Book IV — Containing a Discussion of Snow, Hail, and Rain [the Nile]

Preface

You tell me you are delighted, Lucilius, my most esteemed of friends, with your peaceful government of Sicily. You will continue to be delighted if you are willing to observe the bounds of moderation, and do not try to turn into an empire what is merely a province. Nor do I doubt that this will be your choice, knowing as I do that you are a stranger to ambition, and a friend to a peaceful life of letters. Let those who cannot bear their own company, long for a crowd of affairs and of people! You are on the best of terms with yourself. It is little wonder that few attain such a happy lot. We are always laying commands upon ourselves to our own dispeace. We suffer at one moment from love of, at another from weariness of, ourselves. Our unhappy soul is now inflamed with pride, now inflated with passion. Sometimes we relax it through indulgence, sometimes we consume it with anxiety. The most pitiable thing of all is that we are never alone with ourselves. So, where such a crowd of vices have to mess together, there must be continual wrangling among them. Behave, therefore, my dear Lucilius, as you are wont to behave. Separate yourself as far as possible from the common herd, and expose no side to the attack of flattery. Flatterers are adepts in spreading a net for their betters. However much you are on your guard, you will be no match for them. If you allow yourself to be caught, you will be delivering yourself up to betrayal, take my word for it. Flattery has in it the inherent charm, that even when spurned, it is not unpleasing: often shut out, it is at the last taken to the bosom. Flattery accepts its rejection as a mark of attention; even insults cannot subdue it.

What I am going to tell you may sound incredible, yet it is the simple truth. Every man is most open to danger on the side on which he is attacked. Perhaps, indeed, that is the very reason why he is attacked on that side. You must, therefore, lay your account to recognise that, do what you will, you cannot manage to be impervious to adulation. When you have closed every loophole, it will still wound you through your harness. One assailant will employ his flattery secretly and sparingly; another, above board, openly, with an affectation of honest sincerity, as if it were straightforward bluntness, not device. Plancus, the greatest adept in the art before Vitellius’ time, used to say that secret, dissembled flattery was not to be employed. Advances, quoth he, are lost if they are not recognised. The flatterer makes most headway when he is detected; still more, in fact, if an open rebuke brings the blush to his cheek. You must assume that a public character like you will encounter many Plancuses. It is no remedy against the inveterate plague to refuse to be praised. I never knew a man more shrewd in every practical matter than Crispus Passienus, and especially in diagnosing and treating faults of character. He often used to say that we only put-to the door against flattery, and do not shut it, much in the same way as in the face of a mistress. If she gives it a shove, we are pleased, still more so if she forces it open. I remember hearing that distinguished man, Demetrius, remark to a certain powerful freedman that he, too, had an easy road to riches on the day that he made up his mind to renounce all virtuous resolutions. Nor will I grudge any of you, said he, the knowledge of the art, but I will teach those who regard gain as the one thing needful how they may attain their object. They need not follow the doubtful fortune of the sea, nor the competition of buying and selling: they need not place their faith in the fickle proceeds of the ground, nor the still more fickle fortunes of the exchange. I will teach them a means of making money not merely easy, but positively so merry that the victims whom they fleece will share the fun. Flattery shall be the means. If you have the stature of the pigmy Thracian matched against Thracian in the arena, I will swear that you are taller than Fidus Annaeus or Apollonius Pycta. I will say that no fellow could be more liberal than you, nor shall I lie, since you may be considered to have bestowed upon all whatever you have not robbed them of.

The fact is, my dear Junior, the more open and shameless flattery is, and the more completely it has brazened its own features and raised the conscious blush in those of others, the more quickly it storms the citadel. We have now reached such a pitch of madness that he who uses flattery sparingly is considered niggardly. I used to tell you that my brother Gallio—a man whom even his most ardent admirer cannot love according to the measure of his deserts—was a stranger to other vices, but this he positively loathed. You might assail him on every side. One began by paying homage to his intellect, the greatest and worthiest of all, which one had rather see consecrated to the service of heaven than wasted in weak human effort; he ran away from one who talked thus. Or one began to praise his thrift—he was so indifferent to money that he seemed neither to possess it nor to condemn it—he cut short the very first words of the panegyric.

Or, again, one would admire his bonhomie and unaffected grace of character, which charms even those it passes unnoticed—a service to every one he meets, which costs the author nothing. No one in the world, I may tell you, is such a favourite with his one chosen friend as he is with all. At the same time so great is his natural amiability that it is free from all savour of artifice or pretence. No one, you would think, can refuse credit for a goodness in which all share. At this point, too, he successfully resisted your blandishments, leading you to exclaim that you had found a man absolutely impregnable to assaults of the flattery which no one ever refuses to take to his bosom. You were forced to admit that you respected his wisdom and determination in escaping from that unavoidable plague, all the more that you had hoped that your insinuating words would be received with open ears because they were true. Yet all the more he saw that he must resist your wiles. For when truth is attacked by falsehood, the attack always seeks the aid of some measure of truth. Still, I would not have the flatterer who tried his art upon my brother displeased with his success, as if he had acted his part ill while the other suspected some joke or trick. You had not been detected, your advances had simply been rejected. Now do you, Lucilius, adapt yourself to this model. When any flatterer approaches you, say to him: Do you wish to convey a complimentary message such as passes between magistrates duly installed in office? Do you think that I am prepared to return the compliment, and willing, therefore, to listen to your long story? Neither do I wish to dupe, nor can I be duped. I should like well enough to have the praise of people like yourself if you did not praise the bad as well as the good.

And yet, Lucilius, why is it necessary for you to come down to their level, and allow them to attack you at close quarters? Keep a long distance between you and them. When you desire to have genuine praise, why should you be indebted to another for it? Yourself commend your own efforts. Say thus: Though my poverty prompted another kind of career, and tempted me to devote my talents to a field which promised to application a quick return, yet I gave myself up to liberal pursuits. I turned aside to the unremunerative domains of poetry, and bestowed myself upon the wholesome study of philosophy. I have showed that seeds of virtue are planted in every breast. I have surmounted the difficulties of birth; measuring my powers, not by my lot, but by my capacity, I have reached a position on a level with the highest. My friendship with Gaetulicus did not sap my allegiance to the Emperor Caius Caligula. Messalina and Narcissus, long enemies of the State before they became enemies of one another, were unable to overturn my resolve to be true to others whom it was a crime to love.‍61 I risked my head for my loyalty. No word was wrung from me that I could not utter with a clear conscience. All my fears were for my friends, none for myself, except the fear of not proving a true friend. No womanish tears escaped me, nor did I cling as suppliant to the hands of any ruler. I have done nothing unbecoming a man or a good man. Rising superior to dangers, ready to face all they threatened, I thanked fortune for affording opportunity of showing what a price I put upon honour. Such an issue could not be lightly esteemed in my eyes. The suspense was not of long continuance. The weights in the scale were by no means equal—was it better for me to perish for honour’s sake or for honour to perish for my sake? I did not rush headlong to self-destruction, the refuge of despair, to rescue myself from the mad rage of the rulers. In Caius’ time I saw tortures and fires of persecution. Under his reign I recognised at one period that the lot of humanity had sunk to such a depth of misery that the loss of one’s life might be ranked among the deeds of mercy. Yet, I did not fall upon my sword, nor leap open-mouthed into the sea: I would not have it seem that death was the only service I could render for honour’s sake. Add, now, that my soul has never stooped to bribes, amid the eager race for wealth my hand has never reached forth to receive unjust gain. Add, too, the thriftiness of my mode of life, the restraint of my speech, my courtesy toward inferiors, my respect for superiors.

After these reflections, ask yourself, my friend, whether what you have related of yourself be true or false. If it is true, you have a most important witness to your character; if false, there will be no witness to the derision you have earned. I may myself appear at present to be either seeking to throw my net over you or trying to make you rise to my fly. Take either supposition for true, and begin, from the example I offer, to fear all flatterers. Meditate on Virgil’s words:

Nowhere is honour safe; or on Ovid’s:

As far as earth extends, the savage Fury rules;
For crime, methinks, all have conspired;

or on this sentiment of Menander’s—for who has not put forth the full strength of his indignation on this topic, in abhorrence of mankind’s agreement in rushing toward vice? All are bad livers, says the poet, presenting himself on the stage in the rude character of a raw countryman. He excepts neither greybeard nor youth, neither man nor woman. He adds to the charge that it is not individuals or small numbers that sin, but that wickedness is now ingrained in society all through. One must flee from the world and return to oneself, nay, rather one must escape from oneself. Though you and I are separated by the sea, I will endeavour to render you some service: placing my hand in yours I will guide your doubtful steps along the more excellent way. At this distance I will mingle my talk with yours, that you may not feel the loneliness. We shall be united in our noblest part—the spirit. We shall impart mutual counsel, and, as you hang upon the lips of your monitor, I will lead you far away from that province of yours. For I would not have you put too implicit trust in records of the past, or become self-satisfied as often as you reflect: I have under my jurisdiction a province here which both maintained and crushed the armies of the mightiest states, when it was offered as a prize in that colossal war between Carthage and Rome. It saw the strength of four Roman generals, in other words, of the whole empire, massed in one spot; it raised high the fortunes of Pompey, brought Caesar’s to their culmination; transferred the power of Lepidus to his rivals, and contained the fate of all. Sicily was an eye-witness of that great spectacle which showed plainly to the world how rapid the descent from highest to lowest could be, and in how many different ways great power might be overthrown by fortune. For at one and the same time it witnessed the downfall of Pompey and Lepidus from the pinnacle of power in opposite ways; Pompey had to run from his enemy’s army, Lepidus from his own.

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