TANS. Because they neither read his own books, nor those that report his
maxims without invidiousness, but there are those who read the course of
his life and the conditions of his death, where with these words he
dictated the beginning of his testament: "Being in the last, and at the
same time, the happiest day of our life, we have ordained this with a
healthy, tranquil mind at rest; for whatever acute sorrow may torment us
from one side, that torment is entirely annulled by the pleasure of our
own inventions and the consideration of our end." And it is manifest
that he no longer felt more pleasure than sorrow in eating, drinking,
repose, and in generating, but in not feeling hunger, nor thirst, nor
fatigue, nor sensuality. From this may be understood what is according
to us the perfection of firmness; not in this, that the tree neither
bends nor breaks, nor is rent, but in that it does not so much as stir,
and its prototype keeps spirit, sense, and intellect, fixed there, where
the shock of the tempest is not felt.
CIC. Do you then think it is a thing to be desired, to bear shocks in
order to prove that you are strong?
TANS. You say "to bear;" and this is a part of firmness, but it is not
the whole of that virtue, which consists in bearing strongly, as I say,
or in not feeling, as Epicurus said. Now this loss of feeling is caused
by being entirely absorbed in the cultivation of virtue, or of real good
and felicity, in such wise that Regulus did not feel the chest, Lucretia
the dagger, Socrates the poison, Anaxagoras the mortar, Scævola the
fire, Cocles the abyss, and other worthies felt not those things which
would torment and fill with terror the vulgar crowd.