Book 2

When each of them had looked at me and signified that they were ready to listen, 'First of all,' said I, 'I beg you not to suppose that I shall expound to you some lecture, as a philosopher might — a thing which I never greatly approved even in the philosophers themselves. For when did Socrates, who may rightly be called the parent of philosophy, ever do anything of the sort? That was the practice of those who were then called sophists, of whose number Gorgias of Leontini first dared, in an assembly, to call for a question — that is, to bid someone state on what subject he wished to hear him speak. A bold undertaking, I should call it shameless, had not this practice afterward been transferred to our philosophers.

But both the man I have named, and the other sophists, we see, as may be understood from Plato, made sport of by Socrates. For by questioning and interrogating he used to draw out the opinions of those with whom he discoursed, so that he might say something, if it seemed good, in answer to what they had replied. Since this practice was not kept up by his successors, Arcesilas revived it, and established that those who wished to hear him should not ask questions of him, but should themselves say what they thought; and when they had said it, he argued against it. But his hearers defended their own opinion as far as they could. With the other philosophers, however, the man who has asked a question keeps silence; which indeed is now done even in the Academy. For when the man who wishes to hear has said, 'Pleasure seems to me to be the highest good,' the argument is conducted against it in a continuous discourse, so that it may easily be understood that those who say something seems true to them do not themselves hold that opinion, but wish to hear the contrary. We proceed more conveniently.

For not only did Torquatus say what he thought, but also why. Yet I judge — though I was much delighted by his continuous discourse — that it is more convenient, when you halt at single points and understand what each man grants and what he denies, to draw from the points conceded the conclusion you intend, and so come to the end. For when discourse rushes on like a torrent, however much of every kind it sweeps along, yet you hold nothing, you grasp nothing; nowhere can you check the rushing speech. Now every discourse which is conducted by some method and reasoning in inquiry ought first to lay down, as in certain legal formulas, the terms on which the matter shall be handled, so that those between whom the discussion is held may agree what the thing is about which the discussion turns.

This rule, laid down by Plato in the Phaedrus, Epicurus approved, and felt that it ought to be done in every discussion. But the next step he did not see. For he says it is not his pleasure that a thing be defined — without which it is sometimes impossible that those who dispute should agree what the thing is about which they are arguing, as in this very matter we are now discussing. For we are inquiring into the end of goods. Can we know here what it is, unless we have agreed among ourselves, when we have spoken of the end of goods, what 'end' is, and what the 'good' itself is?

And yet this laying open, as it were, of hidden things, when it is revealed what each thing is, is definition; which you yourself sometimes unwittingly employed. For you were defining this very thing — whether 'end' or 'uttermost' or 'last' — as that to which all things rightly done are referred, while it itself is referred to nothing. Excellently said. And the good itself, too — what it was — you would perhaps have defined, if there had been need: either as what is by nature to be sought, or as what is profitable, or what helps, or what merely pleases. Now then, since defining does not altogether displease you, and you do it when you will, I should like you, if it is not troublesome, to define what pleasure is, on which this whole inquiry turns. 'Who, pray,' said he, 'is there who does not know what pleasure is, or who, the better to understand it, would want any definition?'

'I should say it was myself,' said I, 'did I not seem to myself to have a good knowledge of pleasure, and to have conceived and grasped it firmly enough in my mind. But as it is, I say that Epicurus himself does not know, and wavers in this; and that he who often says that the force underlying words ought to be carefully expressed sometimes does not understand what this word "pleasure" sounds — that is, what thing is placed beneath this word.' Then he, laughing, said: 'This indeed is excellent! — that he who says pleasure is the end of things to be sought should not know what that last, that uttermost of goods, is, or of what kind!' 'And yet,' said I, 'either Epicurus does not know what pleasure is, or all mortals everywhere do not.' 'How so?' said he. 'Because all men feel that this is pleasure, which, received by the sense, sets it in motion and floods it with a certain delight.' 'What then?'

'Is Epicurus ignorant of that pleasure?' said he. 'Not always,' said I; 'for sometimes he knows it only too well, since he testifies that he cannot even understand where any good lies, or what it is, apart from that which is taken in food and drink, the delight of the ears, and obscene pleasure. Or are these things not said by him?' 'As though,' said he, 'I were ashamed of those things, or could not show in what sense they are said!' 'I do not doubt,' said I, 'that you can do it easily; nor is there cause for you to be ashamed to assent to a wise man — the one man who, so far as I know, has dared to profess himself wise. For Metrodorus, I think, did not himself make the profession, but, being so styled by Epicurus, was unwilling to reject so great a kindness; and those famous seven were named wise not by their own, but by the vote of all peoples.'

But in this passage I take it, by these words, that Epicurus at least knows the same force of pleasure as the rest. For all men call that pleasant motion by which the sense is gladdened — in Greek hedone, in Latin voluptas. 'What is it, then,' said he, 'that you would inquire after?' 'I will tell you,' said I, 'and that rather for the sake of learning than because I wish you or Epicurus to be censured.' 'I too,' said he, 'should more gladly learn, if you bring forward anything, than censure you.' 'Do you recall, then,' said I, 'what Hieronymus of Rhodes says is the highest good, to which he thinks all things ought to be referred?' 'I recall,' said he, 'that the end seems to him to be freedom from pain.' 'What, then,' said I, 'does this same man think about pleasure?'

'He denies,' said he, 'that it is to be sought for its own sake.' 'He thinks, then, that to rejoice is one thing, and not to be in pain another.' 'And indeed,' said he, 'he is greatly mistaken; for, as I showed a little before, the limit of increasing pleasure is the removal of all pain.' 'As for "not to be in pain,"' said I, 'what force that has I will see later; but that the force of pleasure is one thing, and that of freedom from pain another, you must needs grant, unless you are very obstinate.' 'And yet,' said he, 'you will find me obstinate on this point; for nothing can be said more truly.' 'Tell me, pray,' said I, 'is there pleasure for a thirsty man in drinking?' 'Who could deny it?' said he. 'Is it the same as when the thirst is quenched?' 'No, of another kind; for the quenched thirst has the steadiness of pleasure,' said he, 'but that other pleasure, of the quenching itself, is in motion.' 'Why, then,' said I, 'do you call things so unlike by the same name?' 'Do you not remember,' said he, 'what I said a little before — that when all pain is removed, pleasure is varied, not increased?'

'I remember indeed,' said I; 'but you said that in good Latin, yet not very clearly. For "variety" is a Latin word, and is properly used of differing colours, but is transferred to many differing things: a varied poem, a varied speech, varied manners, varied fortune; and pleasure too is often called varied, when it is perceived from many unlike things producing unlike pleasures. If you spoke of that variety, I should understand — as indeed I understand even when you do not say it. But what that variety of yours is I do not sufficiently perceive, when you say that, when we are free from pain, we are then in the highest pleasure, but when we feed on things that bring a sweet motion to the senses, then there is pleasure in motion, which makes a variety of pleasures — yet that this pleasure of not being in pain is not increased, which I know not why you call pleasure at all.' 'Can anything,' said he, 'be sweeter than to feel no pain?'

'Why, let nothing be better,' said I — 'for I do not yet inquire into that — but is pleasure on that account the same thing as, so to speak, painlessness?' 'Plainly the same,' said he, 'and indeed the greatest, than which none greater can be.' 'Why, then, do you hesitate,' said I, 'now that you have so set up the highest good that it lies wholly in not being in pain, to hold to this one thing, to guard it, to defend it?

For what need is there to bring pleasure into the council of the virtues, as one might bring a courtesan into a gathering of matrons? The name is hateful, infamous, suspect. And so it is frequently said by you that we do not understand what Epicurus means by pleasure. And whenever this is said to me — and it is said not seldom — although I am gentle enough in debate, yet I am sometimes wont to grow a little angry. Do I not understand what hedone is in Greek, voluptas in Latin? Which of the two languages, pray, do I not know? And further, how comes it that I do not know, while all those who have chosen to be Epicureans do? For your school indeed argues very well that there is no need for one who is to be a philosopher to know letters. And so, just as our ancestors brought Cincinnatus from the plough to be dictator, so you gather from all the villages those men — good, indeed, but assuredly not very learned.

Do they, then, understand what Epicurus says, and I do not? That you may know I understand, first I say that pleasure is the same as what he calls hedone. And indeed we often seek a Latin word equal to the Greek and of the same value; here there was nothing to seek. No word can be found which declares the same in Latin as voluptas declares in Greek. Beneath this word all men everywhere who know Latin place two things: gladness in the mind, and a sweet stirring of delight in the body. For both the man in Trabea calls excessive gladness of mind 'pleasure' — the same as that Caecilian character who tells that he is glad with all gladnesses. But there is this difference, that pleasure is spoken of also in the mind — a faulty thing, as the Stoics think, who define it thus: an unreasoning elation of the mind that fancies it is enjoying some great good — whereas gladness and joy are not spoken of in the body.

Now, in the usage of all who speak Latin, pleasure is placed in this: when that delight is perceived which moves some sense. This delight too, if you will, transfer to the mind; for 'to help' is said of both, and from this comes 'pleasant' — provided you understand that between the man who says, 'I am increased with such gladness that I cannot contain myself,' and the man who says, 'Now at last my heart is on fire,' of whom the one exults with gladness and the other is tortured with grief, there is a third, midway: 'Although this acquaintance between us is but lately formed' — one who neither rejoices nor is vexed; and likewise that between him who possesses the sought-for pleasures of the body and him who is tortured with the greatest pains, there is one who lacks both.

Do I seem, then, to grasp the force of words sufficiently, or am I still to be taught to speak either Greek or Latin? And yet take care lest, if I do not understand what Epicurus says — though I know Greek, as it seems, brilliantly — there be some fault in him who so speaks that he is not understood. This happens without blame in two ways: either if you do it on purpose, as Heraclitus, 'surnamed the Obscure, because he wrote of nature too darkly,' or when the obscurity of the matter, not of the words, makes the discourse not understood, as is the case in Plato's Timaeus. But Epicurus, as I think, neither is unwilling, if he can, to speak plainly and openly, nor speaks of an obscure matter, like the natural philosophers, or a technical one, like the mathematicians, but of a matter clear and easy and already spread abroad among the common people. And yet you do not deny that we understand what pleasure is, but only what he means by it. From which it follows, not that we do not understand the force of that word, but that he speaks in his own fashion and disregards ours.

For if he says the same as Hieronymus, who holds that the highest good is to live without any annoyance, why does he prefer to say 'pleasure' rather than 'freedom from pain,' as Hieronymus does, who understands what he says? But if he thinks that pleasure must be added — that which is in motion (for so he calls this sweet kind, 'in motion,' and the other, of one feeling no pain, 'in steadiness') — what is he aiming at? Since he cannot bring it about that to anyone who is known to himself — that is, who has perceived his own nature and feeling — freedom from pain and pleasure should seem the same thing. This is to do violence, Torquatus, to the senses, to wrench from our minds the meanings of words with which we have been imbued. For who is there who does not see that there are in the nature of things these three states? One, when we are in pleasure; another, when in pain; this third, in which now indeed I am, and you also, I believe — neither in pain nor in pleasure: so that the man who feasts is in pleasure, the man who is tortured in pain. But do you not see, between these, so great a multitude of men set in the middle, neither rejoicing nor grieving?

'Not at all,' said he; 'and I say that all who are without pain are in pleasure, and that the highest pleasure too.' 'Then you put in the same pleasure the man who, not being thirsty himself, mixes mead for another, and the man who, being thirsty, drinks it?' Then he said: 'An end of questioning, if you please — which indeed I said from the first I preferred, foreseeing this very thing, the captious snares of dialectic.' 'Do you, then,' said I, 'prefer that we argue rhetorically rather than dialectically?' 'As though,' said he, 'continuous discourse belonged to the rhetoricians only, and not also to the philosophers.' 'This is the Stoic Zeno's saying,' said I: 'that the whole faculty of speech (as Aristotle had said before) is divided into two parts, and that rhetoric is like the open palm, dialectic like the closed fist, because the rhetoricians speak more broadly, the dialecticians more compressed. I shall therefore yield to your wish, and speak, if I can, rhetorically — but with this rhetoric of the philosophers, not that forensic kind of ours, which, since it speaks to the people, must needs be at times a little blunter.

But while Epicurus despises dialectic, Torquatus — which alone contains both the whole knowledge of perceiving what is in each thing, and of judging of what kind each thing is, and of arguing by method and rule — he stumbles in speaking, as it seems to me at least, and distinguishes by no art the very things he wishes to teach, such as these very matters of which we were just now speaking. The highest good is by you called pleasure. We must, then, lay open what pleasure is; for otherwise what is sought cannot be explained. And had he laid it open, he would not be so at a loss. For he would either uphold that pleasure which Aristippus upholds — that is, by which the sense is sweetly and pleasantly moved, which even the beasts, if they could speak, would call pleasure — or, if he preferred to speak in his own fashion, rather than as 'all the Danai and the Mycenaeans, the youth of Attica,' and the rest of the Greeks who are summoned in this anapaest, he would call by the name of pleasure this not-being-in-pain alone, and despise that Aristippean kind; or, if he approved of both, as he does, he would join freedom from pain with pleasure, and use two ultimate goods.

For many and great philosophers have made these ultimate goods composite: as Aristotle joined the exercise of virtue with the prosperity of a complete life; Callipho added pleasure to the honourable; Diodorus added freedom from pain to that same honourable. Epicurus would have done the same, had he joined this opinion, which is now Hieronymus's, with the old opinion of Aristippus. For these two disagree with each other. Therefore they use single ends, and, though each speaks Greek admirably, neither does Aristippus, who calls pleasure the highest good, place freedom from pain in pleasure, nor does Hieronymus, who sets the highest good as freedom from pain, ever use the name of pleasure for that painlessness — since indeed he does not even count pleasure among things to be sought.

For there are two things here too, lest you think them mere words. The one is to be without pain, the other to be with pleasure. You try, out of these two things so unlike, to make not only one name — for that I should more easily endure — but even one thing out of two; which can in no way be done. This man, who approves of both, ought to have used both, as he does in fact, and yet does not divide them in words. For when he praises in very many passages that very pleasure which we all call by the same name, he dares to say that he cannot even suspect any good severed from that Aristippean kind of pleasure; and he says this where his whole discourse is on the highest good. But in another book, in which, with the gravest opinions briefly compressed, he is said to have published, as it were, the oracles of wisdom, he writes in these words — which are surely known to you, Torquatus, for who of you has not learned by heart the Kyriai Doxai of Epicurus, that is, his Authoritative Maxims, so called because they are the gravest opinions for living happily, briefly stated? Mark, then, whether I interpret this maxim rightly:

'If the things that produce the pleasures of the luxurious freed them from the fear of the gods, of death, and of pain, and taught them what the limits of their desires are, we should have nothing to blame, since they would be filled on every side with pleasures, and would have, on no side, anything either painful or distressing — which is the evil.' At this point Triarius could not contain himself. 'I beg you, Torquatus,' said he, 'does Epicurus say this?' — for he seemed to me, though he knew it, yet to wish to hear Torquatus confess it. But Torquatus was by no means alarmed, and answered confidently enough: 'In those very words,' said he; 'but you do not see what he means.' 'If he means one thing,' said I, 'and says another, I shall never understand what he means; but he says plainly what he understands. And if he says this — that the luxurious are not to be blamed, if they are wise — he speaks absurdly, just as if he should say that parricides are not to be blamed, if they are neither greedy, nor fear the gods, nor death, nor pain. And yet what is the point of granting any exemption to the luxurious, or of imagining some who, while living luxuriously, would not be blamed by the chief of philosophers on that score at least, provided they guarded against the rest?

But still, would you not blame the luxurious, Epicurus, for this very cause — that they so live as to pursue pleasures of every kind — especially since, as you say, the highest pleasure is to feel no pain? And yet we shall find profligates, first, so irreligious that they eat off the sacred dish; then so unafraid of death that they have on their lips that line from the Hymnis: "Six months of life are enough for me; the seventh I pledge to the grave." And now they will produce those Epicurean remedies for pain, as from a medicine-chest: "If severe, short; if long, slight." One thing I do not know — how a man can have his desires limited, if he is a profligate.

What, then, is the point of saying, 'I should have nothing to blame, if they had their desires limited'? This is to say: I should not blame profligates, if they were not profligates. In that manner one would not blame the wicked either, if they were good men. This severe man does not think luxury itself, in and of itself, blameworthy; and indeed, Torquatus, to speak the truth, if the highest good is pleasure, he very rightly does not think so. For do not imagine to me profligates, as you are wont, who vomit at the table, who are carried away from banquets and, still gorged, the next day cram themselves again; who, as they say, have never seen the sun set or rise; who, their patrimonies spent, are in want. No one of us thinks that profligates of that kind live pleasantly. But men neat and elegant, with the best cooks, bakers, fishing, fowling, hunting, all these things choice; avoiding indigestion; for whom the wine, drawn from a full jar, is 'golden,' as Lucilius says, 'whom neither the strainer nor the little bag has yet robbed of anything'; men who employ entertainments, and what follows, those things which, if taken away, Epicurus cries that he does not know what good is; let there be present too handsome boys to wait at table; let the dress, the silver, the Corinthian bronze, the very place, the building answer to all this — such profligates, then, I should never say live well, or happily.

From which it follows, not that pleasure is not pleasure, but that pleasure is not the highest good. Nor was that Laelius, who as a young man had heard the Stoic Diogenes and afterward Panaetius, called wise because he did not understand what was most delicious — for it does not follow that he whose heart is wise should not have a wise palate — but because he reckoned it of little worth. 'O sorrel,' as he says, 'how you boast, and are scarce well enough known for what you are!' In this knowing, that famous Laelius used to raise the cry, 'Wise!' — rebuking our gluttons one by one. Admirably said Laelius, and rightly 'wise'; and that too truly: 'O Publius, O whirlpool, Gallonius! you are a wretched man,' he says; 'never in your life have you dined well, who spend all that you have on that prawn and sturgeon with the great-sized fish.' This is said by a man who, placing nothing in pleasure, denies that the man dines well who places everything in pleasure; and yet he does not deny that Gallonius ever dined pleasantly — for that would be a lie — but that he dined well. So gravely and severely did he separate pleasure from the good. From which it follows that all who dine well dine pleasantly, but not that all who dine pleasantly dine well. Laelius always dined well.

What is 'well'? Lucilius will say: 'cooked and seasoned'; but give me the chief dish of the dinner: 'good conversation.' What follows from that? 'If you ask, pleasantly'; for he came to dinner to satisfy the demands of nature with a quiet mind. Rightly, then, does he deny that Gallonius ever dined well; rightly calls him wretched, especially since he spent all his zeal upon it — Gallonius, whom no one denies to have dined pleasantly. Why, then, not well? Because what is 'well' is rightly, frugally, honourably done; whereas he dined badly, crookedly, basely, shamefully — therefore not well. And Laelius did not prefer the sweetness of sorrel to Gallonius's sturgeon, but disregarded sweetness itself; which he would not have done, had he placed the highest good in pleasure.

Pleasure, therefore, must be set aside, not only that you may follow what is right, but also that it may become you to speak with frugality. Can we, then, call it the highest good in life, when we seem unable to call it so even at dinner? But how does the philosopher speak? 'Three kinds of desires: natural and necessary; natural and not necessary; neither natural nor necessary.' First, he divided inelegantly; for he made three kinds out of what were two. This is not to divide, but to shatter. Those who have learned the things which he despises are wont to proceed thus: 'Two kinds of desires, natural and empty; of the natural, two — necessary and not necessary.' The matter would have been finished. For it is faulty, in dividing, to count a part among the kinds.

But let us grant him this. For he despises elegance in argument; he speaks confusedly. We must humour him, provided he thinks rightly. And yet that very thing I do not greatly approve, and only tolerate — a philosopher speaking of limiting the desires. Can desire be limited? It must be removed and torn out by the roots. For who is there in whom there is desire, who cannot rightly be called covetous? He will be, then, avaricious — but within limits; and an adulterer — but he will keep measure; and luxurious in the same way. What sort of philosophy is this, which brings not the destruction of depravity, but is content with a moderate amount of vice? Although in this division I wholly approve of the matter itself, I miss the elegance. Let him call these things the needs of nature, and keep the name of 'desire' for elsewhere, so that, when he speaks of avarice, of intemperance, of the greatest vices, he may arraign it as on a capital charge.

But these things, indeed, are said by him rather freely, and rather often. Which for my part I do not blame; for it befits so great and so renowned a philosopher to defend his decrees boldly. But still, from the fact that he seems often to embrace too vehemently that pleasure which all nations call by this name, he is at times in great straits — so that, if the consciousness of men be removed, there is nothing so base that he would not seem ready to do it for the sake of pleasure. Then, when he has blushed — for the force of nature is very great — he takes refuge in saying that nothing can be added to the pleasure of one feeling no pain. But that state of not being in pain is not called pleasure. 'I do not trouble,' says he, 'about the name.' What of the fact that the thing is wholly different? 'I shall find many — or rather countless — men, not so inquisitive nor so troublesome as you are, whom I shall easily persuade of what I wish.' Why, then, do we doubt that, if to feel no pain is the highest pleasure, not to be in pleasure is the greatest pain? Why is this not so? Because not pleasure is contrary to pain, but the privation of pain.

But to fail to see this — that it is the strongest proof of that pleasure, on whose removal he denies he can understand at all what good is (and that pleasure he describes thus: such as is perceived by the palate, by the ears; the rest he adds, which, were you to name them, you must first beg pardon) — this, then, which alone the severe and grave philosopher knows as the good, he likewise fails to see is not even to be sought, since, on this same author's showing, we do not desire that pleasure when we are free from pain.

How contradictory these things are! Had he learned to define, to divide, had he grasped the force of language, in short the usage of words, he would never have fallen into such ruts. As it is, you see what he does. What no one ever called pleasure, he calls so; what are two things, he makes one. This pleasure in motion — for so he calls these sweet and, as it were, honeyed pleasures — he sometimes so belittles that you would think Manius Curius was speaking; sometimes so praises that he denies he can even suspect what good there is besides. Now this is talk to be put down not by some philosopher, but by a censor; for the fault is not in the speech only, but also in the morals. He does not blame luxury, provided it be free from boundless desire and fear. Here he seems to be seeking pupils, so that those who wish to be profligates may first become philosophers.

From the first origin of living creatures, as I think, the source of the highest good is sought. As soon as a creature is born, it rejoices in pleasure and seeks it as a good, and spurns pain as an evil. And of evils and goods, he says, the best judges are those creatures which are not yet corrupted. So you too laid it down, and these are your words. How many faults are there here! For by which pleasure — the steady or the moving — will the wailing infant judge the highest good and evil? Since, if it please the gods, we learn to speak from Epicurus. If by the steady, then this clearly is what nature wishes — that the creature be safe; which we grant. If by the moving, which yet is what you say, then no base pleasure will exist that should be foregone; and at the same time that newly born creature does not set out from the highest pleasure, which is placed by you in not being in pain.

And yet Epicurus did not derive this argument from infants, or even from the beasts, which he thinks the mirrors of nature, so as to say that by them, with nature for guide, this pleasure of feeling no pain is sought. For this state of not being in pain cannot stir the appetite of the mind, nor has it any stroke by which it may impel the mind; and so in this same point Hieronymus errs. But that which soothes the sense with pleasure does impel it. And so Epicurus always uses this, to prove that pleasure is sought by nature: that this pleasure which is in motion allures both infants and beasts to itself, not that steady pleasure, in which there is only the absence of pain. How, then, does it agree to say that nature sets out from one pleasure, but to place the highest good in another?

Of the beasts, indeed, I think there is no judgment. For although they are not corrupted, yet they can be crooked. As one little staff is bent and curved on purpose, another is so by birth, so the nature of wild beasts is not indeed corrupted by bad training, but is by its own nature. Nor does nature move the infant to seek pleasure, but only to love itself, to wish itself whole and safe. For every living creature, as soon as it is born, loves itself and all its parts, and embraces above all the two greatest — mind and body — and then the parts of each. For there are certain chief things both in the mind and in the body, which, when it has slightly recognized them, it then begins to distinguish, so as to seek the things first given by nature, and to spurn their contraries.

Whether pleasure is, or is not, in these first natural things, is a great question. But to think there is nothing besides pleasure — neither limbs, nor senses, nor the motion of the mind, nor the integrity of the body, nor the health of the body — seems to me the height of stupidity. And from this source must all reasoning about goods and evils flow. To Polemo, and to Aristotle before him, those things seemed the first which I named a little before. Thence arose the opinion of the old Academics and the Peripatetics, that they should call the end of goods 'to live according to nature' — that is, with virtue applied, to enjoy the things first given by nature. Callipho added nothing to virtue but pleasure; Diodorus, freedom from pain. To all these, whom I have named, there are ends of goods consequent upon their first principles: to Aristippus, simple pleasure; to the Stoics, agreement with nature, which they would have to be living from virtue — that is, honourably — which they interpret thus: to live with an understanding of those things which come to pass by nature, choosing the things that are according to nature, and rejecting their contraries.

So there are three ends devoid of the honourable: one of Aristippus or Epicurus; a second of Hieronymus; a third of Carneades; and three in which the honourable comes with some addition — those of Polemo, of Callipho, of Diodorus; and one simple end, of which Zeno is the author, placed wholly in seemliness — that is, in the honourable. For Pyrrho, Aristo, and Erillus have long since been cast aside. The rest were consistent with themselves, so that the ends agreed with the beginnings: for Aristippus, pleasure; for Hieronymus, freedom from pain; for Carneades, the enjoyment of the first natural things, was the uttermost. But Epicurus, since in his first recommendation he had named pleasure, ought, if it were the pleasure of Aristippus, to hold the same as the uttermost of goods which Aristippus held; or, if it were that of Hieronymus, ought not to have done the same — that is, to put that Aristippean pleasure in his first recommendation.

For as to his saying that it is judged by the senses themselves that pleasure is a good and pain an evil, he grants more to the senses than our laws allow us when we are judges of private suits. For we can judge nothing except what falls within our jurisdiction — wherein judges vainly add, when they pronounce sentence, 'if it is within my jurisdiction'; for if it was not within their jurisdiction, the thing is no more judged for that addition being left out. What do the senses judge? Sweet, bitter; smooth, rough; near, far; standing, moving; square, round.

A fair sentence, therefore, will be pronounced by reason — when there has been applied to it, first, the knowledge of things divine and human, which may rightly be called wisdom; and then the virtues joined to it, which reason would have to be mistresses of all things, but you the attendants and ministers of the pleasures. The verdict of all of these, then, will first pronounce of pleasure that there is no place for it — not only that it should be set alone in the seat of the highest good, which we seek, but not even in that fashion, that it be attached to the honourable.

Of freedom from pain there will be the same verdict. Carneades too will be rejected, and no theory of the highest good will be approved which either shares in pleasure or in freedom from pain, or is devoid of the honourable. So reason will leave two, which it considers again and again. For either it will determine that nothing is good but the honourable, nothing evil but the base, and that the rest either have no weight at all, or so much only that they are neither to be sought nor shunned, but only to be chosen or rejected; or it will prefer that theory which it sees to be at once most richly adorned with the honourable, and also enriched with the very first principles of nature and the perfection of the whole life. And this it will do the more clearly if it perceives whether the controversy between these two is one of fact or of words.

Following now the authority of this reason, I shall do the same. For, so far as I can, I shall lessen the contentions, and shall think that all those simple theories of the ends, in which there is no addition of virtue, must be wholly removed from philosophy — first that of Aristippus and of all the Cyrenaics, who were not afraid to place the highest good in that pleasure which moves the sense with the greatest sweetness, scorning that freedom from pain.

These men did not see that, as the horse is born for running, the ox for ploughing, the dog for tracking, so man is born for two things, as Aristotle says — for understanding and for action — like a mortal god; whereas they would have it that this divine creature was brought into being like some slow and sluggish beast, for feeding and for the pleasure of procreation: than which nothing seems to me more absurd.

And this against Aristippus, who holds that pleasure which we all call by the one name 'pleasure' to be not only the highest but the only good. But you hold otherwise. He, however, as I said, is in fault. For neither the shape of the body nor the excelling reason of the human mind signifies that man was born for this one thing — to enjoy pleasures. Nor indeed should Hieronymus be heeded, whose highest good is the same that you sometimes, or rather too often, name — to feel no pain. For if pain is an evil, it is not enough, in order to live well, to be free from that evil. Ennius rather might say this: 'Too much of good has he, to whom there is no evil.' But let us judge the happy life not by the repelling of evil, but by the attainment of good; and let us seek it not by idling — whether in rejoicing, like Aristippus, or in not being in pain, like this man — but by doing or contemplating something.

The same things may be said against that Carneadean highest good, which he brought forward not so much to prove it as to set it against the Stoics, with whom he waged war. It is of such a kind that, added to virtue, it seems likely to have weight and to fill up completely the happy life, on which this whole inquiry turns. For those who add to virtue either pleasure — which virtue values least — or freedom from pain — which, even though it lacks evil, is yet not the highest good — make use of an addition not very probable; and yet why they do it so sparingly and so narrowly I do not understand. For as though they had to buy what they add to virtue, first they add the cheapest things; then they add single things, rather than joining to the honourable all the things which the first nature had approved.

Because these things seemed to Aristo and Pyrrho altogether worth nothing — so that they said there was no difference at all between being in the best health and being most grievously sick — men long ago rightly ceased to argue against them. For while they wished all things to be so in virtue alone that they stripped it of the selection of things, and gave it nothing either from which it might arise or on which it might rest, they did away with virtue itself, which they embraced. Erillus, again, referring all things to knowledge, saw one good of a sort, but neither the best nor that by which life could be steered. And so this very man too has long since been rejected; for after Chrysippus there was no real arguing against him. You, then, remain; for with the Academics the struggle is uncertain, who affirm nothing, and, as though knowledge were despaired of, wish to follow whatever seems like the truth.

But with Epicurus there is more business, because he is compounded of a double kind of pleasure, and because both he himself, and his friends, and many afterward, were defenders of his opinion; and somehow that party which has the least authority — the people — sides with them with the greatest force. Unless we refute these, all virtue, all honour, all true praise must be abandoned. So, the opinions of the rest set aside, there is left a contest, not between me and Torquatus, but between virtue and pleasure. And this contest a man both acute and careful, Chrysippus, does not despise, but thinks the whole question of the highest good lies in the comparison of these two. But I judge that, if I shall have shown something to be honourable which is in itself, by its own force and for its own sake, to be sought, all your doctrines lie prostrate. And so, having briefly determined, as the time demands, what its nature is, I shall come to all your points, Torquatus, unless my memory chance to fail.

By 'the honourable,' then, we understand that which is of such a kind that, all usefulness removed, with no rewards or profits, it can rightly be praised for its own sake. What this is can be understood not so much by the definition I have used — though somewhat by it — as by the common judgment of all men, and by the pursuits and deeds of all the best men, who do very many things for this one cause: because it is becoming, because it is right, because it is honourable, even though they see that no profit will follow. For men, though they differ from the beasts in many other things, yet differ most in this one: that they have reason given by nature, and a mind keen and vigorous, swiftly turning many things at once, and, so to speak, sagacious — which sees both the causes of things and their consequences, transfers likenesses, joins things separate, links the future with the present, and embraces the whole state of the life that is to follow. And this same reason made man eager for the company of men, and in agreement with them by nature, by speech, and by intercourse, so that, setting out from love of his household and his own, he extends himself further, and binds himself first in the fellowship of his fellow citizens, then of all mortals; and, as Plato wrote to Archytas, remembers that he was born not for himself alone, but for his country and for his own, so that a very small part is left for himself.

And since the same nature has implanted in man a longing to see the truth — which appears most plainly when, free from cares, we yearn to know even what goes on in the heavens — led on by these beginnings, we love all that is true, that is, faithful, simple, constant; and we hate things vain, false, deceiving, such as fraud, perjury, malice, injustice. And this same reason has in it something ample and magnificent, fitted rather for commanding than for obeying, accounting all human things not merely bearable but even slight — something lofty and exalted, fearing nothing, yielding to no one, ever unconquered.

And when these three kinds of the honourable have been marked, a fourth follows, of the same beauty and fitted to those three, in which there is order and moderation. The likeness of this, perceived in the comeliness and dignity of forms, made the passage to the honourableness of words and deeds. For from those three praises which I named before, it shrinks from rashness, and dares not harm anyone by an insolent word or deed, and fears either to do or to utter anything that may seem too little manly.

You have, Torquatus, the form of honourableness filled out and completed on every side, which is contained wholly in these four virtues, which were named by you also. This your Epicurus says he is altogether ignorant of — what, or of what kind, those wish it to be who measure the highest good by honourableness. For if they refer all things to honourableness, and do not say that pleasure is in it, he says they sound with an empty voice — for he uses these very words — and neither understand nor see what meaning is to be placed beneath this word 'honourable.' For, as usage speaks, that alone is called honourable which is glorious by popular report. 'And this,' he says, 'though it is often more pleasant than certain pleasures, yet is sought for the sake of pleasure.' Do you see how great a disagreement there is?

A renowned philosopher, by whom not only Greece and Italy but even all the barbarian world was stirred, says he does not understand what the honourable is, if it be not in pleasure — unless perhaps it be that which is praised by the rumour of the multitude. But I, for my part, judge this often to be base too; and, if ever it be not base, then it is not base when that is praised by the multitude which is in itself, of its own nature, right and praiseworthy — yet not for that reason is it said to be honourable because it is praised by many, but because it is of such a kind that, even if men were ignorant of it, or had fallen silent, it would yet, by its own beauty and aspect, be praiseworthy. And so this same man, overcome by nature, which cannot be withstood, says in another place that very thing which was said by you too a little before — that one cannot live pleasantly unless one also lives honourably.

What does he now mean by 'honourably'? The same as 'pleasantly'? So, then: that one cannot live honourably unless one lives honourably? Or unless by popular report? Without that, then, he denies he can live pleasantly. What is more shameful than that the wise man's life should hang on the talk of the foolish? What, then, does he here understand by the honourable? Surely nothing but what can be rightly praised for its own sake. For if for the sake of pleasure — what is that praise, which might be sought from the meat-market? He is not such a man that, holding honourableness in such esteem that without it he denies one can live pleasantly, he should mean by 'honourable' that which is popular, and deny that one can live pleasantly without it, or understand by 'honourable' anything other than what is right and in itself, by its own force, its own nature, of its own accord, praiseworthy.

And so, Torquatus, when you said that Epicurus cries that one cannot live pleasantly unless one lives honourably, wisely, and justly, you yourself seemed to me to glory in it. So great was the force in the words, on account of the dignity of the things signified by them, that you rose higher, that at times you paused, that, looking at us, you bore witness, as it were, that honourableness and justice are sometimes praised by Epicurus. How well it became you to use those words, which, if philosophers did not use, we should have no need of philosophy at all! For it is from love of these words — which are very rarely uttered by Epicurus, the words 'wisdom,' 'fortitude,' 'justice,' 'temperance' — that men of the most surpassing genius have betaken themselves to the study of philosophy.

'The sense of the eyes,' says Plato, 'is the keenest in us'; yet with these we do not behold wisdom. What burning loves of itself would she kindle! Why, pray? Is it because she is so cunning that she can best contrive pleasures? Why is justice praised? Or whence comes this proverb, worn smooth with age: 'one with whom you would play in the dark'? This saying, in this one matter, has the widest application: that in all our deeds we should be moved by the thing itself, not by a witness.

For the things you were saying are slight and very weak — that the wicked are tortured by the consciousness of their minds, and then too by the fear of punishment, by which they are either afflicted, or are always in dread lest they be afflicted at some time. One must not imagine the bad man timid, or of feeble mind, who tortures himself for whatever he has done and dreads everything; but rather one who refers all things cunningly to his own advantage — keen, crafty, an old hand — so that he may easily devise how to deceive secretly, without a witness, without anyone privy to it.

Or do you think I speak of Lucius Tubulus? — who, when as praetor he had held the court for assassins, took bribes for his verdict so openly that in the next year Publius Scaevola, tribune of the plebs, proposed to the people whether they wished an inquiry into the matter. By that plebiscite an inquiry was decreed by the senate to the consul Gnaeus Caepio. Tubulus went straight into exile, not daring to answer; for the matter was open. We are inquiring, then, not about the wicked man, but about the cunning wicked man, such as Quintus Pompeius was in denying the treaty of Numantia; and not about one who fears everything, but first about one who does not care for the consciousness of his mind — which, indeed, it is no trouble to suppress. For the man who is called secret and covered, so far is he from informing against himself, that he will even bring it about that he seems to grieve at another's wicked deed. For what else is it to be crafty?

I remember being present with Publius Sextilius Rufus, when he laid the matter before his friends thus: that he was the heir of Quintus Fadius Gallus, in whose will it was written that he had been asked by him that the whole inheritance should come to his daughter. Sextilius denied that this had been done. He could deny it with impunity; for who would refute him? None of us believed him, and it was more likely that he was lying, whose interest it was, than the dead man, who had written that he had asked what he ought to have asked. He added, too, that, having sworn to uphold the Voconian law, he did not dare to act against it, unless his friends thought otherwise. We were present as young men, but there were many of the most eminent men, of whom none thought that more should be given to Fadia than could come to her by the Voconian law. Sextilius kept the very large inheritance, from which, had he followed the opinion of those who set honourable and right things before all profits and advantages, he would not have touched a single coin. Do you think, then, that he was afterward anxious or troubled in mind? Nothing less; on the contrary, by that inheritance he was rich, and on that account glad. For he valued highly money gained not only not against the laws, but even by the laws. Such money is to be sought by you even with danger; for it is the producer of many and great pleasures.

As, then, by those who hold that what is right and honourable is to be sought for its own sake, dangers must often be undergone for the sake of seemliness and honour, so by your school, who measure everything by pleasure, dangers must be undergone in order to attain great pleasures. If a great matter, a great inheritance is at stake, since by money very many pleasures are produced, your Epicurus, if he wishes to follow his own end of goods, will have to do the same as Scipio, when great glory was set before him if he should draw Hannibal back into Africa. And so how great a danger did he undergo! For he referred all that effort of his to honour, not to pleasure. Thus your wise man, moved by some great profit, will fight, if there be need, even with hemlock.

If the crime can be secret, he will rejoice; if caught, he will despise every punishment. For he will be equipped to despise death, exile, even pain itself. This pain, indeed, you make unendurable when you propose it as punishment to the wicked, but endurable when you would have the wise man always have more of good. But imagine a man not only cunning in doing some wicked thing, but also very powerful, as Marcus Crassus was — who yet was wont to use his advantage well, as our Pompeius does today, to whom thanks are owed for acting rightly; for he could be as unjust as he pleased, justly, with impunity. But how many unjust things can be done which no one could blame! If your friend, dying, should ask you to restore the inheritance to his daughter, and should nowhere write it, as Fadius wrote, nor tell it to anyone — what will you do?

You, indeed, will restore it; Epicurus himself perhaps would restore it, as Sextus Peducaeus, son of Sextus — he who left us this son of his, the image of his own humanity and uprightness, learned, and the best and most just of all men — when he knew that no one was aware that he had been asked by Gaius Plotius, a distinguished Roman knight of Nursia, of his own accord went to the woman, and, when she suspected nothing, set forth her husband's charge, and restored the inheritance. But I ask of you — since you too would surely have done the same — do you not understand that the force of nature is the greater for this, that you yourselves, who refer all things to your own advantage and, as you yourselves say, to pleasure, yet do things from which it appears that you follow not pleasure but duty, and that upright nature prevails more than crooked reasoning?

'If you should know,' says Carneades, 'that an asp lies hidden somewhere, and that someone is about to sit down upon it unawares, whose death would be a profit to you, you would act wickedly if you did not warn him not to sit down — yet with impunity; for who could prove that you knew?' But this is too much. For it is plain that, unless fairness, good faith, and justice proceed from nature, and if all these things are referred to usefulness, no good man can be found; and on these matters enough has been said by Laelius in our books On the Commonwealth.

Transfer the same to modesty, or temperance, which is the moderation of the desires in obedience to reason. Does a man, then, consult modesty enough, if he obeys his lust without a witness? Or is there anything shameful in and of itself, even if no infamy attend it? What? Do brave men, having cast up the reckonings of their pleasures, enter battle, pour out their blood for their country — or are they driven by a certain ardour and impulse of the mind? Which, pray, do you think, Torquatus, that famous Imperiosus, if he could hear our words, would more gladly hear — your speech about him, or mine: when I said that he did nothing for his own sake and all for the commonwealth, you, on the contrary, that he did nothing but for his own? But if you should wish to explain it more openly, and say that he did nothing except for the sake of pleasure, how, pray, do you think he would have borne it?

Be it so; let Torquatus have done it, if you will, for the sake of his own advantages — for I prefer to say that, rather than 'pleasures,' especially in so great a man. But did his colleague, Publius Decius, the first in that family to hold the consulship, when he had devoted himself and, giving his horse the rein, rushed into the midst of the Latin line, think anything of his own pleasures? Where, that he might take it, or when? — when he knew that he must die at once, and sought that death with a more burning zeal than Epicurus thinks pleasure should be sought. And had this deed of his not been rightly praised, his son would not have imitated it in his own fourth consulship; nor again would his son, born of him, warring with Pyrrhus, have fallen in battle as consul, and offered himself, the third victim of his line in unbroken succession, for the commonwealth.

I refrain from examples. Among the Greeks this is a modest matter: Leonidas, Epaminondas, some three or four. But if I should begin to gather ours, I shall indeed accomplish that — to make pleasure surrender herself to be bound by virtue — but the day will fail me; and, as Aulus Varius, who was held a rather harsh judge, used to say to his fellow on the bench, when, witnesses having been given, others still were called: 'Either this is enough of witnesses, or I know not what is enough' — so by me enough witnesses have been given. For what? Did pleasure lead you yourself — most worthy of your ancestors — as a young man to snatch the consulship from Publius Sulla? And when you had reported it to your father, that bravest of men — what a man he was, both as consul and as citizen, always, and especially after his consulship! On whose advice we ourselves did such things that we took thought for all rather than for our very selves.

But how finely you seemed to speak, when on the one side you set a man heaped with the most and greatest pleasures, with no pain present or to come, and on the other one in the greatest torments throughout his whole body, with no pleasure joined or hoped for; and you asked who was either more wretched than this, or more blessed than that first; and then concluded that pain is the highest evil, pleasure the highest good! There was a certain Lucius Thorius Balbus, of Lanuvium, whom you cannot remember. He lived in such a way that no pleasure so choice could be found that he did not have it in abundance. He was both eager for pleasures, and a connoisseur of that kind, and well supplied; so little superstitious that he despised the many sacrifices and shrines of his own native town; so little afraid of death that he was slain in battle for the commonwealth.

He limited his desires not by Epicurus's division, but by his own satiety. Yet he had regard for his health: he used such exercises that he came to dinner both thirsty and hungry; he took such food as was both most delicious and likewise easiest to digest; he used wine both for pleasure and so that it should not harm him. He employed all those other things, without which Epicurus says he cannot understand what good is. All pain was absent — which, had it been present, he would not have borne softly, and yet he would have used physicians rather than philosophers. His complexion was excellent, his health sound, his favour with men the greatest; his life, in short, was crammed with every variety of pleasures.

This man you call happy; your theory, at least, so compels you. But the man whom I should set above him I do not dare to name; virtue herself shall speak for me, and will not hesitate to set Marcus Regulus above this happy man of yours. Regulus, when of his own free will, compelled by no force except the good faith which he had given to the enemy, he had returned from his country to Carthage — at that very moment, when he was tortured with wakefulness and hunger, virtue cries that he was more blessed than Thorius drinking among the roses. He had waged great wars, had been twice consul, had triumphed; and yet he reckoned those earlier deeds of his not so great nor so glorious as that last calamity, which he had taken on himself for the sake of good faith and steadfastness — which to us, hearing of it, seems pitiable, but to him, enduring it, was full of pleasure. For it is not by mirth, nor wantonness, nor laughter, nor jesting, the companion of levity, but often men sad with firmness and steadfastness who are happy.

Lucretia, ravished by force by the king's son, having called the citizens to witness, slew herself. This grief of the Roman people, with Brutus as their leader and author, was the cause of liberty to the state; and for the memory of that woman both her husband and her father were made consul in the first year. The humble Lucius Verginius, but one of the many, in the sixtieth year after liberty was regained, slew his maiden daughter with his own hand, rather than that she should be given over to the lust of Appius Claudius, who was then in supreme command.

Either these things, Torquatus, are to be blamed by you, or the advocacy of pleasure must be renounced. But what advocacy, what case is that of pleasure, which can call no witnesses, no panegyrists, from among famous men? For just as we summon from the records of the annals, as witnesses, those whose whole life was spent in glorious toils, who could not bear to hear the name of pleasure, so in your discussions history is dumb. I never heard, in the school of Epicurus, Lycurgus, Solon, Miltiades, Themistocles, Epaminondas named — who are on the lips of all the other philosophers. But now, since we too have begun to treat of these matters, our friend Atticus will supply us from his stores — what great men, and how many! Is it not better to say something of these, than to talk, in so many volumes, of Themista?

Let those things be the Greeks'; though from them we have philosophy and all the liberal disciplines. But still there is something which is not lawful for us, though it be lawful for them. The Stoics contend with the Peripatetics. The one deny that anything is good but what is honourable; the others say that they grant the most, and by far the most, to honourableness, but that there are yet certain goods both in the body and outside it. And an honourable contest it is, and a splendid discussion! For the whole contention is about the worth of virtue. But when you discuss with your school, you must hear much even about obscene pleasures, of which Epicurus speaks very often.

You cannot, then, uphold those doctrines, Torquatus — believe me — if you have looked closely at yourself and your thoughts and pursuits; you will be ashamed, I say, of that picture which Cleanthes used to paint quite aptly in words. He bade his hearers picture to themselves Pleasure painted on a tablet, in the loveliest raiment and with royal adornment, seated on a throne; and the Virtues present as her little handmaids, who did nothing else, accounted no duty their own, except to wait upon Pleasure, and only whispered in her ear — if only that could be shown in a picture — to take care that she did nothing unwary that might offend the minds of men, or anything from which some pain might arise. 'We Virtues were born to serve you; we have no other business at all.'

But Epicurus denies — for this is your guiding light — that anyone who does not live honourably can live pleasantly. As though I cared what he affirms or denies. This is what I ask: what it is consistent for him, who places the highest good in pleasure, to say. What do you bring forward to show why Thorius, why Gaius Postumius, why the master of all these, Orata, did not live most pleasantly? He himself denies, as I said before, that the life of the luxurious is to be blamed, unless they are plainly fools — that is, unless they either desire or fear. And since he promises a medicine for both these things, he promises licence for luxury. For with these things removed, he denies that he can find anything to blame in the life of the profligate.

You cannot, then, directing all things by pleasure, either uphold or retain virtue. For neither ought a man to be held good and just who abstains from injustice for fear of getting harm. You know, I suppose, that line: 'No man is pious who—'; beware of thinking anything more true. For so long as he fears, he is not just; and surely, if he should cease to fear, he will not be. But he will not fear, if he can either conceal it, or by great power maintain whatever he has done; and assuredly he will prefer to be thought a good man, though he is not, than to be one, though he be not thought so. Thus, what is most certain, instead of true and sure justice you hand down to us a counterfeit of justice, and teach us, in a manner, to despise our own steadfast conscience and to hunt after the wandering opinion of others.

The same things may be said of the other virtues, the foundations of all of which you place in pleasure as on water. For what? Can we call that same Torquatus brave? — for I am delighted, though I cannot, as you say, corrupt me, I am delighted, I say, both by your family and your name; and indeed there rises before my eyes that best of men and most loving of us, Aulus Torquatus, of whose zeal toward me — and how marked it was — in those times which are known to all, each of you must needs be aware. Which kindnesses would not be pleasing to me — who wish both to be and to be held grateful — unless I perceived that he was my friend for my sake, not his own; unless you call this 'his own,' that it is the interest of all to act rightly. If you say that, we have won. For this is what we wish, this is what we contend for: that the fruit of duty be duty itself.

This that wise man of yours does not wish, but exacts pleasure, as it were a wage, from all things. But I return to him. If for the sake of pleasure he fought it out with the Gaul at the Anio, having been challenged, and from his spoils put on himself both the torque and the surname for any other cause than that such deeds seemed to him worthy of a man — then I do not think him brave. Now if modesty, if restraint, if chastity, if, in a word, temperance shall be kept in check by the fear of punishment or infamy, and shall not guard themselves by their own holiness — what adultery, what defilement, what lust will not break loose and fling itself forth, when concealment is offered, or impunity, or licence?

What of this, Torquatus — how, pray, does it seem? — that you, with that name, that genius, that glory, do not dare to say in an assembly to what you refer what you do, what you think, what you strive for; for what end you wish to accomplish what you attempt; in short, what you judge best in life? For what would you wish to deserve, now when you have entered upon a magistracy and gone up to address the assembly — for you must declare what you will observe in administering justice, and perhaps too, if it seem good to you, you will say something of your ancestors and of yourself, in the manner of our forefathers — what, then, would you wish to deserve, that you should say you will do everything in that magistracy for the sake of pleasure, and that you have done nothing in your life except for the sake of pleasure? 'Do you think me,' you say, 'so mad as to speak in that fashion before the ignorant?' But say those same things in a court of law; or, if you fear the bystanders, say them in the senate. You will never do it. Why, unless because the speech is base? Do you think, then, me and Triarius men before whom you may speak basely?

But be it so: the word 'pleasure' itself has no dignity, and perhaps we do not understand it. For this you say again and again, that we do not understand what you mean by pleasure. A difficult and obscure matter, no doubt! When you say 'indivisible atoms' and 'intermundane spaces,' which neither are nor can be, we understand; and pleasure, which is known to all the sparrows, cannot be understood by us? What if I bring it about that you confess that I know not only what pleasure is — for it is a pleasant motion in the sense — but also what you mean it to be? For at one time you mean that very thing which I just now described, and put a name upon it — that it be in motion and make some variety; at another, a certain other highest pleasure, to which nothing can be added, which is present, you say, when all pain is absent: this you call 'steady.'

Let that, then, be pleasure. Say, in any assembly, that you do everything in order not to be in pain. If you think not even this is said amply enough, honourably enough, say that you will do everything, both in that magistracy and in all your life, for the sake of your own advantage; nothing but what is expedient; in short, nothing except for your own sake. What shout of the assembly, or what hope of the consulship — which is most ready for you — do you think there would be? Will you, then, follow that principle which you use with yourself and with your own, but dare not profess and bring forth into the open? But indeed those things which the Peripatetics, which the Stoics say are always on your lips, in the courts, in the senate — duty, fairness, dignity, good faith, the right, the honourable, things worthy of empire, worthy of the Roman people, all dangers for the commonwealth, to die for one's country: when you speak these things, we dolts stand agape, while you, of course, laugh within yourself.

For among those words so magnificent and so splendid pleasure has no place — not that pleasure which you say is in motion, which all townsmen and countrymen, all, I say, who speak Latin, call pleasure; nor even this steady kind, which no one but you calls pleasure. See, then, whether you ought not to use our words and your own meanings. But if you were to feign your face, your gait, that you might seem graver, you would not be like yourself; and will you feign your words, and say what you do not mean? Or even, as with your dress, will you have one opinion for home and another for the forum, so that there is display on the surface, but the truth hidden within? Consider, I pray you, whether this be right. To me, at least, those opinions seem true which are honourable, which are praiseworthy, which are glorious, which can be professed in the senate, before the people, in every gathering and assembly — that one may not be ashamed to think what one would be ashamed to say. But where can there be a place for friendship, or who can be a friend to any man whom he does not love for his own sake?

And what is it to love — from which the name of friendship is derived — but to wish that someone be endowed with the greatest goods, even though nothing flow back from them to oneself? 'It profits me,' he says, 'to be of this mind.' Nay, perhaps to seem so. For you cannot be so, unless you are; and how can you be so, unless love itself has seized you? — which is wont to be produced not by a reckoning-up of usefulness, but arises of itself and is born of its own accord. 'But I follow usefulness.' Then friendship will last just so long as usefulness follows; and, if usefulness establishes friendship, the same will destroy it.

But what, pray, will you do, if usefulness shall have failed friendship, as often happens? Will you forsake it? What sort of friendship is that? Will you keep it? How does that agree? — for you see what you have determined about friendship, that it is to be sought for the sake of usefulness. 'I should incur hatred, if I ceased to maintain a friend.' First, why is that thing worthy of hatred, unless because it is base? But if, lest you incur some inconvenience, you will not forsake your friend, yet, that you may not be bound to no profit, you will wish that he die. What if he will not only bring you no usefulness, but losses of your estate must be incurred, toils undertaken, danger of life undergone? Even then will you not look to yourself, and consider that each man is born for himself and for his own pleasures? Will you give yourself as a hostage unto death to a tyrant for a friend, as that Pythagorean did to the Sicilian tyrant? Or, being Pylades, will you say that you are Orestes, that you may die for a friend? Or, if you were Orestes, would you refute Pylades, declare yourself, and, if you could not prove it, would you not entreat that you both be slain together?

You, indeed, Torquatus, would do all these things; for I think there is nothing worthy of great praise which I could believe you would forgo through fear of death or pain. But the question is not what is consistent with your nature, but what is consistent with your doctrine. That theory which you defend, those precepts which you have learned and approve, utterly overthrow friendship, however much Epicurus, as he does, exalt it to heaven with praises. 'But he himself cultivated friendships.' Who, pray, denies that he was a good man, and courteous, and humane? It is of his genius, in these discussions, not of his morals, that we inquire. Let that perversity belong to the levity of the Greeks, who pursue with abuse those from whom they dissent about the truth. But however courteous he was in maintaining his friends, yet, if these things are true — for I affirm nothing — he was not acute enough. 'But he approved himself to many.'

And rightly, perhaps; but still the testimony of the multitude is not the weightiest. For in every art, or study, or any kind of knowledge, or in virtue itself, the best of each is the rarest. And to me, indeed, the fact that he himself was a good man, and that many Epicureans both have been and today are faithful in friendships, and in their whole life constant and grave, governing their counsels not by pleasure but by duty — this seems to me a greater force of honourableness and a less of pleasure. For some men so live that their life refutes their doctrine. And as the rest are thought to speak better than they act, so these seem to me to act better than they speak.

But these things have nothing at all to do with the matter; let us look at the things you said about friendship. Among them I seemed to recognize one as said by Epicurus himself: that friendship cannot be torn from pleasure, and is therefore to be cultivated, because, since without it one cannot live safely and without fear, one cannot even live pleasantly. Enough has been answered to this. You brought forward another, more humane, of these more recent men, never said by Epicurus himself, so far as I know: that at first a friend is sought for the sake of usefulness, but, when intimacy has grown, then he is loved for his own sake, even though the hope of pleasure be set aside. Although this can be censured in many ways, yet I accept what they give. For it is enough for me, though not enough for them. For they say that something can sometimes be rightly done with no pleasure expected or sought.

You also set down that others say there is a kind of compact among the wise, that, in the same way as they are disposed toward themselves, in the same way they should be disposed toward their friends; and that this both can be done, and has often been done, and pertains most of all to the gaining of pleasures. If they were able to make this compact, let them make that other too — to love fairness, modesty, all the virtues, for their own sakes, freely. But indeed, if we shall cultivate friendships for the fruits and profits and advantages, if there shall be no affection to make friendship itself, of its own accord, by its own force, of itself and for its own sake, to be sought — is it doubtful that we shall prefer farms and tenements to friends?

You may here again rehearse the things said by Epicurus, in the best words, in praise of friendship. I do not ask what he says, but what he can consistently say in accord with his theory and opinion. 'Friendship has been sought for the sake of usefulness.' Do you think, then, that this Triarius can be more useful to you than if the granaries at Puteoli were yours? Gather up all the things you are wont to say: 'The protection of friends.' You have protection enough in yourself, enough in the laws, enough in ordinary friendships. Now you cannot be despised; and hatred and envy you will easily avoid — for precepts are given by Epicurus for these things. And yet, using such great revenues for generosity, even without this Pyladean friendship, you will excellently guard and fortify yourself by the goodwill of many. 'But with whom shall I share my jests and my serious matters, as the saying is — with whom my secrets, with whom all my hidden things?'

With yourself best of all; then also with a moderate friend. But grant that these things are not without their value; what is that to the usefulness of so great a sum of money? You see, then, that if you measure friendship by its own affection, nothing is more excellent; but if by profit, the closest intimacies are outdone by the rent of profitable estates. You must, then, love me myself, not my possessions, if we are to be true friends. But in matters most plain we are too long. For when it has been proved and concluded that there is nowhere a place for the virtues nor for friendships, if all things be referred to pleasure, there is nothing further that need be greatly said. And yet, lest any point should seem to be left unanswered, I shall now say a few things more in reply to the rest of your discourse.

Since, then, the whole sum of philosophy is referred to living happily, and men, seeking this one thing, have betaken themselves to this study, but place living happily, some in one thing, some in another, you in pleasure, and likewise, on the contrary, all wretchedness in pain — let us first see what your 'living happily' is. And this you will grant, I suppose, if only there be such a thing as being happy, that it ought to lie wholly in the power of the wise man. For if the happy life can be lost, it cannot be happy. For who feels confident that what is frail and falling will always remain firm and stable for him? But he who distrusts the perpetuity of his goods must needs fear lest at some time, having lost them, he be wretched. But no one can be happy amid the fear of the greatest things. No one, then, can be happy.

For the happy life is wont to be spoken of not in some part, but in the perpetuity of time; nor is it at all called a life, unless it be finished and complete; nor can anyone be at one time happy, at another wretched; for he who shall think he can be wretched will not be happy. For when once the happy life has been taken up, it remains as long as wisdom herself, the producer of the happy life, and does not await the last span of life — that which Herodotus writes was the precept given by Solon to Croesus. 'But,' you say, as you yourself said, 'Epicurus denies that length of time contributes anything to living happily, and that no less pleasure is perceived in a brief span of time than if it were everlasting.'

These things are said most inconsistently. For when he places the highest good in pleasure, he denies that pleasure becomes greater in an infinite span of time than in a finite and moderate one. He who places all good in virtue can say that the happy life is completed by the perfection of virtue; for he denies that the day brings increase to the highest good. But he who thinks the happy life is produced by pleasure — how will he be consistent with himself, if he denies that pleasure grows by length of time? Then neither does pain. Or is the longest pain the most wretched, while length does not make pleasure more to be wished? What reason is there, then, why Epicurus should always call god happy and eternal? For, eternity taken away, Jupiter is no whit happier than Epicurus; for each enjoys the highest good — that is, pleasure. 'But this one with pain too.' But he counts that as nothing; for he says that, if he were being burned, he would say, 'How sweet this is!'

In what, then, is he surpassed by god, if he is not surpassed in eternity? In which what good is there, beyond the highest pleasure, and that everlasting? What is the point, then, of speaking grandly, unless you speak consistently? In bodily pleasure — I will add, if you will, 'of the mind,' provided that very thing, as you wish, be from the body — does living happily consist. What? Who can guarantee that pleasure perpetual to the wise man? For the things by which pleasures are produced are not in the wise man's power. For being happy is not placed in wisdom itself, but in those things which wisdom procures for pleasure. But all that is external, and what is external is in the power of chance. So fortune becomes the mistress of the happy life — fortune, which Epicurus says crosses the wise man but little.

'Come,' you will say, 'these are small things. Nature herself enriches the wise man, whose riches Epicurus has taught to be easily procured.' These things are well said, and I do not gainsay them; but they fight among themselves. For he denies that less pleasure is perceived from the meanest fare — that is, from the most contemptible food and drink — than from the most choice things for feasting. To him, if he should deny that it makes any difference to living happily what fare one uses, I would grant it, and even praise it; for he would say what is true; and Socrates, who reckons pleasure at no point, I hear saying that the seasoning of food is hunger, of drink, thirst. But the man who, referring all things to pleasure, lives like Gallonius, but talks like that frugal Piso — him I do not hear, nor think that he says what he means.

He said that natural riches are easily procured, because nature is content with little. Certainly — unless you valued pleasure so highly. 'No less pleasure,' he says, 'is perceived from the cheapest things than from the most costly.' This is to have not only no heart, but not even a palate. For those who despise pleasure itself may say that they do not prefer sturgeon to sprat; but to him whose highest good is in pleasure, all things must be judged by sense, not by reason, and those things must be called best which are sweetest.

But be it so; let him attain the highest pleasures not only at little cost, but, for all I care, at none, if he can; let there be no less pleasure in that cress on which Xenophon writes the Persians were wont to feed, than at Syracusan tables, which are gravely censured by Plato; let the obtaining of pleasure be, I say, as easy as you wish — what shall we say of pain? Its torments are so great that in them the happy life cannot exist, if indeed pain is the highest evil. For Metrodorus himself, almost a second Epicurus, describes the happy man in these words, more or less: 'when the body is well constituted, and it is assured that it will so remain.' But can it be assured to anyone how his body will fare — I do not say a year hence, but by evening? Pain, therefore — that is, the highest evil — will always be feared, even when it is not present; for it can be present at any moment. How, then, can the fear of the highest evil dwell within the happy life?

'A method is handed down by Epicurus,' he says, 'for disregarding pain.' Now this very thing is absurd — that the greatest evil should be disregarded. But what, pray, is that method? 'The greatest pain,' he says, 'is short.' First, what do you call short? Then, which pain do you call the greatest? For what? Cannot the highest pain last several days? Take care lest it last months too! — unless perhaps you mean that pain which, the moment it has seized a man, kills him. Who fears that pain? I would rather you relieved the pain by which I saw a most excellent and humane man, Gnaeus Octavius, son of Marcus, my friend, worn down — and that not once, nor for a short time, but both often and plainly long. What torments, O immortal gods, did he endure, when all his joints seemed to be on fire! And yet he did not seem wretched, because that was not the highest evil — only toilworn; but he would have been wretched, had he, in a shameful and vicious life, abounded in pleasures.

But that you say great pain is short, long pain slight — what sort of thing that is, I do not understand. For I see pains both great and at the same time quite long, the truer endurance of which you cannot use, who do not love honourableness itself for its own sake. There are certain precepts, and almost laws, of fortitude, which forbid a man to be unmanned in pain. Wherefore it must be thought base — I do not say to feel pain, for that is sometimes necessary — but to defile that Lemnian rock with the cry of Philoctetes, 'which, resounding with his wailing, lament, groan, and roarings, gives back, all dumb, his tearful voice.' Let Epicurus chant his charm over this man, if he can — over him whom 'from the viper's bite the veins of his vitals, steeped with venom, rouse to ghastly torments!' Thus Epicurus: 'Hush, Philoctetes! the pain is short.' But he has lain in the cave now for the tenth year. 'If it is long, it is slight; for it gives intervals and slackens.'

First, not often; then, what is that slackening, when both the memory of past pain is fresh, and the fear of pain to come and impending torments him? 'Let him die,' he says. Perhaps that is best; but where is that 'always more of pleasure'? For if it is so, take care lest you commit a crime, when you advise a man to die. Rather, then, let these things be said: that it is base, that it is unworthy of a man, to be broken by pain, to be crushed, to give way. For those sayings of yours — 'if severe, short; if long, slight' — are mere copybook maxims. By the fomentations of virtue, of greatness of soul, of patience, of fortitude, pain is wont to be soothed.

Hear — not to go far afield — what Epicurus says as he is dying, that you may understand how his deeds differ from his words: 'Epicurus to Hermarchus, greeting. While we were passing,' he says, 'the happy and likewise the last day of our life, we wrote this. But such pains of the bladder and the bowels were upon us that nothing could be added to their greatness.' Wretched man! If pain is the highest evil, it cannot be said otherwise. But let us hear himself: 'Yet there was set against all these,' he says, 'a gladness of mind, which I took from the remembrance of our reasonings and discoveries. But do you, as is worthy of the goodwill you have shown, from your youth up, toward me and philosophy, see that you protect the children of Metrodorus.'

I do not now set the death of Epaminondas, nor of Leonidas, before this death. Of these, the one, when he had conquered the Lacedaemonians at Mantinea, and saw himself dying of a grievous wound, as soon as he came to himself asked whether his shield was safe. When his weeping comrades answered that it was safe, he asked whether the enemy were routed. When he had heard this too, as he wished, he bade them draw out the spear by which he was pierced. So, with much blood poured forth, he died in gladness and in victory. And Leonidas, king of the Lacedaemonians, set himself and those three hundred whom he had led out from Sparta against the enemy at Thermopylae, when there was offered him either base flight or glorious death. Glorious are the deaths of commanders; but philosophers for the most part die in their beds. Yet it matters how. Epicurus seems to himself happy as he dies. Great praise! 'There was set against,' he says, 'the highest pains a gladness.'

I hear indeed the voice of a philosopher, Epicurus; but you have forgotten what you ought to say. For first, if those things are true at whose remembrance you say you rejoice — that is, if your writings and discoveries are true — you cannot rejoice. For you have now nothing which you may refer to the body; but it has always been said by you that no one rejoices except on account of the body, nor feels pain. 'I rejoice,' he says, 'in things past.' In what things past? If in such as pertain to the body, I see that you are setting your reasonings against those pains, not the memory of pleasures perceived by the body; but if in such as pertain to the mind, then it is false, which you deny — that there is any gladness of the mind which is not referred to the body. Why, next, do you commend the children of Metrodorus? What, in that excellent duty of yours, and so great a good faith — for so I judge it — do you refer to the body?

Turn yourselves this way and that, Torquatus, as you please; you will find nothing written in this admirable letter by Epicurus consistent and in agreement with his decrees. So is he refuted by himself, and his writings convicted by his own uprightness and morals. For that commending of the boys, the memory and affection of friendship, the keeping of the highest duties at the last breath, show that there is in man an inborn uprightness, gratuitous, not invited by pleasures nor called forth by the wages of rewards. For what greater testimony do we seek that things honourable and right are in themselves to be wished for their own sakes, when we see such duties in a dying man?

But as I think that letter praiseworthy, which I have just now interpreted in almost as many words — though it agreed in no way with his lofty philosophy — so I judge that his will is at variance not only with the gravity of a philosopher, but even with his own opinion. For he wrote, both in many words often, and briefly and closely, in that book which I just now named, that death is nothing to us; for what is dissolved is without sensation, and what is without sensation is nothing at all to us. This very thing might have been put more elegantly and better. For the statement, 'what is dissolved is without sensation,' is of such a kind that he does not say clearly enough what is dissolved. But still I understand what he means.

But I ask what it is that — when by dissolution, that is, death, all sensation is extinguished, and when there is nothing at all left which pertains to us — he so carefully and so diligently provides and ordains: that Amynomachus and Timocrates, his heirs, should, by the judgment of Hermarchus, give what is enough for keeping his birthday every year in the month Gamelion, and likewise on the twentieth day of the moon in every month should give for the feast of those who studied philosophy together with him, so that the memory both of himself and of Metrodorus might be honoured.

I cannot say that these are not the acts of a man, however agreeable and humane; but of a wise man by no means — especially of a natural philosopher, which he wishes to be — to think that anyone has a birthday at all. What? Can the same day be more than once, which was but once? Surely it cannot. Or one of the same kind? Not even that, unless many thousands of years intervene, so that there be a return of all the stars at one time to the point whence they set out. There is, then, no man's birthday. 'But it is kept!' And I, of course, did not know it! But granted that it be kept — shall it be kept even after death? And shall he provide for this by will, who gave us, as it were, an oracle, that nothing after death pertains to us? These were not the acts of one who had traversed in mind countless worlds and infinite regions, of which there was no shore, no boundary. Did Democritus do any such thing? — to pass over the rest, I appeal to him, whom alone Epicurus followed.

But if a day was to be marked, should it rather be the day on which he was born, or that on which he was made wise? 'He could not,' you will say, 'have been made wise, had he not been born.' And by that reasoning, not even if his grandmother had not been born. The whole thing, Torquatus, belongs not to learned men — to wish the memory of one's name celebrated with feasts after death. As to how you keep those days, and into how great a wit of merry men you run, I do not say — there is no need of quarrels — I only say this much: that it would have been more your part to keep the birthday of Epicurus, than for him by his will to provide that it be kept.

But to come to the point — for, while we were speaking of pain, we were carried off to that letter — now the whole matter may be concluded thus: he who is in the highest evil is not, while he is in it, happy; but the wise man is always happy, and is sometimes in pain; therefore pain is not the highest evil. And now, what sort of thing is this — that past goods do not slip away from the wise man, but that he ought not to remember evils? First, is it in our power what we remember? Themistocles, indeed, when Simonides or someone else promised him an art of memory, said, 'I would rather one of forgetting; for I remember even what I do not wish, and cannot forget what I wish.'

A man of great genius, this; but the matter is yet thus, that it is the part of too imperious a philosopher to forbid remembering. Beware lest these be your Manlian commands, or even greater, if you order what I cannot do. What if the memory of past evils is even pleasant? — so that some proverbs are truer than your dogmas. For it is commonly said, 'Pleasant are toils once done'; and Euripides says not amiss — I will conclude in Latin, if I can; for you all know this Greek verse — 'Sweet is the memory of toils gone by.' But let us return to past goods. If these were spoken of by you such as Gaius Marius could use — so that, banished, in want, plunged in a marsh, he might lighten his grief by the recollection of his trophies — I should listen, and quite approve. For the happy life of the wise man cannot be made complete, nor brought to its end, if all his first wise counsels and deeds are buried in his own forgetfulness.

But to you the recollection of pleasures perceived makes the happy life — and indeed of pleasures perceived by the body. For if there are any others, it is false that all pleasures of the mind are from fellowship with the body. But if bodily pleasure delights even when past, I do not understand why Aristotle so greatly derides the epitaph of Sardanapalus, in which that king of Syria boasts that he has carried away with him all the pleasures of his lusts. 'For what he could not,' he says, 'even when alive, feel longer than while he enjoyed it, how could that remain to him when dead?' Bodily pleasure, therefore, flows away, and each first one flies off, and more often leaves a cause for repentance than for recollection. And so Africanus is happier, speaking to his country in that fashion: 'Cease, Rome, your foes—' and the rest, admirably: 'For my toils have won you ramparts.' He rejoices in past toils; you bid men rejoice in pleasures; and he recalls himself to those things from which he never referred anything to the body, while you cleave wholly to the body. But that very thing — how can it be maintained which you say, that all pleasures and pains of the mind pertain to pleasures and pains of the body?

Does nothing ever delight you — I see with whom I am speaking — you yourself, then, Torquatus, does nothing delight for its own sake? I pass over dignity, honourableness, the very aspect of the virtues, of which I spoke before; I will put these lighter things: a poem, a speech, when you either write or read it; when you search out the history of all deeds, of all regions; a statue, a picture, a pleasant spot, games, hunting, the villa of Lucullus — for if I said your own, you would have a hiding-place; you would say it pertained to the body — but those things which I have named, do you refer them to the body? Or is there something that delights you of its own accord? Either you will be most obstinate, if you persist in this — that the things I have named are referred to the body — or you will desert the whole Epicurean pleasure, if you deny it. And as to your argument that the pleasures and pains of the mind are greater than those of the body, because the mind shares in the three times, but by the body only present things are felt — how can this be proved, that he who rejoices on my account at something should rejoice more than I myself?

Pleasure arises in the mind on account of pleasure of the body, and the pleasure of the mind is greater than that of the body. So it comes about that he who congratulates is gladder than he whom he congratulates. But while you wish to make the wise man happy, since he perceives the greatest pleasures in his mind, and in all parts greater than in the body, you do not see what occurs. For he will also perceive pains of the mind in all parts greater than those of the body. So it must needs be that he whom you would have always happy is at some time wretched; nor indeed, while you refer all things to pleasure and pain, will you ever bring it about that he is not.

Wherefore some other highest good of man, Torquatus, must be found; let us concede pleasure to the beasts, whom you are wont to use as witnesses about the highest good. But what if even the beasts do many things, each led by its own nature, sometimes lovingly, sometimes with toil, as in begetting and rearing — so that it very easily appears that something else is set before them, not pleasure? Some rejoice in running and roaming; others, by gathering together, imitate in a fashion the assembly of a state;

we see in a certain kind of birds some signs of natural affection, recognition, memory; in many we see also longings. Shall there be, then, in the beasts certain likenesses of the human virtues, severed from pleasure, and shall there be in men themselves no virtue except for the sake of pleasure? And shall we say that to man, who far excels all other living creatures, nothing has been given by nature in a special degree?

We, indeed, if everything is in pleasure, are by far and greatly surpassed by the beasts, to whom the earth itself pours forth from itself various and abundant feed while they toil not at all; but to us they scarcely, or scarcely even, suffice, though we seek them with much labour. And yet in no way can the highest good of beast and of man seem to me the same. For why is there need of so great equipment in acquiring the best arts? Why of so great a concourse of the most honourable studies, of so great a retinue of virtues, if these are sought for no other end than pleasure?

Just as, if Xerxes — when with such great fleets and such great forces of horse and foot, the Hellespont bridged, Athos pierced through, he had walked the sea and sailed the land — if, when he had come into Greece with so great an onset, someone should ask him the cause of such great forces and so great a war, and he should say that he had wished to carry off honey from Hymettus, he would surely seem to have attempted such great things without cause; so, if we shall say that the wise man, equipped and adorned with the most numerous and weighty arts and virtues — not, like Xerxes, traversing seas on foot and mountains with fleets, but embracing in his mind the whole heaven and the whole earth with the entire sea — seeks pleasure, we shall be saying that he toiled so greatly for the sake of honey.

For higher and more magnificent things, believe me, Torquatus, we are born; nor is this proved from the parts of the mind alone — in which there is the memory of countless things (in you indeed boundless), in which there is conjecture of things to come not far differing from divination, in which there is shame, the moderator of desire, in which there is the faithful guardianship of justice for human fellowship, in which there is, in enduring toils and undergoing dangers, a firm and steady contempt of pain and of death — these things, then, are in our minds; but do you also consider the very limbs and senses, which, like the other parts of the body, will seem to you not only companions but even ministers of the virtues.

What? If in the body itself many things are to be preferred to pleasure — strength, health, swiftness, beauty — what, pray, do you think in our minds? In which those most learned ancients thought there was something heavenly and divine. But if the highest good were in pleasure, as you say, it would be desirable to spend days and nights in the greatest pleasure, with no interval between, while all the senses were stirred, flooded, as it were, with every sweetness. But who is worthy of the name of man, who would wish to be one whole day in that kind of pleasure? The Cyrenaics, indeed, do not refuse it; your school speaks of these things more modestly, those perhaps more consistently.

But let us survey in our minds not these greatest arts — for lacking which men were by our ancestors called good-for-nothing — but I ask whether you think that — I do not say Homer, Archilochus, Pindar, but Phidias, Polyclitus, Zeuxis directed their arts to pleasure. Shall the craftsman, then, set himself a higher aim toward beauty of forms than the excellent citizen toward beauty of deeds? But what other cause is there of so great an error, spread so far and wide, except that he who decrees pleasure to be the highest good deliberates not with that part of the mind in which reason and counsel reside, but with desire — that is, with the lightest part of the mind? For I ask of you: if there are gods, as you too think, how can they be happy, since they cannot perceive pleasures by the body? Or, if they are happy without that kind of pleasure, why do you refuse that there is a like exercise of mind in the wise man?

Read the panegyrics, Torquatus — not of those who were praised by Homer, not of Cyrus, not of Agesilaus, not of Aristides or Themistocles, not of Philip or Alexander; read the panegyrics of our own men, read those of your own family; you will see no one so praised that he was called a cunning craftsman in procuring pleasures. The inscriptions of monuments do not signify this — such as this one at the gate: 'This one man very many nations agree to have been the chief man of the people.'

Do we think that very many nations agreed concerning Calatinus that he had been the chief man of the people because he had been most surpassing in the procuring of pleasures? Shall we, then, say that there is good hope and a great natural gift in those young men whom we shall judge likely to be slaves to their own advantages and to do whatever is expedient for themselves? Do we not see how great a confounding of all things follows, how great a confusion? Kindness is done away with, gratitude is done away with, which are the bonds of concord. For neither, when you do a service to anyone for your own sake, is that to be held a kindness, but a money-lending; nor does gratitude seem owed to him who has done a service for his own sake. But the greatest virtues must all lie prostrate, pleasure being mistress. There are also very many basenesses which, unless honourableness by nature prevails most, it is not easy to defend why they should not befall the wise man.

And, not to embrace more things — for they are countless — virtue, well praised, must needs shut off the approaches of pleasure. And this you must not now expect from me. Look into your own mind, and, going over it with all thought, ask yourself whether you would prefer, enjoying perpetual pleasures, to pass your whole life in that tranquillity which you often used to claim, without pain — adding too that thing which your school is wont to add, but which cannot be, without the fear of pain — or, while you deserved best of all nations, while you brought help and safety to the needy, to endure even the labours of Hercules. For so our ancestors called labours not to be shunned — yet by the saddest word — 'aerumnae,' even in a god.

I should draw it out of you and compel you to answer, did I not fear that you would say that Hercules himself did the things which he wrought for the safety of the nations, with supreme labour, for the sake of pleasure. When I had said this, 'I have those,' said Torquatus, 'to whom I may refer these matters; and, although I could do something myself, yet I prefer to find men better prepared.' 'You mean, I suppose, our friends Siro and Philodemus, men both excellent and most learned.' 'You understand rightly,' said he. 'Well, then,' said I; 'but it were fairer that Triarius should give some judgment on our disagreement.' 'I swear off as an unfair judge,' said he, smiling, 'on this matter at least; for you handle these things more gently, while this man harasses us in the Stoic manner.' Then Triarius: 'Hereafter, indeed,' said he, 'more boldly; for these very things which I have just heard will be ready to my hand, nor will I attack before I see you equipped by those whom you name.' When these things had been said, we made an end both of walking and of disputing.