have made him belong to the state instead of the state belonging to him.” Who would dare to plot any danger to such a king? Who would not rather, if he could, keep misfortune far from one under whom justice, peace, decency, security and merit flourish, under whom the state grows rich with an abundance of all good things, and looks upon its ruler in the same spirit of adoration and respect with which we should look upon the immortal gods, if they allowed us to behold them as we behold him? Why! does not that man come very close to the gods who acts in a god-like manner, and who is beneficent, open-handed, and powerful for good? Your aim and your pride ought to lie in being thought the best, as well as the greatest of mankind.
XX. A prince generally inflicts punishment for one of two reasons: he wishes either to assert his own rights or those of another. I will first discuss the case in which he is personally concerned, for it is more difficult for him to act with moderation when he acts under the impulse of actual pain than when he merely does so for the sake of the example. It is unnecessary in this place to remind him to be slow to believe what he hears, to ferret out the truth, to show favour to innocence, and to bear in mind that to prove it is as much the business of the judge as that of the prisoner; for these considerations are connected with justice, not with clemency: what we are now encouraging him to do is not to lose control over his feelings when he receives an unmistakeable injury, and to forego punishing it if he possibly can do so with safety, if not, to moderate the severity of the punishment, and to show himself far more unwilling to forgive wrongs done to others than those done to himself: for, just as the truly generous man is not he who gives away what belongs to others, but he who deprives himself of what he gives to another, so also I should not call a prince clement {408} who looked goodnaturedly upon a wrong done to someone else, but one who is unmoved even by the sting of a personal injury, who understands how magnanimous it is for one whose power is unlimited to allow himself to be wronged, and that there is no more noble spectacle than that of a sovereign who has received an injury without avenging it.
XXI. Vengeance effects two purposes: it either affords compensation to the person to whom the wrong was done, or it ensures him against molestation for the future. A prince is too rich to need compensation, and his power is too evident for him to require to gain a reputation for power by causing any one to suffer. I mean, when he is attacked and injured by his inferiors, for if he sees those who once were his equals in a position of inferiority to himself he is sufficiently avenged. A king may be killed by a slave, or a serpent, or an arrow: but no one can be saved except by some one who is greater than him whom he saves. He, therefore, who has the power of giving and of taking away life ought to use such a great gift of heaven in a spirited manner. Above all, if he once obtains this power over those who he knows were once on a level with himself, he has completed his revenge, and done all that he need to towards the punishment of his adversary: for he who owes his life to another must have lost it, and he who has been cast down from on high and lies at his enemy’s feet with his kingdom and his life depending upon the pleasure of another, adds to the glory of his preserver if he be allowed to live, and increases his reputation much more by remaining unhurt than if he were put out of the way. In the former case he remains as an everlasting testimony to the valour of his conqueror; whereas if led in the procession of a triumph he would have soon passed out of sight.[11] If, however, his kingdom also may be safely left in his hands {409} and he himself replaced upon the throne from which he has fallen, such a measure confers an immense increase of lustre on him who scorned to take anything from a conquered king beyond the glory of having conquered him. To do this is to triumph even over one’s own victory, and to declare that one has found nothing among the vanquished which it was worth the victor’s while to take. As for his countrymen, strangers, and persons of mean condition, he ought to treat them with all the less severity because it costs so much less to overcome them. Some you would be glad to spare, against some you would disdain to assert your rights, and would forbear to touch them as you would to touch little insects which defile your hands when you crush them: but in the case of men upon whom all eyes are fixed, whether they be spared or condemned, you should seize the opportunity of making your clemency widely known.
XXII. Let us now pass on to the consideration of wrongs done to others, in avenging which the law has aimed at three ends, which the prince will do well to aim at also: they are, either that it may correct him whom it punishes, or that his punishment may render other men better, or that, by bad men being put out of the way, the rest may live without fear. You will more easily correct the men themselves by a slight punishment, for he who has some part of his fortune remaining untouched will behave less recklessly; on the other hand, no one cares about respectability after he has lost it: it is a species of impunity to have nothing left for punishment to take away. It is conducive, however, to good morals in a state, that punishment should seldom be inflicted: for where there is a multitude of sinners men become familiar with sin, shame is less felt when shared with a number of fellow-criminals, and severe sentences, if frequently pronounced, lose the influence which constitutes their chief power as remedial measures. A good king establishes a good standard of morals for his {410} kingdom and drives away vices if he is long-suffering with them, not that he should seem to encourage them, but to be very unwilling and to suffer much when he is forced to chastise them. Clemency in a sovereign even makes men ashamed to do wrong: for punishment seems far more grievous when inflicted by a merciful man.
XXIII. Besides this, you will find that sins which are frequently punished are frequently committed. Your father sewed up more parricides in sacks during five years, than we hear of in all previous centuries. As long as the greatest of crimes remained without any special law, children were much more timid about committing it. Our wise ancestors, deeply skilled in human nature, preferred to pass over this as being a wickedness too great for belief, and beyond the audacity of the worst criminal, rather than teach men that it might be done by appointing a penalty for doing it: parricides, consequently, were unknown until a law was made against them, and the penalty showed them the way to the crime.
Filial affection soon perished, for since that time we have seen more men punished by the sack than by the cross. Where men are seldom punished innocence becomes the rule, and is encouraged as a public benefit. If a state thinks itself innocent, it will be innocent: it will be all the more angry with those who corrupt the general simplicity of manners if it sees that they are few in number.
Believe me, it is a dangerous thing to show a state how great a majority of bad men it contains.
XXIV. A proposal was once made in the Senate to distinguish slaves from free men by their dress: it was then discovered how dangerous it would be for our slaves to be able to count our numbers. Be assured that the same thing would be the case if no one’s offence is pardoned: it will quickly be discovered how far the number of bad men exceeds that of the good. Many executions are as disgraceful to a sovereign as many funerals are to a physician: {411} one who governs less strictly is better obeyed. The human mind is naturally self-willed, kicks against the goad, and sets its face against authority; it will follow more readily than it can be led. As well-bred and high-spirited horses are best managed with a loose rein, so mercy gives men’s minds a spontaneous bias towards innocence, and the public think that it is worth observing. Mercy, therefore, does more good than severity.
XXV, Cruelty is far from being a human vice, and is unworthy of man’s gentle mind: it is mere bestial madness to take pleasure in blood and wounds, to cast off humanity and transform oneself into a wild beast of the forest. Pray, Alexander, what is the difference between your throwing Lysimachus into a lion’s den and tearing his flesh with your own teeth? it is you that have the lion’s maw, and the lion’s fierceness. How pleased you would be if you had claws instead of nails, and jaws that were capable of devouring men! We do not expect of you that your hand, the sure murderer of your best friends, should restore health to any one; or that your proud spirit, that inexhaustible source of evil to all nations, should be satisfied with anything short of blood and slaughter: we rather call it mercy that your friend should have a human being chosen to be his butcher.
The reason why cruelty is the most hateful of all vices is that it goes first beyond the ordinary limits, and then beyond those of humanity; that it devises new kinds of punishments, calls ingenuity to aid it in inventing devices for varying and lengthening men’s torture, and takes delight in their sufferings: this accursed disease of the mind reaches its highest pitch of madness when cruelty itself turns into pleasure, and the act of killing a man becomes enjoyment.
Such a ruler is soon cast down from his throne; his life is attempted by poison one day and by the sword the next; he is exposed to as many dangers as there are men to whom he is dangerous, and he {412} is sometimes destroyed by the plots of individuals, and at others by a general insurrection. Whole communities are not roused to action by unimportant outrages on private persons; but cruelty which takes a wider range, and from which no one is safe, becomes a mark for all men’s weapons. Very small snakes escape our notice, and the whole country does not combine to destroy them; but when one of them exceeds the usual size and grows into a monster, when it poisons fountains with its spittle, scorches herbage with its breath, and spreads ruin wherever it crawls, we shoot at it with military engines. Trifling evils may cheat us and elude our observation, but we gird up our loins to attack great ones. One sick person does not so much as disquiet the house in which he lies; but when frequent deaths show that a plague is raging, there is a general outcry, men take to flight and shake their fists angrily at the very gods themselves. If a fire breaks out under one single roof, the family and the neighbours pour water upon it; but a wide conflagration which has consumed many houses must be smothered under the ruins of a whole quarter of a city.
XXVI. The cruelty even of private men has sometimes been revenged by their slaves in spite of the certainty that they will be crucified: whole kingdoms and nations when oppressed by tyrants or threatened by them, have attempted their destruction. Sometimes their own guards have risen in revolt, and have used against their master all the deceit, disloyalty, and ferocity which they have learned from him. What, indeed, can he expect from those whom he has taught to be wicked? A bad man will not long be obedient, and will not do only as much evil as he is ordered. But even if the tyrant may be cruel with safety, how miserable his kingdom must be: it must look like a city taken by storm, like some frightful scene of general panic. Everywhere sorrow, anxiety, disorder; men dread even their own pleasures; they cannot even dine with one another in safety {413} when they have to keep watch over their tongues even when in their cups, nor can they safely attend the public shows when informers are ready to find grounds for their impeachment in their behaviour there. Although the spectacles be provided at an enormous expense, with royal magnificence and with world-famous artists, yet who cares for amusement when he is in prison? Ye gods! what a miserable life it is to slaughter and to rage, to delight in the clanking of chains, and to cut off one’s countrymen’s heads, to cause blood to flow freely wherever one goes, to terrify people, and make them flee away out of one’s sight! It is what would happen if bears or lions were our masters, if serpents and all the most venomous creatures were given power over us. Even these animals, devoid of reason as they are, and accused by us of cruel ferocity, spare their own kind, and wild beasts themselves respect their own likeness: but the fury of tyrants does not even stop short at their own relations, and they treat friends and strangers alike, only becoming more violent the more they indulge their passions. By insensible degrees he proceeds from the slaughter of individuals to the ruin of nations, and thinks it a sign of power to set roofs on fire and to plough up the sites of ancient cities: he considers it unworthy of an emperor to order only one or two people to be put to death, and thinks that his cruelty is unduly restrained if whole troops of wretches are not sent to execution together. True happiness, on the other hand; consists in saving many men’s lives, in calling them back from the very gates of death, and in being so merciful as to deserve a civic crown.[12] No decoration is more worthy or more becoming to a prince’s rank than that crown “for saving the lives of fellow-citizens”: not trophies torn from a vanquished enemy, not {414} chariots wet with their savage owner’s blood, not spoils captured in war. This power which saves men’s lives by crowds and by nations, is godlike: the power of extensive and indiscrimate massacre is the power of downfall and conflagration.
[1] _Nobilis_.
[2] The text is corrupt. I have followed Gertz’s conjectural emendation, _mansuefactionis_, but I believe that Lipsius is right in thinking that a great deal more than one word has been lost here.
[3] _Pace_.
[4] Tutum.
[5] Gertz reads _sexagesimum_, his sixtieth year, which he calls “the not very audacious conjecture of Wesseling,” and adds that he does so because of the words at the beginning of chap. xi. and the authority of Dion Cassius. The ordinary reading is _quadragesimum_, “his fortieth year,” and this is the date to which Cinna’s conspiracy is referred to by Merivale, “History of the Romans under the Empire,” vol. iv. ch, 37. “A plot,” he says, “was formed for his destruction, at the head of which was Cornelius Cinna, described as a son of Faustus Sulla by a daughter of the Great Pompeius.” The story of Cinna’s conspiracy is told by Seneca, de Clem, i, 9, and Dion iv.
14, foll. They agree in the main fact; but Seneca is our authority for the details of the interview between Augustus and his enemy, while Dion has doubtless invented his long conversation between the emperor and Livia. Seneca, however, calls the conspirator Lucius, and places the event in the fortieth year of Augustus (A.D. 731), the scene in Gaul: Dion, on the other, gives the names of Gnaeus, and supposes the circumstances to have occured twenty-six years later, and at Rome. It may be observed that a son of Faustus Sulla must have been at least fifty at this latter date, nor do we know why he should bear the name of Cinna, though an adoption is not impossible.
[7] In allusion to the title of “Father of his country,” bestowed by the Senate upon Augustus. See Merivale, ch. 33.
[8] This whole comparison, which reads so meaninglessly both in Latin and in English, is borrowed from the eternal declamations of Plutarch and the Greek philosophers about βασιλεῖς and τύραννοι.
See Plutarch, Lives of Philopoemen and Aratus, Plato, Gorgias and Politicus; Arnold, “Appendix to Thucydides,” vol. i., and “Dictionary [9] De lra, ii. 11.
[10] Vedius Pollio had a villa on the mountain now called Punta di Posilippo, which projects into the sea between Naples and Puteoli, which he left to Augustus, and which was afterwards possessed by the Emperor Trajan. He was a freedman by birth, and remarkable for nothing except his riches and his cruelty. Cf. Dion Cassius, liv.
[11] The conquered princes who were led through Rome in triumphs were as a rule put to death when the procession was over.
[12] The “civic” crown of oak-leaves was bestowed on him who had saved the life of a fellow-citizen in war. It was bestowed upon Augustus, and after him upon the other emperors, as preservers of the state.
{415} THE SECOND BOOK OF THE DIALOGUE OF L. ANNAEUS SENECA, ADDRESSED TO NERO CAESAR.
ON CLEMENCY.
I. I have been especially led to write about clemency, Nero Caesar, by a saying of yours, which I remember having heard with admiration and which I afterwards told to others: a noble saying, showing a great mind and great gentleness, which suddenly burst from you without premeditation, and was not meant to reach any ears but your own, and which displayed the conflict which was raging between your natural goodness and your imperial duties. Your prefect Burrus, an excellent man who was born to be the servant of such an emperor as you are, was about to order two brigands to be executed, and was pressing you to write their names and the grounds on which they were to be put to death: this had often been put off, and he was insisting that it should then be done. When he reluctantly produced the document and put it into your equally reluctant hands, you exclaimed: “Would that I had never learned my letters!” O what a speech, how worthy to be heard by all nations, both those who dwell within the Roman Empire, those who enjoy a debatable independence upon its borders, and those who either in will or in deed fight against it! It is a speech which ought to be spoken {416} before a meeting of all mankind, whose words all kings and princes ought to swear to obey: a speech worthy of the days of human innocence, and worthy to bring back that golden age. Now in truth we ought all to agree to love righteousness and goodness; covetousness, which is the root of all evil, ought to be driven away, piety and virtue, good faith and modesty ought to resume their interrupted reign, and the vices which have so long and so shamefully ruled us ought at last to give way to an age of happiness and purity.
II. To a great extent, Caesar, we may hope and expect that this will come to pass. Let your own goodness of heart be gradually spread and diffused throughout the whole body of the empire, and all parts of it will mould themselves into your likeness. Good health proceeds from the head into all the members of the body: they are all either brisk and erect, or languid and drooping, according as their guiding spirit blooms or withers. Both Romans and allies will prove worthy of this goodness of yours, and good morals will return to all the world: your hands will everywhere find less to do. Allow me to dwell somewhat upon this saying of yours, not because it is a pleasant subject for your ears (indeed, this is not my way; I would rather offend by telling the truth than curry favour by flattery). What, then, is my reason? Besides wishing that you should be as familiar as possible with your own good deeds and good words, in order that what is now untutored impulse may grow into matured decision, I remember that many great but odious sayings have become part of human life and are familiar in men’s mouths, such as that celebrated “Let them hate me, provided that they fear me,” which is like that Greek verse, έμοῦ θανόντος γαῖα μιχθήτω πνρί, in which a man bids the earth perish in flame after he is dead, and others of the like sort. I know not how it is, but certainly human ingenuity seems to have found it {417} easier to find emphatic and ardent expression for monstrous and cynical sentiments: I have never hitherto heard any spirited saying from a good and gentle person. What, then, is the upshot of all this? It is that, albeit seldom and against your will, and after much hesitation, you sometimes nevertheless must write that which made you hate your letters, but that you ought to do so with great hesitation and after many postponements, even as you now do.
III. But lest the plausible word “mercy” should sometimes deceive us and lead us into the opposite extreme, let us consider what mercy is, what its qualities are, and within what limits it is confined.
Mercy is “a restraining of the mind from vengeance when it is in its power to avenge itself,” or it is “gentleness shown by a powerful man in fixing the punishment of a weaker one.” It is safer to have more than one definition, since one may not include the whole subject, and may, so to speak, lose its cause: mercy, therefore, may likewise be termed a tendency towards mildness in inflicting punishment. It is possible to discover certain inconsistencies in the definition which comes nearer the truth than all the rest, which is to call mercy “self-restraint, which remits some part of a fine which it deserves to receive and which is due to it.” To this it will be objected that no virtue ever gives any man less than his due. However, all men understand mercy to consist in coming short of the penalty which might with justice be inflicted.
IV. The unlearned think that its opposite is strictness: but no virtue is the opposite of another virtue. What, then, is the opposite of mercy? Cruelty: which is nothing more than obstinacy in exacting punishments. “But,” say you, “some men do not exact punishments, and nevertheless are cruel, such as those who kill the strangers whom they meet, not in order to rob them, but for killing’s sake, and men who are not satisfied with killing, but kill {418} with savage tortures, like the famous Busiris,[1] and Procrustes, and pirates who flog their captives and burn them alive.” This appears to be cruelty: but as it is not the result of vengeance (for it has received no wrong), and is not excited by any offence (for no crime has preceded it), it does not come within our definition, which was limited to “extravagance in exacting the penalties of wrongdoing.”
We may say that this is not cruelty, but ferocity, which finds pleasure in savagery: or we may call it madness; for madness is of various kinds, and there is no truer madness than that which takes to slaughtering and mutilating human beings. I shall, therefore, call those persons cruel who have a reason for punishing but who punish without moderation, like Phalaris, who is not said to have tortured innocent men, but to have tortured criminals with inhuman and incredible barbarity. We may avoid hairsplitting by defining cruelty to be “a tendency of the mind towards harsh measures.” Mercy repels cruelty and bids it be far from her: with strictness she is on terms of amity.
At this point it is useful to inquire into what pity is; for many praise it as a virtue, and say that a good man is full of pity.
This also is a disease of the mind. Both of these stand close to mercy and to strictness, and both ought to be avoided, lest under the name of strictness we be led into cruelty, and under the name of mercy into pity. It is less dangerous to make the latter mistake, but both lead us equally far away from the truth.
V. Just as the gods are worshipped by religion, but are dishonoured by superstition, so all good men will show mercy and mildness, but will avoid pity, which is a vice incident to weak minds which cannot endure the sight of another’s sufferings. It is, therefore, most commonly {419} found in the worst people; there are old women and girls[2] who are affected by the tears of the greatest criminals, and who, if they could, would let them out of prison. Pity considers a man’s misfortunes and does not consider to what they are due: mercy is combined with reason. I know that the doctrine of the Stoics is unpopular among the ignorant as being excessively severe and not at all likely to give kings and princes good advice; it is blamed because it declares that the wise man knows not how to feel pity or to grant pardon. These doctrines, if taken separately, are indeed odious, for they appear to give men no hope of repairing their mistakes but exact a penalty for every slip. If this were true, how can it be true wisdom to bid us put off human feeling, and to exclude us from mutual help, that surest haven of refuge against the attacks of Fortune? But no school of philosophy is more gentle and benignant, none is more full of love towards man or more anxious to promote the happiness of all, seeing that its maxims are, to be of service and assistance to others, and to consult the interests of each and all, not of itself alone. Pity is a disorder of the mind caused by the sight of other men’s miseries, or it is a sadness caused by the evils with which it believes others to be undeservedly afflicted: but the wise man cannot be affected by any disorder: his mind is calm, and nothing can possibly happen to ruffle it. Moreover, nothing becomes a man more than magnanimity: but magnanimity cannot coexist with sorrow. Sorrow overwhelms men’s minds, casts them down, contracts them: now this cannot happen to the wise man even in his greatest misfortunes, but he will beat back the rage of Fortune and triumph over it: he will {420} always retain the same calm, undisturbed expression of countenance, which he never could do were he accessible to sorrow.
VI. Add to this, that the wise man provides for the future and always has a distinct plan of action ready: yet nothing clear and true can flow from a disturbed source. Sorrow is awkward at reviewing the position of affairs, at devising useful expedients, avoiding dangerous courses, and weighing the merits of fair and just ones: therefore the wise man will not feel pity, because this cannot happen to a man unless his mind is disturbed. He will do willingly and highmindedly all that those who feel pity are wont to do; he will dry the tears of others, but will not mingle his own with them; he will stretch out his hand to the shipwrecked mariner, will offer hospitality to the exile, and alms to the needy—not in the offensive way in which most of those who wish to be thought tender-hearted fling their bounty to those whom they assist and shrink from their touch, but as one man would give another something out of the common stock—he will restore children to their weeping mothers, will loose the chains of the captive, release the gladiator from his bondage, and even bury the carcase of the criminal, but he will perform all this with a calm mind and unaltered expression of countenance. Thus the wise man will not pity men, but will help them and be of service to them, seeing that he is born to be a help to all men and a public benefit, of which he will bestow a share upon every one. He will even grant a proportional part of his bounty to those sufferers who deserve blame and correction; but he will much more willingly help those whose troubles and adversities are caused by misfortune.
Whenever he is able he will interpose between Fortune and her victims: for what better employment can he find for his wealth or his strength than in setting up again what chance has overthrown?
He will not show or feel any {421} disgust at a man’s having withered legs, or a flabby wrinkled skin, or supporting his aged body upon a staff; but he will do good to those who deserve it, and will, like a god, look benignantly upon all who are in trouble. Pity borders upon misery: it is partly composed of it and partly derived from it. You know that eyes must be weak, if they fill with rheum at the sight of another’s blearedness, just as it is not real merriment but hysteria which makes people laugh because others laugh, and yawn whenever others open their jaws: pity is a defect in the mind of people who are extraordinarily affected by suffering, and he who requires a wise man to exhibit it is not far from requiring him to lament and groan when strangers are buried.
VII. But why should he not pardon?[3] Let us decide by exact definition this other slippery matter, the true nature of pardon, and we shall then perceive that the wise man ought not to grant it.
Pardon is the remitting of a deserved punishment. The reasons why the wise man ought not to grant this remission are given at length by those of whom this question is specially asked: I will briefly say, as though it were no concern of mine to decide this point, “A man grants pardon to one whom he ought to punish: now the wise man does nothing which he ought not to do, and omits to [do] nothing which he ought to do: he does not, therefore, remit any punishment which he ought to exact. But the wise man will bestow upon you in a more honourable way that which you wish to obtain by pardon, for he will make allowances for you, will consult your interests, and will correct your bad habits: he will act just as though he were pardoning you, but nevertheless he will not pardon you, because he who pardons admits that in so doing he has neglected a part of {422} his duty. He will only punish some people by reprimanding them, and will inflict no further penalty if he considers that they are of an age which admits of reformation: some people who are undeniably implicated in an odious charge he will acquit, because they were deceived into committing, or were not sober when they committed the offence with which they are charged: he will let his enemies depart unharmed, sometimes even with words of commendation, if they have taken up arms to defend their honour, their covenants with others, their freedom, or on any other honourable ground. All these doings come under the head of mercy, not of pardon. Mercy is free to come to what decision it pleases: she gives her decision, not under any statute, but according to equity and goodness: she may acquit the defendant, or impose what damages she pleases. She does not do any of these things as though she were doing less than justice requires, but as though the justest possible course were that which she adopts.
On the other hand, to pardon is not to punish a man whom you have decided ought to be punished; pardon is the remission of a punishment which ought to be inflicted. The first advantage which mercy has over it is that she does not tell those whom she lets off that they ought to have suffered: she is more complete, more honourable than pardon.”
In my opinion, this is a mere dispute about words, and we are agreed about the thing itself. The wise man will remit many penalties, and will save many who are wicked, but whose wickedness is not incurable.
He will act like good husbandmen, who do not cultivate only straight and tall trees, but also apply props to straighten those which have been rendered crooked by various causes; they trim some, lest the luxuriance of their boughs should hinder their upward growth, they nurse those which have been {423} weakened by being planted in an unsuitable position, and they give air to those which are overshadowed by the foliage of others. The wise man will see the several treatments suitable to several dispositions, and how what is crooked may be straightened...[1] A king of Egypt, who sacrificed strangers, and was himself slain by Hercules.
[2] “Three or four wenches where I stood, cried ‘Alas, good soul!—’ and forgave him with all their hearts: but there’s no heed to be taken of them; if Caesar had stabbed their mothers, they would have done no less.”—“Julius Caesar,” act i. sc. 2.
[3] See above, chap. v.
THE END.
{425} INDEX.
A Alexandria, Library of, 270.
Anger, 48; signs of, 49; results of, 50; definitions of, 50_n_; animals not subject to, 52; not natural, 54; should be resisted at the beginning, 57; examples of its results, 60; not necessary against enemies, 60; nor useful, 63; not necessary for punishment, 68; contrasted with reason, 69; creates vain-glory, but not magnanimity, 73; cannot act without the approval of the mind, 77; contrasted with ferocity, 80; the wise man will never be angry, 81; anger and fear, 87; anger ought to be done away with, 88; must never become a habit, 90; remedies for, 93; some men more prone to, than others, 93; influence of education, 95; and of prosperity, 96; cause of, 97; effect of trifles, 99; delay the best remedy, 104; anger caused by ignorance or arrogance, 106; or by desire for revenge, 108; its hideousness and danger, 111; its power, 114; contrasted with other vices and passions, 116; how to avoid it, 120; examples of anger indulged in, Cambyses, 131, 139; Astyages, 133; Darius, 135; Xerxes, 138; Cyrus, 139; examples of anger controlled, Antigonus, 140; Philip, 141; Augustus, 142; how injuries ought to be bourne, 144; better to heal than to avenge them, 146; the evils of anger, 147; its trifling beginnings, 149; money, 151; other causes, 152; value of self-examination, 154; how to soothe the anger of others, 156; Augustus and Vedius, 158; anger should be got rid of altogether, 159.
Animals, anger in, 49, 52.
Antigonus (monophthalmus), 141.
Antisthenes, 45.
Aristides, 341.
Apicius, the glutton, 217, 336.
Asinius Pollio, 142, 285.
Astyages, King of Persia, 133.
Augustus. _See_ Caesar.
{426} Avarice, conquered by anger, 114.
Athenodorus, quoted, 259, 265.
B Bees, 405.
Bibulus, L., 181.
Bion, quoted, 267, 282.
Books, should be bought to read, not for show, 270.
Brutus, L. Junius, 183.
Brutus, M. Junius, 330.
Burrus, prefect of Nero, 415.
C Caelius (Antipater), 125.
334, 376.
Caesar, Gaius, grandson of Augustus, 373.
Caesar, Germanicus, brother of Claudius, 374.
Caesar, Lucius, grandson of Augustus, 373.
Caligula. _See_ Caesar, Gaius.
Calmness, a sign of wisdom, 27.
Cambyses, 131, 139.
341.
Chaerea, 44.
Cimber, Tillius, 149.
Cinna, L., 392.
Claudius Caudex, 307, Clemency, 380; becomes no one more than a king, 384, 386; clemency of Augustus, 391; and of Nero, 396; distinguishes between kings and tyrants, 397; makes a king beloved, 399; Tarius, 401; clemency towards slaves, 404; the king-bee, 405; clemency in inflicting punishment, 407; makes men ashamed to do wrong, 410; clemency of Nero, 415; definitions of Mercy, 417; of cruelty, 417; of pity, 418; of pardon, 421.
Clitus, killed by Alexander, 135.
Cloelia, 183.
Comfort, excess of, 13.
Contempt, 36.
Cornelia, wife of L. Drusus, 183.
Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi, 183, 345.
Corvinus, M. Valerius, 307.
Cotta, C. Aurelius, 345.
Courage, aims high, 18; born of desperation, 398.
Cruelty, caused by anger, 80; cannot be left off, if once begun, 399; inhumanity of, 411; shown in kings, 411; and in private men, 412; the opposite of mercy, 417.