[549] Fortuna.
"For when to Fortune I prefer my prayers,
The obdurate goddess stops at once her ears;
Stops with that wax which saved Ulysses' crew,
When by the Syrens' rocks and songs they flew." Gifford.
SATIRE X.
In all the regions which extend from Gades[550] even to the farthest east and Ganges, there are but few that can discriminate between real blessings and those that are widely different, all the mist[551] of error being removed. For what is there that we either fear or wish for, as reason would direct? What is there that you enter on under such favorable auspices, that you do not repent of your undertaking, and the accomplishment of your wish? The too easy gods have overthrown[552] whole families by granting their owners' prayers. Our prayers are put up for what will injure us in peace and injure us in war. To many the copious fluency[553] of speech, and their very eloquence, is fatal. It was owing to his strength[554] and wondrous muscle, in which he placed his trust, that the Athlete met his death. But money heaped up with overwhelming care, and a revenue surpassing all common patrimonies as much as the whale of Britain[555] exceeds dolphins, causes more to be strangled. Therefore it was, that in that reign of Terror, and at Nero's bidding, a whole cohort[556] blockaded Longinus[557] and the spacious gardens of the over-wealthy Seneca,[558] and laid siege to the splendid[559] mansion of the Laterani.[560] It is but rarely that the soldier pays his visit to a garret. Though you are conveying ever so few vessels of unembossed silver, entering on your journey by night, you will dread the bandit's knife and bludgeon, and tremble at the shadow of a reed as it quivers in the moonshine.[561] The traveler with empty[562] pockets will sing even in the robber's face.
The prayers that are generally the first put up and best known in all the temples are, that riches,[563] that wealth may increase; that our chest may be the largest in the whole forum.[564] But no aconite is drunk from earthenware. It is time to dread it when you quaff jeweled cups,[565] and the ruddy Setine blazes in the broad gold. And do you not, then, now commend the fact, that of the two sages,[566] one used to laugh[567] whenever he had advanced a single step from his threshold; the other, with sentiments directly contrary, used to weep. But easy enough to any one is the stern censure of a sneering laugh: the wonder is how the other's eyes could ever have a sufficient supply of tears.[568] Democritus used to shake his sides with perpetual laughter, though in the cities of those regions there were no prætextæ, no trabeæ,[569] no fasces, no litter, no tribunal! What, had he seen the prætor[570] standing pre-eminent in his lofty car, and raised on high in the mid dust of the circus, dressed in the tunic of Jove, and wearing on his shoulders the Tyrian hangings of the embroidered toga; and the circlet of a ponderous crown,[571] so heavy that no single neck could endure the weight:[572] since the official, all in a sweat, supports it, and, that the consul may not be too elated, the slave rides in the same car. Then, add the bird that rises from his ivory sceptre: on one side the trumpeters; on the other, the long train of attendant clients, that march before him, and the Quirites, all in white togas, walking by his horses' heads; men whose friendship he has won by the sportula buried deep in his chest. Even in those days he found subject for ridicule in every place where human beings meet, whose wisdom proves that men of the highest intellect, men that will furnish noble examples, may be born in the country of wether-sheep, and in a foggy[573] atmosphere. He used to laugh at the cares and also the joys of the common herd; sometimes even at their tears: while he himself would bid Fortune, when she frowned, "Go hang!" and point at her his finger[574] in scorn! Superfluous therefore, or else destructive, are all those objects of our prayers, for which we think it right to cover the knees of the gods with waxen tablets.[575]
Power, exposed to great envy, hurls some headlong down to ruin. The long and splendid list of their titles and honors sinks[576] into the dust. Down come their statues,[577] and are dragged along with ropes: then the very wheels of the chariot are smashed by the vigorous stroke of the axe, and the legs of the innocent[578] horses are demolished. Now the fires roar! Now that head, once worshiped[579] by the mob, glows with the bellows and the furnace! Great Sejanus crackles! Then from that head, second only in the whole wide world, are made pitchers, basins, frying-pans,[580] and platters! "Crown your doors with bays![581] Lead to Jove's Capitol a huge and milk-white ox! Sejanus is being dragged along by the hook! a glorious sight!" Every body is delighted. "What lips he had! and what a face! If you believe me, I never could endure this man!" "But what was the charge under which he fell! Who was the accuser? what the information laid? By whose witness did he prove it?" "Nothing of the sort! a wordy and lengthy epistle came from Capreæ." "That's enough! I ask no farther. But how does the mob of Remus behave!" "Why, follow Fortune,[582] as mobs always do, and hate him that is condemned?" That self-same people, had Tuscan Nurscia[583] smiled propitious on her countryman—had the old age of the emperor been crushed while he thought all secure—would in that very hour have saluted Sejanus as Augustus. Long ago they have thrown overboard all anxiety. For that sovereign people that once gave away military command, consulships, legions, and every thing, now bridles its desires, and limits its anxious longings to two things only—bread, and the games of the circus! "I hear that many are involved in his fall." "No doubt: the little furnace[584] is a capacious one; I met my friend Brutidius[585] at the altar of Mars looking a little pale!" "But I greatly fear that Ajax, being baffled,[586] will wreak fearful vengeance, as having been inadequately defended. Let us rush headlong; and, while he still lies on the river-bank, trample on Cæsar's foe? But take care that our slaves witness the act! lest any of them should deny it, and drag his master to trial with a halter round his neck!" Such were the conversations then about Sejanus; such the smothered whispers of the populace? Would you then have the same court paid to you that Sejanus had? possess as much, bestow on one the highest curule honors, give another the command of armies,[587] be esteemed the lawful guardian[588] of the prince that lounged away[589] his days with his herd of Chaldæan astrologers, in the rock of Capreæ that he made his palace?[590] Would you have centuries and cohorts, and a picked body of cavalry,[591] and prætorian bands at your beck? Why should you not covet these? Even those who have not the will to kill a man would gladly have the power. But what brilliant or prosperous fortune is of sufficient worth that your measure of evils should balance your good luck? Would you rather put on the prætexta of him that is being dragged along, or be the magistrate of Fidenæ or Gabii, and give sentence about false weights,[592] and break up scanty measures as the ragged ædile of the deserted Ulubræ?[593]
You acknowledge, therefore, that Sejanus did not know what ought to have been the object of his wishes. For he that coveted excessive honors, and prayed for excessive wealth, was but rearing up the multiplied stories of a tower raised on high, only that the fall might be the deeper,[594] and horrible the headlong descent of his ruin[595] once accelerated!
What overthrew the Crassi?[596] and Pompey and his sons?[597] and him that brought Rome's haughty citizens quailing[598] beneath his lash? Surely it was the post of highest advancement, reached by every possible device, and prayers for greatness heard by gods who showed their malignity in granting them! Few kings go down without slaughter and wounds to Ceres' son-in-law. Few tyrants die a bloodless death!
He that as yet pays court to[599] Minerva, purchased by a single as, that is followed by his little slave[600] to take charge of his diminutive satchel, begins to long, and longs through all his quinquatrian[601] holidays, for the eloquence and the renown of Demosthenes or Cicero. But it was through their eloquence that both of these orators perished: the copious and overflowing fount of talent gave over each to destruction; by talent, was his hand and head cut off! Nor did the Rostra[602] ever reek with the blood of a contemptible pleader.