Well, but see how each of them
endured his fate, and if they endured it bravely, long in your heart for
courage as great as theirs; if they died in a womanish and cowardly manner,
nothing was lost.
Either they deserved that you
should admire their courage, or else they did not deserve that you should wish
to imitate their cowardice: for what can be more shameful than that the
greatest men should die so bravely as to make people cowards?
I attach ever more importance to bravery, though I
find that the way I understand it is very different from the way many others
describe it. I do not mean a toughness that is uncaring, or the application of
a brute force of will, or a glorification of my power to take what I want. I
think rather of the strength of conviction, the willingness to surrender lesser
things for the sake of greater things, a foundation of character.
A brave man does not to be ten feet tall, or have muscles
made of steel, or be required to repress his feelings. No, he must only commit
to doing right instead of wrong. The battle he fights is in his own heart and
mind, not against any external threat. If I can’t build up such habits of
courage, no other quality I possess will be of any use to me.
Will this be easy? Hardly, at least at first. I
will still feel fear, and I will still have nagging doubts, and sometimes my
legs will buckle, and my hands will shake. I still find myself quivering or flinching at the
silliest of obstacles, yet I manage by remembering that my judgment rules me,
not my flesh. If I can be firm in my awareness of the good, I have it within me
to take control of myself.
Odd things may go on in my head, where I may know
that death should not be feared, and yet I fear the pain that will most likely accompany
death. Another estimation is necessary then, perhaps a more difficult one for
me, that my worth is deeper than pleasure and pain. I can then more easily bear
the absence of one or the presence of the other. I begin to see that I must be
wise to be brave, not some growling beast.
And perhaps something is going right in my
thinking, when I am deeply moved by the moral courage of my betters, and I wish
to become more like them. Their suffering was in itself neither here nor there,
because everyone suffers, but what they chose to do with it, how they
transformed it, is what makes them close to the gods.
The bravery was itself the victory, regardless of
any other consequences. They made themselves better, and thereby happier, so
let me pay homage to them by following their example. How foolish it would be
of me if I watched decent folks face death for the sake of justice, and then I myself
only ran away in cowardice.
When the henchmen of Mark Antony finally caught up
with Cicero, Plutarch says that the old man not only died for his principles,
but he held his chin and stretched out his own neck to show that he would die
willingly, even as his followers covered their faces. Cassius Dio records his
last words as “There
is nothing proper about what you are doing, soldier, but do try to kill me
properly.”
In the
movies, there would surely have a been a lengthy battle scene filmed with fancy
wire work, but that is not necessary for there to be bravery.
Written in 12/2011
IMAGE: S.W. Reynolds, The Death of Cicero (c. 1820)
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