Hardship and Happiness (The Complete Works of Lucius Annaeus Seneca) by Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Author:Lucius Annaeus Seneca [Seneca, Lucius Annaeus]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2014-03-04T16:00:00+00:00

On the Constancy of the Wise Person

LUCIUS ANNAEUS SENECA

TRANSLATED BY JAMES KER

(1.1) It would not be unfair for me to say, Serenus, that there is as much of a difference between the Stoics and the rest of those who make a claim to wisdom as there is between females and males. Both contribute to communal life in equal measure, but the one was born to comply, the other to command. The other wise persons give soft and soothing treatment, just like doctors when they are friends of the sick people whose bodies they are treating, or when they belong to the same household: they do not treat them in the way that is best and most direct, but as they are permitted. The Stoics, having embarked on a man’s path, are not concerned with making it seem pleasant to those who enter on it, but are concerned rather that the path should remove us as soon as possible and lead us out to that elevated peak which rises so far beyond the reach of any missile that it towers over fortune.

(2) “But the way we are being called to is steep and rough.” Well? Can the heights be reached by a flat path? Yet the way is not even as steep as some people think. Only the first part has rocks and cliffs and looks impassable. It is just as when things we spy from afar often seem broken or intertwined because our eyesight is deceived by the distance; but then, when we get closer, those same things that the error of our eyes had lumped together are gradually spread out. Beyond that point, the things that from far off seemed precipitous are reduced to a gentle slope.

(3) Recently, when mention happened to be made of Marcus Cato,15 you expressed outrage (as you can never tolerate injustice) that Cato’s own age did not fully appreciate him: although he surpassed the Pompeys and the Caesars, his own age ranked him below the likes of Vatinius.16 It seemed outrageous to you also that when Cato was preparing to oppose a law, his toga was torn off him in the forum, he was shoved by the hands of a seditious faction all the way from the rostra to the Fabian arch, and he endured verbal abuse, and spitting, and all the other insults of a frenzied crowd.

(2.1) At that time I responded that you had reason to be upset on behalf of the republic, which was being put up for sale by Publius Clodius17 on the one side, and on the other by Vatinius and all the most shameful persons. These men were so swept away by their blind desire that they did not understand that while they were selling the republic they were also putting themselves up for sale. As for Cato himself, I told you not to be concerned. For I said that the wise person can receive neither injury nor insult, and that the immortal gods had given Cato to

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