SENECA - College of Stoic Philosophers

EPISTLE XC1
not cry out at any of these calamities. Into such a
world have we entered, and under such laws do we
live. If you like it, obey if not, depart whithersoever
you wish. Cry out in anger if any unfair
;
measures are taken with reference to you individually
but if this inevitable law is
binding upon the
;
highest and the lowest alike, be reconciled to
fate, by which all things are dissolved. You should
not estimate our worth by our funeral mounds or
by these monuments of unequal size which line the
road ;
their ashes level all men ! We are unequal
at birth, but are equal in death. What I say
about cities I
say also about their inhabitants :
Ardea was captured as well as Rome. a The great
founder of human law has not made distinctions
between us on the basis of high lineage or of
illustrious names, except while we live. When,
however, we come to the end which awaits mortals,
he
" says
:
Depart, ambition ! To all creatures that
burden the earth let one and the same b '
law apply
!
For enduring all things, we are equal no one is
;
more frail than another, no one more certain of his
on the morrow.
own life
Alexander, king of Macedon, began to study
geometry c ; unhappy man, because he would thereby
learn how puny was that earth of which he had seized
but a fraction !
Unhappy man, I repeat, because
he was bound to understand that he was bearing a
false title. For who can be " "
great in that which
is
puny The ? lessons which were being taught
him were intricate and could be learned only by
assiduous application
; they were not the kind to be
legal term, is derived by Festus from similis re ipsa; but
Corssen explains it as from sic rem pse.
i.e., surveying. See Ep. Ixxxviii. 10.
VOL. II