Inasmuch as I began with an illustration taken from humble life, I shall keep on with that sort. For men will make greater demands upon themselves, if they see that death can be despised even by the most despised class of men.
The Catos, the Scipios, and the others whose names we are wont to hear with admiration, we regard as beyond the sphere of imitation; but I shall now prove to you that the virtue of which I speak is found as frequently in the gladiators' training-school as among the leaders in a civil war.
Lately a gladiator, who had been sent forth to the morning exhibition, was being conveyed in a cart along with the other prisoners; nodding as if he were heavy with sleep, he let his head fall over so far that it was caught in the spokes; then he kept his body in position long enough to break his neck by the revolution of the wheel. So he made his escape by means of the very wagon which was carrying him to his punishment.
The Catos, the Scipios, and the others whose names we are wont to hear with admiration, we regard as beyond the sphere of imitation; but I shall now prove to you that the virtue of which I speak is found as frequently in the gladiators' training-school as among the leaders in a civil war.
Lately a gladiator, who had been sent forth to the morning exhibition, was being conveyed in a cart along with the other prisoners; nodding as if he were heavy with sleep, he let his head fall over so far that it was caught in the spokes; then he kept his body in position long enough to break his neck by the revolution of the wheel. So he made his escape by means of the very wagon which was carrying him to his punishment.
—from Seneca, Moral Letters 70
This story makes me shiver almost as much as the previous one, but I keep myself focused on Seneca’s deeper point: if we are to do what is right, just patiently awaiting a miserable end is not always the most honorable path. Sometimes, when push comes to shove, we have the choice to surrender the duration of our lives precisely in order to enrich the merit of those lives.
Though I am hesitant to discuss it in the current political climate, the account of this second gladiator makes me reflect on how criminal suspects will sometimes commit “suicide by cop” before permitting themselves to be captured, tried, and imprisoned. I am sure many do so out of pure rage, and many more do so out of total desperation, though I also wonder if a few are thinking it through with far greater care than we might wish to admit.
Those on one side of the aisle say such men are sniveling cowards, and those on the other side of the aisle say they are hapless victims of society, while I am haunted by the possibility that they recognize something I am missing.
I recall briefly meeting a prisoner years ago, during my stint in social services, who was put under psychiatric care because he refused to enter the general population. He would, for example, injure himself or threaten to take his own life if he was ever placed in his assigned cell.
When he was asked if he did this because he was frightened of being locked up, or if he felt intimidated by the other inmates, he insisted he had already seen enough of this life to still be scared.
“No,” he said calmly, “I know what I will have to do to survive in there, and I don’t want to do any of those things ever again. I’ll die before I become that guy again.”
I do not know if he was right or wrong to act as he did; I do know he was struggling with questions of conscience the rest of us can barely imagine. I was only there to assist a priest who was hearing his confession, so I had absolutely no power in the matter, which left me heartbroken.
I am hardly a man of physical bravery, and I don’t manage too well with noble gestures, but if you told me to murder another man to spare my own life, I would rather turn the weapon on myself. The poor gladiator understood that, and I suspect the troubled prisoner at Bridgewater also understood something about that.
This story makes me shiver almost as much as the previous one, but I keep myself focused on Seneca’s deeper point: if we are to do what is right, just patiently awaiting a miserable end is not always the most honorable path. Sometimes, when push comes to shove, we have the choice to surrender the duration of our lives precisely in order to enrich the merit of those lives.
Though I am hesitant to discuss it in the current political climate, the account of this second gladiator makes me reflect on how criminal suspects will sometimes commit “suicide by cop” before permitting themselves to be captured, tried, and imprisoned. I am sure many do so out of pure rage, and many more do so out of total desperation, though I also wonder if a few are thinking it through with far greater care than we might wish to admit.
Those on one side of the aisle say such men are sniveling cowards, and those on the other side of the aisle say they are hapless victims of society, while I am haunted by the possibility that they recognize something I am missing.
I recall briefly meeting a prisoner years ago, during my stint in social services, who was put under psychiatric care because he refused to enter the general population. He would, for example, injure himself or threaten to take his own life if he was ever placed in his assigned cell.
When he was asked if he did this because he was frightened of being locked up, or if he felt intimidated by the other inmates, he insisted he had already seen enough of this life to still be scared.
“No,” he said calmly, “I know what I will have to do to survive in there, and I don’t want to do any of those things ever again. I’ll die before I become that guy again.”
I do not know if he was right or wrong to act as he did; I do know he was struggling with questions of conscience the rest of us can barely imagine. I was only there to assist a priest who was hearing his confession, so I had absolutely no power in the matter, which left me heartbroken.
I am hardly a man of physical bravery, and I don’t manage too well with noble gestures, but if you told me to murder another man to spare my own life, I would rather turn the weapon on myself. The poor gladiator understood that, and I suspect the troubled prisoner at Bridgewater also understood something about that.
—Reflection written in 8/2013
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