Between Heathenism and Christianity - College of Stoic Philosophers

De Providentia
out clothing and are strong by their very indigence.
Consider all the nations over whom the sway of Rome
does not extend, I mean the Germans and every
nomad tribe along the Danube. Perpetual winter,
a severe climate,
bear hard upon them, a sterile soil
grudgingly supports them, a hut or branches of trees
protect them against the rain, they roam over marshes
hardened by frost, for food they capture wild beasts.
13. Dost thou think them wretched? No one is
wretched when he performs what habit has made
second nature to him
;
for by degress we find pleasure
in doing what we began to do from necessity. These
peoples have no houses and no resting place except
as weariness finds them from day to day; their food
is cheap and obtained only as wanted; their naked
bodies are exposed
to the terrible extremes of a
horrid climate; what thou regardest as a frightful
calamity is the whole life of many peoples.
14. Why dost thou wonder that good men are
called upon to undergo violent shocks to the end that
they may stand the more firmly? A tree does not
take deep root, or grow strong, unless it is frequently
shaken by the wind; for as a result of violent agita
tion its fiber is toughened and its roots more firmly
set. Those are fragile that grow up in sheltered val
It is therefore a boon to good men, as it makes
leys.
them fearless amid danger, to become familiar with
hardships and to bear with equanimity those things
that are not ills, except when they are borne with an
ill
grace.
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