Nigrinus (15-19)

But a man who loves wealth and is enthralled by gold and measures happiness by purple and power, who has not tasted liberty or tested free speech or contemplated truth, whose constant companions are flattery and servility; a min who has unreservedly committed his soul to pleasure and has resolved to serve none but her, fond of extravagant fare and fond of wine and

"Such folk,” said he, “should live in Rome, for every street and every square is full of the things they cherish most, [*] and they can admit pleasure by every gate—by the eyes, by the ears and nostrils, by the throat and reins, Its everflowing, turbid stream widens every street; it brings in adultery, avarice, perjury and the whole family of the vices, and sweeps the flooded soul bare of self-respect, virtue, and righteousness; and then the ground which they have left a desert, ever parched with thirst, puts forth a rank, wild growth of lusts.” That was the character of the city, he declared, and those all the good things it taught.

“For my part,” said he, “when I first came back from Greece, on getting into the neighbourhood of Rome I stopped and asked myself why I had come here, repeating the well-known words of Homer: [*] ‘Why left you, luckless man, the light of day’—Greece, to wit, and all that happiness and freedom— and came to see’ the hurly-burly here—informers, haughty greetings, dinners, flatterers, murders, legacy-hunting, feigned friendships? And what in the world do you intend to do, since you can neither go away nor do as the Romans do?”

“After communing with myself in this vein and pulling myself out of bowshot as Zeus did Hector in Homer,

From out the slaughter, blood, and battle-din,

“Indeed (if it is right to speak in praise of what is bad), don’t suppose that there is any better school for virtue or any truer test of the soul than this city and the life here; it is no small matter to make a stand against so many desires, so many sights and sounds that lay rival hands on a man and pull him in every direction. One must simply imitate Odysseus and sail past them; not, however, with his hands bound (for that would be cowardly) nor with his ears stopped with wax, but with ears open and body free, and in a spirit of genuine contempt.