E ven he would have no lack of plausible arguments who, in answer to the first of the propositions submitted by you, should object that private conduct ought not to conform to that of states. For we shall find many customs and usages publicly established in cities and privately practised by individuals to be dissimilar. You can easily convince yourself of this by looking at the litigation and disputes between public bodies and individuals, wherein neither the venue of the court nor the number of the judges nor the order of the pleas and summonses nor the allowance of time for the speakers nor the penalties of conviction are the same, but there is every difference between the public cases and the private. Again the gates of a city must be opened wide for any to enter at will and, when he will, to go out. But for each one of us as individuals, if his doorkeeper guard not his door and be ever on the watch, debarring from ingress those who have no business there, but on the other hand permitting the inmates to go out freely whenever they wish, the safeguarding of the house could not be properly effected. So also porticoes and groves and altars and gymnasia, and baths, if public ones, are thrown open free to all, but if private, are kept under strong lock and key with a door-keeper to boot, and a fee is exacted from the bathers. Nor yet are banquets in private houses and in the Town-Hall the same; nor a horse if it belong to a private person or to the state; nor the purple robe of the magistrate and of the townsman; nor the garland of home-grown roses and the wreath of olive at Olympia.
At the same time I think that I will waive this and concede to you that private conduct must needs conform to public. But conceding this, I would not go further and concede what you would fain persuade me of, that I must conform to it. I will explain what I mean. The point in dispute between us, I take it, was this, whether one ought to accept great and valuable gifts from friends. Justifying this, you pointed to the example of cities accepting great gifts one from another, taking for granted, my dear friend, the very point in dispute. For alleging as I do that individuals ought not to take great gifts from one another, I would say exactly the same of cities, that they ought not to take them either; but you, begging the question that this is right for cities, adduce it as a proof of what is right for individuals. You must admit that one ought not to prove the question at issue by means of the very points in dispute. But if you say that many states accept such gifts, I will answer that many individuals also accept them, but that the question is whether it is right and fit that they should accept them. And this question beginning with individuals extends to cities also. This point, therefore, I mean the action of cities, you must in all fairness leave on one side, as part of the question in dispute. For I take it you are not unaware that the majority of the most famous and well-ordered cities have never accepted great gifts; as, for example, the City of Rome has rejected many such many a time from very many senders, but Athens exacting heavier gifts than befitted was not at all benefited thereby.
As to your example from the Gods, that they receive gifts and offerings, which you touched on quite briefly, I will endeavour to dismiss it no less shortly. As I am neither God nor the Persian King, it was not fitting even to pay me homage.
The most plausible argument you brought forward, by heaven, was the one from wills—why is it that, when we take even large bequests under wills, we should not accept such from the living? The reason is suggested already by yourself. For those who benefit their friends in their wills prefer, as you say, one legatee to another: from them I admit that it is right to take. The living on the other hand prefer, as you say, the friends whom they benefit to themselves. For this very reason I say that what is offered should not be accepted. For it is in reality no light thing and savours, to tell the truth, of arrogance and tyranny to receive such marks of preference, wherein he, that does another honour, manifestly does himself dishonour, and sets him whom he has honoured above himself. For I would not even mount a horse, if the rider dismounting and going on foot asked me to ride; nor would I sit down in a theatre, if another gave up his seat to me; nor in wintry weather accept a man's cloak, if by stripping himself and shivering he kept me warmly wrapped. For each man is his own nearer concern and more deserving of honour at his own hands.
You say that trifling gifts are not sent to the Gods. What, are not these trifling gifts—the little barley-cakes and the honey and the libation-wine and the milk and the organs of the victims? Aye, and the frankincense is a trifling gift to a God.
So much for the propositions so cleverly and plausibly urged by you touching things public and things divine and touching wills. But for myself let me briefly say this: whatever it is shameless and greedy and covetous to ask for, it is no less characteristic of the shameless, the greedy, and the covetous man to accept even from a voluntary giver. To ask for big gifts is shameless, far more to accept them. And it is all one whether we take from a willing or a reluctant giver; for it is not right to ask, but it is not right to take either. Nor should a man accept such gifts as shall leave the sender poorer and render the receiver richer. And great gifts involve both these results. At any rate in the case of a property valuation, you who sent these two slaves would declare your property as less and I who received them as more. For the item of these two slaves is no negligible one, either in valuation of goods or in exchange of properties1 or in assessment for taxation or in payment of tribute.
He that sends too heavy a gift offends no less than he who sends his fellow ball-player too heavy a return or toasts his fellow guest with a big cup. For he would seem to toast him for debauch not for delight. But just as in temperate banquets we see the wine mixed in the proportion of a great deal of water to quite a little wine, so should gifts be a blend of much loving-kindness and very little outlay. For whom can we say that costly gifts befit? The poor? But they cannot send them. The rich? But they do not need them. Moreover, great gifts cannot be given continuously; or, if a man send great gifts and often, he must come to the end of his resources. But small gifts admit of being given continuously and with no compunction, since a man need make but a small acknowledgment to one who has sent a small gift.
This too you would confess, that a man acts unjustly, if he so acquire praise for himself as to rob another of his. But you in sending great gifts acquire to yourself praise for large-hearted generosity, but you rob me of praise by constraining me to accept favours. For I too might shew large-heartedness by refusing to accept such. But in small gifts the apportionment of praise is equal, in that the sender did not neglect to send, and the recipient did not disdain, the gift. But I would ask, pressing you perhaps rather hard, how can I receive with delight the slaves sent from you, whereas you would not have accepted an identical present, had I sent it? . . . .2 It would have been Glaucus3 of old over again . . . .4 "exchanging gold for bronze and a hundred oxen's worth for that of nine." For it is inevitable that the exchanger of presents should either send in return gifts of much greater value and, as Homer testifies, seem bereft of his senses by Zeus, or act inequitably by sending a meaner gift in return. The third and most equitable rule is to requite what is sent according to the same measure and with equal gifts.5 He that did this would be as like as possible to me, for I am sending back the very things that were sent.
But enough of this pleasantry from a friend to a very dear friend. The cost of the keep of these slaves will now, if you calculate it, give you a little the best of the bargain.
? 157–161 A.D.
Fronto to Lollianus Avitus, greeting.