Into the ocean of silence. Seneca, Epistles 2.21.3-5

Seneca urges Lucilius to avoid identifying too much with celebrity of any kind. As nature does not care to know my name, so I too must learn not to identify too strongly with it.

Exemplum Epicuri referam. Cum Idomeneo scriberet et illum a vita speciosa ad fidelem stabilemque gloriam revocaret, rigidae tunc potentiae ministrum et magna tractantem, si gloria inquit tangeris, notiorem te epistulae meae facient quam omnia ista quae colis et propter quae coleris. Numquid ergo mentitus est? quis Idomenea nosset nisi Epicurus illum litteris suis incidisset? Omnes illos megistanas et satrapas et regem ipsum ex quo Idomenei titulus petebatur oblivio alta suppressit. Nomen Attici perire Ciceronis epistulae non sinunt. Nihil illi profuisset gener Agrippa et Tiberius progener et Drusus Caesar pronepos; inter tam magna nomina taceretur nisi Cicero illum applicuisset. Profunda super nos altitudo temporis veniet, pauca ingenia caput exserent et in idem quandoque silentium abitura oblivioni resistent ac se diu vindicabunt.

I shall offer you the example of Epicurus. He wrote to Idomeneus (†), who was then minister to a strict government and involved with great affairs. Summoning his friend away from that glamorous life to the glory that is faithful and firm, the philosopher said, "If you are smitten with glory, my letters will make you more renowned than all those things you now tend, and for which you are tended by others." Was he lying? Who would know Idomeneus today if Epicurus had not graven him in those letters? Deep oblivion has buried all his fellows, the grandees and satraps, and even the king from whom he took his title. Cicero's epistles keep the name of Atticus (‡) from perishing. No matter that Agrippa was his son-in-law, that Tiberius wed his grand-daughter, that Drusus Caesar was his great-grandson: he would have been a silent nonentity among so many great names, if Cicero hadn't marked him. The great wave of time shall wash over us, too: a few geniuses among us will hold their heads above its depths, resisting oblivion and staking their claim to remain a little longer even as they also pass away, one by one, into the ocean of silence that awaits us all.

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(†) Idomeneus was one of several prominent citizens of Lampsacus who joined the school Epicurus founded there after leaving Mitylene. Lampsacus was known in antiquity as a center of wealth and culture, affiliated over time with many great states: Lydia, Persia, Athens, Sparta, and Rome (who supported the city against Antiochus the Great). Before Epicurus' day, the city offered refuge to Anaxagoras, when Athens condemned him for impiety, and supplied Alexander the Great with a tutor, Anaximenes, whose mediation saved them from being punished for their love of Persia.

(‡) Titus Pomponius Atticus, whom Seneca has mentioned before (1.3). Agrippa is Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, Octavian's lifelong friend and associate, a capable military and political leader in the faction that made the first Roman emperor. Tiberius succeeded Octavian in that role, and Drusus Caesar was his adopted heir after the untimely death of Germanicus, who perished of disease or poison in Egypt. In the end, Drusus too died early, starving to death in prison under suspicion of plotting against Tiberius. All these figures became popular celebrities in the politics of their day, which revolved increasingly around the personal life and patronage of the imperial family.