Seneca, Moral Letters 19.7

At this point I should like to quote a saying of Maecenas, who spoke the truth when he stood on the very summit: "There's thunder even on the loftiest peaks." 

 

If you ask me in what book these words are found, they occur in the volume entitled Prometheus. He simply meant to say that these lofty peaks have their tops surrounded with thunderstorms. 

 

But is any power worth so high a price that a man like you would ever, in order to obtain it, adopt a style so debauched as that? Maecenas was indeed a man of parts, who would have left a great pattern for Roman oratory to follow, had his good fortune not made him effeminate—nay, had it not emasculated him! 

 

An end like his awaits you also, unless you forthwith shorten sail and—as Maecenas was not willing to do until it was too late—hug the shore!

 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 19

Years of what they call “professional” academic training can sometimes still leave me inclined to do intensive research about an itsy-bitsy topic, complete with name-dropping and footnotes, and then act as if this alone is sufficient for me to parade about with the appearance of understanding. I remain in recovery. 

 

Upon first reading this section, it was only after a whole afternoon with my nose lost in books that I realized I was letting myself get distracted. 

 

Yes, it can be deeply interesting to learn more about the life of someone like Gaius Maecenas, his role in the court of Augustus as a trend-setter and literary sponsor, and all the political and social drama surrounding his glamorous status.

 

Now what am I going to do with all these facts? Will I, like so many of my colleagues, make a show of them, or will I, as Seneca would prefer, consider the lessons they might teach me about living a more virtuous life? 

 

When it comes to what Maecenas wrote, I am not qualified to judge the reputation of his literary style, and I should instead stick to the practical meaning behind his words. It most definitely is true that a mountaintop can be a windswept and stormy spot, though I wonder if this can easily become a platitude, much like the ones I too easily catch myself scribbling down, where an initial sense of profundity quickly fades to a feeling of the banal. Every rose has its thorn, indeed! 

 

Can this rather obvious observation help me by analogy? Perhaps I can be reminded how those in the loftiest of positions in life will still find themselves surrounded by hardship and struggle, and how the highest places are quite often the most inhospitable places. That is certainly a helpful warning about getting myself tangled up in boasting and busywork. 

 

It would seem that Maecenas only confirmed this good lesson by a bad example, as he himself was apparently consumed by the intrigue, nastiness, and pettiness that must inevitably accompany gangs of self-important people. Like so many of us, he made that fatal mistake of being willing to trade the strength of his character for the comfort of his convenience. 

 

The next time one of the go-getters urges me to rush headlong into the fray, I should look very carefully at what he is actually selling. Let him call me a coward for retiring from his recklessness. The man who feeds on manipulation and conflict will ultimately feed on himself. 

 

For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

—Reflection written in 8/2012