Quod regio quam rex eligit ad civitates et castra instituenda debet habere amoenitates, in quibus cives sunt arcendi ut moderate eis utantur, quia saepius sunt causa dissolutionis, unde regnum dissipatur
A Site That Delights
A well-chosen site, adorned with plains, trees, mountains, groves, and streams, delights its inhabitants and keeps them from abandoning the city.
When founding cities, the site that's chosen should also be one that delights its inhabitants with its pleasantness. For a pleasant site isn't easily abandoned, nor does a crowd of residents easily flock to a place that lacks pleasantness, because human life can't long endure without it. This kind of pleasantness includes a site spread out with the flatness of plains, fruitful with trees, made conspicuous by the nearness of mountains, pleasing with its groves, and watered with streams.
The Danger of Excess
Excessive pleasantness dulls the senses, corrupts judgment, and turns people away from virtue, so pleasures must be enjoyed in moderation.
But because excessive pleasantness entices people toward undue indulgence in luxuries, which does the state tremendous harm, these things need to be enjoyed in moderation. First of all, people who give themselves up to luxuries have their senses dulled. For the sweetness of these pleasures plunges the soul into the senses, so that in matters that delight them they can't exercise free judgment. Hence, according to Aristotle's judgment, a judge's prudence is corrupted through delight. Then again, excessive pleasures cause people to fall away from the honorableness of virtue.
The Greedy Nature of Delight
Delight is insatiable and greedy, kindling ever-greater desires and corrupting the middle ground of virtue, so avoiding excess makes virtue easier to attain.
Nothing leads more to immoderate excess—by which the middle ground of virtue is corrupted—than delight, for the nature of delight is greedy, and so, once even a small pleasure is taken, a person is hurled into the allurements of shameful pleasures, just as dry wood is kindled by a small fire; and also because delight doesn't satisfy desire, but once tasted, it only deepens its own thirst. So it belongs to the duty of virtue to keep people from excessive pleasures. In this way, once excess is avoided, the middle ground of virtue will be reached more easily.
Pleasures That Dissolve a City
Excessive pleasures soften the spirit for military service, lead to sloth and poverty, and ultimately harm the city, whether through its location or other circumstances.
Consequently, those who give themselves to excessive pleasures also grow soft in spirit, and become fainthearted about every difficult undertaking, and about enduring toils and facing dangers—and so, when it comes to military service, pleasures do great harm, because, as Vegetius says in his book on military affairs: the person who has known less of life's pleasures fears death less. Finally, those who have been dissolved by pleasures generally grow sluggish, and with necessary studies and the business they owe set aside, they devote their care to pleasures alone—into which they lavishly scatter whatever had previously been gathered by others. As a result they are led down into poverty, and since they can't go without the pleasures they're used to, they expose themselves to theft and plunder so they'll have the means to satisfy their own desires. It is therefore harmful to a city—whether from the character of its location, or from any other circumstances at all—to abound in excessive pleasures.
A Seasoning of Delight
A small measure of delight, like seasoning, refreshes people's minds and is advantageous in human interaction.
It is therefore advantageous in human interaction to have a small measure of delight, as it were by way of seasoning, so that people's minds may be refreshed.
Read the original Latin
Est etiam constituendis urbibus eligendus locus qui amoenitate habitatores delectet. Non enim facile deseritur locus amoenus, nec de facili ad locum illum confluit habitantium multitudo cui deest amoenitas, eo quod absque amoenitate vita hominis diu durare non possit. Ad hanc autem amoenitatem pertinet quod sit locus camporum planitie distentus, arborum ferax, montium propinquitate conspicuus, nemoribus gratus et aquis irriguus. Verum quia nimia amoenitas superflue ad delicias homines allicit, quod civitati plurimum nocet, ideo oportet ea moderate uti. Primo namque homines vacantes deliciis, sensu hebetantur. Immergit enim earum suavitas sensibus animam, ita quod in rebus delectantibus liberum iudicium habere non possunt. Unde secundum Aristotelis sententiam, prudentia iudicis per delectationem corrumpitur. Deinde delectationes superfluae ab honestate virtutis deficere faciunt.
Nihil enim magis perducit ad immoderatum augmentum, per quod medium virtutis corrumpitur, quam delectatio: tum quia natura delectationis est avida, et sic modica delectatione sumpta praecipitatur in turpium delectationum illecebras, sicut ligna sicca ex modico igne accenduntur; tum etiam quia delectatio appetitum non satiat, sed gustata sitim sui magis inducit; unde ad virtutis officium pertinet, ut homines a delectationibus superfluis abstineant. Sic enim superfluitate vitata facilius ad medium virtutis pervenietur. Consequenter etiam deliciis superflue dediti mollescunt animo, et ad ardua quaeque attentanda nec non ad tolerandos labores et pericula abhorrenda pusillanimes fiunt, unde et ad bellicum usum deliciae plurimum nocent, quia, ut Vegetius dicit in libro de re militari: minus timet mortem, qui minus deliciarum se novit habuisse in vita. Demum deliciis resoluti plerumque pigrescunt, et intermissis necessariis studiis et negotiis debitis, solis deliciis adhibent curam, in quas quae prius ab aliis fuerant congregata profusi dispergunt: unde ad paupertatem deducti, dum consuetis deliciis carere non possunt, se furtis et rapinis exponunt ut habeant unde possint suas voluptates explere. Est igitur nocivum civitati, vel ex loci dispositione, vel ex quibuscumque aliis rebus, deliciis superfluis abundare. Opportunum est igitur in conversatione humana modicum delectationis quasi pro condimento habere, ut animi hominum recreentur;
On Kingship, to the King of Cyprus (De regno ad regem Cypri) companion
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