Epistles 1.16 (Fairclough)

Lest you, my good Quinctius, should have to ask me about my farm, whether it supports its master with plough-land, or makes him rich with olives, whether with apples or with meadows or vine-clad elms, I will describe for you in rambling style the nature and lie of the land.

There are hills, quite unbroken, were they not cleft by one shady valley, yet such that the rising sun looks on its right side, and when departing in his flying car warms the left. The climate would win your praise. What if you knew that the bushes bear a rich crop of ruddy cornels and plums, that oak and ilex gladden the cattle with plenteous fruitage, and their lord with plenteous shade? You would say that Tarentum with its verdure was brought nearer home. A spring, too, fit to give its name to a river, so that not cooler nor purer is Hebrus winding through Thrace, flows with healing for sickly heads and sickly stomachs. This retreat, so sweet—yes, believe me, so bewitching—keeps me, my friend, in sound health in September’s heat.

And you—you live the true life, if you take care to be what people call you. All we in Rome have long talked of you as happy; but I fear, as touching yourself, that you may give more credit to others than to your own judgement, or that you may think someone other than the wise and good man can be happy; or that, if over and over men say you are in sound and good health, you may, toward the dinner-hour, disguise the hidden fever, until a trembling falls upon your greasy hands. Fools, through false shame, hide the unhealed sore.

Suppose a man were to speak of wars fought by you on land and sea, and with words like these flatter your attentive ears:

May He, to whom both thou and Rome are dear,

Keep secret still, which is the fuller truth,

The love of Rome for thee, or thine for her!

you would see in them the praises of Augustus. When you suffer yourself to be called wise and flawless, do you answer, pray tell me, in your own name? “To be sure, I like to be called a good man and wise, even as you do.” But they who gave you this title to-day will, if they so please, take it away to-morrow; even as, if they bestow the lictor’s rods on one unworthy, they will likewise wrest them from him. “Put that down, ’tis ours,” they say. I do so, and sadly withdraw. If the same people were to cry after me “Thief!”, call me “Profligate,” insist that I strangled my father, ought I to be stung by such lying charges, and change colour? Whom does false honour delight, whom does lying calumny affright, save the man who is full of flaws and needs the doctor?

Who is the “good man”? “He who observes the Senate’s decrees, the statutes and laws; whose judgement settles many grave suits; whose surety means safety for property; whose testimony wins suits at law.” Yet this very man all his household and all his neighbours see to be foul within, though fair without, under his comely skin. If a slave were to say to me, “I never stole or ran away,” my reply would be, “You have your reward; you are not flogged.” “I never killed anyone.” “You’ll hang on no cross to feed crows.” “I am good and honest.” Our Sabine friend shakes his head and says, “No, no!” For the wolf is wary and dreads the pit, the hawk the suspected snare, the pike the covered hook. The good hate vice because they love virtue; you will commit no crime because you dread punishment. Suppose there’s a hope of escaping detection; you will make no difference between sacred and profane. For when from a thousand bushels of beans you steal one, my loss in that case is less, but not your sin. This “good man,” for forum and tribunal the cynosure of every eye, whenever with swine or ox he makes atonement to the gods, cries with loud voice “Father Janus,” with loud voice “Apollo,” then moves his lips, fearing to be heard: “Fair Laverna, grant me to escape detection; grant me to pass as just and upright, shroud my sins in night, my lies in clouds!”

How the miser is better than a slave, or is more free, when he stoops at the cross-roads to pick up the copper fastened there, I do not see: for he who covets will also have fears; further, he who lives in fear, will never, to my mind, be free. A man has lost his weapons, has quitted his post with Virtue, who is ever busied and lost in making money. When you can sell a captive, don’t kill him: he will make a useful slave. If hardy, let him be shepherd or ploughman: let him go to sea, and winter as a trader in the midst of the waves: let him help the market: let him carry food and fodder.

The truly good and wise man will have courage to say: “Pentheus, lord of Thebes, what shame will you compel me to stand and suffer?”

I will take away your goods.

You mean my cattle, my substance, couches, plate? You may take them.

I will keep you in handcuffs and fetters, under a cruel jailer.

God himself, the moment I choose, will set me free. This, I take it, is his meaning: “I will die.” Death is the line that marks the end of all.