[Valla, an Italian intellectual, served as the Librarian of the Vatican. His De vero bono, or On Pleasure, takes the form of a letter in which the writer, who identifies himself as an Epicurean, refutes the arguments of a friend who advocates stoicism. Cato appears pears in this work as an example of the stoic personality; in the excerpts below, Valla criticizes Cato in order to promote Epicureanism.]

Here … [you] may meet my argument with authoritative instances (not being able to do so by reason), for we see that many besides those whom you mentioned believed that for the sake of virtue no pain should be avoided. Most outstanding among these are Cato, Scipio, and, above all, Lucretia. However, these examples certainly do not affect me, and, in addition, I am able to censure the behavior of these three according to the law of the Stoics.

Can you really believe that someone seems to me to have acted with courage who has tolerated adversities, and who has not only failed to refuse death when it was offered to him but has even offered himself to it? Who tolerates more adversities than pirates, who are never far from danger; or than bandits, who join day to night in fear; or than the worst slaves, who prefer to be torn to pieces each day rather than yield to corrections?

In order not to delay our progress with many instances on the subject of those who inflicted death upon themselves, I shall content myself with one: the law according to which whoever turned his hand against himself should be left unburied, unless the cause of his suicide was first reported to the Senate. We are given to understand by this law that many committed suicide for the wrong reason, among whom perhaps, if we examine the matter carefully, are the three people just mentioned. But I don't want to take this line, lest I seem to be asking that they be exhumed and left without burial, and lest I seem to offend such great names. Yet for those who have ceased to exist, what injury is there in not being buried?

What, then, should be said of these three? Did they desire death for the sake of virtue? Not at all, but for the sake of pleasure. "How can this be?" you ask. Because someone who cannot aspire to pleasure chooses as his next best course to escape from pain. Thus Cato and Scipio understood, each for himself, how painful it would be (note their weakness of character) to see Caesar ruling in Rome, since he was the enemy of both of them, and how painful it would be to see not only him but also his followers in positions of the greatest power and invested with the highest dignities, and, on the other hand, to see the followers of Pompey, of whom they themselves were easily the principal ones, suffering in defeat and servitude the insolence of the victors.

Demosthenes seems to me to have plainly understood his teacher Plato to have meant this when he said, "Whoever believes himself to be a son of his mother country will give himself over to death rather than see her enslaved." Note the reason given: "More than death, he will fear the outrage and disgrace that have to be borne in one's native land when it is enslaved." Therefore, fearing this pain of Fortune, Cato and Scipio preferred the comfort of death to life. And how bravely, I have already said—for in my opinion they would have done better not to turn their backs to Fortune but rather to fight her as she raged against them, even though many make their own misfortune themselves. Vergil puts it excellently: "Wherever the Fates pull and push us, let us follow; whatever is to be, every fortune is to be conquered by being borne." And:

Do not yield to evils, but go out against them more boldly, as fortune calls.

Similarly, in another passage, he reproaches those who have innocently killed themselves:

Whoever in innocence wrought their own death and, loathing the light, flung away their lives—how gladly now, in the air above, would they bear want and harsh distress!

Brutus himself, a great authority among the prime ones in philosophy, also shows in his book Of the Happy Life that he disapproves of Cato's dying in this way; Cato was Brutus's uncle and father-in-law, and Brutus considered him the greatest of men and so described him. Notwithstanding all this, I do not reproach everyone who commits suicide, since, to be sure, the very law that I have cited empowers men to take their own lives if they have first reported their motive in the Senate. I was referring exclusively to Cato and Scipio.

…. .

Was Cato overly harsh, unbending, too gloomy? Sometimes he was, but not always. I shall briefly compare his right and wrong actions. For he was not always at fault in this way, as I have said. Do you not remember what kind of opinion Cato had on the subject of the conspirators, and how the majority of the Senate followed it? And how much Sallust praised him for the very austerity of which you disapprove, and how much Lucan praised him? I neglect to quote their statements because they are somewhat long and very well known, and thus all of you will concede, without quotation, the truth of what I have said. If Cato was unbending, he was far removed from the fault of inconstancy; that is, he was often serious, which ought to be said of all of us.

I do not speak at this point of those who are infamous for their evil. As there are some who are near to being divine, so there are some who hardly differ from brutes, as you claimed Catilina to be—deformed by contrary vices. I shall give you a brief answer on this subject: either those vices were not contrary, as I have shown, or he could have had as many virtues as vices; that is, there are as many soldiers on our side as on the other, an equality that you felt was lacking.

I realize that I am not proceeding with this argument as I should. Cato was blamed by some, but can we say that this blame was necessarily just? Do we not know that this field of bitter struggles is common to all orators and most frequented by them? The same thing is affirmed by one to be cruelty, by another to be strictness; or one says "stinginess," another "thrift"; or I say "popularity-seeking," you say "magnificence." These controversies turn upon definition of motives and upon syllogistic or logical procedures. Thus it needs to be understood that to every virtue is assigned its proper vice, not its excess and deficiency. Controversy never arises, for instance, over whether a particular deed was characterized by strictness or by mildness or weakness, but it may arise over whether this deed was characterized by strictness or by cruelty, which, as I have said, are opposed to each other.

But let us return to the point. The virtues and vices are so close together that it is not easy to distinguish them. And thus most individuals are inclined to judge exactly according to their natures or feel according to their kind of life, as Horace says:

The sad hate the cheerful man, and the merry hate the sad; the swift hate the quiet man, and the inactive hate the active and energetic man.

Thus it happened that to some people Cato seemed too hard, Cicero too soft—when perhaps the former really acted with appropriate strictness and the latter with courtesy, both of which modes are praiseworthy….