SENECA - College of Stoic Philosophers

EPISTLE LXXVI.
lead a happy life which is of course
; impossible.
One must endure all things in defence of that which
is honourable ;
but this would not be necessary if
there existed any other good besides that which is
honourable.
Although this question was discussed by me
pretty extensively in a previous letter," I have
discussed it
summarily and briefly run through the
argument. But an opinion of this kind will never
seem true to you unless you exalt your mind and
ask yourself whether, at the call of duty, you would
be willing to die for your country, and buy the
safety of all your fellow-citizens at the price of your
own ;
whether you would offer your neck not only
with patience, but also with gladness.
If you would
do this, there is no other good in your eyes. For
you are giving up everything in order to acquire
this good. Consider how great
is the power of that
which is honourable :
you will die for your country,
even at a moment's notice, when you know that you
ought to do so. Sometimes, as a result of noble
conduct, one wins great joy even in a very short
and fleeting space of time ;
and though none of the
fruits of a deed that has been done will accrue to
the doer after he is dead and removed from the
sphere of human affairs, yet the mere contemplation
of a deed that is to be done is a delight, and the
brave and upright man, picturing to himself the
guerdons of his death, guerdons such as the freedom
of his country and the deliverance of all those for
whom he is
paying out his life, partakes of the
greatest pleasure and enjoys the fruit of his own
peril.
But that man also who is
deprived of this
joy, the joy which is afforded by the contemplation
a Ep. Ixxiv., esp. 14.
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