Philosophical Works of Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Vol. 4

against whom it may direct its strength. It tests fire in Mucius, poverty in Fabricius, exile in Rutilius, torments in Regulus, poison in Socrates, death in Cato. It finds no great example unless it be an unhappy fortune. Is Mucius unhappy because he presses the fires of the enemy with his right hand, and himself demands the penalty for his own error? Because he puts to flight the King, whom he could not overcome with an armed hand, by a burned one? What then? Would he be happier if he were warming his hand in his mistress’s bosom? Is Fabricius unhappy because he digs his own field, as much as he is at leisure from the Republic? Because he wages war as much with Pyrrhus as with riches? Because he eats those very roots and herbs at his hearth, which he plucked in the field