the wise man does reluctantly. He escapes necessity because he wills what necessity is going to force on him.
LETTER LV
I’ VE just this moment returned from a ride in my sedanchair, feeling as tired as if I’d walked the whole distance instead of being seated all the way. Even to be carried forany length of time is hard work, and all the more so, I dare say, because it is unnatural, nature having given us legs with which to do our own walking, just as she gave us eyes with which to do our own seeing. Soft living imposes on us the penalty of debility; we cease to be able to do the things we’ve long been grudging about doing. However, I was needing to give my body a shaking up, either to dislodge some phlegm, perhaps, that had collected in my throat, or to have some thickness, due to one cause or another, in my actual breathing reduced by the motion, which I’ve noticed before has done me some good. So I deliberately continued the ride for quite a long way, with the beach itself tempting me onwards. It sweeps round between Cumae and Servilius Vatia’s country house in a sort of narrow causeway with the sea on one side and a lagoon on the other. A recent storm had left it firm; for, as you know, a fast-running heavy surf makes a beach flat and smooth, while a longish period of calm weather leads to a disintegration of this surface with the disappearance of the moisture that binds the particles of sand together.
I had started looking around me in my usual way to see whether I could find anything I could turn to good account, when my eyes turned to the house which had once belonged to Vatia. This was the place where Vatia passed the latter part of his life, a wealthy man who had held the office of praetor but was famed for nothing but his life of retirement, and considered a fortunate man on that ground alone. For whenever a man was ruined through being a friend of Asinius Gallus or an enemy of Sejanus, or devoted to Sejanus (for it came to be as dangerous to have been a follower of his as it was to cross him), people used to exclaim, ‘Vatia, you’re the only person who knows how to live!’ What in fact he knew was how to hide rather than how to live. And there is a lot of difference between your life being a retiring one and its being a spineless one. I never used to pass this house while Vatiawas alive without saying, ‘Here lieth Vatia.’ But philosophy, my dear Lucilius, is such a holy thing and inspires so much respect, that even something that resembles it has a specious appeal. Let a man retire and the common crowd will think of him as leading a life apart, free of all cares, self-contented, living for himself, when in fact not one of these blessings can be won by anyone other than the philosopher. He alone knows how to live for himself: he is the one, in fact, who knows the fundamental thing, how to live. The person who has run away from the world and his fellow-men, whose exile is due to the unsuccessful outcome of his own desires, who is unable to endure the sight of others more fortunate, who has taken to some place of hiding in his alarm like a timid, inert animal, he is not ‘living for himself’, but for his belly and his sleep and his passions – in utter degradation, in other words. The fact that a person is living for nobody does not automatically mean that he is living for himself. Still, a persevering steadfastness of purpose counts for a lot, so that even inertia if stubbornly maintained may carry a certain weight.
I can’t give you any accurate information about the house itself. I only know the front of it and the parts in view, the parts that it displays even to passers-by. There are two artificial grottoes, considerable feats of engineering, each as big as the most spacious hall, one of them not letting in the sun at all, the other retaining it right up until its setting. There is a grove of plane trees through the middle of which runs a stream flowing alternately, like a tide-race, into
LETTER LV
I’ VE just this moment returned from a ride in my sedanchair, feeling as tired as if I’d walked the whole distance instead of being seated all the way. Even to be carried forany length of time is hard work, and all the more so, I dare say, because it is unnatural, nature having given us legs with which to do our own walking, just as she gave us eyes with which to do our own seeing. Soft living imposes on us the penalty of debility; we cease to be able to do the things we’ve long been grudging about doing. However, I was needing to give my body a shaking up, either to dislodge some phlegm, perhaps, that had collected in my throat, or to have some thickness, due to one cause or another, in my actual breathing reduced by the motion, which I’ve noticed before has done me some good. So I deliberately continued the ride for quite a long way, with the beach itself tempting me onwards. It sweeps round between Cumae and Servilius Vatia’s country house in a sort of narrow causeway with the sea on one side and a lagoon on the other. A recent storm had left it firm; for, as you know, a fast-running heavy surf makes a beach flat and smooth, while a longish period of calm weather leads to a disintegration of this surface with the disappearance of the moisture that binds the particles of sand together.
I had started looking around me in my usual way to see whether I could find anything I could turn to good account, when my eyes turned to the house which had once belonged to Vatia. This was the place where Vatia passed the latter part of his life, a wealthy man who had held the office of praetor but was famed for nothing but his life of retirement, and considered a fortunate man on that ground alone. For whenever a man was ruined through being a friend of Asinius Gallus or an enemy of Sejanus, or devoted to Sejanus (for it came to be as dangerous to have been a follower of his as it was to cross him), people used to exclaim, ‘Vatia, you’re the only person who knows how to live!’ What in fact he knew was how to hide rather than how to live. And there is a lot of difference between your life being a retiring one and its being a spineless one. I never used to pass this house while Vatiawas alive without saying, ‘Here lieth Vatia.’ But philosophy, my dear Lucilius, is such a holy thing and inspires so much respect, that even something that resembles it has a specious appeal. Let a man retire and the common crowd will think of him as leading a life apart, free of all cares, self-contented, living for himself, when in fact not one of these blessings can be won by anyone other than the philosopher. He alone knows how to live for himself: he is the one, in fact, who knows the fundamental thing, how to live. The person who has run away from the world and his fellow-men, whose exile is due to the unsuccessful outcome of his own desires, who is unable to endure the sight of others more fortunate, who has taken to some place of hiding in his alarm like a timid, inert animal, he is not ‘living for himself’, but for his belly and his sleep and his passions – in utter degradation, in other words. The fact that a person is living for nobody does not automatically mean that he is living for himself. Still, a persevering steadfastness of purpose counts for a lot, so that even inertia if stubbornly maintained may carry a certain weight.
I can’t give you any accurate information about the house itself. I only know the front of it and the parts in view, the parts that it displays even to passers-by. There are two artificial grottoes, considerable feats of engineering, each as big as the most spacious hall, one of them not letting in the sun at all, the other retaining it right up until its setting. There is a grove of plane trees through the middle of which runs a stream flowing alternately, like a tide-race, into
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