Suppose, then, that you were not a Roman knight, but a freedman, you might nevertheless by your own efforts come to be the only free man amid a throng of gentlemen.
"How?" you ask.
Simply by distinguishing between good and bad things without patterning your opinion from the populace.
You should look, not to the source from which these things come, but to the goal towards which they tend.
If there is anything that can make life happy, it is good on its own merits; for it cannot degenerate into evil.
"How?" you ask.
Simply by distinguishing between good and bad things without patterning your opinion from the populace.
You should look, not to the source from which these things come, but to the goal towards which they tend.
If there is anything that can make life happy, it is good on its own merits; for it cannot degenerate into evil.
—from Seneca, Moral Letters 44
Even after so many years of reading on it, I still get confused about the workings of the social classes in Ancient Rome. Then again, I also get confused about the workings of the social classes in my own day and age, such that I’m not sure when I am expected to grovel before a man and when I am expected to boss him around.
If you have ever met me, however, you will know that I do not grovel, and I most certainly do not boss, so the subtle hints are lost on me. Whoever you are, I will do my best to treat you with a common human decency, and with a total disregard for your titles. We were all made to be the masters of our own souls, not to lord over others.
Many people assume that freedom means being free from something, and thus they are constantly trying to overcome any external impediments. This inevitably leads to conflict, and the bitter irony that the liberty of one therefore demands the restraint of another.
Or freedom could mean being free in something, where the very act of committing to a good action is an end in itself, and then there is no need for anxiety about what the next fellow happens to be doing. While he may bully you to pay your taxes, or throw you into prison, you retain your complete freedom over your own character.
From this perspective, it no longer matters whether Lucilius is a senator, a knight, a plebeian, or a slave, just as it no longer matters whether I live in a suburban colonial or under a highway bridge. The only freedom that counts is in the head and the heart, not in the illusion of eminence.
Calmly following my own judgments, whatever the crowd is excited or angry about at the moment, makes me the freest sort of man.
Do they dismiss me for not coming from the correct background, and for not playing by their etiquette? It is better that I have a sense of where I am going, and of why no harm can befall me if I focus on the good within my nature.
Where else could human happiness be, except in the goal of being utterly human?
Even after so many years of reading on it, I still get confused about the workings of the social classes in Ancient Rome. Then again, I also get confused about the workings of the social classes in my own day and age, such that I’m not sure when I am expected to grovel before a man and when I am expected to boss him around.
If you have ever met me, however, you will know that I do not grovel, and I most certainly do not boss, so the subtle hints are lost on me. Whoever you are, I will do my best to treat you with a common human decency, and with a total disregard for your titles. We were all made to be the masters of our own souls, not to lord over others.
Many people assume that freedom means being free from something, and thus they are constantly trying to overcome any external impediments. This inevitably leads to conflict, and the bitter irony that the liberty of one therefore demands the restraint of another.
Or freedom could mean being free in something, where the very act of committing to a good action is an end in itself, and then there is no need for anxiety about what the next fellow happens to be doing. While he may bully you to pay your taxes, or throw you into prison, you retain your complete freedom over your own character.
From this perspective, it no longer matters whether Lucilius is a senator, a knight, a plebeian, or a slave, just as it no longer matters whether I live in a suburban colonial or under a highway bridge. The only freedom that counts is in the head and the heart, not in the illusion of eminence.
Calmly following my own judgments, whatever the crowd is excited or angry about at the moment, makes me the freest sort of man.
Do they dismiss me for not coming from the correct background, and for not playing by their etiquette? It is better that I have a sense of where I am going, and of why no harm can befall me if I focus on the good within my nature.
Where else could human happiness be, except in the goal of being utterly human?
—Reflection written in 2/2013
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