Tusculan Disputations

very greatest pleasure. Here are three very great mistakes in a very few words. One is that he contradicts himself, for, but just now, he could not imagine anything good unless the senses were in a manner tickled with some pleasure, but now he says that to be free from pain is the highest pleasure. Can anyone contradict himself more? The next mistake is that where there is naturally a threefold division⁠—the first, to be pleased; next, to be in pain; the last, to be affected neither by pleasure nor pain⁠—he imagines the first and the last to be the same, and makes no difference between pleasure and a cessation of pain. The last mistake he falls into in common with some others, which is this: that as virtue is the most desirable thing, and as philosophy has been investigated with a view to the attainment of it, he has separated the chief good from virtue. But he commends virtue, and that frequently; and indeed C. Gracchus, when he had made the largest distributions of the public money, and had exhausted the treasury, nevertheless spoke much of defending the treasury. What signifies what men say when we see what they do? That Piso, who was surnamed Frugal, had always harangued against the law that was proposed for distributing the corn; but when it had passed, though a man of consular dignity, he came to receive the corn. Gracchus observed Piso standing in the court, and asked him, in the hearing of the people, how it was consistent for him to take corn by a law he had himself opposed. “I was,” said he, “against your distributing my goods to every man as you thought proper; but, as you do so, I claim my share.” Did not this grave and wise man sufficiently show that the public revenue was dissipated by the Sempronian law? Read Gracchus’s speeches, and you will pronounce him the advocate of the treasury. Epicurus denies that anyone can live pleasantly who does not lead a life of virtue; he denies that fortune has any power over a wise man; he prefers a spare diet to great plenty, and maintains that a wise man is always happy. All these things become a philosopher to say, but they are not consistent with pleasure. But the reply is, that he does not mean that pleasure. Let him mean any pleasure, it must be such a one as makes no part of virtue. But suppose we are mistaken as to his pleasure; are we so, too, as to his pain? I maintain, therefore, the impropriety of language which that man uses, when talking of virtue, who would measure every great evil by pain.

And indeed the Epicureans, those best of men⁠—for there is no order of men more innocent⁠—complain that I take great pains to inveigh against Epicurus. We are rivals, I suppose, for some honor or distinction. I place the chief good in the mind, he in the body; I in virtue, he in pleasure; and the Epicureans are up in arms, and implore the assistance of their neighbors, and many are ready to fly to their aid. But as for my part, I declare that I am very indifferent about the matter, and that I consider the whole discussion which they are so anxious about at an end. For what! is the contention about the Punic war? on which very subject, though M. Cato and L. Lentulus were of different opinions, still there was no difference between them. But these men behave with too much heat, especially as the opinions which they would uphold are no very spirited ones, and such as they dare not plead for either in the senate or before the assembly of the people, or before the army or the censors. But, however, I will argue with them another time, and with such a disposition that no quarrel shall arise between us; for I shall be ready to yield to their opinions when founded on truth. Only I must give them this advice: That were it ever so true that a wise man regards nothing but the body, or, to express myself with more decency, never does anything except what is expedient, and views all things with exclusive reference to his own advantage, as such things are not very commendable they should confine them to their own breasts and leave off talking with that parade of them.

What remains is the opinion of the Cyrenaics, who think that men grieve when anything happens unexpectedly. And that is indeed, as I said before, a great aggravation of a misfortune, and I know that it appeared so to Chrysippus: “Whatever falls out unexpected is so much the heavier.” But the whole question does not turn on this⁠—though the sudden approach of an enemy sometimes occasions more confusion than it would if you had expected him, and a sudden storm at sea throws the sailors into a greater fright than one which they have foreseen, and it is the same in many other cases. But when you carefully consider the nature of what was expected, you will find nothing more than that all things which come on a sudden appear greater, and this upon two accounts: first of all, because you have not time to consider how great the accident is; and secondly, because you are probably persuaded that you could have guarded against it had you foreseen it, and therefore the misfortune, having been seemingly encountered by your own fault, makes your grief the greater. That it is so, time evinces, which, as it advances, brings with it so much mitigation that though the same misfortunes continue, the grief not only becomes the less, but in some cases is entirely removed. Many Carthaginians were slaves at Rome, and many Macedonians, when Perseus their king was taken prisoner. I saw, too, when I was a young man, some Corinthians in the Peloponnesus. They might all have lamented