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Friday, August 23, 2024

Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 4.23


M. We ought to hold all things here in contempt; death is to be looked on with indifference; pains and labors must be considered as easily supportable. And when these sentiments are established on judgment and conviction, then will that stout and firm courage take place; unless you attribute to anger whatever is done with vehemence, alacrity, and spirit. 
 
To me, indeed, that very Scipio who was chief priest, that favorer of the saying of the Stoics, “That no private man could be a wise man,” does not seem to be angry with Tiberius Gracchus, even when he left the consul in a hesitating frame of mind, and, though a private man himself, commanded, with the authority of a consul, that all who meant well to the republic should follow him. 
 
I do not know whether I have done anything in the republic that has the appearance of courage; but if I have, I certainly did not do it in wrath. Does anything come nearer madness than anger? And indeed, Ennius has well defined it as the beginning of madness. The changing color, the alteration of our voice, the look of our eyes, our manner of fetching our breath, the little command we have over our words and actions, how little do all these things indicate a sound mind! 
 
What can make a worse appearance than Homer’s Achilles, or Agamemnon, during the quarrel? And as to Ajax, anger drove him into downright madness, and was the occasion of his death. 
 
Courage, therefore, does not want the assistance of anger; it is sufficiently provided, armed, and prepared of itself. We may as well say that drunkenness or madness is of service to courage, because those who are mad or drunk often do a great many things with unusual vehemence. Ajax was always brave; but still he was most brave when he was in that state of frenzy:
 
“The greatest feat that Ajax e’er achieved
Was, when his single arm the Greeks relieved.
Quitting the field; urged on by rising rage,
Forced the declining troops again t’engage.”
 
Shall we say, then, that madness has its use? 

—from Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 4.23 
 
As much as I may be tempted to believe that courage involves lashing out, in an uproar at everything in my path, the truth is that it requires reining in, the tempering of my extreme desires. Once I have put my worldly circumstances in their proper place, caring less about whether I live or I die, and more about whether I act with virtue or with vice, I am finally able to rest in a purity of conviction. The loss of my property or my fame will be as nothing compared to the content of my character. 
 
If this still sounds impossible, recognize how only an attachment to lesser things is what keeps us from exercising a greater confidence. A man will gladly give everything else for whatever he values above anything else. If that something is hateful vengeance, we are no longer speaking of bravery, but of madness. 
 
Though I now read far more Roman history than I ever did, I do not know enough about the confrontation between Scipio Nasica and Tiberius Gracchus to judge if anyone was enraged, but I do think of the story from the Apology, when Socrates was ordered by the Thirty Tyrants to arrest Leon of Salamis. Instead of sheepishly submitting to their command, or giving some indignant speech, he simply chose to go home: there was no need to add any show of resentment to his firm refusal.
 
If Ajax did fight with anger when he saved the Greek fleet, was it actually his anger that caused him to be brave? His agitation certainly did not help him later, when he took his own life, in despair at being denied the armor of Achilles in favor of Odysseus. Let us not attribute excellence to all the wrong sources. 
 
I have now often seen men permit themselves to be swept away by their frustrations, quick to swing their fists, and then insisting that what they did was a noble calling of courage. It is surely no accident that they act almost as if they are drunk, and indeed, we all know how dangerous it is to combine malice with alcohol. 
 
While I would like to claim that politicians have become angrier over the years, I suspect it is rather that my own tolerance for ideological tantrums has gradually decreased. Perhaps you happen to have stumbled upon a truth, and yet I can give you no credit when your disposition is so vulgar, and your motives are so spiteful. A ruler ought first to rule himself. 

—Reflection written in 1/1999 

IMAGE: Pietro della Vecchia, Ajax (c. 1650) 



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