Seneca, On the Happy Life 48: Preference, Not Love

. . . Marcus Cato, when he was praising Curius and Coruncanius and that century in which the possession of a few small silver coins was an offence which was punished by the Censor, himself owned four million sesterces; a less fortune, no doubt, than that of Crassus, but larger than of Cato the Censor.

If the amounts be compared, he had outstripped his great-grandfather further than he himself was outdone by Crassus, and if still greater riches had fallen to his lot, he would not have spurned them, for the wise man does not think himself unworthy of any chance presents.

He does not love riches, but he prefers to have them. He does not receive them into his spirit, but only into his house, nor does he cast away from him what he already possesses, but keeps them, and is willing that his virtue should receive a larger subject matter for its exercise.

—Seneca the Younger, On the happy life, Chapter 21 (tr Stewart)

I can hardly make any profound judgments about Roman politics, and I am ignorant of all the subtleties of Seneca’s own political thinking. These references, however, are surely intended to ask the reader to consider the difference between good men who happen to be rich, and bad men who love being rich.

Cato the Younger, and his great-grandfather Cato the Elder, were both very wealthy men, but Seneca admired both of them greatly for their character. It is interesting that Cato the Younger praised Manius Curius Dentatus, a consul of the third century BC who was known for his great frugality, and who, legend tells us, once said he preferred eating his turnips to receiving political bribes, because he thought it better to rule rich men than be one himself.

There seems quite a difference between the prosperous Cato and the thrifty Curius, but I suggest that we are meant to see that this hardly matters. Curius wasn’t good because he was poor, and Cato wasn’t bad because he was rich. They were both good men because they pursued virtue, regardless of how much they possessed.

No, the real contrast is between Cato and his contemporary, Crassus. While both men were rich, though Crassus was apparently richer, the similarity ends there. Cato, a follower of Stoicism, stood for the values of the Roman Republic against the First Triumvirate of Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus. Seneca viewed Cato as a man of moral principle, but Crassus was the Roman equivalent of a modern real estate mogul, who mixed his desire for personal profit with political power plays.

Cato and Crassus were similar in their circumstances, but radically different in their priorities. We have all seen the difference between those who use their wealth to serve others, and those who use others to serve their wealth.

A wise man does not love money, and he does not seek it for its own sake, though he may well choose to prefer it. This may well seem like a petty distinction of semantics, and we can use whatever terminology we like, but there is a real and critical difference between want and preference. The Stoic should want only virtue, and avoid only vice. He should be indifferent to all other things, and make use of them insofar as they help him to be virtuous and not vicious. Accordingly, I should only want to be a good man, not a rich man, or a powerful man, or a popular man.

But let us say all things are equal, and I could be a good man whether I was rich or poor. I will take either circumstance, but I would most likely prefer the option of wealth over poverty, health over sickness, a long life over a short life, many friends over no friends. These are all certainly more pleasant, and they might appear to offer me greater opportunities. Where a condition does not conflict with virtue, I will rightly have the free choice of a preference, but any preference must always be relative to and defer to virtue.

My own silly way of remembering this is that I can take it or leave it, but if I don’t have to leave it, I’ll gladly take it.

I propose that Curius was a virtuous man who preferred poverty, and Cato was a virtuous man who preferred wealth, while Cassius was a vicious man who wanted wealth. It all reduces to whether I love something external for itself, or if I love virtue and also welcome something external.

My own experience is that the absence of fortune may actually be preferable to the presence of fortune far more often than we think, and in this regard I am drawn more to Curius. I find I usually prefer turnips to the burden of wealth. But that is a reflection for another time. 

Written in 8/1995

Image: Jacopo Amigoni, Marcus Curius Dentatus Refuses the Gifts of the Samnites (c. 1736)

Note the turnips by the fire.