On Being a Busybody (15-16)

We must, therefore, also habituate ourselves to things like these: when a letter is brought to us, not to open it quickly or in a hurry, as most people do, who go so far as to bite through the fastenings with their teeth if their hands are too slow; when a messenger arrives from somewhere or other, not to rush up, or even to rise to our feet; when a friend says, I have something new to tell you, to say, I should prefer that you had something useful or profitable.

When I was once lecturing in Rome, that famous Rusticus,[*] whom Domitian later killed through envy at his repute, was among my hearers, and a soldier came through the audience and delivered to him a letter from the emperor. There was a silence and I, too, made a pause, that he might read his letter; but he refused and did not break the seal until I had finished my lecture and the audience had dispersed. Because of this incident everyone admired the dignity of the man.

But when one nourishes his curiosity upon permissible material until he renders it vigorous and violent, he is no longer able to master it easily, since it is borne, by force of habit, toward forbidden things. And such persons pry into their friends’ correspondence, thrust themselves into secret meetings, become spectators of sacred rites which it is an impiety

for them to see, tread consecrated ground, investigate the deeds and words of kings.

And yet surely in the case of despots,[*] who have to know everything, it is the tribe of socalled Ears and Jackals that makes them most detested. It was Darius Nothus, who had no confidence in himself and regarded everyone with fear and suspicion, who first instituted Listeners; and Jackals were distributed by the Dionysii[*] among the people of Syracuse. Consequently when the revolution came, these were the first persons whom the Syracusans arrested and crushed to death. And in fact the tribe of informers is from the same clan and family as busy bodies. But while informers search to see whether anyone has planned or committed a misdemeanour, busy bodies investigate and make public even the involuntary mischances of their neighbours. And it is said that the person called aliterios[*] first acquired his name from being a busybody. For it appears that when there was a severe famine at Athens and those who possessed wheat would not contribute it to the common stock, but ground[*] it in their houses secretly by night, some persons went about listening for the noise of the. mills, and so acquired the name aliterioi. It was in the same way, they say, that the sycophant[*] won his name. Since the export of figs[*] was prohibited, men who revealed[*] and gave information against those

who did export them were called sycophants. So it is well worth the while of busybodies to consider this fact also, that they may be ashamed of the resemblance and relationship of their own practice to that of persons who are very cordially hated and loathed.