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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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