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Epistulae ad Familiares, V. xii.

use of your exceptional knowledge of civil changes, whether in disentangling the causes of the revolution or suggesting remedies for its calamities, while you reprehend what you consider blameworthy, and justify what you approve, setting forth your reasons in either case; and if you think you should treat the subject with exceptional freedom of speech, as has been your habit, you will stigmatize the disloyalty, intrigues, and treachery of which many have been guilty towards me. Moreover, what has happened to me will supply you with an infinite variety of material, abounding in a sort of pleasurable interest which could powerfully grip the attention of the reader—if you are the writer. For there is nothing more apt to delight the reader than the manifold changes of circumstance, and vicissitudes of fortune, which, however undesirable I found them to be in my own experience, will certainly afford entertainment in the reading; for the placid recollection of a past sorrow is not without its charm.

5 The rest of the world, however, who have passed through no sorrow of their own, but are the untroubled spectators of the disasters of others, find a pleasure even in their pity. Take, for instance, the way the great Epaminondas[1] died at Mantinea; who of us but recalls it with delight, mingled with a certain compassion? Then only does he bid them pluck out the javelin, when in answer to his question he is told that his shield is safe; and so, despite the agony of his wound, with a mind at ease he died a glorious death. Who does not feel his sympathy excited and sustained in reading of the exile and return of Themistocles?[2] The fact is that the

  1. ↑ The famous Theban general and statesman. Having invaded the Peloponnesus for the fourth time in 362, he gained a decisive victory over the Lacedaemonians at Mantinea, where he died as described above.
  2. ↑ If the text is correct, Cicero is wrong, as Themistocles never returned. Palmer suggests that Aristeides is meant, but Cicero was not exempt from humania incuria in such matters.
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