shing a happy life: nor, if
the violent south wind has tossed you in the deep, will you therefore
sell your ship on the other side of the Aegean Sea. On a man sound in
mind Rhodes and beautiful Mitylene have such an effect, as a thick cloak
at the summer solstice, thin drawers in snowy weather, [bathing in] the
Tiber in winter, a fire in the month of August. While it is permitted,
and fortune preserves a benign aspect, let absent Samos, and Chios, and
Rhodes, be commended by you here at Rome. Whatever prosperous; hour
Providence bestows upon you, receive it with a thankful hand: and defer
not [the enjoyment of] the comforts of life, till a year be at an end;
that in whatever place you are, you may say you have lived with
satisfaction. For if reason and discretion, not a place that commands a
prospect of the wide-extended sea, remove our cares; they change their
climate, not their disposition, who run beyond the sea: a busy idleness
harrasses us: by ships and by chariots we seek to live happily. What you
seek is here [at home], is at Ulubrae, if a just temper of mind is not
wanting to you.

* * * * *

EPISTLE XII.

TO ICCIUS.

_Leader the appearance of praising the man's parsimony, he archly
ridicules it; introduces Grosphus to him, and concludes with a few
articles of news concerning the Roman affairs_.

O Iccius, if you rightly enjoy the Sicilian products, which you collect
for Agrippa, it is not possible that greater affluence can be given you
by Jove. Away with complaints! for that man is by no means poor, who has
the use or everything, he wants. If it is well with your belly, your
back, and your feet, regal wealth can add nothing greater. If perchance
abstemious amid profusion you live upon salad and shell-fish, you will
continue to live in such a manner, even if presently fortune shall flow
upon you in a river of gold; either because money can not change the
natural disposition, or because it is your opinion that all things are
inferior to virtue alone. Can we wonder that cattle feed upon the
meadows and corn-fields of Democritus, while his active soul is abroad
[traveling] without his body? When you, amid such great impurity and
infection of profit, have no taste for any thing trivial, but still mind
[only] sublime things: what causes restrain the sea, what rules the
year, whether the stars spontaneously or by direction wander about and
are erratic, what throws obscurity