id of virtue, and
consequently cannot be happy. What sort of life does he lead? He has a
constant supply, you say, of good things, without any intermixture of
bad. What are those good things? Sensual pleasures, no doubt; for you
know no delight of the mind but what arises from the body, and returns
to it. I do not suppose, Velleius, that you are like some of the
Epicureans, who are ashamed of those expressions of Epicurus,[101] in
which he openly avows that he has no idea of any good separate from
wanton and obscene pleasures, which, without a blush, he names
distinctly. What food, therefore, what drink, what variety of music or
flowers, what kind of pleasures of touch, what odors, will you offer to
the Gods to fill them with pleasures? The poets indeed provide them
with banquets of nectar and ambrosia, and a Hebe or a Ganymede to serve
up the cup. But what is it, Epicurus, that you do for them? For I do
not see from whence your Deity should have those things, nor how he
could use them. Therefore the nature of man is better constituted for a
happy life than the nature of the Gods, because men enjoy various kinds
of pleasures; but you look on all those pleasures as superficial which
delight the senses only by a titillation, as Epicurus calls it. Where
is to be the end of this trifling? Even Philo, who followed the
Academy, could not bear to hear the soft and luscious delights of the
Epicureans despised; for with his admirable memory he perfectly
remembered and used to repeat many sentences of Epicurus in the very
words in which they were written. He likewise used to quote many, which
were more gross, from Metrodorus, the sage colleague of Epicurus, who
blamed his brother Timocrates because he would not allow that
everything which had any reference to a happy life was to be measured
by the belly; nor has he said this once only, but often. You grant what
I say, I perceive; for you know it to be true. I can produce the books,
if you should deny it; but I am not now reproving you for referring all
things to the standard of pleasure: that is another question. What I am
now showing is, that your Gods are destitute of pleasure; and
therefore, according to your own manner of reasoning, they are not
happy.

XLI. But they are free from pain. Is that sufficient for beings who are
supposed to enjoy all good things and the most supreme felicity? The
Deity, they say, is constantly meditating on his own happiness, for he
has no other