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| Lucius Annaeus Seneca On the Shortness of Life IntraText CT - Text |
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| XVIII. And so, my dearest
Paulinus, tear yourself away from the crowd, and, too much storm-tossed for the
time you have lived, at length withdraw into a peaceful harbour. Think of how
many waves you have encountered, how many storms, on the one hand, you have
sustained in private life, how many, on the other, you have brought upon
yourself in public life; long enough has your virtue been displayed in
laborious and unceasing proofs—try how it will behave in leisure. The greater
part of your life, certainly the better part of it, has been given to the
state; take now some part of your time for yourself as well. And I do not summon
you to slothful or idle inaction, or to drown all your native energy in
slumbers and the pleasures that are dear to the crowd. That is not to rest; you
will find far greater works than all those you have hitherto performed so
energetically, to occupy you in the midst of your release and retirement. You,
I know, manage the accounts of the whole world as honestly as you would a
stranger's, as carefully as you would your own, as conscientiously as you would
the state's. You win love in an office in which it is difficult to avoid
hatred; but nevertheless believe me, it is better to have knowledge of the
ledger of one's own life than of the corn-market. Recall that keen mind of
yours, which is most competent to cope with the greatest subjects, from a
service that is indeed honourable but hardly adapted to the happy life, and
reflect that in all your training in the liberal studies, extending from your
earliest years, you were not aiming at this—that it might be safe to entrust
many thousand pecks of corn to your charge; you gave hope of something greater
and more lofty. There will be no lack of men of tested worth and painstaking
industry. But plodding oxen are much more suited to carrying heavy loads than
thoroughbred horses, and who ever hampers the fleetness of such high-born
creatures with a heavy pack? Reflect, besides, how much worry you have in
subjecting yourself to such a great burden; your dealings are with the belly of
man. A hungry people neither listens to reason, nor is appeased by justice, nor
is bent by any entreaty. Very recently within those few day's after Gaius
Caesar died—still grieving most deeply (if the dead have any feeling) because
he knew that the Roman people were alive41 and had enough food left for
at any rate seven or eight days while he was building his bridges of
boats42 and playing with the resources of the empire, we were
threatened with the worst evil that can befall men even during a siege—the lack
of provisions; his imitation of a mad and foreign and misproud king43
was very nearly at the cost of the city's destruction and famine and the
general revolution that follows famine. What then must have been the feeling of
those who had charge of the corn-market, and had to face stones, the sword,
fire—and a Caligula? By the greatest subterfuge they concealed the great evil
that lurked in the vitals of the state—with good reason, you may be sure. For
certain maladies must be treated while the patient is kept in ignorance;
knowledge of their disease has caused the death of many. |
41 Probably an allusion to the mad wish of Caligula: "utinam populus Romanus unam cervicem haberet!" (Suetonius, Calig. 30), cited in De Ira, iii. 19. 2. The logic of the whole passage suffers from the uncertainty of the text. 42 Three and a half miles long, reaching from Baiae to the mole of Puteoli (Suetonius, Calig. 19). 43 Xerxes, who laid a bridge over the Hellespont. |
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