hat you would teach me that of forgetfulness; for I even now recollect
what I would rather not; but I cannot forget what I should like to." This
was a very sensible answer. But still the fact is that it is the act of a
very arbitrary philosopher to forbid a man to recollect. It seems to me a
command very much in the spirit of your ancestor, Manlius, or even worse,
to command what it is impossible for me to do. What will you say if the
recollection of past evils is even pleasant? For some proverbs are more
true than your dogmas. Nor does Euripides speak all when he says, I will
give it you in Latin, if I can, but you all know the Greek line--

Sweet is the memory of sorrows past.(41)

However, let us return to the consideration of past goods. And if you were
to utter such maxims as might be capable of consoling Caius Marius, and
enabling him when banished, indigent, and up to his neck in a marsh, to
relieve his anguish by the recollection of his past trophies, I would
listen to you, and approve of all you could say. Nor, indeed, can the
happiness of a philosopher be complete or continue to the end, if all the
admirable discoveries which he has made, and all his virtuous actions, are
to be lost by his own forgetfulness. But, in your case, you assert that
the recollection of pleasures which have been felt makes life happy, and
of such pleasures too, as affect the body. For if there are any other
pleasures, then it is incorrect to say that all the pleasures of the mind
originate in its connexion with the body.

But if pleasures felt by the body, even when they are past, can give
pleasure, then I do not understand why Aristotle should turn the
inscription on the tomb of Sardanapalus into so much ridicule; in which
the king of Assyria boasts that he has taken with him all his lascivious
pleasures. For, says Aristotle, how could those things which even while he
was alive he could not feel a moment longer than while he was actually
enjoying them, possibly remain to him after he was dead? The pleasure,
then, of the body is lost, and flies away at the first moment, and oftener
leaves behind reasons for repenting of it than for recollecting it.
Therefore, Africanus is happier when addressing his country in this
manner--

Cease, Rome, to dread your foes....

And in the rest of his admirable boast--

For you have trophies by my labour raised.

He is rejoicing here in his labours which are past. But you