Seneca - College of Stoic Philosophers

140 SENECAwere less audible than they should have been, butforetold that they would have a great and estabhshedname among those who were willing to follow in theirfootsteps. No virtue remains concealed ; to have l^inconcealed is no loss. The day will come which willreveal what is hidden and suppressed by the maUgnityThe man who thinks only of his own genera-of the age.tion is born for few. Many thousands of years, manythousands of peoples, will come after : look to them.Even if all your contemporaries are silent through envy,there will come those who will judge you without favouror prejudice. If Fame can offer any reward to virtue,neither will this be lost. The verdict of posterity, indeed,will be nothing to us ; yet posterity will honour us andresort to us though we perceiveit not. Virtue willrequite us whether alive or dead, if only we follow herin good faith, if we adorn not ourselves with the falseand meretricious, but remain the same whether we haveto act in a conspicuous position and after due warning ;or suddenly and unprepared. Simulation profits nothing.A false exterior adopted for appearance' sake imposessuperficially upon a few ;truth isalways the same inall her parts. There is no soHdity in the things thatdeceive. A lie is thin; if you look closely you can seethrough it.^Seneca was immensely rich. His gardens(' Senecae praedivitis hortos ' ^), his villas, his furniturewere renowned ;and although he was completelyfree from the grosser forms of self-indulgenceand was personally simple to the point of austerityi-in his manner of life, these riches and the eleganceof his surroundings laid him open to a charge ofinconsistency between his theory and his practice,which was pressed home by his enemies duringhislifetime, and has never ceased to be repeated*Ep. 79,^Juv. ix.