Seneca · a new plain-English translation from the Latin
[1] You ask what I think you should avoid above everything else? A crowd. You are not yet safe to be trusted to one. I'll admit my own weakness, at any rate: I never bring home the character I took out with me. Something of what I had put in order gets shaken loose; something of what I had driven off comes back. What happens to invalids whom a long illness has weakened so far that they can't be taken outdoors without a setback — that is what happens to those of us whose minds are recovering from a long sickness. [2] Mixing with a lot of people is hostile territory: every one of them either recommends some fault to us, or stamps it on us, or smears it on without our noticing. And the danger grows with the size of the crowd we mix into. Nothing, though, wrecks good character like idling in the seats at some spectacle, because that is when vice slips in most easily — on the back of pleasure. [3] What do you suppose I mean? That I come home greedier, more ambitious, more self-indulgent? Worse: crueler and less human, because I have been among human beings. I happened to drop in on the midday show, expecting games, jokes, some relaxation to give men's eyes a rest from human blood. Just the opposite. Whatever fighting had gone on before was mercy by comparison. Now the trifles are dropped and it is pure killing. The men have nothing to shield themselves with; their whole bodies stand open to the blow, and no thrust ever misses. [4] Most spectators prefer this to the regular matched pairs and the bouts by request. And why wouldn't they? No helmet, no shield turns the blade aside. What good is armor? What good is technique? All of that just delays death. In the morning men are thrown to lions and bears; at noon, to their own audience. The crowd orders killers thrown to men who will kill them, and holds the winner back for another slaughter; the way out, for those who fight, is death. Steel and fire do the business. [5] And all this goes on while the arena stands empty. 'But the man was a robber; he killed someone.' So what? Because he killed, he earned this fate — but what did you ever do, poor wretch, to earn watching it? 'Strike him down! Lash him! Put him to the flames! Why does he meet the blade so timidly? Why is his killing so half-hearted? Why is his dying so reluctant? Whip them into the wounds; let them trade blows on bare chests, breast to breast.' The show pauses: 'Cut some throats in the meantime, so something is happening.' Come now — don't you people even grasp that bad examples fall back on those who set them? Thank the immortal gods that the man you are teaching cruelty to is unable to learn.
[6] A tender mind, with a weak grip on the right, has to be pulled away from the public: it is easy to go over to the majority's side. A crowd unlike them might have shaken even Socrates, Cato, and Laelius out of their character — so certain is it that none of us, at the very moment we are polishing our nature, can withstand the assault of vices arriving with so large an escort. [7] One model of extravagance or greed works enormous damage: a pampered housemate slowly softens and unstrings you; a rich neighbor inflames desire; a spiteful companion rubs his rust off on the most candid and straightforward of men. What do you suppose happens to a character under mass assault? [8] You must either imitate them or hate them. Steer clear of both: don't become like the bad because there are many of them, and don't turn hostile to the many just because you are unlike them. Withdraw into yourself as far as you can. Spend your time with people who will make you better; welcome those you can make better. These things work both ways: people learn while they teach. [9] And there is no reason for the glory of showing off your talent to draw you out before the public, to make you want to give readings or hold debates for that lot. I would want you to, if you had merchandise suited to that public — but there is no one there who could understand you. Perhaps one or two individuals will turn up, and even those you will have to shape and train up to the point of understanding you. 'Then who did I learn all this for?' You have nothing to fear: the effort was not wasted, if you learned it for yourself.
[10] But so that today's learning isn't for me alone, I'll share three fine sayings that come to mind, all bearing on much the same point. One of them this letter will pay as its debt; take the other two as an advance. Democritus says: 'One man counts with me as a whole people, and a people as one man.' [11] Well said, too, by whoever it was — the author is disputed — who, when asked why he took such pains over an art that would reach so very few, replied: 'A few are enough for me; one is enough; none is enough.' And this third, splendidly, from Epicurus, writing to one of his companions in study: 'I write this not for the many but for you: you and I are, for each other, theater enough.' [12] Store these away in your mind, my Lucilius, so that you can despise the pleasure that comes from the applause of the majority. Many people praise you — but what grounds have you for self-approval, if you are a man the many can understand? Let your good qualities face inward. Farewell.