On the Firmness of the Wise Man
De Constantia Sapientis
Headnote
On the Firmness of the Wise Man is the second book of Seneca’s collected Dialogi and one of his most uncompromising statements of the Stoic paradox. It is addressed to Annaeus Serenus, a younger kinsman or friend of Seneca and a prefect of the watch (the praefectus vigilum) under Nero, who also receives On the Tranquillity of Mind and On Leisure; the three together trace Serenus’s gradual passage from Epicurean sympathies to the Stoic discipline, and here he is cast as the impatient objector whose indignation at injustice gives Seneca his opening. The date is uncertain — most readers place it in the mid-fifties, early in Nero’s reign — and the work has no firm external anchor beyond its place in the dialogue collection and the maturity of its thought.
The thesis is announced in the subtitle the manuscripts preserve: that the wise man receives neither injury (iniuria) nor insult (contumelia). Seneca divides the two and answers them in turn. Injury, the graver, is impossible because it would require inflicting evil, and the only evil is moral baseness, which cannot enter where virtue already holds the ground; the wise man, having lodged all his goods in his own virtue and entrusted nothing to fortune, has nothing that can be taken from him, and so nothing through which injury could reach him. Insult, the lighter, is dissolved by greatness of soul (magnanimitas): since insult springs from contempt, and no one can truly despise a greater man, the wise man treats the affronts of the foolish as he treats the tantrums of children or the railings of the sick — not as wounds but as symptoms, to be met with laughter or, where correction is owed, with a physician’s calm. The argument is pressed through the diatribe’s full machinery, the imagined heckler (“What then? Will there be no one to provoke him?”) answered point by point, and through a chain of hard analogies — the diamond that blunts the iron, the crag that breaks the sea, the arrows that fall back below heaven — that give the doctrine its sensory force.
The exempla carry the weight. Cato the Younger, whose mistreatment by the Roman mob opens the dialogue, stands as the surer pattern of the sage than the legendary Ulysses and Hercules: he grappled not with monsters but with the corruption of a dying Republic, and fell with the liberty he could not save. Against him is set the philosopher Stilbo, who, his city sacked by Demetrius Poliorcetes and his daughters carried off, could still say “all that is mine is with me.” At the dark end of the scale stands Gaius Caligula, insult incarnate, whose compulsive cruelty of tongue — the taunt that drove the tribune Cassius Chaerea to strike the first blow — becomes Seneca’s case-study in how the need to wound recoils upon the one who cannot bear to be wounded. The translation keeps the Senecan snap, the antithesis and the lifted-out maxim, and holds the doctrinal terms steady — sapiens, virtus, fortuna, iniuria, contumelia — so that the wordplay on which the second half turns, contumelia from contemptus, stands clear.
I would say, Serenus, that there is as much difference between the Stoics and the rest who have professed wisdom as there is between women and men, and not without warrant; for though each company contributes as much to the fellowship of life, the one half is born to obey, the other to command. The other sages treat us gently and soothingly, much as household and family physicians treat sick bodies — not by the best and quickest road, but by the road allowed them. The Stoics, having taken the man’s way, do not concern themselves that it should seem pleasant to those who set out upon it, but that it should snatch us away as soon as may be and lead us up to that lofty summit which has risen so far beyond the reach of any missile that it towers above fortune itself.
Tantum inter Stoicos, Serene, et ceteros sapientiam professos interesse quantum inter feminas et mares non inmerito dixerim, cum utraque turba ad uitae societatem tantundem conferat, sed altera pars ad obsequendum, altera imperio nata sit. Ceteri sapientes molliter et blande, ut fere domestici et familiares medici aegris corporibus, non qua optimum et celerrimum est medentur sed qua licet: Stoici uirilem ingressi uiam non ut amoena ineuntibus uideatur curae habent, sed ut quam primum nos eripiat et in illum editum uerticem educat qui adeo extra omnem teli iactum surrexit ut supra fortunam emineat.
"But the path we are called to is steep and broken." Well, and is the height reached over level ground? Yet it is not even so sheer as some suppose. The first part alone has rocks and crags and the look of an impassable place, just as most things, to those who survey them from afar, are wont to seem cut off and joined together, when distance deceives the sight; then, to those who come nearer, the very things that the error of the eyes had heaped into one open gradually, and to those slopes which from a distance looked precipitous the gentle incline comes back.
’At ardua per quae uocamur et confragosa sunt.’ Quid enim? plano aditur excelsum? Sed ne tam abrupta quidem sunt quam quidam putant. Prima tantum pars saxa rupesque habet et inuii speciem, sicut pleraque ex longinquo speculantibus abscisa et conexa uideri solent, cum aciem longinquitas fallat, deinde propius adeuntibus eadem illa quae in unum congesserat error oculorum paulatim adaperiuntur, tum illis quae praecipitia ex interuallo apparebant redit lene fastigium.
Lately, when mention had fallen on Marcus Cato, you took it ill — as you are, being impatient of injustice — that Cato’s own age had understood him too little, that it had ranked a man rising above the Pompeys and the Caesars below the Vatiniuses; and it seemed to you an outrage that, when he was about to speak against a law, his toga was torn from him in the Forum, and that, hauled through the hands of a seditious faction from the Rostra all the way to the Fabian arch, he bore their abusive cries and their spittle and all the other insults of a maddened multitude.
Nuper cum incidisset mentio M. Catonis, indigne ferebas, sicut es iniquitatis inpatiens, quod Catonem aetas sua parum intellexisset, quod supra Pompeios et Caesares surgentem infra Vatinios posuisset, et tibi indignum uidebatur quod illi dissuasuro legem toga in foro esset erepta quodque a rostris usque ad arcum Fabianum per seditiosae factionis manus traditus uoces inprobas et sputa et omnis alias insanae multitudinis contumelias pertulisset.
Then I answered that you had cause to be moved on the Republic’s account, which Publius Clodius on the one side, Vatinius on the other, and every worst man, was selling off, and which, seized by a blind greed, they did not understand that, while they sold it, they were themselves sold along with it; but on Cato’s own account I bade you be untroubled. For no wise man can receive either injury or insult, and the immortal gods have given us in Cato a surer pattern of the wise man than they gave to earlier ages in Ulysses and Hercules. These our Stoics pronounced to be wise men, unconquered by toils, despisers of pleasure, and victors over every terror.
Tum ego respondi habere te quod rei publicae nomine mouereris, quam hinc P. Clodius, hinc Vatinius ac pessimus quisque uenundabat et caeca cupiditate correpti non intellegebant se dum uendunt et uenire: pro ipso quidem Catone securum te esse iussi; nullam enim sapientem nec iniuriam accipere nec contumeliam posse, Catonem autem certius exemplar sapientis uiri nobis deos inmortalis dedisse quam Vlixem et Herculem prioribus saeculis. Hos enim Stoici nostri sapientes pronuntiauerunt, inuictos laboribus et contemptores uoluptatis et uictores omnium terrorum.
Cato did not grapple with wild beasts — the chase of these belongs to the huntsman and the countryman — nor did he hunt down monsters with fire and sword, nor did he fall upon those times when one could believe that the sky rested upon a single man’s shoulders: the old credulity now shaken off, the age brought to the height of its cunning, he closed with ambition, that many-shaped evil, and with the boundless lust for power which the whole world, divided into three, could not satisfy; against the vices of a degenerate state sinking under its own weight he stood alone, and the falling Republic, so far as it could be drawn back by one hand, he held, until, dragged down, he gave himself as companion to the ruin he had so long sustained, and at one stroke there were extinguished things which it was a sin to part; for neither did Cato live on after liberty, nor liberty after Cato.
Cato non cum feris manus contulit, quas consectari uenatoris agrestisque est, nec monstra igne ac ferro persecutus est, nec in ea tempora incidit quibus credi posset caelum umeris unius inniti: excussa iam antiqua credulitate et saeculo ad summam perducto sollertiam cum ambitu congressus, multiformi malo, et cum potentiae inmensa cupiditate, quam totus orbis in tres diuisus satiare non poterat, aduersus uitia ciuitatis degenerantis et pessum sua mole sidentis stetit solus et cadentem rem publicam, quantum modo una retrahi manu poterat, tenuit, donec abstractus comitem se diu sustentatae ruinae dedit simulque extincta sunt quae nefas erat diuidi; neque enim Cato post libertatem uixit nec libertas post Catonem.
Do you think injury could be done to this man by the people — that it stripped him of his praetorship or his toga, that it spattered that sacred head with the filth of their mouths? The wise man is safe, and can be touched by no injury or insult.
Huic tu putas iniuriam fieri potuisse a populo quod aut praeturam illi detraxit aut togam, quod sacrum illud caput purgamentis oris adspersit? Tutus est sapiens nec ulla adfici aut iniuria aut contumelia potest.
I seem to see your mind inflamed and boiling over; you are ready to cry out: "These are the very things that strip your precepts of authority. You promise great things, things that cannot even be wished for, let alone believed. Then, having spoken of vast matters — when you have denied that the wise man is poor, you do not deny that he often lacks a slave, a roof, and food; when you have denied that the wise man is mad, you do not deny that he is deranged, that he utters words far from sane, that he dares whatever the force of disease compels; when you have denied that the wise man is a slave, you yourselves do not refuse to admit that he will be sold, that he will do what he is bidden, and that he will render his master servile services: so, your eyebrow lifted high, you come down to the same level as the rest, with only the names of things changed."
Videor mihi intueri animum tuum incensum et efferuescentem, paras adclamare: ’haec sunt quae auctoritatem praeceptis uestris detrahant. Magna promittitis et quae ne optari quidem, nedum credi possint. Deinde ingentia locuti cum pauperem negastis esse sapientem, non negatis solereilli et seruum et tectum et cibum deesse; cum sapientem negastis insanire, non negatis et alienari et parum sana uerba emittere et quidquid uis morbi cogit audere; cum sapientem negastis seruum esse, idem non itis infitias et ueniturum et imperata facturum et domino suo seruilia praestaturum ministeria: ita sublato alte supercilio in eadem quae ceteri descenditis mutatis rerum nominibus.
"Something of this kind, then, I suspect lies in this too, which at first sight is beautiful and magnificent — that the wise man will receive neither injury nor insult. But it makes a great difference whether you set the wise man beyond indignation or beyond injury. For if you say that he will bear it with an even mind, he has no privilege; he has come by a common thing, one learned by the very constancy of injuries — patience. If you deny that he will receive injury — that is, that no one will attempt to do it to him — then, all my business abandoned, I turn Stoic."
Tale itaque aliquid et in hoc esse suspicor, quod prima specie pulchrum atque magnificum est, nec iniuriam nec contumeliam accepturum esse sapientem. Multum autem interest utrum sapientem extra indignationem an extra iniuriam ponas. Nam si dicis illum aequo animo laturum, nullum habet priuilegium, contigit illi res uulgaris et quae discitur ipsa iniuriarum adsiduitate, patientia; si negas accepturum iniuriam, id est neminem illi temptaturum facere, omnibus relictis negotiis Stoicus fio.’
I, for my part, resolved not to adorn the wise man with an imaginary honor of words, but to set him in a place where no injury is permitted. "What then? Will there be no one to provoke him, to make the attempt?" Nothing in the nature of things is so sacred that it does not find its profaner; but the divine is no less on high for that, if there are those who reach after a greatness set far beyond them, which they cannot touch. The invulnerable is not what is not struck, but what is not harmed; by this mark I will show you the wise man.
Ego uero sapientem non imaginario honore uerborum exornare constitui, sed eo loco ponere quo nulla permittatur iniuria. ’Quid ergo? nemo erit qui lacessat, qui temptet?’ Nihil in rerum natura tam sacrum est quod sacrilegum non inueniat, sed non ideo diuina minus in sublimi sunt si existunt qui magnitudinem multum ultra se positam non tacturi adpetant; inuulnerabile est non quod non feritur, sed quod non laeditur: ex hac tibi nota sapientem exhibebo.
Is there any doubt that the strength which is not conquered is surer than that which is not provoked, since untested powers are doubtful, while that firmness is rightly held most sure which throws back every assault? So you must know that the wise man is of a better nature if no injury harms him than if none is done to him; and I would call that man brave whom wars do not subdue, whom the threatening force of an enemy does not terrify, not the one whose ease is fat amid sluggish peoples.
Numquid dubium est quin certius robur sit quod non uincitur quam quod non lacessitur, cum dubiae sint uires inexpertae, at merito certissima firmitas habeatur quae omnis incursus respuit? Sic tu sapientem melioris scito esse naturae, si nulla illi iniuria nocet, quam si nulla fit; et illum fortem uirum dicam quem bella non subigunt nec admota uis hostilis exterret, non cui pingue otium est inter desides populos.
This, then, I say: the wise man is liable to no injury; and so it does not matter how many weapons are hurled at him, since he is penetrable by none. As the hardness of certain stones is unconquerable by iron, and the diamond cannot be cut or hewn or worn away but itself blunts whatever runs against it; as certain things cannot be consumed by fire but, with the flame poured round them, keep their own rigidity and shape; as certain crags jutting into the deep break the sea and, beaten by so many ages, display no trace of its rage — so the wise man’s mind is solid, and has gathered such strength that it is as safe from injury as the things I have named.
Hoc igitur dico, sapientem nulli esse iniuriae obnoxium; itaque non refert quam multa in illum coiciantur tela, cum sit nulli penetrabilis. Quomodo quorundam lapidum inexpugnabilis ferro duritia est nec secari adamas aut caedi uel deteri potest sed incurrentia ultro retundit, quemadmodum quaedam non possunt igne consumi sed flamma circumfusa rigorem suum habitumque conseruant, quemadmodum proiecti quidam in altum scopuli mare frangunt nec ipsi ulla saeuitiae uestigia tot uerberati saeculis ostentant, ita sapientis animus solidus est et id roboris collegit ut tam tutus sit ab iniuria quam illa quae rettuli.
"What then? Will there be no one who attempts to do injury to the wise man?" He will attempt it, but it will not reach him; for he is set apart from contact with his inferiors by too great an interval for any harmful force to carry its strength all the way to him. Even when the powerful, raised high by office and strong by the consent of their slaves, set themselves to harm him, all their assaults will fall as far short of wisdom as those things which, driven up by bowstring or catapult, are nonetheless bent back below the sky after they have leaped out of sight.
’Quid ergo? non erit aliquis qui sapienti facere temptet iniuriam?’ Temptabit, sed non peruenturam ad eum; maiore enim interuallo a contactu inferiorum abductus est quam ut ulla uis noxia usque ad illum uires suas perferat. Etiam cum potentes, et imperio editi et consensu seruientium ualidi, nocere intendent, tam citra sapientiam omnes eorum impetus deficient quam quae neruo tormentisue in altum exprimuntur, cum extra uisum exilierint, citra caelum tamen flectuntur.
Tell me: do you think that when that stupid king darkened the day with a multitude of arrows, a single shaft fell upon the sun, or that, with chains let down into the deep, Neptune could be reached? As the things of heaven escape human hands, and from those who pull down temples and melt down images nothing is taken from the divinity, so whatever is done against the wise man insolently, wantonly, proudly, is attempted in vain.
Quid? tu putas tum, cum stolidus ille rex multitudine telorum diem obscuraret, ullam sagittam in solem incidisse aut demissis in profundum catenis Neptunum potuisse contingi? Vt caelestia humanas manus effugiunt et ab his qui templa diruunt ac simulacra conflant nihil diuinitati nocetur, ita quidquid fit in sapientem proterue, petulanter, superbe, frustra temptatur.
"But it would have been better that there should be no one willing to do it." You wish for the human race a difficult thing — innocence; and that it not be done is the concern of those who would do it, not of one who, even if it be done, cannot suffer it. Indeed, I do not know whether the powers of wisdom show themselves more in tranquillity amid provocations, just as the greatest proof of a general strong in arms and men is his safe security in the enemy’s country.
’At satius erat neminem esse qui facere uellet.’ Rem difficilem optas humano generi, innocentiam; et non fieri eorum interest qui facturi sunt, non eius qui pati ne si fiat quidem potest. Immo nescio an magis uires sapientiae ostendat tranquillitas inter lacessentia, sicut maximum argumentum est imperatoris armis uirisque pollentis tuta securitas in hostium terra.
Let us divide injury from insult, Serenus, if it seems good to you. The former is by nature the graver, the latter the lighter, and grave only to the delicate: by it men are not harmed but offended. Yet so great is the dissolution and emptiness of men’s minds that some think nothing more bitter; so you will find a slave who would rather be flogged than struck with the fist, and who believes death and the lash more bearable than insulting words.
Diuidamus, si tibi uidetur, Serene, iniuriam a contumelia. Prior illa natura grauior est, haec leuior et tantum delicatis grauis, qua non laeduntur homines sed offenduntur. Tanta est tamen animorum dissolutio et uanitas ut quidam nihil acerbius putent; sic inuenies seruum qui flagellis quam colaphis caedi malit et qui mortem ac uerbera tolerabiliora credat quam contumeliosa uerba.
It has come to such absurdity that we are vexed not by pain only but by the opinion of pain, after the manner of children, in whom a shadow strikes fear, and the ugliness of masks, and a distorted face, and to whom names too little pleasing to the ear call forth tears, and the motion of fingers, and other things which by a kind of unforeseeing impulse of error they flee.
Ad tantas ineptias peruentum est ut non dolore tantum sed doloris opinione uexemur, more puerorum, quibus metum incutit umbra et personarum deformitas et deprauata facies, lacrimas uero euocant nomina parum grata auribus et digitorum motus et alia quae impetu quodam erroris inprouidi refugiunt.
Injury has this aim: to afflict someone with evil; but wisdom leaves no room for evil (for to it there is one evil only, baseness, which cannot enter where virtue and honor already are); therefore, if there is no injury without evil, and no evil but the base, and the base cannot reach one occupied by what is honorable, injury does not reach the wise man. For if injury is the suffering of some evil, and the wise man is capable of suffering no evil, no injury pertains to the wise man.
Iniuria propositum hoc habet, aliquem malo adficere; malo autem sapientia non relinquit locum (unum enim illi malum est turpitudo, quae intrare eo ubi iam uirtus honestumque est non potest); ergo, si iniuria sine malo nulla est, malum nisi turpe nullum est, turpe autem ad honestis occupatum peruenire non potest, iniuria ad sapientem non peruenit. Nam si iniuria alicuius mali patientia est, sapiens autem nullius mali est patiens, nulla ad sapientem iniuria pertinet.
Every injury is a diminishing of him on whom it falls, nor can anyone receive injury without some loss either of dignity or of body or of things placed outside us. But the wise man can lose nothing; he has laid up everything in himself, he entrusts nothing to fortune, he holds his goods on solid ground, content with virtue, which has no need of chance things and therefore can neither be increased nor diminished; for things brought to the summit have no room for increase, and fortune takes away nothing but what it gave; but virtue it does not give, and so it does not withdraw it: virtue is free, inviolable, unmoved, unshaken, so hardened against mischance that it cannot even be bent, let alone conquered; against the array of terrible things it keeps its eyes steady, it changes nothing of its countenance whether hard things or favorable are shown it.
Omnis iniuria deminutio eius est in quem incurrit, nec potest quisquam iniuriam accipere sine aliquo detrimento uel dignitatis uel corporis uel rerum extra nos positarum. Sapiens autem nihil perdere potest; omnia in se reposuit, nihil fortunae credit, bona sua in solido habet contentus uirtute, quae fortuitis non indiget ideoque nec augeri nec minui potest; nam et in summum perducta incrementi non habent locum et nihil eripit fortuna nisi quod dedit; uirtutem autem non dat, ideo nec detrahit: libera est, inuiolabilis, inmota, inconcussa, sic contra casus indurata ut ne inclinari quidem, nedum uinci possit; aduersus apparatus terribilium rectos oculos tenet, nihil ex uultu mutat siue illi dura siue secunda ostentantur.
And so the wise man will lose nothing that he will feel the loss of; for he is in possession of virtue alone, from which he can never be driven, and the rest he uses on sufferance: but who is moved by the loss of what is another’s? If, then, injury can harm none of the things that are the wise man’s own, because, his virtue being safe, they are safe, injury cannot be done to the wise man.
Itaque nihil perdet quod perire sensurus sit; unius enim in possessione uirtutis est, ex qua depelli numquam potest, ceteris precario utitur: quis autem iactura mouetur alieni? Quodsi iniuria nihil laedere potest ex his quae propria sapientis sunt, quia ‹salua› uirtute sua salua sunt, iniuria sapienti non potest fieri.
Demetrius, whose surname was Poliorcetes, had taken Megara. By him the philosopher Stilbo, asked whether he had lost anything, said: "Nothing; all that is mine is with me." And yet his patrimony had passed into plunder, and the enemy had carried off his daughters, and his fatherland had come under another’s dominion, and the king himself, surrounded by the arms of a conquering army, questioned him from a higher place.
Megaram Demetrius ceperat, cui cognomen Poliorcetes fuit. Ab hoc Stilbon philosophus interrogatus num aliquid perdidisset, ’nihil,’ inquit ’omnia mea mecum sunt.’ Atqui et patrimonium eius in praedam cesserat et filias rapuerat hostis et patria in alienam dicionem peruenerat et ipsum rex circumfusus uictoris exercitus armis ex superiore loco rogitabat.
But he wrested the victory from the victor, and, with his city taken, bore witness that he was not only unconquered but unharmed; for he had with him his true goods, on which no hand can be laid, while the things that were being scattered and plundered he did not judge his own, but adventitious and following fortune’s nod. And so he had loved them as not his own; for the possession of all things that flow in from outside is slippery and uncertain.
At ille uictoriam illi excussit et se urbe capta non inuictum tantum sed indemnem esse testatus est; habebat enim uera secum bona, in quae non est manus iniectio, at quae dissipata et direpta ferebantur non iudicabat sua, sed aduenticia et nutum fortunae sequentia. Ideo ut non propria dilexerat; omnium enim extrinsecus adfluentium lubrica et incerta possessio est.
Consider now whether a thief, or a slanderer, or an overbearing neighbor, or some rich man wielding the tyranny of a childless old age, could do injury to a man from whom war, and an enemy, and that master of the distinguished art of shattering cities, could snatch nothing.
Cogita nunc an huic fur aut calumniator aut uicinus inpotens aut diues aliquis regnum orbae senectutis exercens facere iniuriam possit, cui bellum et hostis et ille egregiam artem quassandarum urbium professus eripere nihil potuit.
Amid swords flashing everywhere and the soldiers’ uproar in pillage, amid flames and blood and the wreck of a city overthrown, amid the crash of temples falling upon their own gods, to one man there was peace. There is no cause, then, for judging the promise rash; and if I have too little credit with you, I will give you a guarantor. For you scarcely believe that so much firmness, or so great a greatness of mind, falls to a man; but one comes forward into the midst to say:
Inter micantis ubique gladios et militarem in rapina tumultum, inter flammas et sanguinem stragemque inpulsae ciuitatis, inter fragorem templorum super deos suos cadentium uni homini pax fuit. Non est itaque quod audax iudices promissum, cuius tibi, si parum fidei habeo, sponsorem dabo. Vix enim credis tantum firmitatis in hominem aut tantam animi magnitudinem cadere; sed is prodit in medium qui dicat:
"There is no cause to doubt that a man born of man can lift himself above human things, that he can look untroubled upon pains, losses, sores, wounds, and the great upheavals of the things raging around him, and bear hard things calmly and favorable ones with measure, yielding neither to these nor relying on those, and be one and the same amid diverse circumstances, and count nothing his own but himself — and himself, too, only in that part by which he is better.
’non est quod dubites an attollere se homo natus supra humana possit, an dolores damna, ulcerationes uulnera, magnos motus rerum circa se frementium securus aspiciat et dura placide ferat et secunda moderate, nec illis cedens nec his fretus unus idemque inter diuersa sit nec quicquam suum nisi se putet, et se quoque ea parte qua melior est.
Lo, here I am to prove this to you: that under this overthrower of so many cities the fortifications may be shaken loose by the battering-ram’s stroke, and the height of towers suddenly sink by mines and hidden trenches, and a mound rise to match the loftiest citadels, but that no engines can be devised which will shake a well-founded mind.
En adsum hoc uobis probaturus, sub isto tot ciuitatium euersore munimenta incussu arietis labefieri et turrium altitudinem cuniculis ac latentibus fossis repente desidere et aequaturum editissimas arces aggerem crescere, at nulla machinamenta posse reperiri quae bene fundatum animum agitent.
Just now I crept out from the ruins of my house, and with fires flaring on every side I fled the flames through blood; what fate holds my daughters, whether one worse than the public fate, I do not know; alone and old, and seeing all things hostile around me, I nonetheless declare my estate whole and unimpaired: I hold, I have, whatever of mine I had.
Erepsi modo e ruinis domus et incendiis undique relucentibus flammas per sanguinem fugi; filias meas quis casus habeat, an peior publico, nescio; solus et senior et hostilia circa me omnia uidens tamen integrum incolumemque esse censum meum profiteor: teneo, habeo quidquid mei habui.
There is no cause to think me conquered and yourself the conqueror: your fortune has conquered my fortune. Where those falling things, those that change their master, may be, I do not know: as for what pertains to my own, they are with me, they will be with me.
Non est quod me uictum uictoremque te credas: uicit fortuna tua fortunam meam. Caduca illa et dominum mutantia ubi sint nescio: quod ad res meas pertinet, mecum sunt, mecum erunt.
Those rich men yonder have lost their patrimonies; the lustful, their loves and the harlots they cherished at great cost to their honor; the ambitious, the senate-house and the Forum and the places appointed for the practice of vice in public; the moneylenders have lost the tablets on which avarice, falsely glad, imagines its riches: I, for my part, hold all things whole and untouched. So question those who weep and lament, who set their bare bodies before drawn swords for the sake of money, who flee the enemy with their pockets loaded."
Perdiderunt isti diuites patrimonia, libidinosi amores suos et magno pudoris inpendio dilecta scorta, ambitiosi curiam et forum et loca exercendis in publico uitiis destinata; feneratores perdiderunt tabellas, quibus auaritia falso laeta diuitias imaginatur: ego quidem omnia integra inlibataque habeo. Proinde istos interroga qui flent lamentantur, qui strictis gladiis nuda pro pecunia corpora opponunt, qui hostem onerato sinu fugiunt.’
So hold it, Serenus, that the perfect man, full of human and divine virtues, loses nothing. His goods are fenced about with solid and insuperable defenses. You will not match against them the Babylonian walls that Alexander entered, nor the ramparts of Carthage or Numantia taken by a single hand, nor the Capitol or the citadel — these bear the enemy’s footprint: the defenses that guard the wise man are safe both from flame and from assault, they offer no entrance, they are lofty, impregnable, equal to the gods.
Ergo ita habe, Serene, perfectum illum uirum, humanis diuinisque uirtutibus plenum, nihil perdere. Bona eius solidis et inexsuperabilibus munimentis praecincta sunt. Non Babylonios illis muros contuleris, quos Alexander intrauit, non Carthaginis aut Numantiae moenia una manu capta, non Capitolium arcemue — habent ista hostile uestigium: illa quae sapientem tuentur et a flamma et ab incursu tuta sunt, nullum introitum praebent, excelsa, inexpugnabilia, dis aequa.
There is no cause for you to say, as you are wont, that this wise man of ours is to be found nowhere. We do not fashion this empty glory of the human mind, nor do we conceive a vast image of a false thing, but such a man as we shape, we have shown, and we shall show — rarely, perhaps, and at great intervals of the ages, a single one; for great things, things exceeding the common and ordinary measure, are not begotten often. For the rest, this very Marcus Cato, from the mention of whom this discussion set out, I fear is above our pattern.
Non est quod dicas, ita ut soles, hunc sapientem nostrum nusquam inueniri. Non fingimus istud humani ingenii uanum decus nec ingentem imaginem falsae rei concipimus, sed qualem conformamus exhibuimus, exhibebimus, raro forsitan magnisque aetatium interuallis unum; neque enim magna et excedentia solitum ac uulgarem modum crebro gignuntur. Ceterum hic ipse M. Cato, a cuius mentione haec disputatio processit, uereor ne supra nostrum exemplar sit.
In short, that which harms must be stronger than that which is harmed; but wickedness is not stronger than virtue; therefore the wise man cannot be harmed. Injury against good men is attempted only by the bad; between good men there is peace, while the bad are as ruinous to the good as to one another. But if a man can be harmed only by one weaker, and the bad man is weaker than the good, and injury is to be feared by the good only from an equal, injury does not fall upon the wise man. For of this you need no longer be reminded: that no one is good but the wise man.
Denique ualidius debet esse quod laedit eo quod laeditur; non est autem fortior nequitia uirtute; non potest ergo laedi sapiens. Iniuria in bonos nisi a malis non temptatur; bonis inter se pax est, mali tam bonis perniciosi quam inter se. Quodsi laedi nisi infirmior non potest, malus autembono infirmior est, nec iniuria bonis nisi a dispari uerenda est, iniuria in sapientem uirum non cadit. Illud enim iam non es admonendus, neminem bonum esse nisi sapientem.
"If Socrates was unjustly condemned," he says, "he received injury." At this point we must understand that it can happen that someone does an injury to me and I do not receive it: as if someone should place in my house a thing he had stolen from my country estate — he will have committed the theft, while I will have lost nothing.
’Si iniuste’ inquit ’Socrates damnatus est, iniuriam accepit.’ Hoc loco intellegere nos oportet posse euenire ut faciat aliquis iniuriam mihi et ego non accipiam: tamquam si quis rem quam e uilla mea surripuit in domo mea ponat, ille furtum fecerit, ego nihil perdiderim.
A man can become guilty though he has done no harm. If a man should lie with his own wife as though with another’s, he will be an adulterer, though she is no adulteress. Someone gave me poison, but, mixed with food, it lost its power: by giving the poison he bound himself with the crime, even though he did no harm. No less is he a brigand whose weapon was foiled by an interposed garment. All crimes, even before the deed is done, are, so far as guilt goes, complete.
Potest aliquis nocens fieri, quamuis non nocuerit. Si quis cum uxore sua tamquam cum aliena concumbat, adulter erit, quamuis illa adultera non sit. Aliquis mihi uenenum dedit, sed uim suam remixtum cibo perdidit: uenenum ille dando scelere se obligauit, etiam si non nocuit. Non minus latro est cuius telum opposita ueste elusum est. Omnia scelera etiam ante effectum operis, quantum culpae satis est, perfecta sunt.
Certain things are of such a condition, and are coupled in such a turn, that the one can be without the other, but the other cannot be without the one. What I mean I will try to make plain. I can move my feet without running: I cannot run without moving my feet; I can, though I am in the water, not swim: if I swim, I cannot but be in the water.
Quaedam eius condicionis sunt et hac uice copulantur ut alterum sine altero esse possit, alterum sine altero non possit. Quod dico conabor facere manifestum. Possum pedes mouere ut non curram: currere non possum ut pedes non moueam; possum, quamuis in aqua sim, non natare: si nato, non possum in aqua non esse.
Of this sort is the matter at hand too: if I have received injury, it must have been done; if it has been done, it is not necessary that I received it. For many things can intervene to ward off the injury: as some chance can strike down the raised hand and turn aside the weapons let fly, so some thing can repel injuries of whatever kind and catch them midway, so that they are both done and yet not received.
Ex hac sorte et hoc est de quo agitur: si iniuriam accepi, necesse est factam esse; si est facta, non est necesse accepisse me. Multa enim incidere possunt quae summoueant iniuriam: ut intentatam manum deicere aliquis casus potest et emissa tela declinare, ita iniurias qualescumque potest aliqua res repellere et in medio intercipere, ut et factae sint nec acceptae.
Moreover, justice can suffer nothing unjust, because contraries do not meet; but injury cannot be done except unjustly; therefore injury cannot be done to the wise man. Nor is there cause for you to wonder if no one can do him injury: no one can even do him good. The wise man lacks nothing that he could receive in the place of a gift, and the bad man has nothing worthy to bestow on the wise man; for he must have before he can give, and he has nothing whose transfer to himself the wise man would rejoice in.
Praeterea iustitia nihil iniustum pati potest, quia non coeunt contraria; iniuria autem non potest fieri nisi iniuste; ergo sapienti iniuria non potest fieri. Nec est quod mireris, si nemo illi potest iniuriam facere: ne prodesse quidem quisquam potest. Et sapienti nihil deest quod accipere possit loco muneris, et malus nihil potest dignum tribuere sapiente; habere enim prius debet quam dare, nihil autem habet quod ad se transferri sapiens gauisurus sit.
No one, then, can either harm or benefit the wise man, since divine things neither desire to be helped nor can be hurt, and the wise man stands neighbor and next to the gods, like to a god save in mortality. Striving and pressing on toward those things on high — ordered, fearless, flowing in an even and concordant course, secure, kindly, born for the public good, saving both to himself and to others — he will covet nothing humble, he will weep for nothing.
Non potest ergo quisquam aut nocere sapienti aut prodesse, quoniam diuina nec iuuari desiderant nec laedi possunt, sapiens autem uicinus proximusque dis consistit, excepta mortalitate similis deo. Ad illa nitens pergensque excelsa, ordinata, intrepida, aequali et concordi cursu fluentia, secura, benigna, bono publico nata, et sibi et aliis salutaria, nihil humile concupiscet, nihil flebit.
He who, leaning on reason, advances through human chances with a divine spirit, has nowhere to receive injury — do you think I mean only from man? Not even from fortune, which, as often as it has closed with virtue, has never withdrawn its equal. If that greatest thing, beyond which angry laws and the cruelest masters have nothing to threaten, in which fortune spends its sway — if death we receive with an even and placid mind, and know that death is no evil, and for this reason no injury either, much more easily shall we bear the rest: losses and pains, disgraces, changes of place, bereavements, separations, which, even if they beset the wise man all together, do not sink him, far less make him grieve at the stroke of any single one. And if he bears the injuries of fortune with measure, how much more those of powerful men, whom he knows to be the hands of fortune!
Qui rationi innixus per humanos casus diuino incedit animo, non habet ubi accipiat iniuriam — ab homine me tantum dicere putas? ne a fortuna quidem, quae quotiens cum uirtute congressa est, numquam par recessit. Si maximum illud ultra quod nihil habent iratae leges ac saeuissimi domini ‹quod› minentur, in quo imperium suum fortuna consumit, aequo placidoque animo accipimus et scimus mortem malum non esse, ob hoc ne iniuriam quidem, multo facilius alia tolerabimus, damna et dolores, ignominias, locorum commutationes, orbitates, discidia, quae sapientem, etiam si uniuersa circumueniant, non mergunt, nedum ut ad singulorum inpulsus maereat. Et si fortunaeiniurias moderate fert, quanto magis hominum potentium, quos scit fortunae manus esse!
And so he endures all things as he endures the rigor of winter and the inclemency of the sky, fevers and diseases and the other things that befall by chance, and he does not judge so well of anyone as to think he has done anything by design — which exists in the wise man alone. Of all others not the designs but the frauds and ambushes and disordered motions of their minds are at work, which he reckons among chances; and everything fortuitous rages around us and against cheap things.
Omnia itaque sic patitur ut hiemis rigorem et intemperantiam caeli, ut feruores morbosque et cetera forte accidentia, nec de quoquam tam bene iudicat ut illum quicquam putet consilio fecisse, quod in uno sapiente est. Aliorum omnium non consilia, sed fraudes et insidiae et motus animorum inconditi sunt, quos casibus adnumerat; omne autem fortuitum circa nos saeuit et in uilia.
Consider this too: that the material of injuries spreads most widely in those things through which danger has been sought for us — as by a suborned accuser, or a false charge, or by the hatreds of the more powerful set on against us, and the other brigandages that go on among men in the toga. There is too that frequent injury, when someone’s gain is knocked away, or a prize long courted, when an inheritance striven for with great labor is turned aside and the favor of a profitable house snatched away: these the wise man escapes, who knows how to live neither in hope nor in fear.
Illud quoque cogita, iniuriarum latissime patere materiam ‹in› illis per quae periculum nobis quaesitum est, ut accusatore summisso aut criminatione falsa aut inritatis in nos potentiorum odiis quaeque alia inter togatos latrocinia sunt. Est et illa iniuria frequens, si lucrum alicuius excussum est aut praemium diu captatum, si magno labore adfectata hereditas auersa est et quaestuosae domus gratia erepta: haec effugit sapiens, qui nescit nec in spem nec in metum uiuere.
Add now that no one receives injury with an unmoved mind, but is disturbed at the feeling of it; but the man freed from errors, master of himself, of deep and placid quiet, is without disturbance. For if injury touched him, it would both move and impel him; but the wise man is without anger, which the appearance of injury rouses, nor would he be without anger unless he were also without injury, which he knows cannot be done to him. Hence he is so upright and glad, hence lifted by a continual joy; and so far is he from shrinking at the offenses of things and men that injury itself is of use to him, for through it he takes the proof of himself and tests his virtue.
Adice nunc quod iniuriam nemo inmota mente accipit, sed ad sensum eius perturbatur, caret autem perturbatione uir ereptus erroribus, moderator sui, altae quietis et placidae. Nam si tangit illum iniuria, et mouet et inpellit; caret autem ira sapiens, quam excitat iniuriae species, nec aliter careret ira nisi et iniuria, quam scit sibi non posse fieri. Inde tam erectus laetusque est, inde continuo gaudio elatus; adeo autem ad offensiones rerum hominumque non contrahitur ut ipsa illi iniuria usui sit, per quam experimentum sui capit et uirtutem temptat.
Let us be favorable, I beg you, to this proposition, and attend it with fair minds and fair ears, while the wise man is exempted from injury. Nor is anything thereby taken from your wantonness, or from your most rapacious greeds, or from your blind rashness and pride: your vices safe, this liberty is sought for the wise man. We do not argue that it should not be permitted you to do injury, but that he should sink all injuries into the deep and defend himself by patience and greatness of mind.
Faueamus, obsecro uos, huic proposito aequisque et animis et auribus adsimus, dum sapiens iniuriae excipitur. Nec quicquam ideo petulantiae uestrae aut rapacissimis cupiditatibus aut caecae temeritati superbiaeque detrahitur: saluis uitiis uestris haec sapienti libertas quaeritur. Non ut uobis facere non liceat iniuriam agimus, sed ut ille omnes iniurias in altum demittat patientiaque se ac magnitudine animi defendat.
So in the sacred games many have conquered by wearying out the hands of those who struck them through obstinate endurance: count the wise man of this kind, of those who by long and faithful exercise have won the strength to endure and to tire out every hostile force.
Sic in certaminibus sacris plerique uicerunt caedentium manus obstinata patientia fatigando: ex hoc puta genere sapientem, eorum qui exercitatione longa ac fideli robur perpetiendi lassandique omnem inimicam uim consecuti sunt.
Since we have run through the former part, let us pass to the other, in which by some arguments proper to it, but mostly by common ones, we shall refute insult. It is a lesser injury, which we can complain of rather than prosecute, which the laws too have thought worthy of no penalty.
Quoniam priorem partem percucurrimus, ad alteramtranseamus, qua quibusdam propriis, plerisque uero communibus, contumeliam refutabimus. Est minor iniuria, quam queri magis quam exequi possumus, quam leges quoque nulla dignam uindicta putauerunt.
This feeling is stirred by a lowness of mind that contracts at some dishonoring word or deed: "He did not admit me today, when he admitted others," and "He either turned away my talk proudly or laughed at it openly," and "He placed me not on the middle couch but on the lowest," and other things of this mark, which what should I call but the complaints of a queasy mind? Into these the delicate and the fortunate mostly fall; for he has no leisure to note these things on whom worse things press.
Hunc adfectum mouet humilitas animi contrahentis se ob dictum factum inhonorificum: ’ille me hodie non admisit, cum alios admitteret’, et ’sermonem meum aut superbe auersatus est aut palam risit’, et ’non in medio me lecto sed in imo conlocauit’, et alia huius notae, quae quid uocem nisi querellas nausiantis animi? In quae fere delicati et felices incidunt; non uacat enim haec notare cui peiora instant.
Through too much ease, natures by nature weak and womanish and, in the want of true injury, given to wantonness are stirred by these things, of which the greater part consists in the fault of the one interpreting. And so he who is affected by insult shows that he has in himself neither prudence nor confidence; for without doubt he judges himself despised, and this sting comes not without a certain lowness of mind, of one shrinking and going down. But the wise man is despised by no one; he knows his own greatness, and reports to himself that no one has such license over him, and all these things — which I would call not miseries of the mind but annoyances — he does not conquer but does not even feel.
Nimio otio ingenia natura infirma et muliebria et inopia uerae iniuriae lasciuientia his commouentur, quorum pars maior constat uitio interpretantis. Itaque nec prudentiae quicquam in se esse nec fiduciae ostendit qui contumelia adficitur; non dubie enim contemptum se iudicat, et hic morsus non sine quadam humilitate animi euenit supprimentis se ac descendentis. Sapiens autem a nullo contemnitur, magnitudinem suam nouit nullique tantum de se licere renuntiat sibi et omnis has, quas non miserias animorum sed molestias dixerim, non uincit sed ne sentit quidem.
There are other things which strike the wise man, even if they do not overthrow him — pain of the body and weakness, or the loss of friends and children, and the calamity of a fatherland ablaze with war: these I do not deny that the wise man feels; for we do not ascribe to him the hardness of stone or iron. There is no virtue in not feeling what you endure. What then? He receives certain blows, but, received, he masters and heals and stanches them; these lesser ones he does not even feel, nor against them does he use that wonted virtue of enduring hard things, but either does not note them or thinks them worthy of laughter.
Alia sunt quae sapientem feriunt, etiam si non peruertunt, ut dolor corporis et debilitas aut amicorum liberorumque amissio et patriae bello flagrantis calamitas: haec non nego sentire sapientem; nec enim lapidis illi duritiam ferriue adserimus. Nulla uirtus est quae non sentias perpeti. Quid ergo est? quosdam ictus recipit, sed receptos euincit et sanat et comprimit, haec uero minora ne sentit quidem nec aduersus ea solita illa uirtute utitur dura tolerandi, sed aut non adnotat aut digna risu putat.
Moreover, since the proud and insolent and those who bear their good fortune ill commit a great part of insults, the wise man has the means to throw back that swollen feeling — the most beautiful of all the virtues, greatness of soul: it runs past whatever is of that kind as empty appearances of dreams and nocturnal visions that have nothing solid and true.
Praeterea cum magnam partem contumeliarum superbi insolentesque faciant et male felicitatem ferentes, habet quo istum adfectum inflatum respuat, pulcherrimam uirtutem omnium [animi], magnanimitatem: illa quidquid eiusmodi est transcurrit ut uanas species somniorum uisusque nocturnos nihil habentis solidi atque ueri.
At the same time he reflects on this: that all men are too low to have the boldness to despise things so much loftier. Insult (contumelia) is so called from contempt (contemptus), because no one brands with such an injury anyone but the man he has despised; but no one despises a greater and better man, even if he does something that the contemptuous are wont to do. For children too strike their parents’ faces, and an infant has tousled and torn his mother’s hair and spattered her with spittle or bared in his family’s sight what should be covered, and has not spared the more obscene words — and none of these do we call insult. Why? Because he who does it cannot despise.
Simul illud cogitat, omnes inferiores esse quam ut illis audacia sit tanto excelsiora despicere. Contumelia a contemptu dicta est, quia nemo nisi quem contempsit tali iniuria notat; nemo autem maiorem melioremque contemnit, etiam si facit aliquid quod contemnentes solent. Nam et pueri os parentium feriunt et crines matris turbauit lacerauitque infans et sputo adspersit aut nudauit in conspectu suorum tegenda et uerbis obscenioribus non pepercit, et nihil horum contumeliam dicimus. Quare? quia qui facit contemnere non potest.
The same is the reason why the wit of our slaves, insolent toward their masters, delights us, whose boldness makes a right for itself against the guests only if it has begun with the master; and the more contemptible a man is, the more unbridled his tongue. Some buy impudent boys for this very purpose and sharpen their shamelessness and keep them under a master, that they may pour out studied affronts; and these insults we do not call insults but witticisms. But what madness it is to be now delighted, now offended, by the same things, and to call a thing said by a friend slander, by a little slave a jesting taunt!
Eadem causa est cur nos mancipiorum nostrorum urbanitas in dominos contumeliosa delectet, quorum audacia ita demum sibi in conuiuas ius facit, si coepit a domino; et ut quisque contemptissimus [et ut ludibrium] est, ita solutissimae linguae est. Pueros quidam in hoc mercantur procaces et illorum inpudentiam acuunt ac sub magistro habent, qui probra meditate effundant, nec has contumelias uocamus sed argutias: quanta autem dementia est isdem modo delectari, modo offendi, et rem ab amico dictam maledictum uocare, a seruulo ioculare conuicium!
The mind we have toward children, this the wise man has toward all those in whom even after youth and gray hairs there remains childishness. Have they made any progress, these men whose minds are sick and whose errors are grown to a greater bulk, who differ from children only in the size and shape of their bodies, but are no less wandering and uncertain, appetent of pleasures without discrimination, restless and quiet not from character but from fear?
Quem animum nos aduersus pueros habemus, hunc sapiens aduersus omnes quibus etiam post iuuentam canosque puerilitas est. An quicquam isti profecerunt quibus animi mala sunt auctique in maius errores, qui a pueris magnitudine tantum formaque corporum differunt, ceterum non minus uagi incertique, uoluptatium sine dilectu adpetentes, trepidi et non ingenio sed formidine quieti?
No one will say there is any difference between them and children on the ground that children have a greed for knucklebones and nuts and small coin, these for gold and silver and cities; that children among themselves play at being magistrates and imitate the bordered robe, the rods, and the tribunal, while these play the same things in earnest on the Campus and in the Forum and in the senate-house; that children on the shores raise the likenesses of houses with heaped sand, while these, as though doing some great thing, busy in piling up stones and walls and roofs, have turned to peril what was invented for the protection of bodies. Therefore they are on a level with children, and those who have advanced further, but their error is in other and greater things.
Non ideo quicquam inter illos puerosque interesse quis dixerit quod illis talorum nucumue et aeris minuti auaritia est, his auri argentique et orbium, quod illi inter ipsos magistratus gerunt et praetextam fascesque ac tribunal imitantur, hi eadem in campo foroque et in curia serio ludunt, illi in litoribus harenae congestu simulacra domuum excitant, hi ut magnum aliquid agentes in lapidibus ac parietibus et tectis moliendis occupati tutelae corporum inuenta in periculum uerterunt. Ergo par pueris longiusque progressis, sed in alia maioraque error est.
Not without reason, then, does the wise man receive the insults of these men as jokes, and sometimes, as one does children, admonishes them with evil and punishment — not because he has received injury, but because they have done it, and that they may cease to do it; for so too are beasts tamed by the whip, and we are not angry with them when they have refused the rider, but check them, that pain may conquer obstinacy. So you will know that this too is answered which is set against us: "Why, if the wise man receives neither injury nor insult, does he punish those who do it?" For he does not avenge himself, but mends them.
Non inmerito itaque horum contumelias sapiens ut iocos accipit, et aliquando illos tamquam pueros malo poenaque admonet [adficit], non quia accepit iniuriam, sed quia fecerunt, et ut desinant facere; sic enim et pecora uerbere domantur, nec irascimur illis, cum sessorem recusauerunt, sed compescimus, ut dolor contumaciam uincat. Ergo et illud solutum scies quod nobis opponitur: ’quare, si non accepit iniuriam sapiens nec contumeliam, punit eos qui fecerunt?’ Non enim se ulciscitur, sed illos emendat.
What reason is there why you should not believe that this firmness of mind falls to the wise man, when you may note the same in others, though not from the same cause? What physician is angry with a madman? Who takes in ill part the curses of a man in fever who is kept from cold water?
Quid est autem quare hanc animi firmitatem non credas in uirum sapientem cadere, cum tibi in aliis idem notare sed non ex eadem causa liceat? Quis enim phrenetico medicus irascitur? Quis febricitantis et a frigida prohibiti maledicta in malam partem accipit?
This feeling toward all men the wise man has which a physician has toward his patients, whose shameful parts, if they need a remedy, he does not disdain to handle, nor to look upon their leavings and discharges, nor to take the railings of those raging in their frenzy. The wise man knows that all these who walk about in togas and purple, healthy and ruddy, are unsound, and he sees them no otherwise than as sick men without self-command. And so he is not even angry, if in their disease they have dared something too wanton against the one who heals, and with the same mind with which he sets their honors at nothing, he sets at nothing too their slights.
Hunc adfectum aduersus omnis habet sapiens quem aduersus aegros suos medicus, quorum nec obscena, si remedio egent, contrectare nec reliquias et effusa intueri dedignatur nec per furorem saeuientium excipere conuicia. Scit sapiens omnis hos qui togati purpuratique incedunt, ualentes colorati, male sanos esse, quos non aliter uidet quam aegros intemperantis. Itaque ne succenset quidem, si quid in morbo petulantius ausi sunt aduersus medentem, et quo animo honores eorum nihilo aestimat, eodem parum honorifice facta.
Just as he will not be pleased with himself if a beggar has courted him, nor will he judge it an insult if a man of the lowest commons has not returned his greeting when he greeted him, so neither will he look up to himself if many rich men have looked up to him — for he knows they differ in nothing from beggars, nay, are more wretched; for the beggar needs little, these much — and again he will not be touched if the king of the Medes, or Attalus of Asia, has passed him by in silence and with an arrogant look when he greeted him. He knows that this man’s estate has nothing more to be envied than the estate of one whose lot in a great household it is to keep in check the sick and the mad.
Quemadmodum non placebit sibi, si illum mendicus coluerit, nec contumeliam iudicabit, si illi homo plebis ultimae salutanti mutuam salutationem non reddiderit, sic ne suspiciet quidem, si illum multi diuites suspexerint — scit enim illos nihil a mendicis differre, immo miseriores esse; illi enim exiguo, hi multo egent — et rursus non tangetur, si illum rex Medorum Attalusue Asiae salutantem silentio ac uultu adroganti transierit. Scit statum eius non magis habere quicquam inuidendum quam eius cui in magna familia cura optigit aegros insanosque compescere.
Shall I take it ill if some one of those who do business at the temple of Castor, buying and selling worthless slaves, whose shops are crammed with a crowd of the basest servants, has not returned my name to me? Not, I think; for what good has he under whom is no one but the bad? Therefore, as he neglects this man’s courtesy and discourtesy, so too the king’s: "You have under you Parthians and Medes and Bactrians, but men you hold by fear, but on whose account it has not fallen to you to unbend your bow, but most loathsome enemies, but for sale, but on the watch for a new master."
Num moleste feram, si mihi non reddiderit nomen aliquis ex his qui ad Castoris negotiantur nequam mancipia ementes uendentesque, quorum tabernae pessimorum seruorum turba refertae sunt? Non, ut puto; quid enim is boni habet sub quo nemo nisi malus est? Ergo ut huius humanitatem inhumanitatemque neglegit, ita et regis: ’habes sub te Parthos et Medos et Bactrianos, sed quos metu contines, sed propter quos remittere arcum tibi non contigit, sed hostes taeterrimos, sed uenales, sed nouum aucupantes dominum.’
By no one’s insult, then, will he be moved; for though all differ among themselves, the wise man counts them all equal because of their equal folly. For if once he has let himself down so far as to be moved either by injury or by insult, he will never be able to be secure; but security is the wise man’s own proper good. Nor will he commit the error of doing honor, by judging an insult done to him, to the one who did it; for it must be that the man by whom anyone takes it ill to be despised, he rejoices to be looked up to by.
Nullius ergo mouebitur contumelia; omnes enim inter se differant, sapiens quidem pares illos ob aequalem stultitiam omnis putat. Nam si semel se demiserit eo ut aut iniuria moueatur aut contumelia, non poterit umquam esse securus; securitas autem proprium bonum sapientis est. Nec committet ut iudicando contumeliam sibi factam honorem habeat ei qui fecit; necesse est enim, a quo quisque contemni moleste ferat, suspici gaudeat.
So great a madness holds some men that they think an insult can be done to them by a woman. What does it matter how rich a one they keep, how many litter-bearers she has, how laden her ears, how roomy her chair? She is just as much an imprudent creature and, unless knowledge and much learning have come to her, wild, incontinent of her lusts. Some take it ill to be jostled by a hairdresser, and call the doorkeeper’s surliness an insult, and the usher’s haughtiness, and the chamberlain’s lifted brow: O what laughter is to be raised amid these things, with what pleasure should the mind be filled, contemplating its own quiet out of the turmoil of others’ errors!
Tanta quosdam dementia tenet ut sibi contumeliam fieri putent posse a muliere. Quid refert quam ‹beatam› habeant, quot lecticarios habentem, quam oneratas aures, quam laxam sellam? aeque inprudens animal est et, nisi scientia accessit ac multa eruditio, ferum, cupiditatium incontinens. Quidam se a cinerario inpulsos moleste ferunt et contumeliam uocant ostiari difficultatem, nomenculatoris superbiam, cubiculari supercilium: o quantus risus inter ista tollendus est, quanta uoluptate inplendus animus ex alienorum errorum tumultu contemplanti quietem suam!
"What then? Will the wise man not approach the doors which a harsh porter besets?" He indeed, if a necessary matter calls him, will make trial even of that man, whoever he be, and will soothe him, as one soothes a fierce dog, by throwing him food, and will not think it beneath him to spend something to cross the threshold, reflecting that on certain bridges too a toll is paid for passage. And so to that man also, whoever he be who plies this public trade of greetings, he will make a gift: he knows that things for sale are bought with money. He is of a petty mind who is pleased with himself because he answered the doorkeeper freely, because he broke his rod, because he went to the master and demanded a flogging for him; whoever contends makes himself an adversary, and, in order to win, has been an equal.
’Quid ergo? sapiens non accedet ad fores quas durus ianitor obsidet?’ Ille uero, si res necessaria uocabit, experietur et illum, quisquis erit, tamquam canem acrem obiecto cibo leniet nec indignabitur aliquid inpendere ut limen transeat, cogitans et in pontibus quibusdam pro transitu dari. Itaque illi quoque, quisquis erit qui hoc salutationum publicum exerceat, donabit: scit emi aere uenalia. Ille pusilli animi est qui sibi placet quod ostiario libere respondit, quod uirgam eius fregit, quod ad dominum accessit et petit corium; facit se aduersarium qui contendit, et, ut uincat, par fuit.
"But the wise man, struck with a fist — what will he do?" What Cato did, when his mouth was struck: he did not blaze up, he did not avenge the injury, he did not even forgive it, but denied it had been done; with greater spirit he did not acknowledge it than he would have pardoned it.
’At sapiens colapho percussus quid faciet?’ Quod Cato, cum illi os percussum esset: non excanduit, non uindicauit iniuriam, ne remisit quidem, sed factam negauit; maiore animo non agnouit quam ignouisset.
We will not linger long on this; for who does not know that none of the things believed to be evils or goods seem to the wise man as they do to all? He does not regard what men judge base or wretched; he does not go where the people go, but, as the stars hold a course contrary to the world’s, so he advances against the opinion of all.
Non diu in hoc haerebimus; quis enim nescit nihil ex his quae creduntur mala aut bona ita uideri sapienti ut omnibus? Non respicit quid homines turpe iudicent aut miserum, non it qua populus, sed ut sidera contrarium mundo iter intendunt, ita hic aduersus opinionem omnium uadit.
Cease, then, to say: "Will the wise man not receive injury, then, if he is beaten, if his eye is gouged out? Will he not receive insult, if he is driven through the Forum by the foul cries of the obscene? if at a king’s banquet he is bidden to recline below the table and to feed with slaves allotted shameful offices? if he is forced to bear any other of the things that can be devised to be galling to free-born modesty?"
Desinite itaque dicere: ’non accipiet ergo sapiens iniuriam, si caedetur, si oculus illi eruetur? Non accipiet contumeliam, si obscenorum uocibus inprobis per forum agetur? si in conuiuio regis recumbere infra mensam uescique cum seruis ignominiosa officia sortitis iubebitur? si quid aliud ferre cogetur eorum quae excogitari pudori ingenuo molesta possunt?’
However far these things grow, whether in number or in magnitude, they will be of the same nature: if small things do not touch him, neither will greater; if few do not touch him, neither will more. But from your own weakness you take a guess at his vast mind, and when you have thought how much you suppose yourselves able to bear, you set the boundary of the wise man’s endurance a little beyond it; whereas his own virtue has placed him in other borders of the world, having nothing in common with you.
In quantumcumque ista uel numero uel magnitudine creuerint, eiusdem naturae erunt: si non tangent illum parua, ne maiora quidem; si non tangent pauca, ne plura quidem. Sed ex inbecillitate uestra coniecturam capitis ingentis animi, et cum cogitastis quan tum putetis uos pati posse, sapientis patientiae paulo ulteriorem terminum ponitis; at illum in aliis mundi finibus sua uirtus conlocauit, nihil uobiscum commune habentem.
Seek out hard things, and whatever is grievous to bear and to be fled from in the hearing and the seeing: he will not be overwhelmed by their throng, and as he withstands them singly, so he will withstand them all together. He who says this is bearable to the wise man, that unbearable, and keeps greatness of mind within fixed bounds, does ill: fortune conquers us, unless it is wholly conquered.
Quaere et aspera et quaecumque toleratu grauia sunt audituque et uisu refugienda: non obruetur eorum coetu et qualis singulis, talis uniuersis obsistet. Qui dicit illud tolerabile sapienti, illud intolerabile, et animi magnitudinem intra certos fines tenet, male agit: uincit nos fortuna, nisi tota uincitur.
Do not think that this is Stoic hardness. Epicurus, whom you take as the patron of your sloth, and suppose to teach soft and idle precepts leading to pleasures, says: "Rarely does fortune intervene against the wise man." How near he came to uttering a man’s word! Will you speak more bravely still, and remove fortune altogether?
Ne putes istam Stoicam esse duritiam, Epicurus, quem uos patronum inertiae uestrae adsumitis putatisque mollia ac desidiosa praecipere et ad uoluptates ducentia, ’raro’ inquit ’sapienti fortuna interuenit.’ Quam paene emisit uiri uocem! Vis tu fortius loqui et illam ex toto summouere?
This house of the wise man is narrow, without ornament, without din, without display, guarded by no doorkeepers sorting the crowd with venal disdain; but across this empty threshold, free of porters, fortune does not pass: it knows there is no place there for itself, where nothing is its own.
Domus haec sapientis angusta, sine cultu, sine strepitu, sine apparatu, nullis adseruatur ianitoribus turbam uenali fastidio digerentibus, sed per hoc limen uacuum et ab ostiariis liberum fortuna non transit: scit non esse illic sibi locum ubi sui nihil est.
But if Epicurus too, who indulged the body most, rises up against injuries, what among us can seem incredible or above the measure of human nature? He says that injuries are bearable to the wise man; we, that there are no injuries.
Quodsi Epicurus quoque, qui corpori plurimum indulsit, aduersus iniurias exsurgit, quid apud nos incredibile uideri potest aut supra humanae naturae mensuram? Ille ait iniurias tolerabiles esse sapienti, nos iniurias non esse.
Nor is there cause for you to say that this fights against nature: we do not deny that it is a hard thing to be beaten and shoved and to lose some limb, but we deny that all these are injuries; we do not take from them the sensation of pain, but the name of injury, which cannot be admitted while virtue is safe. Which of us speaks more truly we shall see: as to contempt of injury, both agree. You ask what is the difference between the two? The same that is between two bravest gladiators, of whom one presses his wound and stands his ground, the other, looking back at the shouting people, signals that it is nothing and does not suffer the fight to be broken off.
Nec enim est quod dicas hoc naturae repugnare: non negamus rem incommodam esse uerberari et inpelli et aliquo membro carere, sed omnia ista negamus iniurias esse; non sensum illis doloris detrahimus, sed nomen iniuriae, quod non potest recipi uirtute salua. Vter uerius dicat uidebimus: ad contemptum quidem iniuriae uterque consentit. Quaeris quid inter duos intersit? quod inter gladiatores fortissimos, quorum alter premit uulnus et stat in gradu, alter respiciens ad clamantem populum significat nihil esse et intercedi non patitur.
There is no cause for you to think great the matter on which we differ: as to the point at issue — the one thing that concerns you — both examples exhort you to despise injuries and those shadows and suspicions of injury which I would call insults; to look down on which there is no need of a wise man, but only of a man of sense, one who can say to himself: "Do these things happen to me deservedly or undeservedly? If deservedly, it is no insult, it is a judgment; if undeservedly, it is he who does what is unjust who should blush."
Non est quod putes magnum quo dissidemus: illud quo de agitur, quod unum ad uos pertinet, utraque exempla hortantur, contemnere iniurias et, quas iniuriarum umbras ac suspiciones dixerim, contumelias, ad quas despiciendas non sapiente opus est uiro, sed tantum consipiente, qui sibi possit dicere: ’utrum merito mihi ista accidunt an inmerito? Si merito, non est contumelia, iudicium est; si inmerito, illi qui iniusta facit erubescendum est.’
And what is that which is called insult? Someone has jested at the baldness of my head, at the weakness of my eyes, at the thinness of my legs, at my stature: what insult is it to hear what is plain to see? Before one man something is said and we laugh, before several we are indignant, and we do not allow others the freedom in those things which we ourselves are wont to say against ourselves; we are delighted by measured jests, angered by immoderate ones.
Et quid est illud quod contumelia dicitur? In capitis mei leuitatem iocatus est et in oculorum ualetudinem et in crurum gracilitatem et in staturam: quae contumelia est quod apparet audire? Coram uno aliquid dictum ridemus, coram pluribus indignamur, et eorum aliis libertatem non relinquimus quae ipsi in nos dicere adsueuimus; iocis temperatis delectamur, inmodicis irascimur.
Chrysippus says that a certain man was indignant because someone had called him a sea-wether. We saw Fidus Cornelius, son-in-law of Ovidius Naso, weeping in the senate, when Corbulo had called him a plucked ostrich; against other slanders that wounded his character and his life his brow’s firmness held fast, but against this so absurd a thing his tears fell: so great is the weakness of minds, when reason has departed.
Chrysippus ait quendam indignatum, quod illum aliquis ueruecem marinum dixerat. In senatu flentem uidimus Fidum Cornelium, Nasonis Ouidi generum, cum illum Corbulo struthocamelum depilatum dixisset; aduersus alia maledicta mores et uitam conuulnerantia frontis illi firmitas constitit, aduersus hoc tam absurdum lacrimae prociderunt: tanta animorum inbecillitas est, ubi ratio discessit.
What of it, that we are offended if someone imitates our speech, if someone our gait, if someone mimics some fault of body or tongue? — as though these became better known by another’s imitating them than by our doing them! Some hear of old age unwillingly, and gray hairs, and other things to which one comes by prayer; the reproach of poverty has seared some, which a man casts upon himself, whoever hides it: and so the material is taken from the wanton and from those who are witty through insult, if you forestall it of your own accord and seize it first; no one has furnished a laugh who has taken it from himself.
Quid quod offendimur, si quis sermonem nostrum imitatur, si quis incessum, si quis uitium aliquod corporis aut linguae exprimit? quasi notiora illa fiant alio imitante quam nobis facientibus! Senectutem quidam inuiti audiunt et canos et alia ad quae uoto peruenitur; paupertatis maledictum quosdam perussit, quam sibi obiecit quisquis abscondit: itaque materia petulantibus et per contumeliam urbanis detrahitur, si ultro illam et prior occupes; nemo risum praebuit qui ex se cepit.
Vatinius, a man born both for laughter and for hatred, was, it is handed down to memory, a buffoon and a charming and ready wit. Against his own feet he said very many things, and against his scarred throat: so he escaped the wit of his enemies, of whom he had more than he had diseases, and above all Cicero’s. If that man could do this by a hardness of face, who by constant railings had unlearned shame, why should not he be able who by liberal studies and the cultivation of wisdom has come to some progress?
Vatinium, hominem natum et ad risum et ad odium, scurram fuisse et uenustum ac dicacem memoriae proditum est. In pedes suos ipse plurima dicebat et in fauces concisas: sic inimicorum, quos plures habebat quam morbos, et in primis Ciceronis urbanitatem effugerat. Si hoc potuit ille duritia oris qui adsiduis conuiciis pudere dedidicerat, cur is non possit qui studiis liberalibus et sapientiae cultu ad aliquem profectum peruenerit?
Add that it is a kind of revenge to snatch from him who did it the pleasure of the insult done; they are wont to say: "Wretched me! I think he did not understand" — so wholly does the fruit of insult lie in the feeling and the indignation of the one who suffers it. Then, too, he will not lack his match at some time; there will be found one to avenge you as well.
Adice quod genus ultionis est eripereei qui fecit factae contumeliae uoluptatem; solent dicere ’o miserum me! puto, non intellexit’: adeo fructus contumeliae in sensu et indignatione patientis est. Deinde non deerit illi aliquando par; inuenietur qui te quoque uindicet.
Gaius Caesar, among the other vices in which he abounded, insulting, was carried by a strange lust to brand everyone with some mark, though he himself was the most plentiful matter for laughter: such was the foulness of his pallor, witness to his madness, such the grimness of his eyes lurking under an old woman’s forehead, such the ugliness of his bald and ill-tufted head sprinkled over with borrowed hairs; add the neck beset with bristles, the thinness of his legs, the enormousness of his feet. It would be endless, were I to relate one by one the ways in which he was insulting toward his parents and grandparents, and toward every order of men: I will relate those that brought him to his end.
C. Caesar, inter cetera uitia quibus abundabat contumeliosus, mira libidine ferebatur omnis aliqua nota feriendi, ipse materia risus benignissima: tanta illi palloris insaniam testantis foeditas erat, tanta oculorum sub fronte anili latentium toruitas, tanta capitis destituti et ~emendacitatis~ capillis adspersi deformitas; adice obsessam saetis ceruicem et exilitatem crurum et enormitatem pedum. Inmensum est, si uelim singula referre per quae in parentes auosque suos contumeliosus fuit, per quae in uniuersos ordines: ea referam quae illum exitio dederunt.
He had Valerius Asiaticus among his chief friends, a fierce man and one scarcely likely to bear another’s insults with an even mind: at a banquet — that is, in a public assembly — he reproached this man, in a most clear voice, with what sort of bedfellow his wife was. Good gods! that a man should hear this, that a prince should know it, and that license should have come so far that a prince should narrate to — I will not say a man of consular rank, I will not say a friend, but only to the husband — both his adultery and his disgust!
Asiaticum Valerium in primis amicis habebat, ferocem uirum et uix aequo animo alienas contumelias laturum: huic in conuiuio, id est in contione, uoce clarissima qualis in concubitu esset uxor eius obiecit. Di boni, hoc uirum audire, principem scire, et usque eo licentiam peruenisse ut, non dico consulari, non dico amico, sed tantum marito princeps et adulterium suum narret et fastidium!
Chaerea, on the contrary, a military tribune, had a manner of speech not matching his hand, faint in sound and, if you did not know his deeds, the more suspect for it. To him Gaius, when he asked for the watchword, gave now "Venus," now "Priapus," reproaching the armed man, in one way and another, with effeminacy; and this from one himself all gauze, in slippers, gilded. He drove him therefore to use the sword, that he might not too often ask for the watchword: he was the first among the conspirators to raise his hand, he it was who with one stroke cut through the middle of the neck; then very many swords from every side were heaped on by men avenging public and private injuries, but the first was the man who least seemed one.
Chaereae contra, tribuno militum, sermo non pro manu erat, languidus sono et, ni facta nosses, suspectior. Huic Gaius signum petenti modo Veneris, modo Priapi dabat, aliter atque aliter exprobrans armato mollitiam; haec ipse perlucidus, crepidatus, auratus. Coegit itaque illum uti ferro, ne saepius signum peteret: ille primus inter coniuratos manum sustulit, ille ceruicem mediam uno ictu decidit; plurimum deinde undique publicas ac priuatas iniurias ulciscentium gladiorum ingestum est, sed primus uir fuit qui minime uisus est.
But this same Gaius thought everything an insult, as those are who, impatient of bearing them, are most greedy of doing them: he was angry with Herennius Macer because he had greeted him as Gaius, nor did the chief centurion get off unpunished because he had said "Caligula"; for, born in the camp and a foster-child of the legions, he used to be called this, nor was he ever by any other name more familiar to the soldiers, but by now he judged "Caligula" a reproach and a disgrace, buskined as he was.
At idem Gaius omnia contumelias putabat, ut sunt ferendarum inpatientes faciendarum cupidissimi: iratus fuit Herennio Macro, quod illum Gaium salutauerat, nec inpune cessit primipilari quod Caligulam dixerat; hoc enim in castris natus et alumnus legionum uocari solebat, nullo nomine militibus familiarior umquam factus, sed iam Caligulam conuicium et probrum iudicabat coturnatus.
Therefore this very thing will be a solace, that even if our own easiness has let revenge slip, there will be someone to exact the penalty from the wanton and proud and injurious man — vices that are never spent upon one man and one insult.
Ergo hoc ipsum solacio erit, etiam si nostra facilitas ultionem omiserit, futurum aliquem qui poenas exigat a procace et superbo et iniurioso, quae uitia numquam in uno homine et in una contumelia consumuntur.
Let us look back to the examples of those whose patience we praise, as of Socrates, who took in good part the gibes published and staged against him in the comedies, and laughed no less than when he was drenched by his wife Xanthippe with foul water. Antisthenes was reproached with a barbarian mother, a Thracian woman: he answered that the mother of the gods too was of Mount Ida.
Respiciamus eorum exempla quorum laudamus patientiam, ut Socratis, qui comoediarum publicatos in se et spectatos sales in partem bonam accepit risitque non minus quam cum ab uxore Xanthippe inmunda aqua perfunderetur. Antistheni mater barbara et Thraessa obiciebatur: respondit et deorum matrem Idaeam esse.
We must not come to brawling and grappling. The feet must be carried far off, and whatever of these things shall be done by the imprudent (and they cannot be done save by the imprudent) must be neglected, and the honors and the injuries of the crowd held in common indifference.
Non est in rixam conluctationemque ueniendum. Procul auferendi pedes sunt et quidquid horum ab inprudentibus fiet (fieri autem nisi ab inprudentibus non potest) neglegendum et honores iniuriaeque uulgi in promiscuo habendae.
Neither must we grieve at the one nor rejoice at the other; otherwise, through fear of insults or through weariness, we shall leave many necessary things undone, and shall fail to meet our public and private duties, sometimes even our salutary ones, while a womanish anxiety torments us at hearing something against our mind. Sometimes too, enraged at the powerful, we shall betray this feeling with intemperate freedom. But freedom is not to suffer nothing — we are mistaken: freedom is to set the mind above injuries and to make oneself the one source from which one’s joys come, to part outward things from oneself, lest life be a restless business, fearing everyone’s laughter, everyone’s tongue. For who is there that cannot do an insult, if anyone can?
Nec his dolendum nec illis gaudendum; alioqui multa timore contumeliarum aut taedio necessaria omittemus publicisque et priuatis officiis, aliquando etiam salutaribus, non occurremus, dum muliebris nos cura angit aliquid contra animum audiendi. Aliquando etiam obirati potentibus detegemus hunc adfectum intemperanti libertate. Non est autem libertas nihil pati, fallimur: libertas est animum superponere iniuriis et eum facere se ex quo solo sibi gaudenda ueniant, exteriora diducere a se, ne inquieta agenda sit uita omnium risus, omnium linguas timenti. Quis enim est qui non possit contumeliam facere, si quisquam potest?
But the wise man and the seeker after wisdom will use different remedies. For to the imperfect, and to those who still direct themselves by public judgment, this must be set forth: that they ought to live among injuries and insults; all things will fall lighter on those who expect them. The more honorable a man is in birth, fame, and patrimony, the more bravely let him bear himself, mindful that in the front line the tall ranks stand. Let him bear insults and reproachful words and disgraces and the other dishonorings as the shout of enemies, and distant darts, and stones rattling about the helmet without a wound; but injuries as wounds, some fixed in the arms, some in the breast, let him sustain not cast down, not even moved from his step. Even if you are pressed and urged by a hostile force, yet to give ground is base: keep the place assigned you by nature. Do you ask what this place is? That of a man.
Diuerso autem remedio utetur sapiens adfectatorque sapientiae. Inperfectis enim et adhuc ad publicum se iudicium derigentibus hoc proponendum est, inter iniurias ipsos contumeliasque debere uersari: omnia leuiora accident expectantibus. Quo quisque honestior genere fama patrimonio est, hoc se fortius gerat, memor in prima acie altos ordines stare. Contumelias et uerba probrosa et ignominias et cetera dehonestamenta uelut clamorem hostium ferat et longinqua tela et saxa sine uulnere circa galeas crepitantia; iniurias uero ut uulnera, alia armis, alia pectori infixa, non deiectus, ne motus quidem gradu sustineat. Etiam si premeris et infesta ui urgeris, cedere tamen turpe est: adsignatum a natura locum tuere. Quaeris quis hic sit locus? uiri.
The wise man has a different help, contrary to this; for you are still waging the matter, his victory is already won. Do not fight against your own good, and, while you come through to the truth, nourish this hope in your minds and gladly take up the better part and aid it by belief and by prayer: that there is something unconquered, that there is someone against whom fortune can do nothing, is to the good of the human commonwealth.
Sapienti aliud auxilium est huic contrarium; uos enim rem geritis, illi parta uictoria est. Ne repugnate uestro bono et hanc spem, dum ad uerum peruenitis, alite in animis libentesque meliora excipite et opinione ac uoto iuuate: esse aliquid inuictum, esse aliquem in quem nihil fortuna possit, e re publica est generis humani [est]. Seneca the Younger The Latin Library The Classics Page