Saturday, April 25, 2020

 

The Self-Indulgent Ones

Cicero, On the Laws 1.13.39 (tr. Niall Rudd, with his note):
As for those who go in for self-indulgence and are slaves of their own bodies—people who measure everything that they should seek and avoid in life by the yardstick of pleasure and pain—even if they are right (and there is no need to take issue with them here) let us tell them to preach in their own little gardens,* and let us ask them to keep away for a little while from any participation in public life, an area of which they know nothing and have never wished to know anything.

their own little gardens: a patronizing reference to the Epicureans, who held their discussions in a garden in the suburbs of Athens. Cicero was opposed to the school for several reasons; one of the most important was that it discouraged its disciples from engaging in public life.

sibi autem indulgentes et corpori deservientes atque omnia quae sequantur in vita quaeque fugiant voluptatibus et doloribus ponderantes, etiam si vera dicunt — nihil enim opus est hoc loco litibus —, in hortulis suis iubeamus dicere, atque etiam ab omni societate rei publicae, cuius partem nec norunt ullam neque umquam nosse voluerunt, paulisper facessant rogemus.
Epicurus, fragment 8 Usener (tr. R.D. Hicks):
Nor will he [the wise man] take part in politics, as is stated in the first book On Life; nor will he make himself a tyrant.

οὐδὲ πολιτεύσεται (ὁ σοφός), ὡς ἐν τῇ πρώτῃ Περὶ βίων. οὐδὲ τυραννεύσειν.



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