But they themselves those very men who define evil by pain, and good by pleasure say that the wise man even if he were shut up in Phalaris's bull and roasted by fire being placed under him would still say that it was pleasant and would not allow himself to be moved the least from his assertion. They insist upon it that the power of virtue is so great that it is absolutely impossible for a virtuous man ever to be otherwise than happy. [43] What then is punishment? what is chastisement? A thing which in my opinion, can happen to no one unless he is guilty; it is dishonesty undertaken; it is a mind hampered and overwhelmed by conscience; it is the hatred of all virtuous men; it is the deserved brand of the senate; it is the loss of dignity. [cap.19]
Nor does that illustrious man Marcus Regulus whom the Carthaginians, having cut off his eyelids and bound him in a machine, killed by keeping him awake, appear to have had punishment inflicted on him. Nor does Caius Marius whom Italy, which he had saved, saw sunk in the marshes of Minturnae, and whom Africa, which he had subdued, beheld banished and shipwrecked. For those were the wounds of fortune, not of guilt, but punishment is the penalty of crime. Nor should I, if I were now to pray for evils to fall upon you as I often have done (and indeed the immortal gods have heard those prayers of mine,) pray for disease, or death, or tortures to befall you. That is an execution worthy of Thyestes, the work of a poet who wishes to affect the minds of the common people, not of philosophers, that you,
Wrecked on some vast inhospitable shore
Clinging to rugged rocks, with bleeding limbs
Might trembling hang, and all the rocks defile
With gore and black pollution.