But your sorrow — granting that there is any reason in it — tell me, does it have in view your own ills or the ills of him who is gone? In the loss of your son are you stirred by the thought that you have received no pleasures from him, or is it that you might have experienced greater pleasures if he had lived longer? If you answer that you have experienced none, you will render your loss more bearable; for the things from which men have experienced no joy and gladness are always less missed. If you confess that you have experienced great pleasures from him, then it is your duty not to complain about what has been withdrawn, but to give thanks for what you have had. Surely his rearing alone has yielded you ample reward for all your toil, unless perhaps it happens that those who spare no pains in raising pups and birds and other silly pets derive some slight pleasure from the sight and touch and fawning caresses of these dumb creatures, while those who raise children miss the rearer’s reward that comes from the mere act of rearing them. And so although his industry may have gained you nothing, although his carefulness may have saved you nothing, although his wisdom may have taught you nothing, yet in having had him, in having loved him, lies your reward.
“But,” you say, “it might have lasted longer, might have been greater.” True, but you have been better dealt with than if you had never had a son; for if we should be given the choice — whether it is better to be happy for a short time only or never at all — it is better for us to have blessings that will flee than none at all. Would you rather have had a son who was a disgrace, someone who has possessed merely the place and the name of a son, or one with the fine qualities your son had, a youth who was early discerning, early dutiful, early a husband, early a father, who was early diligent in every public duty, early a priest, as though he were always hastening? Great and at the same time long-lasting blessings fall to scarcely any man’s lot; it is only the good fortune which comes slowly that lasts and goes with us to the end. The immortal gods, not purposing to give him to you for a long time, gave to you from the first a son such as length of time is able to produce. And you cannot say even this — that the gods picked you out in order to deprive you of the enjoyment of your son. Cast your eyes upon the great company of people you know, or do not know — everywhere you will find those who have suffered greater losses than yours. Great generals have experienced such as yours, princes have experienced them; story has left not even the gods18 exempt, in order, I fancy, that the knowledge that even divinities can perish may lighten our grief for the dead. Look about you, I say, at everyone; you will not mention a single home so wretched that it could not take comfort from knowing one more wretched. But I do not think so ill of your character — Heaven forbid! — as to believe that you would be able to bear your own misfortune more lightly if I should bring before you a mighty number of mourners. The solace that comes from having company in misery smacks of ill-will. Nevertheless, I shall cite some others, not so much to show you that this calamity often befalls mankind — for it would be absurd to collect the examples of man’s mortality — as to show you that there have been many who sweetened bitter fortune by enduring it calmly. I shall begin with a man who was most fortunate.
Lucius Sulla lost a son, but that circumstance neither blunted his malice and the great energy of his prowess against his enemies and his fellow-countrymen nor made it appear that he had wrongly used his famous title19; for he assumed it after the death of his son, fearing neither the hatred of men, by whose misfortune that excessive prosperity of his was purchased, nor the envy of the gods, whose reproach it was that Sulla was so truly “the Fortunate.” The question, however, of Sulla’s character may be left among the matters not yet decided — that he took up arms honorably20 and honorably laid them aside even his enemies will admit. But the point at present involved will be clear — that an evil which reaches even the most fortunate men is not the greatest of evils.