d at home by
executing some villainy; for, among other considerations, shame attaches
to the men who have unjustly cast one forth, but not to the man who is
wantonly expelled.

[-26-] "Moreover, the story as I heard it was that you did not depart
unwillingly nor after conviction, but of your own accord; that you hated
to live with them, seeing that you could not make them better and would
not endure to perish with them, and that you were exiled not from your
country but from those who were plotting against her. Consequently they
would be the ones dishonored and banished, having cast out all that is
good from their souls, but you would be honored and fortunate, as being
nobody's slave in unseemly fashion and possessing all fitting qualities,
whether you choose to live in Sicily, in Macedonia, or anywhere else in
the world. Surely it is not localities that give either good fortune or
unhappiness of any sort, but each man makes for himself both country and
happiness always and everywhere. This is what Camillus had in mind when
he was glad to dwell in Ardea; this is the way Scipio reckoned when he
lived his life out without grieving in Liternum. What need is there to
mention Aristides or to cite Themistocles, men whom exile rendered more
esteemed, or Anni[44] ... or Solon, who of his own accord left home for
ten years?

"Therefore do you likewise cease to consider irksome any such thing as
pertains neither to our physical nor to our spiritual nature, and do not
vex yourself at what has happened. For to us belongs no choice as I told
you, of living as we please, but it is quite requisite for us to endure
what the Divinity determines. If we do this voluntarily, we shall not be
grieved: if involuntarily, we shall not escape at all what is fated and
we shall lay upon ourselves besides the greatest of ills,--distressing
our hearts to no purpose. The proof of it is that men who bear
good-naturedly the most outrageous fortunes do not regard themselves as
being in any very dreadful circumstances, while those that are disturbed
at the lightest disappointments feel as if all human ills were theirs.
And, among people in general, some who handle fair conditions badly and
others who handle unfavorable conditions well make their good or ill
fortune appear even in the eyes of others to be of precisely the same
nature as they figure it to themselves. [-27-] Bear this in mind, then,
and be not cast down by your present state, nor grieve if