XXVIII ON TRAVEL AS A  CURE FOR DISCONTENT

     Do you suppose that you alone have had this experience? Are you surprised, as if it were a novelty, that after such long travel and so many changes of scene you have not been able to shake off the gloom and heaviness of your mind?  You need a change of soul rather than a change of climate. Though you may cross vast spaces of sea, and though, as our Vergil remarks,

Lands and cities are left astern,

your faults will follow you whithersoever you travel. Socrates made the same remark to one who complained; he said: "Why do you wonder that globe-trotting does not help you, seeing that you always take yourself with you?  The reason which set you wandering is ever at your heels." What pleasure is there in seeing new lands?  Or in surveying cities and spots of interest?  All your bustle is useless.  Do you ask why such flight does not help you?  It is because you flee along with yourself.  You must lay aside the burdens of the mind; until you do this, no place will satisfy you.  Reflect that your present behaviour is like that of the prophetess whom Vergil describes: she is excited and goaded into fury, and contains within herself much inspiration that is not her own:  The priestess raves, if haply she may shake The great god from her heart.  You wander hither and yon, to rid yourself of the burden that rests upon you, though it becomes more troublesome by reason of your very restlessness, just as in a ship the cargo when stationary makes no trouble, but when it shifts to this side or that, it causes the vessel to heel more quickly in the direction where it has settled.  Anything you do tells against you, and you hurt yourself by your very unrest; for you are shaking up a sick man.

     That trouble once removed, all change of scene will become pleasant; though you may be driven to the uttermost ends of the earth, in whatever corner of a savage land you may find yourself, that place, however forbidding, will be to you a hospitable abode.  The person you are matters more than the place to which you go; for that reason we should not make the mind a bondsman to any one place.  Live in this belief: "I am not born for any one corner of the universe; this whole world is my country." If you saw this fact clearly, you would not be surprised at getting no benefit from the fresh scenes to which you roam each time through weariness of the old scenes.  For the first would have pleased you in each case, had you believed it wholly yours. As it is, however, you are not journeying; you are drifting and being driven, only exchanging one place for another, although that which you seek, - to live well, - is found everywhere. Can there be any spot so full of confusion as the Forum?  Yet you can live quietly even there, if necessary.  Of course, if one were allowed to make one's own arrangements, I should flee far from the very sight and neighbourhood of the Forum.  For just as pestilential places assail even the strongest constitution, so there are some places which are also unwholesome for a healthy mind which is not yet quite sound, though recovering from its ailment.  I disagree with those who strike out into the midst of the billows and, welcoming a stormy existence, wrestle daily in hardihood of soul with life's problems.  The wise man will endure all that, but will not choose it; he will prefer to be at peace rather than at war. It helps little to have cast out your own faults if you must quarrel with those of others.  Says one: "There were thirty tyrants surrounding Socrates, and yet they could not break his spirit"; but what does it matter how many masters a man has? "Slavery" has no plural; and he who has scorned it is free, - no matter amid how large a mob of over-lords he stands.

     It is time to stop, but not before I have paid duty. "The knowledge of sin is the beginning of salvation." This saying of Epicurus seems to me to be a noble one.  For he who does not know that he has sinned does not desire correction; you must discover yourself in the wrong before you can reform yourself.  Some boast of their faults.  Do you think that the man has any thought of mending his ways who counts over his vices as if they were virtues?  Therefore, as far as possible, prove yourself guilty, hunt up charges against yourself; play the part, first of accuser, then of judge, last of intercessor.  At times be harsh with yourself. Farewell.

XLIV ON PHILOSOPHY AND PEDIGREES

     You are again insisting to me that you are a nobody, and saying that nature in the first place, and fortune in the second, have treated you too scurvily, and this in spite of the fact that you have it in your power to separate yourself from the crowd and rise to the highest human happiness!  If there is any good in philosophy, it is this, - that it never looks into pedigrees.  All men, if traced back to their original source, spring from the gods.  You are a Roman knight, and your persistent work promoted you to this class; yet surely there are many to whom the fourteen rows are barred; "the senate-chamber is not open to all; the army, too, is scrupulous in choosing those whom it admits to toil and danger.  But a noble mind is free to all men; according to this test, we may all gain distinction.  Philosophy neither rejects nor selects anyone; its light shines for all.  Socrates was no aristocrat.  Cleanthes worked at a well and served as a hired man watering a garden.  Philosophy did not find Plato already a nobleman; it made him one.  Why then should you despair of becoming able to rank with men like these?  They are all your ancestors, if you conduct yourself in a manner worthy of them; and you will do so if you convince yourself at the outset that no man outdoes you in real nobility.  We have all had the same number of forefathers; there is no man whose first beginning does not transcend memory.  Plato says: "Every king springs from a race of slaves, and every slave has had kings among his ancestors." The flight of time, with its vicissitudes, has jumbled all such things together, and Fortune has turned them upside down.  Then who is well-born?  He who is by nature well fitted for virtue. That is the one point to be considered; otherwise, if you hark back to antiquity, every one traces back to a date before which there is nothing. From the earliest beginnings of the universe to the present time, we have been led forward out of origins that were alternately illustrious and ignoble. A hall full of smoke- begrimed busts does not make the nobleman.  No past life has been lived to lend us glory, and that which has existed before us is not ours; the soul alone renders us noble, and it may rise superior to Fortune out of any earlier condition, no matter what that condition has been. Suppose, then, that you were not that Roman knight, but a freedman, you might nevertheless by your own efforts come to be the only free man amid a throng of gentlemen. "How?" you ask.  Simply by distinguishing between good and bad things without patterning your opinion from the populace. You should look, not to the source from which these things come, but to the goal towards which they tend.  If there is anything that can make life happy, it is good on its own merits; for it cannot degenerate into evil.  Where, then, lies the mistake, since all men crave the happy life?  It is that they regard the means for producing happiness as happiness itself, and, while seeking happiness, they are really fleeing from it. For although the sum and substance of the happy life is unalloyed freedom from care, and though the secret of such freedom is unshaken confidence, yet men gather together that which causes worry, and, while travelling life's treacherous road, not only have burdens to bear, but even draw burdens to themselves; hence they recede farther and farther from the achievement of that which they seek, and the more effort they expend, the more they hinder themselves and are set back.  This is what happens when you hurry through a maze; the faster you go, the worse you are entangled.  Farewell.

V THE PHILOSOPHER'S MEAN

    I commend you and rejoice in the fact that you are persistent in your studies, and that, putting all else aside, you make it each day your endeavour to become a better man.  I do not merely exhort you to keep at it; I actually beg you to do so.  I warn you, however, not to act after the fashion of those who desire to be conspicuous rather than to improve, by doing things which will rouse comment as regards your dress or general way of living.  Repellent attire, unkempt hair, slovenly beard, open scorn of silver dishes, a couch on the bare earth, and any other perverted forms of self-display, are to be avoided.  The mere name of philosophy, however quietly pursued, is an object of sufficient scorn; and what would happen if we should begin to separate ourselves from the customs of our fellow-men?  Inwardly, we ought to be different in all respects, but our exterior should conform to society.  Do not wear too fine, nor yet too frowzy, a toga.  One needs no silver plate, encrusted and embossed in solid gold; but we should not believe the lack of silver and gold to be proof of the simple life.  Let us try to maintain a higher standard of life than that of the multitude, but not a contrary standard; otherwise, we shall frighten away and repel the very persons whom we are trying to improve.  We also bring it about that they are unwilling to imitate us in anything, because they are afraid lest they might be compelled to imitate us in everything. The first thing which philosophy undertakes to give is fellow-feeling with all men; in other words, sympathy and sociability. We part company with our promise if we are unlike other men.  We must see to it that the means by which we wish to draw admiration be not absurd and odious.  Our motto, as you know, is "Live according to Nature"; but it is quite contrary to nature to torture the body, to hate unlaboured elegance, to be dirty on purpose, to eat food that is not only plain, but disgusting and forbidding.  Just as it is a sign of luxury to seek out dainties, so it is madness to avoid that which is customary and can be purchased at no great price.  Philosophy calls for plain living, but not for penance; and we may perfectly well be plain and neat at the same time. This is the mean of which I approve; our life should observe a happy medium between the ways of a sage and the ways of the world at large; all men should admire it, but they should understand it also.

     Well then, shall we act like other men?  Shall there be no distinction between ourselves and the world? "Yes, a very great one; let men find that we are unlike the common herd, if they look closely. If they visit us at home, they should admire us. rather than our household appointments, he is a great man who uses earthenware dishes as if they were silver; but he is equally great who uses silver as if it were earthenware. It is the sign of an unstable mind not to be able to endure riches.

     But I wish to share with you to-day's profit also.  I find in the writings of our Hecato that the limiting of desires helps also to cure fears: "Cease to hope," he says, "and you will cease to fear." "But how, you will reply, "can things so different go side by side?" In this way, my dear Lucilius: though they do seem at variance, yet they are really united.  Just as the same chain fastens the prisoner and the soldier who guards him, so hope and fear, dissimilar as they are, keep step together; fear follows hope.  I am not surprised that they proceed in this way; each alike belongs to a mind that is in suspense, a mind that is fretted by looking forward to the future.  But the chief cause of both these ills is that we do not adapt ourselves to the present, but send our thoughts a long way ahead.  And so foresight, the noblest blessing of the human race, becomes perverted.  Beasts avoid the dangers which they see, and when they have escaped them are free from care; but we men torment ourselves over that which is to come as well as over that which is past. Many of our blessings bring bane to us; for memory recalls the tortures of fear, while foresight anticipates them.  The present alone can make no man wretched.  Farewell.

LXXX ON WORLDLY DECEPTIONS

      To-day I have some free time, thanks not so much to self as to the games, which have attracted all the bores to the boxing- match. No one will interrupt me or disturb the train of my thoughts, which go ahead more boldly as the result of my very confidence. My door has not been continually creaking on its hinges nor will my curtain be pulled aside; my thoughts may march safely on, - and that is all the more necessary for one who goes independently and follows out his own path. Do I then follow no predecessors?  Yes, but I allow myself to discover something new, to alter, to reject.  I am not a slave to them, although I give them my approval.

     And yet that was a very bold word which I spoke when I assured myself that I should have some quiet, and some uninterrupted retirement.  For lo, a great cheer comes from the stadium, and while it does not drive me distracted, yet it shifts my thought to a contrast suggested by this very noise.  How many men, I say to myself, train their bodies, and how few train their minds! What crowds flock to the games, spurious as they are and arranged merely for pastime, - and what a solitude reigns where the good arts are taught!  How feather-brained are the athletes whose muscles and shoulders we admire!  The question which I ponder most of all is this; if the body can be trained to such a degree of endurance that it will stand the blows and kicks of several opponents at once and to such a degree that a man can last out the day and resist the scorching sun in the midst of the burning dust, drenched all the while with his own blood, - if this can be done, how much more easily might the mind be toughened so that it could receive the blows of Fortune and not be conquered, so that it might struggle to its feet again after it has been laid low, after it has been trampled under foot?

      For although the body needs many things in order to be strong, yet the mind grows from within, giving to itself nourishment and exercise.  Yonder athletes must have copious food, copious drink, copious quantities of oil, and long training besides; but you can acquire virtue without equipment and without expense.  All that goes to make you a good man lies within yourself.  And what do you need in order to become good?  To wish it.  But what better thing could you wish for than to break away from this slavery, a slavery that oppresses us all, a slavery which even chattels of the lowest estate, born amid such degradation, strive in every possible way to strip off?  In exchange for freedom they pay out the savings which they have scraped together by cheating their own bellies; shall you not be eager to attain liberty at any price, seeing that you claim it as your birthright?  Why cast glances toward your strong-box?  Liberty cannot be bought.  It is therefore useless to enter in your ledger the item of "Freedom," for freedom is possessed neither by those who have bought it, nor by those who have sold it.  You must give this good to yourself, and seek it from yourself.

      First of all, free yourself from the fear of death, for death puts the yoke about our necks; then free yourself from the fear of poverty.  If you would know how little evil there is in poverty, compare the faces of the poor with those of the rich; the poor man smiles more often and more genuinely; his troubles do not go deep down; even if any anxiety comes upon him, it passes like a fitful cloud. But the merriment of those whom men call happy is feigned, while their sadness is heavy and festering, and all the heavier because they may not meanwhile display their grief, but must act the part of happiness in the midst of sorrows that eat out their very hearts.  I often feel called upon to use the following illustration, and it seems to me that none expresses more effectively this drama of human life, wherein we are assigned the parts which we are to play so badly.  Yonder is the man who stalks upon the stage with swelling port and head thrown back, and says: 

Lo, I ain he whom Argos hails as lord,

Whom Pelops left the heir of lands that spread

From Hellespont and from th' Ionian sea

E'en to the Isthmian straits.

And who is this fellow?  He is but a slave; his wage is five measures of grain and five denarii.  Yon other who, proud and wayward and puffed up by confidence in his power, declaims:

Peace, Menelaus, or this hand shall slay thee

receives a daily pittance and sleeps on rags.  You may speak in the same way about all these dandies whom you see riding in litters above the heads of men and above the crowd; in every case their happiness is put on like the actor's mask.  Tear it off, and you will scorn them. When you buy a horse, you order its blanket to be removed; you pull off the garments from slaves that are advertised for sale, so that no bodily flaws may escape your notice; if you judge a man, do you judge him when he is wrapped in a disguise?  Slave dealers hide under some sort of finery any defect which may give offence, and for that reason the very trappings arouse the suspicion of the buyer.  If you catch sight of a leg or an arm that is bound up in cloths, you demand that it be stripped and that the body itself be revealed to you.  Do you see yonder Scythian or Sarmatian king, his head adorned with the badge of his office?  If you wish to see what he amounts to, and to know his full worth, take off his diadem; much evil lurks beneath it.  But why do I speak of others?  If you wish to set a value on yourself, put away your money, your estates, your honours, and look into your own soul.  At present, you are taking the word of others for what you are.  Farewell.

CVII ON OBEDIENCE TO THE UNIVERSAL WILL

     W here is that common-sense of yours?  Where that deftness in examining things?  That greatness of soul?  Have you come to be tormented by a trifle?  Your slaves regarded your absorption in business as an opportunity for them to run away.  Well, if your friends deceived you (for by all means let them have the name which we mistakenly bestowed upon them, and so call them, that they may incur more shame by not being such friends) - if your friends, I repeat, deceived you, all your affairs would lack something; as it is, you merely lack men who damaged your own endeavours and considered you burdensome to your neighbours.  None of these things is unusual or unexpected.  It is as nonsensical to be put out by such events as to complain of being spattered in the street or at getting befouled in the mud.  The programme of life is the same as that of a bathing establishment, a crowd, or a journey: sometimes things will be thrown at you, and sometimes they will strike you by accident.  Life is not a dainty business.  You have started on a long journey you are bound to slip, collide, fall, become weary, and cry out: "O for Death!" or in other words, tell lies.  At one stage you will leave a comrade behind you, at another you will bury someone, at another you will be apprehensive.  It is amid stumblings of this sort that you must travel out this rugged journey.  Does one wish to die?  Let the mind be prepared to meet everything; let it know that it has reached the heights round which the thunder plays.  Let it know that it has arrived where -

Grief and avenging

Care have set their couch,

And pallid sickness dwells, and drear Old Age.

With such messmates must you spend your days.  Avoid them you cannot, but despise them you can.  And you will despise them, if you often take thought: and anticipate the future.  Everyone approaches courageously a danger which he has prepared himself to meet long before, and withstands even hardships if he has previously practised how to meet them.  But, contrariwise, the unprepared are panic-stricken even at the most trifling things.  We must see to it that nothing shall come upon us unforeseen.  And since things are all the more serious when they are unfamiliar, continual reflection will give you the power, no matter what the evil may be, not to play the unschooled boy. "My slaves have run away from me!" Yes, other men have been robbed, blackmailed, slain, betrayed, stamped under foot, attacked by poison or by slander; no matter what trouble you mention, it has happened to many.  Again, there are manifold kinds of missiles which are hurled at us.  Some are planted in us, some are being brandished and at this very moment are on the way, some which were destined for other men graze us instead.  We should not manifest surprise at any sort of condition into which we are born, and which should be lamented by no one, simply because it is equally ordained for all.  Yes, I say, equally ordained; for a man might have experienced even that which he has escaped.  And an equal law consists, not of that which all have experienced, but of that which is laid down for all.  Be sure to prescribe for your mind this sense of equity; we should pay without complaint the tax of our mortality. Winter brings on cold weather; and we must shiver.  Summer returns, with its heat; and we must sweat.  Unseasonable weather upsets the health; and we must fall ill.  In certain places we may meet with wild beasts, or with men who are more destructive than any beasts.  Floods, or fires, will cause us loss.  And we cannot change this order of things; but what we can do is to acquire stout hearts, worthy of good men, thereby courageously enduring chance and placing ourselves in harmony with Nature.  And Nature moderates this world-kingdom which you see, by her changing seasons: clear weather follows cloudy; after a calm, comes the storm; the winds blow by turns; day succeeds night; some of the heavenly bodies rise, and some set. Eternity consists of opposites.  It is to this law that our souls must adjust themselves, this they should follow, this they should obey.  Whatever happens, assume that it was bound to happen, and do not be willing to rail at Nature. That which you cannot reform, it is best to endure, and to attend uncomplainingly upon the God under whose guidance everything progresses for it is a bad soldier who grumbles when following his commander. For this reason we should welcome our orders with energy and vigour, nor should we cease to follow the natural course of this most beautiful universe, into which all our future sufferings are woven.

     Let us address Jupiter, the pilot of this world-mass, as did our great Cleanthes in those most eloquent lines - lines which I shall allow myself to render in Latin, after the example of the eloquent Cicero.  If you like them, make the most of them; if they displease you, you will understand that I have simply been following the practise of Cicero:

Lead me, O Master of the lofty heavens,

My Father, whithersoever thou shalt wish

I shall not falter, but obey with speed.

And though I would not, I shall go, and suffer

In sin and sorrow what I might have done

In noble virtue.  Aye, the willing soul

Fate leads, but the unwilling drags along.

     Let us live thus, and speak thus; let Fate find us ready and alert.  Here is your great soul - the man who has given himself over to Fate; on the other hand, that man is a weakling and a degenerate who struggles and maligns the order of the universe and would rather reform the gods than reform himself.  Farewell.

XXXIII ON THE FUTILITY OF LEARNING MAXIMS

     You wish me to close these letters also, as I closed my former letters, with certain utterances taken from the chiefs of our school.  But they did not interest themselves in choice extracts; the whole texture of their work is full of strength.  There is unevenness, you know, when some objects rise conspicuous above others.  A single tree is not remarkable if the whole forest rises to the same height.  Poetry is crammed with utterances of this sort, and so is history.  For this reason I would not have you think that these utterances belong to Epicurus. they are common property and are emphatically our own. They are, however, more noteworthy in Epicurus, because they appear at infrequent intervals and when you do not expect them, and because it is surprising that brave words should be spoken at any time by a man who made a practice of being effeminate.  For that is what most persons maintain. In my own opinion, however, Epicurus is really a brave man, even though he did wear long sleeves. Fortitude, energy, and readiness for battle are to be found among the Persians, just as much as long men who have girded themselves up high.

     Therefore, you need not call upon me for extracts and quotations; such thoughts as one may extract here and there in the works of other philosophers run through the whole body of our writings. Hence we have no "show-window goods," nor do we deceive the purchaser in such a way that, if he enters our shop, he will find nothing except that which is displayed in the window.  We allow the purchasers themselves to get their samples from anywhere they please.  Suppose we should desire to sort out each separate motto from the general stock; to whom shall we credit them?  To Zeno, Cleanthes, Chrysippus, Panaetius, or Posidonius?  We Stoics are not subjects of a despot: each of us lays claim to his own freedom. With them, on the ether hand, whatever Hermarchus says or Metrodorus, is ascribed to one source.  In that brotherhood, everything that any man utters is spoken under the leadership and commanding authority of one alone.  We cannot, I maintain, no matter how we try, pick out anything from so great a multitude of things equally good.

 Only the poor man counts his flock.

Wherver you direct your gaze, you will meet with something that might stand out from the rest, if the context in which you read it were not equally notable.

     For this reason, give over hoping that you can skim, by weans of epitomes, the wisdom of distinguished men.  Look into their wisdom as a whole; study it as a whole.  They are working out a plan and weaving together, line upon line, a masterpiece, from which nothing can be taken away without injury to the whole.  Examine the separate parts, if you like, provided you examine them as parts of the man himself.  She is not a beautiful woman whose ankle or arm is praised, but she whose general appearance makes you forget to admire her single attributes.

     If you insist, however, I shall not be niggardly with you, but lavish; for there is a huge multitude of these passages; they are scattered about in profusion, - they do not need to be gathered together, but merely to be picked up.  They do not drip forth occasionally; they flow continuously.  They are unbroken and are closely connected.  Doubtless they would be of much benefit to those who are still novices and worshipping outside the shrine; for single maxims sink in more easily when they are marked of and bounded like a line of verse.  That is why we give to children a proverb, or that which the Greeks call Chria, to be learned by heart; that sort of thing can be comprehended by the young mind, which cannot as yet hold more.  For a man, however, whose progress is definite, to chase after choice extracts and to prop his weakness by the best known and the briefest sayings and to depend upon his memory, is disgraceful; it is time for him to lean on himself.  He should make such maxims and not memorize them.  For it is disgraceful even for an old man, or one who has sighted old age, to have a note-book knowledge. "This is what Zeno said." But what have you yourself said? "This is the opinion of Cleanthes." But what is your own opinion?  How long shall you march under another man's orders? Take command, and utter some word which posterity will remember.  Put forth something from your own stock. For this reason I hold that there is nothing of eminence in all such men as these, who never create anything themselves, but always lurk in the shadow of others, playing the role of interpreters, never daring to put once into practice what they have been so long in learning.  They have exercised their memories on other men's material.  But it is one thing to remember, another to know.  Remembering is merely safeguarding something entrusted to the memory; knowing, however, means making everything your own; it means not depending upon the copy and not all the time glancing back at the master. "Thus said Zeno, thus said Cleanthes, indeed!" Let there be a difference between yourself and your book!  How long shall you be a learner?  From now on be a teacher as well! "But why," one asks, "should I have to continue hearing lectures on what I can read?" "The living voice," one replies, "is a great help." Perhaps, but not the voice which merely makes itself the mouthpiece of another's words, and only performs the duty of a reporter.

     Consider this fact also.  Those who have never attained their mental independence begin, in the first place, by following the leader in cases where everyone has deserted the leader; then, in the second place, they follow him in matters where the truth is still being investigated.  However, the truth will never be discovered if we rest contented with discoveries already made. Besides, he who follows another not only discovers nothing but is not even investigating.  What then?  Shall I not follow in the footsteps of my predecessors? I shall indeed use the old road, but if I find one that makes a shorter cut and is smoother to travel, I shall open the new road.  Men who have made these discoveries before us are not our masters, but our guides.  Truth lies open for all; it has not yet been monopolized.  And there is plenty of it left even for posterity to discover.  Farewell.

XLIII ON THE RELATIVITY OF FAME

     Do you ask how the news reached me, and who informed me, that you were entertaining this idea, of which you had said nothing to a single soul?  It was that most knowing of persons, - gossip. "What," you say, "am I such a great personage that I can stir up gossip?" Now there is no reason why you should measure yourself according to this part of the world; have regard only to the place where you are dwelling. Any point which rises above adjacent points is great, at the spot where it rises.  For greatness is not absolute; comparison increases it or lessens it.  A ship which looms large in the river seems tiny when on the ocean. A rudder which is large for one vessel, is small for another.

     So you in your province are really of importance, though you scorn yourself.  Men are asking what you do, how you dine, and how you sleep, and they find out, too; hence there is all the more reason for your living circumspectly.  Do not, however, deem yourself truly happy until you find that you can live before men's eyes, until your walls protect but do not hide you; although we are apt to believe that these walls surround us, not to enable us to live more safely, but that we may sin more secretly. I shall mention a fact by which you may weigh the worth of a man's character: you will scarcely find anyone who can live with his door wide open.  It is our conscience, not our pride, that has put doorkeepers at our doors; we live in such a fashion that being suddenly disclosed to view is equivalent to being caught in the act.  What profits it, however, to hide ourselves away, and to avoid the eyes and ears of men?  A good conscience welcomes the crowd, but a bad conscience, even in solitude, is disturbed and troubled.  If your deeds are honourable, let everybody know them; if base, what matters it that no one knows them, as long as you yourself know them?  How wretched you are if you despise such a witness!  Farewell.

XLVII ON MASTER AND SLAVE

    I am glad to learn, through those who come from you, that you live on friendly terms with your slaves.  This befits a sensible and well-educated man like yourself. "They are slaves," people declare." Nay, rather they are men. "Slaves!" No, comrades. " Slaves!" No, they are unpretentious friends. "Slaves!" No, they are our fellow-slaves, if one reflects that, Fortune has equal rights over slaves and free men alike.

     That is why I smile at those who think it degrading for a man to dine with his slave.  But why should they think it degrading?  It is only because purse-proud etiquette surrounds a householder at his dinner with a mob of standing slaves.  The master eats more than he can hold, and with monstrous greed loads his belly until it is stretched and at length ceases to do the work of a belly; so that he is at greater pains to discharge all the food than he was to stuff it down.  All this time the poor slaves may not move their lips, even to speak.  The slightest murmur is repressed by the rod; even a chance sound, - a cough, a sneeze, or a hiccup, - is visited with the lash.  There is a grievous penalty for the slightest breach of silence.  All night long they must stand about, hungry and dumb.

     The result of it all is that these slaves, who may not talk in their master's presence, talk about their master.  But the slaves of former days, who were permitted to converse not only in their master's presence, but actually with him, whose mouths were not stitched up tight, were ready to bare their necks for their master, to bring upon their own heads any danger that threatened him; they spoke at the feast, but kept silence during torture.  Finally, the saying, in allusion to this same highhanded treatment, becomes current: "As many enemies as you have slaves." They are not enemies when we acquire them; we make them enemies.

     I shall pass over other cruel and inhuman conduct towards them; for we maltreat them, not as if they were men, but as if they were beasts of burden.  When we recline at a banquet, one slave mops up the disgorged food, another crouches beneath the table and gathers up the left-overs of the tipsy guests.  Another carves the priceless game birds; with unerring strokes and skilled hand he cuts choice morsels along the breast or the rump.  Hapless fellow, to live only for the purpose of cutting fat capons correctly - unless, indeed, the other man is still more unhappy than he, who teaches this art for pleasure's sake, rather than he who learns it because he must.  Another, who serves the wine, must dress like a woman and wrestle with his advancing years; he cannot get away from his boyhood; he is dragged back to it; and though be has already acquired a soldier's figure, he is kept beardless by having his hair smoothed away or plucked out by the roots, and he must remain awake throughout the night, dividing his time between his master's drunkenness and his lust; in the chamber be must be a man, at the feast a boy. Another, whose duty it is to put a valuation on the guests, must stick to his task, poor fellow, and watch to see whose flattery and whose immodesty, whether of appetite or of language, is to get them an invitation for tomorrow. Think also of the poor purveyors of food, who note their masters' tastes with delicate skill, who know what special flavours will sharpen their appetite, what will please their eyes, what new combinations will rouse their cloyed stomachs, what food will excite their loathing through sheer satiety, and what will stir them to hunger on that particular day.  With slaves like these the master cannot bear to dine; he would think it beneath his dignity to associate with his slave at the same table!  Heaven forfend!

     But how many masters is he creating in these very men!  I have seen standing in the line, before the door of Callistus, the former master of Callistus; I have seen the master himself shut out while others were welcomed, - the master who once fastened the "For Sale" ticket on Callistus and put him in the market along with the good-for-nothing slaves.  But he has been paid off by that slave who was shuffled into the first lot of those on whom the crier practises his lungs; the slave, too, in his turn has cut his name from the list and in his turn has adjudged him unfit to enter his house.  The master sold Callistus, but how much has Callistus made his master pay for!  Kindly remember that he whom you call your slave sprang from the same stock, is smiled upon by the same skies, and on equal terms with yourself breathes, lives, and dies.  It is just as possible for you to see in him a free-born man as for him to see in you a slave.  As a result of the massacres in Marius's day, many a man of distinguished birth, who was taking the first steps toward senatorial rank by service in the army, was humbled by fortune, one becoming a shepherd, another a caretaker of a country cottage.  Despise, then, if you dare, those to whose estate you may at any time descend, even when you are despising them.

     I do not wish to involve myself in too large a question, and to discuss the treatment of slaves, towards whom we Romans are excessively haughty, cruel, and insulting.  But this is the kernel of my advice:  Treat your inferiors as you would be treated by your betters. And as often as you reflect how much power you have over a slave, remember that your master has just as much power over you. "But I have no master," you say.  You are still young; perhaps you will have one.  Do you not know at what age Hecuba entered captivity, or Croesus, or the mother of Darius, or Plato, or Diogenes?

     Associate with your slave on kindly, even on affable, terms; let him talk with you, plan with you, live with you. I know that at this point all the exquisites will cry out against me in a body; they will say: "There is nothing more debasing, more disgraceful, than this." But these are the very persons whom I sometimes surprise kissing the hands of other men's slaves.  Do you not see even this, how our ancestors removed from masters everything invidious, and from slaves everything insulting? They called the master "father of the household," and the slaves "members of the household," a custom which still holds in the mane.  They established a holiday on which masters and slaves should eat together, - not as the only day for this custom, but as obligatory on that day in any case.  They allowed the slaves to attain honours in the household and to pronounce judgment; they held that a household was a miniature commonwealth.

     "Do you mean to say," comes the retort, "that I must seat all my slaves at my own table?" No, not any more than that you should invite all free men to it.  You are mistaken if you think that I would bar from my table certain slaves whose duties are more humble, as, for example, yonder muleteer or yonder herdsman; I propose to value them according to their character, and not according to their duties.  Each man acquires his character for himself, but accident assigns his duties. Invite some to your table because they deserve the honor. If there be any slavish quality in them as the result of their low associations, it will be shaken off by intercourse with men of gentler breeding.  You need not, my dear Lucillus, hunt for friends only in the forum or in the Senate-house; if you are careful and attentive, you will find them at home also.  Good material often stands idle for want of an artist; make the experiment, and you will find it so.  As he is a fool who, when purchasing a horse, does not consider the animal's points, but merely his saddle and bridle; so he is doubly a fool who values a man from his clothes or from his rank, which indeed is only a robe that clothes us.

     "He is a slave." His soul, however, may be that of a freeman. "He is a slave." But shall that stand in his way?  Show me a man who is not a slave; one is a slave to lust, another to greed, another to ambition, and all men are slaves to fear.  I will name you an ex-consul who is slave to an old hag, a millionaire who is slave to a serving-maid; I will show you youths of the noblest birth in serfdom to pantomime players! No servitude is more disgraceful than that which is self-imposed.

     You should therefore not be deterred by these finicky persons from showing yourself to your slaves as an affable person and not proudly superior to them; they ought to respect you rather than fear you.  Some may maintain that I am now offering the liberty-cap to slaves in general and toppling down lords from their high estate, because I bid slaves respect their masters instead of fearing them.  They say: "This is what he plainly means: slaves are to pay respect as if they were clients or early-morning callers!" Anyone who holds this opinion forgets that what is enough for a god cannot be too little for a master.  Respect means love, and love and fear cannot be mingled. So I hold that you are entirely right in not wishing to be feared by your slaves, and in lashing them merely with the tongue; only dumb animals need the thong.  That which annoys us does not necessarily injure us; but we are driven into wild rage by our luxurious lives, so that whatever does not answer our whims arouses our anger.  We don the temper of kings. For they, too, forgetful alike of their own strength and of other men's weakness, grow white-hot with rage, as if they had received an injury, when they are entirely protected from danger of such injury by their exalted station.  They are not unaware that this is true, but by finding fault they seize upon opportunities to do harm; they insist that they have received injuries, in order that they may inflict them.

     I do not wish to delay you longer; for you need no exhortation.  This, among other things, is a mark of good character: it forms its own judgments and abides by them; but badness is fickle and frequently changing, not for the better, but for something different.  Farewell.