Consolatio ad Apollonium

We ought not, therefore, to lament those who die young on the ground that they have been deprived of those things which in a long life are accounted good; for this is uncertain, as we have often said—whether the things of which they have been deprived are good or evil; for the evils are much the more numerous. And whereas we acquire the good things only with difficulty and at the expense of many anxieties, the evils we acquire very easily. For they say that the latter are compact and conjoined, and are brought together by many influences, while the good things are disjoined, and hardly manage to unite towards the very end of life. We therefore resemble men who have forgotten, not merely, as Euripides [*](Adapted from the Phoenissae, 555.) says, that

Mortals are not the owners of their wealth,

but also that they do not own a single one of human possessions. Wherefore we must say in regard to all things that

We keep and care for that which is the gods’, And when they will they take it back again.[*](Ibid. 556.)

We ought not, therefore, to bear it with bad grace if the gods make demand upon us for what they have loaned us for a short time.[*](Cf. Cebes, Tabula, xxxi., and Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, i. 39 (93).) For even the bankers, as we are in the habit of saying frequently, when demand is made upon them for the return of deposits, do not chafe at the repayment, if they be honourable men. To those who do not make repayment with good grace one might fairly say, Have you forgotten that you accepted this on condition that you should return it ? Quite parallel is the lot of all mortals. For we hold our life, as it were, on deposit from the gods, who have compelled us to accept the account, and there is no fixed time for its return, just as with the bankers and their deposits, but it is uncertain when the depositor will demand payment. If a man, therefore, is exceedingly indignant, either when he himself is about to die, or when his children have died, must he not manifestly have forgotten that he is but human and the father of children who are mortal ? For it is not characteristic of a man of sense to be unaware of the fact that man is a mortal creature, and that he is born to die. At any rate, if Niobe of the fable had had this conception ready at hand, that even the woman who,

Laden with the happy burden Of sweet life and growing children, Looks upon the pleasant sunlight,[*](From an unknown poet; Cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Adespota, No. 373, and Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Graec. iii. p. 720.)

must die, she would not have been so resentful as to wish to abandon life on account of the magnitude of her misfortune, and to implore the gods that she herself might be hurried to the most awful perdition.

There are two of the inscriptions at Delphi [*](Cf. Plato, Protagoras, p. 343 B, and Charmides, p. 165 A; Aristotle, Rheoric, ii. 12, 14; Pausanias, x. 24, 1; Plutarch, Moralia, 167 B, 385 D, and 511 B, and De vita et poesi Homeri, 151.) which are most indispensable to living. These are: Know thyself and Avoid extremes, for on these two commandments hang all the rest. These two are in harmony and agreement with each other, and the one seems to be made as clear as possible through the other. For in self-knowledge is included the avoidance of extremes, and in the latter is included self-knowledge. Therefore Ion [*](Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. p. 743, Ion, No. 55.) speaks of the former as follows:

Not much to say is Know thyself; to do This, Zeus alone of gods doth understand.

And, of the other, Pindar [*](Frag. 216 (Christ).) says:

The wise have landed with exceeding praise the words Avoid extremes.

If, then, one keeps these in mind as god-given injunctions, he will be able easily to adapt them to all the circumstances of life, and to bear with such circumstances intelligently, by being heedful of his own nature, and heedful, in whatever may befall him, not to go beyond the limit of propriety, either in being elated to boastfulness or in being humbled and cast down to wailings and lamentations, through weakness of the spirit and the fear of death which is implanted in us as a result of our ignorance of what is wont to happen in life in accordance with the decree of necessity or destiny. Excellent is the advice which the Pythagoreans [*](Carmina Aurea, 17.) gave, saying:

Whatsoe’er woes by the gods’ dispensation all mortals must suffer, What be the fate you must bear, you should bear it and not be indignant.

And the tragic poet Aeschylus [*](Attributed to Euripides by Stobaeus, Florilegium, cviii. 43; Cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Euripides, No. 1078.) says:

It is the mark of just and knowing men In woes to feel no anger at the gods;

and Euripides[*](From an unknown play; Cf. Nauck, ibid., Euripides, No. 965.):

Of mortals he who yields to fate we think Is wise and knows the ways of Providence;

and in another place [*](From the Melanippe; cf. Nauck, ibid., Euripides, No. 505.) he says:

Of mortals he who bears his lot aright To me seems noblest and of soundest sense.