Every Age a Clodius

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Seneca, Moral Epistle 97.10-13

“Every generation produces a Clodius, but every one doesn’t make a Cato. We lean more easily into ruin, not because we have no leader or lack a guide, but because the action itself happens easily without a leader, without help. The path to vice isn’t just downhill, it’s steep too and it makes many of us unfixable because life’s mistakes feel good while screwups in all the other arts are a source of shame and causes harm to those who do them.

A captain doesn’t smile when his ship flips over; a doctor doesn’t grin at a sick patient dead, an orator does not laugh when the person they’re defending loses because of their mistake. But in contrast, everyone’s personal crime is a source of pleasure! This guy is charmed by adultery, the same ‘difficulty’ that got him into trouble in the first place. Another dude finds counterfeiting and theft a thrill, and isn’t disappointed with his fault until his luck fails him. This is the outcome of debased practices!

However, so that you know that our spirits possess some notion of proper behavior even when they have been seduced into the worst things and that we are not ignorant of what is wrong, just negligent, everyone covers over their faults and, even if they do it well, still enjoy their products even while disguising them. The good conscience wants to step out and be seen–evil is afraid of shadows. So, I think that Epicurus put it well that “It’s possible for a guilty person to hide, but it’s impossible to trust the hiding.”

Or, if you think it is better to convey the sense in this way: “There’s no advantage for people who screw up to hide because even if that have the good luck, there’s no promise of staying hidden.” I mean this: crimes can be safeguarded, but they can never be secure.”

Omne tempus Clodios, non omne Catones feret. Ad deteriora faciles sumus, quia nec dux potest nec comes deesse, et res ipsa etiam sine duce, sine comite procedit. Non pronum est tantum ad vitia, sed praeceps, et quod plerosque inemendabiles facit, omnium aliarum artium peccata artificibus pudori sunt offenduntque deerrantem, vitae peccata delectant. Non gaudet navigio gubernator everso, non gaudet aegro medicus elato, non gaudet orator, si patroni culpa reus cedidit; at contra omnibus crimen suum voluptati est. Laetatur ille adulterio, in quod inritatus est ipsa difficultate. Laetatur ille circumscriptione furtoque, nec ante illi culpa quam culpae fortuna displicuit. Id prava consuetudine evenit.

Alioquin ut scias subesse animis etiam in pessima abductis boni sensum nec ignorari turpe, sed neglegi; omnes peccata dissimulant et, quamvis feliciter cesserint, fructu illorum utuntur, ipsa subducunt. At bona conscientia prodire vult et conspici; ipsas nequitia tenebras timet. Eleganter itaque ab Epicuro dictum puto: “potest nocenti contingere, ut lateat, latendi fides non potest,” aut si hoc modo melius hunc explicari posse iudicas sensum: “ideo non prodest latere peccantibus, quia latendi etiam si felicitatem habent, fiduciam non habent.” Ita est: tuta scelera esse possunt, secura esse non possunt.

Etching of a scene from the Roman Republic. A man in a toga lies dead on the stairs of a building. Onlookers stare from above and the side.
Francesco Bertolini, Antiquite romaine ‘le cadavre de Publius Clodius Pulcher (92-52 avant JC) retrouve sur la via appia a Rome

Praising Plato, by the Poet Aristotle

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Olympiodorus on Plato, Gorgias 215

“Aristotle doesn’t merely praise Plate in the piece he wrote about him, but he also delivers praise in the elegies he composed for Eudemus, writing as follows:

[missing line of dactylic hexameter]

“Once he came to Kekrops’ famous plain
He reverently built an altar for the sacred friendship
Of a man whom it is not right for the evil to praise
Who alone or first of mortals demonstrated clearly
Through his own life and the practices of his words
That the good person and the happy person are the same.

And now there is no way for anyone to do the same things again.”

οὐ μόνον δὲ ἐγκώμιον ποιήσας αὐτοῦ ἐπαινεῖ αὐτόν, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐν τοῖς ἐλεγείοις τοῖς πρὸς Εὔδημον αὐτὸν ἐπαινῶν Πλάτωνα ἐγκωμιάζει, γράφων οὕτως·

ἐλθὼν δ᾿ ἐς κλεινὸν Κεκροπίης δάπεδον
εὐσεβέως σεμνῆς φιλίης ἱδρύσατο βωμὸν
ἀνδρὸς ὅν οὐδ᾿ αἰνεῖν τοῖσι κακοῖσι θέμις,
ὃς μόνος ἢ πρῶτος θνητῶν κατέδειξεν ἐναργῶς
οἰκείῳ τε βίῳ καὶ μεθόδοισι λόγων
ὡς ἀγαθός τε καὶ εὐδαίμων ἅμα γίνεται ἀνήρ·
οὐ νῦν δ᾿ ἔστι λαβεῖν οὐδενὶ ταῦτά ποτε.

fresco depicting the School of Aristotle by Gustav Adolph Spangenberg, ca 1883-1888

Feeding the Stomach, Feeding the Mind

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Seneca, Moral Epistle 94.5-6

“In the same way, when some affair occludes  the mind and impedes it from seeing the order of duties, it does no good in advising, “live this way with your father and this way with your spouse.”  Examples like this are useless while error darkens the mind. When the mind is cleared, it will be obvious what should be done in each situation.

Otherwise, you are trying to teach someone what a healthy person should do, but you do not make them healthy! It is like you are showing a poor person how to act rich. How can this happen as long as poverty remains? You are trying to show a hungry person how to act then they are full. First, address the hunger in their stomach!”

Eodem modo ubi aliqua res occaecat animum et ad officiorum dispiciendum ordinem inpedit, nihil agit qui praecipit: sic vives cum patre, sic cum uxore. Nihil enim proficient praecepta, quamdiu menti error offusus est; si ille discutitur, apparebit, quid cuique debeatur officio. Alioqui doces illum, quid sano faciendum sit, non efficis sanum. Pauperi ut agat divitem monstras; hoc quomodo manente paupertate fieri potest? Ostendis esurienti quid tamquam satur faciat; fixam potius medullis famem detrahe.

color photography of a small marble statue of the the philosopher Diogenes. He is old and nude, bent slightly forward with a dog by his left side
A small Roman marble statue (54.1 cm with plinth) depicting Diogenes the Cynic, in the collection of the Met Museum

Escape Politics and Have Lunch on Your Own Time

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Plutarch, On Exile 604d

“There’s that quote of Diogenes when he said, “Aristotle has lunch on Philip’s schedule, but Diogenes does when he wants to,” since there’s no political affair or officer, or leader to trouble the daily habits of his life.

For this reason, you will discover that few of the wisest and most thoughtful people have been buried in their own countries–and that most of them did this by choice, raising an anchor on their own and finding a new safe harbor for their lives, either leaving Athens or retreating there.”

τὸ τοῦ Διογένους “Ἀριστοτέλης ἀριστᾷ ὅταν δοκῇ Φιλίππῳ, Διογένης, ὅταν Διογένει,” μήτε πραγματείας, μήτε ἄρχοντος, μήτε ἡγεμόνος τὴν συνήθη δίαιταν περισπῶντος.

Διὰ τοῦτο τῶν φρονιμωτάτων καὶ σοφωτάτων ὀλίγους ἂν εὕροις ἐν ταῖς ἑαυτῶν πατρίσι κεκηδευμένους, οἱ δὲ πλεῖστοι, μηδενὸς ἀναγκάζοντος, αὐτοὶ τὸ ἀγκύριον5 ἀράμενοι, μεθωρμίσαντο τοὺς βίους καὶ μετέστησαν οἱ μὲν εἰς Ἀθήνας, οἱ δὲ ἐξ Ἀθηνῶν.

Bonaventura Peeters the Elder, “Dutch Ferry Boats in a Fresh Breeze”

Sad About Other People’s Riches

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Seneca, Moral Epistles 93.32-34

“I dare say that the soul knows  that riches are kept apart from where they are stored: the soul should be filled instead of a treasure chest. The soul should be in charge of all things and should be positioned as the owner of the nature of things so that the boundary of its realm should be the rising and the setting of the sun like the gods; that the soul may also gaze down upon the wealthy thanks to its own riches–none of them are as happy in their own possessions as they are sad about other people’s riches.

When the spirit rises to this sublime peak, it treats the body too not as a lover of a required burden but as a steward and is not subservient to the thing that it governs.. For no one is free if they are enslaved to their body. Truly,  provided you pass over the rest of the masters created by excessive concern to the body, the power it exerts is distracting yet sophisticated. From here, it leaves with an equal spirit or an exulted one, but once it has departed has no concern for the future of the flesh left behind.

But just as we neglect the clippings from our beards and hair, in the same way, when the divine spirit is about the leave the person that acted as a vessel to carry it, it cares as little as a baby just born does about afterbirth about the body, whether it is burned, or covered with stone, or interred, or fed to wild animals.”

Scit, inquam, aliubi positas esse divitias quam quo congeruntur; animum impleri debere, non arcam. Hunc inponere dominio rerum omnium licet, hunc in possessionem rerum naturae inducere, ut sua

rientis occidentisque terminis finiat1 deorumque ritu cuncta possideat, cum opibus suis divites superne despiciat, quorum nemo tam suo laetus est quam tristis alieno. Cum se in hanc sublimitatem tulit, corporis quoque ut3 oneris necessarii non amator, sed procurator est nec se illi, cui inpositus est, subicit. Nemo liber est, qui corpori servit. Nam ut alios dominos, quos nimia pro illo sollicitudo invenit, transeas, ipsius morosum imperium delicatumque 34est. Ab hoc modo aequo animo exit, modo magno prosilit, nec quis deinde relicti eius futurus sit exitus quaerit. Sed ut ex barba capilloque tonsa neglegimus, ita ille divinus animus egressurus hominem, quo receptaculum suum conferatur, ignis illud exurat an lapis includat4 an terra contegat an ferae distrahant, non magis ad se iudicat pertinere quam secundas ad editum infantem.

a pile of ancient greek coins on a black background
From Izmir, From another hoard found at Clazomenae, with coins from the 4th century BC.

Leaving, Forgetting Troy

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Euripides, Trojan Women, 25-27

“I am leaving famous Ilion and my altars.
Whenever terrible isolation overtakes a city
The gods’ places turn sick and don’t want to receive worship”

λείπω τὸ κλεινὸν Ἴλιον βωμούς τ᾽ ἐμούς:
ἐρημία γὰρ πόλιν ὅταν λάβῃ κακή,
νοσεῖ τὰ τῶν θεῶν οὐδὲ τιμᾶσθαι θέλει.

357-360

“That famous lord of the Achaeans, Agamemnon
Will make me a wife harder to handle than Helen:
I will kill him. I will destroy his home
And take vengeance for my brothers and father…”

Ἑλένης γαμεῖ με δυσχερέστερον γάμον
ὁ τῶν Ἀχαιῶν κλεινὸς Ἀγαμέμνων ἄναξ.
κτενῶ γὰρ αὐτόν, κἀντιπορθήσω δόμους
ποινὰς ἀδελφῶν καὶ πατρὸς λαβοῦσ᾽ ἐμοῦ…

384-386

“Their army has earned this kind of praise:
Silence is better for shame, may my Muse
Never be a singer who recalls their terrible deeds.”

ἦ τοῦδ᾽ ἐπαίνου τὸ στράτευμ᾽ ἐπάξιον. —
σιγᾶν ἄμεινον τᾀσχρά, μηδὲ μοῦσά μοι
γένοιτ᾽ ἀοιδὸς ἥτις ὑμνήσει κακά.

395-399

“Listen how it is with Hektor’s mournful tale:
He died, leaving a reputation as the best man.
The coming of the Greeks made this happen.
If they had stayed home, his value would have stayed hidden.”

τὰ δ᾽ Ἕκτορός σοι λύπρ᾽ ἄκουσον ὡς ἔχει:
δόξας ἀνὴρ ἄριστος οἴχεται θανών,
καὶ τοῦτ᾽ Ἀχαιῶν ἵξις ἐξεργάζεται:
εἰ δ᾽ ἦσαν οἴκοι, χρηστὸς ὢν ἐλάνθανεν.

1165-66

“You fear a child this young? I can’t praise fear
When someone is frightened without examining why.”

βρέφος τοσόνδ᾽ ἐδείσατ᾽: οὐκ αἰνῶ φόβον,
ὅστις φοβεῖται μὴ διεξελθὼν λόγῳ.

Jean-Joseph Benjamin Constant, La mort d’Astyanax, 1868

Contemplate This: Bad Things are Going to Happen

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Seneca, Moral Epistles 91.6-7

“Chance selects some new way to apply her strengths to us when we forget her.  A single day can break up and scatter something built over over the years through great labor and indulgence from the gods. Well, whoever said “day” has given a long delay to the troubles rushing our way–an hour, a minute of time is enough for overthrowing empires. There would be some comfort for our weakness and our efforts if all things would just pass away at the same speed as their development; but the truth is that improvements happen slowly, and destruction rushes on.

Nothing is stable in private or in public. Human fate turns just like that of cities. Fear presses on during the greatest calm and even though there’s nothing from without causing it, troubles appear where they were expected the least. Regimes that have endured civil war and external conflict crumble without anyone attacking them. How rare is the state that has maintained its good fortune!”

So, we have to think about everything and make our minds resolved for the things that can happen. Contemplate this: exile, torture of sickness, wars, shipwrecks.”

Eligit aliquid novi casus, per quod velut oblitis vires suas ingerat. Quidquid longa series multis laboribus, multa deum indulgentia struxit, id unus dies spargit ac dissipat. Longam moram dedit malis properantibus, qui diem dixit; hora momentumque temporis evertendis imperiis sufficit. Esset aliquod inbecillitatis nostrae solacium rerumque nostrarum, si tam tarde perirent cuncta quam fiunt; nunc incrementa lente exeunt, festinatur in damnum. Nihil privatim, nihil publice stabile est; tam hominum quam urbium fata volvuntur. Inter placidissima terror existit nihilque extra tumultuantibus causis mala, unde minime exspectabantur, erumpunt. Quae domesticis bellis steterant regna, quae externis, inpellente nullo ruunt. Quota quaeque felicitatem civitas pertulit? Cogitanda ergo sunt omnia et animus adversus ea quae possunt evenire, firmandus. Exilia, tormenta morbi, bella, naufragia meditare.

GIF from the moving AIRPLANE where the flight attendant says "everybody get in crash positions" and the passengers all rearrange themselves as if they had crashed unprepared.

 

What’s on Your Mind, Catullus?

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Catullus, Carm. 51

That man seems to me to be a god.
That man, if it can be said, seems to transcend the gods—
The one who sits across from you, constantly
Watches you and hears

Your sweet laugh.
It snatches away all sense from unhappy me:
For once I have looked at you, Lesbia . . .

[I have] a tongue, but it is stiff;
A slight flame glides down beneath my skin;
My ears ring with their own din;
And the lights of my eyes are obscured by a twinned night.

Leisure, Catullus, is trouble for you:
You revel in leisure and have done too much.
Leisure in earlier times destroyed kings
And magnificent cities alike.

Ille mi par esse deo videtur,
ille, si fas est, superare divos,
qui sedens adversus identidem te
spectat et audit

dulce ridentem, misero quod omnes
eripit sensus mihi: nam simul te,
Lesbia, aspexi, nihil est super mi . . .

lingua sed torpet, tenuis sub artus
flamma demanat, sonitu suopte
tintinant aures, gemina teguntur
lumina nocte.

otium, Catulle, tibi molestum est:
otio exsultas nimiumque gestis:
otium et reges prius et beatas
perdidit urbes.

Back and white photo of people in 50s formal wear dancing
Garry Winogrand. El Morocco. 1955.
Museum of Modern Art. New York.

Larry Benn has a B.A. in English Literature from Harvard College, an M.Phil in English Literature from Oxford University, and a J.D. from Yale Law School. Making amends for a working life misspent in finance, he’s now a hobbyist in ancient languages and blogs at featsofgreek.blogspot.com.

Best Thing About Philosophy? The Price

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Seneca, Moral Epistles 90.1-2

“My Lucilius, who can question that the live we live is a gift from the immortal gods, but the fact that we live well comes from philosophy? So, by this logic, as much as a good life is a greater benefit than merely living, so much more so would we owe to philosophy than we would owe to the gods, if philosophy itself were not something the gods gave us.

They granted this knowledge to no one, but they gave the ability to develop it to all. For, if they had made philosophy a gift shared by all and we were born wise, then wisdom would have missed what is best in itself, not being a chance acquisition. For now wisdom’s most valuable and impressive trait is that it does not come to us, because each person is in debt to themselves for wisdom and it is not found at someone else’s cost”

Quis dubitare, mi Lucili, potest, quin deorum immortalium munus sit quod vivimus, philosophiae quod bene vivimus? Itaque tanto plus huic nos debere quam dis, quanto maius beneficium est bona vita quam vita, pro certo haberetur, nisi ipsam philosophiam di tribuissent. Cuius scientiam nulli dederunt, facultatem omnibus. Nam si hanc quoque bonum vulgare fecissent et prudentes nasceremur, sapientia quod in se optimum habet, perdidisset: inter fortuita non esse. Nunc enim hoc in illa pretiosum atque magnificum est, quod non obvenit, quod illam sibi quisque debet, quod non ab alio petitur.

Futurama take my money meme with the word philosophy at the top

 

Keep Screwing Up, It’s Never Enough!

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Seneca, Moral Epistles 89.18-21

“Restrain these passions–energize what is lazy in you; constrain what has gotten loose, put down what is annoying;  target your own desires and everyone else’s as much as you can. And when people say, “How long must we endure these things?” respond, “I should be asking you, “How long will you keep screwing these things up?”

Do you want the treatment to stop before the symptoms do? In fact, I am going to talk on more because you’re objecting. Medicine starts to work at the point when merely a touch from someone else causes pain. I will offer helpful words even to the unwilling. Sometimes a voice that’s not mere compliment will reach you. Hear this publicly since you’re unwilling in truth to listen alone.

Just how far will you expand your property lines? A plot of land that used to hold a whole people is now too small for a single lord. How far will you extend your plowed lands–when you aren’t happy to keep the boundary of your farms within the provinces’ borders? Famous rivers have their course through your private garden and  impressive streams–once the borders of powerful nations–belong to you from their source to the sea.

Yet this is also too small for you unless you bind up the seas with your corporate farms, unless your butler rules across the Adriatic, the Ionian, and the Aegean sea, unless those island homes of great leaders are counted among your most minor possessions. Take them as far as you want to, so that your farm is what once was named a kingdom. Make your own whatever you can, just as long as it is more than anyone else has!”

Illos conpesce, marcentia in te excita, soluta constringe, contumacia doma, cupiditates tuas publicasque quantum potes vexa; et istis dicentibus “quo usque eadem?” responde: “ego debebam dicere ‘quo usque eadem peccabitis?’” Remedia ante vultis quam vitia desinere? Ego vero eo magis dicam et, quia recusatis, perseverabo. Tunc incipit medicina proficere, ubi in corpore alienato dolorem tactus expressit. Dicam etiam invitis profutura. Aliquando aliqua ad vos non blanda vox veniat, et quia verum singuli audire non vultis, publice audite.

Quo usque fines possessionum propagabitis? Ager uni domino, qui populum cepit, angustus est. Quo usque arationes vestras porrigetis, ne provinciarum quidem spatio contenti circumscribere praediorum modum? Inlustrium fluminum per privatum decursus est et amnes magni magnarumque gentium termini usque ad ostium a fonte vestri sunt. Hoc quoque parum est, nisi latifundiis vestris maria cinxistis, nisi trans Hadriam et Ionium Aegaeumque vester vilicus regnat, nisi insulae, ducum domicilia magnorum, inter vilissima rerum numerantur. Quam vultis late possidete, sit fundus quod aliquando imperium vocabatur; facite vestrum quicquid potestis, dum plus sit alieno.

image of cartoon triceratops from Land before Time with Latin quotations "facite vestrum quicquid potestis, dum plus sit alieno." which means "make whatever you can yours, provided it is more than someone else has"