Letter 97

You are mistaken, my Lucilius, if you think that luxury and the neglect of good morals and the other things which each man has charged against his own times are a vice of our age; these belong to men, not to times. No age has been free of fault. And if you begin to weigh the licence of any one age, it is shameful to say it, never was sin committed more openly than in the presence of Cato.

Could anyone believe that money was passed about in that trial in which Publius Clodius was the defendant, accused for having lain with Caesar's wife at the secret rite, in which it is said the worship of that hidden divinity is so performed that not even the picture of any male creature is left, that the jury was bribed, and, what is fouler than the bribery itself, that lewdness with married women and with noble youths was thrown in as part of the bargain?

The crime was less than the acquittal: the man accused of adultery distributed adulteries, nor was he sure of his safety until he had made his jurors like himself. These things were done in that trial in which, if nothing else, Cato had given testimony. I will set down the very words of Cicero, because the matter passes belief:

'He summoned them to him, made promises, intervened, gave gifts. And then, good gods, what a scandal! to certain of the jurors there were even thrown in, as a make-weight, the nights of certain women and introductions to noble youths.'

It is no time to complain of the price, there was more in the additions. 'Do you want the wife of that strict husband? I will give her to you; do you want that rich man's wife? I will procure for you a tryst with her. Unless you commit adultery, condemn me. That beautiful woman whom you desire will come. I promise you a night with her, and I do not put it off; within the adjournment of the trial the faith of my promise shall stand.' It is more to distribute adulteries than to commit them; this is to give notice to mothers of families.

These Clodian jurors had asked the senate for a guard, which was not necessary except for men about to condemn, and had obtained it. And so Catulus said neatly to them, when the defendant had been acquitted: 'Why did you ask a guard of us? Was it lest your money should be snatched from you?' Yet amid these jokes he got off unpunished, an adulterer before the trial, a pander in it, who escaped condemnation worse than he had deserved it.

What could you think more corrupt than these morals, when neither religion nor justice could find safety, when at that inquiry, which was held by extraordinary decree, more was committed than was being inquired into? It was made a question whether a man could escape after committing adultery; it was found that he could not be safe without committing it.

This was committed between Pompey and Caesar, between Cicero and Cato, that Cato, I say, in whose presence the people are said not to have allowed themselves to demand the Floral games' jest of stripping the harlots, if you believe that men then watched more strictly than they judged. And such things both will be done and have been done, and the licence of cities will sometimes settle down through discipline and fear, never of its own accord.

Therefore there is no reason why you should believe that we have indulged most in vices, and the ancients least. Our age is better; you are unwilling to believe it. For all crimes too have now broken out beyond former measure, while virtue is more sparing than before. We must not flatter our times, then, as if they alone laboured under vices that all have shared.

Every age will bear Clodii, not every age Catos. We are prone to the worse, because neither a leader nor a companion can fail us, and the thing itself goes forward even without a leader, without a companion. It is not a downhill road to vices, but a headlong fall, and, what makes most men incorrigible, in all other arts faults shame the artists and trouble those who go astray, but in this art of living the very enjoyment of sinning is great. The helmsman does not rejoice in a capsized ship, the physician does not rejoice in carrying out a sick man, the orator does not rejoice if by the advocate's fault the defendant has fallen;

but, on the contrary, his own crime is a pleasure to everyone. That man rejoices in an adultery into which he was provoked by the very difficulty. That man rejoices in his swindling and theft, nor does his fault displease him before the fortune of his fault has displeased. This comes about through depraved custom.

Otherwise, that you may know that there underlies even minds drawn away into the worst things a sense of the good, and that the base is not unknown but disregarded; all men hide their sins, and, though they have turned out luckily, they use their fruit but conceal the deeds themselves. But a good conscience wishes to come forth and be seen; wickedness fears the very darkness.

And so I think it was neatly said by Epicurus: 'It can befall the guilty man to lie hidden, but he cannot have confidence that he will lie hidden,' or, if you judge that this meaning can be better set out thus: 'It is for this reason that lying hidden does not profit sinners, that even if they have the luck of lying hidden, they do not have the assurance of it.' So it is: crimes can be safe, they cannot be secure.

I do not judge this to be at war with our school, if it is explained thus. Why? Because the first and greatest punishment of sinners is to have sinned, and no crime, though fortune deck it with her gifts, though she protect and defend it, is unpunished, since the penalty of crime is in the crime. But none the less these second penalties press upon it and follow it: to fear always and to be in dread and to distrust one's own security. Why should I free wickedness from this punishment? Why should I not always leave it in suspense?

Let us dissent from Epicurus there, where he says that nothing is just by nature, and that crimes must be avoided because fear cannot be avoided; let us agree here, that evil deeds are scourged by conscience, and that there is very much torment for it in this, that a perpetual anxiety presses and beats it, that it cannot trust the sureties of its own security. For this very thing, Epicurus, is the proof that we shrink from crimes by nature, that to no one, even in safety, does safety seem assured.

Why, except that there is fixed in us an aversion to that thing which nature has condemned? For this reason confidence in lying hidden never comes even to those who do lie hidden, because conscience convicts them and shows them to themselves. But it is proper to the guilty to tremble. It would have gone ill with us, in that many crimes escape the law and its avenger and the written penalties, had not those natural and grievous penalties exacted payment from the offenders in the present, and fear come in place of endurance. Farewell.