When Zeno was told that the only ship he had remaining was cast away at sea with all her lading, he replied: Well done Fortune, that hast reduced me to the habit and life of a philosopher. And, indeed, a man that is not puffed up with conceit nor madly in love with a crowd will not, I suppose, have any reason to accuse Fortune for constraining him to live in an island, but will rather commend her for removing so much anxiety and agitation of his mind, for putting a stop to his rambles in foreign countries, to his dangers at sea, and the noise and tumult of the exchange, and for giving him a fixed, vacant, undisturbed life, such a life as he may truly call his own, describing as it were a circle about him, in which is contained the use of all things necessary. For what island is there that has not a horse, a walk, and a bath in it; that has not fishes and hares for such as delight in hunting and angling and such like sports? But the chiefest of all is, that the quiet which others thirst so much after thou commonly mayst have here without seeking. For those that are gamesters at dice, shutting up themselves at home, there are sycophants and busy spies that hunt them out, and prosecute them from their houses of pleasure and gardens in the suburbs, and hale them by violence before the judges or the court. But none sails to an island to give a man any disturbance, no petitioner, no borrower, no urger to suretyship, no one that comes to beg his voice when he stands candidate for an office; only the best friends and familiars, out of good-will and desire to see him, may come over thither; and the rest of his life is safe and inviolable to him, if he has the will and the skill to live at case. But he that cries up the happiness of those that run about in other countries, or spend the most of their life in inns and passage-boats, is no wiser than he is that thinks the planets in a better estate than the fixed stars. And yet every planet rolling about in its proper sphere, as in an island, keeps its order. For the sun never transgresses its limited measures, as Heraclitus says; if it did do so, the Furies, which are the attendants of Justice, would find it out and punish it. These things, my friend, and such like we say and sing to those who, by being banished into an island, have no correspondence or commerce with other people, Hindered by waves of the surrounding deep, Which many ’gainst their mind close prisoners keep. Il . XXI. 59. But as for thee, who art not assigned to one place only, but forbidden only to live in one, the prohibiting thee one is the giving thee leave to dwell anywhere else besides. If on one hand it is urged thus against you: You are in no office, you are not of the senate, nor preside as moderator at the public games, you may oppose on the other hand thus: We head no factions, we make no expensive treats, nor give long attendance at the governor’s gates; we care not at all who is chosen into our province, though he be choleric or unsufferably vexatious. But just as Archilochus disparaged the island of Thasos because of its asperity and inequality in some places, overlooking its fruitful fields and vineyards, saying thus of it, Like ridge of ass’s back it stood, Full of wild plants, for nothing good; so we, whilst we pore upon one part of banishment which is ignominious, overlook its vacancy from business, and that leisure and freedom it affords us. Men admired the happiness of the Persian kings, that passed their winter in Babylon, their summer in Media, and the pleasant spring-time at Susa. And he that is an exile may, if he pleases, when the mysteries of Ceres are celebrated, go and live at Eleusis; and he may keep the feasts of Bacchus at Argos; at the time of the Pythian games, he may pass over to Delphi, and of the Isthmian, to Corinth, if public spectacles and shows are the things he admires; if not, then he may be idle, or walk, or read, or sleep quietly; and you may add that privilege Diogenes bragged of when he said, Aristotle dines when it seems good to King Philip, but Diogenes when he himself pleases, having no business, no magistrate, no prefect to interrupt and disturb his customary way of living. For this reason, you will find that very few of the most prudent and wise men were buried in their own country, but the most of them, when none forced them to it, weighed anchor and steered their course to live in another port, removing some to Athens, and others from it. Who ever gave a greater encomium of his own country than Euripides in the following verses? We are all of this country’s native race, Not brought-in strangers from another place, As some, like dice hither and thither thrown, Remove in haste from this to t’other town. And, if a woman may have leave to boast, A temperate air breathes here in every coast; We neither curse summer’s immoderate heat, Nor yet complain the winter’s cold’s too great. If aught there be that noble Greece doth yield, Or Asia rich, by river or by field, We seek it out and bring it to our doors. And yet he that wrote all this went himself into Macedonia, and passed the rest of his days in the court of Archelaus. I suppose you have also heard of this short epigram: Here lieth buried Aeschylus, the son Of the Athenian Euphorion; In Sicily his latest breath did yield, And buried lies by Gela’s fruitful field. For both he and Simonides before him went into Sicily. And whereas we meet with this title, This publication of the History of Herodotus of Halicarnassus, many have changed it into Herodotus of Thurii, for he dwelt at Thurii, and was a member of that colony. And that sacred and divine poet Homer, that adorned the Trojan war,—why was he a controversy to so many cities (every one pleading he was theirs) but because he did not cry up any one of them to the disparagement of the rest? Many also and great are the honors that are paid to Jupiter Hospitalis. If any one object, that these men hunted ambitiously after glory and honor, let him go to the philosophers and the schools and nurseries of wisdom at Athens, those in the Lyceum, the Academy, the Stoa, the Palladium, the Odeum. If he admires and prefers the Peripatetic philosophy before the rest, Aristotle was a native of Stagira, Theophrastus of Ephesus, Straton of Lampsacus, Glycon of Troas, Ariston of Ceus, Critolaus of Phaselis. If thou art for the Stoic philosophy, Zeno was of Citium, Cleanthes of Assus, Chrysippus of Soli, Diogenes of Babylon, Antipater of Tarsus, and Archedemus who was of Athens went over to the Parthians, and left a succession of Stoic philosophers in Babylon. And who, I pray, persecuted and chased these men out of their country? Nobody at all; but they pursued their own quiet, which men cannot easily enjoy at home that are in any reputation or have any power; other things they taught us by what they said, but this by what they (lid. For even now the most approved and excellent persons live abroad out of their own country, not being transported, but departing voluntarily, not being driven thence, but flying from business and from the disquiets and molestations which they are sure to meet with at home. It seems to me that the Muses helped the ancient writers to finish their choicest and most approved compositions, by calling in, as it were, banishment to their assistance. Thucydides the Athenian wrote the Peloponnesian and Athenian War in Thrace, hard by the forest of Scapte; Xenophon wrote his history in Scillus belonging to Elis; Philistus in Epirus, Timaeus of Tauromenum at Athens, Androtion the Athenian in Megara, Bacchylides the poet in Peloponnesus. These and many more, after they had lost their country, did not lose all hope nor were dejected in their minds, but took occasion thereupon to express the vivacity of their spirit and the dexterity of their wit, receiving their banishment at the hands of Fortune as a viaticum that she had sent them; whereby they became renowned everywhere after death, whereas there is no remaining mention of those factious persons that expelled them. He therefore is ridiculous that looks upon it as an ignominious thing to be banished. For what is it that thou sayest? Was Diogenes ignominious, when Alexander, who saw him sitting and sunning himself, came and asked him whether he wanted any thing, and he answered him, that he lacked nothing but that he would go a little aside and not stand in his light? The king, admiring the presence of his mind, turned to his followers and said: If I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes. Was Camillus inglorious because he was expelled Rome, considering he has got the reputation of being its second founder? Neither did Themistocles by his banishment lose any of the renown he had gained in Greece, but added to it that which he had acquired among the barbarians; neither is there any so without all sense of honor, or of such an abject mind, that had not rather be Themistocles the banished, than Leobates that indicted him; or be Cicero that had the same fate, than Clodius that expelled him Rome; or be Timotheus that abandoned his country, than Aristophon that was his accuser.