5. It tries Mucius with fire, Fabricius with poverty, Regulus with torture, Socrates with poison, Cato with death. It is misfortune alone that finds noble examples. Is Mucius to be commiserated because he put his hand into an enemy’s fire and punished himself for his mistake? because he vanquished with a burned hand a king whom he could not vanquish with it armed? Would he have been happier if he had warmed it in the bosom of a mistress?
6. Is Fabricius to be pitied because he tilled his own field when not engaged in public duties? because he waged war against riches as well as against Pyrrhus? because he ate, by his own fireside, the same roots and herbs that his triumphant old age pulled up on his farm? Can we say that he would have been happier if he had filled his stomach with fish from a far off strand and with exotic birds? or if he had stimulated his jaded and nauseated stomach with oysters from the Upper and the Lower sea? or if he had encircled with a huge pile of different fruits, the finest game captured at the cost of many a huntsman’s life?
7. Is Rutilius unfortunate because those who condemned him decided a case against themselves for all time to come? because he was more willing to be deprived of his country than to be recalled from exile? because he alone dared to deny anything to the dictator Sulla, and when invited to return, not only refused, but fled farther? “Let those manage affairs,” said he, “whom thy good fortune keeps in Rome! Let them look upon the pool of blood in the Forum and the heads of senators floating on the Servilian lake,—for that was the field of carnage of those proscribed by Sulla—and the bands of assassins roaming through the city, and the many thousands of Roman citizens slain in one place after pledges of immunity had been given, yes, because of those very pledges! Let those look upon these things who are not able to endure exile.”
8. Shall we say that Sulla is to be congratulated because, when he descends to the Forum, a way is opened for him with the sword? because he allows the heads of men of consular rank to be shown him in public, and paid the price of their slaughter by the hand of the quaestor and from the fisc? And he who did these things is the same man that enacted the Cornelian law! Let us return to Regulus. What injury did his destiny do him by making him, the well-known exemplar of good faith, an exemplar of patient endurance? Nails pierce his skin, and whatever way he lays down his weary body he lies on a wound, while his open eyes doom him to perpetual wakefulness.