On the Shortness of Life

ou will find that the most powerful and highly-placed men let
fall phrases in which they long for leisure, praise it, and prefer
it to all the blessings which they enjoy. Sometimes they would fain
descend from their lofty pedestal, if it could be safely done: for
Fortune collapses by its own weight, without any shock or interference
from without. The late Emperor Augustus, upon whom the gods bestowed
more blessings than on any one else, never ceased to pray for rest
and exemption from the troubles of empire: he used to enliven his
labours with this sweet, though unreal consolation, that he would
some day live for himself alone. In a letter which he addressed to
the Senate, after promising that his rest shall not be devoid of
dignity nor discreditable to his former glories, I find the following
words:—”These things, however, it is more honourable to do than to
promise: but my eagerness for that time, so earnestly longed for,
has led me to derive a certain pleasure from speaking about it,
though the reality is still far distant.”[5] He thought leisure so
important, that though he could not actually enjoy it, yet
he did so by anticipation and by thinking about it. He, who saw
everything depending upon himself alone, who swayed the fortunes
of men and of nations, thought that his happiest day would be that
on which he laid aside his greatness. He knew by experience how
much labour was involved in that glory that shone through all lands,
and how much secret anxiety was concealed within it: he had been
forced to assert his rights by war, first with his countrymen, next
with his colleagues, and lastly with his own relations, and had
shed blood both by sea and by land: after marching his troops under
arms through Macedonia, Sicily, Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, and almost
all the countries of the world, when they were weary with slaughtering
Romans he had directed them against a foreign foe. While he was
pacifying the Alpine regions, and subduing the enemies whom he found
in the midst of the Roman empire, while he was extending its
boundaries beyond the Rhine, the Euphrates, and the Danube, at Rome
itself the swords of Murena, Caepio, Lepidus, Egnatius, and others
were being sharpened to slay him. Scarcely had he escaped from their
plot, when his already failing age was terrified by his daughter
and all the noble youths who were pledged to her cause by adultery
with her by way of oath of fidelity. Then there was Paulus and
Antonius’s mistress, a second time to be feared by Rome: and
when he had cut out these ulcers from his very limbs, others grew
in their place: the empire, like a body overloaded with blood, was
always breaking out somewhere. For this reason he longed for leisure:
all his labours were based upon hopes and thoughts of leisure: this
was the wish of him who could accomplish the wishes of all other
men.