CHAP. 41. (40.)—SUPREME HAPPINESS.
Of all nations of the earth, the Romans have, without doubt, excelled every other in the display of valour.[1191] The human judgment cannot, however, possibly decide what man has enjoyed the highest degree of happiness, seeing that every one defines a state of prosperity in a way different from another, and entirely in conformity with his own notions. If we wish to form a true judgment and come to a decision, casting aside all the allurements and illusions of fortune, we are bound to say that no mortal is happy. Fortune has dealt well, and, indeed, indulgently, to him who feels that he has a right to say that he is not unhappy. For if there is nothing else, at all events, there is the fear lest fortune should fail at last; which fear itself, when it has once fastened upon us, our happiness is no longer unalloyed. And then, too, is it not the case that there is no mortal who is always wise? Would that there were many to be found, who could feel a conviction that this is false, and that it had not been enunciated by an oracle itself, as it were! Mortals, vain as they are, and ingenious in deceiving themselves, calculate in the same way as the Thracians, who, according to their experience of each day, deposit in an urn a black or a white pebble; at the close of their life, these pebbles are separated, and from the relative number of each kind, they form their conclusions.[1192] But really, may not that very day that has been complimented with a white pebble, have contained in itself the germ of some misfortune? How many a man has got into trouble by the very power which has been bestowed upon him? How many have been brought to ruin and plunged into the deepest misery by their own blessings? or rather, by what have been looked upon too fondly as blessings, for the hour during which they were in the full enjoyment of them. But most true it is, that it is the day after, that is the judge of the day before; and after all, it is only the last day that is to set its stamp on the whole; the consequence is, that we can put our trust in none of them. And then, too, is it not the fact that the blessings of life would not be equal to its evils, even though they were equal in number? For what pleasure is there that can compensate for the slightest grief? Alas! what a vain and unreasonable task we impose upon ourselves! We trouble ourselves with counting the number of days, when it is their weight[1193] that ought to be taken into consideration.
CHAP. 42. (41.)—RARE INSTANCES OF GOOD FORTUNE CONTINUING IN THE SAME FAMILY.
During the whole course of ages, we find only one woman, and that, Lampido, the Lacedæmonian, who was the daughter of a king, the wife of a king, and the mother of a king.[1194] Berenice was the only woman who was daughter, sister, and mother of conquerors in the Olympian games.[1195] The family of the Curios[1196] has been the only one to produce three orators in succession; that of the Fabii alone has given three chiefs of the senate in succession, Fabius Ambustus, his son Fabius Rullianus, and his grandson Quintus Fabius Gurges.[1197]
CHAP. 43. (42.)—REMARKABLE EXAMPLE OF VICISSITUDES.
As to examples of the vicissitudes of Fortune, they are innumerable. For what great pleasures has she ever given us, which have not taken their rise in misfortunes? And what extraordinary misfortunes have not taken their first rise in great pleasures? (43.) It was fortune that preserved the Senator, M. Fidustius,[1198] who had been proscribed by Sylla, for a period of thirty-six years. And yet he was proscribed a second time; for he survived Sylla, even to the days of Antony, and, as it appears, was proscribed by him, for no other reason but because he had been proscribed before.
CHAP. 44.—REMARKABLE EXAMPLES OF HONOURS.
Fortune has determined that P. Ventidius alone should enjoy the honour of a triumph over the Parthians, and yet the same individual, when he was a child, she led in the triumphal procession of Cneius Pompeius, the conqueror of Asculum.[1199] Indeed, Masurius says, that he had been twice led in triumph; and according to Cicero, he used to let out mules for the bakers of the camp.[1200] Most writers, indeed, admit that his younger days were passed in the greatest poverty, and that he wore the hob-nailed shoes[1201] of the common soldier. Balbus Cornelius, also, the elder, was elected to the consulate;[1202] but he had previously been accused, and the judges had been charged to discuss the point whether he could or not lawfully be scourged with rods; he being the first foreigner,[1203]—born even on the very shores of the ocean,—who obtained that honour, which our ancestors denied even to the people of Latium.[1204] Among other remarkable instances, also, we have that of L. Fulvius,[1205] the consul of the rebellious Tusculani, who, immediately upon his coming over to the Romans, obtained from them the same honour. He is the only individual who, in the same year in which he had been its enemy, enjoyed the honour of a triumph in Rome, and that too, over the people whose consul he had previously been.
Down to the present time, L. Sylla is the only man who has claimed to himself the surname of “Happy;”[1206] a name which he derived, forsooth, from the bloodshed of the citizens and the oppression of his country! But what claim had he on which to found his title to this happiness? Was it the power which he had of proscribing and massacreing so many thousands of his fellow-citizens? Oh interpretation most disgraceful, and which must stamp him as “Unhappy”[1207] to all future time! Were not the men who perished in those times, of the two, to be looked upon as the more fortunate—seeing that with them we sympathize, while there is no one who does not detest Sylla? And then, besides, was not the close of his life more horrible than the sufferings which had been experienced by any of those who had been proscribed by him? his very flesh eating into itself, and so engendering his own punishment.[1208] And this, although he may have thought proper to gloss it over by that last dream of his,[1209] in the very midst of which he may be said, in some measure, to have died; and in which, as he pretended, he was told that his glory alone had risen superior to all envy; though at the same time, he confessed that it was still wanting to his supreme happiness, that he had not dedicated the Capitol.[1210]