On the degeneracy of the age
97:9
Book Subtitle: Seneca's timeless letters of advice and wisdom.
Book Description: The final volume of Seneca's moral letters. Common Stoic themes emerge again and again: the unreliability of fortune, the ability to form Stoic resolve, and the importance of virtue.
9.
Therefore, you need not believe that it is we who have yielded most to lust and least to law.
For the young men of to-day live far more simple lives than those of an epoch when a defendant would plead not guilty to an adultery charge before his judges, and his judges admit it before the defendant, when debauchery was practised to secure a verdict, and when Clodius, befriended by the very vices of which he was guilty, played the procurer during the actual hearing of the case.
Could one believe this?
He to whom one adultery brought condemnation was acquitted because of many.
Book: Moral Letters Vol III
Subtitle: Seneca's timeless letters of advice and wisdom.
Author: Seneca
Chapter: On the degeneracy of the age
Location: Chapter 97, Section 9
Content:
9.
Therefore, you need not believe that it is we who have yielded most to lust and least to law.
For the young men of to-day live far more simple lives than those of an epoch when a defendant would plead not guilty to an adultery charge before his judges, and his judges admit it before the defendant, when debauchery was practised to secure a verdict, and when Clodius, befriended by the very vices of which he was guilty, played the procurer during the actual hearing of the case.
Could one believe this?
He to whom one adultery brought condemnation was acquitted because of many.