Moral Letters to Lucilius

​Each of the two is corrupted in a different way, by Hercules, just as much as to be unwilling to use any but splendid, sounding, and poetic words, and to avoid those which are necessary and in common use. I would say that this man errs as much as that one: the former cultivates himself more than is right, the latter neglects himself more than is right; the former carries even his shins [trimmed], the latter not even his armpits.

​Let us pass to composition. How many kinds will I give you in this, in which errors are made? Some approve a broken and rough arrangement; they purposely disturb it if anything has flowed out a little too smoothly. They do not want a juncture to be without ruggedness; they think it manly and strong which strikes the ear with inequality. For some, there is no composition, but modulation; so much does it flatter and slide softly.

​What shall I say of that in which words are delayed and, having been long expected, scarcely return at the clausulae? What of that which is slow at the end, such as Cicero’s is, sloping down and gently detaining, and responding, no differently than it is accustomed, to its own manner and foot? The defect is not only in the kind of thoughts, if they are either petty and childish, or improper and bolder than is permitted with modesty safe, if they are florid and too sweet, if they come to nothing and, without effect, sound of nothing more.

​Some single person introduces these defects, under whom eloquence then is; the others imitate him and hand them down one to another. Thus, when Sallust was in vogue, amputated thoughts, words falling before expectation, and obscure brevity were held for refinement. Lucius Arruntius, a man of rare frugality, who wrote the histories of the Punic War, was a Sallustian and striving toward that style. There is in Sallust: “he made the army silver,” that is, he prepared it with money. Arruntius began to love this; he placed it on every page. He says in a certain place: “they made flight for our men.” In another place: “Hiero, king of the Syracusans, made war.” And in another place: “which things having been heard, made the Panormitans give themselves ​up to the Romans.” I wished to give you a taste; the whole book is woven with these. Things which were rare in Sallust are frequent and almost continuous in this man, and not without cause; for the former fell into them, but the latter sought them. You see, however, what follows when a defect is an example for someone.

​Sallust said: “with waters wintering [stormy].” Arruntius says in the first book of the Punic War: “suddenly the weather wintered [stormed].” And in another place, when he wished to say that it had been a cold year, he says: “the whole year wintered.” And in another place: “thence he sent sixty light cargo ships besides the soldiers and the necessary men of the sailors, with the north wind wintering [storming].” He does not cease to stuff this verb in all places. In a certain place Sallust says: “amid civil arms he seeks the reputations of the fair and good.” Arruntius did not restrain himself from placing, in the very first book, that there were huge “reputations” concerning Regulus.

​These and such defects, therefore, which imitation has impressed upon someone, are not signs of luxury nor of a corrupt mind; for they ought to be personal and born from the man himself, from which you may judge someone’s affections. A wrathful man’s speech is wrathful, an overly excited man’s is hurried, a delicate man’s is tender and flowing.