Cicero, in Pisonem (23):
Would I, if I saw you and Gabinius fixed upon the cross, be affected with greater happiness from the laceration of your body than I am affected by the ruin of your fame? It is to be thought no punishment if by some chance even good and brave men are able to be affected by hit. Indeed, even those pleasure loving Greeks of yours say the same thing – if only you would hear them as they ought to be heard, you would never have plunged yourself so deep into the whirlpool of disgrace. But you listen to them in brothels, in the middle of adultery, in the midst of your food and wine.
But even they themselves, who define evil as pain and good as pleasure, assert that the wise man, even if he were enclosed in the bull of Phalaris, and being burned by the fires lit below, would say that even that pain was pleasant and that he was not moved by it even a little. They would have it that the strength of virtue is so great that no man could be good and not be happy. What then is penalty or punishment? In my opinion, it is that which can fall to no one unless they are guilty: fraud taken up, a mind both blocked and oppressed, the hatred of good people, the mark of the senate branded upon you, and the loss of dignity.
An ego, si te et Gabinium cruci suffixos viderem, maiore adficerer laetitia ex corporis vestri laceratione quam adficior ex famae? Nullum est supplicium putandum quo adfici casu aliquo etiam boni viri fortesque possunt. Atque hoc quidem etiam isti tui dicunt voluptarii Graeci: quos utinam ita audires ut erant audiendi; numquam te in tot flagitia ingurgitasses. Verum audis in praesepibus, audis in stupris, audis in cibo et vino. Sed dicunt isti ipsi qui mala dolore, bona voluptate definiunt, sapientem, etiam si in Phalaridis tauro inclusus succensis ignibus torreatur, dicturum tamen suave illud esse seque ne tantulum quidem commoveri. Tantam virtutis vim esse voluerunt ut non posset esse umquam vir bonus non beatus. Quae est igitur poena, quod supplicium? Id mea sententia quod accidere nemini potest nisi nocenti, suscepta fraus, impedita et oppressa mens, bonorum odium, nota inusta senatus, amissio dignitatis.
