most persistent morning breeze has fallen. This would not occur if the sun reduced the force of the Etesians as he does that of the morning breezes. Add also that, if the cause of their rise was the lengthened space of the day, they would blow even prior to the solstice when the days are at their longest, and when the thaw of the snow is at its height. By the month of July everything is clear of snow, or, at any rate, very few places are still covered with it.
XII There are some species of winds which issue from clouds that are rent 1 and pour down their contents. They are called by the Greeks cloud winds (ἐκνεφίας). Their method of formation, as I suppose, is this: among the particles given off by the earth’s vapour and carried aloft there is great inequality and dissimilarity, some being dry and others moist.
When the particles have massed in one body there is great discord and internal strife, which probably leads to the forming of certain hollow clouds with narrow pipe-shaped spaces left between, much like a flute in shape. In these gaps there is shut up rarefied air, which, being 2 buffeted about in the confined space and becoming heated, strives to get more room. It expands and rends its envelope, breaking forth in wind, which, as a rule, is squally, since it descends from above and falls on us with fierce vehemence. It is not diffused, nor does it come through a wide open space, but it struggles and opens up its way by main force. As a rule, it is a brief gust. As it bursts through 3 the cloudy receptacle by which it was confined and overleaps the battlements, it comes in tumultuous energy, sometimes not unattended with fire and the sound of thunder in the heavens. Such winds are much more violent and of longer duration if they have taken up in their course other gusts proceeding from a like cause, and thus several have conspired to form one. It is just like the flow of torrents of moderate size, not serious as long as each has its separate course. But when a number of them have combined their streams, they surpass in 4 size regular, constant rivers. The same thing may probably happen in squalls; they are short-lived whenever they are alone. But when they have joined forces, and the air expelled from several parts of the sky at once has all combined in one, both force and duration are added to them.
XIII So, then, wind results from the breaking up of a cloud, which breach 1 is effected in several different ways. The accumulation of air is burst sometimes by the internal struggle, as it seeks to gain an exit; sometimes by the heat produced either simply by the sun or else by the mutual ramming and friction of the roaming bodies.
At this point, if you have no objection, one may raise the question why a whirlwind occurs. In rivers, when their course has been without any obstacle for a long distance, the channel is a straight, uniform one. But when they meet some boulder that juts from the bank, the 2 stream is driven back and whirls the waters in a circle without a way of escape, so that in their revolution they are constantly sucked in toward the centre to form a whirlpool. In like manner the wind pours out in full force as long as no obstacle stands in the way. But when it is reflected from some jutting projection, or is massed in a quarter which combines to form a thin downward channel, then it revolves upon its own axis, and produces an eddy similar to that in which, as we have just said, the water revolves. This revolving wind, which 3 always traverses the same spot and is roused to fury by the mere giddy whirling, is a whirlwind. If it is a very fierce one, and revolves longer than ordinary, it ignites and causes what the Greeks call a fire-wind (πρηστήρ), which is just a fiery whirlwind. The bursting of such winds from the clouds produces almost all the disasters by which herds are carried off and ships lifted, bodily, right out of the water.
Further, some winds produce different ones by dispersing the air and driving it before them in other directions than that toward which they themselves have bent their course.
It occurs to me at the moment to mention a parallel to wind that 4 may be drawn from drops of moisture. The single drops may begin to incline downwards and be on the verge of giving way, but yet do not manage to fall. When, however, several have united and the mass has imparted strength, then they are said to flow and to move. So, as long as there are slight movements of the atmosphere disturbed at several points, they do not produce wind. The latter begins only when all those movements are united and concentrated in a single effort. Air differs from wind in degree alone. A more violent air is a wind; air in turn is gently flowing atmosphere.
XIV Let me now recall a remark that I had made early in this book, 1 namely, that wind issues from cave or inner recess of earth. The whole earth is not of solid compact constitution down to its lowest foundations, but at many points is hollow,...hung over dark retreats.
In some places it contains voids that have no moisture. Though there is no light there to show the distinctions in the air, yet I venture to assert that cloud and mist settle in that gloom. Above ground 2 cloud and mist surely do not exist because they are seen; but, rather, they are seen because they exist. Well, there too rivers none the less exist that they are not seen. You must understand that down there rivers flow equal in size to our own. Some glide gently, others resound as they tumble down headlong over the broken ground. So must not you equally allow that there are some lakes underground and some water in pools without an exit? This being so, it is of necessity that 3 the air be charged with moisture, and that, being charged, it lean in one direction, raising the wind by its propulsion. We must recognise, therefore, that from those subterranean clouds blasts of wind are raised in the dark, what time they have gathered strength sufficient to remove the obstacles presented by the earth, or can seize upon some open path for their exit, and from this cavernous retreat can escape toward the abodes of men. Now it is obvious that underground 4 there are large quantities of sulphur and other substances no less inflammable. When the air in search of a path of escape works its tortuous way through ground of this nature, it necessarily kindles fire by the mere friction. By and by, as the flames spread more widely, any sluggish air there may be is also rarefied and set in motion; a way of escape is sought with great roaring and violence. This point I will elaborate in more detail when I go on to treat of earthquakes.
XV You must now allow me to tell you a little story! Asclepiodotus 1 vouches for the tale. Once on a time a large party of miners was sent down by Philip into an old mine, long since abandoned, to ascertain its prospects and condition, and to see whether ancient avarice had left anything for posterity to glean. Down they went with plenty of light to last for days. In due time, when they were quite tired by the length of the road, they saw a sight to make their hair stand on end--huge rivers and vast reservoirs of sluggish waters, equal in size to any above ground, not pressed down either with a weight of earth above, but overarched with an open vault. I confess I felt lively satisfaction in reading the story. It showed me that the vices from which our age 2 suffers are not new; they have been handed down from ancient days.
Nor is it in our age that avarice has for the first time ransacked the reefs of soil and stone, searching in the dark for treasure badly hidden. Those ancestors of ours, whom we are always vaunting, our declension from whose standard we constantly bemoan, were also lured by hope to cut down the mountains and stand beneath the ruins to gloat over their filthy lucre.
Before the time of Philip of Macedon there were kings who pursued 3 treasure down to its deepest lurking-places; leaving the free air and light of day behind, they lowered themselves into those caverns, which no distinction of night from day could reach. What expectation could lead them on? What necessity caused man, whose head points to the stars, to stoop below, burying him in mines and plunging him in the very bowels of innermost earth to root up gold? The quest for the precious bane is no less perilous than its possession. For this he 4 drove shafts and crawled round his dirty, uncertain booty, forgetful of day, forgetful of his better nature, which he abjured. On no dead man does earth lie so heavily as it lies on those on whom insistent avarice has cast earth’s weight, from whom it has withdrawn the light of day, whom it has buried in the depths where that noxious poison lurks. They had the hardihood to descend to a region where they found a new order of nature, forms of overhanging earth and winds raving through the blind void, where are dread fountains of waters whose streams none drink, and night reigns deep and unbroken. And then, after all that has come and gone, they dread the gods of the nether world!
XVI But to return to the matter in hand; there are four winds, divided, 1 according to the cardinal points, into east, west, south, and north.
The rest of the winds, which are called by different names, are attached to these: Eurus has gone toward the dawn and the realms of Nebaioth And Persia and the peaks that lie beneath the rays of morn.
Evening and the coasts that are warmed by the setting sun Are close to Zephyrus. Scythia and the Great Bear Are under the sway of dread Boreas. The land that faces these Is bathed in unbroken cloud and rainy Auster.
Or, if you prefer a briefer enumeration, you may gather them in one 2 great storm--a physical impossibility, by the way: Eurus and Notus (south) rush together, and with squall upon squall Africus (south-west).
And we may add Aquilo (north), which has no place in the famous battle of the winds to which Virgil refers. Some make the number of the winds twelve. They divide the four quarters of heaven into three parts each, adding two subsidiary winds to each of the principal ones. On this principle that diligent author, Varro, classifies them. And 3 there is good ground for it; the other method, which refers them to seasonal changes, is very unsatisfactory. For instance, the sun does not always rise or set at the same point. He has one place of rising at the equinox--indeed, the equinox occurs twice a year--another at the summer, and still another at the winter, solstice. The wind which sets in from the direction of sunrise at the equinoxes is with us called Subsolane (near the sun); the Greeks call it ἀφηλιώτης (from the sun). From sunrise in winter Eurus comes, named by our countrymen Vulturnus (_i.e._ from Mt. Vultur in the S.E.). Livy also calls it 4 by this name, in connection with that famous battle of Cannae, which proved so disastrous to Rome. Hannibal on that occasion managed to get our army with its face to the rising sun and to the wind; by the aid of the wind and the glare that dazzled the eyes of the enemy he snatched the victory. Varro likewise uses the same name. But Eurus is a name now naturalised, and has a place in our vocabulary that does not suggest any foreign origin. The wind that is raised by sunrise at the 5 summer solstice was called by the Greeks καικίας;[75] we have no name for it. Sunset at the equinox sends us Favonius, which even people who cannot speak Greek will tell you is called the Zephyr. Corus, which is by some called Argestes [from its clearness], comes from the sunset at the summer solstice. I do not approve of the identification; Corus is a vehement wind, rushing in one uniform direction, while Argestes is, as a rule, a gentle wind, and blows impartially on travellers coming and going along the same road (_i.e._ is constantly 6 shifting). From sunset in midwinter comes the rushing furious Africus (African wind), named by the Greeks the Libyan (λίψ). In the northern quarter the highest (_i.e._ most easterly) is Aquilo, the central one is Septemtrio, the lowest Thracias,[76] for which there is no corresponding word in Latin. In the southern region there is Euronotus, then Notus, or in Latin Auster, then Libonotus, which has no Latin name.
[75] No explanation of this name of the nor’-easter is forthcoming.
[76] _I.e._ the Thracian; Thrace must have been N.W. of the region in which the name had its origin.
XVII We Stoics hold that there are twelve winds; not that there are 1 everywhere so many (the slope of the earth [_i.e._ of the earth’s axis] excludes some), but because there are nowhere more than twelve. We speak of six cases in the same way, not because every noun possesses six, but because none has more than six. Those who assert the number of the winds to be twelve adopt the principle that the number must be the same as the divisions of the heavens. Now the heavens are divided into five zones passing through the cardinal points of the world. These are the northern, the solstitial, the equinoctial, the wintry, 2 the one that faces the northern. A sixth is added in the zone which separates the upper part of the world from the lower. As you know, there is always one-half the world above our head, and one-half beneath our feet. This line which lies between the visible and the concealed parts of the sky is called by the Greeks the Horizon (ὁρίζων = bounding line): our school call it the Bounder; others, the Bounding [line].
To this must be added the meridian circle, which cuts the horizon 3 at right angles. Some of these zones run transversely, intersecting others. Now there must necessarily be as many divisions of the heavens as there are parts. So, then, the horizon or bounding circle cuts those five zones, of whose position I have just spoken, making ten parts, five to east and five to west. The meridian circle which meets the horizon gives two additional divisions. Thus the air receives its 4 twelve divisions, and yields a like number of winds.
There are some of the winds that are peculiar to certain localities; they do not carry far, but reach only the immediate vicinity. They do not derive their impulse from a particular quarter of the world at large. For example, the wind Atabulus haunts Apulia; the Iapygian, Calabria; the Scironian, Athens; Cataegis, Pamphylia; Circius, Gaul.
To the last mentioned, though it shakes their houses, the people are very grateful, believing they are indebted to it for the healthiness of their climate. At any rate, the late Emperor Augustus, when he was staying in Gaul, erected to it a temple he had vowed. My task would never be done if I were to attempt to enumerate the individual winds.
There is hardly any district that has not some particular wind that arises in it and falls not far from it.
XVIII Wherefore among the other works of Providence this one must be 1 regarded as worthy of all admiration. Heaven had many purposes in view in devising the winds and distributing them through all the varied quarters of the earth. The first object was to prevent the atmosphere from becoming gross; by their constant tossing the winds were meant to render it beneficial, a source of life to those who were to breathe it. In the second place, they were to supply the earth with rain, and at the same time to restrain excess of rain. This they accomplish by 2 now gathering, now scattering the clouds, so that the rainfall should be fairly distributed over the whole world. The south wind drives it toward Italy, the north sends it back to Africa. The Etesian winds will not suffer the clouds to settle in our quarter; but yet the whole of India and Ethiopia are watered with constant rain during the period of their prevalence. Moreover, crops could not be gathered in unless the worthless elements were winnowed by the blast from the good grain with which it is mixed. The breeze is needed, too, to rouse the seed and bring to light the latent fruit, by causing it to burst through its covering, those wrappings which the farmers call follicles.
Furthermore, the wind has established intercommunication among all 3 the different nations, and has united tribes far removed from each other in place.
A great service is this that nature here renders, did not man’s madness turn it to his own injury! As it is, the remark may be applied to the winds which was commonly made regarding Caesar the Elder (Julius), as recorded by Titus Livius (Livy); it was doubtful whether his birth was a blessing or a curse to the state. In like manner all the useful and necessary services performed by the winds cannot outweigh the devices which man’s madness has through them framed for his own destruction. But they do not cease to be inherently good, 4 even though, through fault of those who degrade their use, they are turned to instruments of harm. Surely Providence and God, the great Disposer of the world, had a beneficent aim in establishing the winds, and diffusing them on every side, to wit, that the atmosphere might be kept in motion by them, that no part of the world should become unsightly through inactivity. His object was not that we might man our fleet with armed soldiers to seize every quarter of the main, and that we might go in search of foes either in or beyond the sea. What frenzy goads us on, and matches us in strife for our mutual destruction? We spread the sails to the winds to go in quest of war, and we run 5 risks of sea for the sake of meeting risks of battle! We tempt the uncertainty of fortune, the force of tempests that no human effort can overcome, death without hope of burial. The prize would not be worth the toil if the voyage conducted us to peace. As it is, when we have passed so many hidden rocks and hidden shoals of a treacherous sea; when we have escaped the billows that rise like mountains above us, into which the raging wind forces all voyagers; when we have passed through days enveloped in mist, and nights rendered still more awful 6 by cloud and thunder, and by whirlwinds that rend the frail bark in pieces; what reward shall we have for all the toil and anxiety? What harbour will give us hospitable shelter, worn out as we are with so many sufferings? War, I trow, will meet us, and an enemy ready prepared on shore and tribes destined to cruel slaughter, but not without much damage to the conqueror, and ancient cities in flames. Why do we press whole nations into arms? Why do we enrol armies to marshal their lines amid the billows? Why do we disquiet the seas? The land, I suppose, 7 is not wide enough to compass our death. Fortune deals too tenderly with us: she has given us too hardy bodies, too sound health. No ravage of plague cuts us off: each one may comfortably fill up the measure of his years and reach the haven of old age. So let us launch upon the deep and call toward us the loitering fates. Poor wretches, what is it ye seek? Death, which is always too much with us? It will attack you, even in your couch; well, see that the victims it attacks are innocent of crime. It will seize you in your house; be sure it find you planning no mischief.
But what can one call it but plain insanity actually to carry 8 destruction in your train, to rush in anger against men you never saw, to lay waste without provocation all that comes in your path, and, after the fashion of wild beasts, to kill a man you do not hate? We are worse than beasts, for they bite only in retaliation or from hunger; but we, utterly lavish of our own and others’ blood, harass the seas by the vessels we launch, entrust our safety to the waves, and pray for favouring winds, counting it our good fortune to be borne in safety to the wars! To what lengths have our crimes hurried us criminals? It is not enough to vent one’s madness within one’s own sphere. Your 9 stupid King of Persia must cross into Greece, filling it with an army with which he has failed to conquer it. Your Alexander, leaving behind Bactra and India, must needs seek to learn what lies beyond the great sea, and will chafe that there is any point beyond which he cannot go.
Crassus in like manner will fall a prey to the Parthians through his lust of gold. He will not dread the imprecations of the tribune who calls him back, nor the storms of the tedious sea, nor the lightning by Euphrates that foretold destruction, nor the resistance of heaven itself. Through the wrath of man and God alike gold shall be sought. 10 Not without good cause, therefore, it may be said that nature would have done better by us had she forbidden the winds to blow at all, had she checked their roaming abroad in their fury, and ordered each one to abide in his own land. If this had served no other end, at any rate the mischief of each human life would have been restricted to itself and its own nation. As it is, the ills of home are too little for us; we must toil to share those abroad as well. No land is so far removed from neighbours that it cannot send forth in some direction its evil propensities. How do I know but that some ruler of a great nation 11 meantime concealed from view, swollen by fortune’s kindness, may choose not to confine his arms within the boundaries of his own realm, but with secret design may even now be fitting out his fleet against us?
How can I tell whether this wind or that shall convey war to me? It would go far to ensure the peace of the world if the seas could be shut up.
Still, as I said a little ago, we cannot put the blame on God, our Author, if we corrupt His blessings and turn them into curses. He gave us the winds to maintain the equable temperature of earth and sky, 12 to call forth or to repress the waters, to nourish the produce of field and tree; the crops are brought to maturity, among other causes, by their mere tossing in the wind, which attracts the nourishment to the top, and by movement prevents the stagnation of decay. He gave the winds that we might gain acquaintance with foreign lands. Man would have been an untutored creature without much experience of the world if circumscribed by the bounds of his native soil. He gave the winds 13 that the blessings of each region might become common to all; not to convey across the sea regiments of horse and foot, nor arms for the destruction of mankind. If we simply estimate nature’s boons by the degraded uses to which they have been put, there is nothing that we have not received for our own hurt. Who is aught the better of the gift of sight? or of speech? To whom is life itself not a torment? I defy you to find anything of such undoubted utility that it cannot by misuse be converted into a curse. So it is with the winds: nature had designed them for a boon; we have ourselves made them the opposite.
They all lead us to some disaster: one man has not the same motive 14 as his neighbour for putting to sea, but none has a good one. Diverse temptations lead us to essay the way. Above all, we love to go to sea in order to damage some one. Plato, with whose testimony I may close, has observed, with great aptness, it is mere trifles that men purchase with their lives. Yes, my dear Lucilius, if you estimate aright man’s madness, in other words, our own--for we all wallow in the same herd--you will be still more amused by the reflection that we amass for life what in the end wears life out.
BOOK VI WHICH TREATS OF EARTHQUAKES I We have just had news, my esteemed Lucilius, that Pompeii, the 1 celebrated city in Campania, has been overwhelmed in an earthquake, which shook all the surrounding districts as well. The city, you know, lies on a beautiful bay, running far back from the open sea, and is surrounded by two converging shores, on the one side that of Surrentum and Stabiae, on the other that of Herculaneum. The disaster happened in winter, a period for which our forefathers used to claim immunity from such dangers. On the 5th of February, in the consulship of Regulus 2 and Virginius, this shock occurred, involving widespread destruction over the whole province of Campania; the district had never been without risk of such a calamity, but had been hitherto exempt from it, having escaped time after time from groundless alarm.
The extent of the disaster may be gathered from a few details. Part of the town of Herculaneum fell; the buildings left standing are very insecure. The colony of Nuceria had painful experience of the shock, but sustained no damage. Naples was just touched by what might have proved a great disaster to it; many private houses suffered, but no public building was destroyed. The villas built on the cliffs 3 everywhere shook, but without damage being done. In addition, they say, a flock of six hundred sheep was destroyed, and statues were split open; some people were driven out of their minds, and wandered about in helpless idiotcy. The plan of my present work demands a discussion of the causes of this, and the disaster itself fits in with our present inquiries (_i.e._ our discussion is opportune in view of the recent disaster). We must seek solace for the anxious and dispel overmastering fear. For what can any one believe quite safe if the world itself is shaken, and its most solid parts totter to their fall? Where, indeed, can our fears have limit if the one thing immovably fixed, which 4 upholds all other things in dependence on it, begins to rock, and the earth lose its chief characteristic, stability? What refuge can our weak bodies find? whither shall anxious ones flee when fear springs from the ground and is drawn up from earth’s foundations? If roofs at any time begin to crack and premonitions of fall are given, there is general panic: all hurry pell-mell out of doors, they abandon their household treasures, and trust for safety to the public street.
But if the earth itself stir up destruction, what refuge or help can 5 we look for? If this solid globe, which upholds and defends us, upon which our cities are built, which has been called by some the world’s foundation, stagger and remove, whither are we to turn? What comfort, not to say help, can you gain when fear has destroyed all way of escape? Where, I say, is there any protection you can trust? what is there that will stand as sure defence either of oneself or of others?
An enemy I can drive off from my city wall. The mere difficulties of approach to turrets set on the dizzy heights will stop the march even of great armies. From storm the harbour shelters us; our roofs are 6 able to withstand the whole force of clouds let loose, and the endless deluges of rain. Fire cannot pursue us if we run away from it. Against heaven’s threats in thunder refuges underground and caverns dug out in the depths of the earth are of avail--the fire of heaven does not pierce the ground, but is beaten back by the tiniest portion of the soil. In time of plague we may change our place of abode. No species of disaster is without some means of escape. Lightning has never consumed whole nations. A plague-laden sky has drained cities, but has never blotted them out.
But this calamity of earthquake extends beyond all bounds, 7 inevitable, insatiable, the destruction of a whole State. Nor is it only families or households or single cities that it swallows; it overthrows whole nations and regions. At one time it hides them in their ruins, at another consigns them to the deep abyss; it leaves not a wrack behind to witness that what no longer is, once was. The bare soil stretches over the site of the most famous cities, and no trace is left of their former existence. Nor are there wanting those who dread most of all this kind of death, in which they go down alive into the pit, houses and all, and are carried off from the number of the living: as if every form of death did not lead to the one goal. Among 8 nature’s righteous decrees this is the chief, that when we reach the end of life we are all on a level. It makes no difference, therefore, to me whether one stone wound me to death or I am crushed beneath a whole mountain; whether the weight of one house come down on me, and I expire beneath the dust of its humble mound, or whether the whole world descend upon my head; whether I yield up this breath in the open light of day or in the vast abyss of the yawning earth; whether I am borne down to those depths all alone or along with a great throng of perishing nations. To me it can make no difference how great is the 9 turmoil that accompanies my death; the thing is everywhere just the same.
Wherefore, let us raise high our courage against that disaster, which can neither be shunned nor yet foreseen. Let us cease to listen to the people that have bid adieu to Campania since the time of this disaster, and have removed to other districts, vowing they will never set foot in that quarter again! Who can guarantee them more solid foundations in whatever soil they choose? All the world is subject to the same 10 fate. If it has not yet suffered from earthquake, it may; perchance this spot on which you stand in full security will be rent this night, or even this day before night. How can one tell whether is better the state of the places on which fortune has already spent her force or of those which are upheld meantime, but only for some disaster to come?
We do greatly err if we suppose any quarter of the world wholly exempt from this danger. All quarters are subject to the same law. Nature framed nothing to be immovable. Different things will fall at different times. Just as in large cities, now this house and now that leans 11 over and has to be shored up, so in the world as a whole, now this part contains a flaw, now that. Tyre was once notorious for a disaster of the kind. The province of Asia lost at a single stroke twelve of its cities. Last year calamity overtook Achaia and Macedonia, now the injury has fallen upon Campania, whatever be the nature of that force which thus assails us. Fate makes a circuit, paying a second visit to places she has long passed over. On some places her attacks are more rare, more frequent on some. Nothing is suffered to be quite exempt 12 from injury. Not merely we men, whose life is frail and fleeting, but cities too, and the earth’s coasts and shores, yea, the very sea falls under bondage to fate. And in face of this we promise ourselves permanence in the boons fortune bestows! we suppose there will be stability and endurance in happiness, whose fickleness is greatest of all things on earth! While men promise themselves all things 13 in perpetuity, it never enters their thoughts that the very earth on which we stand is not permanent. The flaws of the ground are to be found everywhere; they are not peculiar to Campania or Tyre or Achaia.
The earth coheres imperfectly, it suffers breach from many causes; permanent as a whole, it is subject to collapse in its parts.
II What am I doing? I had promised to offer comfort in face of danger, 1 and lo! I threaten its terrors on all sides. I tell you that there can be no assured peace in what can suffer or cause destruction. But that very fact I regard as a solace, and, indeed, the most powerful of all.
Fear is but folly when there is no escape from it. Philosophy delivers the wise from fear; even the unlearned may derive great confidence from despair. You must, therefore, regard the words addressed to those amazed by sudden captivity amid fire and foe as addressed to the whole human race: The one safety of the conquered is to hope for none.
If you wish to fear nothing, think that everything is to be feared; 2 consider by how slight causes our life is dissipated. Neither food nor drink, nor waking nor sleeping, is healthful, except in due measure.
One may soon realise that we are but puny, insignificant bodies, weak and unstable, that small effort is needed to compass our destruction.
The only sufficiency of danger, doubtless, would be the earth’s trembling, its sudden dissipation, the rending of its surface into chasms!
Surely he sets a high value on his life who dreads only lightning, 3 and earthquakes with their yawning abysses; won’t he allow himself to open his eyes to his frailty and be afraid of choking on his phlegm?
Such, forsooth, is our constitution by birth, such the powerful frames we have obtained, such the size we have grown to, that we cannot perish unless the four quarters of the world are moved, the heavens thunder, and the earth subside! Why, a pain in a tiny nail, not even the whole 4 nail, but a little ragnail at the side, may finish us! And I must fear only the trembling of the world, when too thick a spittle will choke me! I am to await with dread the removal of the sea from its place, or the overflowing of an abnormal tide with its excess of water; why, some ere now have been strangled by a drink that took a wrong course down the throat! What folly to be afraid of the sea when you know that a single drop may kill you! There is no solace of death greater than 5 the very liability to death, no solace of all the terrors from without equal to the thought that there are countless dangers within our own bosom. What greater madness than to collapse at the sound of thunder, and through fear of lightning to creep under the ground? What greater folly than to stand in fear of the earth’s tottering and the sudden 6 fall of mountains, or inroads of the sea cast up beyond the shore, when death is everywhere present and meets us on every side? Nothing is so small as not to be strong enough to compass the destruction of the human race. Great or unusual dangers ought not to unnerve us, as if they implied more mischief than a common death; nay, rather when one must quit the world and at last resign life, it should be a positive joy to perish by some grand cause. Die we must somewhere, sometime. 7 The ground you tread may stand firm, it may confine itself within its own bounds and not be tossed about by any violence; yet some day I shall be beneath it. Does it really matter, then, whether I place it on myself or itself do? It is rent by the irresistible force of some disaster; it bursts and draws me into its immense depths. What then? Is death easier on the earth’s level surface? What reason for complaint have I if nature will not have me lie in a place unknown to fame? or if she lays on me a portion of herself? My friend, Vagellius,[77] in 8 that famous poem of his, says finely: If fall I must, I should desire to fall from the height of heaven.[78] [77] The name is doubtful, as is, indeed, the quotation also.
[78] The sense may be: I would have the heavens fall along with me; this meaning would suit the context better.
We may adopt the language. If fall I must, let the earth be shaken at