Content with bare necessities. Seneca, Epistles 4.31.11
Seneca
concludes his epistle exhorting Lucilius to choose needs over wants,
divine nature over human luxury (which fosters an insatiable appetite
for more than we can ever use or appreciate properly). He notes that
what makes us great, as humans, is the power of our minds: he is
referring not to the intellect per se, the part of the mind that
notices & parses information, but to the will, the part of the
mind that fosters righteous, good, and generous behavior. He says
that righteous, good, and generous minds can be found in all stations
of contemporary Roman life—among the noble knights, the common
freedmen, & the lowly slaves. Anyone can rise to become a peer of
the gods, no matter how unfortunate or impoverished he, or she, might
appear.
Quaerendum
est quod non fiat in dies eius, qui non possit obstari.
Quid hoc est? animus, sed hic rectus, bonus, magnus. Quid aliud voces
hunc quam deum in corpore humano hospitantem? Hic animus tam in
equitem Romanum quam in libertinum, quam in servum potest cadere.
Quid est enim eques Romanus aut libertinus aut servus? nomina ex
ambitione aut iniuria nata. Subsilire in caelum ex angulo licet:
exsurge modo et te quoque dignum finge deo (†).
Finges autem non auro vel
argento: non potest ex hac materia imago deo exprimi similis; cogita
illos, cum propitii essent, fictiles fuisse. Vale.
Here
you must look for something that does not occur in the life of one
who cannot bear opposition. What is this thing? A mind, but not just
any mind: it must be righteous, good, and great. What would you call
it if not a god playing guest in a human body? This mind can manifest
as easily in a freedman as in a Roman knight, and just as easily in a
slave. What is a knight, really, or a freedman, or a slave? Names and
titles are born from flattery and injustice. It is quite possible to
make the leap to heaven from the dankest shithole on earth. Rise up,
then, and make yourself the peer of gods.
You
will not achieve worship with gold or silver: from this material no
image like a god's can be forced. Remember that all good likenesses
of deity have been shaped from earth. Farewell.
---
(†)
Here Seneca quotes Vergil's Aeneid,
specifically the passage in which the Greek king Evander shows the
hero
Aeneas where the
god
Hercules rested when his journey back from Iberia took him through
the impoverished
realm that would later become the city of Rome (Aeneid
8.362-9).
Evander
definitely agrees with Seneca, that human wealth is not divine:
Ut
ventum ad sedes: Haec inquit
limina victor
Alcides
subiit, haec illum regia cepit.
Aude,
hospes, contemnere opes et te quoque dignum
finge
deo rebusque veni non asper egenis.
As
they reached his humble home
“Here,”
he says, “the victor came
“Bowed
his head to pass this door
“Made
this hall his royal court.
“Dare,
my guest, to hate on wealth
“As
peer of gods invent
yourself
“Come
in glad, like Hercules
“Content
with bare necessities.”