Moral essays. With an English translation by J.W. Basore

ON FIRMNESS, xi. 2-xii. 2And why ? because he who does them is incapableof being contemptuous. For the same reason thewaggery of slaves, insulting to their masters, amusesus, and their boldness at the expense of guests haslicence only because they begin \\-ith their masterhimself; and the more contemptible and evenridiculous any slave is, the more freedom of tonguehe has. For this purpose some people buy youngslaves because they are pert, and they whet theirimpudence and keep them under an instructor inorder that they may be practised in pouring forthstreams of abuse ; and yet we call this smartness,not insult. But what madness it is at one time tobe amused, at another to be affronted, by the samethings, and to call something, if spoken by a friend,a slander ; if spoken by a slave, a plaj^ul taunt !The same attitude that we have toward youngslaves, the wise man has toward all men whose childhoodendures even beyond middle age and theperiod of grey hairs. Or has age brought any profitat all to men of this sort, who have the faults ofa childish mind with its defects augmented, whodiffer from children only in the size and shape oftheir bodies, but are not less wayward and unsteady,who are undiscriminating in their passion for pleasure,timorous, and peaceable, not from inclination, butfrom fear ? Therefore no one may say that theydiffer in any way from children. For while childrenare greedy for knuckle-bones, nuts, and coppers,these are greedy for gold and silver, and cities ;while children play among themselves at beingmagistrates, and in make-beheve have their borderedtoga, Uctors' rods and tribunal, these play in earnestat the same things in the Campus Martius and the83