W hat? Am I not aware that you went to Alsium with the intention of indulging yourself and there giving yourself up to recreation and mirth and complete leisure for four whole days? And I have no doubt that you have set about enjoying the holiday at your seaside resort in this fashion: after taking your usual siesta at noonday, you would call Niger1 and bid him bring in your books; soon when you felt the inclination to read, you would polish your style with Plautus or saturate yourself with Accius or soothe yourself with Lucretius or fire yourself with Ennius, to the hour in that case appropriate to the Muses, the fifth2 . . . . . . . . . . . .; if he had brought you treatises of Cicero, you would listen to them; then you would go as far as possible off the beaten track to the shore and skirt the croaking marshes; then even, if the fancy took you, get on board some vessel, that, putting out to sea in calm weather, you might delight yourself with the sight and sound of the rowers and their time-giver's3 baton; anon you would be off from there to the baths, make yourself sweat profusely, then discuss a royal banquet with shellfish of all kinds, a Plautine catch hook-taken, rock-haunting, as he says,4 capons long fed fat, delicacies, fruit, sweets, confectionery, felicitous wines, translucent cups with no informer's brand.
That done, Jupiter furnished Sleep with wings, not as Mercury's attached to the ankles, but like Love's fitted to the shoulders. For thou must not, said he, dash into the eyelids and pupils of men with sandals and winged ankles, with the whirling of chariots and the thunder of steeds, but fly to them quietly and softly with gentle wings like a swallow and not with clapping of pinions like pigeons.
Furthermore, that Sleep might be the more welcome to men, he endowed him with many a lovely dream that, according to each sleeper's favourite hobby, he might—in his dreams—either watch an actor and clap him or listen to a flute-player or shout advice to a charioteer in his course; that soldiers might conquer and generals triumph17—in their dreams; and wanderers come home—in their dreams. Such dreams generally turn out true.
So, Marcus, if you need a dream hereafter, I advise you to sleep with a will, until such time as what you desire and as you wish it may fall to your lot in your waking hours.
Marcus Antoninus to Fronto
162 A.D.
To my master, greeting.
Perhaps you will ask what do you mean? Listen then! I as a man greatly eloquent and a disciple of Annaeus Seneca call Faustian5 wines felicitous wines from Faustus Sulla's title; moreover when I speak of a cup without an informer's brand, I mean a cup without a spot. For it does not become a man so learned as I am to speak in everyday terms of Falernian wine or a flawless cup. For to what end can I say that you chose Alsium, a seaside and pleasure resort and, as Plautus has it, a slippery spot,6 if not to indulge yourself and, in ancient parlance, take your pleasu?7 How—the mischief!—pleasu? Nay, if the truth must be told in docked words, that you might to your heart's content indulge in watchin'—I mean watching—, in labors—I mean labours—, in vexats—I mean vexations. You ever indulge in pleasu? It were easier to reconcile you to a polecat than to pleasure. Tell me, Marcus, I beseech you, have you repaired to Alsium only to fast with the sea in sight? What, could you not wear yourself out at Lorium with hunger and thirst and doing business? With a fine view . . . . seem to you more delightful? I remember (telling) you . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The very sea, they say, keeps holiday, when the halcyon broods.8 Is a halcyon with her chicks worthier of quiet ease than you with your children? . . . . . . . .
But you say that circumstances now plainly demand—not study surely? not toil? not wakefulness? not duties? What bow is for ever strung9? what chords for ever stretched? By winking alone can eyes keep their sight, which could not but fail if fixed in one unwavering stare. A garden repeatedly planted, if it lack the aid of manure, bears only weeds and stunted vegetables of no value; for corn, however, and staple crops land that has lain fallow is chosen; rest restores fruitfulness to the soil.
What of your ancestors who enlarged the state and empire of Rome with huge additions? Your great-grandfather, consummate warrior as he was, yet at times took pleasure in actors10 and, moreover, drank pretty stoutly. Yet thanks to him the Roman people often drank mead at his triumphs. We know, too, that your grandfather, a learned ruler and a strenuous, loving not only to govern the world, but to go up and down in it, was yet devoted to music and flute-players, and was withal a right good eater of right rich banquets. Again, your father, that godlike man, who in his foresight, continence, frugality, blamelessness, dutifulness, and personal righteousness excelled the virtues of all rulers, yet visited the palaestra,11 and baited a hook12 and laughed at buffoons.
I say nothing of Gaius Caesar, Cleopatra's keenest foe and afterwards paramour, nothing of Augustus, the husband of Livia. As regards Romulus himself the founder of this city, when he slew the leader of the enemy in a hand-to-hand combat and brought the Spolia Opima13 to Jupiter Feretrius, do you think he. was content with half rations? Verily no hungry or ascetic man could have conceived the idea of carrying off grown-up maidens from a public festival.14 What? did not the aged Numa, most holy of men, pass his life putting sacred offerings and tithes to secular uses, and sacrificing bulls, sheep, and swine, he the dictator of festivals, the inaugurator of banquets, the promulgator of holidays? I call him a gourmand and a holiday-maker. And do you of all men keep your holidays fasting? Nor will I pass over your own Chrysippus,15 who used to get mellow, so they say, every day in the year. And very many . . . . Plainly Socrates himself, as you may gather from the Symposia, the Dialogues, and the Letters of the Socratics, was a man of much shrewdness and wit—the Socrates, mark you, who was Aspasia's pupil and Alcibiades's teacher.
Now if you have declared war on play, relaxation, good living, and pleasure, yet do sleep as a freeman should. (When you have worked) hard till the last (hour of the day, will you continue your labours) till the dawn? Prithee, if no one had stolen fire from heaven, would not the sun suffice you for your judicial duties? Do realise in your conscience that you are tied to a daily falsehood, for, when you say that you "appoint the day" for trial of cases and yet try by night,16 then you are bound to be untruthful, whether you condemn or acquit. If you condemn anyone, you say, there appears to have been gross negligence; where indeed but for the lights nothing could appear at all.
But do, I beseech you, in jest or earnest let yourself be persuaded by me not to rob yourself of sleep, and to keep the boundaries of day and night distinct. Imagine that two noble and illustrious litigants, Evening and Morning, are having a lawsuit about boundaries not yet marked out. Each party puts in a description of his own frontier. Sleep claims to intervene in their trial, for he too is connected with the business, and declares that he suffers prejudice. Would that I had as much vigour and enthusiasm as I enjoyed when long ago I composed those trifles in praise of Smoke and of Dust. Verily I would have written a eulogy of Sleep to the top of my skill! Now, too, if you care to hear a short apologue on Sleep, listen.
They tell us that Father Jove, when at the beginning of things he was founding the human race, with one stroke clave asunder the continuity of man's life into two parts in every respect equal; the one he clothed with light, the other with darkness; called this day and that night, and assigned to night rest and to day work. As yet Sleep had not been born, and all men passed their whole lives awake. But in lieu of sleep the hush of night had been hitherto established for wakeful men. Then, little by little, men's disposition being restless and prone to action and excitement, they began to employ nights as well as days in business, giving not an hour to rest. Then they say that Jove, seeing that now quarrels and recognizances were fixed for the night, and suits were even put off from one night to another, took counsel with his own heart to set up one of his own brethren to preside over night and the repose of mankind. But Neptune pleaded his many heavy cares upon the seas, that the waves should not overflow whole lands, mountains and all, or cyclones in their fury level everything with the ground and suck up the woods and the crops by their roots. Father Dis too made his plea that hardly with immense pains and immense anxiety were the nether precincts kept under control, hardly was Hades impaled in on every side with rivers and marishes and the Stygian fens; that he had even set up a watch-dog to terrify any Shades that had a mind to escape to the upper air, and had given him to boot a triple throat for barking, three gaping jaws, and threefold terror of teeth.
Then Jove after question had with other Gods perceived that a liking for wakefulness was considerably in the ascendant; that Juno called most children to birth at night; that Minerva, mistress of arts and artificers, was for much wakefulness; that Mars by the silence of the surroundings aided nightly sallies and ambuscades; that Venus, however, and Liber were by far the most in favour of the night-wakers. Jupiter then made up his mind to beget Sleep, and enrolled him among the Gods, set him in charge of night and repose, and gave into his keeping the keys of men's eyes. He also mixed with his own hands the juice of herbs, wherewith Sleep might soothe to rest the hearts of men. The herbs of security and delight he culled from the groves of Heaven, but the herb of death was sought in the meadows of Acheron. Of that death he mingled but one drop and that the tiniest, as is the tear of one who would hide his tears.
With this juice, said he, instil slumber into men through the gateways of their eyes: all, into whom thou dost thus instil it, will thereafter at once fall down and lie prone with limbs motionless as though dead. But fear thou not, for they will be alive and anon, when they awake, will rise again.