Emotional control. Seneca, Epistles 1.11.1-7
Seneca illustrates the limits of our ability to control signs of passion with a detailed examination of blushing. Wisdom will not seek to control that which lies outside human power, as blushing does.
Locutus est mecum amicus tuus bonae indolis, in quo quantum esset animi, quantum ingenii, quantum iam etiam profectus, sermo primus ostendit. Dedit nobis gustum, ad quem respondebit; non enim ex praeparato locutus est, sed subito deprehensus. Ubi se colligebat, verecundiam, bonum in adulescente signum, vix potuit excutere; adeo illi ex alto suffusus est rubor. Hic illum, quantum suspicor, etiam cum se confirmaverit et omnibus vitiis exuerit, sapientem quoque sequetur. Nulla enim sapientia naturalia corporis aut animi vitia ponuntur: quidquid infixum et ingenitum est lenitur arte, non vincitur. Quibusdam etiam constantissimis in conspectu populi sudor erumpit non aliter quam fatigatis et aestuantibus solet, quibusdam tremunt genua dicturis, quorundam dentes colliduntur, lingua titubat, labra concurrunt: haec nec disciplina nec usus umquam excutit, sed natura vim suam exercet et illo vitio sui etiam robustissimos admonet.
Inter haec esse et ruborem scio, qui gravissimis quoque viris subitus affunditur. Magis quidem in iuvenibus apparet, quibus et plus caloris est et tenera frons; nihilominus et veteranos et senes tangit. Quidam numquam magis quam cum erubuerint timendi sunt, quasi omnem verecundiam effuderint; Sulla tunc erat violentissimus cum faciem eius sanguis invaserat. Nihil erat mollius ore Pompei; numquam non coram pluribus rubuit, utique in contionibus. Fabianum, cum in senatum testis esset inductus, erubuisse memini, et hic illum mire pudor decuit. Non accidit hoc ab infirmitate mentis sed a novitate rei, quae inexercitatos, etiam si non concutit, movet naturali in hoc facilitate corporis pronos; nam ut quidam boni sanguinis sunt, ita quidam incitati et mobilis et cito in os prodeuntis.
Haec, ut dixi, nulla sapientia abigit: alioquin haberet rerum naturam sub imperio, si omnia eraderet vitia. Quaecumque attribuit condicio nascendi et corporis temperatura, cum multum se diuque animus composuerit, haerebunt; nihil horum vetari potest, non magis quam accersi. Artifices scaenici, qui imitantur affectus, qui metum et trepidationem exprimunt, qui tristitiam repraesentant, hoc indicio imitantur verecundiam. Deiciunt enim vultum, verba summittunt, figunt in terram oculos et deprimunt: ruborem sibi exprimere non possunt; nec prohibetur hic nec adducitur. Nihil adversus haec sapientia promittit, nihil proficit: sui iuris sunt, iniussa veniunt, iniussa discedunt.
Your clever young friend spoke with me the other day; his first word revealed the depth of his mind and genius, how far he has already progressed. He gave us a little taste of his thought, to which he will later offer a response. He had no preparation, speaking strictly off the cuff. As he was gathering himself to begin, he could hardly bear the shame—a good sign in youth. His face blushed deep red. This sort of expression will follow even a wise man who has taken his position and shed his vices, I suspect, for vices arising naturally in body and mind are invulnerable to all wisdom. Whatever is built and bred into us is tempered, not conquered, by our art. Some folk sweat like laborers or victims of fever every time they come before the public, even though they are practiced veterans of the assembly. Others find their knees knocking together when they are about to speak, while their friends gnash their teeth, lose their tongues, or smack their lips. No discipline or practice is sufficient to shake these reactions: nature flexes upon even the strongest, showing them her power and imposing on each some personal vice.
I understand blushing as one of these vices, one that afflicts even the most serious men. It appears most in youths, who have more heat and minds still tender, but it also touches veterans and old men. Some are never more frightening than when they blush, as though they had lost all shame. Sulla (†) was always most violent when the blood rushed to his face. Nobody had a countenance more sensitive than Pompey (‡); he would blush even in company, let alone before an assembly. I recall that Fabianus (*) once blushed, when he was led into the senate as a witness, and this sign of modesty was very becoming in him. Blushing is not the symptom of a weak mind, but of novelty: a new experience, even if it does not thoroughly overwhelm us, nonetheless causes those prone to such things to turn red, by some natural facility in the body. For just as some have healthy blood, others have the hasty kind that rushes to their faces the moment they are excited.
No wisdom drives these expressions away, as I have said: otherwise, if she removed all vices by the roots, wisdom would hold the nature of things under her command. But as things are, we retain whatever attributes the condition of our birth and tempering of our body allow, no matter how long and hard the mind strives to compose itself against them. None of them can be shunned as effectively as it is invited. Dramatic artists, who imitate our emotional affects—cultivating expressions of fear and alarm as well as representations of sadness—use the following behavior as an indication of shame: they cast their faces down, muffling their words and fixing their eyes on the ground as they sink visibly. They cannot force a blush: it arrives or doesn't, outside their ability to control. Wisdom promises no remedy for such things, achieves nothing against them. They are a law unto themselves, coming and going without any orders from us.
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(†) Lucius Cornelius Sulla (138-78 BCE), known as Sulla Felix for his luck, was the first man to capture the government of the Roman republic by force, something he achieved as part of an illustrious career in the military and government that included stints as consul and dictator (an official magistracy in the time of the republic). After playing a critical role in ending the Jugurthine war, he was awarded command of forces that defeated the Cimbrian invasion and the Italian rebellion. He was set to march against Mithridates in Asia Minor when his rival Marius had his command revoked. He responded by marching on Rome, defeating his enemies in battle, and forcing the senate to accept his appointment to the war that he then carried out. Returning home victorious, he again took Rome from his foes by force, in the battle of the Colline Gate. This time he condemned his opponents to death, banishment, and the forfeit of material goods, securing his appointment as dictator and reforming the constitution of the republic to strengthen the senate at the expense of the tribunes. Once these reforms were in place, he resigned as dictator and died a private citizen, one year later.
(‡) Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (106-48 BCE) made his bones serving under Sulla, and like the latter saw considerable success fighting for the republic as a commander, in his own right. His crowning military achievement was a tour of the East during which he settled a number of difficult questions, among them what to do with the relentless Mithridates, whom he put away for good. On the strength of these achievements, he became one of the First Triumvirate, a committee of three men with controlling interest in the republic: himself, Julius Caesar, and Marcus Licinius Crassus. Crassus eventually fell in battle against the Parthians, leaving Caesar and Pompey to contest the state between them as Sulla and Marius had done the generation before. Caesar's forces marched on Italy, prompting Pompey to retreat southwards, eventually abandoning the peninsula for Greece. The decisive engagement between their forces took place at Pharsalus, where Caesar was victorious despite being woefully outnumbered. Pompey fled to Egypt and was murdered there, to Caesar's chagrin.
(*) Papirius Fabianus was a Roman orator and philosopher who made a strong impression on Seneca the Elder, as well as his son. He wrote many books on philosophy, which he pursued as part of the school of the Sextii, Roman eclectics who sought a way of life informed by Cynic, Stoic, and Pythagorean principles. Our Seneca is a significant source for Papirius: see Epistle 100 in this very collection.