The Fame That Outlives You
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Ὁ περὶ τὴν ὑστεροφημίαν ἐπτοημένος οὐ φαντάζεται ὅτι ἕκαστος τῶν μεμνημένων αὐτοῦ τάχιστα καὶ αὐτὸς ἀποθανεῖται· εἶτα πάλιν ὁ ἐκεῖνον διαδεξάμενος, μέχρι καὶ πᾶσα ἡ μνήμη ἀποσβῇ διὰ ἁπτομένων καὶ σβεννυμένων προιοῦσα. ὑπόθου δ᾽, ὅτι καὶ ἀθάνατοι μὲν οἱ μεμνησόμενοι, ἀθάνατος δὲ ἡ μνήμη· τί οὖν τοῦτο πρὸς σέ; καὶ οὐ λέγω, ὅτι οὐδὲν πρὸς τὸν τεθνηκότα, ἀλλὰ πρὸς τὸν ζῶντα τί ὁ ἔπαινος, πλὴν ἄρα δι’ οἰκονομίαν τινά; πάρες γὰρ νῦν ἀκαίρως τὴν φυσικὴν δόσιν ἄλλου τινὸς ἐχομένην λόγου λοιπόν.
The man who is all aflutter over after-fame does not picture to himself that each of those who remember him will very soon die too; and then again the one who succeeded him — until the whole memory is snuffed out, passing on through minds kindled and quenched like torches. But suppose that both those who will remember were immortal and the memory immortal: what, even so, is this to you? And I do not say merely that it is nothing to the dead; but to the living, what is praise, except perhaps for some practical use? For you are now, out of season, setting aside the natural gift — which hangs, for the rest, upon some other argument.
On the craving for posthumous reputation: those who would remember you die too, and their successors after them, until all memory gutters out like torches lit and quenched. And even were memory immortal, what would fame be to you — dead, or living?
Marcus dismantles the desire for lasting fame in two stages. First, the empirical demolition: the man ἐπτοημένος, "in a flutter," over ὑστεροφημία forgets that memory has no stable home. Everyone who might remember him is himself about to die, and his successor after him, so that "the whole memory is snuffed out" — carried forward, in a beautiful image, like a flame handed from torch to torch (ἁπτομένων καὶ σβεννυμένων), each one lit only to be put out. Fame is not a monument but a rumour dying by degrees.
Then the concessive thrust, which is sharper. Grant the impossible — that both the rememberers and their memory were immortal: τί οὖν τοῦτο πρὸς σέ, "what is that to you?" To the dead, plainly nothing. But Marcus presses the harder case: even to you now, alive, what good is ἔπαινος, praise, except perhaps for some οἰκονομία, some practical management of your affairs? Reputation may occasionally be useful as a tool; as a good in itself it is empty. The final clause is textually knotted, but its drift is that the instinct for repute — a "natural gift," φυσικὴ δόσις — is being raised here out of season and really belongs to a different discussion. The undercurrent is one of Marcus’s steadiest themes: fame is worthless both because it does not last and because, even if it did, it could add nothing to the only life that is yours to live.
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