everlasting evil in life. As things stand, I see a finishing line: once we have run to it, there is nothing more to fear. But you seem to me to follow the view of Epicharmus, a sharp and witty man, as one would expect of a Sicilian.”\n\n“What view? I do not know it.”\n\n“I shall put it into Latin if I can. As you know, I am no more in the habit of speaking Greek in a Latin conversation than Latin in a Greek one.”\n\n“And quite right too. But what is this saying of Epicharmus?”\n\n“‘I do not want to die, but being dead means nothing to me.’”\n\n“Now I recognize the Greek. But since you have forced me to concede that the dead are not miserable, go on, if you can, and make me think that even having to die is no misery.”\n\nSECTION 16\n“That is no difficulty at all, but I am attempting something greater.”\n\n“How is it no difficulty? And what is this greater thing?”\n\n“Since there is no evil after death, death itself is not an evil either: it is immediately followed by the time after death, in which you concede there is no evil. So having to die is not an evil either; it means having to reach what we acknowledge is no evil.”\n\n“Explain that more fully, please. These thorny arguments force me to concede before they win my assent. But what is this greater thing you say you are attempting?”\n\n“To show, if I can, not only that death is no evil, but that it is actually a good.”\n\n“I do not ask that much, but I am eager to hear it. Even if you fail to achieve what you wish, you will still establish that death is no evil. But I shall not interrupt you at all; I would rather hear an uninterrupted discourse.”\n\n“What if I ask you something?\n\nSECTION 17\n“Will you not answer?”\n\n“It would be arrogant not to, but unless something makes it necessary, I would rather you did not ask.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 9\n\n“I shall oblige you and explain what you wish as well as I can. Yet I shall not speak like the Pythian Apollo, as though my words were certain and unalterable, but as one small human being among many, following probabilities by conjecture. I have no means of going beyond what seems likely to be true. Let those proclaim certainties who say that certainty can be grasped and profess themselves wise.”\n\n“Speak as you think best; we are ready to listen.”\n\nSECTION 18\n“First, then, we must consider what death itself is, though it seems so familiar a thing. Some think death is the soul’s departure from the body; others believe no departure occurs, but that soul and body perish together, and the soul is extinguished in the body. Among those who think the soul departs, some hold that it is dispersed at once, some that it endures a long time, others that it lasts forever. Again, there is great disagreement about what the soul itself is, where it is, and where it comes from. To some the heart itself seems to be the soul: hence Latin uses words derived from ‘heart’ for people who are senseless, deranged, or of one mind; hence too the wise Nasica, twice consul, was called Corculum, ‘Little Heart,’ and we have the line, ‘A man of outstanding heart and wisdom, shrewd Sextus Aelius.’ Empedocles thinks the soul is the blood that bathes the heart. Others have thought that a certain part of the brain holds sovereignty over the soul. Others accept neither the heart itself nor a particular part of the brain as the soul,\n\nSECTION 19\n“but have said that the soul has its seat and dwelling in the heart, or else in the brain. Others identify the soul with breath, as our own people generally do. The language shows it: we speak of drawing one’s last breath and breathing it out, of spirited people and well-disposed souls, and of acting according to one’s soul’s desire; the very word for soul is derived from the word for breath. To Zeno the Stoic, the soul seems to be fire.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 10\n\n“Those views I have mentioned—the heart, the brain, breath, fire—are widely held; the rest belong mostly to individual thinkers. For example, some early philosophers long ago, and more recently Aristoxenus, a musician as well as a philosopher, held the soul to be a kind of tension in the body itself, like what is called ἁρμονία, harmony, in singing and on stringed instruments. Thus, from the nature and configuration of the whole body, various movements are aroused, like sounds in music.\n\nSECTION 20\n“He did not stray from his own profession; yet what he said was something whose nature Plato had discussed and explained long before. Xenocrates denied that the soul had any shape or, so to speak, body; he said it was a number, whose power in nature was supreme, as Pythagoras had already held. His teacher Plato devised a threefold soul: he placed its ruling part, reason, in the head as in a citadel, and made two parts subject to it, anger and desire, assigning them separate places—anger in the chest and desire below the diaphragm.\n\nSECTION 21\n“Dicaearchus, however, in the three books in which he presents a conversation held at Corinth among learned men, gives many speakers a voice in the first book. In the other two he introduces a certain Pherecrates, an old man from Phthia whom he says was descended from Deucalion, arguing that there is no soul at all: the whole word is meaningless, and living things are pointlessly called creatures with souls. Neither human nor beast contains a soul or breath of life; all the power by which we act or perceive is spread evenly through every living body and cannot be separated from the body, since it has no existence of its own. There is nothing but a single, uncompounded body, formed so as to live and feel through the blending of its natural constituents.\n\nSECTION 22\n“Aristotle, far surpassing everyone—I always except Plato—in both genius and diligence, after embracing the four familiar kinds of first elements from which everything arises, believes there is a certain fifth substance from which the mind is made. For he thinks that thinking, foreseeing, learning, teaching, discovering something, remembering so many [other] things, loving, hating, desiring, fearing, feeling anguish or joy—these and similar activities cannot reside in any of those four kinds. He introduces a fifth kind, which has no name, and gives the soul itself a new name, ἐνδελέχεια, ‘continuous activity,’ as though it were a kind of uninterrupted and everlasting motion.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 11\n\n“Unless something happens to have escaped me, these are broadly the views about the soul. Let us leave aside Democritus, a great man, certainly, but one who makes the soul out of smooth, round particles meeting by some chance collision. For his school has nothing that a swarm of atoms cannot produce.\n\nSECTION 23\n“Which of these views is true, some god may know; which is most like the truth is a great question. Would we rather decide between these views, then, or return to our subject?”\n\n“I should like both, if possible, but it is difficult to combine them. So if we can be freed from the fear of death without discussing these questions, let us do that. But if freedom from that fear is impossible without settling this question about souls, let us deal with this now, if you agree, and the other matter another time.”\n\n“I think the course I understand you to prefer is the more convenient. For reason will establish that, whichever of the views I have set out is true, death is either no evil or is, rather, a good.\n\nSECTION 24\n“For if the soul is heart, blood, or brain, then certainly, being body, it will perish with the rest of the body. If it is breath, it will perhaps disperse; if fire, it will be extinguished; if Aristoxenus’s harmony, it will be dissolved. What need I say of Dicaearchus, who says there is no soul at all? On all these views, nothing after death can concern anyone, for sensation is lost along with life, and nothing can make any difference, one way or the other, to someone without sensation. The views of the remaining thinkers offer the hope, if that happens to please you, that souls, once they have left their bodies, can reach heaven as their own home.”\n\n“It certainly pleases me. First I should like it to be so; and then, even if it is not, I should still like to be persuaded that it is.”\n\n“Then what need have you of our efforts? Can we surpass Plato in eloquence? Read his book on the soul attentively: there will be nothing further to desire.”\n\n“By Hercules, I have, and more than once. But somehow, while I read, I agree; when I put the book down and begin to think to myself about the immortality of souls, all that assent slips away.”\n\n“Well?\n\nSECTION 25\n“Do you grant that souls either remain after death or perish in death itself?”\n\n“I do.”\n\n“What if they remain?”\n\n“I grant that they are happy.”\n\n“And if they perish?”\n\n“They are not miserable, since they do not even exist. You forced that concession from me a little while ago.”\n\n“How, then, or why, do you say death seems an evil to you? It will either make us happy, if our souls remain, or leave us without misery, if we lose sensation.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 12\n\nSECTION 26\n“Then explain, if it is no trouble, first, if you can, that souls remain after death; then, if you cannot establish that—for it is difficult—you will show that death is free of every evil. For my fear is that this very thing is an evil: I do not mean being without sensation, but having to lose it.”\n\n“For the view you wish established, we can certainly draw on the finest authorities, something that both should and usually does carry the greatest weight in any question. First comes the whole of antiquity, which perhaps saw the truth more clearly the nearer it stood to our beginning and divine descent.\n\n“And so one conviction was rooted in those ancient people whom Ennius calls the men of old: that sensation survives death, and that on leaving life a human being is not so destroyed as to perish utterly.\n\nSECTION 27\n“This can be understood from many things, but especially from pontifical law and the rites of burial. Men endowed with the greatest gifts would neither have observed these with such care nor have made their violation subject to such inexpiable religious penalties, unless the conviction had been fixed in their minds that death is not a destruction which removes and obliterates everything, but a kind of migration and change of life. In distinguished men and women this would ordinarily lead to heaven; in others, life was kept on earth, yet still endured.\n\nSECTION 28\n“From this comes our people’s belief that ‘Romulus lives out his days in heaven with the gods,’ as Ennius said, accepting the tradition. From this too comes the belief among the Greeks, spreading from them to us and as far as the Ocean, that Hercules is so mighty and so readily present a god. Hence comes Liber, born of Semele, and, with equal renown in tradition, the brothers born of Tyndareus, who are said not only to have helped the Roman people to victory in battle, but also to have announced it. And what of Ino, the daughter of Cadmus? Called Leucothea by the Greeks, is she not regarded by our people as Matuta? In short, without pursuing more examples, is not almost the whole of heaven filled with the human race?”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 13\n\nSECTION 29\n“If I were to search into ancient things and try to unearth from them what the writers of Greece have handed down, those very gods regarded as belonging to the highest rank would be found to have gone from here among us into heaven. Ask whose tombs are pointed out in Greece; remember, since you have been initiated, what is taught in the mysteries. Only then will you understand how widely this extends. But those early people, who had not yet learned the natural philosophy that <human beings> began to study many years later, were persuaded only of what they had come to know at nature’s prompting. They did not grasp the reasons and causes of things. They were often moved by certain visions, chiefly at night, so that those who had departed this life seemed to them to be living.\n\nSECTION 30\n“Now the strongest reason offered for believing that gods exist seems to be that no nation is so savage, no person anywhere so brutal, that the idea of gods has not imbued the mind. Many hold wrong beliefs about the gods—that is the usual result of corrupt custom—but everyone believes that a divine power and nature exist. Nor is this brought about by people conferring or meeting together; the belief has not been established by institutions or laws. In every matter, the agreement of all nations must be considered a law of nature. In the same way, who does not mourn the death of his loved ones primarily because he thinks them deprived of life’s blessings? Remove that belief and you will remove mourning. No one mourns for his own loss: people may feel pain and anguish, but that sorrowful lamentation and grieving weeping arise because we think the person we loved has been deprived of life’s blessings and is aware of it. We feel these things with nature as our guide, without any reasoning or teaching.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 14\n\nSECTION 31\n“The strongest evidence that nature herself silently judges souls immortal is that everyone is concerned, and profoundly concerned, about what will happen after death. ‘He plants trees to benefit another generation,’ as <Statius> says in The Young Companions. What can he have in view except that later generations too concern him? So a diligent farmer will plant trees whose fruit he himself will never see; shall a great man not plant laws, institutions, a commonwealth? What do the begetting of children, the perpetuation of a name, the adoption of sons, the care taken over wills, the very memorials and inscriptions on tombs signify, except that our thoughts reach into the future too?\n\n“What?\n\nSECTION 32\n“Do you doubt that we ought to take our model of nature from each nature at its best? What better nature is there in humankind than that of those who believe they were born to help, protect, and preserve humanity? Hercules went to the gods: he would never have gone had he not made that road for himself while living among men. But those stories are ancient now, consecrated by the reverence of all:”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 15\n\n“What do we think the many great men killed for our commonwealth had in mind? That their names should end at the same boundary as their lives? No one would ever offer himself to death for his country without a great hope of immortality.\n\nSECTION 33\n“Themistocles could have lived at leisure; so could Epaminondas; so, not to seek examples both ancient and foreign, could I. But somehow there is rooted in our minds a kind of foreknowledge of the ages to come, and it is in the greatest geniuses and loftiest souls that this is strongest and most clearly seen. Take it away, and who would be so mad as to live continually among labors and dangers?\n\nSECTION 34\n“I am speaking of leading citizens. But what of poets? Do they not wish to be famous after death? Why else these lines?\n\n“‘Look, citizens, upon the image of old Ennius:  \n“‘Here is the man who sang your fathers’ greatest deeds.’\n\n“He demands the reward of glory from those whose fathers he had covered with glory. And again:\n\n“‘Let no one with tears […]’\n\n“Why? ‘I fly alive upon the lips of men.’\n\n“But why speak of poets? Craftsmen wish to be famous after death. Why else did Phidias include a likeness of himself on Minerva’s shield, when he was not allowed to inscribe his <name>? And do not our philosophers put their names even on the very books they write about despising glory?\n\nSECTION 35\n“But if universal agreement is nature’s voice, and everyone everywhere agrees that there is something which concerns those who have left this life, we too must hold the same belief. And if we think that those whose souls excel in genius or virtue perceive nature’s power most clearly, because their nature is best, then, since the best people do most to serve posterity, it is likely that there is something of which they will be aware after death.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 16\n\nSECTION 36\n“But just as nature leads us to believe that gods exist, while reason teaches us what they are like, so the agreement of all nations leads us to believe that souls endure; where they dwell and what they are like must be learned by reason. Ignorance of this fashioned the underworld and those terrors you seemed, not without cause, to despise. Since bodies fell to earth and were covered with soil, humus—hence the Latin humari, ‘to be buried’—people thought that the rest of the dead person’s life was spent beneath the earth. Great errors followed this belief, and poets increased them.\n\nSECTION 37\n“A crowded theater audience, including women and children, is stirred when it hears such lofty verse:\n\n“‘I am here: from Acheron I have come, with difficulty, by a deep and rugged road,  \n“‘Through caverns built of rough, overhanging rocks,  \n“‘Enormous, where the underworld’s dense darkness stands congealed.’\n\n“So powerful was the error—though I think it has now been dispelled—that, although people knew bodies had been burned, they still imagined things taking place in the underworld that could neither occur nor be conceived without bodies. They could not grasp in their minds souls living by themselves; they looked for some shape and figure. Hence the whole of Homer’s ‘Visit to the Dead’; hence the ‘divinations through the dead’ that my friend Appius used to perform; hence the lake of Avernus in our neighborhood,\n\n“‘From which souls are summoned, covered in dim shadow, images  \n“‘Of the dead, from Acheron’s deep mouth, with salt blood.’\n\n“Yet they want these images to speak, which is impossible without a tongue, a palate, or the strength and structure of throat, chest, and lungs. They could see nothing with the mind: they referred everything to the eyes.\n\nSECTION 38\n“But it takes great genius to call the mind away from the senses and draw thought out of its accustomed paths. I certainly believe there were others in all those centuries, but, so far as written records show, Pherecydes of Syros was the first to say that human souls are everlasting. He was ancient indeed: he lived in the reign of the king who shared my family name. His pupil Pythagoras did most to establish this belief. Coming to Italy during the reign of Tarquin the Proud, he held sway over Magna Graecia, both through [his prestige and] his teaching and also through his authority. For many centuries afterward the name of the Pythagoreans remained so powerful that no one else was thought learned.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 17\n\n“But I return to the early thinkers. They did not generally give a rational account of their view, except where something could be explained through numbers or diagrams.\n\nSECTION 39\n“Plato is said to have come to Italy to acquaint himself with the Pythagoreans, to have learned all their doctrines, and to have been the first not only to share Pythagoras’s view of the eternity of souls but also to offer a reason for it. Unless you have something to say, let us pass over that reason and abandon this whole hope of immortality.”\n\n“After bringing me to the height of expectation, do you desert me? By Hercules, I would rather be wrong with Plato, whose worth in your eyes I know, and whom I admire on your testimony, than hold the truth with those other thinkers.”\n\nSECTION 40\n“Bravo for your courage! I myself would not be unwilling to be wrong with that very man. Do we doubt, then—? Or is this like most questions? Though certainly not in this case. For mathematicians convince us that the earth, set in the middle of the universe, occupies, in relation to the whole circuit of heaven, something like a point, which they call κέντρον, the center. Further, the four bodies that give birth to everything have this nature: as though they had divided their directions of movement among themselves, earthy and watery things are carried by their own tendency and weight at right angles toward land and sea. The remaining two elements, one fiery and the other airy, in contrast to those first two which are borne by gravity and weight toward the center of the universe, fly upward in straight lines into the heavens, either because their own nature seeks the heights or because lighter things are naturally driven back by heavier ones. These things being established, it should be clear that souls, when they leave the body, are carried aloft, whether they are made of air—that is, of breath—or of fire.\n\nSECTION 41\n“But if the soul is either some kind of number, a statement more subtle than clear, or that fifth substance, which lacks a name rather than an intelligible nature, these are still more unadulterated and pure, so that they rise farthest from the earth. The soul, then, is something of this kind […] so that a mind of such vigor should not lie submerged in the heart or brain, or in Empedocles’s blood.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 18\n\n“But let us leave aside Dicaearchus and his contemporary and fellow student Aristoxenus, learned men, certainly. One seems never even to have felt pain, since he is unaware that he has a soul; the other delights so much in his music that he tries to transfer it to these questions too. We can recognize harmony from the intervals between sounds, whose varied arrangement produces many harmonies as well; but I do not see what harmony the arrangement of limbs and shape of a body can produce when it is without a soul. Learned as he is—and he is learned—let him yield these matters to his teacher Aristotle, and himself teach music. That Greek proverb gives good advice: ‘Let each practice the art he knows.’\n\nSECTION 42\n“And let us utterly reject that chance collision of smooth, round, indivisible particles, which Democritus nevertheless wants to be warmed and breathable—that is, made of breath. But the soul, if it belongs to the four kinds of which all things are said to consist, is made of fiery breath, as I see Panaetius especially favors believing, and must necessarily seek the heights. Neither of these two elements has any downward tendency; both always seek the regions above. So if souls disperse, that happens far from earth; if they endure and preserve their form, it is all the more necessary that they be carried toward heaven and burst through and divide this thick, condensed air nearest the earth. For the soul is warmer, or rather more fiery, than the air I have just called thick and condensed. This can be known from the fact that our bodies, though made of the earthy kind of element, are warmed by the soul’s heat.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 19\n\nSECTION 43\n“Moreover, the soul escapes from this air I have so often mentioned and breaks through it all the more easily because nothing is swifter than the soul; no speed can compete with its speed. If it remains uncorrupted and unchanged, it must be carried along so as to penetrate and divide this whole region of the sky where clouds, rains, and winds gather, a region damp and dark because of the earth’s exhalations.\n\n“Once the soul has passed beyond that region and touched and recognized a nature like its own, it comes to rest among fires formed from the union of rarefied air and the sun’s tempered heat, and ceases to rise higher. For when it <has> attained a lightness and warmth like its own, it is, as it were, balanced between equal weights, and moves in no direction. Only then has it reached its natural dwelling, when it has penetrated to what is like itself. There, lacking nothing, it will be nourished and sustained by the same things that sustain and nourish the stars.\n\n“And since the body’s torches habitually kindle us to almost every desire, and we burn all the more because we envy those who possess what we wish to possess, we shall certainly be happy when, leaving our bodies behind, we are free of both desire and rivalry.\n\nSECTION 44\n“What we do now, when released from cares—the wish to look at something and explore it—we shall do then with far greater freedom, devoting ourselves wholly to contemplating things and understanding them. For our minds have by nature an insatiable desire to see the truth; and the very regions we shall have reached, by making knowledge of heavenly things easier, will give us a greater desire to know them.\n\nSECTION 45\n“Even on earth this beauty stirred that ‘ancestral’ and ‘inherited’ philosophy, as Theophrastus calls it, kindling it with the desire for knowledge. But those will enjoy it most who, even when living on this earth surrounded by darkness, still longed to see clearly with the mind’s keen sight.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 20\n\n“For if people now think they have achieved something by seeing the entrance to the Black Sea and those narrows through which passed the ship named\n\n“‘Argo, because chosen men of Argos  \n“‘Sailed in her in quest of the ram’s gilded fleece,’\n\n“or by seeing those straits of Ocean ‘where the rushing wave divides Europe and Libya,’ what a spectacle do we think there will be when we may look upon the whole earth—its position, shape, and outline, its habitable regions, and, in contrast, those empty of all cultivation because of the force of cold or heat?\n\nSECTION 46\n“For even now it is not with our eyes that we discern what we see. There is no sensation in the body: rather, as not only natural philosophers teach but also physicians, who have seen these parts laid open and exposed, there are something like channels running from the soul’s seat to the eyes, ears, and nostrils. Thus, when absorbed in thought or hindered by some force of illness, we often neither see nor hear, though our eyes and ears are open and sound. It is easy to understand from this that the soul sees and hears, not those parts which are, as it were, its windows—windows through which the mind can nevertheless perceive nothing unless it is present and attentive. And what of our grasping such different things with the same mind: color, taste, heat, smell, sound? The soul could never know these through five messengers unless everything were brought to it and it alone were judge of them all. Certainly these things will be discerned far more purely and clearly when the soul, free, has reached the place to which nature bears it.\n\nSECTION 47\n“For now, although nature has fashioned with consummate skill those openings which lead from the body to the soul, they are still in some way obstructed by bodies of dense, earthly matter. But when there is nothing except the soul, no barrier will prevent it from perceiving what each thing is like.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 21\n\n“If the subject required it, we could speak at any length about the many, varied, and magnificent sights the soul will have in the heavenly regions.\n\nSECTION 48\n“When I think of these, I often marvel at the arrogance of certain philosophers. They admire their knowledge of nature, give exultant thanks to its discoverer and founder, and revere him as a god. Through him, they say, they have been freed from the harshest of masters: everlasting terror and fear by day and night. What terror? What fear? What old woman is so deranged as to fear those things which you, apparently, would fear if you had not learned natural philosophy—‘Acheron’s deep precincts of Orcus, death’s pale regions clouded in darkness’? Is a philosopher not ashamed to boast that he does not fear these things and has learned they are false? From that we can understand how naturally acute such people are, since without instruction they would have believed them.\n\nSECTION 49\n“And what a splendid acquisition they have made in learning that, when their hour of death comes, they will perish altogether! Grant that it is so—for I offer no resistance—what is there in that to rejoice in or boast about? Yet certainly nothing occurs to me to show why the view of Pythagoras and Plato should not be true. Even if Plato offered no reasoning—see how much I grant the man—his authority alone would overcome me. But he has offered so many reasons that he seems to have wished to persuade others and certainly to have persuaded himself.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 22\n\nSECTION 50\n“But most people struggle against this and punish souls with death as though they had condemned them on a capital charge. There is no other reason why the eternity of souls seems incredible to them except that they cannot understand or grasp in thought what a soul without a body is like. As though they understood what it is like within the body itself—its shape, size, or location! If all the parts now hidden in a living person could be seen, would the soul come into view, or is its substance so fine that it eludes the gaze?\n\nSECTION 51\n“Let those who say they cannot understand the soul without a body consider these things: they will see what sort of soul they understand within the body itself. To me, as I examine the soul’s nature, the thought of what it is like within the body, as though in someone else’s house, seems far more difficult and obscure than the thought of what it is like when it has left and come into the open heavens, as though to its own home. Even if we cannot understand the nature of something we have never seen, we can certainly embrace in thought both god himself and the divine soul freed from the body. Dicaearchus and Aristoxenus, indeed, because understanding what the soul was or what it was like proved difficult, said there was no soul at all.\n\nSECTION 52\n“Yet to see the soul by means of the soul itself is perhaps the greatest achievement of all. This is surely the force of Apollo’s command that everyone should know himself. For I do not believe he commands us to know our limbs, our height, or our shape. We are not bodies; nor am I, in saying these things to you, speaking to your body. When he says ‘Know yourself,’ then, he means ‘Know your soul.’ The body is, as it were, a vessel or a receptacle for the soul; whatever is done by your soul is done by you. Unless knowing the soul were divine, this command, belonging to a mind of exceptional insight, would not have been attributed to a god [namely, this ability to know oneself].\n\nSECTION 53\n“But if the soul itself does not know what it is like, tell me, please: will it not even know that it exists, or that it moves? From this arose Plato’s argument, which Socrates explains in the Phaedrus, and which I set out in the sixth book of On the Republic:”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 23\n\n“‘What is always in motion is eternal. But that which imparts motion to something else, and is itself moved by something external, must come to the end of life when its motion ends. Only what moves itself, therefore, since it never abandons itself, never ceases even to move. Indeed, for all other things that move, this is the source, this the first principle of motion.\n\nSECTION 54\n“‘But a first principle has no origin. Everything arises from a first principle, but that principle itself cannot be born from anything else; for it would not be a first principle if it were generated from elsewhere. And if it never arises, it never perishes either. For once a first principle was extinguished, it would neither be reborn itself from another source nor create anything else from itself, since everything must arise from a first principle. It follows that the first principle of motion lies in what moves of itself. This can neither be born nor die; otherwise the whole heavens and all nature must collapse <and> come to a standstill, and find no force to set them moving by an initial impulse. Since, then, it is plain that what moves itself is eternal, who can deny that this nature has been bestowed on souls? Everything moved by an external impulse is without soul; what is alive is stirred by an inner motion of its own, for this is the soul’s distinctive nature and power. If, of all things, this alone [always]\n\nSECTION 55\n“‘moves itself, then certainly it was not born and is eternal.’ Let all the common herd of philosophers band together—for that seems the proper name for those who differ from Plato and Socrates and their school—not only will they never explain anything so elegantly, they will not even understand how subtly this very argument has been brought to its conclusion. The soul, then, is aware of its own movement; and in being aware of that, it is also aware that it moves by its own power, not another’s, and that it can never abandon itself. From this its eternity follows—unless you have something to say against it.”\n\n“I would readily agree not even to let any objection enter my mind: so strongly do I favor that view.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 24\n\n“Well?\n\nSECTION 56\n“Do you think those arguments any less weighty which show that human souls possess certain divine qualities? If I could see how these could come into being, I could also see how they might perish. For I seem able to say from what blood, bile, phlegm, bones, sinews, veins—in short, the whole structure of the limbs and the entire body—have been compounded, and how they were made. As for the soul itself, if it contained nothing except what enables us to live, I should think human life sustained by nature just as the life of a vine or tree is; for we say that these too are alive. Likewise, if the human soul had nothing beyond the impulse to seek or avoid, it would share that too with beasts.\n\nSECTION 57\n“But first it has memory, an unbounded memory of countless things. Plato holds that this is recollection of an earlier life. In the book entitled Meno, Socrates asks a young boy some questions in geometry about the measurement of a square. The boy answers as a boy would; yet the questions are so easy that, answering step by step, he reaches the same point he would have reached had he studied geometry. From this Socrates wants to establish that learning is nothing other than recollecting. He explains this point far more carefully in the conversation he held on the very day he departed this life. He shows that anyone who seems wholly untrained in every subject, by answering a skillful questioner, reveals that he is not learning those things for the first time, but recognizing them through recollection. It could not possibly be that from childhood we had notions of so many great things implanted and, as it were, stamped upon our souls—what the Greeks call ἔννοιαι, ‘conceptions’—unless the soul had been active in acquiring knowledge before it entered the body.\n\nSECTION 58\n“And since nothing existed […] as Plato argues throughout his works—for he thinks nothing that arises and perishes truly exists, and that only what always remains as it is exists, which he calls ἰδέα, an ‘idea,’ and we a ‘form’—the soul could not have come to know these things while confined in the body: it brought them already known. This removes the wonder of its knowledge of so many things. The soul does not see them clearly when it has suddenly moved into so unfamiliar and troubled a dwelling; but once it has collected and refreshed itself, it recognizes them through recollection.\n\nSECTION 59\n“Thus learning is nothing other than recollecting. But I marvel at memory in a still greater way. What is this faculty by which we remember? What power does it have, and from what source was that power born? I am not asking how great a memory Simonides is said to have had, or Theodectes, or Cineas, sent by Pyrrhus as his envoy to the Senate, or, in recent times, Charmadas, or Metrodorus of Scepsis, who lived just lately, or our own Hortensius. I am speaking of ordinary human memory, especially that of people engaged in some more demanding study or art. It is difficult to judge how great their minds are: so much do they remember.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 25\n\nSECTION 60\n“Where, then, does this discussion lead? I think we must understand what that power is and where it comes from. Certainly it does not belong to the heart, the blood, the brain, or atoms. Whether it belongs to breath or fire I do not know; unlike those thinkers, I am not ashamed to admit that I do not know what I do not know. But if I could affirm anything about any obscure subject, I would swear to this: whether the soul is breath or fire, it is divine. Tell me, I beg you: does so great a power of memory seem to you to have been sown in the earth or compounded from it beneath this cloudy, darkened sky? If you do not see what it is, at least you see what it is like; if not even that, you certainly see how great it is.\n\nSECTION 61\n“Well then? Do we think there is some capacity in the soul into which, as into a vessel, the things we remember are poured? That is absurd. What bottom, what such shape can the soul be conceived to have, or what capacity so vast? Or do we think the soul receives impressions like wax, and that memory consists of traces of things stamped upon the mind? What traces can there be of words, or of the things themselves? And what immense expanse could there be to reproduce so many things?\n\n“What?\n\nSECTION 62\n“What, after all, is that power which searches out hidden things, which is called invention and discovery? Does it seem to you to have been compounded from this earthly, mortal, perishable nature? Or what of the man who first gave names to everything, an act Pythagoras considered supremely wise? Or the man who brought scattered people together and called them into a shared life; or the man who confined the seemingly infinite sounds of the voice within a few letter signs; or the man who noted the courses, forward movements, and stops of the wandering stars? All were great; greater still were those who discovered crops, clothing, shelter, the refinements of life, and defenses against wild beasts. Tamed and cultivated by them, we passed from the arts of necessity to the more graceful arts. For great delight was won for the ears when the variety and nature of sounds were discovered and harmonized; and we looked up at the stars, both those fixed in particular places and those that wander in name, though not in fact. Whoever saw in his mind their revolutions and all their motions showed that his own soul resembled the soul of the one who had fashioned them in heaven.\n\nSECTION 63\n“For when Archimedes enclosed in a sphere the movements of the moon, the sun, and the five wandering stars, he achieved the same thing as the god of Plato who built the universe in the Timaeus: a single revolution governed movements utterly different in slowness and speed. If this cannot happen in the universe without a god, neither could Archimedes have imitated those same motions in a sphere without divine genius.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 26\n\nSECTION 64\n“Even these more familiar and conspicuous powers seem to me to possess something divine. I cannot believe that a poet pours out a weighty, full-voiced poem without some heavenly inspiration of the mind, or that eloquence flows richly, with resonant words and abundant thoughts, without some greater power. And philosophy, the mother of all arts—what is it but, in Plato’s words, a gift of the gods, or in mine, their invention? It first taught us to worship them, then to respect the rights of human beings, founded on the fellowship of the human race, and then to practice restraint and greatness of soul. It also scattered the darkness from our minds as though from our eyes, so that we could see everything above and below, first, last, and between.\n\nSECTION 65\n“To me this power, which achieves so many things of such importance, seems altogether divine. What, after all, is memory for things and words? What, again, is invention? Surely it is something greater than which nothing can be conceived even in a god. I do not suppose that the gods delight in ambrosia or nectar, or in Youth serving their cups. Nor do I listen to Homer when he says that the gods carried Ganymede away for his beauty, to serve Jupiter his drink: no just reason for doing Laomedon so great a wrong. Homer invented these stories, transferring human qualities to the gods; I would rather he had transferred divine qualities to us. And what qualities are divine? Vitality, wisdom, invention, memory. The soul, then, which … is divine, as I say, or, as Euripides ventures to say, a god. Indeed, if a god is breath or fire, the human soul is the same. Just as that heavenly nature contains neither earth nor moisture, the human soul is free of both. But if there is a fifth kind of substance, first proposed by Aristotle, that is the substance both of gods and of souls. Following this view, I expressed it in these very words in my Consolation:”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 27\n\nSECTION 66\n“‘No origin for souls can be found on earth. In souls there is nothing mixed or compounded, nothing that seems born or fashioned out of earth, nothing even moist, airy, or fiery. For none of these substances contains the power of memory, understanding, or thought, capable of retaining the past, foreseeing the future, and embracing the present. These powers alone are divine; nor will any source ever be found from which they could come to human beings except a god. The soul, then, has a distinctive nature and power, separate from these familiar, recognized substances. Thus whatever it is that feels, understands, lives, and flourishes must be heavenly and divine, and for that reason eternal. Indeed, the very god whom we conceive cannot be conceived except as a mind, unbound and free, removed from every mortal compound, perceiving and moving all things and itself endowed with everlasting motion. The human mind belongs to this same kind and nature.’”\n\n“Where, then, is that mind, and what is it like?”\n\nSECTION 67\n“Where is yours, and what is it like? Can you tell me? If I lack everything I should like to have for understanding it, will you deny me the use even of what I have? The soul has not the power to see itself; but, like the eye, it sees other things without seeing itself. What it does not see is its own shape, which matters least—though perhaps it sees that too, but let us leave that aside. Certainly it sees its power, insight, memory, motion, and speed. These are great, divine, everlasting things. What its features are, or where it lives, is not even a question we need to ask.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 28\n\nSECTION 68\n“Consider how we first see the beauty and brightness of the heavens, then the speed of their revolution, so great that we cannot conceive it; then the alternation of days and nights and the fourfold change of seasons, suited to ripening crops and tempering our bodies; and the sun, ruler and guide of them all. We see the moon marking and announcing the days, as if in a calendar, by the waxing and waning of its light; then five stars traveling in the same belt divided into twelve parts, most faithfully maintaining their courses, though their motions differ from one another; and the face of the night sky adorned with stars on every side. Then we see the globe of the earth rising from the sea, fixed in the center of the whole universe, inhabited and cultivated in two widely separated regions. One, where we live, lies\n\n“‘Under the pole, toward the seven stars, from where the shuddering  \n“‘North wind’s shriek drives freezing snow;’\n\n“the other, in the south, is unknown to us: the Greeks call it the ‘opposite earth.’ The remaining regions are uninhabited,\n\nSECTION 69\n“because they are either rigid with cold or scorched by heat. But here where we live, each in its season, there is no failure of\n\n“‘The sky to shine, the trees to break in leaf,  \n“‘The gladdening vines to clothe themselves in shoots,  \n“‘The branches to bend down with wealth of berries,  \n“‘The fields to yield their crops, all things to flower,  \n“‘The springs to bubble, meadows to be robed in grass.’\n\n“Then we see the multitude of animals, some for food, some for cultivating the fields, some for transport, some to clothe our bodies; and humanity itself, as it were the observer of heaven and worshiper of the gods, with every land and sea obedient to human needs—\n\nSECTION 70\n“When we see these things and countless others, can we doubt that some being presides over them, either their maker, if they had a beginning, as Plato believes, or, if they have always existed, as Aristotle holds, the governor of so vast a structure and service? In the same way, although you cannot see the human mind, just as you cannot see a god, nevertheless, as you recognize a god by his works, recognize the mind’s divine power by its memory, invention, swiftness of movement, and all the beauty of virtue.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 29\n\n“Where, then, is it located? In the head, I believe, and I can give reasons for my belief. But where the soul is may wait for another time: certainly it is in you. What is its nature? One peculiar to itself, I think. But suppose it is fiery, suppose it is airy: that has no bearing on our present question. Only bear this in mind: just as you recognize a god although you do not know his location or appearance, so you ought to recognize your own soul, even though you do not know its location or shape.\n\nSECTION 71\n“In our understanding of the soul, unless we are utterly leaden in natural philosophy, we cannot doubt that souls contain nothing mixed, compounded, joined, cemented, or twofold. Since that is so, the soul certainly cannot be separated, divided, torn apart, or wrenched apart, and therefore cannot <even> perish. For perishing is, as it were, the departure, separation, and sundering of parts which before death were held together by some bond.\n\n“Led by these and similar arguments, Socrates neither sought an advocate at his trial for his life nor pleaded with his judges. He displayed a free defiance born of greatness of soul, not pride. On the last day of his life he spoke at length on this very subject; a few days earlier he had refused to be led out of prison, though it could easily have been done. And then, with that fatal cup all but in his hand, he spoke as though he were not being driven to death but ascending to heaven.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 30\n\nSECTION 72\n“For this was his belief and his argument: souls departing from the body have two paths, two different courses. Those who had defiled themselves with human vices and surrendered wholly to their desires, blinded by which they had either polluted themselves with private vices and shameful acts, or incurred inexpiable guilt by doing violence to their country, take a remote path, shut off from the company of the gods. But those who had kept themselves pure and undefiled, who had had as little contact as possible with their bodies, had always withdrawn from them, and had imitated the life of the gods while living in human bodies, find an easy road home to those from whom they came.\n\nSECTION 73\n“And so he recalls the swans, sacred to Apollo not without reason, but because they seem to have received from him the gift of prophecy. Foreseeing through it the good that lies in death, they die with song and pleasure; and all good and learned people should do likewise. (Nor could anyone doubt this, were it not that when we think intently about the soul, we meet the same fate as people who, gazing hard at the failing sun, often lose their sight altogether. So the mind’s vision, turned upon itself, sometimes grows dim; and for that reason we lose our power of attentive contemplation. Thus, doubting, looking about, hesitating, fearing many dangers, as though on a raft on a boundless sea,\n\nSECTION 74\n“our argument is carried along.) But these are old stories, and Greek ones. Cato, by contrast, departed from life rejoicing that he had found a reason to die. For the god who rules within us forbids us to leave this place without his command. But when the god himself has given a just reason, as he did then to Socrates and recently to Cato, and often to many others, then indeed, by heaven, the wise man will gladly pass from this darkness into that light. Yet he will not have broken his prison’s chains—the laws forbid that—but will have gone out summoned and released by a god, as by a magistrate or some lawful authority. For the whole life of philosophers, as Socrates also says, is a preparation for death.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 31\n\nSECTION 75\n“What else are we doing when we draw the soul away from pleasure—that is, from the body—from property, the body’s servant and attendant, from public affairs and every occupation? What, I ask, are we doing then but calling the soul back to itself, compelling it to keep its own company, and drawing it as far as possible from the body? And to separate the soul from the body is nothing else but learning to die. So let us practice this, believe me, and part ourselves from our bodies: that is, let us grow accustomed to dying. While we are on earth this will resemble that heavenly life, and when we are freed from these chains and borne there, our souls’ journey will be less impeded. For those who have always been fettered to the body move more slowly even when released, like people who have been bound in iron for many years. Only when we have reached that place shall we truly live. For this present life is death—a theme I could lament, if I chose.”\n\n“You lamented it quite enough in your Consolation;\n\nSECTION 76\n“when I read it, there is nothing I desire more than to leave these things behind, and much more so after what I have just heard.”\n\n“The time will come, and quickly too, whether you hold back or hurry: life flies. Death is so far from being an evil, as you thought a little while ago, that I fear there may be nothing else more certainly free of evil for a human being, nothing else more truly good—if indeed we are to become either gods ourselves or companions of the gods […]”\n\n“What difference does that make?”\n\n“There are people who do not accept these views. But I shall never let you leave this conversation with any possible reason for thinking death an evil.”\n\n“How could I, once I have learned these things?”\n\n“You ask how you could?\n\nSECTION 77\n“Whole battalions of opponents are coming—not only Epicureans, whom I for my part do not despise, though somehow all the most learned men [despise them]. My own favorite, Dicaearchus, argued most vigorously against this immortality. He wrote three books called the Lesbian Dialogues, because the conversation takes place at Mytilene, in which he seeks to establish that souls are mortal. The Stoics, on the other hand, grant us a lease of life, as they do to crows: they say that souls will last a long time, but deny that they last forever.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 32\n\n“Would you not like to hear, then, why death is nevertheless no evil, even if that is so?”\n\n“As you please. But no one will dislodge my belief in immortality.”\n\n“I commend that, though we should never be too confident;\n\nSECTION 78\n“we are often swayed by some neatly framed argument, and waver and change our minds even on clearer matters; in these there is some obscurity. So, should that happen, let us be armed.”\n\n“Certainly; but I shall see that it does not happen.”\n\n“Is there any reason, then, not to dismiss our friends the Stoics? I mean those who say that souls remain after leaving the body, but not forever.”\n\n“Dismiss them indeed! They accept what is hardest of all in this question—that the soul can survive without a body—but refuse to grant what is not merely easy to believe but follows from their own concession: that, once it has endured for a long time, it should not perish.”\n\nSECTION 79\n“Your criticism is sound: that is how the matter stands. Are we, then, to believe Panaetius when he disagrees with his beloved Plato? The man he everywhere calls divine, supremely wise, supremely holy, the Homer of philosophers—on this one opinion, the immortality of souls, he rejects his authority. He maintains that whatever is born perishes, which no one denies; and that souls are born, as is shown by the resemblance of offspring to their parents, apparent in their dispositions as well as their bodies. He also adduces another argument: nothing can feel pain without also being capable of illness; whatever can fall ill will also perish; but souls feel pain, and therefore also perish.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 33\n\nSECTION 80\n“These arguments can be refuted. They reveal a failure to understand that, when we speak of the eternity of souls, we mean the mind, which is always free from every turbulent movement, not those parts in which grief, anger, and desire reside. The man against whom these arguments are directed considers those parts removed and separated from the mind. Again, resemblance is more apparent among animals, whose souls lack reason; among human beings resemblance is more evident in bodily form, and it makes a great difference to the soul itself what kind of body it inhabits. Many things arise from the body to sharpen the mind, many to dull it. Aristotle indeed says that all men of genius are melancholy, so I need not resent being somewhat slow myself. He lists many examples and, as though the point were established, explains why this happens. But if things generated in the body have so powerful an influence on the mind’s disposition—and whatever they may be, they are what produces resemblance—then resemblance supplies no compelling reason why souls must be born. I pass over cases of dissimilarity.\n\nSECTION 81\n“I wish Panaetius could be here—he lived with Africanus. I would ask him which of his relatives was resembled by the grandson of Africanus’s brother: in appearance he may have resembled his father, but in his way of life he resembled all the most depraved people so closely that he easily surpassed them in wickedness. Whom, too, did the grandson of Publius Crassus resemble, that wise and eloquent man, that foremost citizen? Or the grandsons and sons of many other illustrious men whom there is no need to name?\n\n“But what are we doing? Have we forgotten that, after saying enough about eternity, our present purpose was to show that even if souls perished, there would still be no evil in death?”\n\n“I remembered it well enough, but I was quite willing to let your discussion of eternity carry you away from our subject.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 34\n\nSECTION 82\n“I see that you are looking upward and want to move to heaven. I hope that will be our fortune. But suppose, as these men maintain, that souls do not remain after death. I see that, if this is so, we are deprived of the hope of a happier life; but what evil does that opinion bring? Suppose the soul perishes just as the body does. Is there, then, any pain or any sensation at all in the body after death? No one says so, though Epicurus accuses Democritus of it and the followers of Democritus deny the charge. No sensation therefore remains in the soul either: the soul itself no longer exists anywhere. Where, then, is the evil, since there is no third thing? Is it that the soul’s actual departure from the body is not painless? Even if I believed that, how slight a thing it would be! But I think it false: it generally happens without sensation, sometimes even with pleasure. Whatever the experience may be, the whole thing is trivial,\n\nSECTION 83\n“for it happens in an instant. ‘What troubles, or rather torments, us is parting from all the good things in life.’ Consider whether ‘from the evils’ might be truer. Why should I now lament human life? I can do so truly and justly; but while trying to prevent our thinking that we shall be miserable after death, why must I make life still more miserable by bewailing it? I did that in the book in which I consoled myself as best I could. Death, then, takes us away from evils, not from good things, if we look for the truth. Indeed, Hegesias of Cyrene argues this at such length that King Ptolemy is said to have forbidden him to discuss it in his school, because many who heard him took their own lives.\n\nSECTION 84\n“Callimachus has an epigram on Theombrotus of Ambracia, who, he says, had suffered no misfortune but threw himself from a wall into the sea after reading Plato’s book. And the Hegesias I mentioned wrote a book called The Man Starving Himself to Death, in which a man who is leaving life by refusing food is urged back by his friends. Answering them, he enumerates the troubles of human life. I could do the same, though less fully than he, who thinks living is of no benefit to anyone at all. To leave others aside: is it even of benefit to me? Deprived as I am of the consolations and distinctions both of home and of public life, certainly, had I died earlier, death would have torn me from evils, not from good things.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 35\n\nSECTION 85\n“Suppose, then, a man has no troubles and has received no wound from fortune: the famous Metellus with his four sons loaded with honors, or Priam with his fifty, seventeen of them born to his lawful wife. Fortune had the same power over both, but exercised it against one. For Metellus was laid on the pyre by many sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters; Priam, robbed of so great a family, was killed by an enemy’s hand after fleeing to an altar. Had he died while his sons were alive and his kingdom intact,\n\n“‘With foreign might standing by,  \n“‘Beneath carved and coffered roofs,’\n\n“would he, after all, have departed from good things or from evils? At the time, certainly, he would have seemed to leave good things. Yet surely his fate would have been better, and those verses would not be sung so tearfully:\n\n“‘All this I saw given to the flames,  \n“‘Priam’s life torn from him by force,  \n“‘Jupiter’s altar fouled with blood.’\n\n“As though anything better could have happened to him then than that violence! If he had died earlier, he would have escaped that outcome altogether; dying when he did, he lost the awareness of his sufferings.\n\nSECTION 86\n“Our friend Pompey recovered when he was gravely ill at Naples. The Neapolitans put on garlands, as of course did the people of Puteoli; congratulations came from the towns in public celebrations everywhere. A decidedly foolish business, in the petty Greek manner, yet a happy one. If he had died then, would he have left good things or evils? From miseries, certainly. He would not have fought a war against his father-in-law, taken up arms unprepared, left his home, fled from Italy, or, after losing his army, fallen defenseless into the hands and swords of slaves; †his children would not have been mourned, nor all his property possessed by his conquerors. A man who, had he died then, would have died at the height of his prosperity—how many calamities, how great, how incredible, he swallowed by prolonging his life!”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 36\n\n“Death offers escape from these things even if they have not happened, simply because they can happen. But people do not consider that such things can befall them: everyone hopes for the fortune of Metellus, as though the fortunate outnumbered the unfortunate, or anything in human affairs were certain, or hoping were wiser than fearing.\n\n“But let this very point be granted, that death deprives people of good things:\n\nSECTION 87\n“does it follow that the dead also feel the lack of life’s advantages, and that this is miserable? Surely that is what our opponents must say. But can someone who does not exist lack anything? The very word ‘lack’ is sad, because it carries this meaning: he had it, he no longer has it; he misses, seeks, needs it. These, I think, are the troubles of one who lacks something: he lacks his eyes—hateful blindness; his children—bereavement. This holds for the living; but no dead person lacks either life’s advantages or life itself. I am speaking of the dead, who do not exist. Do we, who do exist, lack horns or wings? Would anyone say so? Certainly not. Why? Because, when you do not have something that neither your use nor your nature calls for, you do not lack it, even if you realize that you do not have it.\n\nSECTION 88\n“We must press and insist upon this again and again, once we have established the point which, if souls are mortal, we cannot doubt: that death brings so complete an extinction that not the faintest hint of sensation remains. With this firmly and securely settled, we must examine what ‘lacking’ means, so that no error remains hidden in the word. To lack, then, means to need something you wish to have; wishing is implicit in lacking, except when the word is used in another sense, as when someone ‘lacks a fever.’ There is also another use of ‘lack’: you do not have something and are conscious of not having it, even if you bear that easily. It is not <in this sense> that we speak of lacking in death; there would be nothing to grieve over. What is meant is ‘lacking a good thing,’ which is an evil. But not even a living person lacks a good thing if he does not need it. Still, in a living person the notion can be understood: you lack a kingdom—though, strictly speaking, that cannot properly be said of you; it could be said of Tarquin after he was expelled from his kingdom. In a dead person the notion cannot even be understood. For lacking belongs to a being that feels; and a dead person has no feeling. Therefore a dead person cannot lack anything.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 37\n\n“Yet why do we need philosophy here, when we see that the matter scarcely requires it?\n\nSECTION 89\n“How often not only our commanders but even entire armies have rushed to certain death! If death were something to fear, Lucius Brutus would not have fallen in battle preventing the return of the tyrant he himself had expelled. Father Decius would not have flung himself into the enemy’s weapons fighting the Latins, nor his son fighting the Etruscans, nor his grandson fighting Pyrrhus. Spain would not have seen the Scipios fall for their country in a single war, nor Cannae Paulus and Geminus, nor Venusia Marcellus, nor Litana Albinus, nor the Lucanians Gracchus. Is any of them miserable today? Not even then, after their last breath. For no one can be miserable once sensation has been destroyed.\n\nSECTION 90\n“‘But to have no sensation is itself hateful.’ Hateful, if it amounted to feeling a lack. But since it is evident that nothing can exist in someone who does not himself exist, what can be hateful in someone who neither lacks nor feels anything? I have said this too often, perhaps, but only because here lies the whole source of the soul’s shrinking from the fear of death. Anyone who has clearly seen what is brighter than daylight—that, once soul and body are consumed and the whole living being destroyed in a universal extinction, the creature that once existed has become nothing—will plainly see that there is no difference between a centaur, which never existed, and King Agamemnon. He will see that Marcus Camillus now cares no more for this civil war than I cared for the capture of Rome when he was alive. Why, then, would Camillus have grieved had he thought these events would occur some three hundred and fifty years later? Why should I grieve if I thought some nation would take possession of our city ten thousand years from now? Because our love of our country is so great that we measure it not by our own awareness but by her safety.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 38\n\n“Thus the wise man is not deterred by death,\n\nSECTION 91\n“which threatens him daily through the uncertainty of chance and can never be far away because life is short, from providing for his country and his own people for all time. He considers even posterity, of which he will have no awareness, to be his concern. So even one who judges the soul mortal may undertake works for eternity, not from a desire for glory, which he will not feel, but for virtue, which glory must follow, even if that is not his aim.\n\n“But <if> the order of nature is such that our birth brings us the beginning of all things and death their end, then, just as nothing concerned us before birth, nothing will concern us after death. What evil can there be in this, when death concerns neither the living nor the dead?\n\nSECTION 92\n“The latter do not exist; the former it will not touch. Those who try to make death less formidable would have it closely resemble sleep. As though anyone would wish to live ninety years on the condition that, after completing sixty, he slept through the rest! Not even his family would wish it, much less the man himself. As for Endymion, if we care to listen to fables, he fell asleep at some distant time on Latmus, a mountain in Caria, and has not yet awakened, I believe. Do you suppose, then, that he cares when the Moon is eclipsed—the Moon who is thought to have put him to sleep so that she might kiss him as he slept? How could he care, when he does not even feel? You have in sleep an image of death, and every day you assume it. Do you doubt, then, that there is no sensation in death, when you see that its likeness has no sensation?”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 39\n\nSECTION 93\n“Away, then, with this almost old-womanish nonsense, that it is miserable to die before one’s time. What time, after all? The time appointed by nature? But nature gave us life on loan, like money, without fixing a day for repayment. What grounds have you for complaint if she calls it back when she chooses? Those were the terms on which you received it. These same people think that, if a little child dies, we should bear it calmly, and if an infant dies in the cradle, we should not even complain. Yet nature has demanded back her gift from the infant more harshly. ‘He had not yet tasted life’s sweetness,’ someone says, ‘whereas the other already hoped for great things, and had begun to enjoy them.’ But in everything else it is thought better to obtain some portion than none. Why should life be different? Though Callimachus puts it well when he says that Priam wept far more often than Troilus. Meanwhile the good fortune of those who die in advanced age is praised.\n\nSECTION 94\n“Why? For I think that no one could find a longer life more pleasant than they could. Surely nothing is sweeter to a human being than wisdom, and whatever else old age takes away, it certainly brings that. But what span of life is long? Or what, for a human being, is long at all? Has not old age,\n\n“‘Pursuing us from behind as we run, just now boys, just now youths,  \n“‘Overtaken us before we knew it?’\n\n“Yet because we have nothing beyond it, we call this long. All such spans are called long or short in proportion to the share allotted to each creature. Aristotle says that beside the river Hypanis, which flows into the Black Sea from the European side, little creatures are born that live a single day. One that dies at the eighth hour has therefore died at an advanced age; one that dies at sunset is decrepit, particularly if the day is at the summer solstice. Compare our longest span of life with eternity: we shall be found almost as short-lived as those little creatures.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 40\n\nSECTION 95\n“Let us therefore despise all such nonsense—what milder name can I give such frivolity?—and place the whole power of living well in strength and greatness of soul, in contempt and disregard for all human circumstances, and in every virtue. As things are, the most enfeebling thoughts make us womanish, so that, if death approaches before we have attained what the Chaldean astrologers promised us, we feel robbed of some great blessings, cheated and deserted.\n\nSECTION 96\n“But if expectation and longing keep our souls in suspense, tormenting and troubling us—immortal gods, how pleasant must that journey be whose end will leave no further care or anxiety! How Theramenes delights me! What a lofty spirit he has! Though we weep when we read of him, that illustrious man does not die pitiably. Thrown into prison by order of the Thirty Tyrants, he drank down the poison as though thirsty, then flung the remainder from his cup so that it rang. At the sound he smiled and said, ‘I drink this to handsome Critias,’ who had been his bitterest enemy. For the Greeks <at> their drinking parties usually name the person to whom they are about to pass the cup. This excellent man jested with his last breath, when death had already entered and possessed his breast; and he truly foretold for the man to whom he had drunk the poison that death which followed shortly afterward.\n\n“Who would praise this great soul’s composure in the very act of dying, if he judged death an evil?\n\nSECTION 97\n“For a few years later Socrates goes to the same prison and the same cup, through a crime of his judges matching the tyrants’ crime against Theramenes. What, then, is the speech that Plato represents him as making before his judges, once he has been sentenced to death?”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 41\n\n“‘Great hope possesses me,’ he says, ‘judges, that being sent to death will turn out well for me. One of two things must happen: either death takes away every sensation altogether, or by dying we move from this place to another. So, if sensation is extinguished and death resembles the sleep that sometimes brings the deepest peace without even the visions of dreams—good gods, what a gain it is to die! How many days could be found preferable to such a night? If all the eternity that follows resembles it, who could be happier than I?\n\nSECTION 98\n“‘But if the stories are true, that death is a migration to the regions inhabited by those who have departed from life, that is a far happier prospect still. To escape from men who wish to be reckoned judges, and to come before those who truly deserve that name—Minos, Rhadamanthus, Aeacus, Triptolemus—and to meet those who have lived justly <and> faithfully: can you think this an ordinary journey? What value do you set upon being allowed to converse with Orpheus, Musaeus, Homer, and Hesiod? For my part, I would gladly die many times, if that were possible, to be allowed to visit the people I speak of. And what delight I should feel at meeting Palamedes, Ajax, and the others undone by an unjust verdict! I should also test the wisdom of the great king who led the mightiest forces to Troy, and of Ulysses and Sisyphus; nor should I be condemned to death for pursuing these inquiries as I did here. You too, judges who voted to acquit me, should have no fear of death.\n\nSECTION 99\n“‘For no evil can happen to a good man, living or dead; his interests will never be neglected by the immortal gods, nor has this happened to me by chance. Nor have I any reason to be angry with those who accused or condemned me, except that they believed they were doing me harm.’ That is how he speaks on these points; but nothing is better than his ending: ‘But now,’ he says, ‘it is time to leave this place: I to die, you to live. Which is better, the immortal gods know; I do not think any human being knows.’”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 42\n\n“Certainly I would far rather have his spirit than the fortunes of all those who judged him. Yet he himself knows which is better, though he says no one but the gods knows—for he has said it already. But to the very end he keeps to his own practice of asserting nothing;\n\nSECTION 100\n“let us, for our part, keep to this: we should count nothing an evil that nature has given to everyone, and should understand that, if death is an evil, it is an everlasting evil. For death appears to end a miserable life; but if death is miserable, there can be no end to it.\n\n“But why do I mention Socrates or Theramenes, men outstanding for their renown in virtue and wisdom, when a certain Spartan, whose very name has not been handed down, despised death so thoroughly that he went to it, condemned by the ephors, with a cheerful, happy face? When an enemy said to him, ‘Do you despise the laws of Lycurgus?’ he answered, ‘On the contrary, I am most grateful to him for fining me a penalty I could pay without borrowing money or renewing a loan.’ A man worthy of Sparta! Such greatness of soul makes me think he was innocent when condemned. Our own city has produced countless men like him.\n\nSECTION 101\n“But why name commanders and leading men, when Cato writes that legions often went eagerly to a place from which they did not expect to return? With the same spirit the Spartans died at Thermopylae, of whom Simonides wrote:\n\n“‘Stranger, tell Sparta that you saw us lying here,  \n“‘Obedient to our country’s sacred laws.’\n\n“And what does their commander Leonidas say? ‘Go forward bravely, Spartans: perhaps today we shall dine in the underworld.’ This people was brave while the laws of Lycurgus flourished. When a Persian enemy boasted in conversation, ‘The multitude of our javelins and arrows will hide the sun from you,’ one of them answered, ‘Then we shall fight in the shade.’\n\nSECTION 102\n“I speak of men; but what of a Spartan woman? When she had sent her son into battle and heard that he had been killed, she said, ‘That was why I bore him: so there would be a man who would not hesitate to meet death for his country.’”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 43\n\n“Granted: Spartans are brave and hardy; a state’s discipline has great power. But do we not admire Theodorus of Cyrene, a philosopher of some distinction? When King Lysimachus threatened him with crucifixion, he said, ‘Please reserve those dreadful threats for your courtiers in purple. It makes no difference to Theodorus whether he rots on the ground or in the air.’\n\n“This saying reminds me that I ought also to say something about burial and interment: no difficult matter, especially once we understand what was said a little earlier about the absence of sensation. Socrates’ opinion on it is clear in the book in which he dies, about which we have already said so much.\n\nSECTION 103\n“After he had discussed the immortality of souls and the time for death was pressing close, Crito asked how he wished to be buried. ‘A great deal of my labor has been wasted, friends,’ he said, ‘for I have not persuaded our Crito that I shall fly away from here and leave nothing of myself behind. Still, Crito, if you can catch me, or find me anywhere, bury me as you think best. But believe me: not one of you will catch me once I have gone from here.’ Admirably said: he both gave his friend leave to act and showed that he had no concern at all about the whole question.\n\nSECTION 104\n“Diogenes was harsher. He held the same view but expressed it more roughly, as a Cynic: he ordered that he be thrown out unburied. His friends asked, ‘For the birds and beasts?’ ‘Certainly not,’ he said, ‘but put a little stick beside me so that I can drive them away.’ ‘How will you do that?’ they said. ‘You will have no sensation.’ ‘Then how can being torn by wild beasts hurt me, if I feel nothing?’ Admirable, too, was Anaxagoras. When he was dying at Lampsacus, his friends asked whether, should anything happen to him, he wished to be taken home to Clazomenae. ‘There is no need,’ he said, ‘for the road to the underworld is the same length from everywhere.’ On the whole question of burial we must hold to one point: it concerns the body, whether the soul has perished or remains alive. And it is clear that, whether the soul is extinguished or has escaped, no sensation remains in the body.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 44\n\n“But error fills everything.\n\nSECTION 105\n“Achilles drags Hector tied to his chariot: he thinks, I suppose, that Hector feels himself being torn apart. So Achilles believes he is taking revenge; while she mourns it as the bitterest of sorrows:\n\n“‘I saw—how grievously I bore the sight—  \n“‘Hector dragged by a four-horse chariot.’\n\n“What Hector? Or how long will that be Hector? Accius does better, and at last Achilles shows some sense:\n\n“‘No, indeed: I gave his body back to Priam; Hector I took away.’\n\n“So it was not Hector you dragged, but the body that had been Hector’s.\n\nSECTION 106\n“Look, another rises from the earth to keep his mother from sleeping:\n\n“‘Mother, I call to you, who ease your care, held in suspense by sleep,  \n“‘And have no pity for me: rise and bury your son—!’\n\n“When these words are sung in low, mournful strains that spread sadness through whole theaters, it is hard not to judge the unburied miserable. ‘Before the beasts and birds—’ He fears that, if his limbs are torn, he will have less use of them; he has no fear that they may be burned.\n\n“‘And do not let my half-eaten remains, with bones laid bare,  \n“‘Be foully dragged across the earth, smeared with clotted blood—’\n\n“I do not understand what he fears, when he pours out such fine seven-and-a-half-foot verses to the pipe. We must therefore hold fast to this: nothing after death should trouble us, though many people punish their enemies even when dead. In Ennius, Thyestes utters curses in truly splendid verses: first, that Atreus should die in a shipwreck. That is harsh enough, for such a death is not without severe sensation. The rest is empty:\n\n“‘Himself impaled on the highest jagged rocks, disemboweled,  \n“‘Hanging by his side, spattering the rocks with decay, gore, and black blood—’\n\nSECTION 107\n“The rocks themselves will be no more devoid of all sensation than the man ‘hanging by his side,’ for whom Thyestes imagines he is wishing torment. Things that would be harsh if he felt them <are> nothing without sensation. But this is utter emptiness:\n\n“‘And may he have no tomb to receive him, no harbor for his body,  \n“‘Where, human life laid down, his body may rest from troubles.’\n\n“You see how deeply these words are steeped in error: he thinks there is a harbor for the body, and that a dead man rests in his tomb. A great fault in Pelops, not to have educated his son and taught him what deserved concern, and how far!”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 45\n\nSECTION 108\n“But why examine individuals’ opinions when we can survey the varied errors of nations? The Egyptians embalm their dead and keep them at home; the Persians even preserve them coated in wax, so that their bodies may last as long as possible. It is the custom of the Magi not to bury the bodies of their people until wild beasts have torn them. In Hyrcania the common people keep dogs at public expense, the nobles their own dogs. We know theirs is a fine breed of dog; but each person provides, according to his means, the animals that will tear him apart, and they consider that the best burial. Chrysippus collects a great many other examples, being inquisitive about every sort of history; but some are so repulsive that speech recoils and shrinks from them. This whole subject, then, should be disregarded as it concerns ourselves, though not neglected where our families are concerned—always provided that we, the living, recognize that the bodies of the dead feel nothing.\n\nSECTION 109\n“How much is owed to custom and reputation is a matter for the living to consider, but with the understanding that none of it concerns the dead.\n\n“Yet certainly death is met with the greatest composure when a life drawing to its close can find consolation in its own achievements. No one has lived too short a time who has fully discharged the duty of perfect virtue. Many occasions in my own life have been timely for death. If only I could have died then! For there was nothing more to gain; life’s duties had been fulfilled in overflowing measure; only wars with fortune remained. So, if reason itself has too little power to make us disregard death, at least the life we have lived should make us feel that we have lived enough and more than enough. For although sensation has departed, the dead do not lack the blessings of praise and glory that are peculiarly their own, however unaware of them they may be. For though glory has nothing in itself to make it worth seeking, it nevertheless follows virtue like a shadow.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 46\n\nSECTION 110\n“But if the crowd’s judgment of good people is ever <good>, that judgment deserves praise more than they deserve to be called happy on its account. Yet, however this may be taken, I cannot say that Lycurgus and Solon lack the glory of their laws and civic discipline, or Themistocles and Epaminondas that of their courage in war. Neptune will overwhelm Salamis itself before he overwhelms the memory of its victory trophy; Leuctra will be erased from Boeotia before the glory of the battle of Leuctra. Far more slowly still will fame abandon Curius, Fabricius, Calatinus, the two Scipios, the two Africani, Maximus, Marcellus, Paulus, Cato, Laelius, and countless others. Whoever has attained some likeness to them, measuring it not by popular fame but by the true praise of the good, will advance confidently toward death if circumstances require it. In death, as we have learned, there is either the highest good or no evil. Indeed, he will wish to die while his fortunes are favorable, for the height of prosperity cannot be as pleasant as its decline is painful. This seems to be the meaning of that Spartan’s remark. When Diagoras of Rhodes, a renowned Olympic victor, had seen two of his sons victorious at Olympia on a single day, the Spartan approached the old man, congratulated him,\n\nSECTION 111\n“and said, ‘Die, Diagoras, for you are not going to ascend to heaven.’ The Greeks think these things great—perhaps too great—or rather thought so then. The man who said this to Diagoras considered it an immense thing for three Olympic victors to come from one household, and thought it would do him no good to linger longer in life exposed to fortune.\n\n“For my part, I thought I had answered you sufficiently in a few words, since you had admitted that the dead experience no evil. But I pressed on to say more because this is the greatest consolation in bereavement and mourning. We should bear our own pain, incurred on our own account, with moderation, lest we seem to love only ourselves. What torments us with unbearable grief is the suspicion that those we have lost are still conscious amid the evils commonly imagined. I wished to tear that belief out of myself by the roots, and perhaps that made me speak at greater length.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 47\n\n“At greater length—you?\n\nSECTION 112\n“Not for me. The first part of your argument made me desire to die; the second made me now willing, now indifferent. Your whole argument has certainly achieved this: I no longer count death an evil.”\n\n“Do we still want a rhetorician’s epilogue, then? Or shall we abandon that art altogether now?”\n\n“Certainly do not abandon an art you have always adorned, and rightly so, for, to tell the truth, it had adorned you. But what is this epilogue? Whatever it is, I am eager to hear it.”\n\nSECTION 113\n“In the schools they commonly produce the judgments of the immortal gods concerning death. They do not invent these themselves, but take Herodotus and many others as their authorities. The first celebrated example is that of Cleobis and Biton, sons of a priestess at Argos. The story is well known. Religious law required her to be taken by carriage to a solemn, appointed sacrifice at a temple a considerable distance from the town. The draft animals were delayed; so the young men I have just named took off their clothes, anointed their bodies with oil, and came under the yoke. Thus the priestess was brought to the temple, her sons drawing the carriage. She is said to have prayed to the goddess to reward their devotion with the greatest gift a god could give a human being. After feasting with their mother, the young men went to sleep; in the morning they were found dead.\n\nSECTION 114\n“Trophonius and Agamedes are said to have offered a similar prayer. When they had finished building Apollo’s temple at Delphi, they worshiped the god and asked no small payment for their work and toil: nothing specific, but whatever was best for a human being. Apollo revealed that he would give it to them on the third day after that day. When it dawned, they were found dead. They say that the god had given his judgment—and that particular god, to whom the other gods had granted a prophetic power beyond their own.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 48\n\n“They also cite a little tale about Silenus. When he was captured by Midas, it is written, he gave this gift in exchange for his release: he taught the king that by far the best thing for a human being is not to be born, and the next best to die as soon as possible.\n\nSECTION 115\n“Euripides used this thought in his Cresphontes:\n\n“‘We should have gathered in the house  \n“‘To mourn whenever someone came to light,  \n“‘Recounting human life’s manifold woes;  \n“‘But one whose death had ended heavy labors,  \n“‘His friends should bear away with every praise and joy.’\n\n“There is something similar in Crantor’s Consolation. He says that a certain Elysius of Terina, grieving bitterly over his son’s death, went to a place where the dead were summoned and asked the reason for so great a calamity. He received on tablets these three little verses:\n\n“‘With minds unknowing, people wander through their lives;  \n“‘Euthynous meets death by the power of the fates.  \n“‘To end this way was better both for him and you.’\n\nSECTION 116\n“Using these and similar authorities, they establish their case by the verdicts of the immortal gods. Alcidamas, one of the most distinguished of the early rhetoricians, even wrote a praise of death, consisting of an enumeration of human evils. He lacked the arguments worked out with greater subtlety by philosophers, but not abundance of eloquence. Rhetoricians commonly consider illustrious deaths met for one’s country not only glorious but happy. They begin far back with Erechtheus, whose very daughters eagerly sought death to preserve the citizens’ lives. They <recall> Codrus, who plunged into the midst of the enemy dressed as a slave, so that he could not be recognized, as he would have been in royal attire; for an oracle had declared that Athens would be victorious if its king were killed. Nor do they pass over Menoeceus, who likewise, after an oracle was delivered, freely gave his blood for his country; <for> Iphigenia at Aulis orders that she be led to sacrifice, so that her own blood may draw forth the enemy’s. From these they come to more recent examples:”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 49\n\n“Harmodius <is> on their lips, and Aristogiton; Leonidas the Spartan and Epaminondas the Theban live on in their words. They do not know our own people, whom it would be a great task to enumerate: so many are those whose glorious deaths we see to have been desirable.\n\n“Since this is so, must we still employ great eloquence, speaking as though from a raised platform, to make people begin to desire death, or at least cease to fear it?\n\nSECTION 117\n“For if that final day brings not extinction but a change of place, what could be more desirable? And if it utterly destroys and abolishes us, what is better than to fall asleep amid life’s labors, close our eyes, and be lulled into everlasting sleep? If that is what happens, Ennius speaks better than Solon. For our own poet says, ‘Let no one honor me with tears or make my funeral a weeping.’ But that wise man says:\n\n“‘Let not my death go without tears; let us leave our friends  \n“‘Grief, that they may bury us with groans.’\n\nSECTION 118\n“But if anything happens to us that seems a god’s notice to depart from life, let us obey gladly and with thanks, and consider ourselves released from custody and relieved of our chains, either to return to our eternal and truly native home or to be free of all sensation and trouble. But if no notice is given, let us nevertheless be so disposed as to think that day, dreadful to others, fortunate for us, and count nothing an evil that has been established either by the immortal gods or by nature, the parent of all things. For we were not sown and created carelessly or by chance. Surely there was some power that watched over the human race, and would not have brought into being or nurtured a creature that, after draining the cup of every hardship, would then fall into the everlasting evil of death. Let us think, instead, that a harbor and refuge has been prepared for us.\n\nSECTION 119\n“If only we might reach it under full sail! But if contrary winds drive us back, we must nevertheless be carried to the same place a little later. Can what is necessary for everyone be miserable for any one person? There is your epilogue, so that you may not think anything has been omitted or left unfinished.”\n\n“Yes, and that epilogue has made me still more steadfast.”\n\n“Excellent,” I said. “But now let us give some attention to our health. Tomorrow, and every day that we are at Tusculum, let us discuss these matters, especially those that bring relief from distress, fears, and desires—the richest fruit of all philosophy.”\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 1\n\nSECTION 1\nIn Ennius, Neoptolemus says that he needs to philosophize, but only a little: he has no liking for it as a whole. For my part, Brutus, I think I need to philosophize—what better occupation can I have, especially when I have none?—but not, as he does, only a little. In philosophy it is difficult to know a little without knowing most of it or all. A few things can be selected only from many; and anyone who has grasped a few will pursue the rest with the same enthusiasm.\n\nSECTION 2\nStill, in a busy life, especially a soldier’s life such as Neoptolemus was then leading, even a little often does great good. It bears fruit—not fruit as rich as the whole of philosophy can yield, but enough to release us sometimes, in some measure, from desire or distress or fear. The discussion I recently held at Tusculum, for example, seemed to produce a profound disregard for death, which does a great deal to free the mind from fear. Someone who fears what cannot be avoided can never live with peace of mind. But someone who does not fear death, not merely because dying is inevitable but because death contains nothing terrible, has secured a powerful defense for a happy life.\n\nSECTION 3\nI know, of course, that many people will argue eagerly against me. The only way to escape that was to write nothing at all. Even my speeches were meant to win the judgment of the multitude—eloquence is a public art, and its achievement is the approval of its listeners. Yet there were people who praised nothing unless they felt sure they could imitate it, and who set the limits of good speaking at the limits of their own hopes. Overwhelmed by a wealth of thoughts and words, they said they preferred leanness and starvation to richness and abundance. This gave rise to a species of ‘Attic’ speaker unknown to the very people who professed to follow it; they have now fallen silent, all but laughed out of the courts themselves.\n\nSECTION 4\nWhat, then, should I expect now, when I see that I cannot possibly enlist the public support I once enjoyed? Philosophy is content with a few judges. She deliberately shuns the multitude, who in turn regard her with suspicion and dislike. Anyone who wishes to attack philosophy as a whole can therefore count on popular applause; and anyone who attempts to assault the school I chiefly follow can find strong reinforcements among the teachings of the other philosophers.\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 2\n\nI have answered the detractors of philosophy as a whole in my Hortensius; and I believe that the case for the Academy has been set out with sufficient care in the four books of my Academica. Yet I am so far from objecting to writings against me that I positively welcome them. Even in Greece philosophy would never have enjoyed such honor had it not flourished through the rivalries and disagreements of the most learned men.\n\nSECTION 5\nI therefore urge everyone capable of doing so to wrest the distinction of this field, too, from a Greece now in decline and bring it to our city, just as our ancestors, through their zeal and industry, brought here every other distinction worth seeking. The glory of our orators has risen from humble beginnings to its height; now, as happens naturally in almost everything, it is aging and seems likely soon to dwindle to nothing. But philosophy, at least in Latin literature, is being born in our own day. Let us help it grow, and let us allow ourselves to be challenged and refuted. That is hard for those who are pledged and, as it were, consecrated to certain fixed opinions. Their bonds oblige them to defend, for consistency’s sake, even positions they do not ordinarily approve. We follow what is probable and can go no further than what presents itself as likely to be true; we are ready both to refute without obstinacy and to be refuted without anger.\n\nSECTION 6\nIf these studies are brought over to our people, we shall not even need Greek libraries, with their boundless multitude of books produced by a multitude of writers. Many people say the same things, and so they have crammed everything with books. The same will happen among us if more people flock to these studies. But if we can, let us encourage those who have a liberal education and who philosophize with method and system, bringing elegance of expression to their reasoning as well.\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 3\n\nSECTION 7\nThere is a certain class of people who wish to be called philosophers, and who are said to have written a great many books in Latin. I do not despise those books: I have never read them. But their authors themselves declare that they write without clarity, arrangement, elegance, or adornment; and I have no interest in reading that offers no pleasure. No one with even a moderate education is ignorant of what the adherents of that school say and think. Since they themselves take no pains over how they say it, I cannot see why anyone should read them except their own circle of like-minded believers.\n\nSECTION 8\nEveryone reads Plato and the other Socratics, and then the thinkers who took their start from them—even readers who do not accept their views or pursue them with any particular enthusiasm. Epicurus and Metrodorus, by contrast, are scarcely picked up by anyone outside their own following. In the same way, these Latin writers are read only by those who think their doctrines sound. My own view is that whatever is committed to writing should deserve the attention of every educated reader. If I cannot fully achieve that myself, I am no less convinced that this is what ought to be done.\n\nSECTION 9\nI have therefore always liked the Peripatetic and Academic practice of arguing both sides of every question, not only because there is no other way to discover what is probable in each case, but also because it provides the best possible exercise in speaking. Aristotle was the first to employ it, and his followers continued it. In our own time Philo, whose lectures I often attended, established the practice of teaching the rules of rhetoric at one time and those of philosophy at another. Encouraged by my friends to adopt this practice, I spent on it what time I had available at Tusculum. After devoting the morning to speaking, as we had the day before, we went down in the afternoon to the Academy. I shall present the discussion held there not as a narrative, but in almost the very words in which our conversation and debate took place.\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 4\n\nAs we walked, then, our conversation began something like this:\n\nSECTION 10\n“I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed yesterday’s discussion—or rather, how much it helped me. Although I know that I have never clung too desperately to life, sometimes a certain fear and pain would intrude on my mind when I thought that one day this daylight must end for me and all life’s advantages be lost. Believe me, I have been so completely freed of that kind of trouble that I think nothing deserves less concern.”\n\n“That is not at all surprising.\n\nSECTION 11\n“This is what philosophy accomplishes: she heals minds, removes empty anxieties, frees us from desires, drives out fears. But her power does not have the same effect on everyone. It is strongest when it takes hold of a suitable nature. The brave are helped not only by fortune, as the old proverb says, but far more by reason, which strengthens the force of courage through what we may call its precepts. Nature clearly gave you a lofty, aspiring spirit, one that looks down on human affairs. So a discourse against death readily took root in a brave mind. But do you suppose these same arguments have any power over more than a very few even of those who discovered, discussed, and wrote them down? How rarely do we find a philosopher whose character, outlook, and way of life conform to the demands of reason! Who regards his teaching not as a display of knowledge but as a law for living? Who obeys himself and submits to his own decrees?\n\nSECTION 12\n“Some are so frivolous and boastful that they would have been better off without learning; others are greedy for money, some for fame, and many are slaves to lust. Their conduct is astonishingly at odds with their discourse. I think this is utterly disgraceful. If someone professing to be a grammarian speaks bad Latin, or someone who wants to be considered a musician sings out of tune, he is all the more disgraced because he fails in the very thing he claims to know. So too a philosopher who goes wrong in his conduct is all the more disgraced because he stumbles in the duty he wishes to teach: professing the art of living, he fails at life.”\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 5\n\n“If things are as you say, should you not be afraid that you are adorning philosophy with a false glory? What stronger proof could there be that she does no good than the disgraceful lives of some accomplished philosophers?”\n\nSECTION 13\n“That is no proof at all. Not every field that is cultivated bears a crop, and those lines of Accius are false:\n\n“‘Though good seed has been sown in poorer soil,  \n“‘The grain still shines by virtue of its nature.’\n\n“Similarly, not every cultivated mind bears fruit. To stay with the same comparison: just as a field, however fertile, cannot be fruitful without cultivation, neither can the mind without instruction. Each is powerless without the other. Philosophy is the cultivation of the mind. She pulls vices up by the roots, prepares our minds to receive seed, and entrusts them with—sows in them, so to speak—what will yield the richest harvest when it matures. Let us go on, then, as we began. Tell me, if you will, what you want discussed.”\n\nSECTION 14\n“I consider pain the greatest of all evils.”\n\n“Greater even than dishonor?”\n\n“I do not dare say that, and I am ashamed to have been driven from my position so quickly.”\n\n“You should be more ashamed if you remained in it. What could be less worthy of you than to think anything worse than dishonor, disgrace, and moral ugliness? To escape them, what pain should you not merely refuse to reject, but willingly seek, undergo, and welcome?”\n\n“That is exactly what I think. So let pain not be the supreme evil; it is certainly an evil.”\n\n“Do you see, then, how much of your terror of pain you have shed after one brief reminder?”\n\nSECTION 15\n“I certainly do, but I want more.”\n\n“I shall try. But it is a great undertaking, and I need a mind that will not resist me.”\n\n“You shall have that. As I did yesterday, I shall follow reason wherever it leads me.”\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 6\n\n“First, then, I shall speak about the weakness of many people, and the various schools of philosophy. Foremost among them in both authority and antiquity, the Socratic Aristippus did not hesitate to call pain the supreme evil. Epicurus then proved a willing pupil of this feeble, womanish doctrine. After him Hieronymus of Rhodes declared freedom from pain the supreme good, so great an evil did he consider pain. The rest, apart from Zeno, Aristo, and Pyrrho, held much the same view you expressed just now: pain is an evil, certainly, but other things are worse.\n\nSECTION 16\n“So philosophy, the teacher of life, has persisted for all these centuries in a view that nature herself and a certain nobility of spirit made you reject at once: you would not call pain the supreme evil, and the mere mention of dishonor drove you from your position. What duty, what glory, what honor will seem worth winning at the cost of bodily pain to someone convinced that pain is the supreme evil? Again, what humiliation, what disgrace will he not endure to escape pain, if he has decided it is the supreme evil? And who would not be miserable, not only while suffering the severest pains, if they contain the supreme evil, but even when he knows that such suffering may befall him? And who is exempt from that possibility? It follows that no one at all can be happy.\n\nSECTION 17\n“Metrodorus, indeed, considers a person perfectly happy if his body is in good order and he has the assurance that it will always remain so. But who could possibly have that assurance?”\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 7\n\n“Epicurus, on the other hand, says things that seem to me intended to raise a laugh. In one passage he declares that if the wise man is burned, if he is tortured—you are perhaps expecting him to say, ‘He will endure it, bear it through, never give way.’ A great tribute, by Hercules, and worthy of Hercules himself, by whom I have just sworn! But for Epicurus, that hard and rugged man, this is not enough. If the wise man is inside the bull of Phalaris, he will say, ‘How pleasant this is! How little I care about it!’ Pleasant, too? Is it not enough if it is not bitter? Even those who deny that pain is an evil do not ordinarily say that being tortured is pleasant for anyone. They call it harsh, difficult, hateful, contrary to nature, yet not an evil. But this man, who calls pain the only evil and the utmost of all evils, thinks the wise man will pronounce it pleasant.\n\nSECTION 18\n“I do not ask you to describe pain in the same terms that Epicurus uses for pleasure—a sensualist, as you know. Let him say the same thing in Phalaris’s bull as he would in his own bed. I do not credit wisdom with such power over pain. If a man bears it bravely, he has done his duty; I do not ask him to rejoice as well. It is unquestionably a grim thing, harsh, bitter, hostile to nature, difficult to endure and sustain.\n\n“Look at Philoctetes: we must allow him his groans.\n\nSECTION 19\n“He had seen Hercules himself on Oeta crying out under the enormity of his pain. So the arrows he had received from Hercules brought him no comfort when\n\n“‘From the viper’s bite, the veins within his flesh,  \n“‘Steeped in poison, stir up hideous torments.’\n\n“And so he cries out, seeking help, longing for death:\n\n“‘Ah, who will fling me into the salt waves  \n“‘From the high summit of a rock?  \n“‘Now, now I am consumed; my life is crushed  \n“‘By the wound’s force, the ulcer’s burning heat.’\n\n“It seems hard to say that a man forced to cry out like that is not suffering an evil, and a great one.”\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 8\n\nSECTION 20\n“But let us look at Hercules himself, broken by pain at the very moment he was seeking immortality through death. What cries he utters in Sophocles’ Women of Trachis! When Deianira had dressed him in the tunic stained with the Centaur’s blood, and it had clung to his flesh, he says:\n\n“‘So many things, grievous to tell and harsh to bear,  \n“‘I labored through and suffered, body and soul!  \n“‘Neither Juno’s implacable terror  \n“‘Nor cruel Eurystheus brought so much evil on me  \n“‘As this one senseless daughter born to Oeneus.  \n“‘She caught me unawares in a Fury’s robe,  \n“‘Which clings against my side and bites and tears my flesh,  \n“‘Presses hard and drains the breath out of my lungs:  \n“‘Already it has sucked away my blood, all drained of color.  \n“‘So my body wastes away, consumed by hideous ruin;  \n“‘Bound fast, I perish in this woven plague.  \n“‘No enemy’s right hand, no earthborn  \n“‘Mass of Giants, no Centaur charging  \n“‘With his two-formed body struck these blows against me;  \n“‘No force of Greece, no barbarous savagery,  \n“‘No fierce tribe banished to the ends of earth,  \n“‘Where I wandered, driving out all brutality everywhere,  \n“‘But I, her husband, die by a woman’s hand.’”\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 9\n\n“‘My son, prove to your father you deserve that name:  \n“‘Do not let love for your mother outweigh your dying father.  \n“‘Drag her here to me, with hands that honor their duty;  \n“‘Let me see now which of us you prize the more.\n\nSECTION 21\n“‘Go on, be bold, my son! Weep for your father’s ruin,  \n“‘Pity him: nations will weep over our misery.  \n“‘Ah, that my voice should raise a maiden’s lament,  \n“‘When no one ever saw me groan at any ill!  \n“‘My courage, unmanned and broken, has fallen dead.  \n“‘Come near, my son, stand beside me; look with pity  \n“‘On your father’s mangled body, its flesh torn open!  \n“‘Look, all of you; and you, begetter of the gods,  \n“‘Hurl your flashing thunderbolt at me, I beg!  \n“‘Now, now the whirling agonies twist and torment me;  \n“‘Now the burning creeps. O hands, once victorious,\n\nSECTION 22\n“‘O chest, O back, O knotted muscles of my arms,  \n“‘Was it in your grip that once the Nemean lion  \n“‘Gnashed its teeth and heaved its final breath?  \n“‘Did this right hand bring peace to Lerna, killing the hideous Hydra?  \n“‘Did this hand strike down the host of double-bodied creatures?  \n“‘Did it fell the ravaging beast of Erymanthus?  \n“‘Did it drag out of Tartarus’s shadowed region  \n“‘The three-headed hound, offspring of Hydra, and bring it up?  \n“‘Did it kill the dragon with its coils on coils,  \n“‘Its watchful eye guarding the tree of gold?  \n“‘My victorious hand passed through many other trials,  \n“‘And no one ever took the spoils of my renown.’”\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 10\n\n“Can we despise pain, when we see Hercules himself suffering so impatiently?\n\nSECTION 23\n“Let Aeschylus come forward, not merely a poet but a Pythagorean too, so tradition tells us. In his play, how does Prometheus bear the pain he suffers for the theft on Lemnos,\n\n“‘From where, men say, fire was secretly  \n“‘Shared out to mortals? Skillful Prometheus  \n“‘Stole it by stealth and paid the penalty  \n“‘To Jupiter, in his final doom.’\n\n“Paying that penalty, fastened to the Caucasus, he says:\n\n“‘Children of the Titans, kindred of my blood,  \n“‘Offspring of Heaven, look on me bound and chained  \n“‘To jagged rocks, as frightened sailors, fearing  \n“‘Night, moor a ship on a sea that roars with terror.  \n“‘So Jupiter, Saturn’s son, has pinned me here,  \n“‘And Jupiter’s will enlisted Mulciber’s hands.  \n“‘Driving these wedges with cruel workmanship,  \n“‘He pierced my limbs. Transfixed by his ingenuity,  \n“‘I live in misery in this stronghold of the Furies.\n\nSECTION 24\n“‘Now every third accursed day,  \n“‘Swooping grimly down, with hooked talons tearing,  \n“‘Jupiter’s attendant rends me for its savage feast.  \n“‘Then, stuffed and glutted with my rich liver,  \n“‘It utters a vast shriek and, flying high,  \n“‘Fans my blood with its feathered tail.  \n“‘But when the eaten liver swells and is renewed,  \n“‘It returns, ravenous, to its hideous feeding.  \n“‘So I nourish this guardian of my mournful torment,  \n“‘Which disfigures me alive in everlasting misery.  \n“‘For, as you see, bound tight in Jupiter’s chains,  \n“‘I cannot keep the dreadful bird away from my breast.\n\nSECTION 25\n“‘So, all alone, I suffer these anguished torments,  \n“‘Longing for death, seeking an end to evil;  \n“‘But Jupiter’s power drives me far from dying,  \n“‘And this ancient, grief-laden ruin, heaped through  \n“‘Horrible ages, is rooted in my body.  \n“‘From it, melted by the burning sun, fall  \n“‘Drops that drip unceasingly on the rocks of Caucasus.’\n\n“We seem scarcely able, then, to call someone in such a condition anything but miserable; and if he is miserable, pain is certainly an evil.”\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 11\n\nSECTION 26\n“So far you are arguing my case. But I shall consider that later. Meanwhile, where do those verses come from? I do not recognize them.”\n\n“I shall tell you, by Hercules; you are right to ask. You see how much leisure I have?”\n\n“What of it?”\n\n“When you were in Athens, you often attended the philosophers’ lectures, I imagine.”\n\n“Yes, and gladly.”\n\n“Then you noticed that, although no one at that time was particularly fluent, they still interspersed their discourse with verses.”\n\n“Dionysius the Stoic certainly used a great many.”\n\n“Quite right. But he recited them as though reciting set lessons, without selection or elegance. Philo, by contrast, added †apt and well-chosen poems in the right places. And so, since I have grown fond of this sort of rhetorical exercise for old age, I make eager use of our own poets; but wherever they have failed me—well, I have translated a good deal from the Greek, so that Latin discourse should lack no ornament in discussions of this kind.\n\n“But do you see what harm the poets do?\n\nSECTION 27\n“They bring the bravest men before us lamenting, and soften our spirits. Then they are so delightful that we do not merely read them: we learn them by heart. When poets are added to a bad upbringing at home and a sheltered, pampered life, they cut through every sinew of courage. Plato was therefore right to banish them from the state he devised in his search for the best character and the best political order. Yet we, taught by Greece, of course, read and memorize these works from childhood, and consider this a liberal education and true learning.”\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 12\n\n“But why be angry with the poets?\n\nSECTION 28\n“Even teachers of virtue, philosophers, have been found to call pain the supreme evil. Yet you, young man, when you said a little while ago that this was your view, abandoned it at a word when I asked whether pain was worse even than dishonor. Ask Epicurus the same question: he will tell you that a moderate pain is a greater evil than the greatest dishonor, since dishonor itself contains no evil unless pains follow it. What pain, then, follows Epicurus when he makes this very statement, that pain is the supreme evil? I can imagine no greater dishonor in a philosopher. You have therefore given me enough in answering that dishonor seems to you a greater evil than pain. Hold fast to that alone, and you will understand how firmly pain must be resisted. We need less inquiry into whether pain is an evil than strength of mind to bear it.\n\n“The Stoics spin out their little syllogisms to prove that it is not an evil,\n\nSECTION 29\n“as though the trouble concerned a word, not a reality. Why do you deceive me, Zeno? When you deny outright that what seems horrible to me is an evil, I am captivated: I long to know how something I consider utterly miserable is not even an evil. ‘Nothing is evil,’ he says, ‘except what is disgraceful and vicious.’ You return to nonsense. You do not remove what tormented me. I know pain is not wickedness; stop teaching me that. Teach me this: that it makes no difference whether I suffer pain or not. ‘No difference at all,’ he says, ‘to a happy life, which rests on virtue alone; still, pain is to be rejected.’ Why? ‘It is harsh, contrary to nature, difficult to endure, grim, hard.’”\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 13\n\nSECTION 30\n“What a wealth of words: to be able to describe in so many ways what we all call by the single word ‘evil’! You define pain for me, you do not remove it, when you call it harsh, contrary to nature, barely possible to bear and endure. Nor are you lying. But after boasting in words, you ought not to have surrendered in substance. ‘Provided that nothing is good except what is honorable, nothing evil except what is disgraceful—’ That is wishing, not teaching. Better and truer to say that everything nature rejects belongs among evils, and everything she welcomes among goods. Once this is established and the battle over words is put aside, what those thinkers rightly embrace—what we call honorable, right, and fitting, and sometimes include under the name of virtue—will still tower so high that everything else considered a good of body or fortune will seem tiny and insignificant. Thus no evil either, not even all evils gathered together, can compare with the evil of moral disgrace.\n\nSECTION 31\n“So if disgrace is worse than pain, as you conceded at the outset, pain is simply nothing. So long as you think it shameful and unworthy of a man to groan, cry out, lament, be broken or crippled by pain; so long as honor, dignity, and decency stand before you, and you keep yourself in hand with your eyes upon them, pain will assuredly yield to courage and grow feeble before your resolve.\n\n“Either there is no virtue, or all pain must be despised. Do you wish there to be practical wisdom, without which no virtue can even be conceived? What then? Will it let you act to no purpose, struggling in vain? Will self-control allow you to do anything without restraint? Can justice be honored by a man who, under the force of pain, discloses confidences, betrays his associates, abandons many duties? And what answer will you give to courage and its companions—greatness of spirit, steadfastness, endurance, indifference to human affairs?\n\nSECTION 32\n“Will you hear ‘What a brave man!’ while you lie broken and prostrate, bewailing your fate in a pitiful voice? In such a state, no one would even call you a man. You must therefore either abandon courage or bury pain.”\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 14\n\n“You know, surely, that if you lose one piece of your Corinthian bronze, you may still have the rest of your furnishings safe; but if you lose one virtue—though virtue cannot be lost—if you admit you lack one, you will possess none at all?\n\nSECTION 33\n“Can you call that Philoctetes brave, great-hearted, enduring, steadfast, indifferent to human affairs—or you—? I would rather leave you out of it. But he certainly is not brave, lying there\n\n“‘In a damp-roofed cave,  \n“‘Which, echoing with cries, complaints, groans, roars,  \n“‘Though mute, sends back the mournful voices.’\n\n“I do not deny that pain is pain—why else would courage be needed? I say that endurance can master it, if endurance exists at all. If it does not, why do we glorify philosophy, or take pride in her name? Pain pricks; let it even stab. If you are naked, offer your throat. But if you are clad in Vulcan’s armor—that is, in courage—resist. Unless you do, this guardian of your dignity will abandon and desert you.\n\nSECTION 34\n“The laws of Crete, ordained either by Jupiter or by Minos with Jupiter’s approval, as the poets tell us, and those of Lycurgus too, train the young through exertion: hunting, running, hunger, thirst, cold, and heat. At Sparta boys are flogged at the altar so hard that ‘blood pours from deep within their flesh’—sometimes even to death, as I heard while I was there. Not one of them has ever cried out, or even groaned. What then? Can boys do this, and men not do it? Can custom achieve it, and reason not achieve it?”\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 15\n\nSECTION 35\n“There is some distinction between toil and pain. They are very close, certainly, but there is still a difference. Toil is the mind’s or body’s performance of a demanding work or duty; pain is a harsh disturbance in the body, unwelcome to the senses. The Greeks, whose language is richer than ours, call both by one name. Thus they call industrious people enthusiasts for pain, or rather lovers of pain; we more aptly call them hardworking. To toil is one thing, to suffer pain another. Greece, how poor you sometimes are in words, though you always think you have so many! Suffering pain, I repeat, is one thing; toiling is another. When Gaius Marius had his varicose veins cut, he suffered pain; when he led his column through intense heat, he toiled. Yet the two have a certain likeness: becoming accustomed to toil makes it easier to endure pain.\n\nSECTION 36\n“And so those who gave Greece its forms of government wanted the bodies of the young strengthened by toil. The Spartans extended this even to women, who in other cities live in the softest luxury, ‘hidden in the shadows of walls.’ But they wanted nothing like this\n\n“‘Among the maidens of Laconia,  \n“‘Who care more for wrestling-ground, Eurotas, sun, dust, toil,  \n“‘And warfare than for the fertility of foreign women.’\n\n“Pain, then, sometimes interrupts these strenuous exercises: they are shoved, struck, thrown down, they fall; and toil itself forms a kind of callus against pain.”\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 16\n\nSECTION 37\n“Now consider military service—ours, I mean, not the Spartans’, whose battle line advances to a measured beat and a flute, and who never receive an exhortation without an anapestic rhythm. First, you can see where our armies get their name, exercitus: from exercise. Then think of the toil, the immense toil of marching: carrying more than half a month’s provisions, carrying anything they want for their use, carrying a stake for the palisade. Our soldiers no more count shield, sword, and helmet as baggage than they count their shoulders, arms, and hands. Weapons, they say, are a soldier’s limbs. They carry them so conveniently that, when necessary, they can drop their packs and fight with their weapons as freely as with their limbs. And the legions’ training? What labor goes into that running, charging, shouting! This produces the spirit ready for wounds in battle. Bring up an untrained soldier with equal spirit:\n\nSECTION 38\n“He will seem a woman. Why is there the immense difference between a new army and a veteran one that we have experienced ourselves? Recruits are generally younger, but habit teaches men to bear toil and despise wounds. Indeed, we often see wounded men being carried from the battle line: the raw, untrained soldier utters the most disgraceful wails even after a light blow. The trained veteran, made braver by that very experience, asks only for a surgeon to bandage him:\n\n“‘O Patroclus, coming to you, I ask for help and for your hands,  \n“‘Before I meet the cruel death dealt by an enemy’s hand.  \n“‘[…]  \n“‘And there is no way to stop the flowing blood,  \n“‘If by your skill death can somehow be avoided.  \n“‘For the wounded fill the porticoes of Aesculapius’s sons;  \n“‘There is no way to get in.’  \n“‘This certainly is Eurypylus.’ A well-trained man!”\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 17\n\nSECTION 39\n“And no less well trained: where so much lamentation surrounds him, see how free of tears his answer is. He even gives a reason why he should bear it calmly:\n\n“‘Whoever plans another’s death  \n“‘Must know it is planned for him as well, to share an equal doom.’\n\n“Patroclus will lead him away, I suppose, settle him on a bed, and bandage his wound. He would, if he were human; but I have never seen anything less so. Instead he asks what has happened:\n\n“‘Tell me, tell me, how does the Argive cause hold up in battle?’  \n“‘Words cannot tell the full extent of toil  \n“‘Our deeds provide.’\n\n“Then be quiet and bandage the wound. Even if Eurypylus could go on, Aesopus could not:\n\n“‘Where Hector’s good fortune turned our fierce battle line […]’\n\n“And he explains the rest, in pain: so unrestrained is a brave man’s passion for military glory. Can a veteran soldier do this, then, and a learned, wise man not do it?\n\nSECTION 40\n“He certainly can, and better by no small margin. But so far I am speaking about the habit of training, not yet about reason and wisdom. Little old women often go without food for two or three days. Deprive an athlete of food for a single day, and he will call on Jupiter, Olympian Jupiter, the very god for whom he is training, and cry out that he cannot bear it. Great is the power of habit. Hunters spend the night in the snow on mountains; Indians let themselves be burned; boxers, battered by weighted gloves, do not even groan.\n\nSECTION 41\n“But why speak of these men, to whom an Olympic victory seems like a consulship in the old days? Gladiators, men either ruined or barbarian—what blows they endure! How much rather the well-trained ones take a blow than evade it disgracefully! How often they show that nothing matters more to them than satisfying their master or the crowd! Even when exhausted by wounds, they send to their masters to ask their wishes: if they have given satisfaction, they are willing to lie down and die. What ordinary gladiator has ever groaned or changed expression? Which of them has behaved disgracefully, not only while standing, but even as he fell? Which, once down and ordered to take the sword, has drawn back his neck? Such is the power of training, practice, and habit. Can ‘a Samnite, a filthy fellow, worthy of that life and station’ achieve this, while a man born for glory allows any part of his spirit to remain so soft that he does not strengthen it through practice and reason? Some people commonly find gladiatorial shows cruel and inhuman. Perhaps they are, as they are held today. But when it was convicted criminals who fought with swords, the ears might receive many lessons, but the eyes could receive no stronger lesson against pain and death.”\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 18\n\nSECTION 42\n“I have spoken about training, habit, and practice. Come now, let us consider reason, unless you have something to say on these points.”\n\n“Interrupt you? I would not even wish to: your discourse leads me so strongly toward conviction.”\n\n“Whether suffering pain is an evil or not may be left to the Stoics. With their twisted little chains of reasoning, too fine to reach our actual feelings, they try to prove that pain is not an evil. Whatever it is, I do not think it as great as it seems. I say that people are more violently disturbed by a false image and appearance of it, and that all pain is bearable.\n\n“Where, then, shall I begin? Shall I briefly touch on the same points I made just now, so that the argument may advance further with greater ease?\n\nSECTION 43\n“Everyone agrees—not only the educated, but the uneducated too—that bearing pain patiently belongs to brave, great-hearted, enduring men who rise above human affairs. No one has ever thought that a man who bears it in this way does not deserve praise. Is it not disgraceful, then, either to fear its approach or to fail to bear its presence, when bearing it is both demanded of the brave and praised when achieved? But consider: although all the right dispositions of the mind are called virtues, perhaps this name does not properly belong to all of them. Perhaps they were all named after the one that excelled the rest. Virtus, ‘virtue,’ takes its name from vir, ‘man’; and courage is the quality most characteristic of a man. Its two chief tasks are contempt for death and contempt for pain. We must therefore exercise these qualities if we wish to possess virtue—or rather, to be men, since virtue has borrowed its name from men.\n\n“You may ask how, and rightly: this is the kind of medicine philosophy professes to offer.”\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 19\n\nSECTION 44\n“Epicurus comes forward, a man far from bad—or rather, an excellent man. He gives as much advice as his understanding allows. ‘Disregard pain,’ he says. Who says this? The very man who calls pain the supreme evil? Hardly consistent. Let us listen. ‘If pain is at its utmost,’ he says, ‘it must be brief.’ ‘Say those same words to me again!’ I do not quite understand what you call ‘utmost’ and what you call ‘brief.’ ‘Utmost: nothing can exceed it. Brief: nothing can be briefer. I despise the magnitude of a pain from which the shortness of its duration will rescue me almost before it arrives.’ But what if the pain is as great as Philoctetes’ was? ‘That certainly seems very great to me, but still not the utmost. Only his foot hurts. His eyes could hurt, his head, his sides, his lungs—everything could hurt. So it is far from the utmost pain. Consequently,’ he says, ‘long-lasting pain contains more joy than trouble.’\n\nSECTION 45\n“Now I cannot say that so great a man has no sense, but I think he is making fun of us. I say that the utmost pain—and I call it utmost even if another is greater by ten atoms—is not necessarily brief. I could name many good men who have been tormented for years by the most severe pains of gout. But this clever fellow never fixes a limit for either magnitude or duration, so that I may know what he calls utmost in pain, brief in time. Let us therefore leave him, since he says absolutely nothing, and force the admission that remedies for pain should not be sought from someone who has called pain the greatest of all evils, however plucky he shows himself in his own intestinal cramps and painful urination. Medicine must be sought elsewhere—above all, if we seek the greatest consistency, from those who regard what is honorable as the supreme good and what is disgraceful as the supreme evil. In their presence you will certainly not dare to groan and toss about.”\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 20\n\nSECTION 46\n“For Virtue herself will speak to you in their voice: ‘You have seen boys at Sparta, young men at Olympia, barbarians in the arena, receiving the heaviest blows and bearing them in silence. If some pain happens to wrench at you, will you cry out like a woman, instead of bearing it steadily and calmly?’ ‘It is impossible; nature will not allow it.’ I hear you. Boys bear it, drawn by glory; others bear it from shame, many from fear. Yet we doubt whether nature permits what so many people endure in so many places? She not only permits it: she demands it. For she has nothing more excellent, nothing she seeks more eagerly, than honor, praise, dignity, and decency. I mean these several names to express a single thing; I use several to convey it as fully as possible. What I mean is this: by far the best thing for a human being is what deserves to be sought for its own sake, what springs from virtue or resides in virtue itself, what is praiseworthy in its own right. I would sooner call this the only good than deny it is the supreme good. And as I speak of honor, so I speak in opposite terms of disgrace: nothing is so hideous, nothing so deserving of rejection, nothing so unworthy of a human being.\n\nSECTION 47\n“If you are convinced of this—and you said at the outset that you thought dishonor a greater evil than pain—what remains is for you to command yourself. Though I hardly know how we can say that, as if we were two people, one commanding, the other obeying!”\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 21\n\n“Yet the expression is not foolish. The mind is divided into two parts, one sharing in reason, the other without it. When we are told to command ourselves, then, we are being told to make reason restrain recklessness. In almost everyone’s mind there is by nature something soft, abject, lowly, somehow nerveless and limp. If there were nothing else, nothing would be more repulsive than a human being. But reason stands ready, mistress and queen of all. Through its own exertion and further progress it becomes perfect virtue. A man must see to it that reason commands the part of his mind whose duty is to obey. ‘How?’ you will ask.\n\nSECTION 48\n“As a master commands a slave, a general a soldier, or a father a son. If that part of the mind I called soft behaves disgracefully, if it gives itself up like a woman to lamentation and tears, let it be bound and held fast under the watch of friends and relatives. We often see shame break people whom no reasoning could overcome. Such people, then, must be treated like slaves, almost with chains and confinement. Those who are firmer, though still not fully strong, must be called back by a warning, like good soldiers, to uphold their dignity. In The Washing, that wisest man of Greece does not lament excessively when wounded—or rather, he laments with restraint. ‘Step carefully,’ he says,\n\n“‘Go with a steady effort,  \n“‘So that no jolt may seize me  \n“‘With greater pain.’\n\nSECTION 49\n“Pacuvius does this better than Sophocles, in whose play Ulysses laments his wound most tearfully. Yet even when he groans so gently, the very people carrying the wounded man, mindful of the dignity of his character, do not hesitate to say:\n\n“‘You too, Ulysses, though we see  \n“‘You badly struck, are almost too soft  \n“‘In spirit, you who have been used  \n“‘To spend your life in arms […]’\n\n“The discerning poet understands that the habit of bearing pain is a teacher not to be despised.\n\nSECTION 50\n“And Ulysses, in great pain, is not without restraint:\n\n“‘Hold me, hold me fast! The wound bears down;  \n“‘Uncover me! Ah, poor me: I am in torment.’\n\n“He begins to falter, then stops at once:\n\n“‘Cover me, go away now, now!  \n“‘Let me be! Your touching and shaking  \n“‘Make the savage pain worse.’\n\n“Do you see how he has fallen silent, not because his bodily pain was soothed, but because his mind’s pain was rebuked? And so, at the end of The Washing, even as he is dying, he rebukes others as well:\n\n“‘We should complain of hostile fortune, not lament it;  \n“‘That is a man’s duty: weeping is assigned to woman’s nature.’”\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 22\n\nSECTION 51\n“The softer part of his mind obeyed reason as a dutiful soldier obeys a stern commander. But the man who possesses perfect wisdom—we have certainly never yet seen one, though the philosophers’ teachings describe what he would be like, if ever he should exist—that man, or rather the reason within him, complete and perfect, will command his lower part as a just father commands good sons. A nod will accomplish his wish, without labor or trouble. He will rouse himself, rise up, marshal and arm himself, to resist pain as he would an enemy. What are these weapons? Exertion, firm resolve, and an inward conversation, as he says to himself:\n\nSECTION 52\n“‘Beware of anything shameful, feeble, unmanly.’ Let honorable images pass before his mind. Let Zeno of Elea stand before him, who suffered everything rather than reveal his fellow conspirators in the overthrow of a tyranny. Let him think of Anaxarchus, the follower of Democritus, who fell into the hands of Timocreon, king in Cyprus, and neither begged off nor refused any form of torture. Calanus the Indian, uneducated and barbarian, born at the foot of the Caucasus, willingly let himself be burned alive. Yet we cannot bear it if a foot aches, or a tooth—[suppose, though, the whole body aches]. It is a certain feeble, womanish opinion, the same in pleasure as in pain: when we melt and dissolve in softness under its influence, we cannot bear a bee’s sting without crying out.\n\nSECTION 53\n“But Gaius Marius, a man of the soil, yet unmistakably a man, when he underwent the operation I mentioned earlier, first forbade them to tie him down. No one before Marius is said to have been operated on unbound. Why were others operated on unbound afterward? His example carried weight. Do you see, then, that the evil lies in opinion, not in nature? Yet Marius himself showed that pain’s bite was sharp: he did not offer his other leg. So he bore pain as a man of courage, and, as a human being, refused to bear more without compelling need.\n\n“The whole matter, then, consists in commanding yourself. I have shown what kind of command this is. And thinking about what best befits endurance, courage, and greatness of spirit not only holds the mind in check but somehow makes the pain itself milder.”\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 23\n\nSECTION 54\n“In battle a cowardly, timid soldier throws away his shield the moment he sees the enemy and runs as fast as he can. Because of this he sometimes perishes without even a wound, while nothing of the kind happens to the man who stands firm. So too those who cannot bear the appearance of pain fling themselves down and lie there crushed and spiritless; those who resist very often emerge victorious. There are certain similarities between mind and body. Just as loads are carried more easily when the body is braced, but crush it when it is slack, so the mind, by its own tension, repels every pressure of weight;\n\nSECTION 55\n“But when relaxed it is so weighed down that it cannot rise. If we seek the truth, every pursuit of duty requires exertion of mind: that alone is, as it were, duty’s guardian. In pain above all we must take care to do nothing abjectly, timidly, cowardly, slavishly, or like a woman. Above all we must repudiate and reject that cry of Philoctetes. A man may sometimes groan, and that rarely; wailing is not permitted even to a woman. This, surely, is the lessus, the ‘wailing’ that the Twelve Tables forbade at funerals.\n\nSECTION 56\n“A brave and wise man never even groans, unless perhaps to brace himself for firmness, as runners in the stadium shout as loudly as they can. Athletes do the same in training. Boxers, even as they strike an opponent, groan while swinging their weighted gloves—not because they are in pain or losing heart, but because pouring out the voice tenses the whole body and gives the blow greater force.”\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 24\n\n“What of those who want to shout more loudly? Are they content to tense the sides, throat, and tongue, from which we see the voice drawn out and poured forth? Their whole body, ‘every fingernail,’ as the saying goes, serves the effort of their voice.\n\nSECTION 57\n“By Hercules, I have seen Marcus Antonius touch the ground with his knee while speaking with all his strength in his own defense under the Varian law. Just as stone-hurling engines and other missile weapons launch their loads with greater force the more tightly they are strained and drawn back, so a voice, a running stride, a blow gains force from the greater exertion that propels it. Since such exertion has such power, we shall use a groan in pain if it helps to strengthen the mind. But if the groan is plaintive, feeble, abject, tearful, I would scarcely call the person who yields to it a man. Even if such groaning brought some relief, we should still consider what befits a brave, spirited man. Since it does nothing to lessen pain, why do we choose disgrace for nothing? What is more disgraceful for a man than womanish weeping?\n\nSECTION 58\n“And this advice about pain extends further: all things, not pain alone, must be resisted with a similar exertion of mind. Anger blazes up, lust is roused: we must retreat to the same citadel and take up the same weapons. But since we are speaking of pain, let us leave these aside.\n\n“What helps most, then, in bearing pain calmly and composedly is to reflect with our whole heart, as the saying goes, on how honorable it is to do so. By nature, as I said before—and it must be said often—we are most eager and hungry for honor. If we catch so much as a gleam of its light, there is nothing we are not ready to bear and endure to possess it. This swift rush of the spirit toward true glory and honor leads men to face those dangers in battle. Brave men do not feel their wounds in the fighting—or they feel them, but would rather die than be displaced even a little from their station of dignity.\n\nSECTION 59\n“The Decii saw the glittering swords of their enemies as they rushed into their battle line. The nobility and glory of their death relieved them of all fear of wounds. Do you suppose Epaminondas groaned when he felt his life flowing out with his blood? He was leaving his country mistress of the Spartans, though he had received it in servitude. These are the consolations, these the soothing remedies for the greatest pains.”\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 25\n\nSECTION 60\n“You will say: what about peacetime, at home, in bed? You call me back to the philosophers, who do not often go into battle. One of them, Dionysius of Heraclea, a decidedly fickle man, had learned courage from Zeno, but pain unlearned it for him. Suffering from his kidneys, he cried out amid his howls that his former opinions about pain were false. When his fellow student Cleanthes asked what reasoning had led him away from his position, he answered: ‘Because if I had devoted only a little effort to philosophy and still could not bear pain, that would be sufficient proof that pain is an evil. But I have spent very many years in philosophy, and I cannot bear it. Therefore pain is an evil.’ They say that Cleanthes then stamped his foot and quoted a line from The Epigoni:\n\n“‘Do you hear this, Amphiaraus, hidden beneath the earth?’\n\n“He meant Zeno, whose degenerate pupil grieved him.\n\nSECTION 61\n“Not so our Posidonius. I often saw him myself, but I shall tell the story Pompey used to relate. On coming to Rhodes as he was leaving Syria, Pompey wanted to hear Posidonius lecture. He heard that Posidonius was seriously ill, suffering intense pain in his joints, but still wanted to visit so distinguished a philosopher. He saw and greeted him, addressed him in respectful terms, and said how sorry he was that he could not hear him. ‘But you can,’ Posidonius replied, ‘and I shall not allow bodily pain to make so great a man’s visit to me fruitless.’ Pompey said that, lying in bed, he then argued with dignity and eloquence on this very proposition, that nothing is good except what is honorable. Whenever the torches of pain seemed to be brought against him, he would often say:”\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 26\n\nSECTION 62\n“‘You accomplish nothing, pain! However troublesome you are, I shall never admit that you are an evil.’ Indeed, all toil that brings distinction and renown at once becomes bearable too. Do we not see that where the games called athletic contests are highly honored, those who enter them avoid no pain? Where hunting and horsemanship are admired, those who seek this praise shrink from no pain. Why speak of our own campaigns for office, our craving for honors? What flame have men not run through, those who once gathered these honors vote by vote? Africanus therefore always had Xenophon the Socratic in his hands. He especially praised Xenophon’s statement that the same toils do not weigh equally on a general and a soldier, because honor itself lightens the general’s toil.\n\nSECTION 63\n“Yet the result is that among the unwise multitude the appearance of honor has power, since they cannot see honor itself. They are swayed by reputation and the judgment of the many, thinking honorable what most people praise. But even if you are in the public eye, I would not have you abide by the multitude’s judgment, or think most beautiful what it thinks so. You must use your own judgment. If you satisfy yourself by approving what is right, you will have conquered not only yourself, as I advised a little earlier, but everyone and everything.\n\nSECTION 64\n“Set this before yourself, then: greatness of spirit, a raising of the mind to the loftiest possible height, displayed above all in disregarding and despising pain, is the single most beautiful thing of all. It is more beautiful still if, free of an audience and without courting applause, it nevertheless delights in itself. Indeed, I think everything done without self-advertisement and without the public as witness deserves greater praise. Not that the public should be shunned: all good deeds wish to stand in the light. Still, virtue has no greater theater than conscience.”\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 27\n\nSECTION 65\n“Above all, let us practice this: the endurance of pain, which I have so often said must be strengthened by the mind’s exertion, should show itself consistent in every kind of suffering. Many who have bravely received and borne wounds for the desire of victory or glory, or even to preserve their rights and freedom, cannot bear the pain of illness once they relax their effort. They had not borne the pain they found so easy through reason or wisdom, but rather through zeal and glory. Thus some savage barbarians can fight most fiercely with the sword, yet cannot face illness like men. Greeks, on the other hand, not very high-spirited but reasonably sensible by human standards, cannot face an enemy; yet these same men bear illness patiently and humanely. The Cimbri and Celtiberians exult in battle and lament in sickness. Nothing can be consistent unless it springs from a settled principle of reason.\n\nSECTION 66\n“But when you see that people led by zeal or opinion are not broken by pain in pursuing and attaining their aim, you ought to conclude either that pain is not an evil, or that, even if we choose to call everything harsh and contrary to nature an evil, it is still so slight that virtue overwhelms it until it disappears from sight. Reflect on this, I beg you, by day and night. This reasoning will spread wider and occupy a much greater territory than pain alone. If we do everything to avoid disgrace and attain honor, we may despise not only the stings of pain but even the thunderbolts of fortune—especially since yesterday’s discussion has provided us with that refuge.\n\nSECTION 67\n“Suppose a man is sailing with pirates in pursuit, and some god says to him, ‘Throw yourself out of the ship. Someone is here to receive you: either a dolphin, as it received Arion of Methymna, or those horses of Pelops, Neptune’s horses, which are said to have drawn his chariot suspended over the waves. They will receive you and carry you wherever you wish.’ He would abandon all fear. So, when harsh and hateful pains press upon you, if they are too great to bear, you see where you may take refuge.\n\n“This is about what I thought should be said for now. But perhaps you remain of your former opinion.”\n\n“Not at all. I hope that in two days I have been freed from fear of the two things I most dreaded.”\n\n“Tomorrow, then, to the water clock: that was our agreement, and I see I cannot leave this debt to you unpaid.”\n\n“Exactly so. That in the morning, and this at the same time as today.”\n\n“So we shall do, and attend to your excellent pursuits.”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 1\n\nSECTION 1\nWhat reason, Brutus, am I to give for this: although we consist of soul and body, an art has been sought out for treating and protecting the body, and its usefulness has been hallowed by attributing its discovery to the immortal gods; yet medicine for the soul was neither so eagerly desired before its discovery, nor so diligently practiced after it became known, nor so widely welcomed and approved, but has even been viewed by many with suspicion and hatred? Is it because we judge the body’s heaviness and pain with the soul, but do not feel the soul’s illness through the body? The result is that the soul passes judgment on itself precisely when the very faculty that judges is sick.\n\nSECTION 2\nIf nature had made us capable of looking into her and seeing her clearly, and of completing life’s journey with her as our best guide, there would certainly be no need to seek out reasoning and instruction. As it is, she has given us little sparks, which we quickly extinguish, corrupted as we are by bad habits and opinions, until nature’s light is nowhere visible. For the seeds of the virtues are inborn in our minds; if they were allowed to grow, nature herself would lead us to a happy life. Instead, the moment we are brought into the light and taken up in someone’s arms, we find ourselves amid every kind of corruption and the deepest confusion of opinion, so that we seem almost to have drunk in error with our nurse’s milk. Then, when we have been given back to our parents and afterward handed over to teachers, we are steeped in so many errors that truth yields to falsehood, and nature herself to settled opinion.\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 2\n\nSECTION 3\nThen come the poets. Making a great display of learning and wisdom, they are heard, read, learned by heart, and lodge deep within our minds. But when the people too join them, like some supreme teacher, and the whole multitude on every side agrees in favor of vice, then we are thoroughly infected by corrupt opinions and desert nature. We come to think that those who have judged nothing better for a human being, nothing more desirable or more excellent than honors, commands, and popular glory, have best understood nature’s power. Every person of the finest character is drawn toward this glory; yet in seeking that true moral goodness which alone nature seeks above all, he moves in a world of utter emptiness, pursuing not a distinct likeness of virtue but a shadowy image of glory. For glory is something solid and clearly defined, not a shadow: it is the united praise of good people, the uncorrupted voice of sound judges concerning outstanding virtue. It answers virtue like an echo; and because it generally accompanies right actions, good people should not reject it.\n\nSECTION 4\nBut popular fame, which would pass for glory’s likeness, is reckless and thoughtless, and generally praises faults and vices; by its counterfeit of moral goodness it spoils goodness’s shape and beauty. Blinded in this way, people have desired things that were indeed splendid, without knowing where or what they were; some have utterly destroyed their countries, others themselves. These people, while seeking the best, go astray less through their intentions than through mistaking the road. What, then, of those driven by greed for money or lust for pleasures, whose souls are so disturbed that they are not far from madness—as happens to all the unwise? Are they to receive no treatment? Is it because the soul’s illnesses do less harm than the body’s, or because bodies can be cured but no medicine exists for souls?\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 3\n\nSECTION 5\nYet the soul’s diseases are both more destructive and more numerous than the body’s. Indeed, bodily diseases themselves are hateful because they affect and trouble the soul; and, as Ennius says, “The sick soul is always wandering; it can neither bear nor endure, and never ceases to desire.” To leave others aside, what bodily diseases could be more grievous than these two, distress and desire? And how can it be maintained that the soul cannot heal itself, when it was the soul that discovered medicine for the body? In healing bodies, the bodies themselves and nature have great power, yet not everyone who submits to treatment immediately recovers; but souls that wish to be healed and obey the precepts of the wise are healed beyond any doubt.\n\nSECTION 6\nThere certainly is a medicine for the soul: philosophy. We must not seek its help outside ourselves, as with bodily diseases, but must labor with all our resources and strength to become capable of healing ourselves. Still, I believe I have said enough in the Hortensius about philosophy as a whole, and how earnestly it should be sought and cultivated. Since then I have scarcely ceased either discussing or writing about the greatest questions. These books set out the discussions I held with my friends at Tusculum. But since the two preceding books dealt with death and pain, the third day’s discussion will furnish this third volume.\n\nSECTION 7\nWhen we had gone down to our Academy, as the day was already turning toward afternoon, I asked one of those present to propose a subject for discussion. The conversation then went as follows:\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 4\n\n“I think the wise person is liable to distress.”\n\n“And to the other disturbances of the soul as well—fears, desires, fits of anger? These are broadly the things the Greeks call ‘affections.’ I could call them ‘diseases,’ which would translate their word literally, but would not accord with our usage. For the Greeks call pity, envy, exultation, and joy diseases—all movements of the soul that do not obey reason. We, however, would rightly call these same movements of an agitated soul ‘disturbances,’ I think, whereas ‘diseases’ would not be quite idiomatic—unless you think otherwise.”\n\n“No, I agree with your usage.”\n\nSECTION 8\n“Then do you think the wise person is liable to these?”\n\n“I certainly do.”\n\n“Well, that glorious wisdom is not worth much, if it differs little from insanity.”\n\n“What? Do you consider every agitation of the soul insanity?”\n\n“Not I alone. To my frequent surprise, I find that our ancestors also thought so, many centuries before Socrates, from whom all this philosophy of life and conduct flowed.”\n\n“How, exactly?”\n\n“Because the word ‘insanity’ signifies sickness and disease of the mind—that is, a lack of health and an ailing soul, which they called insanity.\n\nSECTION 9\n“(Philosophers call all disturbances of the soul diseases, and deny that any fool is free of these diseases. But those who are diseased are not sound, and the souls of all the unwise are diseased; therefore all the unwise are insane.) For our ancestors believed that the health of souls lay in a certain tranquility and steadiness. They called a mind deprived of these things insane, because health could no more exist in a disturbed soul than in a disturbed body.”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 5\n\nSECTION 10\n“They showed equal insight in calling a condition of the soul without the light of the mind ‘mindlessness’ and also ‘derangement.’ This makes clear that those who gave things these names held the very view that the Stoics, taking it from Socrates, have carefully preserved: all the unwise are unsound. For a soul suffering from any disease—and, as I just said, philosophers call these disturbed movements diseases—is no sounder than a diseased body. Thus wisdom is health of soul, and folly a kind of unsoundness, which is insanity and likewise derangement. These things are marked out far better by Latin words than by Greek ones.\n\nSECTION 11\n“We shall find this in many other instances too; but that is for another time. Now to the matter before us. The whole nature and character of what we are investigating is revealed by the force of the word itself. Since we must understand as sound those whose minds are troubled by no movement resembling disease, we must call those in the opposite condition unsound. Nothing, then, could be better than the familiar Latin expression by which we say that people carried away without restraint by desire or anger have ‘passed out of control’—although anger itself is a part of desire, being defined as the desire for revenge. Those described as out of control are so described because they are not under the control of the mind, to which nature has given sovereignty over the entire soul. It is not easy for me to say how the Greeks came to use their word ‘mania’; nevertheless, we distinguish the thing itself better than they do. For we separate this insanity, which is linked to folly and has a wider reach, from frenzy. The Greeks do wish to do so, but their word is inadequate: what we call frenzy they call ‘black bile,’ as though the mind were disturbed only by black bile, and not often by violent anger, fear, or grief. It is this kind of frenzy we attribute to Athamas, Alcmaeon, Ajax, and Orestes. The Twelve Tables forbid someone in this condition to manage his own property. Accordingly, the text says not ‘if he is insane,’ but ‘if he becomes frenzied.’ For they thought that folly, though lacking steadiness—that is, soundness—could still maintain an average standard of duties and the ordinary, customary conduct of life; but frenzy, they judged, was the mind’s blindness in every respect. Although this appears more serious than insanity, it is nonetheless of such a kind that frenzy can befall the wise person, while insanity cannot. But that is another question. Let us return to our subject.”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 6\n\nSECTION 12\n“You said, I believe, that you think the wise person liable to distress.”\n\n“Yes, that is indeed my view.”\n\n“It is certainly a humane view. We were not born from flint: there is something naturally tender and soft in our souls, which distress shakes like a storm. Nor was Crantor speaking absurdly—that man who was among the most distinguished in our Academy—when he said, ‘I entirely disagree with those who so enthusiastically praise some supposed immunity to pain, which neither can nor should exist. May I never be ill; but if I am, let me retain sensation, whether something is cut from my body or torn away. For that absence of pain comes at a heavy price: savagery in the soul, numbness in the body.’\n\nSECTION 13\n“But let us ask whether this is the language of people who flatter our weakness and indulge our softness. Let us dare not merely to prune the branches of our miseries, but to pull up every fiber of their roots. Something may perhaps remain, so deep are the roots of folly; but only what is unavoidable will remain. Be certain of this: unless the soul is healed, which cannot happen without philosophy, there will be no end to our miseries. Therefore, since we have begun, let us entrust ourselves to her treatment. We shall be healed if we wish. Indeed, I shall go further: I shall explain not only distress, although that comes first, but every disturbance of the soul, as I have called it, or disease, as the Greeks would have it. First, if you agree, let us proceed in the Stoic manner: they generally compress their arguments into brief conclusions. Afterward we shall range more freely, as is our practice.”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 7\n\nSECTION 14\n“The courageous person is also confident—I use this word because faulty usage makes ‘overconfident’ a term of blame, though it is derived from having confidence, which deserves praise. Whoever is confident certainly does not take fright, for confidence is incompatible with fear. But anyone liable to distress is also liable to fear: the things whose presence distresses us are the very things we fear when they threaten and approach. Thus distress is opposed to courage. It is therefore reasonable that anyone liable to distress should also be liable to fear, and indeed to a broken and downcast spirit. Whoever is liable to these is liable to submit and at some point to acknowledge himself defeated. Anyone who admits these things must also admit cowardice and faintheartedness. But these do not befall the courageous person; therefore neither does distress. Yet no one is wise without being courageous; distress, then, will not befall the wise.\n\nSECTION 15\n“Moreover, whoever is courageous must also be great in spirit; whoever is great in spirit, unconquered; whoever is unconquered must look down on human affairs and consider them beneath him. But no one can look down on things on account of which he can suffer distress. It follows that the courageous person never suffers distress. All the wise are courageous; therefore distress does not befall the wise. And just as a troubled eye is not in a proper condition to perform its function, and the other parts or the whole body fail in their duty and function when displaced from their proper state, so a troubled soul is unfit to perform its function. The soul’s function is to use reason well; and the wise person’s soul is always so disposed as to make the best use of reason. Therefore it is never disturbed. But distress is a disturbance of the soul; therefore the wise person will always be free of it.”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 8\n\nSECTION 16\n“The same reasoning is also plausible for the temperate person. The Greeks call him ‘sound-minded,’ and call this virtue ‘sound-mindedness,’ which I usually call sometimes temperance, sometimes moderation, and occasionally even restraint. Yet perhaps this virtue may rightly be called ‘worth,’ a word narrower in Greek usage, where worthy people are called ‘useful,’ meaning useful and nothing more. Our word has a wider scope: worth includes all self-restraint and all innocence, for which Greek has no customary name, though ‘harmlessness’ could serve, since innocence is a disposition of the soul that harms no one. Worth embraces the other virtues too. If it were not so great a quality, if it were confined within the narrow limits most people suppose, Lucius Piso’s surname ‘Frugi,’ meaning ‘Worthy,’ would never have been so highly praised.\n\nSECTION 17\n“But since we do not ordinarily call worthy the man who deserts his post through fear, an act of cowardice, or the man who secretly fails through greed to return a deposit, an act of injustice, or the man who mismanages affairs through rashness, an act of folly, worth has embraced the three virtues of courage, justice, and practical wisdom—though this is a feature common to the virtues, since they are all linked and bound together. Let worth itself, then, be the remaining, fourth virtue. For its particular task seems to be to govern and quiet the soul’s movements of appetite, and, always resisting desire, to preserve a measured steadiness in everything. Its opposing vice is called worthlessness.\n\nSECTION 18\n“The Latin word for worth, frugalitas, I believe, derives from frux, ‘fruit,’ the earth’s finest produce; nequitia, ‘worthlessness,’ derives from the fact that nothing is of any use in such a person—this may perhaps be a strained derivation, but let us try it, and be thought merely to have played if it comes to nothing. For the same reason he is called a ‘good-for-nothing.’ Whoever, then, is worthy—or, if you prefer, moderate and temperate—must be steady; whoever is steady, untroubled; whoever is untroubled, free from every disturbance, and therefore from distress as well. These qualities belong to the wise person; distress, then, will be absent from the wise.”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 9\n\n“Accordingly, Dionysius of Heraclea argues with some acuteness against Achilles’ complaint in Homer, which runs, I believe, like this:  \n“‘My heart swells deep within with bitter anger,  \n“‘When I recall my loss of honor and all praise.’  \n“Is a hand in a healthy state when it is swollen? Or is any other swollen, puffed-up limb not in a defective condition?\n\nSECTION 19\n“So a puffed-up, swollen soul is in a defective condition. But the wise person’s soul is always free of defect, never puffed up, never swollen; yet the angry person’s soul is in just this condition. Therefore the wise person is never angry. For if he is angry, he also feels desire: it is characteristic of the angry person to desire to inflict the greatest possible pain on the person by whom he thinks himself injured. Whoever desires this must rejoice greatly if he achieves it. The result is that he delights in another’s misfortune. Since this cannot befall the wise person, neither can anger. But if distress could befall the wise person, anger could as well; since he is free of the latter, he will be free of distress too.\n\nSECTION 20\n“For if the wise person could fall into distress, he could also fall into pity and envy. I have not used the ambiguous word that can mean ‘being envied’ as well as ‘envying’; we may rightly form a distinct noun from ‘to envy,’ to avoid that ambiguity. The verb derives from looking too closely at another’s fortune, as in the Melanippus: ‘Who has cast an envious eye upon my flowering children?’ The construction seems bad Latin, but Accius handles it splendidly: just as we say ‘see the flower,’ so ‘envy the flower’ is more correct than ‘envy at the flower.’ Custom prevents us from doing this;\n\nSECTION 21\n“the poet maintained his right and spoke more boldly—”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 10\n\n“the same person, then, is liable both to pity and to envy. For whoever grieves at someone’s adversity also grieves at someone’s prosperity. Thus Theophrastus, lamenting the death of his companion Callisthenes, is tormented by Alexander’s successes, and says that Callisthenes fell into the hands of a man of supreme power and supreme good fortune, who did not know how prosperity should be used. But just as pity is distress at another’s adversity, so envy is distress at another’s prosperity. Whoever is liable to pity, then, is also liable to envy. But the wise person is not liable to envy, and therefore not to pity either. If the wise person were accustomed to feeling distress, he would also be accustomed to pity. Distress, therefore, is absent from the wise.\n\nSECTION 22\n“These are the Stoics’ formulations, and their conclusions are rather tightly twisted. But at some point we must speak more expansively and fully; even so, we should chiefly use the views of those whose reasoning and judgment are most courageous and, so to speak, manly. For our friends the Peripatetics—unsurpassed in richness, learning, and weight—do not really convince me when they speak of moderate disturbances or diseases of the soul. Every evil, even a moderate one, is evil; but our aim is that there should be absolutely none in the wise person. Just as a body is not healthy even if it is only moderately sick, so this moderation in the soul falls short of health. Our people, then, were splendidly right, as in so many other things, to name trouble, anxiety, and anguish ‘distress,’ using a word for sickness because of their likeness to sick bodies.\n\nSECTION 23\n“The Greeks use almost this very word for every disturbance of the soul: they call any turbulent movement in it an ‘affection,’ that is, a disease. We do better. For distress of soul most closely resembles bodily sickness, whereas desire does not resemble sickness, nor does immoderate joy, that exalted and exultant pleasure of the soul. Even fear, although close to distress, does not much resemble disease. But distress in the soul, like sickness in the body, has a name properly and inseparably associated with pain. We must therefore explain the origin of this pain, that is, the cause that produces distress in the soul as it produces sickness in the body. For just as physicians think that discovering the cause of a disease means discovering its cure, so, once we have found the cause of distress, we shall find the means of healing it.”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 11\n\nSECTION 24\n“The entire cause, then, lies in opinion—not only of distress, but of all the other disturbances as well. There are four kinds of these, with numerous subdivisions. For every disturbance is a movement of the soul either devoid of reason, or scorning reason, or disobedient to reason. And since such a movement is aroused in either of two ways by an opinion concerning good or evil, the four disturbances fall into equal divisions. Two arise from an opinion concerning good. One,  \n“‘exultant pleasure,’  \n“is joy carried beyond measure, produced by the opinion that some great good is present. The other,  \n“‘desire,’  \n“which may properly also be called craving, is an immoderate appetite for a supposed great good, disobedient to reason.\n\nSECTION 25\n“These two kinds, then, exultant pleasure and craving, are agitated by opinions about good things, as the other two, fear and distress, are by opinions about evils. Fear is the opinion that a great evil is impending, and  \n“‘distress’  \n“is the opinion that a great evil is present—and indeed a fresh opinion of an evil of such a kind that anguish over it seems right: in other words, the person in pain thinks he ought to be in pain. We must resist with all our strength and resources these disturbances, which folly unleashes and drives like so many Furies into human life, if we wish to pass in peace and quiet through the span of life we have been given.\n\n“But we shall deal with the others another time. For now, let us drive away distress, if we can. Let that be our aim, since you said that you think it can befall the wise person, which I utterly deny. For it is something hideous, miserable, and detestable, to be fled with every effort—with sail and oar, so to speak.”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 12\n\nSECTION 26\n“What do you think, for instance, of that man,  \n“‘Descended from Tantalus, son of Pelops, who once won  \n“‘Hippodamia from her father, King Oenomaus, in a stolen marriage’?  \n“Why, he is Jupiter’s great-grandson. Can he be so abject, so broken?  \n“‘Do not,’ he says, ‘come near me, strangers! Stay just there,  \n“‘So that my touch or shadow may not harm the good.  \n“‘So powerful a stain of crime clings to my body.’  \n“Will you condemn yourself, Thyestes, and deprive yourself of daylight because of the force of another’s crime? And that son of the Sun—do you not think him unworthy of his own father’s light?  \n“‘His eyes have sunk; his body wastes to skin and bone;  \n“‘The moisture of his tears has eaten his bloodless cheeks;  \n“‘Amid his filthy face, his beard, foul and  \n“‘Unshorn, darkens his chest, rough with neglect.’  \n“You have added these evils yourself, most foolish Aeetes. They were not contained in what chance brought upon you. And this when the misfortune had long grown old, when the swelling of the soul had subsided—for distress, as I shall show, lies in the opinion of a recent evil. Evidently, though, you grieve from longing for your kingdom, not your daughter. You hated her, perhaps with justice; but you could not bear the loss of your kingdom. It is shameless mourning to wear yourself out with grief because you are not allowed to rule free people.\n\nSECTION 27\n“Indeed, the tyrant Dionysius, expelled from Syracuse, taught boys at Corinth: so incapable was he of doing without command. But what could be more shameless than Tarquin, who made war on those who had refused to endure his arrogance? When neither the armies of Veii nor those of the Latins could restore him to his kingdom, he is said to have retired to Cumae and to have wasted away there from old age and distress.”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 13\n\n“So you think this can happen to a wise person—that he can be crushed by distress, which is to say by misery? For while every disturbance is misery, distress is torture. Desire has its burning heat, exultant joy its frivolity, fear its abasement; but distress has something more grievous: wasting, torment, affliction, degradation. It tears the soul, eats it away, and utterly destroys it. Unless we strip it off and cast it away, we cannot be free from misery.\n\nSECTION 28\n“This much is clear: distress arises when something has appeared to us in such a way that a great evil seems to be present and pressing upon us. Epicurus holds that the opinion of evil is by its nature distress: anyone who considers some rather serious evil, if he thinks it has happened to him, is immediately distressed. The Cyrenaics believe that distress is produced not by every evil, but by an unexpected and unforeseen evil. This certainly contributes no little to increasing distress: everything sudden seems more grievous. Hence these lines, too, are rightly praised:  \n“‘When I fathered them, I knew they would die, and raised them for that fate.  \n“‘And when I sent them to Troy to defend Greece,  \n“‘I knew I was sending them into deadly war, not to a feast.’”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 14\n\nSECTION 29\n“This advance reflection on future evils softens the arrival of what you have long seen coming. Hence the praise for Theseus’ words in Euripides; we may, as we often do, turn them into Latin:  \n“‘For I remembered what I heard from a learned man,  \n“‘And pondered to myself the miseries to come:  \n“‘Either a bitter death or exile’s mournful flight,  \n“‘Or some great weight of evil always in my thoughts,  \n“‘So that, if chance should bring some dreadful thing upon me,  \n“‘No sudden care would tear me unprepared.’\n\nSECTION 30\n“When Theseus says he heard this from a learned man, Euripides is speaking about himself. He had studied with Anaxagoras, who, they say, on hearing of his son’s death, remarked, ‘I knew I had fathered a mortal.’ These words show that such events are bitter for those who have not considered them beforehand. There is no doubt, then, that everything thought evil is harder to bear when unforeseen. Therefore, although this alone does not produce the greatest distress, since foresight and mental preparation are so powerful in diminishing pain, a human being should always have reflected on everything human. Surely this is that excellent and divine wisdom: to have human affairs deeply understood and thoroughly examined; to be surprised at nothing when it happens, and, before it happens, to think nothing incapable of happening.  \n“‘Therefore everyone, when fortune is most favorable, should most  \n“‘Reflect upon the way to bear adversity and hardship.  \n“‘Returning from abroad, let him always think of dangers, losses,  \n“‘A son’s wrongdoing, a wife’s death, or a daughter’s sickness;  \n“‘These things are common, so none of them may ever strike the mind as new;  \n“‘Whatever comes beyond expectation, count it all as gain.’”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 15\n\n“Since Terence has expressed this thought, borrowed from philosophy, so aptly, shall we, from whose springs it was drawn, not both express it better and hold it more steadfastly?\n\nSECTION 31\n“Here we have that unchanging expression which Xanthippe is said to have often praised in her husband Socrates: she always saw him leave home and return with the same face. It was not the stern countenance of that elder Marcus Crassus, who, Lucilius says, laughed once in his whole life, but a tranquil and serene one: that is the account handed down to us. His expression rightly remained the same, since there was no change in the mind that shaped it. I therefore accept from the Cyrenaics these weapons against accidents and events, whose approaching assaults may be broken by long reflection beforehand. At the same time I judge that the evil lies in opinion, not in nature. For if it were in the thing itself, why would foreseen evils become lighter?\n\nSECTION 32\n“But something more subtle can be said on these same matters, once we have examined Epicurus’ view. He holds that everyone who thinks himself amid evils must be distressed, whether those evils were foreseen and expected or have grown old. Evils, he says, neither diminish with age nor become lighter through reflection beforehand. Indeed, it is foolish to reflect on a future evil, or perhaps one that will never even come: every evil is hateful enough when it arrives. But someone who has always thought that some adversity might occur makes it an everlasting evil for himself; and if it will not even occur, he takes on a self-imposed misery to no purpose. Thus he is always in anguish, either suffering the evil or thinking of it.\n\nSECTION 33\n“He places the relief of distress in two things: diverting the mind from thinking about trouble and recalling it to the contemplation of pleasures. For he believes that the soul can obey reason and follow where it leads. Reason therefore forbids us to look at our troubles, draws us away from bitter thoughts, and blunts our gaze as it contemplates our miseries. When it has sounded the retreat from these, it again urges and spurs us to look at diverse pleasures and engage our whole mind with them. Through recollection of past pleasures and hope of future ones, he thinks the wise person’s life is filled with these delights. I have expressed this in my own manner; Epicurus’ followers use theirs. But let us consider what they say, and disregard how they say it.”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 16\n\nSECTION 34\n“To begin with, they are wrong to criticize reflection on future events. Nothing so blunts and lightens distress as the lifelong, constant thought that nothing is incapable of happening; as meditation on the human condition; as reflection on life’s law and on obedience to it. This brings about not perpetual mourning, but freedom from mourning. For someone reflecting on the nature of things, on life’s changes, on the weakness of humankind, does not mourn while considering them, but is then most fully performing wisdom’s task. He achieves both results: in considering human affairs he enjoys philosophy’s proper work, and in adversity he is healed by a threefold consolation. First, <nothing happens to him except what> he has long considered capable of happening—a thought which by itself does most to diminish and dissolve every trouble. Second, he understands that human fortunes must be borne as a human being should bear them. Finally, he sees that there is no evil except fault, and no fault when something happens that no human being could have prevented.\n\nSECTION 35\n“But that recall of the mind he offers, when he diverts us from contemplating evils, amounts to nothing. When things we think evil are stabbing at us, neither ignoring them nor forgetting them lies in our power. They tear at us, harass us, prick us with goads, set fires against us, and give us no breathing space. Yet you command us to forget, which is contrary to nature, while wresting away the help for long-standing grief <which> nature has given! The medicine brought by the passage of time is certainly slow, but it is powerful nonetheless. You tell me to think of good things and forget evils. You would be saying something, and something worthy of a great philosopher, if you understood as good the things most worthy of a human being.”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 17\n\n“If Pythagoras or Socrates or Plato were to say to me:\n\nSECTION 36\n“‘Why are you lying there, why are you grieving, why do you sink and yield to fortune? Perhaps she could tug at you and sting you; certainly she could not break your strength. Great power resides in the virtues: rouse them, if perhaps they sleep. Courage, their leader, will immediately come to your side and compel you to show such greatness of soul that you look down on everything that can happen to a human being and count it nothing. Temperance will come too, which is also moderation, and which I called worth a little earlier; it will not let you do anything shameful or worthless. Yet what is more worthless or shameful than an unmanly man? Not even justice will let you act so, though it seems to have the least scope in this matter. Still, it will tell you that you are doubly unjust: you covet what belongs to another when, born mortal, you demand the condition of the immortals; and you resent having returned what you received only for use.’\n\nSECTION 37\n“‘What answer will you give practical wisdom, when it teaches that virtue is self-sufficient, as for living well, so also for living happily? If virtue hangs bound to things outside itself, instead of rising from itself and returning again to itself, embracing all its possessions and seeking nothing from elsewhere, I do not understand why it should seem worthy of such vehement praise in words or such ardent pursuit in fact.’—If you recall me to these good things, Epicurus, I obey, I follow, I take you yourself for my guide. I even forget evils, as you command, and all the more readily because I think they should not even be counted as evils. But you divert my thoughts to pleasures. What pleasures? Bodily ones, I suppose, or those that are considered in memory or hope on account of the body. Is there anything else? Am I interpreting your view correctly? For these people habitually deny that we understand what Epicurus says.\n\nSECTION 38\n“This is what he says. And that sharp little old man Zeno, the keenest of them all, used to insist on it and declare it loudly in my hearing at Athens: a happy person is one who enjoys present pleasures and trusts that he will enjoy them throughout all, or a large part, of his life without the intervention of pain; or, should pain intervene, that if intense it will be brief, and if prolonged it will contain more pleasure than evil. A person thinking this will be happy, especially when he is also content with the good things already experienced <and> fears neither death nor the gods. There you have Epicurus’ picture of the happy life, expressed in Zeno’s words, so that nothing can be denied.”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 18\n\n“What, then?\n\nSECTION 39\n“Could the prospect and contemplation of this life relieve Thyestes, or Aeetes, whom I mentioned a little earlier, or Telamon, driven from his country, exiled and destitute? It was of him that people asked in astonishment:  \n“‘Is this that Telamon whom glory lately raised to heaven,  \n“‘On whom men gazed, toward whose face the Greeks turned their own?’\n\nSECTION 40\n“If anyone’s ‘spirit has collapsed along with his fortunes,’ as the same poet says, we must seek medicine from those weighty philosophers of old, not from these devotees of pleasure. What abundance of good things do they claim? Let freedom from pain indeed be the highest good—though that is not called pleasure, but we need not discuss everything now. Is this where we are to be taken to ease our mourning? Let pain indeed be the highest evil. Does someone who is not in pain, then, simply because he is free from evil, immediately enjoy the highest good?\n\nSECTION 41\n“Why do we evade the point, Epicurus, instead of admitting that we mean the pleasure which you yourself, when you have put on a brazen face, habitually describe? Are these your words or not? In the very book that contains your whole teaching—and now I shall act as translator, so no one may think I am inventing—you say this: ‘For my part, I have no conception of that good if I remove the pleasures perceived through taste, those perceived through sexual activity, those perceived through hearing songs, and those pleasant movements perceived by the eyes from beautiful forms, or whatever other pleasures are produced in the whole person through any sense. Nor can it be said that the mind’s joy alone counts as a good. For I know the joyful mind in this way: through the hope of obtaining all the things I have mentioned above, so that our nature, possessing them, may be free of pain.’\n\nSECTION 42\n“These are his own words, so anyone can understand what pleasure Epicurus recognizes. Then a little further on: ‘I have often asked,’ he says, ‘those called wise what they would have left among good things if they removed these, unless they wished to pour out empty sounds. I could learn nothing from them. If they wish to spout virtues and wisdoms, they will be speaking of nothing but the way to produce the pleasures I have mentioned above.’ What follows is to the same effect; the whole book, which deals with the highest good, is filled with words and views of this kind.\n\nSECTION 43\n“Is this, then, the life to which you will recall that Telamon, to lighten his distress? And if you see one of your friends stricken with grief, will you offer him a sturgeon rather than some little book by a follower of Socrates? Will you urge him to listen to the notes of a water organ rather than Plato’s words? Will you set out bright and varied things for him to look at? Hold a little bouquet to his nose? Burn perfumes and tell him to wreathe himself in garlands and roses? And if you add something else as well—then you will certainly have wiped away every trace of mourning.”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 19\n\nSECTION 44\n“Epicurus must admit these things, or remove from his book the passages I have just rendered word for word—or rather discard the entire book, for it is packed with pleasures. We must therefore ask how to free from distress someone who speaks like this:  \n“‘By Pollux, fortune fails me now more than my birth.  \n“‘For I had a kingdom—so you may know from what a height,  \n“‘From what wealth and circumstances, fallen fortune strikes.’  \n“What? Must we thrust a cup of honeyed wine upon him, or something of the sort, to stop his weeping? Look now at the other side, from the same poet: ‘From highest wealth, in need of your help, Hector.’ We must come to her aid, for she seeks assistance:  \n“‘What protection can I seek or pursue? In what  \n“‘Help can I now trust in exile or in flight?  \n“‘Stripped of citadel and city, where can I fall, where turn?  \n“‘My country’s altars no longer stand at home, but lie broken and scattered;  \n“‘The shrines are burned in flame; the high walls stand scorched,  \n“‘Disfigured, with their warped fir timbers—’  \n“You know what follows, and especially these lines:  \n“‘O father, O country, O house of Priam,  \n“‘Temple enclosed by a loud-sounding hinge!  \n“‘I saw you, with foreign forces standing by,  \n“‘With carved and paneled ceilings,  \n“‘Royally furnished in gold and ivory.’\n\nSECTION 45\n“What an outstanding poet, though these singers of Euphorion despise him! He perceives that everything sudden and unexpected is harder to bear. Having therefore magnified the royal wealth that seemed destined to last forever, what does he add?  \n“‘I saw all this set ablaze,  \n“‘Priam robbed of life by violence,  \n“‘Jupiter’s altar fouled with blood.’\n\nSECTION 46\n“A magnificent song! In subject, language, and rhythms alike it is full of mourning. Let us take away her distress. How? Shall we settle her on a feather cushion, bring in a girl to play the harp, offer a sweet perfume, burn a little dish of <fragrances>, and look for something sweet to drink and eat? Are these, then, the good things by which the gravest distress is to be removed? A moment ago you said you could not even conceive of any others. I would agree with Epicurus, then, that we ought to be recalled from grief to the thought of good things, if we agreed about what a good thing is.”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 20\n\n“Someone will say, ‘What then? Do you think Epicurus intended these things, or that his views were licentious?’ Certainly not. I see that he says many austere things, many splendid things. Accordingly, as I have often said, the question concerns his intellectual acuteness, not his character. However much he scorns the pleasures he has just praised, I shall still remember what he considers the highest good. He did not merely use the word ‘pleasure,’ but explained what he meant: ‘taste,’ he says, ‘and bodily embraces and games and songs and forms that move the eyes pleasantly.’ Am I inventing this? Am I lying? I want to be refuted. For what am I working toward except that truth should be unfolded in every inquiry?\n\nSECTION 47\n“‘But he also says that pleasure does not increase once pain has been removed, and that the greatest pleasure is to feel no pain.’ Three great errors in a few words! First, he contradicts himself. Just now he could not even conceive of any good unless the senses were, so to speak, tickled by pleasure; now the greatest pleasure is freedom from pain. Could he contradict himself more? The second error is this: although there are three natural conditions—enjoyment, pain, and neither enjoyment nor pain—he thinks the first and third identical, and does not distinguish pleasure from the absence of pain. The third error he shares with certain others: although virtue is most earnestly sought, and philosophy was sought out as a means to attain it, he has separated the highest good from virtue.\n\nSECTION 48\n“‘But he often praises virtue.’ So did Gaius Gracchus defend the treasury in words, though he had made the greatest handouts and emptied it. Why should I listen to words when I can see deeds? That Lucius Piso Frugi had always spoken against the grain law. Once it passed, this former consul came to receive grain. Gracchus noticed Piso standing in the assembly, and asked, in the hearing of the Roman people, how he could be consistent when he sought grain under a law he had opposed. ‘I would rather, Gracchus,’ he said, ‘that you did not take pleasure in dividing my property among everyone; but if you do, I shall claim my share.’ Did this serious and wise man fail to make clear that the Sempronian law was squandering the public inheritance? Read Gracchus’ speeches, and you will call him the treasury’s champion.\n\nSECTION 49\n“Epicurus denies that one can live pleasantly without living virtuously. He denies that fortune has any power over the wise, prefers a simple diet to a lavish one, and denies that there is any time when the wise person is not happy. All this is worthy of a philosopher, but incompatible with pleasure. ‘He does not mean that pleasure.’ Let him mean whatever pleasure he chooses; it is certainly a pleasure in which virtue has no share. Come, if we do not understand pleasure, do we not understand pain either? I deny, then, that someone who measures the highest evil by pain has any business mentioning virtue.”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 21\n\nSECTION 50\n“Some Epicureans, excellent men—for no school is less malicious—complain that I speak against Epicurus with partisan zeal. Of course: we are competing for office or rank! To me the highest good seems to lie in the soul, to him in the body; to me in virtue, to him in pleasure. And they fight, even calling on their neighbors for support—and there are plenty who immediately flock to them. For my part, I say I do not mind, and will accept whatever they decide as settled.\n\nSECTION 51\n“What is at issue? The Punic War? Even on that subject, when Marcus Cato and Lucius Lentulus differed, there was never any quarrel between them. These men act far too angrily, especially since the view they defend is not a very spirited one: they would not dare to speak for it in the Senate, in the assembly, before the army, or before the censors. But we shall deal with them another time, and in such a spirit that I shall set up no contest, but readily yield if they speak the truth. I shall only remind them that, even if it is entirely true that the wise person refers everything to the body—or, to put it more respectably, does nothing except what is advantageous, or refers everything to his own interest—since such views win no applause, they should enjoy them privately and cease speaking so grandly.”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 22\n\n“The Cyrenaics’ view remains:\n\nSECTION 52\n“they think distress arises if something happens unexpectedly. As I said above, this is certainly an important factor. I know that Chrysippus too thinks an unforeseen event strikes more violently; but this is not the whole story. Certainly the enemy’s sudden arrival causes considerably more confusion than an expected one, and a sudden storm at sea frightens sailors more violently than one foreseen; most such cases are similar. Yet if you examine carefully the nature of unexpected events, you will find only that everything sudden seems greater, and for two reasons. First, we are given no time to consider how great the events are; second, when it seems that they could have been guarded against had they been foreseen, the evil, apparently incurred through our own fault, makes the distress sharper.\n\nSECTION 53\n“That this is so is shown by time, which as it passes brings such relief that, though the same evils remain, distress is not only softened but in most cases removed. Many Carthaginians were slaves at Rome, and Macedonians after King Perseus’ capture. When I was young, I also saw some Corinthians in the Peloponnese. All these could have uttered those same laments of Andromache: ‘I saw all this […]’; but perhaps they had already sung them to exhaustion. For their expressions, speech, and every other movement and bearing were such that you would have taken them for Argives or Sicyonians. The sudden sight of Corinth’s ruined walls had moved me more than the Corinthians themselves, whose souls long reflection had covered with time’s callus.\n\nSECTION 54\n“We read the book Clitomachus sent to his fellow citizens in captivity to console them after Carthage’s destruction. It contains a discussion by Carneades which Clitomachus says he set down in his notes. The proposition was that the wise person would, it seemed, be distressed if his country were captured, and Carneades’ arguments against it are recorded. The philosopher thus applies to a present calamity a medicine of such strength as is not even wanted for an old one. If the same book had been sent to the captives some years later, it would have treated not wounds but scars. For pain diminishes gradually, step by step as time advances—not because the thing itself usually changes or can change, but because experience teaches what reason should have taught: that what seemed so great is smaller than it appeared.”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 23\n\n“‘What need is there, then,’ someone will say, ‘for reason at all, or for that consolation we ordinarily use when we wish to lighten the pain of mourners?\n\nSECTION 55\n“‘For the argument we generally have ready then is that nothing should seem unexpected. Or how will someone endure a misfortune more tolerably from learning that something of the kind must happen to human beings? This argument takes nothing away from the evil’s actual magnitude; it merely adds that nothing has happened that should not have been expected.’ Yet this kind of argument is by no means powerless in consolation; indeed, I am inclined to think it the most powerful. Unexpected events, then, do not have such force that all distress arises from them. They perhaps strike harder, but they do not cause events to seem greater: the events seem greater because they are fresh, not because they are sudden.\n\nSECTION 56\n“There are therefore two ways of discovering the truth, not only about what seems evil, but about what seems good as well. We either investigate the character and magnitude of the thing’s own nature—as we sometimes do with poverty, lightening its burden by argument and teaching how small and few are nature’s wants—or turn our speech from subtle argument to examples. Here Socrates is recalled, here Diogenes, here that line from Caecilius: ‘Wisdom is often found beneath a shabby little cloak.’ For since the force of poverty is one and the same, what reason can be given why Gaius Fabricius could endure it while others deny they can bear it?\n\nSECTION 57\n“This second kind, then, resembles the method of consolation which teaches that what has happened is part of human life. Such a discussion does not merely impart knowledge of humankind; it also indicates that things are bearable which others both have borne and do bear.”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 24\n\n“Is poverty the subject? Many poor people who bear it patiently are recalled. Is it disregard for office? Many who have held no office are brought forward, and who are happier precisely for that reason. The lives of those who preferred private leisure to public business are praised by name; nor is that anapestic passage of the mightiest king left unmentioned, in which he praises an old man and calls him fortunate because he will reach his last day without glory and without fame.\n\nSECTION 58\n“In the same way, examples are recalled of parents bereaved of children, and the mourning of those who take their loss harder is softened by the examples of others. Thus the endurance of others makes what has happened seem far smaller than it was judged to be. Gradually, as we reflect, it becomes clear how much opinion has falsified. This too is what Telamon’s words declare—‘When I fathered them […]’—and Theseus’—‘I pondered to myself the miseries to come’—and Anaxagoras’—‘I knew I had fathered a mortal.’ For all of these, through long reflection on human affairs, understood that they were by no means to be feared in accordance with popular opinion. Indeed, it seems to me that much the same happens to those who reflect beforehand as to those whom time heals, except that a process of reasoning heals the former, and nature herself the latter. They grasp the essential point: that the evil they supposed to be the greatest is by no means so great as to overthrow a happy life.\n\nSECTION 59\n“What follows, then, is that an unexpected event strikes a greater blow, not—as they think—that when two people meet with equal misfortunes, only the one to whom it came unexpectedly is distressed.\n\n“Accordingly, some mourners are said to have taken their grief even harder when they heard of this common human condition: that we are born under a law which allows no one to remain forever free of evil.”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 25\n\n“For this reason Carneades, as I see our Antiochus writes, used to criticize Chrysippus for praising these lines of Euripides:  \n“‘There is no mortal untouched by pain  \n“‘And sickness; many must bury children  \n“‘And father them again, and death awaits us all.  \n“‘These things bring anguish to humankind in vain:  \n“‘Earth must be given back to earth, and everyone’s life  \n“‘Reaped like the crops. So Necessity commands.’\n\nSECTION 60\n“He denied that this kind of argument had any relevance at all to relieving distress. The very fact that we had fallen under so cruel a necessity, he said, was something to grieve over. An argument recalling other people’s misfortunes was suited to consoling the malicious. To me, however, the matter seems quite otherwise. The necessity of bearing the human condition forbids us, as it were, to fight against a god and reminds us that we are human—a reflection that greatly lightens mourning. And the list of examples is offered not to delight the malicious, but so that the mourner may think he must bear what he sees many others have borne with moderation and tranquility.\n\nSECTION 61\n“For those who are collapsing and cannot hold themselves together under the weight of distress must be supported in every way. Hence Chrysippus thinks distress itself was named in Greek as though it were a dissolution of the whole person. It can be entirely uprooted once, as I said at the beginning, its cause is explained. That cause is nothing other than an opinion and judgment that a great evil is present and pressing upon us. Thus even bodily pain, whose bite is keenest, will be endured when hope of good is set before us; and a life passed honorably and splendidly brings such consolation that distress either does not touch those who have lived in this way, or mental pain pricks them only very lightly.”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 26\n\n“But when, to this opinion of a great evil, another opinion is added—that we ought to be distressed at what has happened, that this is right and part of our duty—then at last that oppressive disturbance of distress is produced.\n\nSECTION 62\n“From this opinion come those varied and detestable forms of mourning: filthy neglect, women’s tearing of cheeks, the beating of breast, thighs, and head. Hence that Agamemnon in Homer, and likewise in Accius, ‘again and again tearing his unshorn hair in grief.’ Bion’s joke on this was apt: the utterly foolish king tore his hair out in mourning as though baldness could relieve grief.\n\nSECTION 63\n“But people do all these things because they think they ought to. Thus Aeschines attacks Demosthenes for having offered sacrificial victims on the seventh day after his daughter’s death. And with what rhetoric, what eloquence! What thoughts he gathers, what words he hurls, so that you realize a rhetorician may do anything he pleases. No one would approve his remarks unless we had this notion implanted in our souls: all good people ought to mourn as deeply as possible for the deaths of their loved ones. Hence some people in mental pain seek solitude, as Homer says of Bellerophon:  \n“‘Miserable, he wandered grieving on the Aleian fields,  \n“‘Eating his own heart, avoiding the tracks of men.’  \n“And Niobe is represented as stone, I suppose because of her eternal silence in mourning. Hecuba, they think, is represented as changed into a dog because of a certain bitterness and rage in her soul. Others, however, often delight in speaking to solitude itself in their mourning, like that nurse in Ennius:  \n“‘A longing has seized me now in my misery to tell  \n“‘To heaven and earth the miseries of Medea.’”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 27\n\nSECTION 64\n“In their pain they do all these things because they think them right, proper, and owed. That they act from a kind of judgment of duty is especially clear from this: if people who wish to remain in mourning happen to have done something more natural, or spoken rather cheerfully, they call themselves back to sadness and accuse themselves of wrongdoing for having interrupted their grief. Mothers and teachers even punish children, not only with words but with blows, if they have done or said anything cheerful during mourning at home, and force them to weep. What of this? Once mourning itself has eased and it is understood that grieving achieves nothing, does the fact not show that the whole thing was voluntary?\n\nSECTION 65\n“What of Terence’s ‘self-tormentor’—that is what the Greek title means?  \n“‘I have decided I do my son less wrong,  \n“‘Chremes, so long as I make myself miserable.’  \n“Here he decides to be miserable. Does anyone decide anything against his will? ‘I would think myself deserving of every evil—’ He thinks himself deserving of evil unless he is miserable. You see, then, that the evil lies in opinion, not in nature. What of those whom circumstances themselves forbid to mourn? In Homer the daily slaughter and deaths of many bring a quieting of grief. He says:  \n“‘For we see too many falling, and on every day,  \n“‘For anyone to find a respite from mourning.  \n“‘All the more must we commit the dead to their graves  \n“‘With steadfast hearts, and end our grief with one day’s tears.’\n\nSECTION 66\n“So it is in your power to cast off pain when you wish, in obedience to the needs of the moment. Or is there any moment whose demands we should not obey for the sake of laying aside care <and> distress, since this is indeed within our power? It was established that those who saw Gnaeus Pompey falling under his wounds, even amid that most bitter and miserable spectacle, feared for themselves because they saw the enemy fleet surrounding them, and did nothing then but urge on the rowers and seek safety in flight. After they reached Tyre, they began to beat their breasts and lament. Could fear drive distress out of them, then, while reason cannot drive it out of a wise man?”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 28\n\n“What has greater power to make us lay down pain than the realization that it achieves nothing and has been undertaken in vain? If it can be laid down, it can also be kept from being taken up. We must therefore admit that distress is taken up by choice and judgment.\n\nSECTION 67\n“This is also shown by the endurance of those who, having often suffered much, more readily bear whatever happens, and think themselves now hardened against fortune, like the man in Euripides:  \n“‘If this were the first sad day to dawn on me,  \n“‘And I had not sailed through such a troubled sea,  \n“‘There would be cause for grief—as colts, when bridled,  \n“‘Are suddenly excited by the unfamiliar touch;  \n“‘But now, worn down by miseries, I have grown numb.’  \n“Since exhaustion from miseries makes distress lighter, we must understand that the event itself is not the cause and source of grief.\n\nSECTION 68\n“Do not the greatest philosophers, who have not yet attained wisdom, understand that they are amid the greatest evil? For they are unwise, and no evil is greater than folly. Yet they do not mourn. Why? Because to this class of evils we do not attach the opinion that it is right, fair, and part of one’s duty to be distressed at not being wise. Yet we attach that very opinion to the distress which contains mourning, the greatest distress of all.\n\nSECTION 69\n“Accordingly, Aristotle, criticizing earlier philosophers who thought philosophy had been perfected by their own intelligence, says they were either supremely foolish or supremely boastful. He himself, however, sees that since so much progress has been made in a few years, philosophy will soon be fully complete. Theophrastus, as he was dying, is said to have accused nature of giving stags and crows long lives, though it made no difference to them, while granting so brief a life to human beings, to whom it mattered most. If their span could have been longer, all the arts would have been perfected, and human life instructed in every branch of knowledge. He complained, then, that he was being extinguished just as he had begun to see these things. And what of the other philosophers? Do not the best and most serious of them admit that there is much they do not know, and much that they still have to learn over and over?\n\nSECTION 70\n“Yet although they understand that they are stuck in the midst of folly, than which nothing is worse, they are not crushed by distress; for no opinion that pain is a duty is mixed in. What of those who do not think men should mourn? Such was Quintus Maximus when he buried his son, a former consul; such was Lucius Paulus when he lost two sons within a few days; such was Marcus Cato when his son, the praetor-elect, died; such were the others whose cases I collected in my Consolation.\n\nSECTION 71\n“What else brought them peace but their belief that mourning and grief were not a man’s part? Thus, while others commonly surrender to distress because they think it right, these men repelled it because they thought it shameful. From this we understand that distress lies not in nature but in opinion.”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 29\n\n“Against this people say: ‘Who is so mad as to grieve of his own free will? Nature brings pain, to which even your Crantor thinks we must yield; for it presses and bears down upon us, and cannot be resisted.’ Thus that Oileus in Sophocles, who had earlier consoled Telamon for Ajax’s death, was broken when he heard of his own son’s death. Of his change of mind it is said:  \n“‘No one is endowed with wisdom so great  \n“‘That, easing others’ hardships with his words,  \n“‘He does not, when fortune turns her onslaught  \n“‘Toward him, break beneath his own sudden loss,  \n“‘Forgetting all he said and taught to others.’  \n“When they argue this way, they seek to establish that nature cannot possibly be resisted. Yet they also admit that people take on distress heavier than nature requires. What madness, then, is this—? Let us ask them that same question in our turn.\n\nSECTION 72\n“But there are several causes for taking on pain. First is that opinion of evil: when an evil is perceived and firmly believed in, distress necessarily follows. Next, people think they gratify the dead by mourning them deeply. A certain womanish superstition is added: they think they will more readily satisfy the immortal gods if, struck by their blow, they acknowledge themselves afflicted and prostrate. Most people fail to see how contradictory these things are. They praise those who meet death calmly, but think those who bear another’s death calmly deserve blame—as though it were possible, as is often said in lovers’ talk, for someone to love another more than himself.\n\nSECTION 73\n“It is splendid—and, if you ask me, right and true as well—to love those who ought to be dearest to us as much as ourselves; but to love them more is utterly impossible. Nor should we even wish in friendship that my friend should love me more than himself, or I him more than myself. If it were so, confusion of life and of all our duties would follow.”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 30\n\n“But more of this another time. For now it is enough not to ascribe our misery to the loss of friends, lest we love them more than they themselves would wish, if they have awareness—certainly more than we love ourselves. As for the claim that most people receive no relief from consolation, and the added claim that consolers themselves admit to misery when fortune turns her onslaught toward them, both can be answered. These are not defects of nature, but faults. One may denounce folly as fully as one likes. Those who find no relief invite <themselves> to misery; and those who bear their own misfortunes differently from the way they advised others to bear theirs are no more at fault than most people, who, greedy themselves, blame the greedy, or ambitious themselves, blame those hungry for glory. For it is characteristic of folly to see others’ faults and forget one’s own.\n\nSECTION 74\n“But surely this point above all must be made clear: since it is established that distress is removed with time, the power lies not in the days themselves, but in prolonged reflection. For if the thing is the same and the person is the same, how can the pain change at all if nothing has changed either in what causes the pain or in the person who feels it? It is prolonged reflection that there is no evil in the event, then, that heals pain, not mere duration itself.”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 31\n\n“Here they offer me moderate degrees. If these are natural, what need is there of consolation? Nature herself will set the limit. But if they depend on opinion, let the opinion be removed altogether.\n\n“I believe enough has been said to show that distress is the opinion of a present evil, an opinion which includes the belief that one ought to take on distress.\n\nSECTION 75\n“Zeno rightly adds to this definition that the opinion of a present evil must be fresh. They interpret this word not merely to mean what happened a little earlier: as long as the supposed evil retains a certain force, flourishing and possessing a kind of greenness, so long it is called fresh. Take Artemisia, the wife of Mausolus, king of Caria, who built that famous tomb at Halicarnassus. As long as she lived, she lived in mourning, and was finally wasted away and consumed by it. For her that opinion was fresh every day; it ceases to be called fresh only when it has dried up with age.\n\n“The duties of consolers, then, are these: to remove distress from its roots, or to quiet it, or to diminish it as much as possible, or to hold it in and not let it spread further, or to turn the mind to other things.\n\nSECTION 76\n“Some think the consoler’s one duty is to show that the supposed evil is no evil at all, as Cleanthes holds; some, that it is no great evil, as the Peripatetics; some draw us away from evils to good things, as Epicurus does; some think it enough to show that nothing unexpected has happened, <as the Cyrenaics […]> no evil. Chrysippus, however, thinks the chief task in consolation is to remove the mourner’s belief that he is performing a just and binding duty. Some also combine all these kinds of consolation, since different people are moved in different ways. Thus in my Consolation I gathered almost all of them into a single consolation: my soul was swollen, and every kind of treatment was being tried upon it. But the right moment must be chosen in diseases of the soul no less than in those of the body. So with Aeschylus’ Prometheus, who, when told:  \n“‘Yet I believe you know this, Prometheus:  \n“‘Reason can heal anger,’  \n“replied:  \n“‘Yes, if one applies the medicine at the proper time,  \n“‘And does not strike the wound with his hand and make it worse.’”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 32\n\nSECTION 77\n“In consolation, then, the first medicine will be to teach that there is either no evil or a very small one; the second, to discuss the common condition of life, and anything particular to the mourner’s own situation; the third, that it is the height of folly to wear oneself out with grief in vain when one understands that nothing can be gained. Cleanthes, indeed, consoles the wise person, who has no need of consolation. For if you persuade a mourner that nothing is evil unless it is shameful, you will have removed not his mourning but his folly; yet this is the wrong time to teach. Nor, it seems to me, has Cleanthes sufficiently recognized that distress can sometimes be taken on precisely because of what he himself admits to be the greatest evil. For what shall we say of Socrates and Alcibiades? As we are told, Socrates persuaded him that he was worth nothing as a man, and that there was no difference between Alcibiades, born to the highest rank, and any common porter. When Alcibiades tormented himself and tearfully begged Socrates to impart virtue to him and drive out his shamefulness—what shall we say, Cleanthes? That there was no evil in the thing that distressed Alcibiades?\n\nSECTION 78\n“And what are we to make of Lyco’s remarks? Diminishing distress, he says it is caused by trifling things, the disadvantages of fortune and the body, not evils of the soul. What then? Did not the thing that pained Alcibiades consist in the soul’s evils and faults? Enough has already been said about Epicurus’ consolation.”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 33\n\nSECTION 79\n“Not even this is the strongest consolation, though it is common and often helpful: ‘This has not happened to you alone.’ As I said, it does help, but not always and not everyone, for some reject it. Much depends on how it is applied. We must emphasize how each of those who bore things wisely endured them, not what misfortune each suffered. Chrysippus’ consolation is the strongest in point of truth, but difficult to use in the midst of distress. It is a great task to prove to someone grieving that he grieves by his own judgment and because he thinks he ought to act so. Surely, then, just as in legal cases we do not always use the same issue—that is our term for the kinds of controversy—but adapt it to the occasion, the nature of the dispute, and the person, so in relieving distress we must consider what treatment each person can accept.\n\nSECTION 80\n“But somehow our discussion has wandered from the subject you proposed. You asked about the wise person, to whom nothing free of shamefulness can seem evil, or can seem only so slight an evil that wisdom overwhelms it and it scarcely appears. He adds nothing by opinion to increase distress, nor does he think it right to torment himself as much as possible and wear himself out in mourning—a belief than which nothing could be more perverse. Yet reasoning has taught us, I think, even though we were not now specifically asking whether anything was evil unless it could also be called shameful, to see that whatever evil there is in distress is not natural, but incurred through voluntary judgment and mistaken opinion.\n\nSECTION 81\n“We have treated that kind of distress which is the greatest of all, so that, once it was removed, we might consider the remedies for the others hardly worth much searching.”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 34\n\n“For there are established things commonly said about poverty, and established things about a life without office or glory. There are separate, established lectures on exile, the destruction of one’s country, slavery, disability, blindness, and every misfortune commonly given the name of calamity. The Greeks divide these into individual lectures and individual books, for they are looking for work—though their discussions are full of delight.\n\nSECTION 82\n“Yet just as physicians, by treating the whole body, heal even its smallest part if it is in pain, so philosophy, once it has removed distress as a whole, <has removed it> also when some error has arisen from any source: if poverty has bitten, disgrace has stung, exile has cast some darkness over us, or any of the things I just mentioned has occurred. Still, particular circumstances have their particular consolations, which you may hear whenever you wish. But we must return to the same source: all distress is far removed from the wise person, because it is empty, undertaken in vain, and arises not from nature but from judgment, from opinion, from a kind of invitation to grieve, once we have decided that this is what ought to be done.\n\nSECTION 83\n“When this wholly voluntary element has been removed, that mourning distress will be taken away. A sting, however, and a certain slight contraction of the soul will remain. Let them call this natural, provided the oppressive, hideous, deadly name of distress is absent—a thing that cannot possibly coexist or, so to speak, dwell with wisdom. But the roots of distress—how numerous, how bitter they are! Once the trunk itself is overthrown, all of them must be picked out, if necessary through separate discussions. For we have this leisure left to us, such as it is. Yet all kinds of distress have one underlying character, though many names. For distress includes envy, rivalry, disparagement, pity, anguish, mourning, grief, hardship, lamentation, anxiety, pain, trouble, affliction, and despair.\n\nSECTION 84\n“The Stoics define all these, and the words I have used refer to distinct things; they do not, as they seem to, signify the same things, but differ in some respect. Perhaps we shall treat this elsewhere. These are those fibers of the roots I spoke of at the beginning, which must all be traced and picked out, so that none can ever spring up again. A great and difficult task—who denies it? Yet what splendid thing is not also arduous? Still, philosophy professes that she will accomplish it, provided only that we accept her treatment.\n\n“But enough of this for now. The rest will be ready for you whenever you wish, both here and elsewhere.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 1\n\nSECTION 1\nI often marvel, Brutus, at the gifts and virtues of our countrymen in many fields, but above all in those studies that they sought out so late and brought from Greece to our city. From the city’s first beginnings, royal institutions, and in some cases laws as well, had given an almost divine ordering to the auspices, religious observances, assemblies, appeals to the people, the senate, the divisions of cavalry and infantry, and the whole military establishment. Then, once the commonwealth was freed from royal rule, there followed a marvelous advance, an incredible rush toward excellence of every kind. This, however, is not the place to discuss our ancestors’ customs and institutions or the discipline and balanced constitution of the state. I have treated these matters with sufficient care elsewhere, especially in the six books I wrote on the commonwealth.\n\nSECTION 2\nHere, as I consider the pursuit of learning, many reasons occur to me for believing that these studies too were brought here from abroad, and were not merely sought out but preserved and cultivated. Pythagoras, a man of outstanding wisdom and renown, was almost within their sight: he lived in Italy at the very time when Lucius Brutus, the illustrious founder of your noble line, freed his country. As Pythagoras’ teaching spread far and wide, it seems to me to have penetrated our city too. This is both a plausible inference and something indicated by certain surviving traces. Greece was flourishing in Italy, in mighty cities of the greatest size—the Greece called ‘Great’—and there first Pythagoras himself, and afterward the Pythagoreans, enjoyed such fame. Who could suppose that our countrymen kept their ears closed to voices of such learning?\n\nSECTION 3\nIndeed, I think admiration for the Pythagoreans led later generations to regard King Numa too as a Pythagorean. They knew Pythagoras’ teaching and institutions, and had heard from their ancestors of that king’s justice and wisdom; but because of the remoteness of the past they did not know their dates or lifetimes. They therefore believed that a man of such exceptional wisdom had been a pupil of Pythagoras.\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 2\n\nSo much for inference. Many traces of the Pythagoreans could be gathered, but we shall use only a few, since that is not our present subject. They are said to have been accustomed to convey certain teachings in a more veiled form through verse, and to lead their minds away from concentrated thought into tranquility through singing and the lyre. Cato, a most authoritative witness, says in his Origins that our ancestors had this custom at banquets: the guests reclining at table would take turns singing, to the flute, the praises and virtues of illustrious men. From this it is clear that melodies, with their distinct musical notes, and poems already existed then.\n\nSECTION 4\nThe Twelve Tables themselves, indeed, show that composing verse was already customary: they enacted a law forbidding its use to injure another person. Nor is it anything but evidence of a cultivated age that lyres provide the opening music both at the couches of the gods and at magistrates’ banquets, a practice characteristic of the school I am discussing. Even the poem of Appius Caecus, which Panaetius praises warmly in a letter to Quintus Tubero, seems Pythagorean to me. Many features of our institutions also derive from that school. I pass them over, so that we may not seem to have learned abroad what we are thought to have discovered ourselves.\n\nSECTION 5\nBut to return to our subject: how many poets, and how great, arose in so short a time! And what orators! It is easy to see that our countrymen could achieve anything, once they began to wish for it.\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 3\n\nWe shall speak of the other studies elsewhere if the need arises, as we have often done already. The pursuit of wisdom is indeed ancient among our people, yet before the age of Laelius and Scipio I find no one whom I can name. When they were young, I find that the Athenians sent Diogenes the Stoic and Carneades the Academic as ambassadors to the senate. Neither had ever taken any part in public affairs, and one was a native of Cyrene, the other of Babylon. Surely they would never have been summoned out of their schools or chosen for that duty unless some of our leading men at the time had been interested in learning. These men committed other things to writing—some the civil law, some their speeches, some the records of our ancestors—but this greatest of all arts, the discipline of living well, they pursued in their lives rather than in their books.\n\nSECTION 6\nConsequently there are almost no Latin records, or at most very few, of that true and refined philosophy which originated with Socrates and has endured to this day among the Peripatetics and among the Stoics, who express the same things differently, while the Academics judge their disputes. Perhaps the reasons were the magnitude of public business and the demands on men’s time; perhaps they also thought that these subjects could not win approval from the unlearned. Meanwhile, during their silence, Gaius Amafinius emerged as a writer. The publication of his books stirred the multitude to attach themselves above all to that school, whether because it was very easy to understand, because they were invited by the flattering enticements of pleasure, or because, with nothing better published, they held to what was available.\n\nSECTION 7\nAfter Amafinius, many rivals following the same doctrine wrote at length and took possession of all Italy. The very thing that is the strongest proof that these teachings lack subtlety—that they are so easily learned and win the approval of the uneducated—they regard as their doctrine’s firm foundation.\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 4\n\nBut let everyone defend his own convictions: judgment is free. We shall hold to our practice. Bound by no laws of any single school which we must necessarily obey in philosophy, we shall always ask what is most probable in each question. We have often pursued this inquiry elsewhere, and recently with particular care at Tusculum. Having set out three days’ discussions, we now complete the fourth day in this book. When we had gone down to the lower walk, as we had done on the preceding days, the conversation proceeded as follows:\n\n“Let anyone who wishes say what subject he would like discussed.”\n\nSECTION 8\n“I do not think that the wise person can be free of every disturbance of the soul.”\n\n“Yesterday’s discussion seemed to show that he could be free of distress, unless perhaps you were agreeing with me simply to suit the occasion.”\n\n“Not at all. I found your argument thoroughly convincing.”\n\n“So you do not think distress can affect the wise person?”\n\n“Certainly I do not.”\n\n“And yet, if that cannot disturb the wise person’s soul, nothing can. What could do so? Fear? But fear concerns things absent, whose presence produces distress. Remove distress, then, and fear is removed. Two disturbances remain: exuberant delight and lust. If these too have no place in the wise person, his mind will always be tranquil.”\n\nSECTION 9\n“That is exactly how I understand it.”\n\n“Which would you prefer, then? Shall we set sail at once, or do a little rowing as though we were leaving harbor?”\n\n“What do you mean? I do not understand.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 5\n\n“When Chrysippus and the Stoics discuss disturbances of the soul, they spend much of their time classifying and defining them. Very little of their discourse is devoted to healing souls and keeping them free of turmoil. The Peripatetics, on the other hand, have much to offer for calming souls, and pass over the thorns of classification and definition. I was asking, then, whether I should spread the sails of my discourse at once, or first propel it a little way with the oars of dialectic.”\n\n“The latter, certainly. Everything I am asking for will be more fully accomplished by combining the two.”\n\n“That is indeed the better course;\n\nSECTION 10\n“but afterward you must ask about anything that proves obscure.”\n\n“I shall. Still, as you usually do, you will explain even these obscure matters more clearly than the Greeks explain them.”\n\n“I shall try, certainly, but you must pay close attention, or everything may slip away if you miss a single point. Since we prefer to call what the Greeks term πάθη, ‘passions,’ disturbances rather than diseases, in explaining them I shall follow the ancient division of Pythagoras first and Plato afterward. They divide the soul into two parts, one sharing in reason, the other without it. In the part that shares in reason they place tranquility—that is, a calm and peaceful steadiness—and in the other the turbulent movements of anger and desire, opposed and hostile to reason.\n\nSECTION 11\n“Let that, then, be our starting point. In describing these disturbances, however, let us use the Stoics’ definitions and classifications: they seem to me to handle this question with the greatest precision.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 6\n\n“Here, then, is Zeno’s definition: a disturbance—what he calls πάθος, ‘passion’—is a movement of the soul which turns away from right reason and is contrary to nature. Some put it more briefly: a disturbance is an excessively strong impulse. By ‘excessively strong’ they mean one that has departed too far from nature’s steadiness. They hold that the different disturbances arise from two supposed goods and two supposed evils, making four kinds: from goods, lust and delight—delight concerning present goods, lust future ones; from evils, they believe, fear and distress arise—fear concerning future evils, distress present ones. For the very things we fear when they are approaching distress us when they are upon us.\n\nSECTION 12\n“Delight and lust concern a belief in goods: lust is enticed and fired into pursuit of what seems good, while delight, as though it had already gained something desired, rises in exultation. By nature everyone pursues what seems good and avoids its opposite. Consequently, as soon as the appearance of something seemingly good presents itself, nature herself impels us to obtain it. When this happens steadily and wisely, the Stoics call an impulse of this kind βούλησις, ‘rational wish’; let us call it volition. They hold that it exists only in the wise person, and define it thus: volition is a desire for something in accordance with reason. But an impulse stirred too violently, in opposition to reason, is lust or unbridled desire, which is found in all fools.\n\nSECTION 13\n“Similarly, when we are moved by the sense that we possess some good, this happens in two ways. When the soul’s movement accords with reason and is calm and steady, it is called joy. But when the soul exults vainly and extravagantly, that may be called exuberant or excessive delight, which they define as an irrational elevation of the soul. And since we naturally avoid evils just as we naturally seek goods, let avoidance be called caution when it accords with reason, and let this be understood to exist only in the wise person. But avoidance without reason, accompanied by abject and broken-spirited dismay, should be named fear. Fear, then, is caution turned away <from> reason.\n\nSECTION 14\n“The wise person has no emotional reaction to a present evil; the reaction of fools is distress. They experience it in the face of supposed evils, letting their spirits sink and contract in disobedience to reason. Thus the first definition is that distress is a contraction of the soul against reason. In this way there are four disturbances but three states of steadiness, since no steady state corresponds to distress.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 7\n\n“They hold, however, that all disturbances arise through judgment and belief. Accordingly they define them more closely, to make clear not only how defective they are but also how much they lie within our power. Distress, then, is a fresh belief in a present evil, at which it seems right for the soul to sink and contract; delight is a fresh belief in a present good, at which it seems right to be elated; fear is a belief in an impending evil which seems unbearable; lust is a belief in a future good which it would be advantageous to have here and present now.\n\nSECTION 15\n“But when I spoke of the judgments and beliefs belonging to disturbances, they do not say that disturbances consist in these alone, but also in the effects the disturbances produce. Thus distress produces a kind of painful bite; fear, a withdrawal and flight of the soul; delight, an outpouring of high spirits; lust, an unbridled appetite. The belief we have included in all the preceding definitions they understand to be a weak assent.\n\nSECTION 16\n“Under each disturbance, however, several subdivisions of the same kind are placed. Under distress come enviousness—we must use a less usual word for the sake of instruction, since ‘envy’ can refer not only to the person who envies but also to the person envied—emulation, jealousy, pity, anguish, bereavement, sorrow, tribulation, pain, lamentation, anxiety, vexation, affliction, despair, and any others of the same kind. Under fear come reluctance, shame, terror, alarm, panic, dismay, confusion, dread. Under pleasure come malice rejoicing in another’s misfortune, sensory delight, vaunting, and the like. Under lust come anger, a flare of temper, hatred, enmity, discord, craving, longing, and the rest of that kind.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 8\n\n“They define these as follows. Enviousness, they say, is distress felt because of another’s prosperity, when that prosperity does the envious person no harm.\n\nSECTION 17\n“(For if someone grieves at the prosperity of a person who harms him—as Agamemnon might at Hector’s—he should not properly be called envious. But if another’s advantages do him no harm, and he still grieves that the other enjoys them, he is certainly envious.) Emulation, however, has two meanings, and the word can signify either praise or blame. The imitation of virtue is called emulation—but we are not using that sense here, since it is praiseworthy. Emulation is also distress when another possesses what one has desired but lacks oneself. Jealousy, by which I mean ζηλοτυπία, is distress because another too possesses what one has desired for oneself.\n\nSECTION 18\n“Pity is distress at the misery of another who suffers undeservedly—for no one feels pity at the punishment of a parricide or traitor. Anguish is oppressive distress; bereavement, distress at the untimely death of someone dear; sorrow, tearful distress; tribulation, toilsome distress; pain, tormenting distress; lamentation, distress accompanied by wailing; anxiety, distress accompanied by brooding; vexation, enduring distress; affliction, distress accompanied by bodily suffering; despair, distress without any expectation of improvement. The subdivisions of fear they define as follows: reluctance is fear of the labor that will follow,\n\nSECTION 19\n“[…] terror is fear that shakes us—hence, just as blushing follows shame, pallor, trembling, and chattering teeth follow terror; alarm is fear of approaching evil; panic is fear that dislodges the mind, giving rise to Ennius’ words, ‘Then panic drives all wisdom from my breast, leaving me senseless’; dismay is fear that follows panic and is, as it were, its companion; confusion is fear that scatters our thoughts; dread is enduring fear.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 9\n\nSECTION 20\n“They describe the subdivisions of pleasure as follows. Malice is pleasure in another’s misfortune without any advantage to oneself; sensory delight is pleasure that soothes the soul through sweetness of sound. The pleasures of sight, touch, smell, and taste are like this pleasure of hearing: all belong to one kind, pleasures poured, as though liquefied, through the soul. Vaunting is pleasure that leaps up and carries itself with excessive arrogance.\n\nSECTION 21\n“The subdivisions of lust are defined as follows. Anger is lust to punish someone who seems to have injured us unjustly; a flare of temper is anger coming into being, newly arisen, called θύμωσις, ‘an outbreak of anger,’ in Greek; hatred is entrenched anger; enmity is anger watching for the moment of revenge; discord is a more bitter anger conceived deep in the heart and soul; craving is insatiable lust; longing is lust to see someone not yet present. They make this further distinction: lust concerns things predicated of a person or persons, what dialecticians call κατηγορήματα, ‘predicates,’ such as having wealth or gaining office; craving concerns the things themselves, such as offices or money.\n\nSECTION 22\n“They say that the source of all disturbances is intemperance: a defection of the whole mind from right reason, so completely turned from reason’s prescriptions that the soul’s impulses can in no way be governed or restrained. Just as temperance calms the impulses, brings them into obedience to right reason, and preserves the mind’s considered judgments, so its enemy, intemperance, inflames, confounds, and excites the soul’s entire condition. Consequently distress and fear and all the other disturbances are born from it.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 10\n\n“Just as diseases and illnesses arise in the body when the blood is corrupted or phlegm or bile overflows, so the turmoil of false beliefs, and their conflict with one another, rob the soul of health and trouble it with diseases.\n\nSECTION 23\n“From disturbances arise, first, diseases, which they call νοσήματα, and their opposites, which involve a defective aversion and disgust toward particular things; then infirmities, called ἀρρωστήματα by the Stoics, and, likewise, their opposite aversions. The Stoics, especially Chrysippus, spend far too much labor here in comparing diseases of the soul with diseases of the body. Let us leave aside this wholly unnecessary discussion and examine what bears on the substance of the matter.\n\nSECTION 24\n“Let it be understood, then, that a disturbance is always in motion, as beliefs toss about in an unstable and turbulent way. But when this feverish excitement of the soul has grown chronic and settled, as it were, into its veins and marrow, then disease and infirmity arise, along with those aversions which are the opposites of these diseases and infirmities.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 11\n\n“These conditions I describe differ in thought, but in reality they are linked, and they arise from lust and delight. When money is coveted, unless reason is immediately applied like a Socratic medicine to heal that desire, the evil spreads into the veins and clings to the inward parts. Disease and infirmity arise, which cannot be rooted out once they are chronic, and the name of this disease is avarice.\n\nSECTION 25\n“The other diseases arise in a similar way: the desire for glory, for instance, or womanizing, if I may use that term for what the Greeks call φιλογυνία, ‘love of women.’ Other diseases and infirmities arise similarly. Their opposites are thought to arise from fear: hatred of women, such as appears in Atilius’ Woman-Hater; hatred of the entire human race, as we are told of Timon, who is called μισάνθρωπος, ‘the misanthrope’; or inhospitality. All these infirmities of the soul arise from a certain fear of the things they shun and hate.\n\nSECTION 26\n“They define an infirmity of the soul as a strong belief, firmly lodged and deeply implanted, that something not worth seeking is highly desirable. The condition arising from aversion they define as a strong belief, firmly lodged and deeply implanted, that something not to be avoided ought to be avoided. This belief is a judgment that one knows what one does not know. Under infirmity fall such things as avarice, ambition, womanizing, obstinacy, dainty nibbling, drunkenness, a taste for delicacies, and any similar conditions. Avarice is a strong belief about money, firmly lodged and deeply implanted, that it is highly desirable; the definitions of the others of the same kind are similar.\n\nSECTION 27\n“The definitions of aversions are of this sort: inhospitality is a strong belief, firmly lodged and deeply implanted, that a guest is greatly to be avoided. Hatred of women, such as Hippolytus’, and of the human race, such as Timon’s, are similarly defined.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 12\n\n“To come to the analogy with bodily health, and at last make use of that comparison, though more sparingly than the Stoics usually do: just as different people are more prone to different diseases—we call some people prone to colds, <others> to colic, not because they have these conditions now but because they often do—<so> some are prone to fear, others to some other disturbance. Hence we speak of anxiety in some, and call them anxious, and of irascibility in others. Irascibility differs from anger: being irascible is one thing, being angry another, just as anxiety differs from anguish. Not everyone who sometimes feels anguish is anxious, nor are anxious people always in anguish. In the same way there is a difference between drunkenness <and habitual drunkenness>, and between being a womanizer and being in love. This tendency of different people toward different diseases has a wide scope, for it extends to every disturbance.\n\nSECTION 28\n“It appears in many vices too, but has no name of its own. People are called envious, malicious, lustful, timid, and compassionate because they <are> prone to those disturbances, not because they are always carried away by them. Let this tendency toward each particular kind be called an infirmity, by analogy with the body, provided it is understood as a tendency to become ill. In good things, however, when different people have greater aptitude for different goods, let it be called a facility; in bad things, a proclivity, to suggest a downward slide; in neutral things, let it keep the earlier name.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 13\n\n“Just as in the body there are disease, infirmity, and defect, so there are in the soul. They call a corruption of the whole body disease; disease accompanied by weakness, infirmity; and a lack of harmony among the body’s parts, producing crooked, twisted, or misshapen limbs, a defect.\n\nSECTION 29\n“Thus the first two, disease and infirmity, arise from a shock and disturbance to the body’s overall health, whereas a defect is evident in itself even when health is unimpaired. In the soul, however, we can distinguish disease from infirmity only in thought. Viciousness is a disposition or condition that is inconsistent and at odds with itself throughout life. Thus one kind of corruption of belief produces disease and infirmity; the other produces inconsistency and internal conflict. For not every vice involves conflicts of equal force. The disposition of people who are not far from wisdom is indeed at odds with itself so long as it remains unwise, but it is not twisted or deformed. Diseases and infirmities are parts of viciousness, but whether disturbances are also parts of it is a question.\n\nSECTION 30\n“For vices are abiding conditions, disturbances shifting ones, so that they cannot be parts of abiding conditions. And just as the analogy with the body touches the nature of the soul in bad things, so it does in good things. The body’s chief qualities are beauty, strength, health, firmness, and speed; these exist in the soul as well. <Just as> a harmonious balance in the body, when the elements of which we consist agree with one another, is called health, so the soul is said to be healthy when its judgments and beliefs agree. This is the soul’s virtue, which some call temperance itself; others call it something that obeys temperance’s precepts and follows it, without any distinctive character of its own. But whichever it is, they hold that it exists only in the wise person. There is, however, a kind of mental health that even an unwise person may possess, when the treatment and purging of physicians remove a disturbance of the mind.\n\nSECTION 31\n“And just as a fitting arrangement of the body’s limbs, together with a certain charm of coloring, is called beauty, so in the soul the evenness and consistency of beliefs and judgments, together with a certain firmness and stability, is called beauty, whether it follows virtue or contains virtue’s very essence. Similarly, the soul’s powers resemble the body’s strength, sinews, and effectiveness, and are named in similar terms. The body’s speed is called swiftness, and this same quality is also praised in intelligence, because the mind runs through many things in a short time.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 14\n\n“Souls and bodies differ in this: a strong soul cannot be attacked by disease, while a strong body can. Bodily ailments can occur through no fault of our own, but not so the soul’s, whose diseases and disturbances all arise from a rejection of reason. They therefore occur only in human beings. Animals do something similar, but they do not fall prey to disturbances.\n\nSECTION 32\n“The difference between keen and dull minds is that gifted people, like Corinthian bronze acquiring verdigris, are slower to fall ill and quicker to recover; dull people are not. Nor does a gifted person’s soul fall into every kind of disease and disturbance; †for few savage and monstrous disturbances can seize it; some even have, at first sight, an appearance of humanity, such as pity, distress, and fear. The soul’s infirmities and diseases are thought harder to root out than those principal vices opposed to the virtues. For vices can be removed while diseases remain, since the diseases are not healed as quickly as the vices are taken away.\n\nSECTION 33\n“You have now heard the Stoics’ precise account of disturbances, which they call λογικά, ‘logical discussions,’ because they are argued with greater subtlety. Since our discourse has now sailed clear of these jagged reefs, so to speak, let us hold our course through the rest of the discussion, provided we have explained those matters clearly enough, given their obscurity.”\n\n“Quite clearly enough. If anything needs more thorough investigation, we shall ask about it another time. For now we await the sails and the voyage you were just promising.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 15\n\nSECTION 34\n“Since, as we have said of virtue elsewhere and shall often have to say again—for most questions about life and conduct flow from virtue as their source—since, then, virtue is a steady and harmonious disposition of the soul, making those who possess it praiseworthy and itself worthy of praise in its own right and by its own nature, even apart from any advantage, from it arise honorable wishes, judgments, and actions, and all right reason. Indeed, virtue itself may be defined most briefly as right reason. Opposed to virtue is viciousness: I prefer that term to malice for what the Greeks call κακία, since malice names one particular vice, whereas viciousness embraces them all. From it are stirred disturbances which, as we said a little earlier, are turbulent and excited movements of the soul, turned away from reason and deeply hostile to a tranquil mind and life. They bring anxious and bitter distress, and crush and weaken souls with fear. They also inflame them with excessive appetite, which we call sometimes desire, sometimes lust—a kind of loss of self-command utterly at variance with temperance and moderation.\n\nSECTION 35\n“If it ever obtains what it has coveted, it will be so carried away with excitement that ‘nothing it does is steady,’ as that character says who regards ‘excessive pleasure of the soul as the greatest error.’ The cure for these evils, then, lies in virtue alone.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 16\n\n“What can be not only more miserable but more foul and disfiguring than a person crushed by distress, weakened, and laid low? Nearest to him in misery is the person who fears some approaching evil and hangs in suspense, his spirit undone. To convey the force of this evil, the poets picture a stone hanging over Tantalus in the underworld ‘for his crimes, his ungoverned soul, and his boastful speech.’ This is the common punishment of folly. Some terror of this kind always hangs over everyone whose mind turns away from reason.\n\nSECTION 36\n“And just as these disturbances—distress and fear, I mean—waste the mind away, so those more cheerful ones, desire always greedily seeking something and empty excitement, that is, exuberant delight, differ little from madness. From this we understand the character of the person we call sometimes moderate, sometimes modest and temperate, sometimes steady and self-controlled. At times we choose to bring these same terms under the one heading of sound character. Unless that name embraced the virtues, the saying ‘a person of sound character does everything rightly’ would never have become so common as to rank as a proverb. Yet when the Stoics say the same thing about the wise person, their words seem too astonishing and too grand.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 17\n\nSECTION 37\n“The person, then, whoever he may be, whose moderation and steadiness give him a quiet soul at peace with itself, so that he neither wastes away in vexation nor breaks under fear, neither burns with thirsty longing for something nor dissolves in the transports of empty excitement—he is the wise person we seek, he is the happy person. Nothing in human affairs can seem to him either unbearable enough to depress his soul or joyful enough to carry it away. What in human affairs could seem great to someone who knows the whole of eternity and the immensity of the entire universe? What could seem great to the wise person, either in human pursuits or in the scant brevity of life, when his mind is always so watchful that nothing unforeseen can happen to him, nothing unexpected, nothing wholly new?\n\nSECTION 38\n“He also casts such a keen eye in every direction that he always sees for himself a dwelling and a place to live without vexation and anguish, so that whatever accident fortune brings, he bears it fittingly and calmly. Whoever does this will be free not only of distress but of all the other disturbances as well. A soul free of these makes people perfectly and completely happy; that same soul, when agitated and torn away from sound and certain reason, loses not only its steadiness but its health.\n\n“We must therefore regard as soft and enfeebled the Peripatetics’ reasoning and discourse. They say that souls must necessarily be disturbed, but prescribe a certain limit beyond which they should not go.\n\nSECTION 39\n“You prescribe a limit to vice? Or is it no vice to disobey reason? Does reason fail to teach plainly enough that a thing is not good which you either desire passionately or exult arrogantly in obtaining; nor, on the other hand, is that an evil which either leaves you crushed and prostrate or, in the fear of being crushed, scarcely master of your mind? Does it not teach that all these excessively sad or excessively glad responses arise from error, and that this error, though it fades with time even in fools—so that, though the thing itself remains the same, they bear it differently when it is old than when it is new—should never so much as touch the wise person at all?\n\nSECTION 40\n“Besides, what is this limit to be? Let us look for a limit to distress, on which so much labor is spent. Fannius records that Publius Rupilius grieved at his brother’s defeat in an election for the consulship. He seems, however, to have exceeded the limit, since he died on that account. He ought, then, to have borne it more moderately. But what if, while he was bearing it moderately, the death of his children had been added? ‘A new distress would have arisen, but a moderate one.’ Still, it would have been a great addition. What if severe bodily pain had then followed, or loss of property, or blindness, or exile? If fresh distress were added for each separate evil, the total would become unbearable.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 18\n\nSECTION 41\n“Someone who looks for a limit to vice acts like a person who thinks that, after leaping from the cliff at Leucas, he can stop himself whenever he wishes. Just as that is impossible, so an agitated and excited soul can neither restrain itself nor halt where it chooses. In general, things that become destructive as they grow are already defective at their birth.\n\nSECTION 42\n“Distress and the other disturbances are certainly ruinous when they increase; therefore, as soon as they are admitted, they already contain a large measure of ruin. Once reason has been abandoned, they drive themselves onward; weakness indulges itself and is carried unawares into deep water, finding no place to stand. There is consequently no difference between approving moderate disturbances and approving moderate injustice, moderate cowardice, or moderate intemperance. Anyone who sets a limit to vices accepts a share of them. This is hateful in itself, and all the more troubling because they stand on slippery ground: once set in motion, they slide downhill and cannot possibly be checked.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 19\n\n“What of the fact that these same Peripatetics say that the disturbances we think should be rooted out are not only natural but bestowed by nature for our benefit?\n\nSECTION 43\n“Their argument runs like this. First, they praise irascibility at length, calling it the whetstone of courage. Angry people, they say, attack both the enemy and a wicked fellow citizen far more fiercely, whereas the petty reasonings of those who think, ‘It is right to fight this battle; we ought to fight for the laws, for liberty, for our country,’ are feeble. These thoughts have no force unless courage is set ablaze by anger. Nor do they speak only of warriors. They think no command can be truly strict without some harshness of temper. Finally, they do not approve of an orator without the sting of anger, not only when prosecuting but even when defending. Even if he does not feel it, they think he should imitate it in words and gestures, so that his delivery may kindle anger in his audience. In short, they deny the name of man to anyone who does not know how to be angry, and what we call gentleness they brand with the discreditable name of sluggishness.\n\nSECTION 44\n“Nor do they praise only this kind of lust—for anger, as I defined it just now, is lust for revenge. They say that the whole class of lust or desire was bestowed by nature for the greatest benefit, since no one can do anything splendidly unless he desires it. Themistocles used to walk abroad at night because he could not sleep, and when people asked why, he answered that Miltiades’ trophies roused him from sleep. Who has not heard of Demosthenes’ sleepless nights? He said it pained him if ever the workmen’s industry before dawn outdid his own. Finally, even the leading philosophers could never have made such progress in their studies without burning desire. We are told that Pythagoras, Democritus, and Plato traveled to the remotest lands. Wherever there was anything to learn, they thought they must go there. Do we suppose these things could have been achieved without the most ardent desire?”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 20\n\nSECTION 45\n“They say that even distress, which we said must be shunned like a foul and monstrous beast, was established by nature for considerable benefit: when people have done wrong, they should feel pain at chastisement, rebuke, and disgrace. Those who bear dishonor and infamy without pain seem to have been granted impunity for their faults. It is better to be bitten by conscience. Hence that scene Afranius drew from life: when the dissolute son cries, ‘Ah, poor me!’ the stern father answers, ‘Let him feel pain at anything, so long as he feels some pain.’\n\nSECTION 46\n“They say the other kinds of distress are useful too: pity, for bringing help and relieving the misfortunes of people who do not deserve them; even emulation and jealousy are not useless, when one sees either that one has not obtained what another has, or that another has obtained the same as oneself. If anyone removed fear, they say, all care in living would be removed. Such care is greatest in people who fear the laws, magistrates, poverty, disgrace, death, and pain. In arguing this way, however, they admit that these feelings should be pruned back; they say they cannot and need not be torn out by the roots, and think that in almost everything the middle measure is best. When they set out these arguments, do they seem to you to be saying nothing, or something?”\n\n“To me they certainly seem to be saying something. So I am waiting to hear your reply.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 21\n\n“Perhaps I shall find one. But first this:\n\nSECTION 47\n“Do you see how restrained the Academics have been? They speak plainly, and to the point: ‘The Stoics have answered the Peripatetics.’ Let them fight it out, as far as I am concerned. My only obligation is to seek out where the greatest semblance of truth may lie. What presents itself in this question, then, from which we might grasp something probable, beyond which the human mind cannot advance? The definition of disturbance, which I think Zeno rightly employed. He defines a disturbance as a movement of the soul turned away <from> reason and contrary to nature, or, more briefly, an excessively strong impulse, ‘excessively strong’ being understood as far removed from nature’s steadiness.\n\nSECTION 48\n“What can I say against these definitions? Most of this belongs to people arguing wisely and acutely; those other expressions belong to rhetorical display: ‘the soul’s ardors,’ ‘the whetstones of virtue.’ Is a courageous man really incapable of courage unless he begins to rage? That is the spirit of a gladiator. Yet even among gladiators we often see composure: ‘They talk, they meet, they put a question, they make a demand,’ so that they seem peaceful rather than angry. Still, let us grant that in that profession there may be a Pacideianus of the spirit Lucilius describes:\n\n“‘I shall kill him and win, if that is what you ask,’ he says,\n“‘But I believe this is how it will be: I shall take a blow in the face\n“‘Before I plant my sword in the thief’s belly and lungs.\n“‘I hate the man, I fight in anger; no time seems longer\n“‘Than while the other fits his sword to his right hand;\n“‘So carried away am I by eagerness, by hatred of him, by rage.’”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 22\n\n“But in Homer we see Ajax advancing with great cheerfulness, free of this gladiatorial anger, when he is about to fight Hector to the finish.\n\nSECTION 49\n“Once he had taken up his arms, his advance brought joy to his comrades and terror to his enemies. Hector himself, as Homer tells it, trembled in every fiber and regretted issuing the challenge to battle. These two spoke to one another gently and calmly before they came to blows, and did nothing in anger or frenzy even in the fighting itself. I do not think even the Torquatus who earned that surname was angry when he stripped the torque from the Gaul, nor that Marcellus was courageous at Clastidium because he was angry.\n\nSECTION 50\n“As for Africanus, whom we know better because his memory is more recent, I could even swear that he was not inflamed with anger when in battle he covered Marcus Alliennius of the Paeligni with his shield and drove his sword into the enemy’s breast. About Lucius Brutus I might hesitate: perhaps his boundless hatred of the tyrant made him attack Arruns with less restraint, for I see that both fell at close quarters, each struck by the other. Why, then, do you bring anger into this? Has courage no impulse of its own unless it begins to go mad? What of Hercules, raised to heaven by that very courage which you would make into irascibility? Do you think he was angry when he fought the Erymanthian boar or the Nemean lion? Or did Theseus seize the horns of the bull of Marathon in anger too? Consider whether courage may be entirely free of frenzy, and irascibility entirely a mark of instability.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 23\n\nSECTION 51\n“There is no courage without reason. ‘Human affairs are to be held of little account; death is to be disregarded; pain and toil are to be thought bearable.’ Once these principles have been established by judgment and conviction, courage is strong and stable—unless perhaps we suspect that whatever is done vigorously, sharply, and spiritedly is done in anger. I do not think even that Scipio, the chief pontiff who proved the Stoics’ claim that the wise person is never a private citizen, was angry with Tiberius Gracchus when he abandoned the faltering consul and, though himself a private citizen, ordered all who wished the commonwealth safe to follow him, as though he were consul.\n\nSECTION 52\n“I do not know whether I myself have done anything courageous in public affairs. If I have, I certainly did not do it in anger. Is anything more like insanity than anger? How well Ennius called it ‘the beginning of insanity’! The complexion, voice, eyes, breathing, the loss of control in words and deeds—what share have they in sanity? What is uglier than Homer’s Achilles, or Agamemnon in their quarrel? As for Ajax, anger led him to madness and death. Courage, then, needs no anger summoned to its aid: it is sufficiently equipped, prepared, and armed in itself. By that reasoning, we might also call drunkenness useful to courage, and even madness useful, because madmen and drunkards often act with greater violence. Ajax was always courageous, but most courageous when mad; for\n\n“‘He did his greatest deed when, with the Greeks giving way,\n“‘His hand brought the decisive work to completion.’”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 24\n\n“He restored the battle in his madness.\n\nSECTION 53\n“Shall we therefore call madness useful? Examine the definitions of courage: you will understand that it has no need of rage. Courage, then, is ‘a disposition of the soul obedient to the highest law in enduring things’; or ‘the steadfast preservation of judgment in facing and repelling things that seem fearful’; or ‘knowledge of things fearful, their opposites, and things to be wholly disregarded, preserving a steadfast judgment about them’; or, more briefly, as Chrysippus puts it. Those earlier definitions belonged to Sphaerus, a particularly skilled definer, the Stoics think. Indeed, they are nearly all alike, though some illuminate our shared conceptions more than others. How, then, does Chrysippus put it? ‘Courage,’ he says, ‘is knowledge of things to be endured, or a disposition of the soul which, in suffering and enduring, obeys the highest law without fear.’ We may attack these men as much as we please, as Carneades used to do: I am afraid they may be the only philosophers. Which of these definitions fails to unfold the conception of courage that we all possess, hidden and wrapped within us? Once that conception is unfolded, who would look for anything further in a warrior, commander, or orator, and think they could do nothing courageously without frenzy?\n\nSECTION 54\n“What of the Stoics, who say that all unwise people are insane? Do they not reason from these very things? Take away disturbances, especially irascibility, and they will seem to be speaking monstrous nonsense. As it is, their argument is that they call all fools insane in the same way that they say all mud stinks. ‘But it does not always stink.’ Stir it, and you will smell it. Likewise, an irascible person is not always angry: provoke him, and you will see him rage. And what is this warlike anger like when it comes home, with a wife, with children, with the household? Is it useful then too? Is there anything a disturbed mind can do better than a steady one? Can anyone be angry without a disturbance of mind? Our countrymen were right, then: although all vices are faults of character, since none was uglier than irascibility, they called only the irascible ‘ill-tempered.’”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 25\n\nSECTION 55\n“An orator, however, should certainly not be angry; to imitate anger is not unbecoming. Do we seem angry to you whenever we speak with particular sharpness and force in a case? And when, after the business is finished and past, we write out our speeches, do we write them in anger? ‘Does anyone attend to this? Bind him!’ Do you suppose Aesopus ever performed that in anger, or Accius wrote it in anger? Such passages are splendidly performed—and by an orator, if he really is an orator, better than by any actor—but they are performed calmly, with a tranquil mind.\n\n“As for praising lust, what lust could prompt that? You bring me Themistocles and Demosthenes, and add Pythagoras, Democritus, and Plato. What? Do you call intellectual pursuits lust? Even when directed toward the best things, like those you cite, these pursuits ought to be calm and tranquil. And what sort of philosophers are they who praise distress, the single most detestable thing? But Afranius put it aptly: ‘Let him feel pain at anything, so long as he feels some pain.’ Yes, but he said it of a depraved and dissolute young man, whereas our inquiry concerns a steady and wise man. Indeed, let a centurion or standard-bearer have even that anger, or others whom there is no need to name, lest we reveal the rhetoricians’ mysteries. For a person who cannot use reason may usefully act on emotion. But our inquiry, as I often insist, concerns the wise person.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 26\n\nSECTION 56\n“‘But emulation, jealousy, and pity are useful too.’ Why feel pity rather than bring help, if you can do so? Can we not be generous without pity? We ought not to take distress upon ourselves on account of others, but, if we can, to relieve others of distress. And what use is jealousy of another, or that defective emulation which resembles rivalry? The person who feels emulation is tormented by another’s good because he himself lacks it; the jealous person is tormented by another’s good because someone else has it too. How can it be right to take on distress instead of making an effort, if there is something you want to have? As for wanting to be the only one to have it, that is utter madness.\n\n“And who could rightly praise moderate evils?\n\nSECTION 57\n“How can someone who has lust or desire not be lustful and desirous? Someone who has anger not be irascible? Someone who has anguish not be anxious? Someone who has fear not be timid? Do we therefore think the wise person lustful, irascible, anxious, and timid? We could speak at any length and breadth about his excellence, but most briefly in this way: wisdom is knowledge of things divine and human, and understanding of the causes of each. From this it follows that he imitates the divine and regards all human things as inferior to virtue. Did you say, then, that you thought disturbance could fall upon wisdom as upon a sea exposed to winds? What could disturb such dignity and steadiness? Something unforeseen or sudden? What of that kind could happen to someone for whom nothing that can befall a human being <has not been considered beforehand>? As for their claim that excesses should be cut back while natural feelings are left, what can be natural if it can also be excessive? All these things arise from the roots of error, which must be torn out and extracted completely, not trimmed or lopped.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 27\n\nSECTION 58\n“But since I suspect that you are asking not so much about the wise person as about yourself—you think he is free of every disturbance, and you want to be—let us see how powerful are the remedies applied <by> philosophy to diseases of the soul. Certainly there is a medicine for them. Nature has not been so hostile and unfriendly to the human race as to discover so many healing things for bodies and none for souls. Indeed, she has treated souls still better in this respect: bodily remedies are applied from outside, but the soul’s health is enclosed within itself. Yet the greater and more divine their excellence, the greater the care they need. Reason, properly applied, discerns what is best; neglected, it becomes entangled in many errors.\n\nSECTION 59\n“So I must now turn my entire discourse toward you. You pretend to be asking about the wise person, but perhaps you are asking about yourself.\n\n“There are, then, different treatments for the disturbances I have described. Not all distress is calmed by one method: the mourner needs one medicine, the person feeling pity or envy another. With all four disturbances there is also this distinction: is it better to address disturbance in general, which is a rejection of reason or an excessively strong impulse, or particular disturbances, such as fear, lust, and the rest? And should we show that the thing which occasioned distress ought not to seem distressing, or should distress about anything at all be entirely removed? If someone is distressed at being poor, for example, should you argue that poverty is not an evil, or that a person ought not to be distressed by anything? Clearly the latter is better, lest, if you fail to persuade him about poverty, you have to concede the case for distress. But once distress has been removed by the arguments appropriate to it, which we used yesterday, even the evil of poverty is in a sense removed.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 28\n\nSECTION 60\n“Every disturbance of this sort may indeed be washed away by calming the soul, when you teach that what gives rise to delight or lust is not a good, and what gives rise to fear or distress is not an evil. Yet the sure and specific cure is to teach that the disturbances themselves are defective in their own right and contain nothing either natural or necessary. We see distress itself eased when we reproach mourners with the weakness of an unmanly soul, and praise the dignity and steadiness of those who endure human circumstances without turmoil. This can happen even to people who think those things are evils, but still believe they should be borne with an even mind. Someone thinks pleasure a good, another thinks money a good; still, the first can be drawn away from intemperance, the second from avarice. That other method of reasoning and discourse, which removes both the false belief and the distress at once, is indeed more useful, but it rarely succeeds and should not be applied to people at large.\n\nSECTION 61\n“There are, moreover, some forms of distress which that medicine cannot possibly relieve. Suppose someone is distressed because he has no virtue, no spirit, no sense of duty, no moral goodness. His anguish is indeed caused by evils, but a different treatment must be brought to bear on him, one that all philosophers can share, even when they disagree on other matters. All ought to agree that movements of the soul turned away from right reason are defective. Thus even if the things that stir fear or distress are evils, or those that stir desire or delight are goods, the agitation itself is still defective. For we want the man we call great-souled and courageous to be steady, calm, dignified, and above all human circumstances. No one who grieves, fears, craves, or exults can be such a man. These feelings belong to people who think human events stronger than their own souls.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 29\n\nSECTION 62\n“Therefore, as I said before, all philosophers have a single method of healing: we should discuss not the character of the thing that disturbs the soul, but the disturbance itself. First, then, in the case of desire, when our sole aim is to remove it, we should not ask whether what stirs lust is good or not; lust itself must be removed. Whether the highest good is the honorable, or pleasure, or the combination of the two, or those three classes of goods, even if the excessively strong impulse is toward virtue itself, everyone must use the same argument to discourage it. The whole calming of the soul, however, rests on keeping human nature in view. To make its outlines easier to discern, we must explain in our discourse the common condition and law of life.\n\nSECTION 63\n“So it was not without reason that, when Euripides was presenting his Orestes, Socrates is said to have called for the first three lines to be repeated:\n\n“‘No tale is so terrible to tell,\n“‘Nor any evil brought by fate or heaven’s wrath,\n“‘That human nature cannot bear it through endurance.’\n\n“To persuade people that what has happened can and ought to be borne, it is useful to list those who have borne it. The calming of distress was explained both in yesterday’s discussion and in my book Consolation, which I wrote in the midst of grief and pain—for I was not wise. Chrysippus forbids applying a remedy to the soul’s swellings while they are still fresh; yet that is what I did, bringing force to bear upon nature so that the greatness of the pain would yield to the greatness of the medicine.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 30\n\nSECTION 64\n“But fear is close to distress, of which we have said enough, and we must say a little about it. For fear concerns a future evil, just as distress concerns a present one. Some therefore called fear a kind of distress; others called it anticipatory vexation, since it is, as it were, the forerunner of the vexation that follows. By the same arguments, then, that enable us to bear what is upon us, we make light of what is to come. In both cases we must take care to do nothing abject, submissive, soft, unmanly, broken-spirited, or base. But although we must speak of fear’s own instability, weakness, and fickleness, it is still a great help to make light of the very things that are feared. So, whether by chance or design, it was most convenient that on the first and following day we discussed the things most feared, death and pain. If those arguments have won acceptance, we have been freed from fear in large measure.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 31\n\n“So much for belief in evils.\n\nSECTION 65\n“Let us now consider belief in goods, that is, delight and desire. To my mind, the entire account of disturbances of the soul rests on a single point: all are within our power, all are taken on through judgment, all are voluntary. This error must therefore be torn away, this belief removed. Just as supposed evils must be made more bearable, so things thought great and delightful must be made less exciting. Goods and evils have this in common: even if it is difficult to persuade someone that none of the things disturbing the soul should be counted either as goods or as evils, a different treatment must still be applied to each movement. One method must correct the malicious person, another the lover, another again the anxious person, another the timid.\n\nSECTION 66\n“It would be easy, following the most widely approved account of goods and evils, to deny that an unwise person could ever feel delight, since he could never possess any good. But we are speaking now in ordinary terms. Let the things thought good—office, wealth, pleasures, and the rest—indeed be goods; even so, exultant, exuberant delight in possessing them is shameful, just as, though laughter may be allowed, guffawing is still censured. The soul’s outpouring in delight has the same defect as its contraction in pain; desire in pursuit displays the same instability as delight in enjoyment. Just as those excessively crushed by vexation are rightly judged unstable, so are those excessively elated by delight. Since envy belongs to distress, while taking pleasure in another’s misfortunes belongs to delight, both are commonly reproved by setting their monstrous and savage character before us. And just as caution is proper but fear is not, so joy is proper but delight is not, since for the sake of instruction we distinguish delight from joy.\n\nSECTION 67\n“We have already said above that a contraction of the soul can never be right, but its elevation can. Hector in Naevius feels joy in one way:\n\n“‘I am glad to be praised by you, Father, a man praised himself.’\n\n“The character in Trabea feels it in another:\n\n“‘The procuress, soothed with silver, will watch my nod,\n“‘What I wish, what I desire. Coming up, I shall push the door with a finger;\n“‘The doors will open. When Chrysis sees me unexpectedly,\n“‘She will hurry joyfully to meet me, longing for my embrace,\n“‘And give herself to me.’\n\n“How splendid he thinks this, he will now tell us himself:\n\n“‘I shall outstrip Fortune herself with my good fortune.’”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 32\n\nSECTION 68\n“How shameful this delight is, one need only attend carefully to see to its depths.\n\n“And just as those who exult in delight while enjoying sexual pleasures are shameful, so those who crave them with an inflamed soul are disgraceful. Indeed, this whole thing commonly called love—and, by Hercules, I can find no other name for it—is so unstable that I see nothing I would think comparable. Caecilius considers that ‘anyone who does not think him the highest god is either a fool or ignorant of the world,’\n\n“‘In whose hand it lies whom he would make mad,\n“‘Whom wise, whom healed, whom cast into disease,\n“‘[…]\n“‘Whom loved in return, whom sought, whom summoned.’\n\nSECTION 69\n“What a splendid reformer of life is poetry, which thinks that love, the author of disgrace and instability, should have a seat in the council of the gods! I am speaking of comedy, which would not exist at all if we did not approve of these disgraces. But what does that leader of the Argonauts say in tragedy?\n\n“‘You saved me more for love than for honor.’\n\n“What then? What fires of misery this love of Medea’s kindled! And yet in another poet she dares tell her father that she had as ‘husband the man whom Love had given, who has more power and greater sway than a father.’”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 33\n\nSECTION 70\n“But let us allow the poets their play: in their stories we see Jupiter himself involved in this disgrace. Let us come to the philosophers, the teachers of virtue, who deny that love aims at sexual misconduct and on that point quarrel with Epicurus, who, in my opinion, is not far from the truth. What is this love of friendship? Why does no one love an ugly youth or a handsome old man? This custom seems to me to have originated in the Greek gymnasia, where loves of this kind are freely permitted. Ennius was right, then:\n\n“‘Disgrace begins with baring bodies among fellow citizens.’\n\n“Even if these lovers are chaste, as I see they can be, they are still troubled and anxious, all the more because they restrain and check themselves.\n\nSECTION 71\n“To pass over love for women, to which nature has granted greater freedom, who can doubt what the poets mean by the rape of Ganymede, or fail to understand what Laius says and desires in Euripides? And what do the most learned men and greatest poets publish about themselves in their poems and songs? What Alcaeus, known in his own commonwealth as a courageous man, writes about love for young men! As for Anacreon, all his poetry is of love. The writings of Ibycus of Rhegium show that he burned with love more than any of them.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 34\n\n“We see that the loves of all these men are lustful; and yet we philosophers have arisen, with Plato himself as our authority—whom Dicaearchus accuses not unjustly—to lend love respectability.\n\nSECTION 72\n“The Stoics even say that the wise person will fall in love, and define love itself as ‘an endeavor to form a friendship prompted by the appearance of beauty.’ If there is anything of that kind in the world without anxiety, without longing, without worry, without sighing, let it exist by all means: it is free of all lust, and our present discourse concerns lust. But if there is a kind of love—as there certainly is—which differs not at all, or not much, from insanity, such as that in the Woman of Leucas: ‘If indeed there is any god who cares for me’—\n\nSECTION 73\n“Why, all the gods ought to have been concerned with how this man could enjoy the pleasures of love! ‘Ah, unhappy me!’ Nothing could be truer. And the other man rightly asks, ‘Are you sane, lamenting wildly like this?’ So even his own people think him mad. But what tragic scenes he makes!\n\n“‘You, holy Apollo, bring help; and you, lord of rivers,\n“‘Neptune, I invoke, and you too, Winds!’\n\n“He thinks he will turn the whole universe to the relief of his love. Venus alone he excludes as hostile: ‘For why should I appeal to you, Venus?’ He says that lust leaves her no care for anything else—as though he himself were not doing and saying such disgraceful things because of lust.”\n\nSECTION 74\n—\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 35\n\n“To someone in this state, then, we must apply this treatment: show how trifling is the thing he desires, how contemptible, how utterly worthless; how easily it could be obtained from elsewhere or in another way, or disregarded altogether. Sometimes he must also be drawn away toward other pursuits, concerns, cares, and business. Finally, like patients who fail to recover, he must often be treated by a change of place.\n\nSECTION 75\n“Some even think an old love should be driven out by a new one, as one nail drives out another. Above all, he <must be> reminded how great is the madness of love. Of all disturbances of the soul, there is certainly none more violent. Even if you choose not to denounce those acts themselves—I mean sexual misconduct, seductions, adulteries, and finally incest, the shamefulness of all of which deserves condemnation—even if you leave these aside, the very disturbance of the mind in love is foul in itself.\n\nSECTION 76\n“For, passing over the acts of madness, how much instability there is even in those things which seem moderate:\n\n“‘Wrongs,\n“‘Suspicions, enmities, truces,\n“‘War, peace again! If you demand that these uncertainties\n“‘Be ordered by certain reason, you achieve no more\n“‘Than if you tried to go mad reasonably.’\n\n“Who would not be deterred by the sheer perversity of this inconstancy and changeability of mind? We must also demonstrate what is said of every disturbance: none exists except through belief, through an adopted judgment, through our will. For if love were natural, everyone would love, would love always, and would love the same thing; shame would not deter one person, reflection another, satiety another.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 36\n\n“As for anger, so long as it disturbs the soul there can be no doubt that it is insanity. Under its impulse, even brothers fall into such a quarrel:\n\nSECTION 77\n“‘Where in all the world has any man surpassed you in shamelessness?’\n\n“‘And who has surpassed you in malice?’—\n\n“You know what follows. In alternating verses the brothers hurl the gravest insults at one another, making it easy to see that they are sons of Atreus, the man who devises a novel punishment for his brother:\n\n“‘I must stir a greater mass, a greater evil,\n“‘To beat down and crush his bitter heart.’\n\n“Into what, then, does this mass erupt? Hear Thyestes:\n\n“‘My brother himself urges me, poor wretch, to use my jaws\n“‘To chew my children’—\n\n“He serves up their entrails. For where can madness go that anger will not go as well? We therefore rightly say that angry people are out of control, meaning beyond the governance of judgment, reason, and mind: these ought to govern the whole soul.\n\nSECTION 78\n“The people whom they are trying to attack must either be taken away from them until they collect themselves—and what is collecting oneself but gathering the scattered parts of the soul back into their proper place?—or they must be begged and entreated to postpone whatever power of revenge they have until another time, until their anger cools. Cooling certainly implies a heat of the soul kindled against reason’s will. Hence the praise given to Archytas, who, having grown very angry with his estate manager, said, ‘How I would have dealt with you, if I were not angry!’”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 37\n\nSECTION 79\n“Where, then, are those who call irascibility useful—can insanity be useful?—or natural? Can anything be in accordance with nature if it happens in defiance of reason? If anger were natural, how could one person be more irascible than another? How could lust for revenge end before revenge had been taken? Or how could anyone regret what he had done in anger? We see this in King Alexander: after killing his friend Clitus, he could scarcely refrain from taking his own life, so powerful was his remorse. Once these things are understood, who can doubt that this movement of the soul too is wholly a matter of belief and will? Who could doubt that infirmities of the soul, such as avarice and the desire for glory, arise because great value is set on the thing from which the soul’s sickness comes? From this we must understand that every disturbance too rests on belief.\n\nSECTION 80\n“And if confidence—that is, the soul’s firm trust—is a kind of knowledge and a weighty belief that does not assent rashly, fear too is a lack of confidence in the face of expected and impending evil; and if hope is the expectation of good, the expectation of evil must be fear. Like fear, then, the other disturbances are evils. Therefore, just as steadiness belongs to knowledge, disturbance belongs to error. Those called naturally irascible, compassionate, envious, or anything of that kind have, as it were, an unhealthy constitution of soul, but they can still be cured. So we are told of Socrates: Zopyrus, who professed to discern each person’s nature from his appearance, listed many vices in him before a gathering. The others laughed at him, recognizing none of these vices in Socrates. But Socrates himself came to his support, saying that he had indeed been born with those vices, but had cast them out by reason.\n\nSECTION 81\n“Therefore, just as even someone in the best of health may seem naturally more prone to a particular disease, so different souls incline more toward different vices. As for those said to be vicious not by nature but through their own fault, their vices consist of false beliefs about good and evil things, making different people more prone to different movements and disturbances. But a chronic condition, as in the body, is harder to dislodge than an agitation: a sudden swelling of the eyes is cured more quickly than a long-standing inflammation is driven away.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 38\n\nSECTION 82\n“But now that we know the cause of disturbances, all of which arise from judgments of belief and acts of will, let this discussion come to an end. We ought to know that, once the ultimate goods and evils have been understood as far as a human being can understand them, nothing greater or more useful can be sought from philosophy than what we have discussed over these four days. Having made death a thing to disregard and pain easier to bear, we added the calming of distress, than which no evil is greater for a human being. For although every disturbance of the soul is grievous and differs little from madness, we usually speak of others who are in some disturbance of fear, delight, or desire as merely agitated and disturbed, but those who have surrendered to distress as miserable, crushed, wretched, and afflicted.\n\nSECTION 83\n“So it seems no accident, but a deliberate proposal on your part, that we should discuss distress separately from the other disturbances: in distress lies the fountainhead and source of misery. Yet distress and the other diseases of the soul have a single cure: all are matters of belief and will, and are taken on because doing so seems right. Philosophy promises to tear out this error by the roots, as the root of all evils.\n\nSECTION 84\n“Let us therefore give ourselves to philosophy to be cultivated, and allow ourselves to be healed. While these evils are lodged within us, we cannot be happy, or even sane. Either let us deny that anything is accomplished by reason—though in fact nothing can be rightly done without reason—or, since philosophy consists in the comparison of arguments, let us seek from it, if we wish to be both good and happy, every support and aid for living well and happily.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 1\n\nSECTION 1\nThis fifth day, Brutus, will bring our Tusculan Disputations to a close. On it we discussed the doctrine that you approve above all others. Both from the book you so carefully addressed to me and from many conversations with you, I have understood how firmly you hold that virtue is sufficient in itself for a happy life. Though the many and varied torments of fortune make this difficult to prove, it is a truth whose proof deserves every effort we can give it. Nothing in the whole field of philosophy can be expressed with greater weight or grandeur.\n\nSECTION 2\nFor the men who first devoted themselves to philosophy were moved to set everything else aside and give themselves wholly to discovering the best condition of life. Surely it was the hope of living happily that made them lavish such care and labor on that pursuit. If they discovered virtue and brought it to perfection, and if virtue offers sufficient protection for a happy life, who would not think that their work in philosophy was nobly undertaken, and that ours is too? But if virtue is subject to the shifting uncertainties of circumstance, a slave to fortune, and lacks the strength to defend itself, I fear that our hope of happiness must rest less on confidence in virtue than on prayers.\n\nSECTION 3\nFor my own part, when I reflect on the disasters through which fortune has so harshly tried me, I sometimes begin to lose faith in this belief and to dread the weakness and frailty of the human race. I fear that nature, having given us feeble bodies and added incurable diseases and intolerable pains, has also given us minds that both share in the body’s suffering and are independently entangled in anguish and troubles of their own.\n\nSECTION 4\nYet here I rebuke myself: I am judging the strength of virtue by the weakness of others, and perhaps of myself, rather than by virtue itself. For virtue—if indeed there is such a thing, a doubt your uncle, Brutus, has removed—holds beneath it everything that can befall a human being. Looking down on these things, it scorns the accidents of human life; free from every fault, it regards nothing beyond itself as its concern. We, however, magnify every adversity: fear enlarges it before it comes, sorrow when it is present. We prefer to condemn the nature of things rather than our own error.\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 2\n\nSECTION 5\nBut the cure for this fault, and for all our other vices and failings, must be sought from philosophy. Our own inclination and enthusiasm drove us into her embrace in our earliest years; now, in these most grievous disasters, battered by a mighty storm, we have fled back to the same harbor from which we once sailed. Philosophy, guide of life, seeker of virtue, banisher of vice! What could we have been without you—not merely we, but human life itself? You gave birth to cities; you called scattered human beings into a shared life. You bound them to one another first through homes, then through marriage, then through the fellowship of writing and speech. You invented laws; you taught conduct and civilization. To you we flee, from you we seek help; as we once surrendered ourselves largely to you, so now we surrender ourselves entirely, without reserve. One day lived well according to your teachings is worth more than an eternity of wrongdoing.\n\nSECTION 6\nWhose resources, then, should we draw upon rather than yours? You have bestowed tranquility of life on us and taken away the terror of death. Yet philosophy is so far from receiving the praise its services to human life deserve that most people neglect it, and many even abuse it. Does anyone dare to abuse the parent of life, to stain himself with such parricide? Can anyone be so impiously ungrateful as to accuse her whom he ought to revere, even if he had been unable to understand her fully? But this error, I think, this darkness spread over uneducated minds, arises because they cannot look far enough back. They do not believe that the first people to bring order to human life were philosophers.\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 3\n\nSECTION 7\nAlthough we see that the pursuit itself is of the greatest antiquity, we admit that its name is recent. Yet who can deny that wisdom itself is ancient not only in substance but in name? Among the ancients it earned this most beautiful name through knowledge of things divine and human, and of the origins and causes of everything. Thus we are told that the Seven, whom the Greeks called sophoi and our people “wise men,” were both regarded and named as such; so, many centuries earlier, was Lycurgus, in whose time Homer too is said to have lived, before the founding of this city; and already in the heroic age Ulysses and Nestor were both wise and reputed wise.\n\nSECTION 8\nNor would Atlas have been handed down as supporting the sky, or Prometheus as fastened to the Caucasus, or Cepheus as a constellation with his wife, his son-in-law, and his daughter, unless their godlike knowledge of the heavens had carried their names into the distortions of legend. Following their lead, all who devoted themselves to contemplating the world were thereafter regarded and described as wise, and that name continued in use down to the age of Pythagoras. According to Heraclides of Pontus, a pupil of Plato and a man of exceptional learning, Pythagoras is said to have come to Phlius and there discussed certain subjects at length and with learning with Leon, the ruler of the Phliasians. Leon, admiring his intelligence and eloquence, asked what art he relied on most. Pythagoras answered that he knew no art, but was a philosopher. Astonished by the unfamiliar name, Leon asked who philosophers were and how they differed from other people.\n\nSECTION 9\nPythagoras replied that human life seemed to him like the gathering held with the most splendid athletic games, where all Greece assembled. There, some men trained their bodies to seek the glory and distinction of a crown; others were drawn by the profit and gain of buying and selling. But there was another kind, the most noble of all, who sought neither applause nor profit, but came to watch and closely observed what was done and how. So too we have journeyed into this life from another life and another state of being, as people leave some city for a crowded festival: some serve glory, others money, while a rare few disregard everything else and devote themselves to contemplating the nature of things. These he called lovers of wisdom, for that is what “philosophers” means. Just as, at the games, the noblest activity was to watch without seeking any gain for oneself, so in life the contemplation and understanding of things far surpassed every other pursuit.\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 4\n\nSECTION 10\nPythagoras did not merely invent the name: he also enlarged the subject itself. After this conversation at Phlius he came to Italy, and adorned the Greece that was called Great with the finest institutions and arts, both in private and in public life. Perhaps another occasion will come to speak of his teaching. From the earliest philosophy down to Socrates, who had studied under Archelaus, the pupil of Anaxagoras, philosophers investigated numbers and movements, the sources from which all things arise and the ends to which they return. They eagerly examined the sizes, distances, and courses of the stars, and everything in the heavens. Socrates was the first to call philosophy down from heaven, establish it in cities, introduce it even into homes, and compel it to inquire into life and conduct, good and evil.\n\nSECTION 11\nThe many forms of his reasoning, the range of his subjects, and the greatness of his intellect, preserved and made immortal in Plato’s writings, gave rise to several schools of philosophers who disagreed with one another. Of these we have chiefly followed what we believed to be Socrates’ own practice: to conceal our own opinion, free others from error, and in every discussion seek what most closely resembles the truth. Carneades pursued this method with exceptional acuteness and fullness, and we too have often discussed subjects in this manner, most recently at Tusculum. I have sent you the conversations of the first four days, fully written out in the preceding books. On the fifth day we sat down in the same place, and the following proposition was put forward for discussion:\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 5\n\nSECTION 12\n“I do not think virtue has sufficient power to make life happy.”\n\n“Yet, by Hercules, my friend Brutus thinks it does; and, with your permission, I put his judgment far above yours.”\n\n“I have no doubt of it. But the question now is not how much you love him; it is the worth of the opinion I have expressed. That is what I want you to discuss.”\n\n“You deny, then, that virtue has sufficient power to make life happy?”\n\n“I deny it absolutely.”\n\n“Well, does virtue provide sufficient resources for living rightly, honorably, and praiseworthily—in short, for living well?”\n\n“Certainly it does.”\n\n“Can you then refuse to call someone who lives badly unhappy, or deny that someone who, you admit, lives well is living happily?”\n\n“Why should I not? Even under torture one can live rightly, honorably, and praiseworthily, and therefore well—provided you understand what I now mean by ‘well.’ I mean with steadfastness, dignity, wisdom, and courage.\n\nSECTION 13\n“Even these qualities are thrown onto the rack, which a happy life cannot approach.”\n\n“What then? Is the happy life alone, I ask you, left outside the prison’s door and threshold, while steadfastness, dignity, courage, wisdom, and the other virtues are dragged to the torturer and refuse no punishment or pain?”\n\n“If you mean to accomplish anything, you must find some new arguments. These leave me quite unmoved, not merely because they are commonplace, but much more because, like certain light wines that lose all their strength in water, these Stoic arguments please more when tasted than when drunk. That chorus of virtues set upon the rack, for instance, presents images of such splendid dignity to our eyes that happiness seems ready to hurry toward them and determined not to let them be abandoned.\n\nSECTION 14\n“But when you turn the mind from that painting, those personified virtues, to the actual truth, the question remains in its bare form: can anyone be happy while being tortured? Let us therefore examine that now. You need not fear that the virtues will protest and complain that happiness has deserted them. For if no virtue is without practical wisdom, practical wisdom itself sees that not all good people are happy as well. It remembers much about Marcus Atilius, Quintus Caepio, and Manius Aquilius. And, if you prefer images to actual things, practical wisdom itself holds happiness back as it tries to climb onto the rack, and declares that happiness has nothing in common with pain and torment.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 6\n\nSECTION 15\n“I readily allow you to proceed in that way, though it is unfair for you to prescribe how I am to argue. But I ask whether we think we achieved anything on the preceding days, or nothing.”\n\n“Certainly we achieved something, and a considerable amount.”\n\n“Well then, if that is so, this inquiry is already far advanced and almost brought to its conclusion.”\n\n“How, exactly?”\n\n“Because turbulent movements and agitations of the mind, roused and swept along by reckless impulse, driving all reason out, leave no room for a happy life. For how can anyone be other than unhappy who fears death or pain, one of which is often present, while the other always hangs over us? What if he also fears poverty, disgrace, and ill repute, as people generally do; or disability and blindness; or finally slavery, which has often befallen not merely individuals but powerful nations?\n\nSECTION 16\n“Can anyone who fears these things be happy? And what of someone who not only fears their coming but actually bears and endures them? Add exile, mourning, and the loss of children: broken by these things and crushed by grief, can he be anything but utterly unhappy? Again, consider the man we see burning and raging with desire, grasping ravenously at everything with an appetite that cannot be filled, thirsting more fiercely and intensely the more freely he drinks in pleasures from every side. Would you not rightly call him utterly unhappy? And what of the man carried away by frivolity, exulting in empty joy and leaping about without restraint? Is he not the more unhappy the happier he thinks himself? As these people are unhappy, then, so those are happy whom no fears terrify, no griefs consume, no desires inflame, and no outbursts of foolish joy dissolve in enervating pleasures. Just as we understand the sea’s tranquility to mean that no breeze, not even the slightest, stirs its waves, so we recognize the mind’s quiet and peaceful state when no disturbance exists to shake it. Suppose someone considers the violence of fortune, and every human circumstance that can befall anyone, endurable, so that neither fear nor anguish touches him. Suppose also that he desires nothing and is carried away by no empty pleasure of the mind. Why should he not be happy?\n\nSECTION 17\n“And if virtue produces these results, why should virtue not, of itself and by itself, make us happy?”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 7\n\n“Certainly one of those points cannot be denied: people who fear nothing, feel no anguish, desire nothing, and are not carried away by ungoverned joy are happy. I therefore grant you that. The other point is no longer an open question: our previous discussions established that the wise person is free from every disturbance of the mind.”\n\n“Then surely the matter is settled;\n\nSECTION 18\n“for the inquiry seems to have reached its end.”\n\n“Almost, certainly.”\n\n“Yet that is the mathematicians’ practice, not the philosophers’. When geometers wish to demonstrate something, if any of their previous demonstrations bears on it, they take that as granted and proved, and explain only the point about which nothing has yet been written. Philosophers gather together everything relevant to the matter in hand, even if they have discussed it elsewhere. Otherwise, why should a Stoic say much when asked whether virtue has sufficient power to make life happy? He need only reply that he had already demonstrated that nothing is good except what is honorable; once that is proved, it follows that virtue is sufficient for a happy life. And just as this follows from that, so that follows from this: if virtue is sufficient for a happy life, nothing is good except what is honorable.\n\nSECTION 19\n“But that is not how they proceed. They have separate books on the honorable and on the highest good; and although those establish that virtue has sufficient power to make life happy, they nevertheless treat this question separately as well. Every subject must be handled with arguments and reminders peculiar to itself—especially one of such importance. Do not suppose that philosophy has ever uttered a more glorious declaration or made a richer or greater promise. For what does it profess? Good gods! It promises that anyone who obeys its laws will always be armed against fortune, will possess within himself every resource for living well and happily, and in short will always be happy.\n\nSECTION 20\n“But I shall see what it accomplishes; meanwhile, I value the very promise highly. Xerxes, loaded with every prize and gift of fortune, was not content with his cavalry, his infantry, his multitude of ships, or the boundless weight of his gold. He offered a reward to anyone who discovered a new pleasure—and even with that he was not content, for desire will never find an end. I wish we too could offer a reward and bring forward someone who could give us something to strengthen our belief in this.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 8\n\nSECTION 21\n“I wish so too, but I still have a small question to ask. I agree that the propositions you have stated follow from one another: just as, if only what is honorable is good, it follows that virtue produces a happy life, so, if happiness lies in virtue, nothing but virtue is good. But your friend Brutus, following Aristo and Antiochus, does not hold this view. He thinks virtue sufficient even if there is some good besides virtue.”\n\n“Well then?\n\nSECTION 22\n“Do you think I am going to argue against Brutus?”\n\n“Yes, apparently you will. It is not for me to set limits.”\n\n“Let us leave for another occasion the question of what is consistent with each person’s position. I have often disagreed with Antiochus on these matters, and recently with Aristo, when I stayed with him at Athens during my military command. It seemed to me that no one could be happy while suffering evils; yet the wise person could suffer evils if any bodily misfortunes or strokes of fortune were evils. They used to make the following arguments, which Antiochus has also written in several places: virtue alone can produce a happy life, but not the happiest life; most things take their names from the greater part of what they are, even when some part is missing—strength, health, wealth, honor, glory, for example, are judged by their general character, not by counting their components. In the same way, even if a happy life limps in some respect, it still retains its name through its much greater part.\n\nSECTION 23\n“There is no great need to disentangle these arguments now, although they do not seem to me entirely consistent. For one thing, I do not understand what a happy person requires to become happier: if something is lacking, he is not even happy. As for their assertion that everything is named and judged by its greater part, there are cases where that principle holds. But since they say there are three kinds of evil, suppose someone is assailed by every evil of two kinds: everything in his fortunes is adverse, and his body is overwhelmed and exhausted by every kind of pain. Shall we say that he lacks only a little of a happy life, let alone the happiest?”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 9\n\nSECTION 24\n“This is the position that Theophrastus could not sustain. Having decided that flogging, torture, agony, the destruction of one’s country, exile, and the loss of children carry great weight toward a bad and miserable life, he did not dare to speak loftily and grandly while his convictions were low and abject. Whether he was right is not the question; he was certainly consistent. I therefore dislike the practice of criticizing conclusions once you have granted the premises. This man, the most refined and learned of all philosophers, meets with little criticism when he declares that there are three kinds of good. Yet everyone attacks him, first of all for his book on the happy life, in which he argues at length why someone under torture and in agony cannot be happy. He is even supposed to say there that happiness does not mount the wheel—a form of torture among the Greeks. In fact, he says that nowhere at all, but what he does say amounts to the same thing.\n\nSECTION 25\n“Can I, then, after granting him that bodily pains are evils and the shipwrecks of fortune are evils, be angry when he says that not all good people are happy? For the things he counts as evils can befall every good person. The same Theophrastus is assailed in the books and lectures of all the philosophers because, in his Callisthenes, he praised this saying:  \n\n“‘Fortune rules life, not wisdom.’  \n\n“They say no philosopher ever uttered anything more feeble. Rightly so; but I cannot see how anything more consistent could have been said. If there are so many bodily goods, and so many goods outside the body dependent on chance and fortune, does it not follow that fortune, mistress of both external and bodily things, has more power than judgment?\n\nSECTION 26\n“Or would we rather imitate Epicurus? He often says many fine things, but takes no trouble over whether his statements agree consistently with one another. He praises a frugal diet. That is worthy of a philosopher—if Socrates or Antisthenes said it, not a man who has declared pleasure the highest good. He says no one can live pleasantly unless he also lives honorably, wisely, and justly. Nothing could be weightier, nothing more worthy of philosophy—if he did not make those very words, ‘honorably, wisely, and justly,’ refer to pleasure. What could be better than his saying that fortune has little influence over the wise? But is this said by a man who declares pain not merely the greatest evil but the only evil, and who can be overwhelmed throughout his body by the sharpest pains at the very moment he boasts most loudly of defying fortune? Metrodorus says the same thing in even finer words:\n\nSECTION 27\n“‘I have forestalled you, Fortune,’ he says, ‘and captured you. I have blocked every approach of yours, so that you cannot so much as breathe upon me.’ Splendid—if Aristo of Chios said it, or Zeno the Stoic, who considered nothing evil except what was shameful. But you, Metrodorus, who have lodged every good in the entrails and marrow, and have defined the highest good as consisting in a sound bodily condition and a secure expectation of its continuance—have you blocked fortune’s approaches? How? You can be stripped of that good this very moment.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 10\n\n“Yet the ignorant are captivated by these sayings, and sayings of this kind account for these men’s many followers.\n\nSECTION 28\n“But the acute reasoner must consider not what each man says, but what his principles require him to say. Take the very proposition we have undertaken to defend in this discussion: we maintain that all good people are always happy. Who I mean by good people is clear. Those equipped and adorned with all the virtues we call both wise and good. Let us see who should be called happy.\n\nSECTION 29\n“I consider them to be those who possess good things with no admixture of evil. When we say ‘happy,’ the only conception underlying that word is the full possession of good things with all evils excluded. Virtue cannot attain this if anything besides itself is good. For a whole crowd of evils will be present, if we regard these as evils: poverty, obscurity, low rank, loneliness, the loss of loved ones, severe bodily pains, ruined health, disability, blindness, the destruction of one’s country, exile, and finally slavery. Amid so many and such great troubles—and still more can occur—the wise person may find himself; for chance brings them, and chance can strike the wise. But if these are evils, who can guarantee that the wise person will always be happy, when he may suffer all of them at once?\n\nSECTION 30\n“I therefore do not readily allow my friend Brutus, or our common teachers, or those great men of old—Aristotle, Speusippus, Xenocrates, and Polemo—to count what I have listed above among evils, yet at the same time declare that the wise person is always happy. If they delight in this splendid and beautiful distinction, so worthy of Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato, let them bring themselves to scorn those things whose glitter captivates them—strength, health, beauty, wealth, honors, and power—and count their opposites as nothing. Then they will be able to proclaim in the clearest voice that neither fortune’s assault, nor the crowd’s opinion, nor pain, nor poverty terrifies them; that everything they need lies within themselves; and that they count nothing beyond their own control among good things.\n\nSECTION 31\n“But to speak in this way, as some great and lofty spirit might, while counting the same things as good and evil that the crowd does—this cannot possibly be allowed. Stirred by the glory of this doctrine, Epicurus rises up; he too, heaven help us, thinks the wise person always happy. The dignity of the claim captivates him, but he would never make it if he listened to himself. What could be less consistent than for someone to declare pain either the greatest or the only evil, and also hold that the wise person will say, ‘How delightful this is!’ while being tortured by pain? Philosophers must therefore be judged not by isolated remarks but by the continuity and consistency of their thought.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 11\n\nSECTION 32\n“You are bringing me to agree with you. But take care that your own consistency is not found wanting.”\n\n“How so?”\n\n“I recently read the fourth book of your On Ends. In it, while arguing against Cato, you seemed to me to be trying to show—and I approve of this—that there is no difference between Zeno and the Peripatetics except the novelty of his words. If that is so, why, if Zeno’s system consistently allows virtue sufficient power to make life happy, should the Peripatetics not be allowed to say the same? Surely we ought to consider the substance, not the words.”\n\nSECTION 33\n“You are proceeding against me with sealed documents, calling witnesses to what I once said or wrote! Deal in that way with others, who argue under laws they have laid down. We live from day to day: whatever strikes our minds as probable, we say. And so we alone are free. Nevertheless, since we were speaking a little earlier of consistency, I do not think the present question is whether Zeno and his pupil Aristo were right in holding that only what is honorable is good, but whether, if that were so, it would follow consistently that Zeno should place the whole of a happy life in virtue alone.\n\nSECTION 34\n“So let us certainly grant Brutus that the wise person is always happy. Let him see for himself how consistent that is with his principles; surely no man deserves the glory of this doctrine more than he does. Let us, however, maintain that the wise person is also supremely happy.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 12\n\n“And if Zeno of Citium, some obscure foreigner who manufactured words, seems to have slipped into the ancient philosophy, let us trace the weight of this doctrine back to Plato’s authority. In Plato we often find the assertion that nothing is good except virtue. In the Gorgias, for example, Socrates is asked whether he does not consider Archelaus, the son of Perdiccas, happy—a man then regarded as supremely fortunate. ‘I do not know,’ he says;\n\nSECTION 35\n“‘for I have never spoken with him.’—‘What do you mean? Can you not know otherwise?’—‘Certainly not.’—‘Then you cannot even say whether the Great King of Persia is happy?’—‘How could I, when I do not know how well educated he is, or how good a man?’—‘What? Do you think happiness rests on that?’—‘That is precisely my view: the good are happy, the wicked unhappy.’—‘Then Archelaus is unhappy?’—‘Certainly, if he is unjust.’\n\nSECTION 36\n“Does he not seem here to place the whole of a happy life in virtue alone? And how does the same philosopher put it in the Funeral Oration? ‘The man,’ he says, ‘for whom everything that contributes to a happy life depends on himself, rather than hanging upon others’ good or bad luck and being forced to depend and drift upon another’s fortunes, has arranged his life in the best possible way. This is the moderate man, the courageous man, the wise man. Whether other advantages come or go, and above all whether children are born or die, he will heed and obey the ancient precept: he will never rejoice or grieve excessively, because he will always place all his hope for himself within himself.’ From this fountain of Plato, sacred and majestic as it is, our whole argument will flow.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 13\n\n“Where, then, can we begin more fittingly than with nature, our common parent?\n\nSECTION 37\n“Whatever she brought forth—not only living creatures, but also whatever sprang from the earth and rested on roots of its own—she intended to be perfect of its kind. So trees and vines, and the lower plants that cannot lift themselves far above the ground, are some of them always green, while others, stripped bare in winter, put out leaves when warmed by spring. There is none that does not flourish through an inward movement, with its own seeds enclosed within it, producing flowers or crops or berries. In each of them everything is complete, so far as lies within its own power, unless some force prevents it.\n\nSECTION 38\n“In animals, because nature has given them sensation, her own power can be discerned even more easily. She intended some animals to swim and inhabit the waters, others to fly and enjoy the open sky; some to crawl, others to walk. Among these animals, some roam alone, others gather together; some are fierce, others tame; some live hidden and covered by earth. Each of them holds to its own function and, unable to pass into the life of a different creature, remains within nature’s law. Just as nature has given each kind of animal some special quality, which it keeps as its own and never abandons, so she has given the human being something far more excellent. Yet we should call things more excellent only where some comparison is possible, whereas the human mind, drawn from the divine intelligence, can be compared with nothing other than God himself, if it is permissible to say so.\n\nSECTION 39\n“If this mind is cultivated, then, and its vision so tended that errors do not blind it, it becomes a perfect intelligence—that is, fully developed reason, which is the same as virtue. And if everything that lacks nothing is happy, and everything that is filled and complete in its own kind is happy, and if that is the distinctive character of virtue, then certainly everyone who possesses virtue is happy.\n\n“On this I agree with Brutus—that is to say, with Aristotle, Xenocrates, Speusippus, and Polemo. But I think such people are supremely happy as well.\n\nSECTION 40\n“For what does someone who trusts in his own goods lack for a happy life? Or how can someone who does not trust in them be happy? Yet anyone who divides goods into three kinds must lack that trust.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 14\n\n“For how can he trust either in the soundness of his body or in the stability of fortune? Yet no one can be happy without a good that is stable, fixed, and enduring. Which of those goods is like that? The Spartan’s saying seems to me to apply to these people: when a merchant boasted that he had sent many ships to every stretch of coast, the Spartan said, ‘A fortune fastened to ropes is hardly to be envied.’ Can there be any doubt that, if something can be lost, we must not count it among the things that make a happy life complete? Nothing on which a happy life rests must be capable of withering, dying out, or falling. For anyone who fears losing any part of these things cannot be happy.\n\nSECTION 41\n“We want the happy person to be safe, impregnable, enclosed and fortified—not to feel little fear, but none. Just as we call someone innocent not because he does little harm, but because he does none, so we must count someone fearless not because he fears small things, but because he is entirely free from fear. For what else is courage but a disposition of mind that endures the encounter with danger, hardship, and pain, and is far removed from all fear? Yet this could certainly not be so unless every good consisted in moral goodness alone.\n\nSECTION 42\n“And how can anyone possess that deeply desired and sought-after security—by security I now mean freedom from distress, in which a happy life consists—if a host of evils either besets him or can beset him? How can he be lofty and upright, counting everything that can befall a human being as small, as we want the wise person to be, unless he believes that everything he needs lies within himself? When Philip threatened in a letter to prevent everything the Spartans attempted, they asked whether he would also prevent them from dying. Will it not be far easier to find such a spirit in the individual we seek than in an entire city? Again, join to this courage we are discussing the self-control that governs every emotional movement: what can be lacking for happiness in someone whom courage frees from distress and fear, while self-control both draws him away from desire and prevents him from leaping with extravagant excitement? I would demonstrate that virtue produces these results, had they not been explained on the preceding days.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 15\n\nSECTION 43\n“Disturbances of the mind produce misery, while their quieting produces a happy life. These disturbances have a twofold basis: distress and fear concern supposed evils, while exultant joy and desire rest on mistaken beliefs about goods. All are at war with judgment and reason. When you see someone free, released, and liberated from these violent agitations, which are themselves so divided and at odds with one another, will you hesitate to call him happy? Yet the wise person is always in this condition; therefore the wise person is always happy.\n\n“Moreover, every good is a cause for joy; what is a cause for joy should be proclaimed and openly displayed; what deserves that is also glorious; if glorious, certainly praiseworthy; and if praiseworthy, assuredly honorable as well.\n\nSECTION 44\n“Whatever is good, therefore, is honorable. But even those thinkers do not call the things they count as goods honorable. Only what is honorable, then, is good; and from this it follows that a happy life consists in moral goodness alone. We must therefore neither call nor consider things good if someone can possess them in abundance and still be utterly unhappy.\n\nSECTION 45\n“Can you doubt it? Suppose someone is outstanding in health, strength, and beauty, with the keenest and most unimpaired senses. Add, if you like, nimbleness and speed; give him wealth, honors, commands, power, and glory. If the man who possesses all this is unjust, unrestrained, cowardly, and dull-witted to the point of having no intelligence at all, will you hesitate to call him unhappy? What sort of goods are these, then, if someone who possesses them can be utterly unhappy? Consider whether a happy life must not, like a heap made from grains of its own kind, be composed of parts like itself. If so, happiness must be made from goods, and the only goods are honorable. If these ingredients are a mixture of unlike things, nothing honorable can be made from them. And once that is taken away, what could we understand by happiness? For whatever is good is to be sought; whatever is to be sought must certainly be approved; whatever you approve must be regarded as welcome and acceptable, and must therefore also be accorded worth. If that is so, it must be praiseworthy. Every good, therefore, is praiseworthy; and from this it follows that only what is honorable is good.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 16\n\nSECTION 46\n“Unless we hold to that, we shall have to call many things good. I leave aside wealth: since anyone, however unworthy, can possess it, I do not count it among goods, for not just anyone can possess what is good. I leave aside noble birth and popular fame, raised up by the approval of fools and scoundrels. Yet we shall have to call even these trifles good: gleaming teeth, attractive eyes, a pleasing complexion, and the qualities Anticlea praises while washing Ulysses’ feet:  \n\n“‘Gentleness of speech, softness of body.’  \n\n“If we regard these as goods, what can be said with greater weight or grandeur by a philosopher in all his seriousness than by popular opinion and the crowd of fools?\n\nSECTION 47\n“‘But the Stoics call “preferred” or “promoted” the very things these others call “goods.”’ They do indeed, but they deny that these things make a happy life complete. The others, however, think there is no happy life without them, or, if there is a happy life, they certainly deny that it is the happiest. We, on the other hand, insist on the happiest life, and that conclusion of Socrates confirms our position. For that foremost philosopher reasoned as follows: as a person’s disposition of mind is, so is the person; as the person is, so is his speech; his deeds resemble his speech, and his life resembles his deeds. But the disposition of mind in a good man is praiseworthy; therefore the good man’s life is praiseworthy, and therefore honorable, since it is praiseworthy. From this we conclude that the life of the good is happy.\n\nSECTION 48\n“For, in the name of gods and human beings, did our earlier discussions not establish clearly enough—or were we talking merely for amusement and to pass the time?—that the wise person is always free from every agitation of mind that I call a disturbance, and that the calmest peace always dwells in his mind? Is a man who is self-controlled and steadfast, without fear, without distress, without foolish excitement, without desire, not happy? But the wise person is always like this; therefore he is always happy. Again, how can a good man fail to make what is praiseworthy the standard for everything he does and thinks? Yet he makes a happy life the standard for everything. A happy life is therefore praiseworthy; nothing without virtue is praiseworthy; therefore virtue produces a happy life.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 17\n\nSECTION 49\n“The argument can also be concluded in this way. In a miserable life there is nothing to proclaim or glory in, nor is there in a life that is neither miserable nor happy. Yet in some life there is something to proclaim, glory in, and openly display. Epaminondas says:  \n\n“‘By our counsels the Spartans’ glory has been shorn.’  \n\n“And Africanus:  \n\n“‘From the rising sun above the Maeotian marshes,  \n“‘No one can equal the deeds I have done.’\n\nSECTION 50\n“If that is so, a happy life is something to glory in, proclaim, and openly display, for there is no other life to proclaim and openly display. Once these points are established, you understand what follows. Moreover, unless a happy life is also an honorable life, there must be something better than a happy life: they will surely admit that an honorable life is better. Thus there will be something better than a happy life. What more perverse claim could be made? Again, when they admit that vices have sufficient power to make life miserable, must they not admit that virtue has the same power to make life happy? For contrary consequences follow from contraries.\n\nSECTION 51\n“Here I ask what force there is in Critolaus’ famous balance. He places the goods of the mind in one pan, bodily and external goods in the other, and thinks that the pan containing the mind’s goods sinks so much lower that it outweighs earth and seas.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 18\n\n“What, then, prevents either him or Xenocrates, that most serious of philosophers, who so greatly exalts virtue and diminishes and dismisses everything else, from placing not merely a happy life but the happiest life in virtue?\n\nSECTION 52\n“Unless this is done, the destruction of the virtues will follow. Whoever is susceptible to distress must also be susceptible to fear, for fear is the anxious expectation of future distress. Whoever is susceptible to fear is also susceptible to dread, timidity, panic, and cowardice. It follows that he may sometimes be defeated and think that Atreus’ precept does not apply to him:  \n\n“‘Let them so prepare themselves in life that they never know defeat.’  \n\n“But he will be defeated, as I said, and not merely defeated but enslaved. We, however, want virtue always free, always unconquered. If it is not, virtue is abolished.\n\nSECTION 53\n“And if virtue provides sufficient resources for living well, it also provides enough for living happily. Certainly virtue is sufficient for us to live courageously; if courageously, then also with greatness of spirit, never terrified by anything and always unconquered. It follows that there is nothing to regret, nothing lacking, nothing obstructing us. Everything therefore flows freely, completely, and prosperously—and therefore happily. But virtue has sufficient power to make us live courageously; therefore it has sufficient power to make us live happily as well.\n\nSECTION 54\n“For just as folly, even after obtaining what it desired, never thinks it has obtained enough, so wisdom is always content with what is present, and never dissatisfied with itself.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 19\n\n“Do you think Gaius Laelius’ single consulship was comparable to Cinna’s consulships? Even that one term came with an electoral defeat—unless, when a wise and good man such as Laelius is passed over at the polls, it is the people [deprived of a good consul], rather than he [deprived of a good citizen body], who suffer rejection. But even so, which would you prefer, if you had the choice: to be consul once, like Laelius, or four times, like Cinna?\n\nSECTION 55\n“I have no doubt what you will answer, and so I see whom I am trusting with the question. I would not ask just anyone the same thing. Someone else might perhaps reply that he preferred not merely four consulships to one, but a single day of Cinna’s life to the whole lifetimes of many distinguished men. Had Laelius touched anyone with a finger, he would have paid the penalty. Cinna, however, ordered the head of his fellow consul Gnaeus Octavius to be cut off; those of Publius Crassus and Lucius Caesar, men of the highest nobility whose virtue had been recognized at home and in war; that of Marcus Antonius, the most eloquent of all the men I have heard; and that of Gaius Caesar, in whom I think there was a model of culture, wit, charm, and grace. Was the man who killed these men happy, then? To me, on the contrary, he seems unhappy not only because he did these things, but also because he behaved in such a way that he was allowed to do them. Of course no one is allowed to do wrong; we slip into an error of speech, calling something allowable\n\nSECTION 56\n“when a person is permitted to do it. Which time, then, was Gaius Marius happier: when he shared the glory of his victory over the Cimbri with his colleague Catulus, almost a second Laelius—for I consider the two men very much alike—or when, victorious in civil war and full of anger, he answered Catulus’ friends and relatives as they pleaded with him, not once but repeatedly, ‘Let him die’? Here the man who obeyed that impious utterance was happier than the one who gave so criminal an order. For just as it is better to suffer wrong than to inflict it, so it is better to go a little way to meet death, already approaching of itself, as Catulus did, than, as Marius did, to bury one’s six consulships beneath the death of such a man and stain the final period of one’s life.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 20\n\nSECTION 57\n“Dionysius was tyrant of Syracuse for thirty-eight years, having seized absolute power at the age of twenty-five. What a beautiful city, what a richly endowed community he held crushed in slavery! Yet we have it in writing from reliable authorities that this man was extremely temperate in his way of life, keen and energetic in conducting affairs, but at the same time malicious and unjust by nature. Consequently, anyone who looks closely at the truth must regard him as utterly unhappy. For even when he thought he could do everything, he did not attain the very things he had desired.\n\nSECTION 58\n“Though born of good parents and respectable standing—accounts of that, admittedly, differ—and surrounded by friendships with men his own age and close connections with relatives, and though, in the Greek fashion, he also had certain young men attached to him by love, he trusted none of them. Instead he entrusted his bodily safety to slaves he had selected from wealthy households, whom he had himself freed from the name of slavery, and to certain foreign adventurers and savage barbarians. Thus, through his unjust desire to rule, he had in a sense shut himself in prison. Indeed, rather than entrust his neck to a barber, he taught his daughters to cut hair. So royal maidens, practicing a lowly, servile trade like little barbers, trimmed their father’s beard and hair. Yet when they were grown, he took even their blades away and arranged for them to singe his beard and hair with glowing walnut shells.\n\nSECTION 59\n“He had two wives, Aristomache, a woman of his own city, and Doris of Locri. When he visited them at night, he first inspected and searched everything. He had surrounded his bedroom couch with a broad trench and bridged the crossing with a little wooden bridge; after closing the bedroom door, he would turn even that bridge aside. Since he did not dare stand on the ordinary platforms, he used to address the assembly from a high tower.\n\nSECTION 60\n“When he wanted to play ball, which he was very fond of doing, and took off his tunic, he is said to have handed his sword to a young man he loved. A friend jokingly remarked, ‘You certainly entrust your life to him,’ and the young man smiled. Dionysius ordered them both to be killed: the one because he had pointed out a way to kill him, the other because his laughter had shown approval of the remark. Yet this deed caused him such grief that nothing in his life weighed more heavily on him: he had killed someone he had loved passionately. Thus the desires of those who lack self-control pull in opposite directions. If you yield to one, you must resist another.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 21\n\nSECTION 61\n“Yet this tyrant himself passed judgment on his own happiness. One of his flatterers, Damocles, was speaking of his armies, his wealth, the majesty of his rule, his abundance of every resource, and the splendor of his palace, and declared that no one had ever been happier. ‘Then, Damocles,’ he said, ‘since this life delights you, would you like to taste it yourself and try out my fortune?’ When Damocles said he would, Dionysius ordered him to be placed on a golden couch spread with a beautifully woven coverlet embroidered with magnificent designs. He furnished several sideboards with embossed silver and gold. Then he ordered boys chosen for their exceptional beauty to stand beside the table and serve him attentively, watching for his slightest nod.\n\nSECTION 62\n“There were perfumes and garlands; incense burned; the tables were piled with the most exquisite dishes. Damocles thought himself a fortunate man. In the midst of all this splendor, Dionysius ordered a gleaming sword to be lowered from the paneled ceiling, suspended by a horsehair, so that it hung over the happy man’s neck. Now he could neither look at those handsome attendants nor admire the finely wrought silver, nor reach out his hand to the table. Even the garlands were slipping from his head. At last he begged the tyrant to let him leave, since he no longer wished to be happy. Has Dionysius not made it plain enough that there can be no happiness for someone over whom some terror always hangs? And he was not even free to return to justice and restore liberty and their rights to his fellow citizens. As a young man, at an age too heedless to foresee the consequences, he had entangled himself in wrongdoing and committed acts that made his own safety impossible if he began to act sanely.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 22\n\nSECTION 63\n“How deeply he longed for friendships, though he dreaded their betrayal, he showed in the case of those two Pythagoreans. He had accepted one as a pledge for the other’s life, and when the other appeared at the appointed hour of death to release his guarantor, he said, ‘If only I could be enrolled as your third friend!’ How wretched it was for him to lack the companionship of friends, the sharing of daily life, any intimate conversation at all—especially since he had been educated from boyhood, trained in the liberal arts, and was passionately devoted to music! He was a tragic poet, too—how good a poet is beside the point. In this art, somehow, more than in the others, everyone finds his own work beautiful. I have yet to meet a poet—and I was a friend of Aquinius—who did not think himself the best. That is the way of it: your work delights you, mine delights me. But to return to Dionysius: he lacked every civilized refinement and way of living. He lived with runaway slaves, criminals, and barbarians; no one who deserved freedom, or who even wished to be free, could be his friend, as he saw it.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 23\n\n“I shall not now compare this life—I can imagine nothing more hideous, wretched, or detestable—with the lives of Plato or Archytas, men of learning and consummate wisdom.\n\nSECTION 64\n“Instead, from that same city I shall summon a humble little man from his tracing rod and the dust in which he drew: Archimedes, who lived many years later. When I was quaestor, I tracked down his tomb, unknown to the Syracusans, who even denied that it existed. It was fenced in and overgrown on every side with brambles and thickets. I remembered some short lines of iambic verse which, I had heard, were inscribed on his monument. They said that a sphere and a cylinder had been placed at the top of the tomb.\n\nSECTION 65\n“As I surveyed the whole area—there is a great concentration of tombs at the Agrigentine Gates—I noticed a little column rising just above the undergrowth, with the figures of a sphere and a cylinder on it. I immediately told the Syracusans—their leading men were with me—that I thought this was the very thing I was looking for. A number of men were sent in with sickles and cleared and opened up the site.\n\nSECTION 66\n“When an approach had been laid open, we went up to the base facing us. The inscription was visible, though about half of it had been lost as the ends of the lines had worn away. Thus the most famous city in Greece, and once the most learned as well, would have known nothing of the monument of its own uniquely brilliant citizen had it not learned of it from a man of Arpinum. But let my argument return from its digression. Who among all those who have any dealings at all with the Muses—that is, with humane culture and learning—would not rather be this mathematician than that tyrant? If we ask about the character and occupations of their lives, the mind of the one was nourished by exploring and working out reasoned inquiries, with the delight of discovery, the sweetest of all nourishment for the mind; the other’s was occupied with murder and injustice, in fear both day and night. Come, compare Democritus, Pythagoras, Anaxagoras: what kingdoms, what riches will you rank above their studies and their pleasures?\n\nSECTION 67\n“For that highest good you are seeking must necessarily lie in the best part of a human being. And what is better in a human being than a keen and sound mind? We must therefore enjoy the good that belongs to it if we wish to be happy. But the mind’s good is virtue; happiness must therefore be contained in virtue. Hence everything beautiful, honorable, and illustrious is full of joy, as I said above—though I think that same point needs fuller treatment. Since it is clear that a happy life arises from joys that are lasting and complete, it follows that it arises from moral goodness.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 24\n\nSECTION 68\n“But rather than merely touch in words on what we wish to demonstrate, we must set before ourselves something like living pictures, which will draw us more powerfully toward knowledge and understanding. Let us take a man distinguished by the finest accomplishments, and for a moment form his image in our minds. First, he must possess exceptional intelligence, for virtue does not readily accompany sluggish minds; next, an ardent passion for investigating the truth. From this will spring that threefold fruit of the mind: first, knowledge of reality and the explanation of nature; second, the discrimination of things to be sought and avoided, and the principles of living well; third, the judgment of what follows from any proposition and what contradicts it, which embraces both precision in argument and truth in judgment.\n\nSECTION 69\n“What joy, then, must fill the wise man’s mind as it lives with these pursuits, spending its very nights with them! Think of his discerning the motions and revolutions of the entire universe: seeing the countless stars fixed in the heavens, keeping pace with the motion of the sky itself, each fastened in its appointed place; seeing seven others each follow its own course, widely separated from one another in their heights or depths, their wandering motions nevertheless marking out fixed and certain intervals in their paths. Surely it was the sight of these things that stirred the ancients and urged them to inquire further. From this arose the search for the first principles, the seeds, as it were, from which all things sprang, were generated, and took form: the origin of each kind, inanimate or living, voiceless or speaking; its life and its end; the succession and transformation of one thing into another; the source of the earth and the weights that balance it; the hollows in which the seas are held; the force of gravity that carries everything down to seek the center of the universe, which in a sphere is also its lowest point.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 25\n\nSECTION 70\n“As the mind engages with these things and ponders them night and day, there arises the knowledge commanded by the god at Delphi: the mind comes to know itself and to feel its union with the divine mind, and from this it is filled with a joy that knows no satiety. For the very contemplation of the power and nature of the gods kindles a desire to imitate the divine eternity. The mind does not think itself confined within life’s brief span when it sees the causes of things linked one to another in a necessary chain, whose flow from eternity to eternity is nevertheless governed by reason and intelligence.\n\nSECTION 71\n“As he gazes at these things and looks up to them—or rather, surveys every region and quarter—with what tranquility of mind he turns again to consider human affairs, the things nearer to us! From this arises the knowledge of virtue; the kinds and divisions of the virtues burst into flower. He discovers the final good toward which nature looks, the ultimate evil, the standard to which duties must be referred, the way of passing his life that he should choose. The investigation of these and similar matters establishes above all the point we are arguing here: that virtue is sufficient in itself for a happy life.\n\nSECTION 72\n“Third comes the method and science of reasoning, which spreads and flows through every part of wisdom: it defines a thing, separates its kinds, links consequences, draws complete conclusions, and distinguishes truth from falsehood. Besides its immense usefulness in weighing matters, it offers above all a delight that is noble and worthy of wisdom. But these are the pursuits of leisure. Let this same wise man turn to the defense of the state. What could surpass him, when he sees that his practical wisdom safeguards the citizens’ interests, while through justice he diverts none of those benefits into his own house, and employs so many other virtues in all their variety? Add the fruits of friendship: for the learned, these include both a plan of life in harmony, almost breathing in unison, and the greatest pleasure in daily companionship and shared living. What, after all, does such a life lack that would make it happier? So many and such great joys fill it that Fortune herself must yield to it. But if delight in these goods of the mind—that is, the virtues—is happiness, and all the wise enjoy these delights to the full, we must acknowledge that all of them are happy.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 26\n\n“Even on the rack, under torture?”\n\nSECTION 73\n“Did you think I meant on a bed of violets or roses? Is Epicurus, who has merely put on the mask of a philosopher and bestowed that title on himself, to be allowed to say—and, as things stand, I applaud him for saying it—that there is no moment when the wise man, even if he is being burned, tortured, or cut to pieces, cannot cry out, ‘How little I care for this!’? After all, he defines all evil as pain and all good as pleasure; he laughs at our moral goodness and shame, and says that we are engrossed in words, pouring out empty sounds, and that nothing matters to us except the smooth or harsh sensations of the body. Is this man, then, whose judgment, as I said, scarcely differs from that of the beasts, to be allowed to forget his own position, to scorn Fortune when everything he calls good or evil is in Fortune’s power, and to declare himself happy in the utmost agony and torture, when he has laid it down that pain is not only the greatest evil but the only one?\n\nSECTION 74\n“Nor has he equipped himself with those remedies for enduring pain: firmness of mind, shame at disgrace, training and habit in endurance, the teachings of courage, a manly toughness. Instead, he says that he finds relief in the single resource of remembering past pleasures—as if someone sweltering in the heat, and scarcely able to bear its force, should choose to remember how he had once been immersed in the cool streams at my place near Arpinum. I do not see how past pleasures can soothe present evils.\n\nSECTION 75\n“But since he says that the wise man is always happy, though consistency would forbid him to say it, what should those do who believe that nothing lacking moral goodness should be sought, or counted as a good? On my advice, even the Peripatetics and the Old Academy should finally stop stammering and dare to say openly, in a clear voice, that the happy life will descend into the bull of Phalaris.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 27\n\nSECTION 76\n“Let there be three kinds of goods, then: let us withdraw now from the snares of the Stoics, which I realize I have used more often than I usually do. By all means let there be those kinds of goods, provided that bodily and external goods lie low on the ground, called goods merely because they are to be taken, while those divine goods of the mind spread far and wide and touch the heavens. Why should I call the man who has attained them merely happy, and not supremely happy?\n\n“Will the wise man, however, dread pain? That is the strongest opponent of this position. Against death, our own and that of those dear to us, and against distress and the other disturbances of the mind, the discussions of the preceding days seem to have armed and prepared us well enough. Pain appears to be virtue’s fiercest adversary. It brandishes blazing torches; it threatens to break down courage, greatness of spirit, and endurance.\n\nSECTION 77\n“Will virtue, then, succumb to it? Will the happy life of a wise and steadfast man give way before it? Good gods, how disgraceful! Spartan boys do not groan when they are torn by the pain of the lash. At Sparta I myself have seen bands of young men fighting with incredible intensity, with fists, heels, nails, and finally teeth, dying before admitting defeat. What barbarous land is wilder or more uncultivated than India? Yet among that people, to begin with, those regarded as wise pass their lives naked and endure the snows of the Caucasus and the force of winter without pain; and when they place themselves against the flames, they burn without a groan.\n\nSECTION 78\n“As for the women of India, when their husband dies they enter a contest and submit to judgment over which of them he loved most—for several women are commonly married to one man. The winner is placed on the funeral pyre with her husband, rejoicing, while her family escorts her; the defeated woman goes away in sorrow. Custom could never conquer nature, for nature is always unconquerable. But we have infected our minds with shade, luxury, idleness, softness, and inactivity; we have beguiled and weakened them with false opinions and bad habits. Who does not know the custom of the Egyptians? Their minds, steeped in perverse delusions, would undergo any torture rather than harm an ibis, an asp, a cat, a dog, or a crocodile. Even if they have harmed one unwittingly, they refuse no penalty.\n\nSECTION 79\n“I speak of human beings; but what of the beasts? Do they not endure cold and hunger, their roaming runs and wanderings through mountains and forests? Do they not fight for their young so fiercely that they take wounds and fear no charge, no blow? I pass over what the ambitious bear and suffer for office, lovers of praise for glory, those inflamed with love to satisfy desire. Life is full of examples.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 28\n\nSECTION 80\n“But let our argument keep within bounds and return to the point from which it turned aside. A happy life, I say, will submit to torture. It will not accompany justice, temperance, and above all courage, greatness of spirit, and endurance, only to halt at the sight of the torturer’s face; it will not remain outside the doors, at the prison’s threshold, as I said before, while all the virtues go forward to torment without a tremor of fear. What could be uglier, more misshapen, than a happy life left alone, separated from that most beautiful company? Yet this cannot possibly happen. The virtues cannot hold together without a happy life, nor can a happy life exist without the virtues.\n\nSECTION 81\n“So they will not allow it to hang back; they will sweep it along with them into whatever pain and torment they themselves are led. For it is the wise man’s distinguishing mark to do nothing that could bring regret, nothing unwillingly; to do everything nobly, steadfastly, seriously, honorably; to expect nothing as certain to occur, and, when something happens, to marvel at nothing as if it had come unforeseen and new; to refer everything to his own judgment and stand by his own decisions. I certainly cannot conceive of anything happier than this.\n\nSECTION 82\n“The Stoics’ conclusion is straightforward. They hold that the highest good is to accord with nature and live in harmony with it. Since this lies not only within the wise man’s duty but within his power, it must follow that a happy life is in the power of the same man who has the highest good in his power. Thus the wise man’s life is always happy.\n\n“There you have what I consider the most courageous statements that can be made about a happy life—and, as matters now stand, unless you offer something better, the truest as well.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 29\n\n“I certainly can offer nothing better. But I would gladly ask you a favor, if it is not too much trouble. No bonds tie you to any particular school, and you gather from them all whatever most impresses you with the appearance of truth. A little while ago you seemed to urge the Peripatetics and the Old Academy to venture, freely and without reservation, to declare that the wise are always supremely happy. I should like to hear how you think they can say this consistently with their principles. For much that you have said has argued against that position and drawn its conclusions by the Stoics’ method.”\n\nSECTION 83\n“Let us then exercise the freedom which we alone may enjoy in philosophy: our discourse passes no verdict of its own but ranges over every side, so that others can judge it on its own merits, with no authority added to it. You seem to wish us to show that, whatever the rival philosophers’ opinions about the ultimate ends, virtue still has sufficient resources for a happy life. Carneades, we are told, used to argue this very point, but as an attack on the Stoics, whom he always took the greatest pains to refute, and against whose school his genius blazed. We shall proceed peacefully—for if the Stoics have rightly determined the ultimate good, the matter is settled: the wise man must always be happy.\n\nSECTION 84\n“But let us examine each of the remaining positions, to see whether this splendid declaration, this decree, as it were, concerning the happy life, can be reconciled with the views and teachings of them all.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 30\n\n“These, I think, are the positions about the ultimate ends that have been maintained and defended. First, four uncompounded views: nothing is good except moral goodness, as the Stoics hold; nothing except pleasure, as Epicurus holds; nothing except freedom from pain, as Hieronymus holds; nothing except the enjoyment of all, or the greatest, of nature’s primary goods, as Carneades used to argue against the Stoics.\n\nSECTION 85\n“These, then, are the uncompounded views; the following are combinations. The Peripatetics hold that there are three kinds of goods: the greatest are those of the mind, second come those of the body, and third external goods. The Old Academy differs little from them. Dinomachus and Callipho coupled pleasure with moral goodness, while the Peripatetic Diodorus added freedom from pain to moral goodness. These are the positions that have some staying power; those of Aristo, Pyrrho, Herillus, and several others have faded away. Let us see what ground these thinkers can hold, leaving aside the Stoics, whose position I think I have sufficiently defended.\n\n“The case of the Peripatetics has indeed been made clear, except for Theophrastus and any who have followed him in their rather feeble shuddering and shrinking from pain. The rest may do what they generally do: exalt the weight and dignity of virtue. Once they have raised it to the heavens, as eloquent men usually do at length, it is easy to crush and despise everything else by comparison. Those who say that glory must be sought even at the cost of pain cannot deny that those who have attained it are happy. For although they may be suffering certain evils, the word ‘happy’ has a wide and far-reaching scope.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 31\n\nSECTION 86\n“For commerce is called profitable and farming productive not if the one is always free from every loss or the other from every disaster of the weather, but if success predominates by a large margin in each. In the same way a life may rightly be called happy not only if it is full of goods on every side, but if its goods greatly outweigh the rest both in number and in importance.\n\nSECTION 87\n“On their principles, then, a happy life will follow virtue even to execution and descend with it into the bull, with Aristotle, Xenocrates, Speusippus, and Polemo as its sponsors. Neither threats nor enticements will corrupt it into deserting virtue. Callipho and Diodorus will take the same position, for both embrace moral goodness in such a way that they think everything lacking it must be left far behind. The others seem to be in tighter straits, yet they too swim safely out: Epicurus, Hieronymus, and any who care to defend that abandoned ultimate end of Carneades. None of them fails to regard the mind as the judge of goods, and each trains it to be able to scorn the things that seem good or evil.\n\nSECTION 88\n“For whatever you think of Epicurus’ case will apply equally to that of Hieronymus and Carneades—indeed, to all the rest. Which of them is ill prepared to face death or pain?\n\n“Let us begin, if you please, with the man we call soft and devoted to pleasure. Do you think a man fears death or pain when he calls the day of his death happy and, though afflicted with the greatest pains, counters those very pains by remembering and recalling his discoveries? Nor does he say these things as if he were blurting them out on the spur of the moment. His view of death is that sensation is extinguished when the living creature dissolves, and he judges that whatever lacks sensation is of no concern to us. Likewise, in pain he has firm principles to follow: he finds consolation for its intensity in its brevity, and for its duration in its mildness.\n\nSECTION 89\n“How, then, are those grand talkers better placed than Epicurus against these two things that torment us most?\n\n“And as for the other things regarded as evils, do not Epicurus and the remaining philosophers seem well enough prepared? Who does not dread poverty? And yet no philosopher does.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 32\n\n“With how little this man himself is content! No one has said more about a frugal diet. The things that breed a desire for money are the wish for ample means to meet the demands of love, ambition, and daily expenditure. Since he stands far apart from all these, why should he greatly desire money—or rather, why should he care about it at all?\n\nSECTION 90\n“Could Anacharsis the Scythian think nothing of money, while our philosophers cannot? A letter of his circulates in these words: ‘Anacharsis to Hanno, greetings. My clothing is a Scythian cloak, my shoes the calluses on my soles, my bed the earth, my relish hunger. I live on milk, cheese, and meat. You may therefore visit me as a man at peace. But those gifts that have delighted you—give them to your fellow citizens or to the immortal gods.’ Almost all philosophers of every school could have been of this same mind, except those whose flawed nature turned them aside from sound reason.\n\nSECTION 91\n“When a great quantity of gold and silver was being carried in a procession, Socrates said, ‘How many things I do not want!’ When envoys from Alexander brought Xenocrates fifty talents—a vast sum in those days, especially at Athens—he took them to dinner at the Academy. He set before them just enough, with no elaborate preparations. When they asked next day to whom he wished the money paid, he said, ‘What? Did you not understand from last night’s little dinner that I have no need of money?’ When he saw that they were rather downcast, he accepted thirty minas, so as not to seem to scorn the king’s generosity.\n\nSECTION 92\n“But Diogenes, with the greater freedom of a Cynic, answered Alexander, who asked him to say if he needed anything: ‘For the moment, just move a little out of the sun.’ Alexander had, of course, blocked his sunlight while he was basking. Diogenes used to argue how far he surpassed the Persian king in life and fortune: he himself lacked nothing, whereas nothing would ever be enough for the king; he had no desire for the pleasures of which the king could never have his fill, while the king could never attain his own.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 33\n\n“You see, I imagine, how Epicurus divided desires into classes—not perhaps with great precision, but usefully all the same:\n\nSECTION 93\n“Some are natural and necessary, some natural but not necessary, and some neither. Necessary desires can be satisfied with next to nothing, for nature’s wealth is easily obtained. The second class of desires, he thinks, is neither difficult to satisfy nor difficult to forgo. The third class, being wholly empty, and having no connection not only with necessity but even with nature, he thought should be rooted out entirely.\n\nSECTION 94\n“The Epicureans discuss this subject at length, and belittle one by one the pleasures whose general kinds they do not despise, though they do not seek them in abundance. For even the sexual pleasures, about which they have so much to say, they describe as easy, common, and ready to hand. If nature requires them, they think the measure should be beauty, age, and physique, not birth, station, or rank; and they hold that abstaining from them is not at all difficult if health or duty or reputation requires it. In general, this kind of pleasure is desirable if it does no harm, but it never does any good.\n\nSECTION 95\n“His whole teaching about pleasure is that pleasure in itself, simply because it is pleasure, is always desirable and to be sought; and by the same reasoning pain, simply because it is pain, is always to be avoided. The wise man will therefore make this reckoning: he will shun a pleasure if it is going to produce greater pain, and accept a pain that produces greater pleasure. All pleasant experiences, though judged by bodily sensation, are nevertheless referred to the mind.\n\nSECTION 96\n“Accordingly, the body enjoys pleasure only as long as it feels the pleasure present, whereas the mind both perceives present pleasure along with the body, foresees it as it approaches, and does not let past pleasure slip away. Thus the wise man will always have a continuous, unbroken succession of pleasures, since anticipation of pleasures hoped for is joined to the memory of those already enjoyed.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 34\n\nSECTION 97\n“Similar principles are also applied to food, and the splendor and expense of banquets are made little of, since nature is content with simple fare. Who does not see that appetite seasons all such things? When Darius, in flight, drank water muddied and fouled by corpses, he said he had never drunk anything more pleasant. Evidently he had never drunk when thirsty. Nor had Ptolemy ever eaten when hungry: when he was traveling through Egypt and his companions had not caught up with him, he was given coarse bread in a cottage, and nothing seemed more delicious than that bread. Socrates, they say, once kept walking briskly until evening; when someone asked why he was doing so, he replied that he was buying hunger with his walking, to make his dinner taste better.\n\nSECTION 98\n“And what of the Spartans’ diet at their common messes? Do we not see what it is? When the tyrant Dionysius dined there, he said he had not enjoyed the black broth, the principal dish of the meal. The cook replied, ‘No wonder: the seasonings were missing.’ ‘What seasonings?’ he asked. ‘The exertion of hunting, sweat, running by the Eurotas, hunger, thirst. These are the things that season the Spartans’ feasts.’ We can understand this not only from human custom but also from the beasts: whatever is thrown to them, provided it is not contrary to their nature, satisfies them, and they seek no more.\n\nSECTION 99\n“Some entire communities, taught by custom, delight in frugality, as we said just now of the Spartans. Xenophon describes the Persian diet, saying that they eat nothing with their bread except cress. Yet even if nature desires something sweeter, how many things grow from the earth and the trees, both readily abundant and wonderfully delicious! Add the lean vigor that follows this restraint in eating; add sound health. Compare people sweating, belching, stuffed with banquets like fattened oxen:\n\nSECTION 100\n“Then you will understand that those who pursue pleasure most obtain it least, and that the delight of eating lies in appetite, not in repletion.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 35\n\n“Timotheus, a famous man at Athens and a leader of the state, is said to have dined with Plato and greatly enjoyed the gathering. Seeing him next day, he said, ‘Your dinners are pleasant not only at the time but the day after as well.’ What of the fact that we cannot even use our minds properly when we are full of food and drink? There is a splendid letter from Plato to Dion’s relatives, which says approximately this: ‘When I arrived there, I found nothing to like in that supposedly happy life, filled with Italian and Syracusan banquets: being stuffed twice a day, never spending a night alone, and all the other accompaniments of a life in which no one will ever become wise, much less self-controlled. What natural disposition could be so marvelously balanced?’\n\nSECTION 101\n“How, then, can a life be pleasant when it lacks practical wisdom and self-control? This shows the error of Sardanapalus, that enormously wealthy king of Syria, who ordered these words to be carved on his tomb:\n\n“‘These things I have: what I ate, what sated desire  \n“‘Drank deep; but those many splendid things lie left behind.’\n\n“‘What else,’ says Aristotle, ‘would you inscribe on the tomb of an ox, not a king? He says he possesses in death what even while alive he possessed no longer than the time he spent enjoying it.’\n\nSECTION 102\n“Why, then, should riches be desired? Or at what point does poverty prevent us from being happy? You have a passion, I suppose, for statues and paintings. If someone delights in these things, do not people of modest means enjoy them better than those who possess them in abundance? In our city there is an immense supply of all such things on public display. Those who own them privately do not have so many and see them only rarely, when they visit their country estates; and even then something stings them as they remember where they got them. The day would fail me if I chose to plead poverty’s case. The matter is plain, and every day nature herself reminds us how few things she needs, how small they are, how cheap.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 36\n\n“Will obscurity, then, or low birth, or even popular disfavor prevent the wise man from being happy?\n\nSECTION 103\n“Consider whether favor with the crowd, and this glory that people seek, may bring more trouble than pleasure. Our Demosthenes was certainly rather shallow when he said he delighted in the whisper of a little woman carrying water, as women do in Greece, who murmured to another, ‘There is the famous Demosthenes.’ What could be more trivial? And yet what an orator! Evidently he had learned to speak before others, but not much to speak with himself.\n\nSECTION 104\n“We must understand, then, that popular glory is not to be sought for its own sake, nor obscurity feared. ‘I came to Athens,’ says Democritus, ‘and no one there recognized me.’ What a steadfast and serious man, to glory in his distance from glory! Flute players and those who play stringed instruments regulate their melodies and rhythms by their own judgment, not the crowd’s; will the wise man, endowed with a far greater art, inquire not into what is truest but into what the crowd wants? Or can anything be more foolish than to despise people individually as laborers and barbarians, yet think them important when assembled? He will certainly despise our canvassing for favor and our frivolity, and reject the people’s honors even when offered unasked; we, however, do not know how to despise them until we have begun to regret them. There is a passage in Heraclitus, the natural philosopher, about Hermodorus, the leading man of Ephesus:\n\nSECTION 105\n“He says that the Ephesians should all be put to death, because when they expelled Hermodorus from their city they said, ‘Let no one among us stand above the rest; if anyone does, let him be elsewhere, among other people.’ Does not this happen among every people? Do they not hate every preeminence in virtue? What of Aristides—for I would rather produce examples from Greece than from our own history—was he not driven from his country because he was just beyond measure? From how many troubles, then, are those free who have no dealings whatever with the people! What is sweeter than leisure spent in learning? I mean the kind of learning through which we come to know the infinity of things and of nature, and, within this very universe, the heavens, the earth, and the seas.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 37\n\n“Once honor has been scorned, and money too, what remains to be feared?\n\nSECTION 106\n“Exile, I suppose, which is reckoned among the greatest evils. If it is an evil because the people’s will is hostile and embittered against us, we said a little while ago how little that will deserves our regard. But if being away from one’s country is misery, the provinces are full of miserable people, very few of whom ever return to their native land.\n\nSECTION 107\n“‘But exiles lose their property.’ What of it? Have we said too little about enduring poverty? Indeed, if we consider the reality rather than the disgrace of the name, how much does exile differ from lifelong travel abroad? The most celebrated philosophers spent their lives in this way: Xenocrates, Crantor, Arcesilaus, Lacydes, Aristotle, Theophrastus, Zeno, Cleanthes, Chrysippus, Antipater, Carneades, Clitomachus, Philo, Antiochus, Panaetius, Posidonius, and countless others who, once they had left, never returned home. ‘But without disgrace.’ Can exile bring disgrace on the wise man? For this whole discussion concerns the wise man, to whom such a thing could not happen justly; someone justly exiled ought not to be consoled.\n\nSECTION 108\n“Finally, those who refer the objects of their pursuit in life to pleasure have the simplest principle for meeting every turn of fortune: wherever pleasure is supplied, there they can live happily. And so the words of Teucer can be adapted to every philosophical position:\n\n“‘Home is wherever life is good.’\n\n“When Socrates was asked what country he belonged to, he said, ‘The world’; for he regarded himself as an inhabitant and citizen of the whole world. What of Titus Albucius? Did he not philosophize at Athens in exile with perfect equanimity? Yet that very misfortune would not have befallen him if he had followed Epicurus’ rules and remained inactive in politics.\n\nSECTION 109\n“For how was Epicurus, because he lived in his native city, happier than Metrodorus, who lived at Athens? Or did Plato surpass Xenocrates, or Polemo surpass Arcesilaus, in happiness? How much, indeed, should we value a state from which good and wise men are driven? Demaratus, the father of our king Tarquin, could not endure the tyrant Cypselus, and so fled from Corinth to Tarquinii, where he established his fortune and had children. Was he foolish to prefer the freedom of exile to slavery at home?”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 38\n\nSECTION 110\n“Again, disturbances of the mind, anxieties, and distress are soothed by forgetting them as our thoughts are turned toward pleasure. It was not without reason, then, that Epicurus ventured to say that the wise man always has more good than evil, because he always enjoys pleasures. From this he thinks the conclusion we seek follows: the wise man is always happy.\n\nSECTION 111\n“‘Even if he loses his sight or hearing?’ Yes, for he makes light of these losses themselves. Take first that terrible thing, blindness: what pleasures, after all, does it lack? Some even argue that the other pleasures dwell in the senses themselves, whereas what we perceive by sight involves no pleasure located in the eyes: the things we taste, smell, touch, or hear affect the very part in which we sense them. Nothing like this happens in the eyes; it is the mind that receives what we see. And the mind can find delight in many different ways even without the use of sight. I am speaking, of course, of a learned and cultivated man, for whom living means thinking. The wise man’s thought scarcely calls on the eyes to assist its investigations.\n\nSECTION 112\n“For if night does not take away a happy life, why should a day resembling night take it away? That remark of Antipater of Cyrene is somewhat coarse, but its meaning is not absurd. When some women lamented his blindness, he said, ‘What are you doing? Do you suppose there is no pleasure in the night?’ As for the great Appius of old, who was blind for many years, we understand from his magistracies and achievements that, despite his misfortune, he failed in neither private nor public duty. We are told that the house of Gaius Drusus used to be filled with people seeking legal advice: those whose affairs were at stake could not see their own way and called on a blind man to guide them. When I was a boy, Gnaeus Aufidius, a former praetor, spoke in the Senate, stood by his friends in their deliberations, wrote a history in Greek, and saw his way in literature.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 39\n\nSECTION 113\n“Diodotus the Stoic lived in my house for many years while blind. Not only did he devote himself to philosophy even more constantly than before, play a stringed instrument in the Pythagorean manner, and have books read to him night and day—pursuits in which he had no need of eyes—but, scarcely credible as it seems, he also performed the duties of a teacher of geometry, telling his pupils in words where to begin each line and where to draw it. They say that Asclepiades, a philosopher of some standing in the Eretrian school, was asked what blindness had brought him, and replied that it had given him one more boy to accompany him. For just as even the greatest poverty would be bearable if one were allowed to do what certain Greeks do every day, so blindness could easily be borne if the aids to infirmity were available.\n\nSECTION 114\n“After losing his sight, Democritus could not, of course, distinguish white from black; but he could distinguish good from evil, just from unjust, honorable from shameful, useful from useless, great from small. He could live happily without the variety of colors, but not without an understanding of things. Indeed, this man thought that the mind’s vision was actually hindered by the sight of the eyes; and while others often failed to see what lay before their feet, he ranged through all infinity, stopping at no boundary. Homer too is said to have been blind. Yet what we see is his painting, not his poetry: what region, what shore, what place in Greece, what aspect and form of battle, what battle line, what band of rowers, what movement of men or beasts has he not painted so vividly that he makes us see what he himself had not seen? What, then? Do we suppose that delight and pleasure of the mind were ever lacking to Homer, or to any learned man?\n\nSECTION 115\n“If this were not so, would Anaxagoras or this same Democritus have abandoned their fields and inheritances and devoted themselves heart and soul to this divine delight in learning and inquiry? So the poets, who portray the seer Tiresias as wise, never bring him on to bewail his blindness. But Homer, having fashioned Polyphemus as a monstrous savage, even makes him talk with his ram and praise its good fortune in being able to go where it wishes and reach what it wishes. Rightly so: the Cyclops himself was no wiser than that ram.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 40\n\nSECTION 116\n“As for deafness, what evil does it contain? Marcus Crassus was rather deaf, but there was something more troublesome: he was ill spoken of, though, as it seemed to me, unjustly. Our people generally do not know Greek, nor do Greeks know Latin. So each group is deaf to the speech of the other; and all of us, likewise, are certainly deaf to the languages we do not understand, which are countless. ‘But they do not hear the voice of a singer with the lyre.’ Nor do they hear the screech of a saw being sharpened, or the grunting of a pig being slaughtered, or, when they want to rest, the roar of the murmuring sea. And if songs happen to delight them, they should reflect, first, that many wise men lived happily before songs were invented, and next, that far greater pleasure can be gained from reading them than from hearing them.\n\nSECTION 117\n“Then, just as a little while ago we led the blind toward the pleasures of hearing, so we may lead the deaf toward those of sight. For a man who can converse with himself will not miss another’s conversation.\n\n“Let all these afflictions be heaped together: let the same man be deprived of both sight and hearing, and oppressed as well by the sharpest bodily pains. In the first place, these pains generally bring a person’s life to an end by themselves. But if by chance they are drawn out at length, yet torture him too violently for there to be any reason to endure them, what in the world, good gods, are we to trouble ourselves about? A harbor lies ready: death is there, a refuge of everlasting insensibility.\n\nSECTION 118\n“When Lysimachus threatened Theodorus with death, he answered, ‘A great achievement indeed, if you have attained the power of a blister beetle!’ When Perseus begged Paulus not to lead him in his triumph, he replied, ‘That, at least, is in your own power.’ Much was said about death on the first day, when we investigated death itself, and a good deal on the next, when our subject was pain. Anyone who recalls it is in very little danger of failing to think death either desirable or, at least, not to be feared.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 41\n\n“For my part, I think we should observe in life the rule that holds at Greek drinking parties: ‘Let him drink or let him leave.’ And rightly so. A man should either share the pleasure of drinking equally with the others or leave beforehand, so that, sober himself, he does not fall victim to the violence of the drunken. In the same way, by withdrawing you may leave behind the blows of fortune that you cannot bear. Hieronymus says these very same things as Epicurus, in exactly the same words.\n\nSECTION 119\n“But if the philosophers who hold that virtue has no worth in itself, and who call everything we describe as honorable and praiseworthy an empty thing adorned with the hollow sound of a word—if even they think the wise man is always happy, what position should philosophers descended from Socrates and Plato take? Some of them say that the goods of the mind are so preeminent that they overwhelm bodily and external goods; others do not even count these latter things as goods, but place everything in the mind.\n\nSECTION 120\n“Carneades used to judge their dispute like an arbitrator chosen as a mark of honor. Whatever the Peripatetics called goods the Stoics regarded as advantages; yet when these things were weighed in reality, not in words, the Peripatetics assigned no more value to wealth, good health, and other things of the same kind than the Stoics did. He therefore denied that there was any ground for disagreement. So let the philosophers of the other schools see for themselves how they can maintain this position. I am grateful, nonetheless, that in speaking of the wise man’s unceasing capacity to live well, they openly profess something worthy of a philosopher’s voice.\n\nSECTION 121\n“But since we must leave in the morning, let us hold these five days of discussion in our memories. I think I shall also write them down—for how can we make better use of this leisure, such as it is?—and we shall send this second set of five books to our friend Brutus, who has not only urged us to write on philosophy but challenged us to do so. How much we shall benefit others in this work I could not readily say; but for my own bitterest griefs, and the many troubles surrounding me on every side, no other relief could be found.”","download_url":"https://mouseia.org/api/works/cicero-tusculan/translations/trn_cicero_tusculan_mouseia.txt"},{"id":"trn_cicero_tusculan_plain","translator":"Mouseia","kind":"plain","note":"Complete independent machine-assisted translation directly from the Latin. Latin transcription by the Perseus Project, Trustees of Tufts University, CC BY-SA 4.0.","text":"### Book 1, Chapter 1\n\nSECTION 1\nBrutus, I finally had some freedom from defending cases and doing my work in the Senate—if not complete freedom, at least a good deal of it. With your encouragement above all, I went back to my studies. They’d stayed in my thoughts, but circumstances had made me set them aside for a long time. The study of wisdom, which we call philosophy, includes the principles and teaching of every art concerned with living the right way. So I thought I should bring that subject to life in Latin writing. It’s not that you can’t learn philosophy from Greek books and teachers. But I’ve always held that our people either discovered things for themselves more intelligently than the Greeks did, or improved on what they got from the Greeks—at least in the fields they considered worth working at.\n\nSECTION 2\nWe certainly manage our customs, our way of life, and our homes and families better and with more refinement. Our ancestors certainly organized public life with better institutions and laws. And what about military matters? Our people have been very strong in courage, but stronger still in discipline. Then there are the qualities they developed naturally, without book learning. Neither Greece nor any other nation can compare with them there. Where has anyone shown such seriousness, such steadiness, greatness of spirit, integrity, trustworthiness, or such outstanding virtue of every kind that they could be compared with our ancestors?\n\nSECTION 3\nIn education and every branch of writing, Greece was ahead of us. There was no difficulty beating us, though: we weren’t putting up a fight. Poetry is the oldest kind of learned writing among the Greeks. Homer and Hesiod, after all, came before the founding of Rome; Archilochus lived under King Romulus. Our introduction to poetry came later. It was roughly Rome’s 510th year when Livius put on a play, during the consulship of Gaius Claudius, Caecus’ son, and Marcus Tuditanus. Ennius wasn’t born until the following year. Livius was older than either Plautus or Naevius.\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 2\n\nSo our people were late in getting to know poets or welcoming them. The Origins does say that guests at dinners used to sing about the brave deeds of famous men, accompanied by a pipe player. Still, Cato’s speech shows how little respect this kind of work received. He attacked Marcus Nobilior for taking poets to his province, treating it as something shameful. As we know, the poet that consul had taken to Aetolia was Ennius. So the less respect poets received, the less enthusiasm there was for poetry. Even so, whenever people with great talent emerged in that field,\n\nSECTION 4\nthey held their own quite well against the Greeks’ fame. Suppose Fabius, a man of the highest birth, had been praised for painting. Don’t we think we’d have had plenty of Polyclituses and Parrhasiuses here too? Respect feeds the arts. Fame fires everyone’s enthusiasm for study, and activities that a people disapproves of always languish among them. The Greeks thought the highest education lay in singing and playing stringed instruments. So Epaminondas, whom I consider Greece’s greatest man, is said to have played the lyre wonderfully. Some years earlier, Themistocles was considered rather poorly educated because he refused to play the lyre at a dinner. Musicians therefore flourished in Greece. Everyone learned music, and anyone who didn’t know it wasn’t thought adequately educated.\n\nSECTION 5\nThey gave geometry the greatest respect, so no one was more celebrated than mathematicians. We, on the other hand, limited that art to what was useful for measuring and calculating.\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 3\n\nOratory was a different matter: we welcomed it quickly. At first we welcomed speakers who weren’t learned, but were effective at speaking; later we welcomed learned speakers too. Tradition says that Galba, Africanus, and Laelius were learned men. Cato, who was older than they were, worked hard at his studies. Then came Lepidus, Carbo, and the Gracchi. From there down to our own day, our speakers were so great that they gave little ground to the Greeks, if any at all. Philosophy, though, has lain neglected right up to our time. No Latin writing has shed light on it. We must bring it into the light and get it moving. If we’ve done something useful for our fellow citizens while in public life, let’s help them in our free time too, if we can.\n\nSECTION 6\nWe need to work all the harder at this because, I’m told, there are already many carelessly written Latin books by men who are very good people, certainly, but not well enough educated. Someone can think correctly without being able to put those thoughts into polished words. But to put your thoughts into writing when you can’t organize them, make them clear, or attract a reader with any pleasure at all—that’s an uncontrolled misuse of both leisure and literature. These authors read their books themselves, along with their own followers. No one else touches them, except people who want the same license to write for themselves. So if my hard work has brought any credit to oratory, I’ll work much harder still to open up the sources of philosophy. My oratory flowed from those sources too.\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 4\n\nSECTION 7\nAristotle was a man of extraordinary talent, knowledge, and range. Stirred by the fame of Isocrates the teacher of rhetoric, he began teaching young men to speak too, joining sound judgment with eloquence. In the same way, I intend to keep up my old interest in speaking while working in this greater, richer field. I’ve always thought philosophy was complete only when it could discuss the greatest questions fully and with style. I’ve practiced this so eagerly that I’ve now even dared to hold discussions in the Greek way. Recently, after you left, several friends were with me at my place in Tusculum. I tried out what I could do in this kind of discussion. I used to practice speeches on legal cases—no one kept doing that longer than I did. Now this is my speaking practice in old age. I’d ask someone to put forward a subject they wanted to hear about. Then I’d discuss it, either sitting or walking.\n\nSECTION 8\nI’ve put these discussions, or ‘schools,’ as the Greeks call them, from five days into the same number of books. This is how it worked: the person who wanted to listen would state an opinion, and I’d argue against it. As you know, that’s Socrates’ old method of discussing things by arguing against someone else’s opinion. Socrates thought it was the easiest way to find what was most likely to be true. To make our discussions easier to follow, I’ll present them as though they’re happening, not as though I’m reporting them. So here’s how the beginning will go:\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 5\n\n“I think death is a bad thing.”\n\nSECTION 9\n“For people who’ve died, or for people who have to die?”\n\n“Both.”\n\n“Then it makes people unhappy, since it’s a bad thing.”\n\n“Certainly.”\n\n“So people who’ve already had to die are unhappy, and so are people who will have to.”\n\n“That’s what I think.”\n\n“Then there’s no one who isn’t unhappy.”\n\n“Absolutely no one.”\n\n“And if you’re going to be consistent, everyone who has ever been born or ever will be born isn’t just unhappy. They’re unhappy forever. If you said only people who still have to die were unhappy, you certainly wouldn’t leave out anyone alive—everyone has to die. Still, death would put an end to their unhappiness. But since the dead are unhappy too, we’re born into unhappiness that lasts forever. On that view, people who died a hundred thousand years ago must be unhappy—or rather, everyone who’s ever been born must be.”\n\n“That’s exactly what I think.”\n\n“Tell me, please:\n\nSECTION 10\n“Are you frightened by those stories—three-headed Cerberus in the underworld, the roaring of Cocytus, the crossing of Acheron, Tantalus ‘dying of thirst with the water just touching his chin’? Or that other story, how ‘Sisyphus rolls his rock, sweating as he strains, and doesn’t get anywhere at all’? Perhaps it’s those judges who won’t listen to pleas, Minos and Rhadamanthus? Lucius Crassus won’t defend you before them, or Marcus Antonius either. And though your case will be heard by Greek judges, you won’t be able to bring in Demosthenes. You’ll have to plead your own case before a very large crowd. Perhaps those are the things you fear, and that’s why you think death is an everlasting bad thing.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 6\n\n“Do you think I’m so crazy that I’d believe those things exist?”\n\n“You don’t believe them?”\n\n“Certainly not.”\n\n“Well, that’s bad news, by Hercules.”\n\n“Why, please?”\n\n“Because I could make an eloquent speech against them.”\n\n“Who couldn’t, on a subject like that? What’s so hard about showing that these monsters invented by poets and painters aren’t real?”\n\nSECTION 11\n“Yet philosophers have filled whole books with arguments against just those things.”\n\n“How silly of them. Who’s so mindless that those things bother them?”\n\n“Then if there aren’t any unhappy people in the underworld, there aren’t any people there at all.”\n\n“That’s exactly what I think.”\n\n“So where are these people you call unhappy? What place do they live in? If they exist, they can’t be nowhere.”\n\n“I think they’re nowhere at all.”\n\n“Then they don’t even exist?”\n\n“That’s exactly it. And yet they’re unhappy precisely because they don’t exist.”\n\nSECTION 12\n“I’d rather you were afraid of Cerberus than spoke as thoughtlessly as that.”\n\n“What do you mean?”\n\n“You say the same person both doesn’t exist and does. Where’s your sharp thinking? When you say someone is unhappy, you’re saying that a person who doesn’t exist does exist.”\n\n“I’m not so dull that I’d say that.”\n\n“Then what are you saying?”\n\n“That Marcus Crassus, for example, is unhappy because death took away his riches, that Gnaeus Pompey is unhappy because he’s been stripped of such glory—in short, that everyone who’s lost the light of life is unhappy.”\n\n“You’re going back to the same point. They must exist if they’re unhappy. But you just denied that dead people exist. So if they don’t exist, they can’t be anything. That means they can’t be unhappy either.”\n\n“Perhaps I’m not saying what I mean. What I think is most unhappy is just that: not to exist when you once did.”\n\n“What?\n\nSECTION 13\n“More unhappy than never to have existed at all? Then people who haven’t been born yet are already unhappy, because they don’t exist. And if we’re going to be unhappy after death, we were unhappy before we were born. I don’t remember being unhappy before I was born. If your memory’s better, I’d like to know whether you remember anything about yourself.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 7\n\n“You’re joking as though I were saying that people who haven’t been born are unhappy, rather than people who’ve died.”\n\n“So you’re saying they exist.”\n\n“No, I’m saying they’re unhappy because they don’t exist now, though they once did.”\n\n“Don’t you see you’re contradicting yourself? What could be more contradictory than saying someone who doesn’t exist is unhappy, or is anything at all? When you go out through the Capene Gate and see the tombs of Calatinus, the Scipios, the Servilii, and the Metelli, do you think those people are unhappy?”\n\n“Since you’re pinning me down over a word, I won’t say ‘they are unhappy’ from now on. I’ll just say ‘unhappy’—precisely because they don’t exist.”\n\n“So you don’t say, ‘Marcus Crassus is unhappy,’ just ‘unhappy Marcus Crassus’?”\n\n“Exactly.”\n\n“As if anything you assert that way didn’t have to be either so or not so! Haven’t you learned even the basics of logic?\n\nSECTION 14\n“One of its first lessons is this: every statement—‘statement’ is what occurs to me for now as a word for axíōma; I’ll use another later if I find a better one—well, a statement is something that’s either true or false. So when you say ‘unhappy Marcus Crassus,’ you’re either saying ‘Crassus is unhappy,’ so that we can judge whether it’s true or false, or you’re saying nothing at all.”\n\n“All right, I now admit that the dead aren’t unhappy. You’ve forced me to acknowledge that people who don’t exist at all can’t even be unhappy. But what about those of us who are alive? Aren’t we unhappy, since we have to die? How can there be any pleasure in life, when day and night we have to think that we’ll have to die at any moment?”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 8\n\n“Do you realize how much you’ve taken away from what’s bad about the human condition?”\n\nSECTION 15\n“In what way?”\n\n“If death were something unhappy for dead people too, we’d face something bad in life that had no limit and lasted forever. Now I see a finish line. Once we’ve run to it, there’s nothing more to be afraid of. But you seem to agree with a saying of Epicharmus. He was a sharp man, and quite witty, as you’d expect from a Sicilian.”\n\n“What saying? I don’t know it.”\n\n“I’ll put it into Latin if I can. You know I don’t usually speak Greek in a Latin conversation any more than I speak Latin in a Greek one.”\n\n“Quite right too. But what is this saying of Epicharmus?”\n“I don’t want to die, but being dead means nothing to me.”\n\n“Now I recognize the Greek. But since you’ve made me admit that dead people aren’t unhappy, finish the job, if you can. Get me to believe that having to die isn’t unhappy either.”\n\nSECTION 16\n“That’s no trouble at all, but I’m aiming for something bigger.”\n\n“How is that no trouble? And just what is this bigger thing?”\n\n“Since there’s nothing bad after death, death itself isn’t bad either. What comes immediately after it is the time after death, and you’ve admitted there’s nothing bad then. So having to die isn’t bad either: it means having to arrive at something we agree isn’t bad.”\n\n“Please go into that more fully. These thorny little arguments force an admission out of me before they convince me. But what’s this bigger thing you say you’re aiming for?”\n\n“To show, if I can, that death isn’t just not bad, but is actually good.”\n\n“I don’t ask that much, but I’m eager to hear it. Even if you don’t achieve what you want, you’ll still show that death isn’t bad. But I won’t interrupt you at all. I’d rather hear a continuous speech.”\n\n“What if I ask you something?\n\nSECTION 17\n“Won’t you answer?”\n\n“It would be rude not to. But unless it’s necessary, I’d rather you didn’t ask.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 9\n\n“I’ll do as you like and explain what you want as well as I can. But I’m not Apollo at Delphi, laying down things that are certain and fixed. I’m just one ordinary little person among many, using guesses to follow what’s plausible. Seeing what’s likely is as far as I can get. Leave certainty to people who say these things can be known for certain and who claim to be wise themselves.”\n\n“Take whatever approach you think best. We’re ready to listen.”\n\nSECTION 18\n“First we need to look at what death itself is, although it seems so familiar. Some people think death is the soul’s departure from the body. Others think there’s no departure: soul and body die together, and the soul goes out inside the body. Among those who think the soul leaves, some say it scatters at once, some that it lasts a long time, and some that it lasts forever. There’s also great disagreement about what the soul itself is, where it is, or where it comes from. Some think the heart itself is the soul. That’s why our words for ‘brainless,’ ‘crazy,’ and ‘in agreement’ refer to the heart; why that shrewd Nasica, twice consul, was called ‘Corculum,’ or ‘Little Heart’; and why we have the line ‘Sextus Aelius, a man of outstanding heart and sense.’ Empedocles thinks the soul is the blood that flows around the heart. Others have thought that a particular part of the brain controls the soul. Still others don’t accept that either the heart itself or a part of the brain is the soul,\n\nSECTION 19\n“but say the soul has its place and home in the heart, or alternatively in the brain. Others say the soul is breath, as our people generally do. The language makes it clear. We speak of ‘drawing one’s last breath’ and ‘breathing out one’s life,’ of ‘spirited’ people, ‘well-disposed’ people, and acting ‘according to one’s heart.’ The word for soul, animus, itself comes from anima, breath. Zeno the Stoic thinks the soul is fire.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 10\n\n“The views I’ve just mentioned—heart, brain, breath, fire—are widely held. Most of the others belong to individual thinkers. Aristoxenus, both a musician and a philosopher, proposed a view that earlier thinkers had held long before him. He said the soul was a kind of tension in the body itself, like what’s called harmonía, or harmony, in singing and stringed music. On this view the makeup and shape of the whole body produce different movements, just as they produce notes in music.\n\nSECTION 20\n“That kept him within his own trade. Even so, Plato had already stated and explained the character of this idea long before. With Xenocrates, the soul has no shape and nothing that could count as a body: it’s a number. For him, number is the most powerful thing in nature, as it had been for Pythagoras before him. Plato, who taught Xenocrates, imagined three parts to the soul. Reason commands from the head, its fortress. The two others must obey: anger has its separate place in the chest, while desire belongs below the diaphragm.\n\nSECTION 21\n“Then there’s Dicaearchus. In the first of his three books presenting a discussion among learned men at Corinth, he has many people speak. In the other two he introduces an old man from Phthia, a certain Pherecrates, whom he says is descended from Deucalion. Pherecrates argues that there is no soul at all: the word means absolutely nothing, and it’s pointless to call creatures ‘animals’ or ‘living beings.’ Neither a human nor an animal has a soul or breath of life inside it. All the power by which we do anything or sense anything is spread evenly throughout every living body. It can’t be separated from the body, since it doesn’t exist as a thing at all. There’s nothing but a single, simple body, formed in such a way that its natural balance gives it life and sensation.\n\nSECTION 22\n“No one matches Aristotle for talent and thoroughness, leaving Plato aside, as I always do. Aristotle accepted the familiar four basic kinds of matter that give rise to everything. But for the mind he proposed a fifth substance. None of the four, he thought, could contain the abilities to think, to think ahead, to learn or teach, to discover something or remember so much, to love or hate, want or fear, suffer distress or feel joy, and all the other activities like these. So he brings in a fifth kind without a name. For the soul itself, he coins the name endelécheia: something like movement that goes on continuously, forever.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 11\n\n“Unless something has slipped my mind, those are roughly the views about the soul. Let’s leave out Democritus. He’s certainly a great man, but he makes the soul out of a chance collision of tiny, smooth, round bodies. For people of his school, there’s nothing that a swarm of atoms doesn’t produce.\n\nSECTION 23\n“Which of these views is true? Some god may know. Which is most likely to be true is a big question. So would we rather decide between these views or go back to our subject?”\n\n“I’d like to do both, if we could, but it’s hard to mix them. So if we can get free of the fear of death without discussing those questions, let’s do that. But if we can’t do it without settling this question about souls, let’s discuss that now, if you agree, and the other thing another time.”\n\n“I think your preference is the better course. Reason will show that, whichever of the views I’ve set out is true, death either isn’t bad or is actually good.\n\nSECTION 24\n“If the soul is heart or blood or brain, it’s certainly a body and will die with the rest of the body. If it’s breath, perhaps it will scatter; if fire, it will go out; if Aristoxenus’ harmony, it will come apart. What can I say about Dicaearchus, who says there’s no soul at all? On all these views, nothing after death can matter to anyone. Sensation goes away along with life. And if someone has no sensation, nothing matters to them in any way. The remaining views offer hope, if you happen to like the idea, that souls can leave their bodies and reach the sky, as though going home.”\n\n“I certainly like it. First, I’d like it to be true; next, even if it isn’t, I’d still like to be convinced it is.”\n\n“Then what do you need my help for? Can I outdo Plato in eloquence? Read his book about the soul carefully, all the way through. There’ll be nothing more you want.”\n\n“By Hercules, I’ve done that, and more than once. Somehow, though, while I’m reading, I agree. When I’ve put the book down and start thinking by myself about the soul’s immortality, all that agreement slips away.”\n\n“Well?\n\nSECTION 25\n“Do you grant this: either souls survive death, or death itself destroys them?”\n\n“Yes, I do.”\n\n“What if they survive?”\n\n“I grant that they’re happy.”\n\n“And if they’re destroyed?”\n\n“They aren’t unhappy, since they don’t even exist. You forced us to concede that point a little while ago.”\n\n“Then how or why can you say death seems bad to you? It will either make us happy, if our souls survive, or leave us without sensation and therefore not unhappy.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 12\n\nSECTION 26\n“Then please explain, if it isn’t a bother,\n“first, if you can, that souls survive death; then, if you can’t establish that—it’s a difficult task—you can show that death has nothing bad in it.\n“What worries me is precisely this: not, I mean, lacking sensation, but having to lose it.”\n\n“We can call on the very best authorities for the view you want established. In every argument, such authorities ought to carry the greatest weight, and usually do. First there’s the whole ancient world. Perhaps those people saw the truth better because they were closer to their origin and divine ancestry.\n\n“Those early people, whom Ennius calls casci, ‘the old ones,’ had this one firmly rooted belief: sensation remains in death, and leaving life doesn’t wipe a person out into complete nonexistence;\n\nSECTION 27\n“you can see this from many things, especially the laws of the pontiffs and the rites at graves. Those gifted with the greatest intelligence wouldn’t have observed these so carefully, or made breaking them a religious offense so impossible to atone for, unless this belief had stuck in their minds: death isn’t a destruction that takes everything away and wipes it out. It’s a sort of move, a change of life. For famous men and women, that change generally led to the sky. For others, it kept them on the ground, but their life still continued.\n\nSECTION 28\n“That’s why, in our people’s belief, ‘Romulus lives out his days in the sky with the gods,’ as Ennius said, accepting the tradition. It’s why Hercules is regarded as such a great god, so ready to help, among the Greeks, and from them among us and all the way to the Ocean. That’s where we get Liber, Semele’s son, and the brothers born to Tyndareus, who are just as widely celebrated. They are said not only to have helped the Roman people win battles, but also to have brought news of victory. And what about Ino, Cadmus’ daughter? Don’t our people regard her as Matuta, while the Greeks call her Leucothea, the White Goddess? To stop running through more names, isn’t almost the whole sky filled with members of the human race?”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 13\n\nSECTION 29\n“Suppose I went searching through antiquity, unearthing the accounts left by Greek authors. Even the gods ranked among the greatest would turn out to have started here with us before going up to heaven. In Greece, find out which gods have tombs that people can show you. You’ve been initiated yourself: think back to the teachings of the mysteries. Then you’ll fully grasp the reach of this belief. Those early people, however, knew no natural science; humans only started studying it many years afterward. Nature had prompted them to recognize certain things, and that was as far as their convictions went. They had no grasp of the explanations or causes. Visions often affected them, especially dreams at night in which the dead appeared to be alive.\n\nSECTION 30\n“One argument for the gods’ existence seems particularly solid: the belief in gods has made its way into every mind, however brutal the person, however savage the nation. Bad habits often give people distorted views of the gods. Still, everyone accepts some divine nature and power. People didn’t arrive at this by gathering together or talking it over; neither institutions nor laws secured the belief. Whenever the whole human race agrees on something, we must regard that agreement as nature’s law. Now, when we lose someone close to us, isn’t our first reason for mourning the thought that they’ve been robbed of the good things in life? Remove that thought and the mourning disappears. Our own loss isn’t what we mourn over. It may hurt and distress us, but the miserable tears and cries of grief come from believing that someone we loved is missing life’s benefits and feels that loss. Nature, not reasoning or teaching of any kind, leads us to feel this.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 14\n\nSECTION 31\n“The strongest evidence that nature itself silently judges souls to be immortal is that everyone cares, and cares deeply, about what will happen after death. ‘He plants trees that will benefit another generation,’ as Statius says in The Young Companions. What is he looking toward, unless he thinks later generations concern him too? So a hardworking farmer will plant trees whose fruit he’ll never see. Won’t a great man plant laws, institutions, a state? What do having children, passing on a name, adopting sons, carefully making wills, or the memorials and inscriptions of tombs themselves mean, except that we’re thinking about the future too?\n\n“And another thing:\n\nSECTION 32\n“Surely you don’t doubt that we ought to take our sample of nature from its best examples? What better kind of human being is there than those who think they were born to help, protect, and preserve other people? Hercules went away to the gods. He’d never have gone if he hadn’t built himself that road while he was among humans. But those are old stories, made sacred by everyone’s religious belief:”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 15\n\n“what do we think all those great men who were killed for our republic had in mind? That their name should end where their life did? No one would ever offer to die for their country without a great hope of immortality.\n\nSECTION 33\n“Themistocles could have lived quietly. Epaminondas could have too. And, to avoid looking for examples both ancient and foreign, so could I. But somehow a kind of foreknowledge of future generations is lodged in our minds. It comes out most strongly, and shows most clearly, in the greatest talents and the highest spirits. Take it away, and who would be so mad as to spend their whole life in hard work and danger?\n\nSECTION 34\n“I’m talking about leading public figures. But don’t poets want to be famous after death too? Otherwise, why these lines?\n“‘Citizens, look at this portrait of old Ennius:\n“‘He put into verse the greatest deeds of your ancestors.’\n“He demands the reward of glory from the people whose ancestors he’d given glory. And he also says:\n“‘Let no one weep for me […]’\n“Why? ‘I fly, alive, on men’s lips.’\n“But why stick to poets? Artists want to be famous after death too. Why else did Phidias put a likeness of himself on Minerva’s shield, when he wasn’t allowed to sign his name? And our philosophers—don’t they put their own names on the very books they write about disregarding glory?\n\nSECTION 35\n“So if everyone’s agreement is nature’s voice, and people everywhere agree that something concerns those who’ve left this life, we must think the same. And suppose we believe that people whose minds stand out for talent or virtue see nature’s power most clearly because their own natures are the best. Then, since the best people do the most for future generations, it’s likely that there’s something they’ll be conscious of after death.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 16\n\nSECTION 36\n“Nature gives us our belief that gods exist; reason lets us learn what they’re like. In the same way, agreement among all nations leads us to think souls survive. But we must use reason to learn where they stay and what they’re like. Not knowing this gave rise to the underworld and those terrors you seemed, with good reason, to dismiss. Bodies fell to the ground and were covered with earth—humus, which gave us humari, ‘to be buried.’ So people thought the dead lived out the rest of their lives underground. Many serious errors followed from that opinion, and poets made them worse.\n\nSECTION 37\n“A packed theater, with women and children in the audience, gets worked up when it hears grand verse like this:\n“‘I’ve come, I’m here from Acheron, barely making it up that deep, steep road,\n“‘Through caves built of rough, overhanging\n“‘Gigantic rocks, where the underworld’s thick, freezing darkness stands still.’\n“The mistake was so powerful—though I think it’s now been cleared away—that people knew bodies had been burned, yet still imagined things happening in the underworld that couldn’t happen, or even be understood, without bodies. They couldn’t grasp in their minds souls living on their own. They kept looking for some shape and form. That’s the source of Homer’s whole visit to the dead, of the attempts to consult the dead that my friend Appius used to make, and of Lake Avernus in our neighborhood,\n“‘From which souls are summoned, images of the dead, wrapped in dark shadow,\n“‘With salted blood, at Acheron’s deep opening.’\n“Yet they expect these images to talk. That can’t happen without a tongue, a palate, and the force and form of a throat, sides, and lungs. They couldn’t see anything with the mind. They referred everything back to the eyes.\n\nSECTION 38\n“It takes great intelligence to call the mind away from the senses and lead thought away from habit. I believe others did it over all those centuries too, but the first person on record to say that human souls last forever was Pherecydes of Syros. He was certainly early: the king at the time was a member of my own clan. His pupil Pythagoras did the most to establish this view. He came to Italy while Tarquin the Proud was king and held sway over what was called Greater Greece, both through his teaching and through his personal authority. For many centuries afterward the Pythagoreans’ reputation was so strong that no one else seemed learned.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 17\n\n“But back to those early thinkers. They generally didn’t give reasons for their view, except when something needed explaining with numbers or diagrams:\n\nSECTION 39\n“Plato is said to have gone to Italy to get to know the Pythagoreans and to have learned all their teachings. He was the first not just to agree with Pythagoras that souls last forever, but to give a reason for it too. Unless you have something to say, let’s skip that reason and give up this whole hope of immortality.”\n\n“You’ve made me expect so much, and now you’re leaving me stranded? By Hercules, I’d rather be wrong with Plato—I know how highly you value him, and your words have made me admire him—than right with those other people.”\n\nSECTION 40\n“Well done! I’d gladly be wrong with that very man myself. So do we doubt—? Or is it like most things? Though in this case, certainly not. Mathematicians convince us that the earth is situated in the middle of the universe. Compared with the whole sweep of the sky, it takes up something like a point, what they call the center. The four substances that produce everything have a nature like this: they seem to have divided the tendencies to move between them. Earth and water move of their own inclination and weight, at right angles, toward land and sea. The other two parts are fire and air. Just as the first two are carried by heaviness and weight toward the universe’s center, these two fly upward in straight lines to the region of the sky. Either their own nature seeks the heights, or the heavier substances naturally push the lighter ones away. Once these points are established, it ought to be clear that souls rise when they leave the body, whether they’re made of air—that is, something we can breathe—or of fire.\n\nSECTION 41\n“If the soul is a kind of number, a statement more subtle than clear, or that fifth substance which lacks a name rather than an explanation, these are much more whole and pure still. They rise as far as possible from the earth. So the soul […] is something of these kinds. Let’s not have such an active mind lying submerged in a heart or brain, or in Empedocles’ blood.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 18\n\n“Let’s leave out Dicaearchus and Aristoxenus, his contemporary and fellow student—both certainly learned men. One seems never even to have felt pain, if he can’t feel that he has a soul. The other is so delighted with his songs that he tries to carry them over into this subject too. We can recognize harmony from the intervals between notes; different arrangements of those intervals produce several harmonies. But I don’t see what harmony the positions of limbs and the shape of a body without a soul could produce. Learned as he admittedly is, let him leave these questions to his teacher Aristotle and teach singing himself. The Greek proverb gives good advice: ‘Let everyone practice the art they know.’\n\nSECTION 42\n“And let’s throw out altogether that chance collision of tiny, smooth, round, indivisible bodies, though Democritus wants it to be warmed up and breathable—that is, alive. But if the soul is made from the four kinds of substance which are said to make up everything, it consists of burning breath. I see that Panaetius especially favors that view. Such a soul must head upward. Neither of those two substances has any downward tendency; both always seek the heights. So if souls scatter, that happens far from earth. If they last and keep their form, it’s all the more necessary for them to rise toward the sky and break and cut through this thick, dense air nearest the earth. The soul is hotter, or rather more fiery, than the air I just called thick and dense. We can tell because our bodies, which are made from the earthy kind of basic matter, are warmed by the soul’s heat.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 19\n\nSECTION 43\n“There’s another reason the soul can escape and break through this air I’ve mentioned so often all the more easily. Nothing is faster than the soul. No speed can compete with its speed. If it stays intact and remains itself, it must travel in such a way as to pierce and cut through this whole region of sky where clouds, rain, and winds gather. That region is damp and dark because of the vapors rising from earth.\n\n“Once the soul has passed beyond that region and reached and recognized a substance like itself, it comes to rest among fires made from thin air and the sun’s tempered heat. It stops rising any farther. Having reached lightness and warmth like its own, it stays still, like a balance with equal weights, and moves in no direction. Only then, when it has reached something like itself, is it in its natural home. There, lacking nothing, it will be fed and sustained by the same things that sustain and feed the stars.\n\n“The body’s torches usually set us on fire with almost every kind of desire. We’re inflamed all the more because we compete with people who have what we want. So surely we’ll be happy when we leave our bodies behind and are free of both desires and rivalries;\n\nSECTION 44\n“and what we do now, when we’re free of worries and want to look at something and see the sights, we’ll do much more freely then. We’ll devote ourselves entirely to studying and understanding things. Our minds have a natural, insatiable desire to see the truth. And the very regions we’ll reach will make us more eager to learn, since they’ll make it easier for us to understand things in the sky.\n\nSECTION 45\n“Even here on earth, this beauty stirred up that ‘ancestral’ philosophy, ‘handed down from our grandfathers,’ as Theophrastus calls it, and set it on fire with a desire to know. Those will especially enjoy this beauty who, even when they lived here on earth surrounded by darkness, still longed to see clearly with the sharp eye of the mind.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 20\n\n“Even now, people think they’ve achieved something if they’ve seen the mouth of the Black Sea and the straits through which the ship passed that was called\n“‘Argo, because chosen Argive men\n“‘Sailed in it to seek the ram’s gold-covered fleece,’\n“or if they’ve seen those straits of the Ocean ‘where the rushing water divides Europe and Libya.’ So what a sight do we think it will be when we can look over the whole earth—its position, shape, and outline, its inhabited regions, and also the ones where the force of cold or heat keeps out all human cultivation?\n\nSECTION 46\n“Even now, our eyes don’t actually do the seeing. Sensation isn’t located in the body at all. Both natural scientists and doctors—the latter having cut these parts open and examined them—teach that something like channels run from where the soul sits through to the eyes, ears, and nose. Think how often illness or being lost in thought leaves us blind and deaf, although our eyes and ears are open and undamaged. Clearly it’s the soul that hears and sees. Those organs are only its windows, and the mind can’t sense anything through them without being there and attending to it. Consider, too, how one mind takes in such different things: colors, flavors, heat, smells, sounds. Five separate messengers could never make these known to the soul unless their reports all reached it and it alone passed judgment on everything. Once the soul has gone free to the place it naturally seeks, our perception of these things will surely be far clearer and purer.\n\nSECTION 47\n“Nature has made those openings from the body to the soul with the most ingenious skill. But as things stand, they’re blocked in a way by bodies made of dense, earthy matter. When there’s nothing but the soul, nothing in its path will keep it from perceiving what each thing is like.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 21\n\n“If the subject required it, we could talk at great length about the many, varied, magnificent sights the soul would have in the regions of the sky.\n\nSECTION 48\n“When I think about that, the arrogance of some philosophers often amazes me. They’re delighted with the study of nature; they shower excited thanks on its founder and discoverer and honor him as a god. They claim he’s rescued them from terrible masters: terror that never ends, and fear all night and all day. What are they frightened of? Where does this terror come from? You seem to mean the things you’d have feared without your lessons in natural science: ‘Orcus’ deep halls by Acheron, death’s pale regions, places clouded with darkness.’ What old woman could be crazy enough to fear those? A philosopher boasts that he isn’t afraid of them and has found out they’re untrue—shouldn’t he be ashamed? We can judge their natural intelligence from that: without lessons, they would have believed it all.\n\nSECTION 49\n“And apparently they’ve achieved something splendid in learning that when the time for death comes, they’ll perish completely. Suppose it’s so—I’m not arguing. What’s joyful or glorious about it? Yet I really can’t think of any reason why Pythagoras and Plato shouldn’t be right. Even if Plato gave no argument—notice how much credit I give the man—his authority alone would overcome me. But he’s given so many arguments that, while he seems to want to convince others, he’s certainly convinced himself.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 22\n\nSECTION 50\n“Yet opponents crowd in, imposing death on souls as though a court had found them guilty of a capital crime. What makes everlasting souls so hard for them to believe in? Nothing but their inability to grasp or imagine the soul apart from its body. And do they really understand it while it’s inside? Can they tell its dimensions, shape, or location? Imagine uncovering everything now hidden inside a living human being. Would that bring the soul into sight? Or would its fineness still put it beyond our eyes?\n\nSECTION 51\n“Anyone who claims a bodiless soul is beyond their understanding should reflect on those questions. Let them find out just what they understand about the soul lodged in a body. When I consider its nature, here’s the much harder, murkier picture for me: the soul living in the body, in someone else’s house, so to speak. It’s easier to picture it gone from there, back in the open sky where it’s at home. Suppose we can’t understand the character of things we’ve never seen. Even so, our thoughts can certainly take in god himself and the divine soul released from its body. Dicaearchus and Aristoxenus found it difficult to grasp the soul’s identity or character, and on that account said it didn’t exist at all.\n\nSECTION 52\n“For the soul to see itself with its own power is certainly a very great achievement. That’s surely the point of Apollo’s command that everyone should know themselves. I don’t think he’s telling us to know our limbs or our height or shape. We aren’t bodies, and as I say these things to you, I’m not speaking to your body. When he says ‘Know yourself,’ he means ‘Know your soul.’ The body is a sort of vessel or container for the soul. Whatever your soul does is done by you. If knowing the soul weren’t divine, this command, which comes from a particularly keen mind, wouldn’t have been credited to a god.\n\nSECTION 53\n“Tell me, though: even if the soul can’t discover its own character, must it also be unaware that it exists, or that it moves? This is where Plato’s argument begins. Socrates develops it in the Phaedrus, and I included it in book six of On the Republic:”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 23\n\n“‘Something that always moves lasts forever. Something that gives movement to another thing but is itself set in motion from elsewhere must stop living when its movement ends. Only what moves itself never stops moving, because it never leaves itself. In fact, this is the source, the starting point of movement for all other things that move.\n\nSECTION 54\n“‘A starting point has no origin. Everything comes from a starting point, but the starting point itself can’t be born from anything else. If it were produced by something else, it wouldn’t be a starting point. And if it never comes into being, it never dies either. If a starting point were destroyed, it wouldn’t be reborn from anything else or create anything else from itself, since everything must come from a starting point. So the starting point of movement is what moves by itself. That can neither be born nor die. Otherwise the whole sky and all of nature must collapse and come to a standstill, with no power to get an initial push that would set them moving. Since it’s clear that what moves itself lasts forever, who can deny that souls have this nature? Anything moved by an outside push is without a soul. But something alive is stirred by an inner movement of its own. That’s the soul’s special nature and power. If it’s the one thing of all that\n\nSECTION 55\n“‘moves itself, then it certainly wasn’t born, and it lasts forever.’ Let all the common sort of philosophers come together against this—that seems the right name for those who disagree with Plato, Socrates, and their school. They’ll never explain anything so beautifully; they won’t even understand how finely reasoned this very argument is. The soul, then, feels itself moving. As it feels this, it also feels that it moves by its own power, not someone else’s, and that it can never leave itself. Its everlasting life follows from this—unless you’ve got something to say against it.”\n\n“I’d gladly make sure that not even a single objection came into my mind. That’s how strongly I favor that view.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 24\n\n“What about this?\n\nSECTION 56\n“Is the evidence for divine powers within human souls really any weaker, in your view? Show me how such powers could come into existence and I could also see how they might end. With blood, bile, phlegm, bones, sinews, and veins, I think I can account for their materials and formation. That goes for the entire shape of the body and its limbs. But take the soul itself. If all it did was enable us to live, I’d think nature sustained human life just as it sustains vines or trees: we say they’re alive too. And if seeking things and shunning things were the human soul’s only abilities, those would be abilities it shared with animals.\n\nSECTION 57\n“To begin with, there’s memory: it can hold countless things without limit. For Plato, memory recalls a previous life. Take his book Meno. Socrates puts questions about a square’s measurements to a little boy. His replies are a child’s, yet the questions are simple enough to take him, one answer at a time, to the result he would reach with training in geometry. Socrates wants this to establish that what we call learning is simply remembering. He works through the point still more carefully in the discussion on his last day alive. As he shows there, someone who seems utterly uneducated can reveal, by answering well-put questions, that this isn’t new learning: recollection is allowing them to recognize what they knew. Otherwise, how could we have had, right from childhood, notions of so many great subjects planted in our souls, almost stamped into them? These notions are called énnoiai. They couldn’t possibly be there unless the soul had been actively getting to know things before it went into a body.\n\nSECTION 58\n“And since nothing existed […], as Plato argues throughout his works—he thinks nothing that comes into being and dies really exists; only what always stays the way it is exists, and he calls it an idéa, what we call a form—the soul couldn’t have recognized these things while shut inside the body. It brought them in already known. That removes the mystery of how it knows so many things. The soul doesn’t see them clearly when it’s suddenly moved into such an unfamiliar, confused home. But once it’s gathered itself and recovered, it recognizes them by remembering.\n\nSECTION 59\n“So to learn is simply to remember. I find another aspect of memory still more astonishing. This thing that enables us to remember—what is it? What can it do, and where did it originate? My question isn’t about the reports of Simonides’ enormous memory, or Theodectes’, or that of Cineas, Pyrrhus’ envoy to the Senate. Nor am I asking about Charmadas in recent times, Metrodorus of Scepsis just lately, or our own Hortensius. I mean the memory that human beings generally have, particularly those engaged in a more demanding field of study or skilled work. Their minds hold so much that it’s hard to estimate their capacity.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 25\n\nSECTION 60\n“Here’s what I’m getting at in this discussion: we need to grasp the identity and origin of that power. We certainly can’t attribute it to heart, blood, brain, or atoms. Whether breath or fire accounts for it, I don’t know. Those people may be ashamed to acknowledge ignorance; I’m not ashamed to say I don’t know something when I don’t. But if there’s any obscure subject on which I could make a firm assertion, I’d swear to this: a soul made of either breath or fire is divine. Tell me, please, could memory’s enormous power have been sown in the earth, or put together from earth, beneath this murky, cloudy sky? You may not see its identity, but you do see its character. And failing even that, you certainly recognize its greatness.\n\nSECTION 61\n“What then? Do we think there’s some storage space in the soul, so that what we remember is poured into it like something into a jar? That’s absurd. What sort of bottom or shape could we imagine the soul having? How could it possibly hold so much? Or do we think the soul takes impressions like wax, and that memory consists of traces left in the mind by things stamped on it? What traces could words leave, or the things themselves? And how unimaginably large would it have to be to take the impressions of so many things?\n\n“And another thing:\n\nSECTION 62\n“And this ability to uncover what’s hidden—the power we call discovery and invention—what is it? Can you believe it was assembled from matter as earthly, mortal, and short-lived as this? Think of whoever first named everything, a deed Pythagoras thought showed the highest wisdom. Or think of the person who brought scattered humans together and invited them into a common life; the one who reduced the seemingly endless sounds of speech to a small set of letter signs; the one who recorded the wandering stars’ paths, forward movements, and stops. Great people, all of them. Greater still were the discoverers of crops, clothes, shelter, civilized comforts, and defenses against wild beasts. They made us tame and civilized; we then went on from the crafts that supply our needs to the more refined arts. The discovery of the differing characters and kinds of sound, and their combination, brought our ears enormous enjoyment. We also raised our eyes to the stars: some stay fixed in certain spots, while others are only called wanderers and don’t really wander. Whoever mentally grasped all their movements and revolutions proved that his mind resembled the mind that made them in heaven.\n\nSECTION 63\n“Archimedes built the movements of the moon, the sun, and the five wandering stars into a sphere. In doing so he matched Plato’s god, the builder of the universe in the Timaeus. Both made one rotation control movements of very different speeds, some slow and some fast. Such a thing can’t happen in the universe without a god. Likewise, it took divine talent for Archimedes to reproduce those movements in his sphere.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 26\n\nSECTION 64\n“Even the better-known, more obvious abilities strike me as needing divine help. Would a poet produce a poem of weight and richness unless something from heaven stirred his mind? Would a speaker pour out resounding language and a wealth of ideas without some higher power? I don’t think so. As for philosophy, the mother of every art, Plato calls it the gods’ gift; I call it their invention. Its first lesson was reverence for the gods. Then it taught us human rights, grounded in the fellowship of our whole race, and then restraint and greatness of spirit. It cleared away the darkness before our minds, as one clears it before the eyes. We could now see things high and low, their beginnings, their endings, and everything between.\n\nSECTION 65\n“When a power accomplishes so much, on such a scale, I can only call it divine. Consider remembering facts and words, or making discoveries. Can we imagine anything greater than this, even in a god? Surely not. The gods’ pleasure, I think, doesn’t come from ambrosia, nectar, or Youth pouring their drinks. Nor will I listen to Homer’s account of Ganymede: the gods, he says, kidnapped the handsome boy to serve Jupiter his wine. His looks hardly justified treating Laomedon so badly. Homer invented all that, giving the gods human qualities. I wish he’d done the reverse and given us divine ones. Which ones? Being full of life, being wise, discovering, remembering. The soul that … is therefore divine, as I put it; Euripides boldly calls it a god. Further, suppose a god consists of breath or fire. A person’s soul consists of the same thing. That heavenly substance has no earth or moisture in it, and neither has a human soul. Or suppose Aristotle was right to introduce a fifth substance: that belongs both to gods and to souls. I adopted that position in my Consolation. Here are my exact words:”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 27\n\nSECTION 66\n“‘Look for the source of souls on earth, and you won’t find it. They contain no blend or compound, nothing apparently formed or grown from earth—not even anything wet, airy, or made of fire. For these substances have no capacity for remembering, understanding, or thinking. They cannot keep the past in mind, see ahead, or grasp what’s happening now. Only these abilities are divine. Nothing but a god will ever explain how they reach us. So the soul has its own distinct power and substance, apart from the ordinary substances familiar to us. Whatever does the feeling and understanding, whatever lives and has energy, must belong to heaven and be divine; consequently it must last forever. Even our conception of a god is possible only as an unfettered, independent mind. We separate it from every mortal mixture: it perceives all things, sets them all in motion, and moves forever itself. Human intelligence is of that very kind, of that very substance.’”\n\n“Then where is this mind? What sort of thing is it?”\n\nSECTION 67\n“Tell me that about your own. Where is it? What sort of thing? Can you answer? I may lack some of the means of understanding it that I’d like. Will you therefore stop me using the means I have? The mind cannot look at itself; neither can an eye, but both can see other things. Its own shape escapes it, and that matters least. Perhaps it can even see that—let’s put that aside. At least it recognizes its strength and quick perception, its memory, its movement and speed. In these lie its greatness, its divinity, its everlasting life. There’s no need even to inquire about its outward appearance or its dwelling place.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 28\n\nSECTION 68\n“Look up: the beauty and brilliance of the sky meet us first, and then its spinning, faster than thought can grasp. Day gives way to night and night to day; the seasons change four times, allowing crops to ripen and our bodies to keep a proper temperature. Over all of this the sun presides and gives direction. As the moon’s light increases and fades, it shows and marks the days like a calendar. Five planets travel within one belt, which has twelve divisions. They move at different speeds, yet each follows its regular course without fail. Stars adorn the night sky on every side. The earth’s round mass rises above the sea and stays fixed at the universe’s center. People inhabit and farm two zones far apart. Our zone is\n“‘Beneath the pole beside the seven stars, where Aquilo’s\n“‘Terrifying howl heaps up the icy snow.’\n“The other zone lies to the south. We don’t know it; the Greek name is ‘the opposite earth.’ The rest has no inhabitants,\n\nSECTION 69\n“being either stiff with frost or burning hot. Here where we live, however, every year at the right time\n“‘The heavens grow bright, the trees break into leaf,\n“‘The vines that bring delight grow thick with shoots,\n“‘The branches bow beneath a wealth of berries,\n“‘The fields give grain, and flowers bloom everywhere,\n“‘Springs bubble up, and grass covers the meadows.’\n“Then consider the herds of animals in all their numbers. Some feed us, some help farm the fields, some provide transport, and some supply clothing for our bodies. Consider humanity itself, a spectator of heaven and a worshiper of the gods, with every field and sea at its service.\n\nSECTION 70\n“Such sights, and countless more, leave us in no doubt: someone must preside over them. If they had a beginning, as Plato believes, he made them. If they have existed forever, as Aristotle believes, he directs this vast work and the benefits it brings. Treat the human mind in the same way. It is invisible to you, but so is a god. His works tell you he exists. Likewise, remembering things, inventing, moving so quickly, and displaying goodness in all its beauty tell you that the mind has divine power.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 29\n\n“So where is it located? I believe it’s in the head, and I can give reasons for that belief. But where the soul is can wait for another time. At any rate, it’s in you. What’s its nature? Something special and distinct, I think. But suppose it’s made of fire; suppose it’s made of breath. That makes no difference to our subject. Just keep this in view: you know a god even though you don’t know either his location or his appearance. In the same way, you should know your own soul even if you don’t know its location or shape.\n\nSECTION 71\n“Now, unless we’re completely dense about natural science, our understanding of the soul leaves no room for doubt on this point: souls contain nothing mixed, compounded, coupled, fitted together, or made of two elements. So a soul certainly can’t be separated, divided, torn apart, or pulled to pieces. It can’t perish, either. Perishing is a sort of breakup, separation, and dispersal of parts that were held together in some combination before they perished.\n\n“Arguments like these persuaded Socrates not to seek a lawyer at his capital trial or beg the judges for mercy. Instead, he showed an outspoken defiance that came from greatness of spirit, not arrogance. On his last day he discussed this very subject at length. A few days earlier, when he could easily have been brought out of prison, he refused. And then, with that deadly cup practically in his hand, he spoke like someone rising into heaven, not someone being pushed toward death.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 30\n\nSECTION 72\n“His belief, as he explained it, was that souls leaving the body have two roads to travel, two different courses. Some people have polluted themselves with human vices and given themselves entirely to their desires. Blinded by those desires, they’ve either stained themselves with private wrongdoing and disgraceful behavior or committed unforgivable crimes by attacking their country. For them there is a roundabout route, cut off from the company of the gods. But others have kept themselves unspoiled and pure. They’ve had as little contact with their bodies as possible, have always drawn themselves away from them, and have copied the gods’ way of life while still in human bodies. For them an easy return lies open to those from whom they came.\n\nSECTION 73\n“He therefore brings up the swans. They’re dedicated to Apollo for a reason: they seem to get from him the ability to foresee the future. They can see the good that death holds for them, so they die singing and happy. He says all good and educated people should do the same. (No one could doubt this, except that when we think hard about the soul, something happens to us like what often happens to people who stare intently at the sun during an eclipse: they lose their sight altogether. In the same way, the mind’s vision sometimes grows dull when it looks at itself, and that makes us give up our careful examination. So, doubtful and hesitant, looking around and fearing many obstacles, as though on a raft in an immense sea,\n\nSECTION 74\n“our discussion is carried along.) But these examples are old and Greek. Cato, by contrast, left life delighted that he had found a reason to die. The god who rules within us forbids us to move out of here without his orders. But when the god himself has given a proper reason—as he did for Socrates then, for Cato just recently, and often for many others—then, by Dius Fidius, a wise person will gladly leave this darkness for that light. He won’t have broken his prison chains—the laws forbid that. Instead, he’ll have left at the god’s summons and with his release, just as though a magistrate or some lawful authority had called him out and let him go. As Socrates also says, a philosopher’s whole life is practice for death.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 31\n\nSECTION 75\n“When we turn our thoughts from pleasure, we’re turning them from the body. When we turn from property, we’re turning from the body’s servant and helper. We also set aside public life and every kind of business. What are we doing in all this, I ask? Bringing the soul home to itself, requiring it to keep its own company, and removing it from the body as far as we can. To learn to die means precisely to separate body and soul. Believe me, we should rehearse that separation: we should free ourselves from our bodies, which means getting accustomed to dying. Even here on earth that will give us something like life in heaven. Once these chains are off and we’re carried there, our souls will make the journey with fewer delays. People who have always worn the body’s fetters are slow to walk even after their release, just like prisoners kept in irons for years. Only on arriving there will we really live. Our present life is death; I could lament it, if I wanted.”\n\n“You did plenty of lamenting in your Consolation;\n\nSECTION 76\n“reading it makes me want above all to leave this world behind. What you’ve just told me makes me want that much more.”\n\n“Whether you try to put it off or rush to meet it, your time will come soon enough. Our years race past. You thought earlier that death was bad. Far from that, I almost fear that nothing else is so certainly free of evil, nothing else so truly good for us—provided we shall become gods ourselves or share their company […]”\n\n“Why does it matter?”\n\n“Because some people reject all this. Whatever argument they use, I won’t end our talk leaving you any grounds for thinking death an evil.”\n\n“After what I’ve learned, how could I think that?”\n\n“You want to know how?\n\nSECTION 77\n“There’s a whole army of people arguing against us. It isn’t just the Epicureans—I certainly don’t despise them—but, strangely enough, the most learned people too. My beloved Dicaearchus made the strongest attack on immortality. His three books bear the name Lesbian Dialogues, since their discussion takes place at Mytilene. Their aim is to prove that souls die. The Stoics lend us a span of life, as they do the crows: souls last a long time, they say, but don’t last forever.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 32\n\n“So don’t you want to hear why death still isn’t something bad, even if that’s true?”\n\n“I suppose so. But no one will shake my belief in immortality.”\n\n“That’s admirable, though we shouldn’t be too sure of anything.\n\nSECTION 78\n“A cleverly constructed argument often influences us. We lose our footing and change our minds even about things that are clearer than these, which do have some obscurity about them. So let’s be ready in case that happens.”\n\n“Certainly. But I’ll see to it that it doesn’t happen.”\n\n“Then is there any reason we shouldn’t send away our friends the Stoics? I mean those who say souls continue to exist after leaving the body, but not forever.”\n\n“Yes, send them away. They accept the hardest point in this whole question: that a soul can continue to exist without a body. But they won’t grant that once it has continued for a long time, it won’t perish. That’s not only easy to believe; it follows from the very thing they want us to accept.”\n\nSECTION 79\n“Your criticism is right. That’s exactly how the matter stands. So should we believe Panaetius when he disagrees with his beloved Plato? Everywhere he calls Plato divine, supremely wise, supremely upright, the Homer of philosophers. Yet this one belief of Plato’s, the immortality of souls, he doesn’t accept. His point is that everything born must perish, which no one denies. Souls, he says, are born: this is shown by children’s resemblance to their parents, which appears in their personalities as well as in their bodies. He also offers another argument. Anything that feels pain can also be sick; anything that becomes sick will also perish. Souls feel pain, so they too perish.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 33\n\nSECTION 80\n“These arguments can be answered. They come from someone who doesn’t realize that when we speak of souls lasting forever, we mean the mind, which is always free from emotional disturbance. We don’t mean the parts in which distress, anger, and desires operate. The man these arguments are aimed at considers those parts separate and cut off from the mind. Besides, resemblance is more obvious in animals, whose souls lack reason. In human beings, resemblance shows up more in bodily shape. And it makes a great difference to a soul what sort of body it’s placed in. Many things arise from the body that sharpen the mind, and many that dull it. Aristotle actually says all highly gifted people have a black-bile temperament, so I needn’t mind being a little slow myself. He lists many examples and, treating the matter as settled, explains why it happens. Now, if things produced in the body have such a powerful effect on the mind’s condition, and if these things, whatever they are, cause the resemblance, then resemblance doesn’t force us to conclude that souls are born. I won’t go into the lack of resemblance.\n\nSECTION 81\n“I wish Panaetius could be here—he lived with Africanus. I’d ask him which of his relatives Africanus’s brother’s grandson resembled. In looks, perhaps his father; in his way of life, all the worst criminals, to such an extent that he easily outdid them. I’d ask the same about the grandson of Publius Crassus, that wise, eloquent, leading citizen, and about the grandsons and sons of many other famous men whom there’s no need to name.\n\n“But what are we doing? Have we forgotten\n“that our present task, after saying enough about eternity, was to show that even if souls perish, there’s still nothing bad about death?”\n\n“I did remember. But I was happy to let you stray from the subject when you were talking about eternity.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 34\n\nSECTION 82\n“You’re aiming high, I see: you want to go and live in heaven. I hope we both get there. Still, let’s accept their claim for a moment: the soul doesn’t outlast death. That would take away our hope of a happier existence, certainly. But where is the evil in that belief? Assume that soul and body perish alike. A dead body feels no pain, does it? Does it feel anything whatever? Nobody claims it does. Epicurus charges Democritus with that claim, but Democritus’s followers deny the charge. The soul, too, can retain no feeling: it no longer exists. With no third thing besides these two, where can the evil be? Perhaps you mean the pain of the soul leaving the body. Even if I granted that pain, how tiny a thing it would be! I don’t believe there is any. Usually the departure isn’t felt; sometimes it’s actually pleasant. Whatever it involves, it matters little,\n\nSECTION 83\n“taking only a moment. Someone objects, ‘Leaving everything good in life—that’s what hurts, or rather tortures us.’ Wouldn’t ‘everything bad’ be nearer the truth? I could quite properly describe human life in sorrowful terms. But why do that now? I’m trying to remove the prospect of misery after death, not make life itself more miserable by lamenting it. In the book where I offered myself what comfort I could, I already did that. The truth, then, is that death removes us from evils rather than blessings. Hegesias of Cyrene argued this at such length that, so the story goes, King Ptolemy banned the subject from his classes: many people killed themselves after hearing him.\n\nSECTION 84\n“Callimachus wrote a short poem about Theombrotus, a man from Ambracia. According to it, he read Plato’s book and jumped off a wall into the sea, although he’d suffered no misfortune. The Hegesias I mentioned wrote The Man Starving Himself. Its main figure is refusing food in order to die. Friends urge him to go on living; his answer is a list of the hardships people face. I could do the same, though I wouldn’t go as far as he does: he denies that life benefits anyone at all. Never mind anyone else. Does it benefit even us? We’ve been stripped of the comfort and honor we had at home and in public life. Had we died sooner, death would surely have spared us evils rather than deprived us of blessings.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 35\n\nSECTION 85\n“Let’s imagine a man untouched by misfortune, with no trouble at all. Think of Metellus, father of four sons who reached high office. Or think of Priam, father of fifty, seventeen born to his lawful wife. Fortune could treat either man as she pleased; she exercised that power against only one. Sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters, in great numbers carried Metellus onto his pyre. Priam lost that great family and sought refuge at an altar, where an enemy killed him. Suppose he’d died with his children living and his kingdom unharmed,\n“‘With his foreign army at hand,\n“‘In halls with carved and coffered ceilings.’\n“Would death have removed him from blessings or evils? From blessings, it would then have seemed. Yet he would surely have been better off. There would be less cause for tears in the song:\n“‘I watched the whole place burn,\n“‘Watched Priam’s life violently ended,\n“‘Watched blood defile Jupiter’s altar.’\n“As though that violent end weren’t the best thing that could happen to him at that point! An earlier death would have spared him the entire disaster. Death when it came spared him the feeling of his sufferings.\n\nSECTION 86\n“When our friend Pompey fell dangerously sick at Naples, he got better. Naples celebrated with garlands, as did Puteoli, naturally. Towns everywhere sent official congratulations. A foolish affair, in that petty Greek way, but happy all the same. Had he died on that occasion, what would death have removed him from—blessings or evils? From terrible evils, without question. There would have been no war with his father-in-law, no taking up arms before he was ready, no abandoning his house, no flight out of Italy. He would not have lost his army and then, stripped of protection, met slaves’ swords and hands. †There would have been no mourning of his children, no seizure of his entire fortune by the victors. At that earlier moment he would have died a man enjoying the highest prosperity. Instead, extra years made him swallow disaster after disaster, immense and almost beyond belief!”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 36\n\n“Dying saves us from all this. We escape it even when it hasn’t occurred, since it could occur. People never consider that they themselves may suffer these things. Each expects the luck Metellus had—as if happiness were commoner than unhappiness, as if human life offered any certainty, as if looking forward hopefully were more sensible than being afraid.\n\n“But grant the very point that death takes good things away from people:\n\nSECTION 87\n“must we conclude that dead people miss life’s pleasures and are unhappy as a result? Our opponents certainly have to claim so. Yet how can a nonexistent person miss a thing? ‘Missing’ itself sounds sad. It brings to mind someone who used to have a thing and hasn’t got it now, who wants it, searches for it, needs it. That’s the difficulty, I take it, in missing something. Without eyes, a man suffers the misery of blindness; without children, bereavement. But these are living people. None of the dead misses life’s comforts, or even living itself. By ‘the dead’ I mean people who no longer exist. We do exist. Would you say we miss horns or wings? Surely nobody would. Why not? Something may be absent, and we may know it’s absent, without our missing it: we have neither a use for it nor a natural need for it.\n\nSECTION 88\n“This deserves repeated emphasis; we must keep driving it home. If souls die, we cannot doubt that death destroys so completely that no faintest possibility of awareness survives. Settle that firmly first. Then examine ‘missing,’ clearing every misunderstanding from the word. Its meaning is to need what you wish you had. So a wish is involved—except in a different usage, such as being ‘free of a fever.’ There’s another usage too: being without something and knowing it, but taking the lack quite easily. That isn’t the ‘missing’ meant in discussions of death. It would give no cause for grief. What people mean is ‘missing a good thing,’ which is an evil. But even while alive you don’t miss a good thing unless you need it. We can, however, make sense of saying to someone alive, ‘You lack a kingdom.’ In your case that wouldn’t be strictly accurate; it would fit Tarquin after he was driven from his throne. Applied to someone dead, the idea makes no sense at all. Only someone aware can miss things. The dead have no awareness, and therefore nothing is missing for them.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 37\n\n“Though why do we need philosophy here, when we can see the subject doesn’t much need it?\n\nSECTION 89\n“Our history is full of commanders, and indeed entire armies, charging straight toward certain death. Had death frightened them, would Lucius Brutus have died fighting to bar the return of the tyrant he’d expelled? Would three generations of Decii have offered themselves to enemy weapons: the father against the Latins, his son against the Etruscans, his grandson against Pyrrhus? In one war Spain saw the Scipios die for their country. Cannae saw Paulus and Geminus die, Venusia saw Marcellus, Litana Albinus, and the Lucanians Gracchus. If death were to be feared, none of that would have happened. Are any of them suffering now? They weren’t suffering even then, once they’d breathed their last. Destroy awareness and misery becomes impossible.\n\nSECTION 90\n“‘Not being aware—that itself is dreadful.’ It would be dreadful if it meant feeling a lack. But a person who doesn’t exist plainly cannot have any condition at all. Where, then, is the dreadfulness for someone who feels neither a lack nor anything else? I repeat myself too often here, I admit. This point, though, contains the whole reason our spirits shrink at the thought of death. The truth is clearer than daylight: once body and soul are consumed, the whole creature wiped out in total destruction, what was a living being becomes nothing. See that clearly, and you see that King Agamemnon is no different from a centaur that never existed. Marcus Camillus is no more concerned with our present civil war than I was with Rome’s capture during his lifetime. Why would he have felt grief, then, if he’d foreseen this war some three hundred and fifty years ahead? Why should I grieve at the thought of another nation taking our city in ten thousand years? We love our country so much that her safety, not what we ourselves experience, is the measure of our love.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 38\n\n“So death doesn’t stop a wise person\n\nSECTION 91\n“from planning for his country and his family for all time to come. Unpredictable accidents threaten him with death every day, and life is so short that death can never be far away. Yet he considers that future generations themselves concern him, even though he won’t be aware of them. So even someone who thinks the soul is mortal can work on things that will last forever. He won’t do it from a desire for fame, which he won’t feel, but from a desire for virtue, which fame necessarily follows, even if he isn’t aiming at it.\n\n“Suppose, though, that nature makes birth the start of everything for us and death the end. Nothing before we were born mattered to us; nothing after we’ve died will matter either. How does that involve any evil? Neither living people nor dead people have anything to do with death:\n\nSECTION 92\n“the dead aren’t there, and it won’t touch the living. To make it seem less serious, people compare it closely to sleep. But who would choose a ninety-year life if, on reaching sixty, he had to sleep away every remaining year? His own family wouldn’t choose that, much less he himself. Take Endymion, if you’re prepared to hear a myth. Long ago he went to sleep on Latmus, the mountain in Caria, and, I believe, still hasn’t woken. They say the Moon put him to sleep to kiss him while he slept. When she is eclipsed, do you think he cares? He feels nothing; what could he care about? You have in sleep a picture of death, and every day you take on that likeness. You see no sensation in the picture. How can you still doubt that death itself has none?”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 39\n\nSECTION 93\n“Away, then, with this foolish, almost old-womanish notion that an early death makes someone miserable. Early by what timetable? Nature’s? She lent you life as she might lend money, setting no date for its return. If she chooses to call in the loan, what grounds have you to complain? You accepted those terms. The very same people say we should bear a little boy’s death calmly; if he dies in his cradle, we shouldn’t even complain. Yet with the baby nature has been harsher in reclaiming her gift. ‘He never got to taste how sweet life is,’ comes the answer. ‘The older child had begun enjoying it and already had great hopes.’ But everywhere else a taste of something counts as better than none. Why reverse that rule for life? Still, there’s something in Callimachus’s remark: Priam shed tears far oftener than Troilus. Meanwhile, those who die in old age are praised for their good fortune.\n\nSECTION 94\n“Why? I suppose a longer life couldn’t possibly have pleased any of them more! In fact, nothing gives us more pleasure than wisdom. Whatever else age removes, wisdom is certainly what it brings. But how many years make a long life? Can anything be long for us? Hasn’t old age\n“‘Chased us from behind, now children, now young people running,\n“‘And overtaken us before we knew?’\n“We call our years long because we’ve nothing beyond them. Long and short are simply relative to the portion allotted to each creature. Aristotle describes tiny animals born by the Hypanis, the river entering the Black Sea on its European side. Their whole life lasts a day. One dying in the eighth hour has reached old age; by sunset it’s worn out with years—especially on the summer solstice! Measure our greatest lifespan against eternity, and our lives turn out almost as brief as theirs.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 40\n\nSECTION 95\n“So let’s dismiss all this nonsense—what milder name can I give such foolishness?—and base a good life entirely on strength and greatness of spirit, on disregarding and looking down on all human circumstances, and on every form of virtue. As things stand, our thoughts are so soft that we lose our manliness. If death comes before the Chaldeans’ promises have been fulfilled, we feel we’ve been robbed of some great benefits, cheated and abandoned.\n\nSECTION 96\n“When hope and longing keep us on edge, when we torment and distress ourselves, immortal gods, what a delightful journey that must be whose end puts every worry and anxiety behind us! Theramenes fills me with admiration. What spirit he shows! Reading his story brings tears, yet there’s nothing pitiable in this great man’s death. The Thirty Tyrants had him imprisoned. He drank the poison down as if quenching a thirst, then tossed the remainder from his cup, making it ring. With that sound he smiled: ‘Here’s a drink for handsome Critias.’ Critias had been his bitterest persecutor. At Greek drinking parties it’s customary to name the next person to receive the cup. This excellent man could joke even as he drew his last breath, with death already lodged deep in his breast. His poisoned toast truly foretold the death of the man he toasted: that death followed soon afterward.\n\n“Who would praise this great man’s composure in the very act of dying if he thought death was bad?\n\nSECTION 97\n“Only a few years pass, and Socrates enters that same prison to drink from that same cup. His judges act as criminally as the tyrants acted against Theramenes. What words, then, does Plato put into his mouth before the judges, once the death sentence has been passed?”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 41\n\n“‘I have strong hopes, judges,’ he says, ‘that my sentence of death is a blessing for me. There are only two possibilities. Death either removes every feeling or transfers us somewhere else from here. Suppose feeling ends. Suppose death resembles those nights when sleep brings utter peace, sometimes without a single dream. Good gods, dying would be a wonderful gain! How many days can you name that surpass such a night? If the whole endless future is to be like that, nobody could be happier than I.\n\nSECTION 98\n“‘Or suppose the accounts are true: death carries us to the country inhabited by those who’ve left this life. That’s a still greater happiness. Once free of these men who claim a place among the judges, you’d reach judges who really merit the title—Minos, Rhadamanthus, Aeacus, Triptolemus. You’d join people whose lives were honest and just. Would you call that an ordinary trip? Imagine being able to speak with Orpheus or Musaeus, with Homer or Hesiod. What price would you put on it? I’d choose to die over and over, were it possible, for the chance to visit those I’ve mentioned. Meeting Palamedes, Ajax, and other victims of unjust trials would give me enormous pleasure. I’d probe the wisdom of that mighty king who took the greatest forces to Troy, as well as Ulysses and Sisyphus. I could carry on questioning as I did here without being condemned to death for it. You judges who voted for my acquittal mustn’t fear death either.\n\nSECTION 99\n“‘Nothing bad can happen to a good person, either living or dead. The immortal gods will never neglect his interests. What has happened to me hasn’t happened by chance, either. Nor have I any reason to be angry with my accusers or with those who condemned me, except that they believed they were harming me.’ Those were his words on these points. But nothing is better than his ending: ‘Now,’ he says, ‘it’s time to leave this place: for me to die, and for you to go on living. Which is better, the immortal gods know. I don’t think any human being knows.’”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 42\n\n“I’d certainly much rather have his spirit than the fortunes of all the men who judged him. True, although he says no one but the gods knows which is better, he knows it himself—he said so earlier. But he sticks to his characteristic refusal to make definite assertions right to the end.\n\nSECTION 100\n“Let’s stick to our own position: nothing nature has given to everyone should be considered bad. And let’s understand that if death is bad, it’s an everlasting bad thing. Death seems to end a miserable life. But if death itself is miserable, there can be no end.\n\n“But why am I bringing up Socrates or Theramenes, men distinguished by their reputation for virtue and wisdom? There was a Spartan whose very name hasn’t been passed down, yet he showed such disregard for death that he looked cheerful and happy as he was led away to it after the ephors condemned him. An enemy said to him, ‘Are you showing contempt for the laws of Lycurgus?’ He replied, ‘On the contrary, I’m deeply grateful to him. He’s given me a penalty I can pay without borrowing or refinancing a debt.’ A man worthy of Sparta! To my mind, someone with such a great spirit must have been innocent when condemned. Our own country has produced countless men like him.\n\nSECTION 101\n“But why name commanders and leading citizens, when Cato writes that whole legions often set off eagerly for a place they didn’t think they’d return from? The Spartans at Thermopylae died in the same spirit. Simonides wrote of them:\n“‘Stranger, tell Sparta you saw us lying here,\n“‘As we obeyed our country’s sacred laws.’\n“What does their commander Leonidas say? ‘Go forward bravely, Spartans. Perhaps we’ll dine in the world below today.’ This was a brave people while the laws of Lycurgus were in force. In a conversation, one of them heard a Persian enemy boast, ‘Our spears and arrows will be so thick you won’t see the sun.’ ‘Then,’ he said, ‘we’ll fight in the shade.’\n\nSECTION 102\n“I’m mentioning men. What about the Spartan woman who sent her son into battle and heard he’d been killed? ‘That’s why I gave birth to him,’ she said, ‘so there’d be someone who wouldn’t hesitate to die for his country.’”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 43\n\n“All right, the Spartans were hardy, courageous people. Civic training makes a powerful difference. But surely we also admire Theodorus of Cyrene, a well-known philosopher? King Lysimachus threatened him with crucifixion. ‘Please,’ he answered, ‘frighten your purple-clad courtiers with horrors like that. Whether Theodorus rots below on the ground or above it makes no difference to him.’\n\n“That answer suggests that I should discuss laying the dead in the earth and their funeral rites as well. There isn’t much difficulty here, especially after our earlier account of the absence of feeling. To see what Socrates thought, turn to the book describing his death, which we’ve already said so much about.\n\nSECTION 103\n“He had argued for the soul’s immortality, and death was pressing close. Crito asked him what burial he wanted. ‘Friends,’ he replied, ‘all that effort of mine has been wasted! Our Crito still doesn’t believe I’ll fly off and leave none of myself here. Well, Crito, catch me if you can, or find me somewhere, and you may bury me as you please. But take my word for it: when I’ve gone, none of you will catch up with me.’ What a fine answer! He left his friend free to act and made it clear that none of these matters worried him at all.\n\nSECTION 104\n“Diogenes was tougher. He held the same view, but expressed it more roughly, as a Cynic would: he ordered them to throw him out unburied. His friends asked, ‘For the birds and wild animals?’ ‘Certainly not,’ he said. ‘Put a little stick beside me so I can drive them away.’ ‘How will you be able to?’ they asked. ‘You won’t feel anything.’ ‘Then why should being torn apart by animals hurt me, if I don’t feel anything?’ Anaxagoras also gave an excellent reply when he was dying at Lampsacus. His friends asked whether, if anything happened to him, he wanted to be taken home to Clazomenae. ‘There’s no need,’ he said. ‘It’s just as far to the world below from anywhere.’ On this whole question of burial, keep one thing in mind: it concerns the body, whether the soul has died or is still active. And it’s clear that no sensation remains in the body whether the soul has been put out or has escaped.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 44\n\n“But mistaken ideas are everywhere.\n\nSECTION 105\n“Achilles ties Hector to his chariot and drags him along. I suppose he thinks Hector feels himself being torn apart. So Achilles is taking revenge, or so he thinks. But the woman mourns it as though it were the bitterest thing of all:\n“‘I saw—what it hurt me terribly to see—\n“‘Hector dragged along by a four-horse chariot.’\n“What Hector? How long will he be Hector? Accius does better, and for once Achilles is sensible:\n“‘No, I gave Priam back a body. I took Hector away.’\n“So you didn’t drag Hector, but the body that had been Hector’s.\n\nSECTION 106\n“Here comes someone else out of the earth to keep his mother awake:\n“‘Mother, hear my call! You put your worries on hold and ease them in sleep,\n“‘With no pity for me. Rise and give your child a grave—!’\n“Set that to low, weeping music that fills whole theaters with sorrow, and it’s hard to avoid thinking people without graves unhappy. ‘Before wild beasts and birds—’ Apparently he’s afraid torn limbs won’t work as well! Burning them doesn’t alarm him.\n“‘Don’t allow what’s left of me, half eaten, with the bones exposed,\n“‘To be dragged about in the dirt, filthy with bloody slime—’\n“What he fears is beyond me: he can still sing such excellent seven-foot lines to a pipe! Our firm rule must be to trouble ourselves over nothing after death. Yet many people go on punishing enemies who’ve died. Ennius gives Thyestes some splendid verses cursing Atreus. He begins by calling for death at sea. That’s harsh enough: dying in a shipwreck does involve dreadful suffering. The next part means nothing:\n“‘Pinned high on jagged rocks, his guts torn out,\n“‘Hanging sideways, splashing the stones with rot, gore, and black blood—’\n\nSECTION 107\n“The man ‘hanging sideways’ will feel no more than the rocks themselves. Thyestes imagines he’s wishing him torture. If the man could feel, these things would be dreadful; without feeling, they amount to nothing. This next wish is especially empty:\n“‘May he find no tomb to take him in, no sheltering harbor for his body,\n“‘Where, once human life is over, his body may rest from pain.’\n“Look at the confusion behind all this! He imagines a harbor for the body, with the dead man taking his rest inside the grave. Pelops has a lot to answer for: he failed to bring up his son properly and teach him what deserves concern, and how much.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 45\n\nSECTION 108\n“Why bother with one person’s notions when whole peoples offer us their varied errors? In Egypt they preserve corpses by embalming and keep them in their houses. The Persians even cover them in wax before putting them away, aiming to make the bodies last as long as they can. The Magi wait until animals have mangled their dead before they bury them. Among the Hyrcanians, the common people feed dogs kept by the community; the wealthy have their own at home. We know the dogs there are of excellent stock. Each person, though, arranges according to his means for dogs to tear him up: they think this the finest burial. Chrysippus supplies countless further instances, inquisitive as he is about every kind of historical detail. Some are so foul that our discussion recoils in horror and passes them by. As regards ourselves, we should set this whole subject aside. As regards our loved ones, we shouldn’t neglect it. But we living people must still realize that a corpse feels nothing;\n\nSECTION 109\n“Let the living decide how much to give to custom and reputation, but let them understand that none of it concerns the dead.\n\n“Yet surely we find death easiest to face when, at life’s close, our achievements console us. A person who has perfectly fulfilled the work of perfect virtue hasn’t had too little time to live. My own life has offered many suitable moments for dying. I wish I’d been able to die then! Nothing further was being gained; life’s duties stood fully accomplished. Only struggles with fortune lay ahead. If reasoning can’t quite teach us indifference to death, let our past life at least convince us we’ve lived long enough, indeed more than enough. Feeling may have left the dead, but the praise and glory that are their particular possessions are still theirs, even without their knowing it. Glory isn’t desirable for anything it has in itself; nevertheless it trails after virtue as a shadow does.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 46\n\nSECTION 110\n“When the crowd happens to judge good men rightly, we should commend the judgment rather than call the men happy on its account. Whatever anyone makes of that, I cannot describe Lycurgus or Solon as lacking honor for their legislation and civic discipline. Nor can I deny Themistocles or Epaminondas their fame for excellence in war. Neptune would drown the island of Salamis sooner than erase the memory of the trophy there; Leuctra would vanish from Boeotia before its battle lost its renown. Renown will take far longer still to leave Curius, Fabricius, Calatinus, the two Scipios and the two men named Africanus, Maximus, Marcellus, Paulus, Cato, Laelius, and numberless others. Take a man who has achieved some likeness to them. If he judges it by honest praise from good people, not the crowd’s acclaim, he’ll go to his death without fear when the time requires. We have established that death means either the highest blessing or no evil at all. Indeed, amid success he’ll actually wish to die. Adding more blessings cannot delight us as much as losing them can hurt. A Spartan seems to have meant this in his remark to Diagoras. Diagoras of Rhodes was a celebrated Olympic victor; in a single day he watched two sons win at Olympia. The Spartan came up to the old man with congratulations:\n\nSECTION 111\n“‘Die, Diagoras. You aren’t going to climb up to heaven.’ The Greeks consider these achievements great—perhaps too great—or at least they did then. The man who said this to Diagoras thought it an enormous thing for one household to produce three Olympic champions. So he thought there was no advantage to Diagoras himself in lingering any longer in life, exposed to fortune.\n\n“As for you, I’d thought I’d given you a sufficient answer in a few words. You’d agreed that the dead were in no bad condition at all. But I made an effort to say more because this offers the greatest comfort when we’re grieving and missing someone. We should bear our own pain, felt for our own sake, with moderation, so we don’t seem to be in love with ourselves. But there’s a suspicion that tortures us with unbearable pain: we think the people we’ve lost are aware of being in the bad conditions people commonly imagine. I wanted to tear that belief out of myself by the roots. That’s perhaps why I’ve gone on too long.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 47\n\n“You, too long?\n\nSECTION 112\n“Not as far as I’m concerned! Earlier you made me eager for death. Later, at some points you removed my unwillingness to die, and at others you made me quite indifferent. One result of your argument as a whole is beyond doubt: death no longer counts as an evil to me.”\n\n“Do we also want a speaker’s closing appeal, then? Or are we abandoning that art completely now?”\n\n“Certainly don’t abandon the art you’ve always brought distinction to, and rightly so. To tell the truth, it had brought distinction to you. But what is this closing appeal? I’m eager to hear it, whatever it is.”\n\nSECTION 113\n“In their teaching, public speakers commonly cite decisions about death made by the immortal gods. These aren’t stories they make up: they take them from Herodotus and numerous other authors. They begin by praising Cleobis and Bito, the Argive priestess’s sons. You know the tale. Custom required her to travel by chariot to a regular sacrifice on an appointed day, at a temple a fair distance outside the town. The animals were delayed. The two young men I’ve named undressed, oiled themselves, and stepped up to the yoke. Her sons thus pulled the chariot and brought the priestess to the temple. There, they say, she asked the goddess to repay their devotion with the greatest blessing a deity could bestow on a person. The boys ate with their mother and went to sleep afterward. Next morning both lay dead.\n\nSECTION 114\n“They tell a similar story of a prayer by Trophonius and Agamedes. The pair had built Apollo a temple at Delphi. In worshiping him they asked a substantial reward for all their labor, naming nothing specific, only the best thing a person could receive. Apollo promised to grant it on the third day after the day of their prayer. At dawn on that day they were discovered dead. That, people say, was a god’s verdict—and this was the god whom the other gods had allowed to surpass them all in foretelling the future.”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 48\n\n“Another tale they produce concerns Silenus. Midas captured him, and the written account says he bought his freedom with a gift of knowledge for the king. Much the best thing for us, he taught, is never to be born; failing that, the best is an early death—as early as possible.\n\nSECTION 115\n“Euripides gave the same idea a place in Cresphontes:\n“‘We ought to gather, filling up the house,\n“‘And grieve each time a child is brought to light,\n“‘Considering all the ills that vary human life;\n“‘But when death ends someone’s burdensome work,\n“‘His friends should see him off with joy and every kind of praise.’\n“Crantor’s Consolation has a comparable story. A man from Terina named Elysius was in deep grief at losing his son. He went to an oracle of the dead and asked why such a calamity had happened. The answer came on tablets in three little verses:\n“‘Through life we humans stray, our minds unknowing;\n“‘The Fates’ decree gives Euthynous his death.\n“‘This end served both his interests and your own.’\n\nSECTION 116\n“Using these and similar authorities, speakers support their case as one already settled by the immortal gods. Alcidamas, one of the most famous early teachers of rhetoric, even wrote a work praising death. It consists of a list of human troubles. It lacked the more carefully developed arguments philosophers collect, but it didn’t lack a wealth of words. And speakers usually regard famous deaths faced for one’s country as not only glorious but happy. They go back to Erechtheus, whose daughters eagerly sought death themselves to save their fellow citizens’ lives. They recall Codrus, who rushed into the middle of the enemy dressed as a servant, so he wouldn’t be recognized, as he would have been in royal clothing. An oracle had declared that Athens would win if its king was killed. They don’t leave out Menoeceus, who likewise gave his blood for his country after an oracle was delivered. And Iphigenia at Aulis orders them to lead her to be sacrificed, so that her own blood may draw the enemy’s. From there they come to more recent examples:”\n\n### Book 1, Chapter 49\n\n“Harmodius and Aristogiton are on their lips. Leonidas the Spartan and Epaminondas the Theban are still celebrated. They don’t know our own people. Listing them would be a big task: there are so many whose deaths, as we can see, were desirable and glorious.\n\n“Since that’s so, do we still need to use great eloquence, addressing people as though from a raised platform, to make them begin to want death, or at least stop being afraid of it?\n\nSECTION 117\n“Suppose that final day is a move elsewhere, not an end to our existence. Could we ask for anything better? Or suppose it utterly destroys us and leaves nothing. What could be better than dropping off to sleep amid the hard work of life, shutting our eyes and sinking into a sleep that never ends? If that’s the outcome, Ennius speaks better than Solon. ‘Don’t pay me honors in tears,’ says our poet, ‘or weep at my funeral!’ But the wise Solon says:\n“‘Don’t let my death go tearless; let us leave our friends\n“‘Grief, so they mark our burial with groaning.’\n\nSECTION 118\n“If some event seems to give us a god’s command to quit this life, we should comply with thanks and joy. Think of it as release from prison, the removal of our chains. We’re either going back to a home that’s eternal and genuinely ours, or losing all feeling and distress. Even without any such command, let’s regard that day as lucky for us, however terrifying others find it. Nothing decreed by the gods or by nature, who mothers everything, should count as an evil. It wasn’t thoughtlessly or accidentally that we were planted here and brought to life. Some power surely took thought for humanity. It wouldn’t create and sustain us only to have us pass through every hardship and then meet an endless evil in death. Better to believe a harbor and a refuge await us, made ready for our use.\n\nSECTION 119\n“I wish we could reach it under full sail! Should the wind turn against us and drive us back, we must nevertheless be brought there eventually, with only a little delay. If everyone has to undergo something, can it bring misery to one person alone? Well, that’s your closing appeal. You needn’t think I’ve skipped or left anything unfinished.”\n\n“Yes, and that closing appeal has made me still more certain.”\n\n“Excellent,” I said. “But now let’s give our health a little attention. Tomorrow, and every day we’re at Tusculum, let’s discuss these matters, especially the ones that offer relief from distress, fears, and desires. That’s the richest benefit of all philosophy.”\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 1\n\nSECTION 1\nIn Ennius, Neoptolemus says he needs to study philosophy, but only a little. He says he doesn’t like taking it up fully. I too think I need to study philosophy, Brutus. What better use could I make of my time, especially now that I have nothing to do? But I don’t agree about studying only a little. In philosophy, it’s hard to know a few things without knowing most of it, or all of it. You can’t choose a few things unless you have a lot to choose from. And once you’ve grasped a few things, you’ll put the same effort into pursuing the rest.\n\nSECTION 2\nStill, when your life is busy, especially with military service, as Neoptolemus’ life was then, even a little philosophy often does a lot of good. It pays off. The results may not be as great as those you can get from philosophy as a whole. Even so, sometimes they can give us some relief from desire, distress, or fear. Take the discussion I recently held at my place in Tusculum. It seemed to do a great deal to remove our concern about death. That’s no small help in freeing the mind from fear. If you’re afraid of something you can’t avoid, you can’t possibly live with peace of mind. But suppose you aren’t afraid of death, not just because you have to die, but because death contains nothing frightening. Then you’ve given yourself a powerful defense for living happily.\n\nSECTION 3\nOf course, I know that plenty of people will be eager to argue against me. There was no way to avoid that, short of writing nothing at all. Think of my speeches. I wanted the public to approve of them. Speaking is a public activity, after all, and eloquence achieves its aim when listeners approve. Yet even there, some people would praise nothing unless they were confident they could copy it. They set the limit of good speaking at the limit of their own hopes of speaking well. When a flood of ideas and words overwhelmed them, they said they’d rather have thinness and starvation than richness and plenty. That gave rise to a kind of Attic speaking that was unknown even to the people who claimed to practice it. By now they’ve fallen silent, practically laughed down by the courts themselves.\n\nSECTION 4\nWhat should we expect now, when I can no longer count on the public’s support, as I did before? Philosophy is happy with a small number of judges. It deliberately keeps away from the crowd, and the crowd itself distrusts and dislikes it. Someone who wants to attack philosophy as a whole can therefore count on public applause. And someone who tries to attack the school I chiefly follow can get plenty of help from the other philosophical schools.\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 2\n\nI’ve answered the critics of philosophy as a whole in my Hortensius. And I think I’ve explained the case for the Academy carefully enough in the four books of my Academics. Still, I’m very far from objecting to people writing against me. In fact, it’s just what I want. Philosophy would never have won such respect even in Greece if debates and disagreements between highly learned people hadn’t kept it alive.\n\nSECTION 5\nSo I encourage everyone capable of it to take the glory of this kind of work too away from Greece, which is now losing its energy, and bring it to our city. Through their effort and hard work, our ancestors brought here every other kind of glory worth wanting. The reputation of our public speakers rose from small beginnings to its height. Now, as nature brings about in nearly everything, it’s getting old and seems likely to disappear before long. But in Latin literature, at least, philosophy is only now being born. Let’s help it grow, and let’s allow others to expose our mistakes and refute us. Some people can’t bear that. They’ve virtually pledged and dedicated themselves to a fixed set of settled opinions. That commitment ties them down: for the sake of consistency, they’re forced to defend even positions they don’t usually approve of. We follow what’s probable. We can’t go beyond what strikes us as likely to be true. So we’re ready to refute people without digging in our heels, and to be refuted without getting angry.\n\nSECTION 6\nWith these subjects established among Romans, even libraries of Greek books will no longer be necessary for us. Those libraries have countless volumes because there have been so many authors. Writer after writer repeats the same ideas; that’s how they’ve managed to fill everything with books. Our own writers will do the same if larger numbers take up philosophy. Still, let’s do what we can to draw in people who have a well-rounded education, argue gracefully, and pursue philosophy with a method and a plan.\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 3\n\nSECTION 7\nThere is a type of person who wants to be called a philosopher, and people say they’ve written a great many books in Latin. I don’t look down on those books. How could I, when I’ve never read them? But their authors themselves openly say that their writing has no clarity, organization, grace, or polish. So I don’t bother with reading that offers no pleasure. Anyone with even a modest education knows what the people in that school say and think. Since they don’t care how they say it, I don’t see why anyone should read them except others who share their views.\n\nSECTION 8\nEveryone reads Plato, the other Socratic writers, and their successors, even people who disagree with them or aren’t particularly keen to follow their ideas. But hardly anyone outside their own followers picks up Epicurus or Metrodorus. In the same way, only people who think these Latin writers are right read them. I think anything put into writing ought to deserve a readership among all educated people. Even if I can’t quite manage that myself, I still think that’s how it should be done.\n\nSECTION 9\nFor me, the appeal of the Peripatetics and the Academy has always been their habit of making a case on either side of any issue. Only that approach lets us work out what’s probably true in each case. Besides, nothing gives you better practice in speaking. Aristotle pioneered it, and those who came after him followed his lead. In our lifetime Philo, whose lectures I attended often, began giving instruction in public speaking at one time and in philosophy at another. Friends encouraged me to do likewise. That’s what I’ve been doing with the time available to me at Tusculum. As on the previous day, our morning went on speaking exercises; in the afternoon we walked down to the Academy. What follows isn’t a narrative account of our discussion there. It’s more or less the actual wording of the conversation and arguments.\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 4\n\nSo, as we walked, our conversation began in something like this way:\n\nSECTION 10\n“Yesterday’s argument gave me more pleasure than I can describe. No, ‘help’ is a better word than ‘pleasure.’ I’ve never thought of myself as excessively attached to living. Yet I would sometimes feel frightened and upset at the thought of daylight one day ending for me, along with every advantage life offers. Believe me, you’ve taken that worry away so thoroughly that nothing now seems less worth troubling about.”\n\n“That’s not at all surprising.\n\nSECTION 11\n“That’s what philosophy does. It treats our minds, takes away pointless worries, frees us from desires, and drives out fears. But its power doesn’t have the same effect on everyone. It’s very effective when it takes hold of a suitable character. The old saying tells us that fortune helps the brave. Reason helps them much more. It strengthens the force of courage with what you might call rules. Nature has clearly given you a great, high-minded spirit that looks down on human concerns. So the argument against fearing death easily took root in your brave mind. But do you think these same ideas influence more than a very few even of the people who discovered, discussed, and wrote them down? How often do you find a philosopher whose character, attitude, and life match what reason calls for? Who treats his teaching as a rule for living, not a display of knowledge? Who obeys himself and follows his own principles?\n\nSECTION 12\n“Look at the frivolous, showy behavior of some of them: they’d have done better not to study at all. Then there are the ones who crave money, others who crave fame, and many who are enslaved to their desires. What they say and how they live clash astonishingly. To me, that’s the height of disgrace. Think of a self-described expert in grammar using bad grammar, or a man wanting credit as a musician singing badly. His failure is the more disgraceful because it concerns precisely the skill he claims to possess. The philosopher who goes wrong in his way of life is in the same position, and all the more disgraced: he slips up over the duty he wants to teach. His claim is to teach the art of living, but living is where he fails.”\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 5\n\n“If that’s how things stand, as you say, shouldn’t you worry that you’re giving philosophy a reputation it hasn’t earned? What stronger evidence could there be that it’s no help than the shameful lives of some fully trained philosophers?”\n\nSECTION 13\n“That’s no evidence at all. Not every field that’s cultivated produces crops. Those lines of Accius are false:\n“‘Even when good seed is put into worse soil,\n“‘The crop still thrives by its own natural strength.’\n“In the same way, not every trained mind bears fruit. To stay with the same comparison, even a fertile field can’t be productive without cultivation, and a mind can’t be productive without teaching. Neither can do much without the other. Philosophy is the cultivation of the mind. It pulls out faults by the roots and prepares our minds to receive seed. It entrusts things to them—plants them, so to speak—that will produce very rich crops when they grow up. So let’s carry on as we began. Tell me what you want us to discuss.”\n\nSECTION 14\n“I think pain is the worst of all bad things.”\n\n“Worse even than disgrace?”\n\n“I wouldn’t dare say that. And I’m embarrassed that I’ve been knocked off my position so quickly.”\n\n“You’d have more reason to be embarrassed if you stuck to it. What could be less worthy of you than to think anything worse than disgrace, wrongdoing, and shame? To escape them, what pain should we refuse? Shouldn’t we actively seek it, take it on, and accept it?”\n\n“That’s exactly what I think. All right, pain may not be the worst thing. But it’s certainly something bad.”\n\n“Do you see how much of your terror of pain you’ve dropped after just a brief reminder?”\n\nSECTION 15\n“I certainly do. But I’d like more.”\n\n“I’ll try. But it’s a big task, and I need you not to fight against me in your mind.”\n\n“You can count on that. Just as I did yesterday, I’ll follow the reasoning wherever it leads me.”\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 6\n\n“First I’ll talk about the weakness of many people and the different schools of philosophy. Among them, Aristippus, a follower of Socrates, comes first both in standing and in date. He had no hesitation in calling pain the worst thing there is. Then Epicurus proved quite ready to learn that spineless, womanish view. After him, Hieronymus of Rhodes said that being free from pain was the greatest good. That shows how much badness he found in pain. Apart from Zeno, Aristo, and Pyrrho, the others said much the same as you did just now: pain is bad, certainly, but other things are worse.\n\nSECTION 16\n“So philosophy, our teacher in living, has stuck for all these centuries to a position that nature itself and a certain inborn nobility immediately rejected in you. You wouldn’t call pain the worst thing; once disgrace was put against it, you were driven from that view. If someone has convinced himself that pain is the worst thing for him, what duty, what praise, what distinction will be worth enough to him that he’ll choose to gain it at the cost of bodily pain? And once he’s decided pain is the worst thing, what dishonor or shame won’t he put up with to escape it? If extreme pain is the worst thing, who won’t be miserable, not only while suffering it but even when he knows it might happen to him? And who is there it couldn’t happen to? The result is that nobody at all can be happy.\n\nSECTION 17\n“Metrodorus thinks a person is completely happy if his body is in good condition and he’s sure it will always stay that way. But who could possibly be sure of that?”\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 7\n\n“I can only think Epicurus is aiming for laughs with remarks like these. In one passage he makes an assertion about a wise man undergoing burning and torture. Perhaps you’re waiting for, ‘He’ll put up with it; he’ll hold out; he won’t give way.’ Hercules! That would be a wonderful tribute, one worthy of the god Hercules I’ve just invoked. Not enough, though, for a man as rough and tough as Epicurus. Put the wise man inside the bull of Phalaris, and his words will be, ‘This feels wonderful! It doesn’t bother me at all!’ Wonderful as well? Wouldn’t it do if it simply weren’t bitter? People who won’t count pain as a bad thing don’t normally describe torture as enjoyable for anyone. Their descriptions are harsh, difficult, hateful, unnatural—but not bad. Here, by contrast, is someone for whom pain alone is bad, and bad to the greatest possible degree; yet he thinks a wise man will describe the experience as enjoyable.\n\nSECTION 18\n“I’m not asking you to describe pain in the same terms Epicurus uses for pleasure. As you know, he’s devoted to pleasure. Let him say the same thing inside Phalaris’ bull that he’d say in a comfortable bed. I don’t give wisdom that much power against pain. If someone bears up bravely, he’s done his duty. I don’t ask him to enjoy it too. Pain is certainly a grim thing: harsh, bitter, hostile to nature, and difficult to suffer and endure.\n\n“Look at Philoctetes. We have to allow him his groans.\n\nSECTION 19\n“He had watched Hercules himself on Oeta, screaming under the weight of his suffering. The arrows Hercules had given him could offer Philoctetes no comfort at that moment:\n“‘After the viper bit, the veins within his flesh,\n“‘Soaked in its poison, set off hideous agonies.’\n“He shouts for someone to help him; what he wants is death:\n“‘Oh, someone throw me to the salt waves\n“‘From a rock’s high summit!\n“‘Now, now I’m dying; my life gives out\n“‘Under this wound’s attack, this burning sore.’\n“Faced with cries like that, it’s hard, it seems, to deny that the man is in trouble—and very serious trouble.”\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 8\n\nSECTION 20\n“But let’s look at Hercules himself. Pain was breaking him down just as he was seeking immortality through death itself. What cries he lets out in Sophocles’ Women of Trachis! Deianira had put a shirt on him soaked in the Centaur’s blood, and it had stuck to his flesh. He says:\n“‘So much that’s painful to tell, so hard to endure,\n“‘I’ve struggled through and borne in body and mind!\n“‘Neither Juno’s unrelenting terror\n“‘Nor bitter Eurystheus brought me as much suffering\n“‘As this one mad woman, Oeneus’ daughter.\n“‘She trapped me, unaware, in a maddening garment.\n“‘It clings to my side, biting and tearing my flesh,\n“‘Crushing me hard and draining the breath from my lungs.\n“‘Already it’s sucked away all my blood and left me pale.\n“‘My body has wasted away, destroyed by this horrible disaster.\n“‘Caught in this woven plague, I’m being killed.\n“‘No enemy’s right hand dealt my body these blows,\n“‘Nor the mass of Giants born from Earth,\n“‘Nor the Centaur’s charging double form,\n“‘Nor any force of Greeks, nor any savage foreign cruelty,\n“‘Nor the fierce people driven to the farthest lands.\n“‘I traveled through them all and rooted out their savagery.\n“‘But now a woman’s hand, a woman’s, kills a man.’”\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 9\n\n“‘My son, show your father you truly deserve that name.\n“‘Don’t let love for your mother outweigh me as I die.\n“‘Drag her away and bring her here in your dutiful hands.\n“‘Then I’ll see whether you care more for me or her.\n\nSECTION 21\n“‘Come, son, take courage! Shed tears for your father’s ruin;\n“‘Feel pity; nations will mourn the misery that’s ours.\n“‘Ah, my mouth is making a girl’s sobbing sounds,\n“‘Though nobody ever saw me groaning under any trouble!\n“‘Courage has gone soft, collapsed, and died.\n“‘Come closer, son, stay by me; pity what you see:\n“‘Your father’s mangled body, with its flesh torn out!\n“‘Everyone, look! And you who fathered the gods,\n“‘Please strike me with the flashing force of lightning!\n“‘Now, now these whirlwinds of torment twist through me;\n“‘Now the heat spreads. Hands that used to conquer,\n\nSECTION 22\n“‘My chest, my back, the bulging muscles in my arms!\n“‘Didn’t your pressure make the lion of Nemea\n“‘Snarl as it breathed its last heavy breath?\n“‘Wasn’t it this right hand that killed the foul Hydra and quieted Lerna?\n“‘Wasn’t it this hand that broke the two-bodied troop?\n“‘That brought down the destructive creature of Erymanthus?\n“‘That pulled from the darkness of Tartarus\n“‘The dog with three heads, Hydra’s offspring, and led it out?\n“‘That killed the dragon wound in coil after coil,\n“‘Its gaze fixed on guarding the tree that grew gold?\n“‘My conquering hand has gone through many other trials,\n“‘And nobody has taken spoils from my achievements.’”\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 10\n\n“Can we disregard pain when we see Hercules himself taking it so badly?\n\nSECTION 23\n“Let Aeschylus come forward. He wasn’t just a poet but a Pythagorean too, according to what we’ve been told. How does his Prometheus bear the pain he’s given for that theft on Lemnos,\n“‘From which fire is said to have secretly reached mortals,\n“‘Shared out? Clever Prometheus\n“‘Stole it, they say, by a trick, and paid Jupiter\n“‘For it with the final punishment fate imposed.’\n“Nailed to the Caucasus and paying that penalty, he says this:\n“‘Children of Titans, sharing my blood,\n“‘Born from Heaven, look at me tied and bound\n“‘To jagged rocks, like a ship on a roaring sea\n“‘Moored by frightened sailors afraid of the night.\n“‘Jupiter, Saturn’s son, has pinned me here like this,\n“‘And Jupiter’s power enlisted Mulciber’s hands.\n“‘He drove these wedges in with his brutal workmanship\n“‘And smashed through my limbs. Pierced through by his skill,\n“‘I live in misery in this fortress of the Furies.\n\nSECTION 24\n“‘Now, every third accursed day,\n“‘Jupiter’s servant swoops grimly down, tearing with hooked claws,\n“‘And rips me apart for its savage meal.\n“‘Then, stuffed full with my rich liver, satisfied to the limit,\n“‘It lets out an enormous shriek and flies high away,\n“‘Brushing my blood with its feathered tail.\n“‘But when the eaten liver has swollen and grown back,\n“‘It eagerly returns to that dreadful feeding.\n“‘So I feed this guardian of my grim torture,\n“‘Which ravages me alive with never-ending misery.\n“‘As you can see, I’m held tight by Jupiter’s chains\n“‘And can’t keep this terrible bird away from my chest.\n\nSECTION 25\n“‘So, all alone, I face these agonizing torments,\n“‘Longing for death and searching for an end to suffering.\n“‘But Jupiter’s power drives me far away from death,\n“‘And this age-old, grief-filled disaster,\n“‘Piled up through dreadful ages, is fastened to my body.\n“‘Melted drops fall from it in the sun’s heat\n“‘And drip continually onto the rocks of the Caucasus.’\n“We can hardly avoid calling someone in that condition miserable. And if he’s miserable, then surely pain is bad.”\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 11\n\nSECTION 26\n“So far you’re arguing my side. But I’ll look at that in a moment. Meanwhile, where do those verses come from? I don’t recognize them.”\n\n“By Hercules, I’ll tell you. You’re right to ask. You see how much spare time I have?”\n\n“What of it?”\n\n“When you were in Athens, you often went to the philosophers’ lectures, I suppose.”\n\n“Yes, and I really enjoyed them.”\n\n“So you noticed that they mixed verse into their talks, even though no one at that time was particularly rich in expression.”\n\n“Dionysius the Stoic certainly used a lot of it.”\n\n“Quite right. But he used it as if he were dictating a lesson, with no selection and no grace. Philo, though, selected poetry that suited the subject and brought it in where it belonged. So, since I developed a taste for this kind of speaking exercise for old age, I’ve been making eager use of our own poets. But whenever they fell short—well, I’ve translated a lot from the Greeks, so that Latin speech wouldn’t lack any embellishment in discussions of this kind.\n\n“But do you see what harm poets do?\n\nSECTION 27\n“They bring on the bravest men and show them weeping. They soften our minds. And they’re so delightful that we don’t just read them, we learn them by heart. Add poets to poor training at home and a sheltered, pampered life, and they cut every sinew of courage. So Plato is right to throw them out of the state he imagined while he was searching for the best character and the best form of government. But we, educated by Greece of course, read and memorize these works from childhood. We think this is a broad education and learning.”\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 12\n\n“But why are we getting angry with poets?\n\nSECTION 28\n“We even find philosophers, supposedly our teachers in goodness, identifying pain as the worst thing of all. You said you thought so yourself just now, young man. But I only had to ask, ‘Worse than disgrace, too?’ and that one word shifted your position. Try putting the question to Epicurus. Even a moderate amount of pain, he’ll answer, is worse than the deepest disgrace. Disgrace has no badness of its own: only the pain that might follow makes it bad. Well, what pain does Epicurus get from this very assertion that pain is the worst thing? No philosopher could say anything more disgraceful, as far as I’m concerned. Your answer that disgrace seems worse to you than pain was therefore enough for me. Keep that conviction, and you’ll see what resistance to pain is called for. Strengthening the mind to endure matters more than debating whether pain is bad.\n\n“The Stoics work out little arguments to prove that it isn’t bad.\n\nSECTION 29\n“You’d think we were struggling with terminology rather than reality! Zeno, why this trickery? When you refuse to call a thing bad that I find terrifying, you draw me in. I want to learn how what’s utterly miserable in my eyes can fail even to be bad. His answer is, ‘Only shameful, vicious conduct is bad.’ Back to nonsense! My trouble is still there; you haven’t lifted it. I already know pain isn’t wickedness, so give up that lesson. What I need you to teach me is that having pain or not having it makes no difference. He says, ‘It never makes any difference to happiness, which rests entirely on virtue. All the same, pain is to be turned down.’ Why is that? ‘It’s rough, unnatural, hard to put up with, distressing, severe.’”\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 13\n\nSECTION 30\n“What a rich vocabulary! You can say in so many ways what we all call bad with one word. When you call pain harsh, against nature, and barely possible to bear or endure, you’re defining it for me, not taking it away. And you’re not lying. But you shouldn’t boast in words and give in when you face the thing itself. ‘Provided that nothing is good except what’s morally right, and nothing bad except what’s shameful—’ That’s a wish, not a lesson. This would be better and truer: everything nature rejects counts as bad, and everything it welcomes counts as good. Accept that and drop the battle over words. Even then, what these people rightly value—what we call morally right, correct, and fitting, and sometimes include under the name of virtue—will stand so far above everything else that the supposed goods of body and fortune will look tiny and trivial. And no bad thing, not even all of them piled together in one place, will compare with the badness of shameful conduct.\n\nSECTION 31\n“So if shameful conduct is worse than pain, as you agreed at the start, pain really amounts to nothing. As long as you think it’s shameful and unworthy of a man to groan, howl, weep, break down, and be crippled by pain, and as long as moral goodness, dignity, and honor stay before you, you’ll keep yourself in check by looking to them. Pain will certainly give way to courage and weaken as you resolve to bear it.\n\n“Either virtue doesn’t exist, or all pain must be treated as beneath our concern. Do you want practical wisdom to exist? Without it, no virtue can even be understood. Well, will it let you do something that achieves nothing and wastes your effort? Will self-control let you act without restraint in anything? Can someone practice justice while the force of pain makes him reveal what’s been entrusted to him, betray his associates, and abandon many of his duties? And what answer will you give courage and its companions—greatness of spirit, firmness, endurance, and disregard for human troubles?\n\nSECTION 32\n“Will you hear people say, ‘What a brave man!’ when you’re crushed, lying on the ground, and crying in a pitiful voice? No one would even call you a man in that state. So either you must throw away courage, or bury pain.”\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 14\n\n“Surely you know that if you lose a piece of your Corinthian bronze, the rest of your furnishings can still be safe. But if you lose one virtue—though virtue can’t actually be lost; rather, if you admit you don’t have one—you won’t have any of them.\n\nSECTION 33\n“So can you call that Philoctetes brave, great in spirit, enduring, firm, or above human troubles? I’d rather move the example away from you. He certainly isn’t brave as he lies\n“‘In a damp shelter,\n“‘Which echoes with howling, complaints, groans, and roars,\n“‘And, though speechless, sends back his pitiful cries.’\n“I’m not denying that pain is pain. Why else would we need courage? I am saying that endurance overcomes it, if there is such a thing as endurance. If there isn’t, why do we glorify philosophy, or boast of its name? Pain pricks you. All right, let it stab you. If you’re unarmed, offer your throat. But if you’re covered in Vulcan’s armor—that is, courage—stand your ground. If you don’t, courage, the guardian of your dignity, will leave you and abandon you.\n\nSECTION 34\n“Cretan laws put young people through hardship: hunting and running, hunger and thirst, cold and heat. Whether Jupiter made those laws or Minos did, they certainly had Jupiter’s approval, according to the poets. Lycurgus’ laws provide the same training. At the Spartan altar boys take a whipping that makes ‘blood pour from deep in their bodies.’ On my visit there I heard that it sometimes even kills them. Yet not a single one has ever shouted, or so much as groaned. Are grown men incapable of what boys manage? Can habit accomplish this, and reason fail to do it?”\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 15\n\nSECTION 35\n“Effort and pain aren’t quite the same. Close neighbors, yes, but there is a distinction. By effort I mean doing a fairly demanding job or task, mentally or physically. Pain, on the other hand, is a rough bodily disturbance that our senses find unwelcome. Greek has a bigger vocabulary than Latin, yet the Greeks give these two things just one name. Their term for people who work hard therefore means ‘keen on pain’—actually, ‘in love with pain.’ Our term, ‘hardworking,’ is more appropriate. To work isn’t the same as to hurt. Greece, sometimes you’re short of words, for all your claims always to have plenty! Again, hurting is one thing and working is another. When the surgeon cut Gaius Marius’ varicose veins, he hurt. Leading a column through intense heat was work. There is a resemblance, though: someone accustomed to demanding work finds it easier to withstand pain.\n\nSECTION 36\n“That’s why the people who shaped the constitutions of Greece wanted young men’s bodies strengthened through hard work. The Spartans extended this to women too. In other cities, women are brought up in the greatest luxury, ‘hidden in the shade of walls.’ But the Spartans wanted nothing of that kind\n“‘Among the girls of Sparta,\n“‘Who care more for the training ground, the Eurotas, sun, dust, work,\n“‘And military service than for foreign women’s fertility.’\n“So pain sometimes comes into these strenuous exercises too. They’re shoved, hit, thrown down, and fall. The effort itself forms a kind of callus against pain.”\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 16\n\nSECTION 37\n“Now take military service. I mean ours, not the Spartans’. Their battle line advances to a beat and a flute, and no encouragement is given except in anapestic verse. First, you see where our armies get their name: from exercise. Then think of the work involved in marching. They carry food for more than half a month. They carry anything they want for their own use. They carry stakes for the camp wall. Our soldiers don’t count shield, sword, and helmet as part of the load any more than their shoulders, arms, and hands. They say weapons are a soldier’s limbs. And they carry them so conveniently that, when needed, they can throw down their loads and fight, using their weapons as freely as their limbs. And what about the legions’ drills? What work goes into all that running, charging, and shouting! This is where the spirit comes from that makes them ready for wounds in battle. Bring in an untrained soldier with just as much spirit:\n\nSECTION 38\n“He’ll look like a woman. Why is there such an enormous difference between a new army and a veteran one, as we’ve seen for ourselves? The recruits are usually at a better age. But practice teaches men to put up with effort and disregard wounds. We often see wounded men carried out of battle. The raw, untrained man gives the most shameful cries at even a slight blow. But the trained veteran, braver for that very reason, simply asks for a doctor to bandage him:\n“‘Oh, Patroclus,’ he says, ‘I come to you for help and your hands.\n“‘I beg you, before I meet the grim death an enemy’s hand has sent,\n“‘[…]\n“‘And there’s no way at all to stop the flowing blood,\n“‘If death can somehow be better kept away by your skill.’\n“‘The wounded fill the porches of Asclepius’ sons;\n“‘There’s no way in.—’\n“‘Yes, this is certainly Eurypylus. What a well-trained man!’”\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 17\n\nSECTION 39\n“And no less well-trained, too. With all this grief going on, notice how little self-pity there is in his answer. He even gives a reason why he ought to bear it calmly:\n“‘Anyone who plans another’s death\n“‘Must know death’s planned for him, so he’ll share the same destruction.’\n“Patroclus will take him away, I suppose, to lay him on a bed and bandage his wound. He would, if he were human! But I’ve never seen anyone less so. He asks what happened:\n“‘Tell me, tell me how the Greeks are holding up in battle.—’\n“‘Words can’t express as much as the events themselves contain\n“‘Of hardship.’\n“Then be quiet and bandage the wound! Even if Eurypylus could stand it, Aesopus couldn’t:\n“‘When Hector’s good fortune turned our fierce battle line back […]’\n“And he explains the rest, in pain. That’s how unrestrained a brave man’s desire for military glory is. So a veteran soldier can do this, but a learned, wise man can’t?\n\nSECTION 40\n“A wise, educated man can certainly do it, and do it far better. But I’m still dealing with what repeated training makes familiar, not yet with wisdom and reason. An old woman will often do without food for two days or three. Deny an athlete his meals for a single day, and there’ll be cries to Jupiter, Olympian Jupiter himself—the god he’s training to compete for! He’ll yell that he can’t take it. Such is the power of what we’re used to. A hunter stays up all night on snowy mountains. People in India submit to burning. Fighters battered by boxing gloves give not even a groan.\n\nSECTION 41\n“But why talk about them? To them, victory at the Olympics is like a consulship in the old days. Look at gladiators, men who are either ruined or foreigners. What blows they bear! How those who’ve been well trained would rather take a blow than avoid it in a shameful way! How often it’s clear that there’s nothing they’d rather do than satisfy their owner or the crowd! Even when they’re worn out with wounds, they send messengers to their owners to ask what they want. If they’ve done enough to satisfy them, they’re willing to lie down for death. What even moderately good gladiator has ever groaned or changed his expression? Has any behaved shamefully, not just while standing but even when lying down? After lying down and being told to receive the blade, has any drawn back his neck? That’s how much training, preparation, and habit can do. So ‘a Samnite, a filthy man, worthy of that life and station’ can do this, but will a man born for glory have some part of his mind so soft that he can’t strengthen it through preparation and reason? Some people think watching gladiators is cruel and inhuman. Perhaps it is, as it’s done now. But when guilty men fought to the death, there may have been many stronger lessons against pain and death for the ears, but there couldn’t have been a stronger one for the eyes.”\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 18\n\nSECTION 42\n“I’ve talked about training, habit, and preparation. Now, if you please, let’s look at reason, unless you want to add anything.”\n\n“Interrupt you? I wouldn’t even want to do that. Your argument is leading me so strongly to believe you.”\n\n“Let the Stoics decide whether being in pain is bad or not. They want to prove that pain isn’t bad with twisted little arguments and tiny deductions that never reach our senses. Whatever pain may be, I don’t think it’s as great as it appears. I say people are more violently disturbed by a false picture and appearance of it, and that all pain can be borne.\n\n“So where should I start? Shall I briefly go back over what I just said, to help the argument move further forward?\n\nSECTION 43\n“Everyone agrees on this, educated and uneducated alike: bearing pain patiently is a mark of men who are brave, great in spirit, enduring, and able to rise above human troubles. No one has ever thought a man who bears it that way doesn’t deserve praise. So isn’t it shameful to dread pain as it approaches or fail to bear it when it’s here, when endurance is both expected from the brave and praised when it happens? Now consider this. We call all the mind’s good dispositions virtues. But perhaps that wasn’t originally the name for all of them. Perhaps they all got their name from the one that stood above the rest. The word ‘virtue’ comes from the word for a man. And a man’s most distinctive quality is courage. Its two chief tasks are to disregard death and pain. So we must practice these if we want to possess virtue—or rather, if we want to be men, since virtue borrowed its name from men.\n\n“You may ask how. And rightly so: philosophy claims to provide that sort of treatment.”\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 19\n\nSECTION 44\n“Now Epicurus turns up. Far from a bad man, he’s a thoroughly good one, but the advice he gives goes only as far as his understanding. ‘Ignore pain,’ he tells us. Who says so? Surely not the man who ranks it worst of all? Not very consistent. Still, let’s hear him out. ‘The most intense pain has to last a short time.’ ‘Please go over that for me again!’ I don’t really understand either ‘most intense’ or ‘short.’ ‘Most intense: nothing can exceed it. Short: nothing can last less time. The scale of pain doesn’t matter to me, because its brief duration releases me almost before it comes.’ What if someone hurts as much as Philoctetes? ‘That’s certainly very intense, I’d say, but not the most intense pain possible. His foot is the only part that hurts. The eyes could hurt too, and the head, the sides, the lungs, every part. He’s nowhere near the most intense pain. That means,’ he says, ‘that lasting pain gives more delight than trouble.’\n\nSECTION 45\n“Now I can’t say such a great man has no sense at all, but I think he’s making fun of us. I say the greatest pain isn’t necessarily brief. And I call it the greatest even if another pain is ten atoms greater. I could name many good men who’ve been tortured for years by extreme pain from gout. But this clever man never sets a limit for either intensity or duration, so that I can know what he means by the greatest pain or a brief time. So let’s leave him aside. He really says nothing at all. Let’s force him to admit that we shouldn’t look for remedies for pain from someone who’s called pain the worst of all bad things, however plucky he may be himself in facing his stomach cramps and difficulty urinating. So we must look elsewhere for treatment. If we’re asking where it’s most consistent to look, we should chiefly turn to those who think moral goodness is the greatest good and shameful conduct the worst thing. You certainly won’t dare groan or toss about in their presence.”\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 20\n\nSECTION 46\n“Through these men Virtue herself addresses you: ‘You’ve watched Spartan boys, young men competing at Olympia, foreigners fighting in the arena. They take terrible blows without a sound. If pain should happen to stab at you, are you going to scream like a woman instead of enduring steadily and quietly?’ ‘I can’t; nature won’t let me.’ So you say. Boys endure for fame; others endure out of embarrassment, and many out of fear. After so many people endure it in so many places, are we still afraid nature might not permit it? She does permit it, and more than that, she requires it. Moral goodness, praise, dignity, honor—she has nothing better and wants nothing more. I’m using several labels for a single thing, to express it as fully as I can. Here’s my meaning: the very best thing a human being can have is something worth choosing for its own sake, something springing from virtue or contained within virtue, deserving praise on its own account. Rather than deny that this is the highest good, I’d say it was the only one. Reverse what I’ve said about moral goodness, and you have the position of shameful conduct. Nothing is more disgusting, more worth rejecting, less worthy of a human being.\n\nSECTION 47\n“If you’re convinced of that—and at the start you did say you thought disgrace was worse than pain—all that’s left is to command yourself. Though I don’t quite know how that expression works. As if there were two of us, one to command and one to obey!”\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 21\n\n“Still, the expression isn’t foolish. The mind is divided into two parts. One shares in reason, the other doesn’t. So when we’re told to command ourselves, we’re being told to have reason restrain our rash impulses. Almost everyone’s mind naturally has something soft, low, weak, and in a way spineless and sluggish in it. If that were all there was, nothing would be uglier than a human being. But reason is there too, the mistress and queen of everything. When it strives by its own strength and advances far enough, it becomes complete virtue. A man’s job is to make sure it commands the part of the mind that should obey. ‘How?’ you’ll ask.\n\nSECTION 48\n“Like a master commanding a slave, a general a soldier, or a parent a son. If that part of the mind I’ve called soft behaves disgracefully and gives itself up to womanish weeping and tears, let friends and relatives bind and restrain it by watching over it. We often see shame break down people whom no reasoning could overcome. So we should treat these people almost like slaves, with chains and confinement. Those who are firmer, but still not fully strong, must be reminded of their duty, like good soldiers called back to preserve their dignity. In The Washing, that wisest man in Greece doesn’t lament too much when he’s wounded—or rather, he does so in moderation. ‘Step by step,’ he says,\n“‘Go, with slow and steady effort,\n“‘So that jolting doesn’t bring on worse\n“‘Pain.’\n\nSECTION 49\n“Pacuvius does this better than Sophocles: in Sophocles, Ulysses laments his wound very pitifully. Yet even as he groans a little here, the very people carrying the wounded man keep his standing in mind and don’t hesitate to say:\n“‘You too, Ulysses, though we see\n“‘You’ve been badly struck, are almost too\n“‘Soft in spirit, you who’ve been used\n“‘To spending your life in arms […]’\n“The sensible poet understands that the habit of bearing pain is a teacher we shouldn’t disregard.\n\nSECTION 50\n“And even in great pain, Ulysses isn’t unrestrained:\n“‘Hold me up, hold me! The sore is crushing me.\n“‘Uncover me! Oh, poor me, I’m in agony.’\n“He begins to slip, then stops at once:\n“‘Cover me, leave me now, now!\n“‘Let me go! Your touching and shaking\n“‘Are making this savage pain worse.’\n“Do you see? He’s fallen silent, not because his bodily pain has been soothed, but because his mental pain has been disciplined. So at the end of The Washing he even rebukes others, and does it as he’s dying:\n“‘It’s right to complain of bad fortune, not to weep over it.\n“‘That’s a man’s duty; tears belong to a woman’s nature.’”\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 22\n\nSECTION 51\n“His mind’s weaker side took reason’s orders as a soldier with a sense of shame takes orders from a stern commander. Now consider perfect wisdom. We ourselves have never met anyone who has it, but philosophers describe the sort of person he would be, if he ever existed. He—or the thoroughly complete, fully developed reason he possesses—will rule the mind’s lower side as a just father rules well-behaved sons. A gesture will be enough to get his way, with no strain or distress. He’ll get to his feet, stir himself into action, prepare and arm himself against pain as though facing an enemy. His weapons? Bracing himself, standing firm, talking inwardly to himself:\n\nSECTION 52\n“‘Nothing disgraceful, nothing feeble, nothing unmanly!’ His mind should keep fine examples in view. He can picture Zeno from Elea, ready to suffer anything rather than name his fellow plotters against the tyranny. He should think about Democritus’ follower Anaxarchus, who fell into King Timocreon’s hands on Cyprus and neither begged to escape any torture nor refused it. There was Callanus too, an Indian born at the Caucasus’ foot, without education, a foreigner, who voluntarily let himself be burned while still alive. Yet let a foot or a tooth hurt us, and we can’t take it. The trouble is a flimsy, womanish belief, no different in matters of pleasure from matters of pain. We give in to it, dissolve, and flow away in softness, until we can’t even take the sting of a bee quietly.\n\nSECTION 53\n“But Gaius Marius was different. He was a country man, but very much a man. As I said earlier, when the cutting began, he first forbade them to tie him down. It’s said no one before Marius had been operated on without being tied. Why did others do it afterward, then? His example had power. So do you see that the badness comes from belief, not nature? Even so, Marius himself showed that the bite of pain was sharp: he didn’t offer the other leg. So he both bore pain like a man and, being human, refused to bear more without a compelling reason.\n\n“The whole point, then, is to command yourself. I’ve shown what kind of command I mean. Thinking about what’s most worthy of endurance, courage, and greatness of spirit doesn’t just keep the mind in check. Somehow it also makes the pain itself milder.”\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 23\n\nSECTION 54\n“Here’s what happens in battle. A cowardly, frightened soldier sees the enemy, throws down his shield, and runs as fast as he can. Because of that, he sometimes dies without even being wounded, while nothing like that happens to the man who stands his ground. In the same way, people who can’t bear the sight of pain throw themselves down and lie there crushed and lifeless. But those who stand up to it very often come away the winners. The mind has certain similarities to the body. Loads are easier to carry when the body is braced; when it’s slack, they crush it. In just the same way, the mind’s tension pushes back against all the pressure of heavy weights.\n\nSECTION 55\n“When it goes slack, it’s pressed down so hard that it can’t raise itself. If we look at the truth, we need to put mental effort into carrying out every duty. That effort alone acts as a kind of guard over duty. But we must be especially careful about this in pain. We mustn’t do anything low, frightened, cowardly, slavish, or womanish. Above all, we must refuse and reject those screams of Philoctetes. A man may groan sometimes, and rarely at that. But not even a woman should howl in grief. That’s surely the ‘wailing’ that the Twelve Tables banned at funerals.\n\nSECTION 56\n“Really, even a groan never comes from a brave and wise man, unless perhaps he uses it to pull himself together and stand firm. Think of a runner on the track, shouting at full volume. Athletes use the same technique during practice. A boxer actually groans while throwing a punch, as he swings his weighted glove at the other man. That isn’t an expression of pain or a sign he’s giving up. Forcing the voice out braces every part of the body, and the punch hits with greater force.”\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 24\n\n“And what about people who want to shout louder? Is it enough for them to tense their sides, throats, and tongues, the parts we see producing and releasing the voice? They use their whole body to force their voice out—‘with every hoof,’ as the saying goes.\n\nSECTION 57\n“By Hercules, I saw Marcus Antonius touch the ground with his knee as he spoke forcefully in his own defense under the Varian law. Stone-throwing catapults and other missile engines shoot harder the more strongly they’re stretched and drawn back. In the same way, a voice, a run, or a blow has more force the more effort goes into launching it. Since this effort is so powerful, we’ll use groaning if it helps strengthen the mind in pain. But if the groan is a lament, weak, low, and tearful, I’d hardly call someone who gives way to it a man. Even if groaning like that brought some relief, we’d still have to ask what suits a brave, spirited man. But when it doesn’t lessen the pain at all, why do we choose to disgrace ourselves for nothing? What could be more shameful for a man than womanish weeping?\n\nSECTION 58\n“And this rule about pain applies more widely. We have to resist everything, not just pain, with the same mental effort. Anger flares up, desire is stirred: we must retreat to the same fortress and take up the same weapons. But since we’re talking about pain, let’s leave those aside.\n\n“So, to bear pain calmly and quietly, it helps a great deal to think with your whole heart, as people say, about how morally right that is. As I said before—and it needs to be said often—nature gives us an intense interest in and desire for moral goodness. Once we catch a glimpse of what you might call its light, there’s nothing we aren’t ready to bear and endure to gain it. This rush and drive of the mind toward true praise and moral goodness is what makes men face those dangers in battle. Brave men don’t feel their wounds in combat—or they do, but would rather die than be moved down even one step in dignity.\n\nSECTION 59\n“The Decii saw the enemies’ flashing swords as they charged into their battle line. The nobility and glory of their death took away all fear of wounds. Do you think Epaminondas groaned when he felt his life pouring out with his blood? He was leaving his country in command of the Spartans, though he’d found it subject to them. These are the comforts, the soothing remedies for the worst pain.”\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 25\n\nSECTION 60\n“‘What about when there’s peace?’ you’ll ask. ‘What about at home, in bed?’ That brings me back to the philosophers, who aren’t often on the battlefield. Take Dionysius from Heraclea, a rather unreliable fellow. He learned courage from Zeno; pain then undid the teaching. Suffering from kidney trouble, he howled and shouted that his own earlier ideas about pain were wrong. His fellow pupil Cleanthes asked what argument had shifted his view. Dionysius replied, ‘Suppose I’d devoted only a little time to philosophy and couldn’t stand pain even then: that would prove well enough that pain was bad. In fact I’ve given philosophy a great many years, and still can’t stand it. Therefore pain is bad.’ Cleanthes, they say, stamped on the ground and spoke a line from The Epigoni:\n“‘Amphiaraus, buried under the earth, do you hear this?’\n“He was referring to Zeno, distressed that Dionysius was proving unworthy of him.\n\nSECTION 61\n“My friend Posidonius wasn’t like that. I’ve often seen him myself, and I’ll tell you a story Pompey used to tell. On his way back from Syria, Pompey arrived at Rhodes and wanted to hear Posidonius speak. Then he heard that Posidonius was very ill, suffering terribly in his joints. Even so, he wanted to visit this very famous philosopher. When he saw him, greeted him, and paid him respectful compliments, he said how sorry he was that he couldn’t hear him speak. Posidonius said, ‘But you can. I won’t let bodily pain mean that such a great man has come to me for nothing.’ Pompey said that, lying there, Posidonius discussed with great force and fullness this very point: nothing is good except what’s morally right. And as if flaming torches of pain were being put to him, he kept saying:”\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 26\n\nSECTION 62\n“‘Pain, you achieve nothing! Bother me as much as you like: I’ll never acknowledge you as bad.’ Indeed, give any hardship fame and distinction, and it at once becomes something people can bear. Look at the places where the so-called athletic games command great respect: competitors there won’t avoid any pain. Where riding and hunting are praised, those in pursuit of that praise won’t run from pain either. Need I mention our electioneering and hunger for office? The men who once gathered offices vote by vote would have raced through any fire for them. That’s why Africanus was forever reading Xenophon, the follower of Socrates. One observation he especially admired was that a commander and a soldier don’t find the same work equally taxing. The distinction attached to command itself eases the commander’s work.\n\nSECTION 63\n“Still, what happens is that the crowd of foolish people responds to an impression of moral goodness, since they can’t see goodness itself. So they’re moved by reputation and the crowd’s judgment. They think whatever most people praise is morally right. But even if you’re in the public eye, I don’t want you to stand by the public’s judgment or think what it thinks is the finest thing. You must use your own judgment. If you approve of what’s right and can satisfy yourself, then you’ll have overcome not just yourself, as I was urging a little while ago, but everyone and everything.\n\nSECTION 64\n“So put this before yourself: greatness of spirit, a lifting of the spirit to the highest possible level, so to speak, stands out most in disregarding pain and looking down on it. It’s the finest thing of all. And it’s finer still if it’s away from the crowd, not hunting for applause but taking pleasure in itself. In fact, I find everything done without self-promotion and without the public as a witness more praiseworthy. Not because we should avoid the public—all good deeds want to stand in the light. Even so, virtue has no greater audience than its own conscience.”\n\n### Book 2, Chapter 27\n\nSECTION 65\n“Above all, let’s practice making our endurance of pain consistent in every kind of situation. I’ve often said we must strengthen it through mental effort. Many people have bravely accepted and borne wounds because they wanted victory or glory, or even wanted to preserve their rights and freedom. But once they stop making that effort, they can’t bear the pain of illness. They didn’t bear the pain that came so easily to them through reason or wisdom, but through eagerness and a desire for glory. So some wild and savage peoples can fight fiercely with swords but can’t be manly when they’re sick. Greeks aren’t particularly spirited, but they’re sensible enough by human standards. They can’t face an enemy, yet they bear illness patiently and reasonably. The Cimbri and Celtiberians delight in battle but weep in sickness. Nothing can be consistent unless it starts from a settled principle.\n\nSECTION 66\n“But when you see people led by eagerness or belief pursuing and gaining their aim without being broken by pain, you should draw this conclusion. Either pain isn’t bad, or, even if we choose to call everything harsh and unwelcome to nature bad, it’s still so small that virtue overwhelms it and leaves no trace of it to be seen. Please think about these things day and night. This reasoning will spread further and cover considerably more ground than the single subject of pain. If everything we do aims at avoiding shameful conduct and gaining moral goodness, we’ll be able to disregard not just the stings of pain but even fortune’s thunderbolts. Especially since we have that refuge ready from yesterday’s discussion.\n\nSECTION 67\n“Suppose a man is sailing and pirates are chasing him. A god says to him, ‘Throw yourself out of the ship. There’s someone ready to catch you. A dolphin, as with Arion of Methymna, or those horses Neptune gave Pelops, which are said to have raced over the waves with a chariot held above them, will catch you and carry you wherever you want.’ He’d put all his fear aside. In the same way, when harsh and hateful pains press us, if they’re so great that they can’t be borne, you see where we can find refuge.\n\n“That’s more or less what I thought should be said on this occasion. But perhaps you still hold your opinion.”\n\n“Not at all. I hope that in two days I’ve been freed from fear of the two things I was most afraid of.”\n\n“Then tomorrow we’ll speak by the water clock. That’s what we agreed, and I see you can’t be let off that.”\n\n“Exactly. And that exercise before noon, this one at the same time as today.”\n\n“We’ll do that, and accommodate your excellent interests.”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 1\n\nSECTION 1\nBrutus, what explanation can I give for this? We consist of mind and body. People have developed an art for caring for and protecting the body, and its benefits have earned it recognition as an invention of the immortal gods. But before a treatment for the mind was discovered, people didn’t feel the same need for it. After it became known, they didn’t give it the same attention. Not as many people welcome or approve of it; more actually distrust and dislike it. Is that because we use our minds to judge bodily discomfort and pain, but don’t feel mental illness in our bodies? That leaves the mind judging itself just when the instrument it uses to judge is sick.\n\nSECTION 2\nIf nature had enabled us to see her for ourselves and understand her fully, she would have been the best possible guide through life. Nobody would then have needed reasoned teaching. But what we actually receive from her is a few little sparks. Corrupted very quickly by bad habits and beliefs, we extinguish them; not a trace of nature’s light is left. Virtue’s seeds are there in us from birth. Given the chance to develop, they would allow nature herself to bring us to happiness. Instead, from the time we come into the world and someone picks us up, we live amid every kind of wickedness and the most completely distorted opinions. Error seems almost to reach us through the milk we drink from our nurse. Then they return us to our parents and entrust us to teachers. We soak up error in so many forms that falsehood defeats truth, and entrenched beliefs defeat nature herself.\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 2\n\nSECTION 3\nPoets add their influence as well. With their impressive appearance of learning and wisdom, they gain listeners and readers; people learn them by heart, and their words sink far into the mind. Next comes the public, playing the part of the greatest teacher of all. The whole crowd everywhere agrees in encouraging faults. This thoroughly corrupts our beliefs and turns us away from nature. We decide that the people who best understood her power were those who put office, command, and fame with the public above everything else a person could want or possess. It’s the best among us who are drawn toward fame. They want the real moral goodness that nature pursues above all else. Yet their search leads them into complete emptiness: instead of a clearly formed image of virtue, they follow a mere outline of fame. True fame does have substance and a definite shape; it isn’t an outline. When good people agree in praising outstanding virtue, when sound judges speak without corruption, that is fame. Virtue calls it forth as a sound calls forth its echo. Good people needn’t turn it down, since it usually goes together with doing right.\n\nSECTION 4\nBut popular acclaim pretends to copy it. Rash and thoughtless, and usually busy praising wrongdoing and vice, it counterfeits moral goodness and ruins its beauty and appearance. Blinded by this, people have wanted things that were indeed splendid, without knowing where to find them or what they were like. Some have utterly destroyed their own states; others have brought about their own deaths. These people at least were aiming at the best things. Their mistake wasn’t so much in their intention as in taking the wrong route. But what about people driven by greed for money or a craving for pleasure? Their minds are so disturbed that they’re close to madness—as happens to everyone who lacks wisdom. Shouldn’t they get treatment? Do mental illnesses do less harm than physical ones? Or can bodies be cured, while there is no medicine for minds?\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 3\n\nSECTION 5\nIn fact, illnesses of the mind are both more numerous and more destructive than illnesses of the body. Physical illnesses themselves distress us because they affect and trouble the mind. As Ennius says, “A sick mind is always going astray. It can’t bear things or keep bearing them, and it never stops wanting.” To leave the others aside, what bodily illnesses could be worse than these two mental ones, distress and desire? And how can anyone prove that the mind can’t heal itself? It was the mind that invented medicine for the body. Besides, the body itself and nature contribute a great deal to physical recovery. Not everyone who agrees to treatment actually gets well. But minds that want to be healed and obey the advice of wise people recover without any doubt.\n\nSECTION 6\nPhilosophy really does offer treatment for the mind. For bodily sickness we seek outside help; here that isn’t necessary. Our task is to put every resource and all our strength into being able to heal ourselves. I think the Hortensius already says enough about philosophy in general, about the effort we should devote to pursuing and practicing it. Since then I’ve hardly paused in either writing or discussion about the greatest questions. In these books I’ve presented the conversations with my friends at Tusculum. Two earlier volumes covered death and pain; the conversation on the third day will furnish volume three.\n\nSECTION 7\nThe day was already well into the afternoon when we went down to our Academy. I asked someone there to propose a subject to argue about. Here’s how it went:\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 4\n\n“I think a wise person can experience distress.”\n\n“What about the other emotional disturbances too—fears, desires, fits of anger? Those are roughly the things the Greeks call pathē, ‘affections.’ I could call them ‘illnesses.’ That would translate the word directly, but it wouldn’t fit our normal usage. The Greeks call pity, envy, excitement, and delight all illnesses: movements of the mind that don’t obey reason. I think we’re right to call these same movements of an agitated mind ‘disturbances.’ Calling them ‘illnesses’ isn’t quite normal usage. Unless you think differently?”\n\n“No, I agree with the way you put it.”\n\nSECTION 8\n“So you think a wise person can experience these things?”\n\n“Absolutely.”\n\n“Then that much-advertised wisdom can’t be worth very much, if it isn’t much different from madness.”\n\n“What? Do you think every emotional upheaval is madness?”\n\n“I’m not the only one. It’s something I often find remarkable, but I understand that our ancestors thought the same, many centuries before Socrates, the originator of all this philosophy about life and conduct.”\n\n“How do you make that out?”\n\n“Because the word insania, ‘madness,’ means that the mind is ailing and sick. In other words, it’s a lack of health, a sick mind, that they called insania.\n\nSECTION 9\n“Philosophers call all emotional disturbances illnesses, and they say that no foolish person is free of them. People who are ill aren’t healthy. All unwise people’s minds are ill. So all unwise people are mad. Our ancestors thought that mental health consisted in a certain calmness and steadiness. When the mind lacked those things, they called it madness. A disturbed mind, like a disturbed body, couldn’t be healthy.”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 5\n\nSECTION 10\n“They were just as perceptive in naming a mental condition without the light of understanding amentia and also dementia—both words meaning a loss of mind. That tells us that the people who gave things these names thought the same as the Stoics, who carefully preserved what they’d learned from Socrates: everyone without wisdom is mentally unhealthy. A mind with an illness is no healthier than a body with an illness. As I just said, philosophers call these disturbed movements ‘illnesses.’ So wisdom is mental health, and lack of wisdom is a kind of poor mental health, which is madness, or loss of mind. The Latin words identify these things much better than the Greek ones.\n\nSECTION 11\n“There are plenty of other cases where we’ll find this too; we can leave them for later and deal with what’s before us. The very meaning of the word reveals the nature and character of our subject. To be mentally healthy must mean being free from any agitating movement like an illness; the opposite condition must therefore be called unhealthy. That makes our everyday Latin phrase ‘out of control’ especially good. We apply it to someone swept away by unbridled anger or desire. Indeed, anger comes under desire: we define it as wanting revenge. Such people are ‘out of control’ because understanding no longer controls them. Nature assigned it the rule of the entire mind. Where the Greek name mania comes from, I can’t readily tell you. Still, we draw a clearer distinction within this condition than the Greeks. The broad madness associated with foolishness is one thing for us; raving insanity is another. They try to distinguish them, but lack a satisfactory word. For our raving insanity they say melancholia, ‘black bile.’ As if minds were only thrown off balance by black bile! Severe anger, fear, and grief often do it too. It’s in this sense that we call Athamas, Alcmaeon, Ajax, and Orestes raving mad. Anyone affected like that is barred by the Twelve Tables from controlling his property. Their wording says ‘if he is raving mad,’ not ‘if he is mad.’ Though foolishness lacks steadiness, or health, the lawgivers thought it could maintain an ordinary level of duty and the familiar practices of shared life. Raving insanity, they held, blinds the mind in every respect. Although that seems the worse condition, it can happen to someone wise, while the madness we’ve been discussing cannot. That belongs to a different inquiry. Back to the question we started with.”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 6\n\nSECTION 12\n“I think you said you believed a wise person could experience distress.”\n\n“Yes, I do believe that.”\n\n“That’s a humane belief. After all, we weren’t born out of flint. There’s something naturally tender and soft in our minds, and distress can shake it like a storm. Crantor, one of the most distinguished members of our Academy, wasn’t talking nonsense when he said, ‘I certainly don’t agree with people who heap praise on this supposed freedom from pain. It’s neither possible nor desirable. I hope I don’t get sick. But if I do, let me feel it, whether something is being cut or torn away from my body. You can’t get that total absence of pain without paying a high price: inhumanity in the mind and numbness in the body.’\n\nSECTION 13\n“But let’s consider whether this way of talking just flatters our weakness and indulges our softness. Let’s be bold enough not just to cut off misery’s branches, but to pull out every fiber of its roots. Perhaps something will remain even then: foolishness is very deeply rooted. But only what’s unavoidable will remain. Be sure of this: unless the mind is healed—and that can’t happen without philosophy—there will be no end to misery. So now that we’ve begun, let’s hand ourselves over to philosophy for treatment. We’ll get well if we want to. In fact, I’ll go further. I’ll explain not just distress, though that will come first, but every mental ‘disturbance,’ as I’ve called it, or ‘illness,’ as the Greeks prefer. First, if you agree, let’s follow the Stoics’ practice of tightening arguments into brief proofs. Then we’ll range more freely, in our usual way.”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 7\n\nSECTION 14\n“A courageous person is also confident. I use fidens for ‘confident,’ because bad usage has made confidens mean something blameworthy, though it comes from ‘being confident,’ which deserves praise. Someone who is confident certainly doesn’t become frightened: confidence is incompatible with fear. But anyone capable of distress is also capable of fear. We fear the approach and arrival of the very things whose presence distresses us. It follows that distress conflicts with courage. So it’s reasonable that anyone capable of distress is also capable of fear, and of having their spirit broken and brought low. Anyone capable of those things is also capable of submitting, and of admitting defeat when it comes. Anyone who accepts these possibilities must also accept cowardice and a lack of spirit. But these aren’t possible for a courageous person. So distress isn’t possible either. And no one is wise without being courageous. So a wise person won’t experience distress.\n\nSECTION 15\n“Here’s another argument. Courage requires greatness of spirit; greatness of spirit requires being unconquerable. Being unconquerable in turn means treating human affairs as beneath you and looking down on them. You can’t look down on anything that has the power to distress you. A courageous man, therefore, never feels distress. Since wisdom always includes courage, the wise can’t experience distress. Think also of the eye: an upset eye isn’t in the right condition for its work. Any other part, or the body as a whole, fails to perform its task once its normal state is disrupted. An upset mind is similarly unfit for its task. What does a mind do? It makes good use of reason. The wise always have their minds in the state that allows the very best use of reason, so their minds are never upset. Distress, however, is an upset of the mind. It must always be absent from someone wise.”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 8\n\nSECTION 16\n“There’s another reasonable argument, about a self-controlled person. The Greeks call such a person sōphrōn, and the virtue sōphrosynē. I generally call it ‘self-control’ or ‘moderation,’ and sometimes ‘restraint.’ But perhaps the virtue could rightly be called frugalitas, ‘sound character.’ The Greek word has a narrower meaning: they call people with sound character chrēsimoi, meaning merely ‘useful.’ Our word is broader. It includes all abstinence and all harmlessness. The Greeks have no ordinary word for harmlessness, though they could use ablabeia, ‘not causing harm,’ since harmlessness is a state of mind that hurts no one. Sound character also includes the other virtues. If it weren’t so important, and were confined within the narrow limits most people assign to it, Lucius Piso’s surname Frugi would never have been so highly praised.\n\nSECTION 17\n“We don’t normally describe someone as having sound character if he abandoned his post out of fear, which is cowardice; or secretly failed to return a deposit out of greed, which is injustice; or mismanaged a job through rashness, which is foolishness. So sound character embraces the three virtues of courage, justice, and practical wisdom. Of course, that’s true of the virtues generally: they’re all linked and joined together. So let sound character itself be the remaining, fourth virtue. Its special job seems to be to control and calm the mind’s impulses to get things, and to maintain a balanced steadiness in everything, always resisting uncontrolled desire. The opposite fault is called nequitia, ‘worthlessness.’\n\nSECTION 18\n“I think frugalitas comes from frux, ‘produce,’ the best thing the earth brings forth. Nequitia comes from the idea that there’s nothing—nequicquam—in a person like that. That may be a bit forced, but let’s try it; if there’s nothing in it, take it as a joke. That’s also why he’s called nihili, ‘a nobody.’ So someone with sound character—or, if you prefer, someone moderate and self-controlled—must be steady. A steady person is calm. A calm person is free of all disturbance, and therefore of distress too. Those qualities belong to a wise person. So distress will be absent from a wise person.”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 9\n\n“Dionysius of Heraclea makes a sensible argument about Achilles’ complaints in Homer. They run something like this, I think:\n“‘My heart swells deep inside with bitter anger\n“‘When I remember being stripped of honor and all praise.’\n“Is a hand in good condition when it’s swollen? Is any other swollen, puffed-up part of the body free of trouble?\n\nSECTION 19\n“So a mind that’s puffed up and swollen is in a bad condition too. But a wise person’s mind is always free of defects. It never swells or puffs up. That’s just the condition of an angry mind. So a wise person never gets angry. If they get angry, they also feel desire. An angry person characteristically wants to inflict as much pain as possible on whoever they think injured them. Anyone who wants that must be very pleased if they achieve it. That means taking pleasure in someone else’s suffering. Since a wise person can’t do that, a wise person can’t get angry either. But if a wise person could experience distress, they could also experience anger. Since they’re free of anger, they’ll be free of distress as well.\n\nSECTION 20\n“If a wise person could fall into distress, they could also fall into pity and into envy. I didn’t say invidia, the word for being envied. We can properly form invidentia from invidere, ‘to envy,’ to avoid the ambiguity of invidia. The word comes from looking too intently at someone else’s good fortune, as in the Melanippus: ‘Who envied my children’s flowering?’ The Latin may seem wrong, but Accius puts it admirably. Just as we say ‘look at the flowering,’ it’s more correct to say ‘envy the flowering’ with a direct object than an indirect one. Ordinary usage prevents us from doing it;\n\nSECTION 21\n“the poet exercised his right and spoke more boldly.”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 10\n\n“So the same person is capable of both pity and envy. Anyone who feels pain at someone’s misfortunes also feels pain at someone’s successes. For example, Theophrastus mourns the death of his friend Callisthenes and is troubled by Alexander’s success. He says that Callisthenes encountered a man with the greatest power and good fortune, but no understanding of how to use success properly. Now pity is distress at someone else’s misfortunes, just as envy is distress at someone else’s good fortune. So anyone capable of pity is also capable of envy. But a wise person isn’t capable of envy, and therefore isn’t capable of pity either. If a wise person regularly felt distress, they would regularly feel pity too. So a wise person is free from distress.\n\nSECTION 22\n“That’s how the Stoics state their arguments and draw their conclusions, in a rather cramped form. But at some point we need to speak more broadly and fully. Still, we should rely chiefly on the views of those whose reasoning and outlook are the bravest and, so to speak, most manly. Our friends the Peripatetics are unsurpassed in richness of expression, learning, and seriousness. But I don’t really approve of their moderate amounts of emotional disturbance or mental illness. Every bad thing, even a moderate one, is bad. Our aim is that a wise person should have none of it at all. A body isn’t healthy even if it’s only moderately sick. In the same way, this moderation in the mind isn’t health. Our countrymen got it exactly right, as they did with so much else, when they named trouble, anxiety, and anguish aegritudo, ‘sickness,’ because of their likeness to sick bodies.\n\nSECTION 23\n“The Greeks use much the same word for every disturbance of the mind. Any confused mental movement they call pathos, meaning ‘illness.’ Our usage is better. Mental distress is very like a sick body. Uncontrolled desire isn’t like sickness, nor is excessive delight, that excited, jumping pleasure in the mind. Even fear isn’t very like an illness, though it’s closely related to distress. But distress, in the mind, has a name specifically connected with pain, just as sickness does in the body. So we need to explain the origin of this pain: the cause that produces distress in the mind, as a cause produces sickness in the body. Doctors believe that once they’ve found an illness’s cause, they’ve found its treatment. In the same way, once we find the cause of distress, we’ll find a way to treat it.”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 11\n\nSECTION 24\n“The whole cause, then, is in belief. That goes not just for distress, but for every other emotional disturbance too. There are four kinds, with more subdivisions. Every disturbance is a movement of the mind that either lacks reason, rejects reason, or disobeys reason. Such a movement is prompted by a belief about something good or bad, in two ways for each. That divides the four disturbances equally. Two come from a belief about something good. One is\n“excited pleasure,\n“meaning delight that rises beyond proper limits, based on the belief that some great good is present. The other is\n“desire,\n“which can also properly be called lust: an excessive reaching for some supposed great good, which doesn’t obey reason.\n\nSECTION 25\n“So these two kinds, excited pleasure and uncontrolled desire, are stirred up by beliefs about good things. The other two, fear and distress, are stirred up by beliefs about bad things. Fear is the belief that something very bad is approaching, while\n“distress\n“is the belief that something very bad is present. More precisely, it’s a fresh belief about a bad thing of such a kind that being upset about it seems right. That means the person in pain believes they ought to feel pain. Foolishness lets these disturbances loose in human life and spurs them on like Furies. We must resist them with every ounce of strength and every resource if we want to get through the life we’ve been given calmly and peacefully.\n\n“But the others can wait. Let’s drive out distress now, if we can. That’s our goal, since you said you thought a wise person could experience it. I don’t think so at all. It’s a dreadful, miserable, hateful thing. We must make every effort to escape it—by sail and oar, so to speak.”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 12\n\nSECTION 26\n“How would you describe this man?\n“‘Tantalus his ancestor, Pelops his father, who once from his father-in-law\n“‘King Oenomaus carried off Hippodamia as his bride—’\n“Jupiter is his great-grandfather, no less! Yet he’s broken, utterly beaten down?\n“‘Visitors, stay where you are,’ he says, ‘don’t approach me,\n“‘Lest contact with me, or my shadow, harm good people.’\n“‘The force of such a crime has stuck to my body.’\n“Thyestes, someone else committed that terrible crime. Are you going to sentence yourself for it and deprive yourself of daylight? And look at that son of the Sun: wouldn’t you say he’s unfit for his own father’s light?\n“‘The eyes have drawn back; the body has shrunk and wasted.\n“‘Streaming tears have worn his pale cheeks away.\n“‘On his filthy face the beard bristles with dirt;\n“‘Untrimmed, it darkens a chest made rough by grime.’\n“Aeetes, what a fool you are! You brought these troubles on yourself, over and above anything chance had brought. The disaster was already old, too, and your mind’s swelling had gone down. I’ll explain later that distress involves believing an evil is still fresh. Evidently it’s your kingship you miss and mourn, not your daughter. You hated her, perhaps justly; what you wouldn’t accept was doing without your throne. To waste away in mourning because you can no longer give orders to free people is shameless.\n\nSECTION 27\n“After the tyrant Dionysius was driven out of Syracuse, he taught boys at Corinth. That’s how incapable he was of doing without power. And what could be more shameless than Tarquin, waging war against people who wouldn’t put up with his arrogance? When neither the forces of Veii nor those of the Latins could put him back on the throne, he is said to have moved to Cumae, where old age and distress wore him out.”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 13\n\n“Is that really what you think can happen to the wise—being crushed by distress, or, in other words, misery? Misery goes with every disturbance of emotion; distress, though, is a torturer. Desire burns hot, overexcited delight is flighty, fear brings people low. With distress come worse things still: wasting away, anguish, self-torment, disfigurement. The mind is torn and eaten up until nothing remains. Freedom from misery is impossible unless we take distress off and cast it aside.\n\nSECTION 28\n“It’s clear that distress comes about when something appears to us in a way that makes a great evil seem present and pressing. Epicurus thinks a belief in something bad naturally produces distress. On his view, if anyone looks at some serious evil and thinks it has happened to them, they immediately feel distress. The Cyrenaics think distress isn’t caused by every evil, but by one that’s unexpected and unforeseen. That certainly adds a good deal to distress. Everything sudden seems harder to bear. That’s why these lines are rightly praised:\n“‘When I fathered them, I knew they’d die, and raised them for that prospect.\n“‘And when I sent them off to Troy to fight in Greece’s defense,\n“‘I knew I was sending them to a deadly war, not to a feast.’”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 14\n\nSECTION 29\n“Thinking ahead about future troubles softens the arrival of things you saw coming long before. That’s why people praise what Theseus says in Euripides. We can put it into Latin, as we often do:\n“‘Because I remembered hearing this from a learned man,\n“‘I used to think over future miseries to myself:\n“‘A painful death, or the sad flight of exile,\n“‘Or some other weight of trouble I would always consider,\n“‘So that, if chance brought some terrible event,\n“‘Sudden worry wouldn’t tear me apart unprepared.’\n\nSECTION 30\n“When Theseus says he heard it from a learned man, Euripides is talking about himself. He’d studied under Anaxagoras, who reportedly said when told his son was dead, ‘I knew I’d fathered a mortal.’ Those words show that these things hurt people who haven’t thought about them beforehand. So there’s no doubt that everything we think bad is harder when unforeseen. That isn’t the only thing that creates the greatest distress. Still, forethought and mental preparation do a lot to reduce pain. So a human being should always have thought through every human possibility. Surely this is what that outstanding, godlike wisdom means: to have thoroughly grasped and examined human affairs, to be surprised at nothing when it happens, and never, before something happens, to think it can’t happen.\n“‘So everyone, just when things are going especially well, should be especially careful\n“‘To think through how they’ll handle painful hardship.\n“‘Coming home from abroad, a man should always consider dangers and losses,\n“‘A son’s wrongdoing, or his wife’s death, or a daughter’s illness:\n“‘These things happen to everyone, so none of them should ever strike the mind as new.\n“‘Anything that turns out better than expected he should count as profit.’”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 15\n\n“Terence took that from philosophy and expressed it so well. Shouldn’t we, whose springs supplied the water he drew, say it better and believe it more consistently?\n\nSECTION 31\n“That’s the explanation for the unchanging expression Xanthippe reportedly used to praise in her husband Socrates. She said he always looked the same when she saw him leave the house and come back. It wasn’t the expression of that old Marcus Crassus, who, Lucilius says, laughed just once in his entire life. Socrates’ face was calm and clear, as tradition tells us. Naturally it always looked the same, since there was no change in the mind that shaped it. So I accept these weapons from the Cyrenaics against chance and accident: long preparation in thought can break the force of events as they arrive. At the same time, I judge that the badness lies in belief, not in nature. If it were in the thing itself, why would foreseen troubles be easier to bear?\n\nSECTION 32\n“But we can make a more precise argument about these same matters once we’ve looked at Epicurus’ view. He thinks everyone who believes they’re in trouble must feel distress, whether the trouble was foreseen and expected or has been around a long time. Troubles, he says, don’t diminish with time, and anticipating them doesn’t make them easier. In fact, thinking ahead about future troubles is foolish: perhaps they won’t even happen. Every trouble is unpleasant enough once it arrives. Someone who constantly thinks that something bad may happen turns it into a permanent trouble. If it isn’t even going to happen, they take on misery voluntarily and pointlessly. So they are always upset, either by experiencing something bad or by thinking about it.\n\nSECTION 33\n“He makes relief from distress depend on two things: turning attention away from thinking about trouble, and turning it back to considering pleasures. He thinks the mind can obey reason and follow wherever it leads. So reason forbids us to look at troubles, pulls us away from painful thoughts, and dulls our focus on miseries. Once it has sounded the retreat from these, it urges and encourages us again to look at different pleasures and engage with them wholeheartedly. He thinks these fill a wise person’s life, both through the memory of past pleasures and the expectation of future ones. I’ve expressed that in our own manner; the Epicureans express it in theirs. But let’s consider what they say, and not worry about how they say it.”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 16\n\nSECTION 34\n“To start with, they’re wrong to criticize thinking ahead about future events. Nothing does so much to blunt and ease distress as a lifelong habit of thinking that anything can happen: considering the human condition, the terms of life, and how to accept them. This doesn’t make us grieve all the time. It keeps us from grieving at all. Someone thinking about the nature of things, life’s changes, and human weakness isn’t grieving while doing so. On the contrary, they’re performing wisdom’s task particularly well. They achieve both things at once. By considering human affairs, they get the benefit of philosophy’s proper work. And when misfortune comes, they’re healed by a three-part consolation. First, nothing has happened to them that they haven’t long considered possible. That single thought does more than anything else to reduce and dissolve every trouble. Second, they understand that human troubles must be borne in a human way. Finally, they see that nothing is bad except wrongdoing, and there’s no wrongdoing when something happens that a human being couldn’t have prevented.\n\nSECTION 35\n“That redirection he offers, turning our attention away from looking at troubles, is worthless. When things we think bad are stabbing at us, we can’t simply ignore or forget them at will. They tear at us, torment us, drive in their goads, burn us, and won’t let us breathe. And you tell us to forget! That’s against nature. Would you wrest away the help nature provides when pain has lasted a long time? Time and the passing days bring a treatment that’s slow, certainly, but powerful all the same. You tell me to think about good things and forget the bad. You’d be saying something significant, something worthy of a great philosopher, if you meant by good things those most worthy of a human being.”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 17\n\n“Suppose Pythagoras or Socrates or Plato said this to me:\n\nSECTION 36\n“‘What keeps you lying there in grief? Why are you letting fortune beat you, why yield to it? It may have pinched or pricked you; it certainly hasn’t been able to destroy your strength. The virtues have enormous power: rouse them if they’re sleeping. First to arrive will be courage. It will give you the greatness of spirit to dismiss as nothing any event a human being might encounter. Self-control will join it—moderation, the quality I earlier called sound character. Under its protection you won’t act shamefully or worthlessly. Could anything be more worthless or shameful than a man becoming unmanly? Justice, too, will stop such conduct, even though it appears to have very little scope here. Its charge will be that you’re unjust on two counts. You covet what belongs to someone else by asking, despite your mortal birth, for the life of the immortals. And you bitterly resent returning something lent to you to use.’\n\nSECTION 37\n“‘Then there’s practical wisdom. How will you answer its lesson that virtue provides everything needed for happiness, just as it does for living rightly? Suppose virtue were tethered to outside things, dependent on them. Suppose it didn’t begin with itself and come back to itself, keeping all its possessions together and wanting nothing from elsewhere. I wouldn’t see why we should either praise it so emphatically or put so much effort into obtaining it.’ Direct me to good things like these, Epicurus, and I’ll do as you say. I’ll follow you, with you yourself to lead me. I’ll even put the bad things out of mind at your command. That’s easier still because I don’t count them as bad in the first place. Instead, you send my thoughts toward pleasures. What pleasures? Presumably those of the body, or memories and expectations whose object is the body. Are there any others? Have I got your view right? Your people are always saying we don’t grasp Epicurus’ meaning.\n\nSECTION 38\n“This is what he says. I heard that sharp old man Zeno, the most acute of his followers, insist on it in Athens, repeatedly and at the top of his voice. A happy person, he said, enjoys present pleasures and trusts that they’ll continue for all or most of life without pain interrupting. If pain does interrupt, it’ll be brief if it’s extreme; if it lasts longer, it’ll have more pleasantness than badness. Someone who thinks that will be happy, especially if they’re also satisfied with the good things they’ve already enjoyed and aren’t frightened of either death or the gods. There’s Epicurus’ picture of a happy life, set out in Zeno’s words, so there’s no room for denial.”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 18\n\n“Well, then?\n\nSECTION 39\n“Could we ease Thyestes’ pain by holding out that sort of life for him to think about? Or Aeetes’ pain—the man I spoke of just now? Or Telamon’s, driven out of his homeland, poor and in exile? He prompted this astonishment:\n“‘Is this Telamon, so lately lifted by fame to heaven,\n“‘The man all watched, the face toward which the Greeks turned theirs?’\n\nSECTION 40\n“The same poet speaks of someone whose ‘mind fell when his fortunes fell.’ For a patient like that, we need a remedy from the weighty philosophers of earlier times, not this pleasure-loving school. What abundance of good things does that school offer? We can allow for now that freedom from pain ranks as the highest good. It isn’t what we call pleasure, but we don’t have to settle every point here. Does turning toward that ease mourning? Allow, too, that pain ranks as the worst evil. If a person isn’t in pain and thus lacks that evil, does enjoyment of the greatest good follow on the spot?\n\nSECTION 41\n“Why dodge the issue, Epicurus? Why don’t we admit we’re talking about the pleasure you yourself talk about once you’ve rubbed the shame off your face? Are these your words or not? In the book that contains your whole system, you say the following. I’ll act as translator now, so no one thinks I’m making it up: ‘For my part, I can’t understand that good if I remove the pleasures perceived through taste; if I remove those perceived through sex; if I remove those perceived through hearing songs; if I also remove those pleasant movements perceived by the eyes from beautiful shapes, or any other pleasures produced in the whole person through any of the senses. Nor can it be said that only the mind’s delight counts as a good. Here’s how I understand a delighted mind: it expects that nature will gain possession of everything I’ve mentioned above and so be free of pain.’\n\nSECTION 42\n“Those are his very words, so anyone can understand what Epicurus means by pleasure. A little later he says, ‘I’ve often asked those who were called wise what they’d have left among good things if they took those pleasures away—unless they wanted to pour out empty words. I’ve learned nothing from them. If they want to gush about virtues and wisdoms, they’ll be describing nothing but the way to produce the pleasures I’ve mentioned above.’ What follows makes the same point. The whole book, which concerns the greatest good, is packed with statements and views like these.\n\nSECTION 43\n“So is that the life you’ll call Telamon back to, to ease his distress? If you see one of your followers crushed by grief, will you give him a sturgeon rather than a little book by a follower of Socrates? Will you encourage him to listen to a water organ rather than to Plato’s words? Will you put bright, colorful things on display for him to look at? Hold a bouquet to his nose? Burn perfumes, and tell him to put on garlands and roses? And if there’s something more too—then you’ll have wiped away all his grief completely.”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 19\n\nSECTION 44\n“Epicurus must admit this, or remove from his book the passages I’ve just translated word for word. Better still, he must throw out the whole book: it’s crammed with pleasures. So we have to ask how to free someone from distress who speaks like this:\n“‘By Pollux, it’s fortune that fails me now, more than my ancestry.\n“‘I had a kingdom, I tell you, so you may know from what a height,\n“‘From what wealth, from what possessions my fallen fortune has crashed.’\n“Well? Should we force a cup of honeyed wine on him to make him stop crying, or something of that sort? Here’s another case, from the same poet: ‘From the greatest wealth to needing your help, Hector.’ We must come to her aid. She’s asking for help:\n“‘What protection should I seek or pursue? What\n“‘Help can I now rely on in exile or flight?\n“‘I’ve lost my fortress and city. Where can I fall? Where can I turn?\n“‘At home my country’s altars don’t stand; they lie broken and scattered.\n“‘The shrines have burned down; high walls stand scorched,\n“‘Disfigured, with fir wood curled—’\n“You know what follows, especially these lines:\n“‘My father, my country, Priam’s home,\n“‘The temple enclosed by a loudly ringing hinge!\n“‘I saw you with foreign forces standing in support,\n“‘With carved and paneled ceilings,\n“‘Royally furnished with gold and ivory.’\n\nSECTION 45\n“A wonderful poet! Never mind the contempt of these people who sing Euphorion’s praises. He knows how much worse a blow feels when it strikes suddenly, without warning. That’s why he first magnifies the riches of the royal house, apparently there to last forever. Then what comes next?\n“‘I watched the whole place burning,\n“‘Priam’s life torn from him by force,\n“‘The altar of Jupiter fouled with blood.’\n\nSECTION 46\n“What a splendid poem! Its events, words, and rhythms are all mournful. Let’s take away her distress. How? Should we put her on a feather cushion, bring in a woman to play the harp, give her perfume, burn a little dish of incense, and look for some sweet drink and food? Are these really the good things that can remove the heaviest distress? Just a little while ago you said you couldn’t even understand any others. So I’d agree with Epicurus that people should be brought back from grief to thinking about good things—if we agreed on what ‘good’ meant.”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 20\n\n“Here someone may object: ‘Do you really think that’s what Epicurus intended? Were his principles really so lustful?’ Certainly not, as far as I’m concerned. Much of what he says is strict, much admirable. I keep saying that it’s his sharpness of thought under examination, not his behavior. He may scorn the very pleasures he was praising all he wants; I won’t forget what he identifies as the greatest good. He didn’t merely label it ‘pleasure.’ He spelled it out: ‘flavor, bodily embraces, games, singing, and shapes that please the eyes.’ Have I made something up? Told a lie? Please prove me wrong. What else am I trying to do in any inquiry but make the truth clear?\n\nSECTION 47\n“‘But he also says pleasure doesn’t increase once pain has been removed, and the greatest pleasure is not feeling any pain.’ Three big mistakes in a few words. First, he contradicts himself. A moment ago he couldn’t even imagine anything good unless the senses were, so to speak, tickled with pleasure. Now the greatest pleasure is being free of pain. Could he contradict himself more? His second mistake is this: there are three natural states—feeling pleasure, feeling pain, and feeling neither pleasure nor pain. He thinks the first and third are the same, and doesn’t distinguish pleasure from not feeling pain. His third mistake is one he shares with some others. Virtue is what we seek above all, and philosophy was developed to acquire it. Yet he has separated the greatest good from virtue.\n\nSECTION 48\n“‘He does often praise virtue, though.’ So did Gaius Gracchus defend the treasury in words, after enormous giveaways had drained it. With the deeds before me, why pay attention to speeches? Consider Lucius Piso Frugi. He’d opposed the grain law whenever he spoke of it. Once it became law, this former consul turned up for his allocation of grain. At a public meeting Gracchus spotted him standing there and challenged him before the Roman people: how was applying for grain consistent with having argued against the law? Piso replied, ‘Gracchus, I’d prefer you not to take it into your head to hand my property out person by person. If you do, however, I shall ask for my portion.’ Surely that sensible, thoughtful man made his point plainly: the Sempronian law was scattering the people’s inheritance. Yet read Gracchus’ speeches and you’d call him a defender of the treasury.\n\nSECTION 49\n“Epicurus says you can’t live pleasantly without living virtuously. He says fortune has no power over a wise person. He prefers a simple diet to a lavish one, and says there’s no time when a wise person isn’t happy. All these claims suit a philosopher, but they clash with pleasure. ‘That isn’t the pleasure he means.’ Let him mean any pleasure he likes. Whatever he means, it contains no part of virtue. Come on: if we don’t understand pleasure, don’t we even understand pain? So I say that someone who measures the greatest evil by pain has no business mentioning virtue.”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 21\n\nSECTION 50\n“Some Epicureans complain that I’m making a point of attacking Epicurus. They’re excellent people—no group is less malicious. Of course: we’re fighting over office or status, aren’t we? I think the greatest good is in the mind; he puts it in the body. I put it in virtue; he puts it in pleasure. They fight and even call on their neighbors to help—and plenty of them rush over immediately. I’m the one who says I don’t mind, and will accept whatever they decide.\n\nSECTION 51\n“What is this, a debate about the Punic War? Even when Marcus Cato and Lucius Lentulus disagreed on that subject, they never fought each other over it. These people are much too angry, especially since the view they’re defending isn’t particularly brave. They wouldn’t dare argue for it in the senate, in a public meeting, before an army, or in front of the censors. But we’ll deal with them another time. I’ll do it without starting any fight, and I’ll readily give way to them if they’re telling the truth. I’ll only offer this warning. Suppose it’s completely true that a wise person judges everything by the body—or, to put it more respectably, does nothing unless it pays, or judges everything by personal advantage. Since these ideas aren’t popular, they should enjoy them privately and stop boasting.”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 22\n\n“That leaves the Cyrenaics’ view.\n\nSECTION 52\n“They think distress arises when something happens unexpectedly. As I said earlier, that is an important factor. I know Chrysippus also thinks that what hasn’t been foreseen hits harder. But that isn’t the whole story. An enemy’s sudden arrival does cause rather more confusion than an expected one. A sudden storm at sea frightens sailors more than one they saw coming. Most similar cases are like that. But examine unexpected events carefully, and you’ll find nothing except that everything sudden looks bigger. There are two reasons for that. First, there’s no time to consider how serious the things happening really are. Second, when it seems they could have been guarded against if foreseen, the impression that our own fault brought the trouble on makes distress sharper.\n\nSECTION 53\n“Time gives us the proof. As it passes, it calms distress despite the troubles themselves remaining unchanged. Usually distress doesn’t just lessen; it vanishes. Many Carthaginians lived as slaves in Rome, and Macedonians did too after their king Perseus was captured. In my youth I saw Corinthians in the Peloponnese as well. Every one of them could have taken up Andromache’s lament, ‘I watched the whole place […].’ Perhaps they’d sung it long enough already. Judging by their expressions, their talk, all their gestures and their posture, you’d have called them Argives or Sicyonians. My unexpected sight of Corinth’s ruined walls stirred me more than it stirred the Corinthians. Years of reflection had put a callus over their minds.\n\nSECTION 54\n“I’ve read the work of comfort Clitomachus sent to his captured fellow citizens after the destruction of Carthage. In it he records a discussion of Carneades, saying he entered it in his notes. The claim put forward was that the capture of his homeland would distress a wise man; the book gives Carneades’ reply against it. A philosopher thus supplies a fresh calamity with treatment so strong that an old calamity wouldn’t need it at all. Had the same book reached the captives several years later, it would be attending to scars rather than open wounds. Pain loses its force as it advances slowly, step by step. Not that the facts tend to alter, or even can alter. Rather, experience delivers reason’s missing lesson: what once appeared enormous isn’t so great.”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 23\n\n“‘Then why,’ someone will ask, ‘do we need reasoning at all, or the sort of consolation we normally use when we want to ease someone’s grief?\n\nSECTION 55\n“‘At those times, what we usually have ready is the thought that nothing should seem unexpected. Or how will someone bear a setback more easily after learning that something like it must happen to human beings? That argument takes nothing away from the actual size of the trouble. It only adds that nothing has happened that shouldn’t have been expected.’ Yet that kind of talk does help when we’re consoling someone. In fact, I suspect it helps most of all. So unexpected events don’t have such power that all distress comes from them. Perhaps they strike harder, but they don’t make what happens look bigger. Things look bigger because they’re fresh, not because they’re sudden.\n\nSECTION 56\n“There are two ways, then, of finding the truth, not just about things that seem bad, but also about things that seem good. Either we ask about the thing itself—what its nature is and how much it matters—as we sometimes do with poverty, lightening its burden through argument by showing how small and few nature’s needs are; or we turn from precise argument to examples. Here we mention Socrates, here Diogenes, here that line from Caecilius: ‘Wisdom is often found even under a dirty little cloak.’ Poverty has the same force in every case. So what reason can we give for its being bearable to Gaius Fabricius, when others say they can’t bear it?\n\nSECTION 57\n“The second approach is like the method of consolation that teaches that what’s happened is part of being human. That discussion doesn’t just give us knowledge about the human race. It shows that things are bearable if other people have borne them and still bear them.”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 24\n\n“Take a discussion of poverty: it recalls plenty of poor people who endure it. Or take a discussion of disregarding public office: it produces many people who never held office and were happier precisely because of that. People who chose the quiet of private life over public business have their lives praised individually, by name. We also hear those anapestic verses from a king of immense power. He congratulates the old man, calling him lucky to be destined to end his days without glory, unknown to the world.\n\nSECTION 58\n“Bereavement is treated similarly, with examples of parents who lost children. Those who struggle more with their loss find their mourning eased by other people’s cases. Seeing what others endure makes their own experience appear much smaller than they imagined. Little by little, reflection exposes the falsehood in that estimate. Telamon’s words show it too: ‘When I fathered them […].’ So do Theseus’ ‘I used to think over future miseries to myself,’ and Anaxagoras’ ‘I knew I’d fathered a mortal.’ Long thought about human affairs had taught them all that these things weren’t nearly as frightening as common opinion made them. To my mind, preparing in advance does much the same for someone as the passing days do for others. Reason cures one group; nature on its own cures the other. Both discover the essential fact: what they had imagined a tremendous evil falls far short of being able to overturn happiness.\n\nSECTION 59\n“So it follows that being unprepared makes the blow harder. It doesn’t follow, as the Cyrenaics think, that when two people suffer similar misfortunes, only the one who didn’t expect it feels distress.\n\n“That’s why some people are said to have grieved even more deeply after hearing about this shared human condition: we’re born on the terms that no one can remain free of trouble forever.”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 25\n\n“I find in our friend Antiochus’ writings that this was why Carneades repeatedly challenged Chrysippus over his praise of Euripides’ verses:\n“‘No one born to die escapes the touch of pain\n“‘Or sickness. Many must bury their children\n“‘And have others in turn; death awaits everyone.\n“‘These things cause the human race needless distress.\n“‘Earth has to return to earth, and everyone’s life\n“‘Must be reaped like grain. Necessity orders it.’\n\nSECTION 60\n“He denied that this kind of talk did anything at all to ease distress. The very fact that we’d fallen under such a cruel necessity was something to grieve over, he said. As for that argument that recalled other people’s troubles, it was suited to consoling the malicious. I think quite the opposite. The necessity of accepting the human condition stops us from fighting, so to speak, against a god, and reminds us that we’re human. That thought does a great deal to ease grief. And we don’t list examples to please a malicious mind. We do it so that someone grieving will think they should bear what they see many people have borne with moderation and calm.\n\nSECTION 61\n“People collapsing under the weight of distress, unable to hold themselves together, need support in every possible way. That’s why Chrysippus thinks distress got its Greek name, lypē, from a ‘loosening’ of the whole person. We can pull it out entirely by explaining its cause, as I said at the beginning. That cause is nothing but a belief and judgment that some great evil is present and pressing. So even physical pain, with its extremely sharp bite, will be endured if there’s the prospect of something good. And a life lived honorably and admirably provides so much comfort that distress either doesn’t touch those who’ve lived that way or gives their minds only a very slight painful prick.”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 26\n\n“But when the belief in a great evil is joined by another belief—that one ought to be distressed by what’s happened, that it’s right and part of one’s duty—then that heavy disturbance of distress really takes hold.\n\nSECTION 62\n“From this belief come those different, hateful forms of mourning: filth, women tearing their cheeks, beating the chest, thighs, and head. From it comes Agamemnon in Homer, and the same Agamemnon in Accius, ‘again and again tearing his uncut hair in pain.’ Bion made a witty remark about him: that utterly foolish king pulled out his hair in grief as if baldness could ease mourning.\n\nSECTION 63\n“They behave like this because they believe it’s required of them. The same belief lies behind Aeschines’ assault on Demosthenes for offering animal sacrifices seven days after losing his daughter. What a display of rhetoric, what fullness of language! Look at the thoughts he collects, the verbal weapons he throws! It shows you there’s nothing an orator may not do. Nobody would endorse his argument without an ingrained conviction that good people should mourn their relatives’ deaths as intensely as they can. So some people suffering inwardly look for lonely places. Here’s Homer on Bellerophon:\n“‘Unhappy, grieving, he roamed across the Aleian fields,\n“‘Devouring his own heart and shunning human tracks.’\n“Niobe, too, is represented in stone—because, I imagine, of the everlasting silence of her mourning. Hecuba’s imagined change into a dog is explained by a certain harsh bitterness and rage in her mind. Others in mourning often like to address their very solitude, as Ennius’ nurse does:\n“‘In my misery I now feel the longing to tell\n“‘Heaven and earth of the miseries of Medea.’”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 27\n\nSECTION 64\n“People in pain do all this thinking it’s right, proper, and required. There’s a particularly clear sign that they act on a judgment of supposed duty. If people who want to be in mourning happen to do something more natural or speak a little more cheerfully, they pull themselves back into sadness and accuse themselves of wrongdoing because they stopped grieving. Mothers and teachers even punish children, not just with words but with blows, if they’ve said or done anything too cheerful while the household is in mourning. They force them to cry. And what about when grief itself eases and people realize that mourning achieves nothing? Doesn’t that show the whole thing was voluntary?\n\nSECTION 65\n“Consider the man in Terence’s Self-Tormentor, or Heauton Timoroumenos:\n“‘Here’s my decision: I’m doing less wrong to my son,\n“‘Chremes, while I make myself miserable.’\n“His misery is a decision. Can a decision be against the decider’s will? ‘I’d count myself fit for any suffering—’ Unless he’s miserable, he thinks he deserves suffering. So the evil belongs to his belief, you see, not to nature. Then there are situations that leave no room for mourning. Homer describes daily killing and great numbers of deaths bringing grief to a halt:\n“‘Too many fall before our eyes, and on every day,\n“‘For any of us to be able to go without mourning.\n“‘All the more reason to bury those killed\n“‘Steadfastly, and finish mourning with the tears of a day.’\n\nSECTION 66\n“Then we can dismiss pain when we want, by responding to circumstances. If it’s under our control, why ever fail to respond to a situation that calls for us to lay anxiety and distress aside? We know what happened to the witnesses of Gnaeus Pompey’s collapse under his wounds. Even before that most horrible and wretched sight they were frightened for their own lives: an enemy fleet surrounded them. At that moment they did nothing except spur the rowers on and seek safety in escape. Their beating of themselves and lamenting began only on arrival in Tyre. If fear was able to keep distress out in their case, can’t reason do it in someone wise?”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 28\n\n“What could do more to help us put down pain than understanding that it achieves nothing and has been taken on pointlessly? If we can put it down, we can also avoid taking it on. So we must admit that distress is taken on by choice and judgment.\n\nSECTION 67\n“Look at the endurance of those who’ve been through repeated suffering: that confirms it. Whatever comes, they stand up to it more readily, feeling that they’re already toughened against fortune. A character in Euripides says:\n“‘Had sorrow’s day dawned on me for the first time now,\n“‘Had I not sailed a sea so full of hardship,\n“‘There would be cause for grief: a colt with a bridle\n“‘Newly put on tosses at the strange, sudden touch.\n“‘But suffering has already worked me over till I’m numb.’\n“Weariness of suffering thus eases distress. We have to recognize, therefore, that grief doesn’t take its origin or cause from the event itself.\n\nSECTION 68\n“Don’t the greatest philosophers, who still haven’t attained wisdom, understand that they’re in the worst possible trouble? They lack wisdom, and nothing is worse than that. Yet they don’t mourn. Why? Because we don’t tack onto this kind of trouble the belief that it’s right, proper, and a matter of duty to feel distress at not being wise. We do tack that belief onto distress involving mourning, the greatest distress of all.\n\nSECTION 69\n“Aristotle criticizes the early philosophers for supposing their own abilities had finished philosophy: in his view, they were either exceptionally foolish or exceptionally boastful. So much had been added in just a few years, he says, that he could see philosophy becoming quite complete soon. The dying Theophrastus reportedly complained about nature instead. Deer and crows had received a lengthy lifespan, though it mattered nothing to them; people, to whom it mattered enormously, had received so little time. Given a longer lifetime, every art would have been perfected and people’s lives enriched by every branch of learning. His complaint was that he was going out just as he was beginning to see those things. And surely the best, most thoughtful of the other philosophers admit their ignorance of a great deal, and acknowledge the many lessons still to be learned, again and again?\n\nSECTION 70\n“They know they remain caught in foolishness, with nothing worse than that. Even so, they aren’t burdened by distress: they don’t attach the belief that pain is something they owe as a duty. Consider also those who say a man shouldn’t mourn. Quintus Maximus showed that spirit at the funeral of his son, a former consul. So did Lucius Paulus, losing two sons in the space of a few days, and Marcus Cato, whose son died after being chosen praetor. There are the other examples gathered in my Consolation too.\n\nSECTION 71\n“What calmed them except their belief that grief and mourning weren’t a man’s part? Others usually give themselves up to distress because they think it’s right. These men drove distress away because they thought it shameful. That shows distress lies not in nature but in belief.”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 29\n\n“People argue against this: ‘Who’s so crazy as to grieve willingly? Nature brings pain.’ They say even our Crantor thinks we must yield to it, because it presses and bears down on us and can’t be resisted. In Sophocles, Oileus had earlier consoled Telamon about Ajax’s death. But when he heard about his own son’s death, he broke down. His changed state of mind is described like this:\n“‘No one is so endowed with wisdom\n“‘That, after easing others’ misery with words,\n“‘He won’t, when fortune changes and turns its attack\n“‘Against him, be broken by his own sudden disaster,\n“‘Forgetting the words and advice he gave to others.’\n“When they argue like this, they aim to establish that nature can’t be resisted at all. Yet they admit that people take on heavier distress than nature compels them to. So what sort of madness is this—? Let’s put the same question back to them.\n\nSECTION 72\n“Pain is taken on for several reasons. The first is believing something evil has happened. Once someone sees it that way and accepts that judgment, distress necessarily follows. Another is the idea that deep mourning is a kindness to the dead. Add a sort of womanish superstition: after the immortal gods strike their blow, people imagine they’ll satisfy them more readily by acknowledging themselves beaten down and prostrate. Few notice the clash between these convictions. They admire someone who meets their own death calmly, but censure the same calmness about someone else’s death. As if the lovers’ talk could ever come true, and anyone could love someone else more than they love themselves!\n\nSECTION 73\n“Loving those who ought to be closest to us on equal terms with ourselves is admirable—and right and true, too, if you ask me. Exceeding that love of ourselves, however, is simply impossible. Friends shouldn’t even want such an arrangement: that you should love me above yourself, and I should love you above myself. That would throw both life and all its duties into confusion.”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 30\n\n“But that’s for another time. For now, it’s enough that we shouldn’t blame the loss of friends for our misery. We shouldn’t love them more than they themselves would want, if they could feel anything, and certainly not more than we love ourselves. People say that many get no relief from consolation. They add that the consolers themselves admit they’re miserable when fortune turns its attack on them. Both objections can be answered. These aren’t defects in nature; they’re faults. You can accuse foolishness as fully as you like. People who get no relief are themselves inviting misery. And people who handle their own troubles differently from the way they’ve advised others to do are no more at fault than most people: the greedy criticize the greedy, and the ambitious criticize others’ ambition. It’s characteristic of foolishness to see other people’s faults and forget one’s own.\n\nSECTION 74\n“Above all, we need to press this point. We agree that distress disappears over time. The effective power, though, belongs to thinking over a long period, not to the days themselves. Keep the same sufferer and the same situation: what could alter the pain? Nothing about either its object or its subject has altered. What heals, then, is extended reflection that the situation contains no evil. Mere duration does not.”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 31\n\n“At this point they propose moderate amounts. Do these arise by nature? Then comfort is unnecessary: nature will keep them within bounds unaided. Do they arise from opinion instead? Then get rid of the opinion altogether.\n\n“I think we’ve said enough to establish that distress is a belief that something bad is present, with the further belief included that one ought to take on distress.\n\nSECTION 75\n“Zeno’s addition to the definition is right: the belief about a present evil has to be fresh. Here’s what they understand by that. They don’t restrict ‘fresh’ to an event of a short while ago. They use it for as long as the supposed evil retains an active force, staying vigorous and, as it were, green. Artemisia illustrates it. She was the wife of Mausolus, Caria’s king, and built his celebrated tomb in Halicarnassus. Throughout her remaining life she kept mourning; it wore her out and wasted her away. Each day renewed her belief. Only after time has dried the belief up does it cease to be called fresh.\n\n“So these are the tasks of people offering consolation: to remove distress completely, calm it, reduce it as much as possible, hold it back and not let it spread further, or redirect it to something else.\n\nSECTION 76\n“For some, the consoler has a single job: demonstrate that there’s no evil in the event. Cleanthes takes that position. The Peripatetics want to show instead that the evil isn’t great. Epicurus turns us from evils toward good things. The Cyrenaics are among those who think showing that nothing happened unexpectedly is sufficient […] nothing evil. Chrysippus puts the emphasis elsewhere: take away the belief that mourning fulfills a rightful, obligatory duty. Still others gather every method together, because people respond differently. That’s largely what I did in the Consolation, bringing everything into one attempt to comfort. My mind was swollen; every possible cure was tried on it. But illnesses of mind need properly timed treatment just as bodily ones do. In Aeschylus, Prometheus hears:\n“‘Prometheus, I’m sure you know that this is so:\n“‘Reason can supply a cure for anger.’\n“His reply is:\n“‘Yes, provided treatment comes at the proper time\n“‘And no heavy hand strikes the wound and makes it worse.’”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 32\n\nSECTION 77\n“So the first treatment in consolation will be to teach that there is either nothing bad or very little. The second is to discuss both life’s general conditions and anything in the mourner’s own situation that needs discussion. The third is to show that it’s utterly foolish to wear yourself out with pointless grief when you understand it can achieve nothing. Cleanthes, in fact, consoles a wise person, who doesn’t need consolation. If you persuade someone mourning that nothing is bad unless it’s morally wrong, you won’t have removed their grief but their foolishness. And this isn’t the right time for teaching. Besides, I don’t think Cleanthes saw clearly enough that distress can sometimes be taken on because of the very thing he himself admits is the greatest evil. What are we to say about this? Socrates persuaded Alcibiades, as we’re told, that he amounted to nothing as a human being, and that there was no difference between Alcibiades, with his very high birth, and any porter at all. Alcibiades tormented himself, weeping and begging Socrates to give him virtue and drive out his moral failings. What are we to say then, Cleanthes? That there was nothing bad in the thing distressing Alcibiades?\n\nSECTION 78\n“Now look at Lyco’s way of talking. In playing distress down, he says minor things arouse it—bodily setbacks and reversals of fortune, rather than evils in the mind. But wasn’t Alcibiades grieving over precisely his mind’s faults and evils? We’ve discussed Epicurus’ way of consoling quite enough already.”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 33\n\nSECTION 79\n“A common, often helpful consolation is ‘Others have suffered this as well.’ It isn’t completely reliable either. Useful, yes, as I said—but some reject it; it doesn’t help everyone at every time. The way we offer it matters. Don’t stress the particular trouble each person suffered. Stress the way people of good judgment endured it. For truth, Chrysippus’ comfort has the strongest foundation; for someone in the middle of grief, it’s hard to apply. Persuading a mourner that their own judgment and sense of obligation are responsible for their grief is a formidable undertaking. Think of a lawsuit. We don’t always employ the same ‘issue,’ our term for kinds of disputed question. We adjust to the occasion, the sort of dispute, and the individual. Easing distress calls for the same approach: find out which remedy this particular person can take.\n\nSECTION 80\n“But somehow our discussion has wandered away from your proposal. You asked about a wise person. Such a person can see nothing as bad if it involves no moral wrong, or sees it as so slightly bad that wisdom buries it and it’s barely visible. They don’t invent or add anything to distress through belief, or think it’s right to torment themselves as much as possible and be worn out by grief. Nothing could be more misguided than that. Still, our argument seems to me to have taught us something. We weren’t specifically asking just now whether anything could be bad unless it could also be called morally wrong. Even so, we saw that whatever badness there is in distress isn’t natural: it’s brought on by a voluntary judgment and a mistaken belief.\n\nSECTION 81\n“We’ve dealt with that form of distress which is the greatest of all. Once that’s removed, we thought we wouldn’t have to search very hard for remedies for the rest.”\n\n### Book 3, Chapter 34\n\n“Poverty has its standard arguments; so does living without honors and fame. Exile gets a discussion of its own, as do the ruin of one’s homeland, enslavement, infirmity, blindness, and every other occurrence that goes by the name of calamity. Greek writers allocate a separate discussion and a separate book to each. They want work to do—though these discussions are full of pleasure.\n\nSECTION 82\n“Still, doctors treat even the smallest part of the body when it hurts by treating the whole body. In the same way, when philosophy has removed distress as a whole, it has also removed any error that might have appeared from some particular source: if poverty has bitten, if disgrace has stung, if exile has spread darkness, or if any of the things I just mentioned has occurred. Each situation does have its own particular consolations, and you can hear about them whenever you want. But we must return to the same starting point: all distress is far removed from a wise person. It’s empty, it’s taken on pointlessly, and it doesn’t arise from nature. It arises from judgment, from belief, from a kind of invitation to feel pain, when we’ve decided that’s what ought to happen.\n\nSECTION 83\n“Remove that element, which is entirely voluntary, and mournful distress will be gone. A bite and a small contraction of the mind will remain. Let them call that natural, as long as it doesn’t bear that heavy, dreadful, deathly name ‘distress.’ That can’t possibly exist with wisdom or, so to speak, live in the same house. But what roots distress has—how many, and how bitter! Once the trunk itself has been overturned, we must pick out all of them, in separate discussions if necessary. After all, we still have this leisure, such as it is. But every kind of distress has one underlying explanation and many names. Distress includes envy, jealous rivalry, resentfulness, pity, anguish, grieving, mourning, suffering hardship, lamenting, anxiety, sorrow, being troubled, self-torment, and despair.\n\nSECTION 84\n“The Stoics define all these. The words I’ve listed each refer to something distinct. They don’t mean the same things, as they appear to, but differ in some way. Perhaps we’ll discuss that elsewhere. These are those fibers of the roots I mentioned at the beginning. We must trace them and pick them all out so none can ever grow again. It’s a big, difficult job—who denies it? But what splendid achievement isn’t also hard? Still, philosophy promises to accomplish it, if we only accept its treatment.\n\n“Enough of this subject now. Whenever you wish, we’ll have the other subjects ready for you, in this place or in others.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 1\n\nSECTION 1\nBrutus, there are many occasions when the talents and good qualities of our people amaze me. Above all, I admire their achievement in bringing Greek studies to Rome, despite having begun to seek them out very late. Right from Rome’s foundation, arrangements made by the kings, partly through laws as well, gave us a wonderfully ordered system. It covered auspices and religious rites, public assemblies and appeals, the council of senators, the division into mounted and foot soldiers, and military affairs as a whole. Freedom from the kings then brought remarkable advances: the state raced toward excellence of every kind at an almost unbelievable speed. But our ancestors’ customs and institutions, and the way the state was trained and kept in balance, aren’t my subject here. Elsewhere I’ve discussed them quite thoroughly, above all in the six books I wrote about the republic.\n\nSECTION 2\nHere, though, as I think about intellectual studies, I find plenty of reasons to believe that these too were brought in from abroad, and not just sought out, but kept alive and developed. Pythagoras, a man of outstanding wisdom and renown, was practically within our ancestors’ sight. He was in Italy at the same time that Lucius Brutus, the famous founder of your distinguished family, freed his country. Pythagoras’ teaching spread far and wide, and I believe it reached our city too. That’s a reasonable inference, and some surviving traces also point that way. Who could believe our people shut their ears to such learned voices? Greek civilization was flourishing in Italy then, in the very large and powerful cities of what was called Greater Greece. First Pythagoras himself, and later his followers, had an enormous reputation there.\n\nSECTION 3\nI also suspect that the Pythagoreans’ prestige explains why later people counted King Numa among them. People knew the training and practices Pythagoras taught, and their ancestors had passed down accounts of Numa’s justice and wisdom. With so much time between, though, they no longer knew the dates or when either man had lived. Numa’s remarkable wisdom therefore convinced them he had been Pythagoras’ student.\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 2\n\nSo much for what we can infer. There are plenty of traces of Pythagorean influence to collect, but since that isn’t today’s business, a few will do. We’re told they used verse to pass on certain instructions rather secretly. After concentrated thinking, they also restored their peace of mind by singing and playing strings. Now Cato, whose authority carries great weight, reports in his Origins an ancestral dinner custom: each reclining guest in turn sang in praise of distinguished men and their virtues, to a pipe’s accompaniment. This makes it clear that verse existed then, as did songs arranged according to musical pitch.\n\nSECTION 4\nEvidence that people were already composing verse also comes from the Twelve Tables. They made it illegal to compose it to harm another person. Consider another indication of the age’s learning: stringed instruments lead the music both at the gods’ banqueting couches and at magistrates’ feasts. That practice particularly belonged to the school under discussion. To my mind, even Appius the Blind’s poem has a Pythagorean character; Panaetius praises it warmly in one of his letters addressed to Quintus Tubero. Their influence runs through many more of our institutions. I won’t enumerate them: that might suggest we borrowed discoveries for which we ourselves get the credit.\n\nSECTION 5\nBut to get back to the point: think how many poets, and how great, emerged in so short a time—and what speakers too! It readily shows that our people could master anything as soon as they decided to try.\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 3\n\nIf necessary, I’ll return elsewhere to the other branches of learning, as I’ve often done already. Our people’s pursuit of wisdom is old, certainly, but I can’t put a name to any practitioner earlier than Laelius and Scipio. In their youth, Athens sent the senate an embassy made up of the Stoic Diogenes and the Academic Carneades, as I find recorded. They had never been involved in any aspect of public administration, and their birthplaces were Babylon and Cyrene, respectively. Surely no one would have fetched them from their schools and picked them for this assignment without an interest in learning among some leading Romans of the day. Those Romans did write other things down: civil law, speeches they had delivered, records of their forebears. Yet they practiced the most important art of all, learning to live well, through their conduct more than through writing.\n\nSECTION 6\nSo we have almost no Latin writings, or at any rate very few, on that genuine, refined philosophy that began with Socrates. It has continued to this day among the Peripatetics, and among the Stoics, who say the same things in a different way, while the Academics judge their disputes. Perhaps the subjects were too large and people too busy. Or perhaps they thought uneducated readers couldn’t appreciate them. Meanwhile, while those men kept silent, Gaius Amafinius came forward to speak. The publication of his books stirred the general public, who turned to his school above all others. Perhaps it was very easy to understand; perhaps pleasure’s attractive invitations drew them in; or perhaps, since nothing better had been published, they held on to what was available.\n\nSECTION 7\nAfter Amafinius, many followers of the same approach wrote a great deal and took over all Italy. Their teaching is so easy to learn by heart and so popular with the uneducated that this is the strongest evidence of its lack of subtlety. Yet they take that as proof of their school’s strength.\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 4\n\nBut let everyone defend what they believe. We’re free to make our own judgments. I’ll stick to my plan: no single school’s rules will bind me or demand my obedience in philosophy. I’ll always look for the most convincing view on each question. I’ve often done that elsewhere, and lately we’ve done it with particular care at Tusculum. I’ve set out the discussions from three days; this book completes the fourth. We went down to the lower walk, just as we’d done on the preceding days, and this is how it went:\n\n“Anyone who wants to may say what they’d like us to discuss.”\n\nSECTION 8\n“I don’t think a wise person can be free of every emotional disturbance.”\n\n“Yesterday’s discussion seemed to show they could be free of distress. Unless you were agreeing with me just to suit the occasion.”\n\n“Not at all. I found your argument thoroughly convincing.”\n\n“So you don’t think a wise person is subject to distress?”\n\n“I certainly don’t.”\n\n“Well, if that can’t disturb a wise person’s mind, nothing can. What could? Fear? But we fear things when they’re absent that distress us when they’re present. So removing distress removes fear. Two disturbances remain: unrestrained delight and craving. If a wise person isn’t subject to those, their mind will always be calm.”\n\nSECTION 9\n“That’s exactly how I understand it.”\n\n“Which would you prefer, then? Shall we set sail right away, or row a little first, as though we were leaving harbor?”\n\n“What do you mean? I don’t understand.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 5\n\n“When Chrysippus and the Stoics discuss emotional disturbances, they spend most of their time classifying and defining them. Very little of what they say actually treats the mind and keeps it from being troubled. The Peripatetics, on the other hand, offer plenty to calm people’s minds, leaving aside the prickly business of classification and definition. So I was asking whether to spread the sails of my talk at once, or first push it forward a little with the logicians’ oars.”\n\n“Yes, do it that way. Both approaches together will give a fuller answer to my whole question.”\n\n“That’s certainly the better way.\n\nSECTION 10\n“But ask afterward if anything isn’t clear.”\n\n“I will. Still, as you usually do, you’ll make even the obscure parts clearer than the Greeks make them.”\n\n“I’ll try. But you’ll need to pay close attention. If one thing slips past you, the whole thing may fall apart. I prefer to call what the Greeks call pathē ‘disturbances’ rather than ‘diseases.’ In explaining them, I’ll follow the old division used first by Pythagoras, then by Plato. They divide the mind into two parts, one that shares in reason and another that doesn’t. In the rational part they place calm—a peaceful, quiet steadiness. In the other they place the turbulent movements of anger and desire, which oppose reason and work against it.\n\nSECTION 11\n“Let’s take that as our starting point. But to describe these disturbances, let’s use the Stoics’ definitions and divisions. They seem to me the sharpest thinkers on this question.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 6\n\n“Here, then, is Zeno’s definition: a disturbance—what he calls a pathos—is a movement of the mind that turns away from right reason and goes against nature. Some put it more briefly: a disturbance is an excessive impulse. By ‘excessive’ they mean one that has moved too far from nature’s steadiness. They trace the kinds of disturbance to two supposed goods and two supposed evils, making four in all. From supposed goods come craving and delight: delight concerns good things present, craving good things to come. From supposed evils, they hold, come fear and distress: fear concerns future evils, distress present ones. The very things we fear when they’re approaching distress us when they’re upon us.\n\nSECTION 12\n“Delight and craving, then, involve a belief in something good. Craving is attracted and fired up by what seems good and rushes toward it. Delight gets carried away and jumps for joy as though it has already secured something it wanted. Everyone naturally pursues what seems good and avoids its opposite. So as soon as something appears good to us, nature itself drives us to obtain it. When this happens steadily and sensibly, the Stoics call this kind of impulse boulēsis. Let’s call it ‘willing.’ They think only a wise person has it, and define it this way: willing is desiring something with reason. But when an impulse grows too strong in defiance of reason, it’s craving, or uncontrolled desire. That’s found in everyone who isn’t wise.\n\nSECTION 13\n“Similarly, when we respond to having something good, this can happen in two ways. When the mind moves peacefully and steadily in accordance with reason, it’s called ‘joy.’ But when it jumps about pointlessly and without restraint, we can call that unrestrained or excessive delight. They define it as the mind’s unreasonable swelling. And since we naturally avoid bad things just as we naturally seek good things, let’s call this avoidance ‘caution’ when it’s guided by reason. This too, we should understand, belongs only to a wise person. Avoidance without reason, accompanied by a frightened collapse of spirit, should be called ‘fear.’ Fear, then, is caution that has turned away from reason.\n\nSECTION 14\n“A wise person has no response to a present evil; the unwise respond with distress. They experience it amid supposed evils, letting their spirits sink and shrink instead of obeying reason. So the first definition is this: distress is the mind’s shrinking in defiance of reason. There are thus four disturbances and three steady states, since no steady state corresponds to distress.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 7\n\n“In their view, judgment and belief produce every disturbance. Their tighter definitions aim to show both the wrong involved and the control we have over it. They describe distress as a newly held belief that an evil is here, coupled with the view that sinking and shrinking in spirit is the right response. For delight, the newly held belief is that a good is here, and getting carried away seems the right response. In fear, we believe an evil threatens us and think it beyond endurance. In craving, we believe a good is coming and think our interests require its arrival and presence right now.\n\nSECTION 15\n“But when I called disturbances judgments and beliefs, they don’t mean that disturbances consist of these alone. They also include the effects of the disturbances. Thus distress produces something like a bite of pain; fear, a retreat and flight of the mind; delight, overflowing cheerfulness; craving, an unbridled appetite. As for ‘belief,’ which we included in all the definitions above, they mean a weak assent.\n\nSECTION 16\n“There are several varieties within each disturbance. Distress includes envying—a less familiar expression is needed for this lesson, since ‘envy’ describes the envied person’s situation as well as the envier’s. It also includes emulation and jealousy; pity and anguish; bereavement and sorrow; hardship and pain; lamentation and worry; lasting trouble, self-torment, despair, and any others belonging to that class. Fear covers reluctance and shame, terror and dread, panic and loss of nerve, bewilderment and lasting fright. Pleasure covers ill will that rejoices at another’s misfortune, sensory enjoyment, swaggering, and similar states. Craving covers anger and its flare-up, hatred and enmity, discord, insatiable want, longing, and whatever else resembles these.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 8\n\n“They define these as follows. Envying, they say, is distress taken on because someone else is doing well, although that success does the envious person no harm.\n\nSECTION 17\n“Someone who resents the success of a person who is hurting them wouldn’t properly be called envious—Agamemnon resenting Hector’s success, for example. But if someone’s advantages do another person no harm, and that person still resents their enjoyment of them, that certainly is envy. ‘Emulation’ has two meanings: the word can express praise or blame. Imitating virtue is called emulation, but we aren’t using it that way here; that’s praiseworthy. The other kind of emulation is distress when someone else gets what you wanted and you go without. Jealousy, by which I mean the Greek zēlotypia, is distress because someone else too gets what you wanted for yourself.\n\nSECTION 18\n“Pity is distress at the suffering of someone who doesn’t deserve it. No one feels pity when a parent-killer or traitor is punished. Anguish is distress that presses on you; bereavement, distress at the painful death of someone you loved; sorrow, tearful distress; hardship, distress involving toil; pain, distress that tortures you; lamentation, distress with wailing; worry, distress with brooding; lasting trouble, distress that persists; self-torment, distress with bodily suffering; despair, distress without any hope that things will get better. They define the kinds under fear like this: reluctance is fear of work that will follow;\n\nSECTION 19\n“[…] terror is fear that shakes you. Thus shame is followed by blushing, terror by pallor, trembling, and chattering teeth. Dread is fear of an approaching evil; panic, fear that dislodges the mind. Hence Ennius’ line: ‘Then panic knocks all wisdom from my chest and leaves me breathless.’ Loss of nerve is fear that follows panic, its companion, so to speak; bewilderment, fear that drives out one’s plans; lasting fright, fear that stays.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 9\n\nSECTION 20\n“They describe the kinds of pleasure this way: ill will is pleasure at someone else’s misfortune, with no gain to oneself. Sensory enjoyment is pleasure that soothes the mind through something pleasant to hear. What hearing does here also has its parallels in sight, touch, smell, and taste. These pleasures all belong to one kind: they seem to melt and pour through the mind. Swaggering is pleasure that gets carried away and shows itself off too boldly.\n\nSECTION 21\n“They define the kinds under craving as follows. Anger is a craving to punish someone thought to have caused an unjust injury. A flare-up is anger just beginning and coming into existence, called thymōsis in Greek. Hatred is anger grown old; enmity, anger watching for a chance for revenge; discord, a fiercer anger conceived deep in the mind and heart; insatiable want, a craving that can’t be filled; longing, a craving to see someone who isn’t yet here. They also make this distinction: craving concerns statements made about a particular person or people, what logicians call katēgorēmata—for example, having wealth or gaining office. Insatiable want concerns the actual things, such as offices or money.\n\nSECTION 22\n“They say the source of all disturbances is lack of self-control. This is the whole mind’s desertion of right reason, turning so far from reason’s instructions that its impulses can’t be governed or held in at all. Self-control calms our impulses, makes them obey right reason, and preserves the mind’s considered judgments. Its enemy, lack of self-control, does the opposite: it sets the mind’s entire condition on fire, confuses it, and stirs it up. So distress, fears, and all the other disturbances arise from it.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 10\n\n“Corrupted blood, too much phlegm, or overflowing bile make the body develop diseases and illnesses. The mind loses its health in much the same way: wrong beliefs throw it into confusion, clash among themselves, and trouble it with diseases.\n\nSECTION 23\n“Disturbances first produce diseases, which they call nosēmata, together with their opposites: defective aversions and disgust directed at particular things. Next come illnesses, which the Stoics call arrōstēmata, again with their corresponding opposite aversions. The Stoics spend far too much effort here, especially Chrysippus, working out resemblances between diseases of the mind and those of the body. Let’s skip that entirely unnecessary discussion and deal with what matters.\n\nSECTION 24\n“We should understand, then, that a disturbance is always in motion, with beliefs tossing about in an unstable, turbulent way. But when this mental heat and agitation has grown old and settled, as though in the veins and marrow, then disease and illness develop, along with the aversions that are their opposites.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 11\n\n“These distinctions exist in thought, although the conditions themselves occur together. Craving and delight give rise to them. Take a desire for money: unless reason intervenes at once, acting as a sort of Socratic medicine to heal the desire, this evil seeps through the veins and lodges in the organs. It becomes disease and illness; once established, neither can be uprooted. We call that disease greed.\n\nSECTION 25\n“A hunger for glory develops the same way, and so does an obsession with women—my expression for the Greek philogynia. The remaining diseases and illnesses follow the same course. Fear, they think, produces the opposite conditions. Examples are woman-hatred, represented in Atilius’ Woman-Hater; hatred for humanity as a whole, recorded of Timon, the man known as misanthrōpos; and hostility to guests. In all these mental illnesses there’s some fear behind people’s avoidance and hatred of their objects.\n\nSECTION 26\n“They define mental illness as a powerful belief, firmly fixed and deeply rooted, that something not worth seeking is very much worth seeking. They define what arises from aversion this way: a powerful belief, firmly fixed and deeply rooted, that something not worth avoiding ought to be avoided. This belief is judging that you know what you don’t know. The kinds of illness include greed, ambition, an obsession with women, obstinacy, nibbling at treats, drunkenness, a passion for fine food, and anything similar. Greed is a powerful belief about money, firmly fixed and deeply rooted, that it’s very much worth seeking. The other definitions of this kind follow the same pattern.\n\nSECTION 27\n“The definitions of aversions go like this: hostility to guests is a powerful belief, firmly fixed and deeply rooted, that a guest is very much to be avoided. Hatred of women, like Hippolytus’, and of humanity, like Timon’s, are defined in the same way.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 12\n\n“Now let’s try that comparison with physical health, though we won’t lean on it as heavily as the Stoics do. Certain bodies tend to catch certain diseases. Calling someone subject to colds or colic doesn’t mean they have one now: it means they often do. Likewise, one person tends toward fear, another toward some other disturbance. Hence we speak of anxiety and anxious people, or of a bad temper in others. Having a bad temper and being angry are different things. Anxiety and anguish differ too: occasional anguish doesn’t make everyone anxious, and an anxious person needn’t be constantly in anguish. Being drunk differs from habitual drunkenness; being inclined to love differs from actually being in love. This pattern, in which different people tend toward different diseases, has a wide reach. It extends to all the disturbances.\n\nSECTION 28\n“It also appears in many defects for which there’s no name for the condition. People are called envious, ill-willed, prone to craving, fearful, and pitying because they’re disposed to those disturbances, not because they’re always carried away by them. By analogy with the body, let’s call this tendency toward each particular kind an ‘illness,’ as long as we understand that it means a tendency to become ill. But in good matters, since some people are better suited to one good thing and some to another, let’s call it an ‘aptitude.’ In bad matters, let’s call it a ‘proneness,’ to suggest slipping downward; in matters neither good nor bad, let it keep the earlier name.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 13\n\n“Just as the body can have disease, illness, and defect, so can the mind. They call a breakdown of the whole body a disease; disease accompanied by weakness, an illness; and a lack of agreement between the body’s parts, a defect. This last produces crooked limbs, distortion, and deformity.\n\nSECTION 29\n“Disease and illness, the first two conditions, result from a shock and disruption affecting the body’s health as a whole. A defect can show up independently, even without any loss of health. With the mind, however, separating illness from disease is something we can do only conceptually. Defectiveness means an established state or disposition marked throughout life by inconsistency and disagreement with itself. So one corruption of belief gives rise to illness and disease; the other shows inconsistency and opposition. These conflicts aren’t equally severe in every defect. A person close to wisdom still has an internally divided disposition while unwise, but not a twisted or misshapen one. Illnesses and diseases belong within defectiveness. Whether disturbances do too remains open to question.\n\nSECTION 30\n“A defect stays in place as a condition, whereas a disturbance moves. A moving thing can’t be a component of conditions that stay in place. Our bodily comparison reaches the mind’s good qualities as well as its bad ones. Beauty, strength, health, firmness, and speed are the body’s main advantages; each has a mental counterpart. Physical health means a balanced combination in which our constituent elements fit together. Mental health similarly means agreement among beliefs and judgments. That is a virtue of mind. Some identify it with self-control; others say it follows self-control, complying with its directions and having no independent character. Either way, they reserve it for the wise. There’s another sort of mental health, though, available even to the unwise: doctors can clear away a disturbed mental state by treatment and purging.\n\nSECTION 31\n“In bodily beauty, the limbs fit together in suitable proportions and the coloring has a pleasing quality. Mental beauty consists instead in judgments and beliefs that remain even and consistent, with firmness and stability. This either follows virtue or includes virtue’s own power. We also speak of mental strength in terms corresponding to bodily strength, sinews, and effectiveness. Quickness is our name for bodily speed. It’s a merit we praise in intellectual ability too, since the mind can cover a great many subjects very rapidly.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 14\n\n“The difference between minds and bodies is this: healthy minds can’t be attacked by disease, but healthy bodies can. Physical troubles can occur through no fault of ours. Not so with mental ones: all the mind’s diseases and disturbances result from rejecting reason. That’s why they exist only in humans. Animals do something similar, but they don’t fall into disturbances.\n\nSECTION 32\n“Sharp minds and dull ones differ in this: like Corinthian bronze resisting rust, gifted minds take longer to fall ill and recover more quickly. Dull minds don’t. Nor does a gifted mind fall into every disease and disturbance. For a gifted mind doesn’t fall into many savage, monstrous disorders; some, however, even seem at first to express human kindness, such as pity, distress, and fear. But the mind’s illnesses and diseases are thought harder to uproot than those major defects that are the opposites of the virtues. Defects can have been removed while diseases remain, because the diseases aren’t cured as quickly as the defects are removed.\n\nSECTION 33\n“There you have the Stoics’ detailed discussions of disturbances. They call them logika, matters of logic, because they’re argued with greater precision. Now that our talk has sailed away from those jagged reefs, let’s hold our course for the rest of the discussion—provided I’ve made those points clear enough, considering how obscure the subject is.”\n\n“Quite clear enough. If anything needs looking into more carefully, we’ll ask about it another time. Right now we’re waiting for the sails and the voyage you mentioned.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 15\n\nSECTION 34\n“We’ve spoken about virtue elsewhere, and we’ll often need to speak about it again. Most questions about life and character flow from virtue as their source. Virtue, then, is a steady, consistent disposition of mind. It makes the people who have it praiseworthy, and is itself worth praising simply for what it is, in and of itself, even apart from any advantage it brings. From it come morally right wishes, judgments, and actions, and all right reasoning. In fact, the shortest definition of virtue itself might be ‘right reason.’ The opposite of this virtue is defectiveness. I prefer that word to ‘malice’ for the Greek kakia: malice names one particular defect, while defectiveness covers them all. From it disturbances are stirred up: as we said a little earlier, these are turbulent, agitated movements of the mind, turned away from reason and deeply hostile to a peaceful mind and life. They bring anxious, bitter distress, and they batter and weaken the mind with fear. They also set it on fire with excessive appetite, which we call sometimes desire, sometimes craving. This is a kind of mental loss of control, very far removed from self-restraint and moderation.\n\nSECTION 35\n“If it ever gets what it wanted, it then gets so carried away with excitement that it has ‘no steady idea’ what it’s doing, as in the words of the man who thinks ‘too much mental pleasure is the greatest mistake.’ The cure for these evils lies in virtue alone.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 16\n\n“What could be not only more miserable but also uglier and more shameful than a person lying broken and helpless with distress? Next in misery is someone who fears an approaching evil and hangs in suspense, frightened out of their wits. To show the power of this evil, the poets place a rock hanging over Tantalus in the underworld, ‘for crimes, an uncontrolled spirit, and arrogant talk.’ That’s the common punishment of foolishness. Everyone whose mind turns away from reason always has some such terror hanging over them.\n\nSECTION 36\n“Fear and distress are the disturbances I mean that eat the mind away. Their cheerful counterparts come close to madness too: desire forever reaching greedily for something, and baseless excitement, or unrestrained delight. We can now see the character of someone we describe at different times as moderate, modest, self-controlled, steady, or restrained. Sometimes we group all these descriptions under the general heading ‘sound character.’ That heading must include the virtues; otherwise, ‘The person of sound character does everything right’ wouldn’t have become a saying so widespread it counts as a proverb. The Stoics say exactly this of the wise person, yet people hear their claim as astonishing and far too grand.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 17\n\nSECTION 37\n“Here, then, is the wise person we’re seeking, whoever that may be: moderation and steadiness keep their mind peaceful and reconciled to itself. Troubles don’t eat them away, fear doesn’t break them, thirsty desire doesn’t set them burning, and the leaps of hollow excitement don’t dissolve them. Such a person is happy. No human circumstance can appear unbearably crushing or so wonderfully pleasing that it carries them away. Someone acquainted with the whole of eternity and the vastness of the universe—what human matter could look great to them? What importance could a wise person attach to our pursuits or our minutely short lives? Their mind keeps constant watch: no event can arrive unforeseen, unexpected, or in any way new.\n\nSECTION 38\n“They also direct a sharp gaze every way, always seeing a position and a place for themselves to live without trouble or anguish. So whatever turn of events fortune brings, they can handle it fittingly and calmly. Anyone who does that will be free not only of distress but of every other disturbance too. A mind free of them makes people happy in a complete and unqualified way. The same mind, when stirred up and dragged away from sound, sure reasoning, loses not just its steadiness but its health.\n\n“So we should regard the Peripatetics’ approach and arguments as soft and spineless. They say minds have to be disturbed, but they set a certain limit that one shouldn’t go beyond.\n\nSECTION 39\n“You set a limit on a defect? Or isn’t disobeying reason a defect? Doesn’t reason give clear enough instructions? It tells us that something you either desire passionately or get carried away with once you have it isn’t a good; and that something which either leaves you crushed or barely able to keep your head for fear of being crushed isn’t an evil. It also tells us that error makes all these things seem too sad or too joyful. Time wears down that error even for fools: the facts stay the same, but they take them differently once they’re old than they did when they were fresh. Surely, then, it shouldn’t touch a wise person at all?\n\nSECTION 40\n“And where exactly would you put that limit? Take distress, which gets the largest share of their attention. Fannius records that Publius Rupilius suffered over his brother’s defeat in the consular election. Apparently he went past the limit: it cost him his life. He ought, then, to have borne it more moderately. Suppose he had been doing so and then lost his children. ‘He’d have had a new distress, but only a moderate one.’ That would still add a great deal. Now add severe physical pain, loss of his possessions, blindness, exile. With a further distress for each separate evil, he’d end up with more than he could bear.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 18\n\nSECTION 41\n“Setting a limit on a defect makes as much sense as imagining that, after leaping off Leucas, you could halt your fall at will. You can’t do that. Neither can a mind in an excited disturbance restrain itself or come to a halt wherever it chooses. Whatever becomes ruinous through growth is already wrong at its beginning.\n\nSECTION 42\n“Enlarged distress and the other enlarged disturbances are certainly destructive. Even on first entering the mind, therefore, they contain a substantial element of destruction. Leave reason once, and the disturbances supply their own momentum. Weakness gives itself permission, drifts unwittingly into deep water, and can’t find a foothold. Accepting them in moderation is consequently just like accepting injustice, cowardice, or lack of self-control in moderation. To allow a defect within limits is to admit part of that defect. Besides being hateful in itself, this is particularly troublesome because the footing is slippery. Once moving, defects slide down the slope beyond any possibility of checking them.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 19\n\n“What about this? The very same Peripatetics say that these disturbances, which we think should be rooted out, are not only natural but useful gifts of nature.\n\nSECTION 43\n“Here’s how they argue. They begin with a lengthy tribute to anger: it sharpens courage like a whetstone, they say. An angry attacker strikes harder against a foreign enemy or a bad citizen alike. Compare the feeble scraps of reasoning in a calculation such as ‘Fighting this battle is right; our laws, freedom, and country call us to fight.’ They say such considerations achieve nothing unless anger has fired courage up. This isn’t limited to fighting men. In their view, forceful commands require a harsh edge of temper. They even demand the sting of anger from a speaker, not just in prosecution but in defense. When no real anger is there, words and gestures should copy it, they think, to let the performance kindle the hearers’ anger. They go so far as to deny manliness to anyone who can’t get angry. Gentleness, in our language, becomes sluggishness in their disapproving language.\n\nSECTION 44\n“Nor does their praise stop at that one craving—anger means wanting revenge, as I defined it just now. Nature supplied the entire class of craving, or desire, for the greatest possible benefit, they maintain: outstanding achievement is impossible without wanting it. Think of Themistocles pacing the streets at night, unable to sleep. Asked why, he said Miltiades’ trophies kept rousing him from sleep. Demosthenes’ nights of wakeful work are familiar to everyone. He said it hurt him whenever craftsmen starting before dawn got ahead of him in diligence. Nor could the great founders of philosophy have advanced their studies so far without desire burning in them. Pythagoras, Democritus, and Plato, we’re told, journeyed to the earth’s furthest reaches. Wherever anything could be learned, they considered it their duty to travel there. Could all that have happened without desire at its hottest?”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 20\n\nSECTION 45\n“Even distress itself, which we said should be avoided like a foul and monstrous beast, is something they say nature established for a very useful purpose. When people do wrong, the scolding, blame, and disgrace they suffer should hurt them. People who endure disgrace and a bad reputation without pain seem to have been given permission to do wrong without punishment. It’s better to feel a bite of conscience. Hence Afranius’ words, drawn from life. A wayward son says, ‘Oh, I’m miserable!’ and his strict father answers, ‘As long as something hurts him, let it be anything at all.’\n\nSECTION 46\n“They find uses for the remaining kinds of distress as well. Pity prompts help and relief for people suffering undeserved disasters. Even jealousy and emulation have their uses, they argue: you notice either that another has gained something you haven’t, or that another has gained what you have too. Remove fear, they say, and you remove all the care people take over their lives. Those most careful are the ones afraid of laws, magistrates, poverty, disgrace, death, and pain. They do, however, concede a need to prune these feelings. Uprooting them completely, they say, is impossible and unnecessary; in nearly everything they judge the moderate course best. Does their case sound entirely empty to you, or is there something to it?”\n\n“They certainly seem to have a point. So I’m waiting to hear your answer.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 21\n\n“Perhaps I’ll find one. But first, this:\n\nSECTION 47\n“Notice the Academics’ caution here. They put the relevant point quite openly: it’s the Stoics who are opposing the Peripatetics. I’m content to leave the sword fight to them. All I have to do is search out whichever position looks most like the truth. What starting point in this question, then, offers us a grasp of probability, the furthest limit of human thought? The definition Zeno gave of disturbance seems right to me. It means a movement in the mind contrary to nature, turned aside from reason. His briefer formulation is ‘an excessive impulse’: excessive means far beyond the steadiness nature gives.\n\nSECTION 48\n“What could I say against these definitions? Most of this is the work of sensible, sharp thinkers. Those ‘fires of the mind’ and ‘whetstones of the virtues,’ on the other hand, come from the showy display of rhetoricians. Really, can’t a brave man be brave unless he first loses his temper? That’s a gladiator’s notion. Yet even gladiators often show steadiness: ‘They talk, they meet, they ask for something, they make a demand.’ They seem calm rather than angry. Still, let there be a Pacideianus among them with the attitude Lucilius describes:\n“‘I’ll kill him and beat him, if that’s what you’re asking,’ he says.\n“‘But I think this will happen: I’ll take a blow to the face myself\n“‘Before I drive my sword into the thief’s stomach and lungs.\n“‘I hate the man. I’m angry as I fight. Nothing seems longer\n“‘Than the time till the other man fits the sword to his right hand.\n“‘That’s how carried away I am with eagerness, hatred, and anger at him.’”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 22\n\n“But in Homer we see Ajax going forward quite cheerfully to fight Hector, without this gladiator’s anger.\n\nSECTION 49\n“Once he’d put on his armor, the way he advanced brought joy to his comrades and terror to the enemy. Hector himself, as Homer tells it, trembled in his whole chest and regretted issuing the challenge. Before they came to blows, they spoke to one another mildly and calmly. Even in the fight itself, they did nothing angry or frenzied. I don’t think Torquatus, who first won that surname, was angry when he stripped the Gaul of his neck-chain. Nor was Marcellus brave at Clastidium because he was angry.\n\nSECTION 50\n“Africanus is closer to our time, so we know him better. I’d be willing to swear that anger wasn’t burning in him when he covered Marcus Alliennius the Paelignian with his shield in battle and thrust his sword through the enemy’s chest. Perhaps Lucius Brutus is a less certain case: boundless hatred of the tyrant may have driven him against Arruns rather wildly. Both, I observe, fell at close quarters from each other’s blows. Still, what need is there to add anger? Must courage go mad before it can launch an attack? Hercules reached heaven through that very courage you insist on calling anger. Was he angry, do you think, in his struggles against the boar of Erymanthus or the lion of Nemea? Did anger make Theseus grab the Marathonian bull’s horns? Consider whether courage may be entirely free of frenzy and anger entirely a sign of instability.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 23\n\nSECTION 51\n“Reason is essential to any courage at all. Settle in judgment and conviction that ‘Human concerns deserve contempt; death deserves no attention; pains and hardships can be endured,’ and courage stands strong and firm. Unless we’re to label every forceful, energetic, spirited action angry! Think even of Scipio the chief priest, the man who proved the Stoic claim that the wise person never has merely private standing. I don’t think he was angry with Tiberius Gracchus when he abandoned the inactive consul and, despite holding no office, gave a consul’s order: everyone wanting to save the republic was to follow him.\n\nSECTION 52\n“Whether my own public conduct includes any brave act, I don’t know. Any I did perform certainly weren’t angry ones. What resembles madness more closely than anger? Ennius’ description, ‘the start of insanity,’ is excellent. Look at the complexion, voice, eyes, breath, uncontrolled speech and deeds: where’s sanity in any of it? In Homer’s quarrel, could anything be uglier than Achilles or Agamemnon? Ajax’s anger actually ended in madness and death. Courage needs no angry helper. Its own equipment, readiness, and weapons are quite sufficient. The same argument would recommend drunkenness for courage, and madness too: drunk and mad people often do things with unusual force. Ajax never lacked courage, yet in madness he showed the most, since\n“‘His greatest deed came as the Greeks began to yield:\n“‘His hand brought the decisive struggle to success.’”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 24\n\n“He restored the battle while insane.\n\nSECTION 53\n“Does that make madness a useful thing? Look closely at what courage means in these definitions; a bad temper won’t be needed. One calls it ‘a mental state obedient to the highest law in bearing what happens.’ Another says ‘keeping judgment firm while undertaking and resisting things that appear alarming.’ A third gives ‘knowledge of frightening things, of their opposites, and of things to ignore completely, while maintaining a firm judgment about them.’ Those were Sphaerus’ definitions; the Stoics think him exceptionally good at defining. They’re almost all alike overall, although different ones bring out different aspects of our shared ideas. Chrysippus makes it shorter. What does he say? ‘Courage means knowing what must be endured, or a mental state that follows the highest law fearlessly in suffering and holding out.’ Attack these men as freely as you like, as Carneades did: I’m afraid they may be the only real philosophers. Every one of these definitions reveals something of the idea of courage lying wrapped and hidden in all of us. Once revealed, would anyone demand an extra quality from fighting man, commander, or speaker, believing none could act courageously unless in a rage?\n\nSECTION 54\n“The Stoics call all unwise people insane. Aren’t these their grounds? Imagine taking away disturbances, anger above all: their claim would sound monstrous. But as things stand, they explain it by comparing ‘All fools are insane’ to ‘All mud smells bad.’ ‘Not always, though.’ Disturb the mud and your nose will tell you. A bad-tempered person isn’t constantly angry either. Try provoking them and watch the frenzy appear. And this fighting anger—how does it behave back at home with wife, children, and slaves? Are its services needed there as well? Could agitation help the mind do anything better than steadiness would? Could anger occur with no mental agitation? Our people named things aptly. Every defect concerns character, but because anger was the ugliest, they reserved ‘ill-tempered’ for angry people alone.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 25\n\nSECTION 55\n“Anger is thoroughly out of place in a speaker, though pretending to be angry isn’t. Do you think I’m angry when I speak more sharply and forcefully in a case? And when I write speeches after the business is finished and past, am I angry as I write? ‘Is anyone watching this? Tie him up!’ Do you think Aesopus ever acted those words in anger, or Accius wrote them in anger? Such scenes are performed brilliantly, and a speaker, if he really is a speaker, performs them better than any actor. But they’re performed gently, with a peaceful mind.\n\n“What craving lies behind a tribute to craving itself? Your examples are Themistocles and Demosthenes, then Pythagoras, Democritus, and Plato. Do you really call dedication to a pursuit craving? Even a commitment to the finest objects—such as those you mention—ought to stay peaceful and calm. And which philosophers would recommend distress, the most detestable thing there is? You may quote Afranius approvingly: ‘Let anything hurt him, provided something does.’ But his subject was a dissolute, ruined youth; ours is a wise, steady man. Leave even anger itself to a centurion, a standard-bearer, or others I needn’t name, lest I disclose the rhetoricians’ secrets. Emotional energy can serve those unable to use reason. But I keep stressing that it’s the wise person we’re investigating.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 26\n\nSECTION 56\n“You also call emulation, jealousy, and pity useful. If you’re able to help, why choose pity over help? Surely generosity doesn’t require pity. Our task isn’t to burden ourselves with distress on other people’s account; it’s to ease their distress where we can. What benefit comes from jealousy, or from the wrong kind of emulation that resembles rivalry? In emulation, another person’s good hurts because you lack it; in jealousy, it hurts because someone besides you has it. If you want to get something, how could we approve your suffering instead of trying for it? Wanting exclusive possession is sheer madness.\n\n“And who could rightly praise moderate amounts of evil?\n\nSECTION 57\n“With craving or desire in you, how could you avoid being someone who craves and desires? With anger, how avoid a bad temper; with anguish, anxiety; with fear, fearfulness? Must our wise person therefore be craving, angry, anxious, and fearful? The excellence of wisdom could occupy an enormously long account. To put it briefly, though, it is knowing divine and human matters and understanding what causes each thing. This knowledge leads it to copy the divine and rank everything human below virtue. You said you thought disturbances could enter such wisdom, as they enter a sea exposed to winds. What could shake so much dignity and steadiness? An unexpected, sudden event? Nothing possible for human beings can be unexpected to someone who has rehearsed it all beforehand. They tell us to prune the excess and preserve the natural element. But how can something be natural if the same thing can be excessive? Every one of these states springs from errors at its roots. Dig those roots right out: don’t just cut back or lop off their growth.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 27\n\nSECTION 58\n“Still, your real question, I suspect, concerns yourself rather than the wise. You already believe the wise person has no disturbances; you want that freedom for yourself. Let’s examine how much philosophy’s treatments can do for mental diseases. A medicine for them certainly exists. Nature wasn’t so cruel an enemy to humanity as to provide a host of bodily remedies and leave minds with none. Indeed, she did better by the mind in this respect: bodily remedies have to come from outside, but minds contain their own means of recovery. Yet their higher, more divine excellence calls for correspondingly greater attention. Used carefully, reason discerns the best course; left unattended, it gets caught in a tangle of errors.\n\nSECTION 59\n“Now, then, I must turn my whole talk toward you. You pretend to be asking about a wise person, but perhaps you’re asking about yourself.\n\n“Different disturbances in my account call for different cures. One approach won’t soothe every distress: grief, pity, and envy each need a different medicine. For all four disturbances we must also decide between addressing the whole category—rejection of reason, or excessive impulse—and addressing its individual members, fear, craving, and the others. Another choice is whether to show that the particular cause of distress doesn’t deserve distress, or to rule distress out whatever its cause. If poverty upsets someone, for instance, do you argue against poverty’s being an evil, or against being upset about anything at all? The latter is plainly preferable. Failing to convince them about poverty would otherwise force you to allow distress. Remove distress with the arguments specifically suited to it, the ones we used yesterday, and in a sense you remove poverty’s evil too.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 28\n\nSECTION 60\n“Teaching that the source of delight and craving isn’t good, and the source of fear and distress isn’t bad, can indeed calm the mind and wash away any disturbance of this sort. But the reliable cure directed at the condition itself teaches something else: disturbances are wrong in themselves, neither necessary nor natural in any respect. We actually see sorrow lessen when we confront mourners with the weakness of an effeminate mind, or praise the dignity and steadiness of people who meet human misfortunes without turmoil. That often works even on people who count such events as evils but think they must be faced evenly. A believer in pleasure’s goodness can still be turned from lack of self-control; a believer in money’s goodness can still be turned from greed. The alternative argument, removing both distress and false belief together, would be more beneficial. It rarely succeeds, though, and isn’t suitable for the general public.\n\nSECTION 61\n“Some distress can’t be eased by that medicine at all. Imagine being troubled by a complete lack of virtue, spirit, duty, or moral goodness in yourself. Those really are evils causing your anguish. You need another treatment, one available to every philosopher despite their disagreements elsewhere. They should all accept that mental movements opposed to right reason are wrong. Grant that the objects prompting fear and distress really are bad, or those prompting desire and delight really good: the mental movement remains wrong. The man we call brave and high-minded should, we expect, be steady, composed, dignified, and dismissive of everything human. Sorrow, fear, craving, or leaping delight are incompatible with that character. They mark people who rate the power of human events above that of their own minds.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 29\n\nSECTION 62\n“As I said earlier, there’s therefore a treatment common to every philosopher: leave aside the character of what unsettles the mind and address the disturbance alone. Take desire first. If removing it is our only task, whether its object is good or not is beside the point; craving itself needs eliminating. Moral goodness might be the supreme good, or pleasure, or a combination of both, or the three categories of good. Whichever account you adopt, the argument for discouraging excessive desire must stay the same—even when virtue itself is desired excessively. Seeing human nature clearly is the whole basis for peace of mind. We should describe the condition we all share and the law governing life, making that nature stand out more plainly before our eyes.\n\nSECTION 63\n“Hence the story about Socrates has a point: at a performance of Euripides’ Orestes, he asked to hear its first three verses again:\n“‘No tale told aloud can be so dreadful,\n“‘Nor chance nor heaven’s wrath bring such an evil,\n“‘That human nature won’t bear its way through it.’\n“Listing people who have endured their troubles helps persuade us that we too both can and ought to endure what comes. I’ve already set out the relief of distress in yesterday’s talk and in Consolation, my book written in the thick of grief and pain. I wasn’t a wise man. Chrysippus says not to treat mental swellings, so to speak, while still fresh. I did precisely that, forcing nature’s hand until the power of the medicine overcame the power of pain.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 30\n\nSECTION 64\n“But we’ve discussed distress enough. Fear is close to it, and we need to say a little about that. Just as distress concerns a present evil, fear concerns a future one. So some used to call fear a kind of distress; others called it ‘trouble in advance,’ because it was like a guide leading the trouble that followed. The arguments that help us bear what’s upon us also help us disregard what’s coming. In both cases, we must take care not to do anything low, submissive, soft, unmanly, broken, or abject. We need to discuss the instability, weakness, and unreliability of fear itself. Even so, it helps a great deal to look down on the actual things we fear. So, whether by chance or design, it worked out very conveniently that we discussed death and pain, the things most feared, on the first and second days. If those arguments have convinced us, we’ve been freed from fear to a large extent.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 31\n\n“That’s enough about the belief in evils.\n\nSECTION 65\n“Turn now to supposed goods: desire and delight. To me, one point explains the entire subject of mental disturbance. Every disturbance is ours to control; judgment admits each one, and each is voluntary. We have to uproot this error and take away this belief. Things counted as evils must become bearable; things counted as great, delightful goods must lose their power to excite. Both good and evil cases share another feature. Even if persuading someone that none of the mind’s disturbing objects deserves the name good or bad proves difficult, each particular movement still needs its own treatment. Correcting ill will, love, anxiety, and fear will require four different approaches.\n\nSECTION 66\n“Following the account of good and evil I approve of most, it would be easy to deny that an unwise person can ever feel delight, since they never have anything good. But we’re speaking in everyday terms now. Let’s grant that the supposed goods really are good: offices, wealth, pleasures, and the rest. Even so, leaping, unrestrained delight in possessing these very things is shameful. We may allow laughter but still criticize guffawing. The mind’s outpouring in delight is defective in the same way as its shrinking in pain. Desire shows the same instability in pursuing as delight does in enjoying. People excessively uplifted by delight are rightly judged unstable, just like those excessively crushed by trouble. And since envy belongs to distress, while taking pleasure in others’ misfortunes belongs to delight, we usually correct both by pointing out a certain monstrous cruelty in them. Just as it’s proper to be cautious but not to be afraid, it’s proper to feel joy but not delight. For teaching purposes, we’re distinguishing delight from joy.\n\nSECTION 67\n“Earlier we said that no shrinking of spirit is ever right, though a rising of spirit can be. Compare two ways of feeling joy. Naevius’ Hector says:\n“‘Father, praise from you delights me: you yourself have won praise.’\n“Trabea’s character says instead:\n“‘Silver will charm the madam; she’ll watch every nod of mine,\n“‘What I want, what I’m pursuing. Arriving, I’ll tap the door with a finger,\n“‘And it will swing open. At the sudden sight of me, Chrysis\n“‘Will come eagerly toward me, craving my arms around her;\n“‘She’ll surrender herself to me.’\n“Now hear how splendid he considers his prospects:\n“‘My good fortune will leave Fortune herself behind.’”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 32\n\nSECTION 68\n“Anyone who pays careful attention has only to look deeply to see how shameful this delight is.\n\n“Getting swept up in delight during sex is shameful, and so is pursuing sex with desire blazing in your mind. In fact, nothing I can think of matches the instability of what people commonly call love—by Hercules, I can’t find a different name for it either. Caecilius judges ‘the person who won’t rank him highest among gods a fool or someone ignorant of how things are.’ Love has the power\n“‘To decide who is to lose his mind,\n“‘Who is to think clearly, who is to recover, who is to be struck with sickness,\n“‘[…]\n“‘Who is to win love back, who is to be wanted, who is to be summoned.’\n\nSECTION 69\n“What an excellent guide to a better life poetry turns out to be! It would seat love, the promoter of instability and disgrace, among the gods in council. I mean comedy: without our approval of these disgraceful acts, comedy couldn’t exist at all. Now consider tragedy. The leader of the Argonauts says:\n“‘Love, more than honor, was your reason for saving me.’\n“And look at what followed: Medea’s love started such blazing misery! Another poet even lets her tell her father boldly that her ‘husband was the man Love gave her—Love, stronger and mightier than her father.’”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 33\n\nSECTION 70\n“Leave the poets to their games: their tales involve Jupiter himself in this disgrace, as we see. Now for the philosophers, our teachers of virtue. They insist love isn’t a matter of illicit sex. In their dispute with Epicurus on this point, I think he’s telling little that’s untrue. What sort of love is this supposed friendship-love? Why is an ugly youth never its object, nor a good-looking old man? I suspect the practice began in Greece’s gymnasiums, where these affairs have freedom and permission. Ennius puts it well:\n“‘Stripping in front of fellow citizens is where disgrace starts.’\n“They may remain chaste—I recognize that possibility—but they still have worry and anxiety. Indeed, holding back and restraining themselves makes these worse.\n\nSECTION 71\n“I’ll leave aside love affairs with women, to which nature has allowed more freedom. Does anyone mistake the poets’ meaning in Ganymede’s kidnapping? Is anyone unclear about Laius’ words and desires in Euripides? Look, too, at what the finest poets, men of the greatest learning, disclose about themselves in their poems and songs. Alcaeus was known at home as a courageous man: just consider his writing on love for youths! Anacreon devotes his whole poetry to love. The writings of Ibycus from Rhegium reveal a love burning hotter than any of theirs.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 34\n\n“We see that all these men’s loves are full of craving. Yet we philosophers have come forward to lend love authority, with our own Plato leading us. Dicaearchus has good reason to criticize him.\n\nSECTION 72\n“According to the Stoics, even the wise man will love. Their definition makes love ‘an effort toward making a friendship prompted by the sight of beauty.’ If any such thing exists without worries, longings, cares, or sighing, I have no objection. There would be no craving in it, whereas craving is what we’re discussing. But there’s certainly another love, scarcely if at all removed from madness. Think of the character in The Woman of Leucas: ‘If any god actually has concern for me’—\n\nSECTION 73\n“Of course, all the gods had to concern themselves with how this man could enjoy the pleasure of love! ‘Oh, I’m unhappy!’ Nothing could be truer. The other character puts it well too: ‘Are you sane, wailing so pointlessly?’ So he seems insane even to his own people. And what tragic scenes he creates!\n“‘You, holy Apollo, bring help! And you, ruler of the rivers,\n“‘Neptune, I call on you, and on you too, Winds!’\n“He thinks he’ll set the whole universe in motion to relieve his love. He leaves out only Venus, as unfair: ‘Why should I call on you, Venus?’ He says she’s too full of craving to care about anything—as though he himself weren’t doing and saying such disgraceful things because of craving.”\n\nSECTION 74\n—\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 35\n\n“For someone in that state, then, this treatment must be applied: show how trivial the thing he craves is, how contemptible, how utterly worthless; how easily it can be obtained elsewhere or in another way, or ignored altogether. Sometimes he should also be drawn away to other interests, worries, cares, and business. Finally, like sick people who aren’t recovering, he should often be treated by a change of place.\n\nSECTION 75\n“One proposal is to use a new love to knock out the old, as a nail knocks out another nail. Most important, though, is reminding him of love’s tremendous madness. No other mental disturbance is more violent, surely. We needn’t even bring charges against the acts themselves: illicit sex, seduction, adultery, even incest. All are ugly enough to deserve blame. Yet put them aside and the mental disturbance involved in love remains ugly on its own.\n\nSECTION 76\n“Leave the outright madness aside. Even behavior said to be moderate shows such instability:\n“‘Injuries,\n“‘Suspicions, hostilities, truces,\n“‘War, then peace once more! Ask for these uncertain things\n“‘To be made certain by reason, and your efforts will match\n“‘The effort to be reasonably insane.’\n“Surely the sheer wrongness of this shifting, inconsistent mind ought to drive anyone away? We also need to establish the rule applying to every disturbance: no disturbance exists without belief, none is admitted without judgment, none is involuntary. If love came from nature, everybody would love all the time and love the same thing. Neither shame nor reflection nor having had enough would turn different people away from it.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 36\n\n“As for anger, there’s no doubt it’s insanity as long as it disturbs the mind. Its impulse produces even a quarrel between brothers like this:\n\nSECTION 77\n“‘What man anywhere on earth has outdone you in shamelessness?’\n\n“‘And who has outdone you in wickedness?’—\n“You know what follows. In alternating lines the brothers hurl the gravest insults at each other. It’s easy to see they’re the sons of Atreus, the man who plans a new punishment for his brother:\n“‘I must stir up a greater mass, a greater evil,\n“‘To batter and crush his bitter heart.’\n“So where does this mass burst out? Listen to Thyestes:\n“‘My brother himself urges me, wretched as I am,\n“‘To chew my own sons with my jaws—’\n“He serves him their entrails. Where can madness go that anger won’t go too? That’s why we rightly say angry people have gone out of control—that is, out of the control of judgment, reason, and mind. These should have control over the whole spirit.\n\nSECTION 78\n“We must either remove the people they’re trying to attack until they collect themselves—what is collecting yourself but bringing the mind’s scattered parts back into their places?—or ask and beg them, if they have any power to take revenge, to put it off to another time until their anger cools. ‘Cools’ certainly means a heat of mind aroused against reason’s wishes. Hence the praise for what Archytas said when he’d become very angry with his estate manager: ‘How I’d have treated you if I weren’t angry!’”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 37\n\nSECTION 79\n“What now of those who pronounce anger useful or natural? Does madness have a use? Could something opposed by reason possibly accord with nature? If anger belonged to nature, why would it affect one person more readily than another? Since it’s a wish for revenge, why would it stop before revenge came? Why would anyone feel remorse for angry deeds? Take King Alexander: after he killed his companion Clitus, remorse nearly drove him to kill himself. With these facts before us, surely we can’t doubt that this mental movement too depends entirely on belief and choice. Mental illnesses such as greed or hunger for glory plainly grow from valuing their objects highly—the very objects making the mind sick. This should teach us that belief underlies every disturbance as well.\n\nSECTION 80\n“Confidence means firm mental trust. If it is a sort of knowledge, a solid belief held by someone who doesn’t accept things rashly, then fear is distrust concerning an evil expected and threatening. Hope expects good; expecting evil must therefore mean fear. Fear is bad, and the other disturbances are bad as well. Knowledge gives steadiness, then, while error gives disturbance. Those we call naturally angry, pitying, envious, and so forth have something like an unhealthy mental constitution. They can nevertheless be healed. The story of Socrates is an example. At a gathering, Zopyrus, who claimed he could tell anyone’s character from their looks, attributed a collection of faults to Socrates. Everyone else laughed, finding no such faults in him. Socrates defended Zopyrus: he said those qualities were inborn in him, but reason had enabled him to throw them off.\n\nSECTION 81\n“So even someone enjoying excellent bodily health may seem naturally more prone to a particular disease. In the same way, different minds are more inclined to different defects. But for those said to be defective through fault rather than nature, their defects consist of false beliefs about good and bad things, so that one person is more prone to one sort of mental movement and disturbance than another. As in the body, a condition that has grown old is harder to drive out than a disturbance. A sudden swelling of the eyes is cured sooner than a long-standing inflammation is removed.”\n\n### Book 4, Chapter 38\n\nSECTION 82\n“But now we know the cause of disturbances: they all arise from judgments based on beliefs and from acts of will. So let’s bring this discussion to an end. We ought to know that, once we’ve understood the highest good and the worst evil as far as a human can understand them, we can ask nothing greater or more useful from philosophy than what we’ve discussed during these four days. We’ve learned to look down on death and to make pain easier to bear. To these we’ve added the calming of distress, which is the greatest evil a person faces. Every mental disturbance is certainly serious and not much different from madness. Still, when people are in a disturbance of fear, delight, or desire, we usually just call them agitated and disturbed. But people who’ve given themselves over to distress we call miserable, broken, burdened with hardship, and afflicted with disaster.\n\nSECTION 83\n“So our discussing distress separately from the other disturbances seems not to have happened by accident, but to have been deliberately proposed by you. Distress is the source and chief cause of misery. Yet there is one cure for both distress and the mind’s other diseases: they’re all matters of belief and will, taken on because it seems right to do so. Philosophy promises to pull this error out completely, like the root of every evil.\n\nSECTION 84\n“Let philosophy work on us, then; let it heal us. Happiness is impossible with these evils lodged inside, and so is mental health. One option is to deny reason any power to accomplish things, even though nothing is rightly done without it. Otherwise, since philosophy works by weighing arguments against each other, let’s turn to it for every aid and resource for a good, happy life—if goodness and happiness are what we want.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 1\n\nSECTION 1\nBrutus, this fifth day will bring our discussions at Tusculum to an end. That day’s discussion was about the view you approve of most: virtue is enough, by itself, for a happy life. I’ve seen how strongly you support it, both in the book you wrote to me with such care and in many conversations with you. It’s hard to prove, given all the many different ways fortune can hurt us. Still, it’s a claim worth working hard to make easier to accept. Nothing in the whole field of philosophy could be said with greater weight or grandeur.\n\nSECTION 2\nThe first people to devote themselves to philosophy put everything else aside and gave their whole attention to finding the best way to live. That was what drove them. Surely it was the hope of living happily that made them put so much care and effort into their work. If they discovered virtue and brought it to perfection, and if virtue gives us enough protection to live happily, who wouldn’t think their work on philosophy was splendidly spent, and that ours is too? But suppose virtue is exposed to all sorts of unpredictable accidents and is a slave to fortune, without enough strength to defend itself. Then I’m afraid we may have to pin our hopes for happiness on prayers rather than confidence in virtue.\n\nSECTION 3\nSometimes, when I think over the misfortunes I’ve suffered and the harsh treatment fortune has given me, I begin to doubt this view. I grow afraid of how weak and easily broken human beings are. Nature gave us frail bodies, along with incurable diseases and unbearable pains. I worry that she also gave us minds that share our bodies’ pain and, quite apart from that, are caught in troubles and anxieties of their own.\n\nSECTION 4\nBut I correct myself here. I’m judging virtue’s strength from other people’s weakness, and perhaps my own, instead of from virtue itself. If virtue exists at all—and your uncle, Brutus, has put that doubt to rest—it rises above everything that can happen to a human being. It looks down on all of it and dismisses human misfortunes. Free of any fault, it thinks nothing but itself is its concern. We, on the other hand, make approaching troubles worse through fear and present troubles worse through grief. Then we’d rather blame the way things are than our own mistaken judgment.\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 2\n\nSECTION 5\nWe must look to philosophy to put this fault right, along with every other failing and wrong of ours. Our own inclinations and enthusiasm drew us into her arms when we were young. Now, after a terrible storm has battered us with these very serious misfortunes, we’ve fled back to the same harbor we once sailed out of. Philosophy, you guide our lives, you seek out virtue and drive out our faults! What could we have been without you? What could human life itself have been? You brought cities into being. You called scattered human beings together into a shared life. You first joined them through homes, then through marriage, then through common writing and speech. You discovered laws. You taught us decent behavior and an ordered way of life. We run to you for shelter and ask you for help. Before, we gave ourselves largely to you; now we give ourselves completely, holding nothing back. One day lived well, following your teaching, is worth more than an eternity spent doing wrong.\n\nSECTION 6\nWho else could give us the help you give? It was you who made our lives peaceful and freed us from being terrified of death. But people don’t praise philosophy as her service to humanity deserves. Far from it: most neglect her, and many actually speak against her. Who would dare speak against the mother of human life and make himself guilty of killing a parent? How could anyone be so wickedly ungrateful that he brings charges against her? Even if he couldn’t understand her very well, he ought to hold her in respect. I suppose ignorance explains this mistake, this darkness covering people’s minds. They can’t see far enough into the past to recognize that philosophers were the first to give human life its organized form.\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 3\n\nSECTION 7\nWe can see that the activity is extremely old, though we admit the name is recent. Who could deny that wisdom itself is ancient, not just as a thing but as a name too? For people long ago, it earned that very beautiful name through knowledge of divine and human matters and of the beginnings and causes of everything. So we’ve learned that the Seven, whom the Greeks called and considered sophoi, and our people ‘wise men,’ really were wise and were thought to be so. The same is true of Lycurgus, many centuries earlier. Homer too is said to have lived in his time, before this city was founded. And already in the age of heroes there were Odysseus and Nestor.\n\nSECTION 8\nWe wouldn’t have been told that Atlas holds up the sky, that Prometheus is fastened to the Caucasus, or that Cepheus is among the stars with his wife, son-in-law, and daughter, if their godlike understanding of the heavens hadn’t drawn their names into misleading myths. Following their example, everyone who devoted his efforts to studying nature was considered and called wise. That name for them lasted down to Pythagoras’ time. Heraclides of Pontus, a student of Plato and an exceptionally learned man, writes that Pythagoras is said to have visited Phlius. There he spoke at length and with learning on certain subjects with Leon, the ruler of the Phliasians. Impressed by his intelligence and skill in speaking, Leon asked which craft he was most sure of his expertise in. Pythagoras replied that he didn’t know any craft, but was a philosopher. Leon was surprised by the unfamiliar name. He asked who philosophers were and what made them different from other people.\n\nSECTION 9\nPythagoras gave this answer. To him, our lives resembled a great fair, with games staged on a huge scale and people gathering from every part of Greece. One group trained their bodies, hoping for the fame and distinction of winning a crown. Another came to buy or sell, drawn by earnings and profit. A third group, perhaps the freest of all, wanted neither cheers nor money. Their purpose was to watch: they looked carefully at the proceedings and how they were carried out. Our arrival in this life, he said, is rather like leaving a city to join the crowds at a fair. We have left another life and another state of existence. Some of us become slaves to fame, some to money. Only a few think everything else worthless and devote their attention to understanding nature. His name for these people was ‘lovers of wisdom,’ which is what the word “philosophers” means. At the fair, the activity most suited to a free person was simply to watch, without getting anything for oneself. In our lives too, observing and understanding things ranks far above all other pursuits.\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 4\n\nSECTION 10\nBesides coming up with the name, Pythagoras did much to expand the subject itself. He went to Italy after the conversation at Phlius. There, in the Greek region known as Greater Greece, he introduced excellent practices and skills for public as well as private life. We may have another occasion to speak about his teaching. Early philosophy, all the way down to Socrates, dealt with numbers and motion, the origins of everything and what everything passes back into. Socrates himself had been taught by Archelaus, a pupil of Anaxagoras. Those philosophers took pains to work out how large the stars were, how far apart, and how they moved, along with everything else in the sky. With Socrates, for the first time, philosophy left the heavens and came to live in our cities—even inside our homes. He required it to investigate how people live and behave, and which things are good or bad.\n\nSECTION 11\nSocrates had many ways of arguing, a wide range of subjects, and a great intellect. Plato preserved all this in his writings and gave it lasting honor. The result was several different schools of philosophers who disagreed with one another. We have chiefly followed the approach we believed Socrates used: we kept our own opinions to ourselves, freed others from their mistakes, and looked in every discussion for what came closest to the truth. Carneades practiced this method with great sharpness and fullness. We’ve often argued in that way ourselves, and recently did so at Tusculum. I’ve written out the conversations of four days in the earlier books and sent them to you. On the fifth day, when we’d sat down in the same place, this was the question put forward for discussion:\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 5\n\nSECTION 12\n“I don’t think virtue can do enough to make a life happy.”\n\n“But, by Hercules, my dear Brutus certainly thinks it can. With your permission, I put his judgment far above yours.”\n\n“I don’t doubt it. But we’re not discussing how much you love him. I want you to argue about the view I said I held, and what to make of it.”\n\n“So you’re saying virtue can’t do enough for a happy life?”\n\n“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”\n\n“Then tell me this. Does virtue give enough support to live correctly, morally, and in a way that deserves praise—in short, to live well?”\n\n“Certainly it does.”\n\n“Can you then avoid calling someone unhappy if he lives badly? Or can you admit that someone lives well but deny that he lives happily?”\n\n“Why couldn’t I? Even under torture you can live correctly, morally, and in a way that deserves praise, and so live well. You just have to understand what I mean here by ‘well.’ I mean with steadiness, seriousness, wisdom, and courage.\n\nSECTION 13\n“These qualities can even be thrown onto the torture rack. A happy life doesn’t come anywhere near it.”\n\n“Then what happens? Is a happy life the only thing left outside the door, on the prison’s doorstep? Steadiness, seriousness, courage, wisdom, and all the other virtues are dragged off to the torturer. They refuse no punishment or pain. Is happiness left behind?”\n\n“If you’re going to make any progress, you’ll have to look for some fresh arguments. Those don’t move me at all, not just because they’re so familiar, but much more because those Stoic arguments are like certain light wines: they lose all their strength when you add water. They’re more enjoyable to taste than to drink down. That parade of virtues stretched on the rack, for example, puts some very dignified pictures before our eyes. You’d think a happy life would run straight to them and never let them be abandoned by it.\n\nSECTION 14\n“But move your attention from that painting and those pictures of virtues to the actual facts, and you’re left with this bare question: can anyone be happy while being tortured? That’s what we should examine now. Don’t worry that the virtues will protest and complain that a happy life has deserted them. No virtue can lack good judgment. And good judgment itself can see that not all good people are happy as well. It remembers a great deal about Marcus Atilius, Quintus Caepio, and Manius Aquilius. If you want pictures instead of actual facts, good judgment itself holds happiness back as it tries to climb onto the rack. It says happiness has nothing at all in common with pain and torture.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 6\n\nSECTION 15\n“I’m perfectly willing to let you take that approach. Still, it’s unfair for you to dictate how I should make my argument. But let me ask you: do we think we accomplished anything on the previous days, or nothing at all?”\n\n“We certainly did accomplish something, and quite a lot.”\n\n“Then if that’s so, this question is already largely settled, and we’re almost at the end of it.”\n\n“How, exactly?”\n\n“Because wild disturbances and violent upheavals toss the mind about. They rush ahead on reckless impulse and push all reason aside. They leave no room for a happy life. How can someone who fears death or pain avoid being unhappy? Pain is often with us; death is always hanging over us. What if, as usually happens, he also fears poverty, disgrace, and a bad reputation? What if he fears disability and blindness? Or finally, slavery, which has often happened not just to individuals but to powerful nations?\n\nSECTION 16\n“Can anyone who fears these things be happy? And what about someone who not only fears their coming but actually bears and endures them now? Add exile, bereavement, and the loss of children to the list. When these things break him and grief crushes him, can he be anything but utterly unhappy? Or take the person we see on fire with desire, out of his mind, going after everything in a frenzy with an appetite that can’t be filled. The more pleasure he draws in from every direction, the stronger and fiercer his thirst becomes. Wouldn’t you be right to call him utterly unhappy? And the person carried away by shallow, empty delight, jumping for joy and getting wildly excited for no reason—isn’t he more unhappy the happier he thinks he is? So these people are unhappy. The opposite people are happy: no fears frighten them, no grief eats away at them, no desires drive them on, no worthless bursts of joy dissolve them in enfeebling pleasures. We recognize a calm sea when not even the slightest breeze stirs its surface. In the same way, we recognize a quiet, peaceful mind when there’s no disturbance capable of shaking it. Suppose someone considers the force of fortune and all the human experiences that can happen to anyone bearable, so that neither fear nor distress touches him. Suppose he also craves nothing and isn’t carried away by any empty pleasure in his mind. Why wouldn’t he be happy?\n\nSECTION 17\n“And if virtue brings this about, why wouldn’t virtue itself make people happy, all on its own?”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 7\n\n“You certainly can’t deny one of those points: people are happy if they fear nothing, aren’t distressed by anything, crave nothing, and aren’t carried away by uncontrolled delight. So I grant you that. And the other point is no longer open to question. Our earlier discussions established that a wise person is free of every mental disturbance.”\n\n“Then surely the matter is settled.\n\nSECTION 18\n“We seem to have reached the end of the question.”\n\n“Nearly, yes.”\n\n“Still, that’s the mathematicians’ way of doing things, not the philosophers’. When geometers want to demonstrate something, they take anything relevant that they’ve proved before as already granted and established. They explain only the point they haven’t previously set out in writing. Philosophers, on the other hand, bring together everything that bears on whatever subject they’re dealing with, even if they’ve discussed it elsewhere. Otherwise, why would a Stoic have much to say when asked whether virtue can do enough for a happy life? He could simply answer that he’d already shown that nothing is good except what is morally right. Once that’s proved, it follows that virtue is enough for a happy life. And just as the second claim follows from the first, the first follows from the second: if virtue is enough for a happy life, then nothing but what is morally right is good.\n\nSECTION 19\n“But they don’t proceed that way. They write separate books on moral rightness and on the highest good. Those establish that virtue has enough power to make a life happy, yet they discuss that question separately too. Each topic needs to be treated with arguments and reminders suited specifically to it, especially one as important as this. Don’t think philosophy has ever made a more magnificent statement or a richer or greater promise. What does she promise? Good gods! She promises that anyone who obeys her laws will always be armed against fortune, will have within himself every resource for living well and happily, and, in short, will always be happy.\n\nSECTION 20\n“I’ll see later what she achieves. For now, I put great value on the promise itself. Xerxes was loaded with all fortune’s gifts and rewards. His cavalry, his infantry, his huge fleet, his limitless weight of gold—none of it satisfied him. He offered a prize to anyone who discovered a new pleasure. Even that didn’t satisfy him: desire will never find an end. I wish we could use a prize to draw out someone who could bring us something to make our belief in this promise firmer.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 8\n\nSECTION 21\n“I’d like that too, but let me raise a small question. Yes, I accept that the two statements you’ve put forward imply each other. Make moral rightness the only good, and you have to accept that virtue makes life happy. Put happiness in virtue, and you have to rule out any good apart from virtue. Your Brutus, though, follows Aristo and Antiochus on this, and disagrees. He thinks virtue can do it even when other good things exist.”\n\n“What then?\n\nSECTION 22\n“Do you think I’m going to argue against Brutus?”\n\n“That’s for you to decide. It isn’t my place to set limits.”\n\n“Let’s leave the question of consistency with each person’s views for another occasion. Antiochus and I have often disagreed about this. I also disagreed recently with Aristo, when I stayed at his house in Athens as a military commander. My view was that nobody could be happy while suffering evils. Yet if bodily conditions or changes of fortune count as evils, even the wise person may suffer them. They answered with arguments Antiochus has put in writing in several places. Virtue, they said, can make life happy on its own, though not as happy as possible. They went on to say that most things take their names from what makes up most of them, even with a part missing. Take strength, health, wealth, honor, or fame: we assess their kind, not a numerical total. Similarly, a life might limp in one part and still earn the name happy from the far larger part.\n\nSECTION 23\n“There’s no pressing need to go through those details now. Still, the reasoning seems rather inconsistent to me. What more does a happy person need in order to become happier? I can’t understand that: if he lacks something, he isn’t happy to begin with. Their claim that we name and judge each thing by its larger part does work in some cases. But remember their three kinds of bad things. Imagine a person suffering every evil of two kinds. Nothing in his fortunes goes his way, and pain of every sort crushes and wears out his body. Shall we say that he lacks only a little of what makes life happy, never mind what makes it as happy as possible?”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 9\n\nSECTION 24\n“This was the difficulty that proved too much for Theophrastus. In his judgment, beatings, torture, agonies, the ruin of one’s country, exile, and losing one’s children could do a great deal to make life wretched and bad. With that low, dispirited view, he couldn’t bring himself to speak in a grand, confident way. Whether his view was right isn’t the issue; at least he kept his reasoning consistent. Once you accept someone’s starting points, I don’t usually approve of attacking what follows from them. No philosopher is more refined or learned than Theophrastus. People hardly object when he divides good things into three kinds. Yet everyone attacks him, first over his book about happiness, where he sets out many arguments against calling a tortured, tormented person happy. He’s even supposed to have written there that happiness won’t mount the wheel—the Greeks use that as an instrument of torture. In fact, he never says it, anywhere. But the things he does say have that effect.\n\nSECTION 25\n“If I’ve granted him that bodily pains are bad, and that wrecked fortunes are bad, can I get angry with him for saying that not all good people are happy? Every good person can suffer the things he counts as bad. Theophrastus is also attacked in every philosopher’s books and lectures because, in his Callisthenes, he praised this saying:\n“‘Fortune runs our lives, not wisdom.’\n“They say no philosopher has ever said anything more spineless. They’re right about that, but I don’t see how he could have said anything more consistent. If there are so many good things in the body, and so many outside it, subject to chance and fortune, doesn’t it follow that fortune has more power than judgment? She’s in charge of both external things and things to do with the body.\n\nSECTION 26\n“Should we copy Epicurus instead? Plenty of his remarks are excellent, and he makes them often. He just doesn’t take the trouble to keep them consistent with one another. Consider his praise of eating simply. Certainly a philosopher might say that: Socrates or Antisthenes, for instance, but not a man who has made pleasure the ultimate good. Or take his denial that a pleasant life is possible without moral conduct, wisdom, and justice. Nothing could be weightier or more worthy of philosophy—if only he didn’t turn that very ‘moral conduct, wisdom, and justice’ into something aimed at pleasure. Or what could improve on his remark that fortune plays only a small part in a wise person’s life? But can he say that? Pain, he tells us, isn’t merely the worst evil; it’s the only evil. Even as he boasts most defiantly against fortune, the fiercest pains may press on every part of his body. Metrodorus puts the same claim in finer language still:\n\nSECTION 27\n“‘I’ve got ahead of you, Fortune,’ he says, ‘and caught you. I’ve blocked all your ways in, so you can’t come anywhere near me.’ Splendid—if Aristo of Chios or Zeno the Stoic were saying it. They thought nothing was bad except what was morally wrong. But you, Metrodorus? You’ve put everything good inside our guts and marrow. You’ve defined the highest good as a sound bodily condition and a confident expectation that it will continue. Have you blocked Fortune’s ways in? How? You can be stripped of that good of yours this very moment.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 10\n\n“Yet the untrained are taken in by this. Sayings like these draw crowds to those men.\n\nSECTION 28\n“A sharp thinker, though, looks not at what each person says but at what his position requires him to say. Take the very claim we’ve taken on in this discussion: we want all good people to be happy at all times. It’s clear whom I mean by good people. We use both ‘wise’ and ‘good’ for people fully equipped and furnished with every virtue. Let’s see who should be called happy.\n\nSECTION 29\n“I think they are people who have good things with nothing bad mixed in. When we say someone is happy, the word means nothing else than a full collection of good things with everything bad kept out. Virtue can’t achieve that if anything besides itself is good. A whole crowd of bad things will be there, if we count these as bad: poverty, an obscure background, low standing, isolation, the loss of loved ones, severe bodily pain, ruined health, disability, blindness, the fall of one’s country, exile, and finally slavery. A wise person can face all these many, serious troubles—and still more can happen. Chance brings them, and it can strike a wise person. But if they’re bad, who can guarantee that a wise person will always be happy, when he might be in the middle of them all at once?\n\nSECTION 30\n“So I can’t readily accept this from Brutus, dear as he is to me, or from our shared teachers. Nor can I accept it from those earlier thinkers, Aristotle, Speusippus, Xenocrates, and Polemo. They classify the things I listed as bad, but still claim uninterrupted happiness for the wise person. Perhaps they’re attracted by that splendid, beautiful declaration, one so worthy of Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato. Then they must resolve to despise what now dazzles them: strength and health, beauty and wealth, honors and influence. They must also regard the opposite conditions as nothing. Only then can they announce as loudly as they please: fortune can attack, public opinion can turn against us, pain and poverty can come, but none frightens us. We have everything in ourselves; we acknowledge no good that lies outside our control.\n\nSECTION 31\n“But there’s no accepting both positions at once: speaking with such greatness and strength of character, while counting the same things good and bad as the crowd does. Attracted by the glory of the declaration, Epicurus now comes forward. Even he—would you believe it!—claims lasting happiness for the wise. The claim impresses him with its dignity. If he actually heard himself, though, he’d never make it. Could anything be less consistent? The very man who calls pain the greatest evil, or even the only evil, expects the wise person to cry out under torture, ‘This feels so good!’ Don’t assess philosophers by a remark here and there, then. Look at whether their thinking stays coherent and consistent throughout.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 11\n\nSECTION 32\n“You’re bringing me around to your view. But watch out that your own consistency doesn’t come up short.”\n\n“How so?”\n\n“I recently read your fourth book On Ends. There, arguing against Cato, you seemed to want to show that Zeno and the Peripatetics differed only in their new vocabulary. I agree with that. If it’s true, and Zeno can consistently say virtue has enough power for a happy life, why can’t the Peripatetics say the same? Surely we ought to look at the substance, not the words.”\n\nSECTION 33\n“You’re bringing sealed documents against me and calling witnesses to something I once said or wrote. Use that approach with people who argue under rules they’ve laid down. We live from day to day. We say whatever has struck our minds as plausible, and so we’re the only ones who are free. Still, since we were just talking about consistency, I don’t think the question here is whether Zeno and his student Aristo were right to hold that only what is morally right is good. The question is whether, if that were so, it would follow consistently that he placed the whole of happiness in virtue alone.\n\nSECTION 34\n“So let’s certainly grant Brutus that a wise person is always happy. He can look after his own consistency. And who deserves the glory of that claim more than he does? But let’s hold on to this ourselves: the same person is also as happy as anyone can be.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 12\n\n“Perhaps Zeno of Citium seems to have wormed his way into ancient philosophy, an obscure foreigner who makes up words. In that case, let’s ground this important claim in Plato’s authority. He often uses language that declares nothing good except virtue. In the Gorgias, for instance, Socrates is asked whether he thinks Archelaus, the son of Perdiccas, is happy. Archelaus was then considered exceptionally fortunate. ‘I don’t know,’ Socrates says.\n\nSECTION 35\n“‘I’ve never talked with him.’ ‘Really? Can’t you know any other way?’ ‘Not at all.’ ‘So you can’t even say whether the great king of Persia is happy?’ ‘How could I, when I don’t know how educated or how good a man he is?’ ‘What? You think that’s what a happy life depends on?’ ‘That’s exactly what I think: good people are happy, bad people unhappy.’ ‘Then Archelaus is unhappy?’ ‘Certainly, if he’s unjust.’\n\nSECTION 36\n“Doesn’t he seem to put the whole happy life in virtue alone here? And what does the same man say in the Funeral Speech? ‘A man whose resources for happiness all depend on himself has arranged his life in the best way. They aren’t tied to other people’s good or bad luck, forced to hang on someone else’s outcomes and drift with them. This is the self-controlled person, the courageous one, the wise one. As other advantages come and go, and especially as children are born and die, he will follow and obey that old instruction. He will never be too joyful or grieve too much, because he will always place all his hopes for himself in himself.’ So our whole argument will flow from this source in Plato, a source we can think of as sacred and deeply revered.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 13\n\n“Where could we better begin, then, than with nature, our common parent?\n\nSECTION 37\n“She has wanted everything she produces to be complete in its own kind. That applies not only to animals but also to things that grow from the earth and are supported by their roots. So among trees, vines, and the smaller plants that can’t rise far above the ground, some stay green all year. Others lose their leaves in winter and grow them again when spring warms them. Every one of them thrives through some movement within itself, with its own seeds enclosed in it, and produces flowers, crops, or berries. Everything in every one of them is complete, as far as it can be, if no force gets in the way.\n\nSECTION 38\n“We can see nature’s own power even more easily in animals, because she has given them sensation. She wanted some animals to swim and live in water, others to fly and enjoy the open sky, some to crawl, and some to walk. Among these animals, some range alone, others gather in groups. Some are wild, some tame, some hidden away and covered by earth. Each keeps to its own function. Unable to change over to the life of a different kind of creature, it stays within nature’s law. Nature has given different animals their own special qualities, and each keeps its own without departing from it. In the same way, she has given human beings something far superior. Yet we should call things superior only when there’s something to compare them with. The human mind, drawn from the divine mind, can be compared with nothing but God himself, if it’s permissible to say so.\n\nSECTION 39\n“So when this mind has been developed, and its vision has been looked after so that errors don’t blind it, it becomes a perfect mind. That is, it becomes fully developed reason, which is the same thing as virtue. Everything that lacks nothing is happy, everything that is full and complete in its own kind. That completeness is precisely what belongs to virtue. So everyone who possesses virtue is certainly happy.\n\n“On this I agree with Brutus—that is, with Aristotle, Xenocrates, Speusippus, and Polemo. But I think such people are also as happy as anyone can be.\n\nSECTION 40\n“What could someone lack for a happy life if he trusts the good things he has? And how could someone be happy if he doesn’t trust them? Yet anyone who divides good things into three classes is bound to lack that trust.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 14\n\n“What grounds for confidence are there in bodily strength, or in fortune’s steadiness? Happiness requires a good that stays firmly in place, secure and lasting. Do any of their goods meet that description? They remind me of a Spartan’s answer to a merchant. The merchant boasted of sending many ships out along every coast. ‘Not much to wish for,’ the Spartan replied, ‘a fortune hanging on ships’ ropes.’ Surely anything we might lose must be left out of the class of things that make happiness complete. What our happiness depends on must never dry up, burn out, or collapse. If we’re afraid that some part of it may be lost, we can’t be happy.\n\nSECTION 41\n“We want a happy person to be safe, impossible to conquer, protected and defended. He shouldn’t have just a little fear; he should have none. We call someone harmless not because he does little harm but because he does none. In the same way, we should call someone fearless not because he has little fear but because he’s completely free of fear. What else is courage but a state of mind that patiently faces danger, hardship, and pain, while keeping far away from all fear? Things certainly couldn’t work that way unless all good lay in moral rightness alone.\n\nSECTION 42\n“And how can anyone have that freedom from worry which we so much want and seek, if a crowd of bad things is either with him or able to reach him? By freedom from worry I now mean freedom from grief, which is what a happy life rests on. How can anyone stand tall, hold his head up, and consider everything that can happen to a human being unimportant, as we want a wise person to do, unless he thinks everything he needs lies within himself? Philip threatened the Spartans in a letter that he would stop everything they tried to do. They asked whether he would also stop them from dying. Won’t we find the person we’re looking for with that attitude much more easily than a whole city? And suppose we add self-control to the courage we’re discussing—self-control, which governs every emotional movement. What could someone lack for a happy life when courage frees him from grief and fear, while self-control draws him away from desire and doesn’t let him jump about in excessive excitement? I’d show that virtue brings these results, if we hadn’t already explained them on the previous days.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 15\n\nSECTION 43\n“Disturbances in the mind make us unhappy; a settled mind makes our life happy. Disturbance has two kinds of cause. Grief and fear concern things we think are bad, while bursts of joy and desire concern things we mistakenly think are good. All these states clash with judgment and reason. If you see someone free, released, and clear of such powerful agitations, which also conflict with one another and pull in opposite directions, will you hesitate to call him happy? But a wise person is always in that condition. So a wise person is always happy.\n\n“Also, everything good is a reason for joy. A reason for joy should be talked up and openly displayed. Something like that is also a source of pride. If it’s a source of pride, it certainly deserves praise. And if it deserves praise, it’s surely morally right.\n\nSECTION 44\n“So anything good is morally right. But even these thinkers don’t call the things they count as good morally right. So only what is morally right is good. It follows that a happy life rests on moral rightness alone. We mustn’t call or consider things good when someone can have plenty of them and still be utterly unhappy.\n\nSECTION 45\n“Do you doubt it? Take a person with outstanding health, strength, and looks, and very sharp, fully functioning senses. Add agility and speed too, if you like. Give him riches, honors, commands, power, and fame. But suppose the person who has all this is unjust, uncontrolled, cowardly, and dull-witted, with no intelligence at all. Would you hesitate to call him unhappy? Then what kind of good things are these, if the person who has them can be utterly unhappy? Perhaps a happy life has to be made out of parts like itself, just as a heap of grain must be made out of grains of its own kind. If that’s so, happiness must be made out of good things, and only morally right things are good. If the parts are a mixture of unlike things, nothing morally right can be made from them. Once you take moral rightness away, what could you understand happiness to be? Besides, whatever is good should be sought. Whatever should be sought should certainly be approved. Whatever you approve should be welcomed and accepted. So it should also be given worth. If so, it must deserve praise. Everything good, then, deserves praise. It follows that only what is morally right is good.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 16\n\nSECTION 46\n“If we don’t hold to this, we’ll have to call a great many things good. I’ll leave out wealth. Any person, however unworthy, can have that, so I don’t count it as good: not just anyone can possess what is good. I’ll leave out noble birth and popular fame built up by the agreement of fools and bad people. But we’ll still have to call even these tiny things good: bright little teeth, attractive eyes, a pleasing complexion, and the things Anticlea praises while washing Odysseus’ feet:\n“‘Gentleness of speech, softness of body.’\n“If we count these as good, what could a serious philosopher say that carries more weight or grandeur than popular opinion and a crowd of fools?\n\nSECTION 47\n“But, you may say, the Stoics call the very same things ‘preferred’ or ‘promoted’ that these people call ‘good.’ They certainly do. But the Stoics deny that these things make life fully happy. The others think there’s no happy life without them, or, if there is, they certainly deny it’s the happiest possible life. We, however, want the happiest possible life. That conclusion of Socrates confirms our position. That leading figure in philosophy argued like this: a person’s character matches the state of his mind. His speech matches the person himself. His actions match his speech, and his life matches his actions. Now a good person’s state of mind deserves praise. So a good person’s life also deserves praise. And since it deserves praise, it’s morally right too. From this we conclude that good people’s lives are happy.\n\nSECTION 48\n“In the name of gods and men! Didn’t we establish clearly enough in our earlier discussions that a wise person is always free of every stirring of the mind that I call a disturbance, and that the deepest peace is always in his mind? Or were we just talking for amusement and to fill our free time? Isn’t a person happy if he’s self-controlled and steady, without fear, grief, pointless excitement, or desire? Yet a wise person is always like that. So he’s always happy. And how could a good person fail to direct everything he does and thinks toward what deserves praise? But he directs everything toward living happily. A happy life therefore deserves praise. Nothing deserves praise without virtue. So virtue produces a happy life.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 17\n\nSECTION 49\n“Here’s another way to reach the conclusion. There’s nothing worth boasting or being proud of in an unhappy life, or in a life that’s neither unhappy nor happy. Yet some life does contain something worth boasting about, being proud of, and displaying openly. Take Epaminondas:\n“‘Our plans have shaved away the Spartans’ glory.’\n“Or Africanus:\n“‘From where the sun rises above the Maeotian marshes,\n“‘There’s no one who can match my deeds.’\n\nSECTION 50\n“Given that, it must be happiness that we should take pride in, speak up about, and put on display. Nothing else qualifies to be spoken up about and displayed. You can see the conclusion once we’ve accepted those premises. There’s another point. Suppose a happy life isn’t also a morally right one. There would have to be something better than happiness, since they’ll surely agree that moral rightness would be better. Something better than happiness! Could a statement turn things upside down more completely? Again, they acknowledge that faults can make a life thoroughly unhappy. Surely they must acknowledge the same power in virtue to make it happy. Opposites lead to opposite results.\n\nSECTION 51\n“Here I ask what weight that pair of scales of Critolaus has. He puts the mind’s good qualities in one pan, and bodily and external goods in the other. He thinks the pan holding the mind’s goods outweighs the other so much that it would drag down the earth and seas.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 18\n\n“What stops him, then, from putting not just a happy life but the happiest possible life in virtue? Or what stops Xenocrates, that most serious of philosophers? He builds virtue up so high and makes everything else so small, dismissing it.\n\nSECTION 52\n“Unless they do that, the virtues will be destroyed. Someone who can experience grief must also be able to experience fear, since fear is anxious expectation of future grief. Someone who can experience fear can also experience terror, timidity, panic, and cowardice. It follows that he’ll sometimes be defeated and won’t think that instruction from Atreus applies to him:\n“‘So let them prepare for life in a way that leaves them unable to lose.’\n“But this person will lose, as I’ve said. Not only that, he’ll also be a slave. Yet we want virtue always free, always undefeated. If it isn’t, virtue has been wiped out.\n\nSECTION 53\n“And if virtue gives enough support for living well, it also gives enough for living happily. It certainly gives enough for us to live courageously. If we can live courageously, we can also live with greatness of spirit, never frightened by anything and always undefeated. It follows that we’ll have no regrets, nothing missing, nothing in our way. Everything will then flow smoothly, completely, and successfully—and so happily. Virtue has enough power for living courageously. So it also has enough for living happily.\n\nSECTION 54\n“Even after foolishness has got what it craved, it never thinks it has got enough. Wisdom, by contrast, is always content with what’s there and never dissatisfied with itself.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 19\n\n“Do you think Gaius Laelius’s single term as consul was comparable—and even that after an election defeat (if, when a wise and good man such as he was loses at the polls, it isn’t the people who meet with rejection [by a good consul], rather than he [by a good electorate])—but in any case, given the choice, which would you want: to serve once as Laelius did, or four times as Cinna did?\n\nSECTION 55\n“I’m sure of your answer, so I know whom I’m putting the question to. I wouldn’t put it to just anybody. Another person might prefer four terms to one, or even a single day as Cinna to the entire lifetimes of many distinguished men. Laelius would have faced punishment for laying a finger on someone. Cinna, on the other hand, had his fellow consul Gnaeus Octavius beheaded. He gave the same order for Publius Crassus and Lucius Caesar, men of the highest rank whose virtue had been proved both at home and in war; for Marcus Antonius, a speaker more eloquent than anyone else I’ve heard; and for Gaius Caesar, who seemed to me a model of culture, wit, charm, and humor. Could their killer be happy? I see him as unhappy for the opposite reason: not just for committing those acts, but for having acted so as to gain the freedom to commit them. Of course, nobody has permission to do wrong. It’s our language that goes astray: we speak of permission when we mean\n\nSECTION 56\n“whatever someone is left free to do. Now consider Gaius Marius. Was he happier sharing the credit for defeating the Cimbri with his fellow consul Catulus? Catulus was almost another Laelius; I think the two were very much alike. Or was Marius happier as the furious victor of a civil war, when those close to Catulus begged him for mercy, and he kept answering, over and over, ‘He must die’? The man who obeyed that wicked command was happier than the one who gave such a criminal order. Being wronged is better than doing wrong. Likewise, when death is already on its way, it is better to step a little forward to meet it, as Catulus did, than to do what Marius did: let the killing of such a man bury six consulships and disgrace the closing years of one’s life.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 20\n\nSECTION 57\n“Dionysius was tyrant of Syracuse for thirty-eight years. He seized power when he was twenty-five. What a beautiful city he kept in slavery, and how rich a community! Yet reliable writers have passed down this account of him: he was extremely moderate in his way of living, and energetic and hardworking in managing affairs, but also naturally malicious and unjust. Anyone who looks honestly at the truth must therefore see him as utterly unhappy. Even when he thought he could do anything, he wasn’t getting the very things he’d craved.\n\nSECTION 58\n“He’d been born to good parents and into a respectable family, though different writers give different accounts of that. He had plenty of close friends of his own age and relatives he was on familiar terms with. He also had some young men attached to him as lovers, in the Greek manner. But he trusted none of them. Instead, he entrusted his personal protection to slaves he’d picked out of rich households and personally declared free, and to some foreign drifters and savage barbarians. So his unjust hunger for absolute power had, in a way, locked him in prison. He even taught his daughters to cut hair so he wouldn’t have to trust his neck to a barber. These royal girls, doing a dirty job fit for slave women, acted as little barbers, cutting their father’s beard and hair. Yet when they grew up he took the blade away even from them. He arranged for them to burn off his beard and hair with glowing-hot walnut shells.\n\nSECTION 59\n“He had two wives, Aristomache, a fellow citizen, and Doris, from Locri. Before visiting them at night, he would inspect and search everything. He had a broad ditch dug around the bed in his bedroom, and put a small wooden bridge across it. Once he’d shut the bedroom door, he would turn even that bridge aside. And because he didn’t dare stand on the usual platforms, he used to address public gatherings from a high tower.\n\nSECTION 60\n“He liked playing ball and did it often. Once, when he wanted to play and took off his tunic, he’s said to have handed his sword to a very young man he loved. A friend joked, ‘Well, you’re certainly trusting this one with your life!’ The young man smiled. Dionysius ordered both men killed: one for pointing out a way to kill him, the other for approving the remark by smiling. After doing this he suffered so much that nothing in his life had hurt him more. He’d killed someone he had loved deeply. That’s how the desires of people with no self-control pull in opposite directions. Once you’ve given in to one desire, you have to resist another.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 21\n\nSECTION 61\n“This tyrant actually made his own assessment of his happiness. His flatterer Damocles once talked about the army and resources he possessed, the majesty of his power, his abundant supplies, and the splendor of his royal home. Nobody, Damocles said, had ever been so happy. The tyrant replied, ‘If this way of living appeals to you, Damocles, how about tasting it yourself? Would you like to experience my situation?’ Damocles said he wanted to. So the tyrant ordered a golden couch prepared for him, with a lovely woven blanket decorated with splendid designs. Several sideboards were loaded with engraved silver and gold objects. He also chose boys of exceptional beauty to stand beside the dining table. They were to keep watching Damocles for a signal and attend carefully to his needs.\n\nSECTION 62\n“There were perfumes and garlands, incense was burning, and the tables were piled with the choicest dishes. Damocles thought himself a lucky man. In the middle of all this luxury, the tyrant had a gleaming sword lowered from the paneled ceiling, hanging by a horsehair right above this happy man’s neck. Now he couldn’t look at those beautiful attendants or the exquisitely worked silver. He couldn’t even reach out toward the table. His garlands were already slipping off. In the end he begged the tyrant to let him go: he didn’t want to be happy anymore. Didn’t Dionysius make it clear enough that there’s no happiness for anyone who always has something frightening hanging over him? And he no longer even had the choice of going back to doing what was right and restoring his fellow citizens’ freedom and legal rights. He’d trapped himself in wrongdoing when he was young and shortsighted. He’d committed acts that made it impossible to stay safe if he started to act sensibly.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 22\n\nSECTION 63\n“He was terrified that friends would betray him, but he showed how much he longed for friendship in the case of those two Pythagoreans. He’d accepted one as a guarantee that the other would return to face death. The other arrived at the appointed hour of execution to release his guarantor. ‘If only I could be admitted as your third friend!’ he said. How miserable he must have been without the company of friends, without shared meals, without any intimate conversation at all! Especially since he’d been educated from childhood, trained in the liberal arts, and was passionately interested in music. He was a tragic poet too. How good a poet doesn’t matter here. Somehow people like their own work in this field even more than in others. I’ve never yet met a poet who didn’t think he was the best—and I was friends with Aquinius. That’s just how it is: you enjoy your work, and I enjoy mine. But back to Dionysius. He had no share in a civilized human way of life or human company. He lived with runaway slaves, criminals, and barbarians. He didn’t think anyone who deserved to be free, or even wanted to be free at all, could be his friend.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 23\n\n“Now, I can’t imagine a life more foul, more miserable, or more hateful than his. I won’t compare it with the lives of Plato or Archytas, learned men and truly wise ones.\n\nSECTION 64\n“I’ll bring forward someone from his own city instead: Archimedes, who lived much later. Here was an unassuming little fellow working with dust and a drawing rod. As quaestor I searched out his tomb, hidden and surrounded on every side by thorns and undergrowth. The Syracusans knew nothing about it and denied that it even existed. But I knew a few short verses in six-foot iambic meter that I had heard were carved on his monument. They described a sphere together with a cylinder standing at the top of the tomb.\n\nSECTION 65\n“There are masses of graves near the Agrigentine gates. As I scanned the whole area, I spotted a small column rising just above the brush. A sphere and a cylinder were pictured on it. Some of Syracuse’s leading citizens had come with me. I told them at once that I believed this was the very thing I was searching for. Many men went in with sickles and cut away the growth, uncovering the site.\n\nSECTION 66\n“With the approach cleared, we walked up to the front of the base. An inscription was visible, though almost half of it was missing, since the latter parts of the short lines had eroded. This was Greece’s most renowned city, and it had once been its most learned. Yet it would have remained unaware of the memorial to its own exceptionally brilliant citizen without someone from Arpinum telling it! Now back to the point I wandered away from. Anyone who has any contact with the Muses—in other words, with education and culture—would surely prefer to be that mathematician rather than this tyrant. Consider their activities and habits. The mathematician fed his mind by examining problems and developing arguments. Exercising his talent delighted him: nothing feeds the mind more enjoyably. The tyrant occupied his mind with killings and wrongs and was frightened throughout the day and the night. Put Democritus beside him, or Pythagoras, or Anaxagoras. Can you name a kingdom or a fortune worth more than the interests and pleasures those men had?\n\nSECTION 67\n“The supreme good we’re looking for must lie in the finest part of us. Nothing in us is finer than a sharp, sound mind. Happiness therefore requires us to enjoy the mind’s particular good. That good is virtue, so virtue must be what makes life happy. That is why fine actions, right actions, and admirable actions all bring abundant joy. I’ve said this already, but the point deserves a fuller explanation. Obviously, happiness in life comes from joys that are complete and continuous. It must therefore come from doing what’s right.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 24\n\nSECTION 68\n“But let’s not just touch on what we’re trying to show in words. We need to put some pictures in motion, so to speak, to draw us more directly toward knowing and understanding it. Let’s take a man who excels in the finest pursuits and picture him in our minds for a moment. First, he must have outstanding natural ability. Virtue doesn’t easily go along with a slow mind. Next, he must have an eager drive to discover the truth. This will produce those three kinds of mental achievement. One consists in knowing things and explaining nature. Another sets out what to pursue and what to avoid, and how to live well. The third determines what follows from each thing and what conflicts with it. This last contains both the whole subtle art of argument and sound judgment about the truth.\n\nSECTION 69\n“What joy must fill a wise person’s mind when these are the interests he lives with, day and night! He’ll have understood the movements and revolutions of the whole universe. He’ll have seen countless stars attached to the sky, fixed in particular places and moving along with the sky itself. Seven others each follow their own paths, at very different heights and depths. Wandering as their movements seem, they mark out regular, fixed stretches of their own courses. The sight of these surely gave those early thinkers the impulse and the hint to ask further questions. This led to the search for beginnings, for the seeds, so to speak, from which everything arose, was generated, and took shape. They asked about the origin, life, and destruction of each kind of thing, lifeless or living, speechless or speaking, and how one thing turns and changes into another. They asked where the earth came from, what weights hold it in balance, and what hollows support the seas. What force of weight pulls everything down toward the center of the universe, always its destination, which in a sphere is also the lowest point?”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 25\n\nSECTION 70\n“A mind occupied with these matters, thinking them through by day and by night, develops the self-knowledge required by the god at Delphi. It recognizes itself and senses its bond with divine intelligence. That experience fills it with a joy it cannot have enough of. Reflecting on what the gods are and what they can do sets it burning to share that eternal life. It no longer feels enclosed in the few years of a human lifespan. It sees causes depending on further causes, joined by necessity. Their flow has neither beginning nor end, but intelligence and reason control it.\n\nSECTION 71\n“As he looks at these things and looks up to them—or rather looks all around, in every direction and toward every boundary—how calmly he can turn back to the nearer concerns of human life! From this comes knowledge of virtue. The different kinds and branches of virtue blossom. He discovers what nature aims at as the ultimate good, and what is the ultimate bad thing; what standard should guide our duties, and what plan we should choose for living our lives. Examining these and similar questions establishes above all the point we’re discussing here: virtue needs nothing beyond itself for a happy life.\n\nSECTION 72\n“Next comes the third pursuit, the method and knowledge of reasoning. It runs and spreads through every branch of wisdom. It defines things, divides them into kinds, connects what follows, draws complete conclusions, and distinguishes truth from falsehood. Besides being supremely useful in weighing things up, it gives a particularly free and cultivated pleasure, one worthy of wisdom. But these are pursuits for free time. Now let this same wise person take on protecting the state. Who could be better? He sees that the citizens’ welfare is maintained by practical wisdom. His justice keeps him from diverting any of those benefits into his own house, and he uses all those many, varied other virtues. Add the rewards of friendship. For educated people, friendship involves agreement, almost a breathing in unison, about the whole plan of life. It also brings the greatest enjoyment from daily company and shared living. What else does this life need to be happier? Even Fortune herself must give way to a life packed with so many great joys. And if happiness means enjoying such good qualities of mind—that is, virtues—and all wise people fully enjoy those joys, we have to admit that all wise people are happy.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 26\n\n“Even under torture and torment?”\n\nSECTION 73\n“Were you imagining that I meant lying among roses or violets? Consider Epicurus. He’s only dressed up as a philosopher and given himself the name. Even so, he says something which, under the circumstances, I applaud: at every moment a wise person can shout, ‘This counts for nothing!’ That includes moments when he’s being burned, cut, or tortured. Yet for Epicurus pain defines every evil and pleasure defines every good. He ridicules our distinction between right and wrong. He says we’re preoccupied with words and making empty sounds: only what feels smooth or harsh in the body has any bearing on us. As I said, his judgment hardly differs from a wild animal’s. Is he nevertheless allowed to abandon his own principles and defy fortune? All his goods and evils depend on fortune. Is he allowed to announce that he’s happy while suffering the cruelest torture and agony? He has declared pain to be not merely the worst evil but the only evil.\n\nSECTION 74\n“He hasn’t even equipped himself with the resources for enduring pain: a firm mind, a sense of shame about disgraceful behavior, practice and a habit of endurance, the teachings of courage, manly toughness. Instead he says he finds comfort simply by remembering past pleasures. It would be like someone burning up in the heat, finding it hard to stand, deciding to remember how he was once immersed in the cool rivers at my place at Arpinum. I can’t see how pleasures in the past can relieve troubles in the present—\n\nSECTION 75\n“But he says a wise person is always happy, even though he couldn’t say it if he wanted to be consistent with himself. So what should people say who think nothing should be sought, or counted as good, unless it’s morally right? My advice even to the Peripatetics and the Old Academics is to stop stammering at last. Let them dare to say openly and in a clear voice that a happy life will go down into Phalaris’ bull.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 27\n\nSECTION 76\n“Suppose we accept three classes of good. I’ve been using more Stoic traps than usual, I notice, so let’s step away from them. We can allow those classes, as long as physical goods and external goods stay down at ground level. They can be called goods only in the sense that we should select them. The mind’s divine goods, by contrast, must spread out in all directions and reach heaven. When someone has acquired those, why call him just happy? Why not say he’s as happy as anyone can be?\n\n“But will a wise person be frightened of pain? Pain is the strongest objection to this position. Our discussions on earlier days seem to have armed and prepared us well enough against our own death and the deaths of those close to us, and against distress and the other emotional disturbances. Pain seems to be virtue’s fiercest opponent. It points blazing torches at virtue. It threatens to cripple courage, greatness of spirit, and endurance.\n\nSECTION 77\n“So is virtue going to surrender to pain? Is pain going to defeat the happiness of someone wise and firm? What a disgrace that would be, good gods! The whip tears Spartan boys’ bodies, yet they make no groan. I’ve personally watched bands of young men at Sparta battling with astonishing force. They punched, kicked, scratched, and even bit; they died before they would acknowledge defeat. Where is a more uncivilized, rougher country than India? Yet the people they regard as wise live naked there all their lives. Without suffering they bear the Caucasus snows and the violence of winter. They put themselves against the fire and burn without a sound of complaint.\n\nSECTION 78\n“Indian women also provide an example. A husband usually has several wives there. At his death they compete for a ruling on which wife he loved best. The winner is happy as she is put on the funeral pyre beside her husband, with her relatives escorting her. The unsuccessful one leaves in sorrow. Habit could never overcome nature, which is always unconquerable. We, though, have damaged our minds by staying in the shade, indulging in luxury, taking our ease, growing sluggish, and doing nothing. False opinions and bad practices have lulled and weakened them. Everyone knows what happens in Egypt. People there are so steeped in erroneous, perverse ideas that they’d undergo any form of torture sooner than injure an ibis, an asp, a cat, a dog, or a crocodile. If they accidentally harm one, they accept whatever punishment comes.\n\nSECTION 79\n“I’m talking about people. But what about animals? Don’t they endure cold, hunger, and roaming and ranging over mountains and through forests? Don’t they fight so fiercely for their young that they take wounds without shrinking from any attack, without shrinking from any blow? I’ll leave out what ambitious people endure and suffer for office, what those eager for praise endure for glory, and what people burning with love endure for desire. Life is full of examples.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 28\n\nSECTION 80\n“But let’s put a limit on this discussion and return to where it turned aside. A happy life will, I say, submit to torture. It won’t follow justice, self-control, and above all courage, greatness of spirit, and endurance, only to stop when it sees the torturer’s face. All the virtues will have gone on to torment without any fear in their minds. Happiness won’t hold back outside the prison, beyond its doors and threshold, as I said before. What could look uglier or more disgraceful than happiness left all alone, cut off from that wonderful company? But that can’t possibly happen. The virtues can’t hold together without a happy life, and a happy life can’t hold together without the virtues.\n\nSECTION 81\n“So they won’t let happiness hang back. They’ll carry it along with them into whatever pain and torment they’re led to themselves. A wise person, after all, is distinguished by never doing anything he could regret, or anything against his will. He does everything splendidly, steadily, seriously, and rightly. He doesn’t expect anything as if it were sure to happen. When something does happen, he doesn’t react with amazement, as though it had come as something unexpected and new. He refers everything to his own judgment and stands by his own decisions. I certainly can’t think of anything happier than that.\n\nSECTION 82\n“The Stoics, at least, reach their conclusion easily. They hold that the highest good is to be in harmony with nature and live consistently with it. That isn’t just a wise person’s duty; it’s also within his power. So the necessary result is that the person who has the highest good in his power also has a happy life in his power. In this way, a wise person’s life is always happy.\n\n“There you have what I consider the most forceful things to say about a happy life. As things stand, I also consider them the truest, unless you can offer something better.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 29\n\n“Nothing better occurs to me. Still, if you don’t mind, I’d be grateful if you’d explain something. You aren’t committed to one philosophical school: you sample every school and choose whatever seems closest to the truth. Just now you appeared to be encouraging the Peripatetics and the Old Academy to speak out boldly, with no hesitation, and say that wise people always have the greatest happiness. How, in your view, can they make that claim without contradicting themselves? You’ve argued at length against their view and drawn conclusions in the Stoic manner.”\n\nSECTION 83\n“Let’s exercise our philosophical freedom, then. It belongs to our school alone. We make no final ruling in the discussion itself; we put forward arguments on every side. That lets other people assess the discussion for itself, with no appeal to anyone’s authority. You seem to want to establish that virtue provides enough support for happiness whatever the rival philosophers think the final goal is. Carneades, we hear, regularly took that line. His purpose, however, was to attack the Stoics. He pursued their refutation with particular enthusiasm, and opposition to their school fired his abilities. We’ll handle the question without a fight. If the Stoic account of the ultimate good is right, everything is settled: the wise must always be happy.\n\nSECTION 84\n“But let’s examine each of the other positions, to see whether this splendid resolution about a happy life, as we might call it, can be made to fit everyone’s views and teachings.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 30\n\n“As I see it, the positions about the ultimate ends that have survived and found defenders are these. First there are four simple ones: nothing is good except what’s morally right, as the Stoics say; nothing is good except pleasure, as Epicurus says; nothing is good except freedom from pain, as Hieronymus says; and nothing is good except enjoying all, or the most important, of nature’s primary goods, as Carneades argued against the Stoics.\n\nSECTION 85\n“So much for the simple accounts. The combined accounts are these. For the Peripatetics there are three classes of goods: mental goods rank highest, physical ones come next, and external ones come third. The Old Academy takes much the same line. Dinomachus and Callipho put moral worth together with pleasure; Diodorus of the Peripatetic school put it together with absence of pain. Those are the views that have some lasting support. Aristo’s, Pyrrho’s, Erillus’, and a number of others have died out. We should see how the supporters of the surviving views can defend their ground. I think I’ve said enough for the Stoics, so we can set them aside.\n\n“The Peripatetics’ case has already been explained, except for Theophrastus and any followers of his who are weak enough to shudder at pain and shrink from it. The rest can do what they generally do: stress the importance and dignity of virtue. Once they’ve raised it to the sky, as eloquent people regularly do at length, it’s easy to crush everything else by comparison and think nothing of it. People who say we should pursue praise even at the cost of pain can’t deny happiness to those who’ve achieved that praise. They may have some bad things in their lives, but the word ‘happy’ has a very wide reach.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 31\n\nSECTION 86\n“We call trade profitable and farming productive, not because the one is always free from every loss and the other always free from every disaster caused by the weather. We use those words if each is successful by a very large margin. In the same way, a life can rightly be called happy not only if it’s packed with good things on every side, but if the good things tip the balance by a much greater and weightier amount.\n\nSECTION 87\n“On their reasoning, then, a happy life will follow virtue even to execution. With the authority of Aristotle, Xenocrates, Speusippus, and Polemo behind it, it will go down into the bull along with virtue. Neither threats nor flattery will corrupt it and make it desert virtue. Callipho and Diodorus will take the same position. Both embrace moral goodness so firmly that they think everything without it should be placed far behind. The remaining thinkers seem to be in a tighter spot. Yet Epicurus, Hieronymus, and anyone who cares to defend that abandoned end proposed by Carneades still swim to safety. Every one of them thinks the mind judges what’s good. Every one trains it to be able to disregard what seems good or bad.\n\nSECTION 88\n“Whatever you think Epicurus’ case is, Hieronymus and Carneades will be in the same position—and, by Hercules, so will all the rest. Which of them hasn’t prepared himself well enough to face death or pain?\n\n“Let’s start, if you like, with the man we call soft and pleasure-loving. Do you think someone is afraid of death or pain if he calls the day he dies a happy day, and, while suffering the greatest pains, overcomes them by recalling and remembering his discoveries? He doesn’t do this as though he’s just blurting something out on the spur of the moment. His view of death is that once a living creature breaks apart, its power of sensation goes out. And he judges that what has no sensation doesn’t concern us at all. In pain, too, he has fixed principles to follow. He finds comfort for severe pain in its shortness, and for lasting pain in its mildness.\n\nSECTION 89\n“How are those big talkers any better off than Epicurus when facing these two things that cause us the most anguish?\n\n“And don’t Epicurus and the other philosophers seem well enough prepared for the other things people consider bad? Who isn’t terrified of poverty? Yet not one philosopher is.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 32\n\n“Epicurus himself makes do with so very little! Nobody has written more about a modest diet. What makes people hungry for money is the wish to pay for love, get ahead in public life, and cover their daily spending. None of that comes anywhere near him. Why would he have any strong desire for money? Why would he even give it a thought?\n\nSECTION 90\n“Was Anacharsis the Scythian able to think nothing of money, while our philosophers won’t be able to? A letter of his is circulated in these words: ‘Anacharsis sends greetings to Hanno. A Scythian wrap is my clothing; the hard skin on my soles is my footwear; the ground is my bed; hunger is my relish. I live on milk, cheese, and meat. So you can visit me as someone living in peace. But give those gifts that you’ve enjoyed so much to your fellow citizens or to the immortal gods.’ Nearly all philosophers from every school could have had this same attitude, except those whose flawed nature had twisted them away from right reasoning.\n\nSECTION 91\n“At the sight of gold and silver passing in great quantities in a procession, Socrates exclaimed, ‘All those things I have no wish for!’ Alexander once sent envoys to bring Xenocrates a gift of fifty talents. That was a huge amount then, particularly in Athens. Xenocrates invited the visitors to eat at the Academy and provided only what they needed, with no elaborate preparations. Next morning they wanted instructions about who should receive the payment. He replied, ‘What? After that small meal yesterday, didn’t you realize I have no need for money?’ They looked unhappy, so he took thirty minas. He didn’t want to appear to spurn the king’s generous offer.\n\nSECTION 92\n“Diogenes, though, was franker, as a Cynic would be. Alexander asked him to say if there was anything he needed. ‘For now,’ he said, ‘just move a little out of my sunlight.’ Alexander had, you see, blocked the sun while he was sunning himself. Diogenes used to argue how much his life and lot were better than the Persian king’s. He himself lacked nothing, while the king would never have enough of anything. He had no desire for the king’s pleasures, which the king could never get his fill of. And the king couldn’t possibly attain the pleasures Diogenes had.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 33\n\n“You see, I believe, how Epicurus divided the kinds of desire. Perhaps the division isn’t very precise, but it’s useful.\n\nSECTION 93\n“Some are natural and necessary; some natural but not necessary; and some neither. The necessary ones can be satisfied with next to nothing, because the riches nature needs are easy to get. As for the second kind of desire, he thinks it’s neither hard to satisfy nor hard to do without. The third kind he thought should be thrown out altogether: they’re completely empty and have no connection with necessity or even with nature.\n\nSECTION 94\n“The Epicureans discuss this subject at length. They play down each individual pleasure, even though they don’t dismiss the general kinds of pleasure involved; still, they don’t seek an abundance of them. They say sexual pleasures, too, which they talk a great deal about, are easy, common, and readily available. If nature requires them, they think we should judge them not by birth, position, or rank but by looks, age, and figure. They think it’s not at all difficult to abstain from them if health, duty, or reputation demands it. Overall, this kind of pleasure is desirable if it does no harm, but it never does any good.\n\nSECTION 95\n“His teaching on pleasure as a whole is that pleasure itself, simply because it’s pleasure, should always be wanted and pursued. By the same reasoning, pain, simply because it’s pain, should always be avoided. So a wise person will use this balancing test: avoid even a pleasure if it will bring about greater pain, and accept pain if it will bring about greater pleasure. And although bodily sensation is the judge of everything pleasant, all of it is referred to the mind.\n\nSECTION 96\n“That means the body enjoys itself only as long as it feels a pleasure that’s present. The mind both takes in the present pleasure along with the body and looks ahead to the pleasure that’s coming. Nor does it let past pleasure slip away. So a wise person will always have an unbroken, connected sequence of pleasures: the anticipation of pleasures hoped for will join with the memory of pleasures already experienced.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 34\n\nSECTION 97\n“Similar points apply to food, too. Lavish, expensive banquets are played down, since nature is satisfied with a modest way of life. Doesn’t everyone see that the seasoning for all those things is our appetite for them? When Darius was fleeing, he drank muddy water polluted with dead bodies. He said he’d never had a more enjoyable drink. Clearly he’d never drunk when he was thirsty before. Ptolemy had never eaten when he was hungry either. While he was traveling through Egypt, his companions fell behind, and he was given coarse bread in a hut. Nothing seemed more delicious to him than that bread. They say that Socrates was walking quite vigorously right up to evening, and someone asked why he was doing it. He replied that he was shopping for an appetite by walking, so he’d enjoy his dinner more.\n\nSECTION 98\n“And don’t we see how the Spartans eat at their common meals? The tyrant Dionysius dined there and said he hadn’t enjoyed the black broth that was the dinner’s main dish. The cook said, ‘No wonder. The seasonings were missing.’ ‘What seasonings?’ he asked. ‘Hard work hunting, sweat, a run to the Eurotas, hunger, thirst. Those are the seasonings for Spartan dinners.’ We can understand this not only from human habits but also from animals. Whatever is thrown to them, as long as it’s not contrary to their nature, satisfies them. They don’t look for anything more.\n\nSECTION 99\n“Some whole communities, trained by custom, take pleasure in frugality, as I said a little earlier about the Spartans. Xenophon describes the Persians’ diet. He says they eat nothing with their bread except cress. Still, even if nature does want something a bit tastier, think how many things grow out of the earth and on trees, easy to get in abundance and wonderfully sweet! Add the lean condition that follows this restraint in eating. Add sound health. Compare people who are sweating and belching, stuffed with banquets like fattened oxen.\n\nSECTION 100\n“Then you’ll understand that the people who pursue pleasure most get the least of it. Enjoying food depends on wanting it, not being full of it.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 35\n\n“They say Timotheus, a distinguished man at Athens and a leader of the city, dined with Plato and greatly enjoyed the gathering. When he saw Plato the next day, he said, ‘Your dinners are enjoyable not just at the time, but the next day too.’ And what about the fact that we can’t even use our minds properly when we’re full of food and drink? There’s an excellent letter from Plato to Dion’s relatives, which says roughly this: ‘When I got there, I found no pleasure at all in that supposedly happy life, full of Italian and Syracusan feasts: eating your fill twice a day, never spending the night alone, and everything else that goes with that life. No one will ever become wise in it, much less self-controlled. What natural character could be so wonderfully balanced?’\n\nSECTION 101\n“How could anyone enjoy a life without sound judgment or restraint? This exposes the mistake made by Syria’s enormously wealthy king Sardanapallus. He had the following carved on his grave:\n“‘Mine is the food I ate, and all my fully sated lust\n“‘Drank in; the many splendid things I left just lie there.’\n“Aristotle remarks, ‘What different inscription would you put on the grave of an ox rather than a king? He claims to own these things in death. Even in life he owned them only for the time he was enjoying them.’\n\nSECTION 102\n“So why should anyone want riches? At what point does poverty keep us from being happy? You’re keen on statues and paintings, I suppose. If someone enjoys them, don’t people of small means enjoy them better than people who own them in abundance? Our city has a vast public supply of all those things. Private owners don’t have as many and see them rarely, when they come to their country homes. And yet something stings them when they remember where they got them. The day would run out if I chose to defend poverty’s case. It’s obvious, and nature herself reminds us every day how few things she needs, how small they are, and how cheap.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 36\n\n“Then will obscurity, low social standing, or even public unpopularity stop a wise person from being happy?\n\nSECTION 103\n“Popularity and the glory people seek may well bring more distress than enjoyment. Think how silly our Demosthenes was. He confessed that he enjoyed a woman’s whispered remark as she carried water, something women regularly do in Greece. She whispered to another woman, ‘There’s that Demosthenes.’ Could anything be sillier? Such a great public speaker, too! Evidently he’d learned to address other people, but hadn’t learned much about talking to himself.\n\nSECTION 104\n“So we need to understand that popular fame isn’t worth pursuing for its own sake, and obscurity isn’t something to fear. Democritus says, ‘I came to Athens, and no one there recognized me.’ What a steady, serious man, to boast that he’d stayed away from fame! Flute players and people who play stringed instruments guide their songs and rhythms by their own judgment, not the crowd’s. Is a wise person, equipped with a far greater art, going to ask not what’s truest, but what the crowd wants? And is anything more foolish than to think people amount to something as a group when you look down on them individually as laborers and barbarians? A wise person will look down instead on our scramble for office and our shallowness. He’ll turn down public honors even when they’re offered without his asking. We, on the other hand, don’t know how to disregard them until we’ve begun to regret them. Heraclitus, the natural philosopher, has a passage about Hermodorus, the leading man of Ephesus.\n\nSECTION 105\n“He says every Ephesian deserves the death penalty. In expelling Hermodorus they declared, ‘No individual here should outshine the rest of us. If anyone does, he should live elsewhere, with someone else.’ Isn’t that the way with every population? They hate any exceptional excellence. Take Aristides—I’d sooner give examples from Greece than from Rome. Wasn’t excessive justice the very reason they banished him? People who stay entirely out of public affairs escape so much misery! Nothing is more enjoyable than having time for study. By study I mean what teaches us about the infinite range of existence and nature, and about heaven, land, and sea in this universe.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 37\n\n“Once we’ve dismissed public office and dismissed money too, what’s left to frighten us?\n\nSECTION 106\n“Exile, I suppose. It’s counted among the worst things. If it’s bad because the public is hostile and offended, we’ve just said how little we should care about that attitude. But if being away from your country makes you miserable, the provinces are full of miserable people: very few of them ever return home.\n\nSECTION 107\n“‘Exiles have their possessions confiscated, though.’ And? Haven’t we heard enough arguments for bearing poverty? Forget the discredit attached to the word ‘exile’ and consider the actual situation. Is it so different from a lifetime spent away on foreign travels? A great many celebrated philosophers lived that way: Xenocrates, Crantor, Arcesilaus, Lacydes, Aristotle, Theophrastus, Zeno, Cleanthes, Chrysippus, Antipater, Carneades, Clitomachus, Philo, Antiochus, Panaetius, and Posidonius, to name only some of the countless examples. Not one of those men went home after leaving. ‘Their absence wasn’t shameful, though.’ Can banishment shame someone wise? A wise person is the subject of this whole discussion, and he cannot rightly be exiled. Someone who deserves exile shouldn’t be consoled.\n\nSECTION 108\n“Besides, philosophers who guide their choices in life by pleasure have the easiest answer to any misfortune. They can be happy living anywhere that offers pleasure. Teucer’s words can therefore suit any philosophical approach:\n“‘Where life goes well, that’s my country.’\n“Asked where he came from, Socrates said, ‘The world.’ He thought he lived in the whole world and belonged to it as a citizen. Titus Albucius, too, calmly pursued philosophy at Athens while in exile. He could have avoided exile itself by following Epicurus’ instructions and leaving politics alone.\n\nSECTION 109\n“How was Epicurus happier because he lived in his own country than Metrodorus was because he lived at Athens? Or did Plato surpass Xenocrates in happiness, or Polemo Arcesilaus? And how much should we value a community that drives out good and wise people? Damaratus, the father of our King Tarquin, couldn’t put up with the tyrant Cypselus. He fled from Corinth to Tarquinii, established his fortune there, and had children. Was he foolish to prefer freedom in exile to slavery at home?”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 38\n\nSECTION 110\n“What’s more, forgetting eases emotional disturbances, anxieties, and distress, as the mind turns toward pleasure. So Epicurus had reason to venture the claim that a wise person always has more good things than bad, because he’s always experiencing pleasures. Epicurus thinks this establishes the point we’re investigating: a wise person is always happy.\n\nSECTION 111\n“‘Even if he loses his sight or his hearing?’ Yes, even then. He thinks little of those very things. To begin with, what pleasures does that supposedly dreadful blindness actually lack? Some even argue that the other pleasures reside in the senses themselves, but what we take in by sight doesn’t involve any enjoyment in the eyes. Whatever we taste, smell, touch, or hear involves the very part where we feel it. Nothing like that happens in the eyes: the mind takes in what we see. And the mind can enjoy itself in many different ways even without bringing sight into play. I’m talking about a learned, educated person, for whom living means thinking. And when a wise person thinks, he doesn’t generally call his eyes in to help with his investigation.\n\nSECTION 112\n“If night doesn’t take away a happy life, why should a day that’s like night take it away? Antipater of Cyrene made a rather indecent remark, but the thought behind it wasn’t silly. Some little women were lamenting his blindness. ‘What are you doing?’ he said. ‘Don’t you think there’s any pleasure at night?’ As for the Appius who lived long ago and was blind for many years, his public offices and achievements show that his condition didn’t make him fail in either his private or his public duties. We’ve heard that Gaius Drusus’ house used to be crowded with people seeking advice. They couldn’t see their way through their own affairs, so they took a blind man as their guide. When I was a boy, Gnaeus Aufidius, who’d been praetor, used to give his opinion in the Senate, help his friends when they were deciding what to do, and write a history in Greek. He found his sight in books.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 39\n\nSECTION 113\n“The Stoic Diodotus lived in my house for many years after going blind. He devoted himself to philosophy even more constantly than before. He played a stringed instrument in the Pythagorean way, and books were read to him day and night. In those pursuits he didn’t need his eyes. But he also did something scarcely believable, something that seems almost impossible without sight: he kept up his teaching of geometry, telling his students in words where to start and end each line they drew. They say Asclepiades, a well-known philosopher of the Eretrian school, was asked what blindness had brought him. He replied, ‘One more boy to keep me company.’ Even the most extreme poverty would be bearable if you could do what certain Greeks do every day. In the same way, blindness could be borne easily if the aids for such conditions weren’t lacking.\n\nSECTION 114\n“Once blind, Democritus naturally lost the ability to separate black things from white ones. But he still knew the difference between evil and good, unfair and fair, disgraceful and honorable, useless and useful, small and great. Happiness was possible without different colors to look at, but not without a grasp of things. In fact, he believed seeing with the eyes could obstruct mental insight. People often failed to see what lay directly in front of their feet. Meanwhile he ranged across all infinity, with no outer limit to stop him. Homer is also said to have been blind. Yet we look at his work as pictures rather than poems. He gives us Greece’s regions, its coasts, its places; the appearance and shape of battles; the armies in position; the rowing; the movements of human beings and beasts. Is there any of it he hasn’t depicted so vividly that we can see what he himself never saw? Can we really suppose that Homer ever went without delight and pleasure in his mind? Or that any learned person did?\n\nSECTION 115\n“If things weren’t like that, would Anaxagoras or this same Democritus have left their farms and inheritances behind and given themselves wholeheartedly to this divine pleasure of learning and inquiry? And so, when the poets portray the seer Tiresias as wise, they never bring him on complaining about his blindness. But Homer made Polyphemus monstrous and savage. He even has him talk to his ram and praise its good fortune, because it can go where it likes and reach what it likes. Homer was right to do that. The Cyclops himself had no more sense than that ram.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 40\n\nSECTION 116\n“And just what’s bad about deafness? Marcus Crassus was rather deaf. But he had a bigger problem: he was badly spoken of, though, in my view, unfairly. Our own [Epicureans] generally don’t know Greek, and Greeks don’t know Latin. So the Greeks are deaf when our people talk, and our people are deaf when the Greeks talk. All of us, likewise, are certainly deaf in the languages we don’t understand, and there are countless ones. ‘But deaf people don’t hear a singer playing the lyre.’ They don’t hear the screech of a saw being sharpened either, or a pig’s grunting as its throat is cut, or the roar of the rumbling sea when they want to rest. And if they happen to enjoy songs, first they should think how many wise people lived happily before songs were invented. Then they should consider how much more pleasure they can get from reading them than from hearing them.\n\nSECTION 117\n“A little earlier we directed blind people toward the pleasures of hearing. In the same way, we can direct deaf people toward the pleasures of sight. Anyone who can talk to himself won’t need someone else’s conversation.\n\n“Pile everything onto one person: let him be both blind and deaf, and let the fiercest bodily pains weigh him down as well. First, pains like that generally finish a person off on their own. But suppose they happen to last a long time, yet still torture him too fiercely for there to be any reason to endure them. Good gods, why should we struggle? A harbor is ready for us, since death is right there, a shelter where we never feel anything again.\n\nSECTION 118\n“When Lysimachus threatened Theodorus with death, Theodorus said, ‘A great achievement indeed, if you’ve matched the power of a blister beetle!’ Perseus begged Paulus not to lead him in his triumphal procession. Paulus replied, ‘That’s in your own power.’ We said a great deal about death on the first day, when death itself was our subject, and quite a bit on the next day too, when we discussed pain. Anyone who remembers those points is hardly in danger of failing to think death either desirable or, at least, nothing to fear.”\n\n### Book 5, Chapter 41\n\n“I think the rule at Greek banquets should apply to life as well. The rule says, ‘Drink, or get out.’ Quite right, too. Either share the other guests’ enjoyment of drinking or make your exit first, so you don’t stay sober and get caught in drunken violence. That’s how to leave behind the blows of fortune when you cannot bear them: make your escape. Hieronymus gives this very advice in precisely the words Epicurus uses.\n\nSECTION 119\n“Some philosophers hold that virtue has no value in itself. They say everything we call morally right and praiseworthy is something empty, dressed up with a meaningless sound. Yet if even they think a wise person is always happy, what are the philosophers who follow Socrates and Plato supposed to do? Some of them say the mind’s good qualities have such superiority that they overwhelm the bodily and external goods. Others don’t even regard those things as good and place everything in the mind.\n\nSECTION 120\n“Carneades used to decide their dispute like an unofficial arbitrator. Whatever the Peripatetics considered goods, the Stoics considered advantages. And when you weighed the actual things rather than the words, the Peripatetics didn’t assign any more value to wealth, good health, or other things of that kind than the Stoics did. So he said there was no reason for disagreement. Let the philosophers of the other schools work out for themselves how they can maintain this position. Still, I’m grateful to them for making a declaration worthy of philosophers about wise people’s lasting ability to live well.\n\nSECTION 121\n“Since we’re leaving tomorrow morning, let’s commit our five days of conversations to memory. I expect I’ll put them in writing as well. Whatever we make of this leisure of ours, how could we spend it better? We’ll send another five books to our friend Brutus. He has done more than urge me to write philosophy: he’s pressed me to take it up. I can’t readily say what benefit my writing will have for anyone else. But nothing else could be found to ease the most bitter grief I feel and all the different troubles pressing in on me from every direction.”","download_url":"https://mouseia.org/api/works/cicero-tusculan/translations/trn_cicero_tusculan_plain.txt"}],"retex_markdown_url":"https://mouseia.org/api/works/cicero-tusculan/retex.md"}}