Part 17

Now touching Antony's sons, Antyllus, his eldest son by Fulvia was slain, because his schoolmaster Theodorus did betray him unto the soldiers, who strake off his head. And the villain took a precious stone of great value from his neck, the which he did sew in his girdle, and afterwards denied that he had it: but it was found about him, and so Cæsar trussed him up for it. For Cleopatra's children, they were very honourably kept, with their governors and train that waited on them. But for Cæsarion, who was said to be Julius Cæsar's son:[108] his mother Cleopatra had sent him unto the Indians through Ethiopia, with a great sum of money. But one of his governors also called Rhodon, even such another as Theodorus, persuaded him to return into his country, and told him that Cæsar sent for him to give him his mother's kingdom. So, as Cæsar was determining with himself what he should do, Arrius said unto him:

Too many Cæsars is not good.

Alluding unto a certain verse of Homer that saith:

Too many lords doth not well.

Therefore Cæsar did put Cæsarion to death, after the death of his mother Cleopatra. Many princes, great kings and captains did crave Antony's body of Octavius Cæsar, to give him honourable burial: but Cæsar would never take it from Cleopatra, who did sumptuously and royally bury him with her own hands, whom Cæsar suffered to take as much as she would to bestow upon his funerals.

Now was she altogether overcome with sorrow and passion of mind, for she had knocked her breast so pitifully, that she had martyred it, and in divers places had raised ulcers and inflammations, so that she fell into a fever withal: whereof she was very glad, hoping thereby to have good colour to abstain from meat, and that so she might have died easily without any trouble. She had a physician called Olympus, whom she made privy of her intent, to the end he should help her rid her out of her life: as Olympus writeth himself, who wrote a book of all these things. But Cæsar mistrusted the matter, by many conjectures he had, and therefore did put her in fear, and threatened her to put her children to shameful death. With these threats, Cleopatra for fear yielded straight, as she would have yielded unto strokes: and afterwards suffered her self to be cured and dieted as they listed.

Shortly after, Cæsar came himself in person to see her, and to comfort her. Cleopatra being laid upon a little low bed in poor state, when she saw Cæsar come into her chamber, she suddenly rose up, naked in her smock, and fell down at his feet marvellously disfigured: both for that she had plucked her hair from her head, as also for that she had martyred all her face with her nails, and besides, her voice was small and trembling, her eyes sunk into her head with continual blubbering and moreover, they might see the most part of her stomach torn in sunder. To be short, her body was not much better than her mind: yet her good grace and comeliness, and the force of her beauty was not altogether defaced. But notwithstanding this ugly and pitiful state of hers, yet she shewed her self within, by her outward looks and countenance.

When Cæsar had made her lie down again, and sat by her bedside: Cleopatra began to clear and excuse her self for that she had done, laying all to the fear she had of Antony; Cæsar, in contrary manner, reproved her in every point. Then she suddenly altered her speech, and prayed him to pardon her, as though she were affrayed to die, and desirous to live. At length, she gave him a brief and memorial of all the ready money and treasure she had. But by chance there stood Seleucus by, one of her treasurers, who to seem a good servant, came straight to Cæsar to disprove Cleopatra, that she had had not set in all, but kept many things back of purpose. Cleopatra was in such a rage with him, that she flew upon him, and took him by the hair of the head, and boxed him well-favouredly. Cæsar fell a-laughing and parted the fray. Alas, said she, O Cæsar: is not this a great shame and reproach, that thou having vouchsafed to take the pains to come unto me, and has done me this honour, poor wretch, and caitiff creature, brought into this pitiful and miserable state: and that mine own servants should come now to accuse me, though it may be I have reserved some jewels and trifles meet for women, but not for me (poor soul) to set out my self withal, but meaning to give some pretty presents and gifts unto Octavia and Livia, that they making means and intercessions for me to thee, thou mightest yet extend thy favour and mercy upon me? Cæsar was glad to hear her say so, persuading himself thereby that she had yet a desire to save her life. So he made her answer, That he did not only give her that to dispose of at her pleasure, which she had kept back, but further promised to use her more honourably and bountifully that she would think for: and so he took his leave of her, supposing he had deceived her, but indeed he was deceived himself.

There was a young gentleman Cornelius Dolabella,[109] that was of Cæsar's very great familiars, and besides did bear no evil will unto Cleopatra. He sent her word secretly as she had requested him, that Cæsar determined to take his journey through Syria, and that within three days he would send her away before with her children. When this was told Cleopatra, she requested Cæsar that it would please him to suffer her to offer the last oblations of the dead, unto the soul of Antony. This being granted her, she was carried to the place where his tomb was, and there falling down on her knees, embracing the tomb with her women, the tears running down her cheeks, she began to speak in this sort:

"O my dearn lord Antony, not long sithence I buried thee here, being a freewoman: and now I offer unto thee the funeral springlings and oblations, being a captive and prisoner, and yet I am forbidden and kept from tearing and murdering this captive body of mine with blows, which they carefully guard and keep, only to triumph of thee: look therefore henceforth for no other honours, offerings, nor sacrifices from me, for these are the last which Cleopatra can give thee, sith now they carry her away. Whilst we lived together, nothing could sever our companies: but now at our death, I fear me they will make us change our countries. For as thou being a Roman, has been buried in Egypt: even so wretched creature I, an Egyptian, shall be buried in Italy, which shall be all the good that I have received by thy country. If therefore the gods where thou art now have any power and authority, sith our gods here have forsaken us: suffer not thy true friend and lover to be carried away alive, that in me, they triumph of thee: but receive me with thee, and let me be buried in one self tomb with thee. For though my griefs and miseries be infinite, yet none hath grieved me more, nor that I could less bear withal: than this small time, which I have been driven to live alone without thee."

Then having ended these doleful plaints, and crowned the tomb with garlands and sundry nosegays, and marvellous lovingly embraced the same: she commanded they should prepare her bath, and when she had bathed and washed her self, she fell to her meat, and was sumptuously served. Now whilst she was at dinner, there came a countryman, and brought her a basket. The soldiers that warded at the gate, asked him straight what he had in his basket. He opened the basket, and took out the leaves that covered the figs, and shewed them that they were figs he brought. They all of them marvelled to see so goodly figs. The countryman laughed to hear them, and bade them take some if they would. They believed he told them truly, and so bade him carry them in. After Cleopatra had dined, she sent a certain table written and sealed unto Cæsar, and commanded them all to go out of the tombs where she was, but the two women, then she shut the doors to her. Cæsar when he received this table, and began to read her lamentation and petition, requesting him that he would let her be buried with Antony, found straight what she meant, and thought to have gone thither himself: howbeit he sent one before in all haste that might be, to see what it was.

Her death was very sodain. For those whom Cæsar sent unto her ran thither in all haste possible, and found the soldiers standing at the gate, mistrusting nothing, nor understanding of her death. But when they had opened the doors, they found Cleopatra stark dead, laid upon a bed of gold, attired and arrayed in her royal robes, and one of her two women, which was called Iras, dead at her feet: and her other woman called Charmion half-dead, and trembling, trimming the diadem which Cleopatra wore upon her head. One of the soldiers seeing her, angrily said unto her: Is that well done Charmion? Very well said she again, and meet for a princess descended from the race of so many noble kings. She said no more, but fell down dead hard by the bed.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 105: From the "Life of Mark Antony." Translated by Sir Thomas North.]

[Footnote 106: That is Octavius, afterward the Emperor Augustus.]

[Footnote 107: Antony's mother was Julia, sister of Julius Cæsar; his wife was Octavia, sister of Octavius, the Emperor Augustus.]

[Footnote 108: Cæsarion was born in 47 B.C., and is believed to have gone to Rome with his mother Cleopatra in the following year. It has been pointed out that there could be no reason for putting Cæsarion to death as a possible competitor with Octavius at Rome, for tho Octavius was only the nephew of Julius Cæsar, Cæsarion, his son, was not a Roman citizen. Inasmuch, however, as it was the object of Octavius to retain Egypt, Cæsarion might have been an obstacle to him there.]

[Footnote 109: A son of the elder Dolabella by his first marriage. Dolabella the elder married Cicero's daughter Tullia, and became one of Cæsar's murderers.]

EPICTETUS

Born, about the middle of the first century, A.D., in Hierapolis, Phrygia; originally a slave, but became a freedman of Epaphroditus, a favorite of the emperor Nero; a pupil of Musonius Rufus; taught philosophy at Rome; banished with other philosophers by Domitian and settled in Nicopolis, Epirus, where he taught philosophy, his doctrines being compiled by his pupil Arrian, the historian; he wrote nothing himself.

I

OF FREEDOM[110]

He is free who lives as he likes; who is not subject to compulsion, to restraint, or to violence; whose pursuits are unhindered, his desires successful, his aversions unincurred. Who, then, would wish to lead a wrong course of life? "No one." Who would live deceived, erring, unjust, dissolute, discontented, dejected? "No one." No wicked man, then, lives as he likes; therefore no such man is free. And who would live in sorrow, fear, envy, pity, with disappointed desires and unavailing aversions? "No one." Do we then find any of the wicked exempt from these evils? "Not one." Consequently, then, they are not free.

If some person who has been twice Consul should hear this, he will forgive you, provided you add, "but you are wise, and this has no reference to you." But if you tell him the truth, that, in point of slavery, he does not necessarily differ from those who have been thrice sold, what but chastisement can you expect? "For how," he says, "am I a slave? My father was free, my mother free. Besides, I am a senator, too, and the friend of Cæsar, and have been twice Consul, and have myself many slaves." In the first place, most worthy sir, perhaps your father too was a slave of the same kind; and your mother, and your grandfather, and all your series of ancestors. But even were they ever so free, what is that to you? For what if they were of a generous, you of a mean spirit; they brave, and you a coward; they sober, and you dissolute?

"But what," he says, "has this to do with my being a slave?" Is it no part of slavery to act against your will, under compulsion, and lamenting? "Be it so. But who can compel me but the master of all, Cæsar?" By your own confession, then, you have one master; and let not his being, as you say, master of all, give you any comfort; for then you are merely a slave in a large family. Thus the Nicopolitans, too, frequently cry out, "By the genius of Cæsar we are free!"

For the present, however, if you please, we will let Cæsar alone. But tell me this. Have you never been in love with any one, either of a servile or liberal condition? "Why, what has that to do with being slave or free?" Were you never commanded anything by your mistress that you did not choose? Have you never flattered your fair slave? Have you never kissed her feet? And yet if you were commanded to kiss Cæsar's feet, you would think it an outrage and an excess of tyranny. What else is this than slavery? Have you never gone out by night where you did not desire? Have you never spent more than you chose? Have you not sometimes uttered your words with sighs and groans? Have you never borne to be reviled and shut out-of-doors? But if you are ashamed to confess your own follies, see what Thrasonides says and does; who, after having fought more battles perhaps than you, went out by night, when [his slave] Geta would not dare to go; nay, had he been compelled to do it, would have gone bewailing and lamenting the bitterness of servitude. And what says he afterward? "A contemptible girl has enslaved me, whom no enemy ever enslaved." Wretch! to be the slave of a girl and a contemptible girl too! Why, then, do you still call yourself free? Why do you boast your military expeditions? Then he calls for a sword, and is angry with the person who, out of kindness, denies it; and sends presents to her who hates him; and begs, and weeps, and then again is elated on every little success. But what elation? Is he raised above desire or fear?

Consider what is our idea of freedom in animals. Some keep tame lions, and feed them and even lead them about; and who will say that any such lion is free? Nay, does he not live the more slavishly the more he lives at ease? And who that had sense and reason would wish to be one of those lions? Again, how much will caged birds suffer in trying to escape? Nay, some of them starve themselves rather than undergo such a life; others are saved only with difficulty and in a pining condition; and the moment they find any opening, out they go. Such a desire have they for their natural freedom, and to be at their own disposal, and unrestrained. "And what harm can this confinement do you?" "What say you? I was born to fly where I please, to live in the open air, to sing when I please. You deprive me of all this, and then ask what harm I suffer?"

Hence we will allow those only to be free who will not endure captivity, but, so soon as they are taken, die and escape. Thus Diogenes somewhere says that the only way to freedom is to die with ease. And he writes to the Persian king, "You can no more enslave the Athenians than you can fish." "How? Can I not get possession of them?" "If you do," said he, "they will leave you and be gone like fish. For catch a fish, and it dies. And if the Athenians, too, die as soon as you have caught them, of what use are your warlike preparations?" This is the voice of a free man who had examined the matter in earnest, and, as it might be expected, found it all out. But if you seek it where it is not, what wonder if you never find it?

A slave wishes to be immediately set free. Think you it is because he is desirous to pay his fee [of manumission] to the officer? No, but because he fancies that, for want of acquiring his freedom, he has hitherto lived under restraint and unprosperously. "If I am once set free," he says, "it is all prosperity; I care for no one; I can speak to all as being their equal and on a level with them. I go where I will, I come when and how I will." He is at last made free, and presently having nowhere to eat he seeks whom he may flatter, with whom he may sup. He then either submits to the basest and most infamous degradation, and if he can obtain admission to some great man's table, falls into a slavery much worse than the former; or perhaps, if the ignorant fellow should grow rich, he dotes upon some girl, laments, and is unhappy, and wishes for slavery again. "For what harm did it do me? Another clothed me, another shod me, another fed me, another took care of me when I was sick. It was but in a few things, by way of return, I used to serve him. But now, miserable wretch! what do I suffer, in being a slave to many, instead of one! Yet, if I can be promoted to equestrian rank, I shall live in the utmost prosperity and happiness." In order to obtain this, he first deservedly suffers; and as soon as he has obtained it, it is all the same again. "But then," he says, "if I do but get a military command, I shall be delivered from all my troubles." He gets a military command. He suffers as much as the vilest rogue of a slave; and, nevertheless, he asks for a second command and a third; and when he has put the finishing touch, and is made a senator, then he is a slave indeed. When he comes into the public assembly, it is then that he undergoes his finest and most splendid slavery.

[It is needful] not to be foolish, but to learn what Socrates taught, the nature of things; and not rashly to apply general principles to particulars. For the cause of all human evils is the not being able to apply general principles to special cases. But different people have different grounds of complaint; one, for instance, that he is sick. That is not the trouble; it is in his principles. Another, that he is poor; another, that he has a harsh father and mother; another, that he is not in the good graces of Cæsar. This is nothing else but not understanding how to apply our principles. For who has not an idea of evil, that it is hurtful; that it is to be avoided; that it is by all means to be prudently guarded against? One principle does not contradict another, except when it comes to be applied. What, then, is this evil--thus hurtful and to be avoided? "Not to be the friend of Cæsar," says some one. He is gone; he has failed in applying his principles; he is embarrassed; he seeks what is nothing to the purpose. For if he comes to be Cæsar's friend, he is still no nearer to what he sought. For what is it that every man seeks? To be secure, to be happy, to do what he pleases without restraint and without compulsion. When he becomes the friend of Cæsar, then does he cease to be restrained; to be compelled? Is he secure? Is he happy? Whom shall we ask? Whom can we better credit than this very man who has been his friend? Come forth and tell us whether you sleep more quietly now than before you were the friend of Cæsar. You presently hear him cry, "Leave off, for Heaven's sake! and do not insult me. You know not the miseries I suffer; there is no sleep for me; but one comes and says that Cæsar is already awake; another, that he is just going out. Then follow perturbations, then cares." Well, and when did you use to sup the more pleasantly--formerly, or now? Hear what he says about this too. When he is not invited, he is distracted; and if he is, he sups like a slave with his master, solicitous all the while not to say or do anything foolish. And what think you? Is he afraid of being whipt like a slave! No such easy penalty. No; but rather, as becomes so great a man, Cæsar's friend, of losing his head. And when did you bathe the more quietly; when did you perform your exercises the more at your leisure; in short, which life would you rather wish to live--your present, or the former? I could swear there is no one so stupid and insensible as not to deplore his miseries, in proportion as he is the more the friend of Cæsar.

Since, then, neither they who are called kings nor the friends of kings live as they like, who, then, after all, is free?...

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 110: From the "Discourses." Translated by Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Copyright, 1865 and 1890, by Little, Brown & Co. Epictetus has been valued not alone as an exposition of the Stoic philosophy, but as a specimen of Greek of the later or Silver Age. Marcus Aurelius, who in a later generation wrote in Greek himself, is said to have ranked Epictetus with Socrates as a teacher. Origen, the early Christian father, asserted that his writings had been of more value to the world's morals than those of Plato.]

II

OF FRIENDSHIP[111]

To whatever objects a person devotes his attention, these objects he probably loves. Do men ever devote their attention, then, to [what they think] evils? By no means. Or even to things indifferent? No, nor this. It remains, then, that good must be the sole object of their attention; and if of their attention, of their love too. Whoever, therefore, understands good, is capable likewise of love; and he who can not distinguish good from evil, and things indifferent from both, how is it possible that he can love? The wise person alone, then, is capable of loving.

"How so? I am not this wise person, yet I love my child."

I protest it surprizes me that you should, in the first place, confess yourself unwise. For in what are you deficient? Have not you the use of your senses? Do you not distinguish the semblances of things? Do you not provide such food and clothing and habitation as are suitable to you? Why then do you confess that you want wisdom? In truth, because you are often struck and disconcerted by semblances, and their speciousness gets the better of you; and hence you sometimes suppose the very same things to be good, then evil, and lastly, neither; and, in a word, you grieve, you fear, you envy, you are disconcerted, you change. Is it from this that you confess yourself unwise? And are you not changeable too in love? Riches, pleasure, in short, the very same things, you sometimes esteem good, and at other times evil. And do you not esteem the same persons too alternately as good and bad, at one time treating them with kindness, at another with enmity; at one time commending, and at another time censuring them?

"Yes. This too is the case with me."

Well, then; can he who is deceived in another be his friend, think you?

"No, surely."

Or does he who loves him with a changeable affection bear him genuine good-will?

"Nor he, neither."

Or he who now vilifies, then admires him?

"Nor he."

Do you not often see little dogs caressing and playing with each other, so that you would say nothing could be more friendly? But to learn what this friendship is, throw a bit of meat between them, and you will see. Do you too throw a bit of an estate betwixt you and your son, and you will see that he will quickly wish you under ground, and you him; and then you, no doubt, on the other hand will exclaim, What a son have I brought up! He would bury me alive! Throw in a pretty girl, and the old fellow and the young one will both fall in love with her; or let fame or danger intervene, the words of the father of Admetus will be yours:

"You love to see the light. Doth not your father? You fain would still behold it. Would not he?"

Do you suppose that he did not love his own child when it was little; that he was not in agonies when it had a fever, and often wished to undergo that fever in its stead? But, after all, when the trial comes home, you see what expressions he uses. Were not Eteocles and Polynices born of the same mother and of the same father? Were they not brought up, and did they not live and eat and sleep, together? Did not they kiss and fondle each other? So that any one, who saw them, would have laughed at all the paradoxes which philosophers utter about love. And yet when a kingdom, like a bit of meat, was thrown betwixt them, see what they say--

_Polynices._ Where wilt thou stand before the towers?

_Eteocles._ Why askest thou this of me?

_Polynices._ I will oppose myself to thee, to slay thee.