For myself, what other claims upon your munificence have I been able to advance, except my literary attainments, nursed, so to speak, in the shades of retirement, and which have been rendered famous, because I am believed to have assisted your early years in the acquisition of learning; a glorious reward for such a service! But you encompassed me with boundless favors, unnumbered riches; so that when I ruminate upon my situation, as I often do, I say to myself: Can it be that I, the son of a knight, the native of a province,[1] am ranked among the chief men of Rome? Has my upstart name acquired splendor among the nobles of the land, and men who glory in a long line of honored ancestors? Where then is that philosophic spirit which professed to be satisfied with scanty supplies? Is it employed in adorning such gardens as these? in pacing majestically through these suburban retreats? Does it abound in estates so extensive as these, and in such immense sums put out at interest? One plea only occurs to my thoughts: that it becomes not me to oppose your bounties.
But both of us have now filled up our measure—you, of all that the bounty of a prince could confer upon his friend; I, of all that a friend could accept from the bounty of his prince. Every addition can only furnish fresh materials for envy; which, indeed, like all other earthly things, lies prostrate beneath your towering greatness,
- ↑ Seneca's birthplace was Corduba, now Cordova, Spain,
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