EPISTLE LXXXV.
enter the arena and undertake battle on behalf of gods and men armed only with an awl.[1]
2. “He that possesses prudence is also self-restrained; he that possesses self-restraint is also unwavering; he that is unwavering is unperturbed; he that is unperturbed is free from sadness; he that is free from sadness is happy. Therefore, the prudent man is happy, and prudence is sufficient to constitute the happy life.”
3. Certain of the Peripatetics[2] reply to this syllogism by interpreting “unperturbed,” “unwavering,” and “free from sadness” in such a way as to make “unperturbed” mean one who is rarely perturbed and only to a moderate degree, and not one who is never perturbed. Likewise, they say that a person is called “free from sadness” who is not subject to sadness, one who falls into this objectionable state not often nor in too great a degree. It is not, they say, the way of human nature that a man’s spirit should be exempt from sadness, or that the wise man is not overcome by grief but is merely touched by it, and other arguments of this sort, all in accordance with the teachings of their school. 4. They do not abolish the passions in this way; they only moderate them. But how petty is the superiority which we attribute to the wise man, if he is merely braver than the most craven, happier than the most dejected, more self-controlled than the most unbridled, and greater than the lowliest! Would Ladas boast his swiftness in running by comparing himself with the halt and the weak?
For she could skim the topmost blades of corn
And touch them not, nor bruise the tender ears;
Or travel over seas, well-poised above
The swollen floods, nor dip her flying feet
In ocean’s waters.[3]
- ↑ Cf. Ep. lxxxii. 24 subula leonem excipis?
- ↑ E. V. Arnold (Roman Stoicism, p.333) calls attention to the passion of anger, for example, which the Peripatetics believed should be kept under control, but not stamped out.
- ↑ Vergil, Aeneid, vii. 808 ff. The lines describe Camilla, the Volscian warrior-huntress.
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