Letter 70

[1] After a long interval I have seen your Pompeii. I was led back into the sight of my own youth; whatever I had done there as a young man, I felt I was still able to do, and had done only a little while ago. [2] We have sailed past life, Lucilius, and just as at sea, as our own Vergil puts it, lands and cities recede behind us, so in this course of headlong time we first put out of sight our boyhood, then our youth, then whatever it is that lies in the middle between the young man and the old, set on the border of both, then the best years of old age itself; and finally there begins to appear the universal end of the human race. [3] In our utter madness we think it a reef: it is a harbor, sometimes to be sought, never to be refused; and if anyone has been carried into it within his early years, he has no more right to complain than a man who has had a quick voyage. For one man, as you know, the sluggish winds toy with and detain, and wear out with the tedium of a maddeningly slow calm; another a persistent breeze carries swiftly through. [4] Think the same thing happens to us: some men life has brought most rapidly to where they had to arrive even while they lingered; others it has steeped and stewed. This life, as you know, is not always to be held on to; for living is not the good, but living well. And so the wise man will live as long as he ought, not as long as he can. [5] He will see where he is to live, with whom, in what manner, what he is to do. He always considers of what quality his life is, not how great. If many troublesome things befall him and disturb his tranquillity, he releases himself; and he does this not only at the last extremity, but as soon as Fortune begins to look suspect to him, he carefully looks around to see whether the end should not be made right there. He reckons it makes no difference to him whether he brings about the end or receives it, whether it happens later or sooner: he does not fear it as though it were some great loss; no one can lose much from a drip. [6] To die sooner or later is beside the point; to die well or ill is the point; and to die well is to escape the danger of living ill. And so I judge most unmanly the saying of that man of Rhodes, who, when he had been thrown into a cage by a tyrant and was being fed like some wild animal, replied to a man urging him to refuse food, 'A man, while he lives, may hope for everything.' [7] Granting this is true, life is not to be bought at every price. Certain things may be great, may be certain, and yet I will not come to them through a shameful confession of weakness: shall I reckon that in the man who lives Fortune can do everything, rather than reckon that in the man who knows how to die Fortune can do nothing? [8] Sometimes, nevertheless, even if certain death is at hand and a man knows the punishment marked out for him, he will not lend his hand to his own penalty: to himself, however, he would lend it. It is foolishness to die through fear of death: he who is to kill you is coming, wait for him. Why forestall it? Why take upon yourself the management of another's cruelty? Do you envy your executioner, or spare him? [9] Socrates could have ended his life by abstinence and died by starvation rather than by poison; yet he passed thirty days in prison and in the expectation of death, not in the spirit that everything might happen, that so long a span might admit many hopes, but so as to offer himself to the laws, so as to give his friends a Socrates to be enjoyed to the last. What would have been more foolish than to despise death and fear the poison? [10] Scribonia, a woman of weight, was the aunt of Drusus Libo, a young man as foolish as he was noble, hoping for greater things than anyone in that age could hope for, or than he himself could in any age. When he had been carried back from the senate ill in a litter, with a procession by no means crowded - for all his relations had abandoned him, no longer impiously as a defendant but as a corpse - he began to take counsel whether he should bring death upon himself or wait for it. To him Scribonia said, 'What pleasure do you find in doing another man's business?' She did not persuade him: he laid hands upon himself, and not without reason. For when a man, three or four days later, is to die at his enemy's discretion if he lives on, he is doing another man's business. [11] You cannot, therefore, pronounce on the matter in general terms, when an external force announces death, whether one should forestall it or wait for it; for there are many things that can pull us in either direction. If one death comes with torment, the other simple and easy, why should one not lay hold of this latter? Just as I will choose a ship when about to sail and a house when about to dwell in it, so I will choose my death when about to depart from life. [12] Moreover, just as a longer life is not necessarily better, so a longer death is necessarily worse. In nothing more than in death ought we to indulge the soul's inclination. Let it go out by whatever route it has taken its impulse: whether it reaches for the sword or the noose or some draught that seizes the veins, let it proceed and break the chains of slavery. Each man owes it to others as well to make his life acceptable; his death he owes to himself alone: the best death is the one that pleases him. [13] These are foolish thoughts: 'Someone will say I acted with too little courage, someone that I acted too rashly, someone that some other kind of death would have shown more spirit.' Will you please consider that the decision in your hands is one to which reputation does not pertain! Look to this one thing, that you snatch yourself from Fortune as quickly as possible; otherwise there will be people on hand who think ill of your deed. [14] You will even find men who profess wisdom yet deny that violence should be done to one's own life and judge it a sacrilege for a man to become his own slayer: they say one must wait for the end that Nature has decreed. He who says this does not see that he is closing off the path to freedom: eternal law has done nothing better than that it gave us one entrance into life, but many exits. [15] Am I to wait for the cruelty of disease or of man, when I can go out through the midst of torments and shatter what stands against me? This is the one reason why we cannot complain of life: it holds no one. Human affairs are in a good state, in that no one is wretched except through his own fault. Does it please you? Live. Does it not please you? You are free to return whence you came. [16] To relieve a headache you have often let blood; to reduce the body the vein is struck. There is no need to split open the chest with a vast wound: with a lancet the way to that great freedom is opened, and security stands ready at a pinprick. What is it, then, that makes us slow and sluggish? Not one of us reflects that he must one day leave this dwelling; just so, fondness for a place and habit keep old tenants on even amid injuries. [17] Do you wish to be free against this body? Live in it as though about to move out. Set before yourself that one day you will have to do without this companionship: you will be braver for the necessity of going out. But how will their own end come into the minds of men who covet all things without end? [18] The meditation on no other matter is so necessary; for the rest are perhaps practiced for nothing. The mind has been prepared against poverty: our riches have lasted. We have armed ourselves to despise pain: the good fortune of an unimpaired and sound body has never demanded from us the proof of this virtue. We have instructed ourselves to bear bravely the longing for those we have lost: Fortune has kept alive all whom we loved. [19] The day will come that demands the use of this one thing. There is no reason for you to think that only great men had the strength to break through the barriers of human servitude; there is no reason to judge that this cannot be done except by a Cato, who tore out by hand the spirit he had not released by the sword: men of the cheapest lot have escaped to safety by a mighty impulse, and when they were not permitted to die conveniently nor to choose the instruments of death at their own discretion, they snatched up whatever was at hand and by their own force made weapons of things that were not by nature harmful. [20] Recently in a school of beast-fighters one of the Germans, while he was being made ready for the morning shows, withdrew to relieve himself - this was the only privacy granted him without a guard; there he took the stick fitted with a sponge attached, set there for cleaning the private parts, and crammed the whole thing down his throat, and by blocking his gullet choked out his breath. This was to do an insult to death. Quite so, in a manner none too clean and none too decent: but what is more foolish than to die squeamishly? [21] O brave man, O man worthy to have been granted the choice of his fate! How bravely he would have used a sword, how spiritedly he would have thrown himself into the deep of the sea or down a sheer cliff! Abandoned on every side, he found a way both to owe himself death and to provide the weapon, so that you may know that nothing else delays dying except the will. Let the deed of this most spirited man be judged as each one sees fit, provided this stands firm: that the foulest death is to be preferred to the cleanest slavery. [22] Since I have begun to use sordid examples, I will keep at it; for each man will demand more of himself if he sees that this thing can be despised even by the most despised. We think the Catos and Scipios and others whom we are accustomed to hear of with admiration are set above imitation: but I will now show that this virtue has as many examples in the beast-fighters' school as among the leaders of a civil war. [23] When a man sent to the morning show was lately being conveyed among the guards, he nodded as though heavy with sleep and let his head sink down so far that he thrust it into the spokes, and held himself in his seat long enough to break his neck by the turning of the wheel; he escaped in the very vehicle by which he was being carried to his punishment. [24] Nothing stands in the way of a man who wishes to burst out and depart: Nature guards us in the open. Let the man whose necessity permits it look around for a soft exit; the man who has many means at hand by which to assert himself, let him make a selection and consider by which he may best be freed; the man for whom the opportunity is difficult, let him snatch whatever is nearest as if it were the best, though it be unheard of, though it be new. Cleverness for dying will not be lacking to the man who has not lacked the courage. [25] Do you see how even the lowest slaves, when pain has driven the goad into them, are roused and elude the most watchful guards? He is a great man who not only commanded himself to die but found the means. [26] From the same source I promised you more examples. At the second show of a sham sea-fight, one of the barbarians plunged the whole of the lance he had received against his opponents into his own throat. 'Why, why,' he said, 'have I not long since escaped every torment, every mockery? Why do I wait for death under arms?' This spectacle was the more splendid in proportion as it is more honorable that men learn to die than to kill. [27] What then? Shall that quality, which abandoned and dangerous spirits also have, not belong to those whom long meditation and reason, the mistress of all things, has equipped against these mishaps? Reason teaches us that fate has various ways of approach but the same end, and that it makes no difference where what is coming begins. [28] That same reason advises that, if it is allowed, you die as you please, if not, as you can, and that you fall upon whatever offers itself for doing violence to yourself. It is wrong to live by robbery, but on the contrary it is most beautiful to die by robbery. Farewell.

After a long space of time I have seen your beloved Pompeii. I was thus brought again face to face with the days of my youth. And it seemed to me that I could still do, nay, had only done a short time ago, all the things which I did there when a young man. We have sailed past life, Lucilius, as if we were on a voyage, and just as when at sea, to quote from our poet Vergil, Lands and towns are left astern, even so, on this journey where time flies with the greatest speed, we put below the horizon first our boyhood and then our youth, and then the space which lies between young manhood and middle age and borders on both, and next, the best years of old age itself. Last of all, we begin to sight the general bourne of the race of man. Fools that we are, we believe this bourne to be a dangerous reef; but it is the harbour, where we must some day put in, which we may never refuse to enter; and if a man has reached this harbour in his early years, he has no more right to complain than a sailor who has made a quick voyage. For some sailors, as you know, are tricked and held back by sluggish winds, and grow weary and sick of the slow-moving calm; while others are carried quickly home by steady gales. You may consider that the same thing happens to us: life has carried some men with the greatest rapidity to the harbour, the harbour they were bound to reach even if they tarried on the way, while others it has fretted and harassed. To such a life, as you are aware, one should not always cling. For mere living is not a good, but living well. Accordingly, the wise man will live as long as he ought, not as long as he can. He will mark in what place, with whom, and how he is to conduct his existence, and what he is about to do. He always reflects concerning the quality, and not the quantity, of his life. As soon as there are many events in his life that give him trouble and disturb his peace of mind, he sets himself free. And this privilege is his, not only when the crisis is upon him, but as soon as Fortune seems to be playing him false; then he looks about carefully and sees whether he ought, or ought not, to end his life on that account. He holds that it makes no difference to him whether his taking-off be natural or self-inflicted, whether it comes later or earlier. He does not regard it with fear, as if it were a great loss; for no man can lose very much when but a driblet remains. It is not a question of dying earlier or later, but of dying well or ill. And dying well means escape from the danger of living ill. That is why I regard the words of the well-known Rhodian as most unmanly. This person was thrown into a cage by his tyrant, and fed there like some wild animal. And when a certain man advised him to end his life by fasting, he replied: “A man may hope for anything while he has life.” This may be true; but life is not to be purchased at any price. No matter how great or how well-assured certain rewards may be I shall not strive to attain them at the price of a shameful confession of weakness. Shall I reflect that Fortune has all power over one who lives, rather than reflect that she has no power over one who knows how to die? There are times, nevertheless, when a man, even though certain death impends and he knows that torture is in store for him, will refrain from lending a hand to his own punishment, to himself, however, he would lend a hand. It is folly to die through fear of dying. The executioner is upon you; wait for him. Why anticipate him? Why assume the management of a cruel task that belongs to another? Do you grudge your executioner his privilege, or do you merely relieve him of his task? Socrates might have ended his life by fasting; he might have died by starvation rather than by poison. But instead of this he spent thirty days in prison awaiting death, not with the idea “everything may happen,” or “so long an interval has room for many a hope” but in order that he might show himself submissive to the laws and make the last moments of Socrates an edification to his friends. What would have been more foolish than to scorn death, and yet fear poison? Scribonia, a woman of the stern old type, was an aunt of Drusus Libo. This young man was as stupid as he was well born, with higher ambitions than anyone could have been expected to entertain in that epoch, or a man like himself in any epoch at all. When Libo had been carried away ill from the senate-house in his litter, though certainly with a very scanty train of followers,—for all his kinsfolk undutifully deserted him, when he was no longer a criminal but a corpse,—he began to consider whether he should commit suicide, or await death. Scribonia said to him: “What pleasure do you find in doing another man’s work?” But he did not follow her advice; he laid violent hands upon himself. And he was right, after all; for when a man is doomed to die in two or three days at his enemy’s pleasure, he is really “doing another man’s work” if he continues to live. No general statement can be made, therefore, with regard to the question whether, when a power beyond our control threatens us with death, we should anticipate death, or await it. For there are many arguments to pull us in either direction. If one death is accompanied by torture, and the other is simple and easy, why not snatch the latter? Just as I shall select my ship when I am about to go on a voyage or my house when I propose to take a residence, so I shall choose my death when I am about to depart from life. Moreover, just as a long-drawn out life does not necessarily mean a better one, so a long-drawn-out death necessarily means a worse one. There is no occasion when the soul should be humoured more than at the moment of death. Let the soul depart as it feels itself impelled to go; whether it seeks the sword, or the halter, or some draught that attacks the veins, let it proceed and burst the bonds of its slavery. Every man ought to make his life acceptable to others besides himself, but his death to himself alone. The best form of death is the one we like. Men are foolish who reflect thus: “One person will say that my conduct was not brave enough; another, that I was too headstrong; a third, that a particular kind of death would have betokened more spirit.” What you should really reflect is: “I have under consideration a purpose with which the talk of men has no concern!” Your sole aim should be to escape from Fortune as speedily as possible; otherwise, there will be no lack of persons who will think ill of what you have done. You can find men who have gone so far as to profess wisdom and yet maintain that one should not offer violence to one’s own life, and hold it accursed for a man to be the means of his own destruction; we should wait, say they, for the end decreed by nature. But one who says this does not see that he is shutting off the path to freedom. The best thing which eternal law ever ordained was that it allowed to us one entrance into life, but many exits. Must I await the cruelty either of disease or of man, when I can depart through the midst of torture, and shake off my troubles? This is the one reason why we cannot complain of life: it keeps no one against his will. Humanity is well situated, because no man is unhappy except by his own fault. Live, if you so desire; if not, you may return to the place whence you came. You have often been cupped in order to relieve headaches. You have had veins cut for the purpose of reducing your weight. If you would pierce your heart, a gaping wound is not necessary; a lancet will open the way to that great freedom, and tranquillity can be purchased at the cost of a pin-prick. What, then, is it which makes us lazy and sluggish? None of us reflects that some day he must depart from this house of life; just so old tenants are kept from moving by fondness for a particular place and by custom, even in spite of ill-treatment. Would you be free from the restraint of your body? Live in it as if you were about to leave it. Keep thinking of the fact that some day you will be deprived of this tenure; then you will be more brave against the necessity of departing. But how will a man take thought of his own end, if he craves all things without end? And yet there is nothing so essential for us to consider. For our training in other things is perhaps superfluous. Our souls have been made ready to meet poverty; but our riches have held out. We have armed ourselves to scorn pain; but we have had the good fortune to possess sound and healthy bodies, and so have never been forced to put this virtue to the test. We have taught ourselves to endure bravely the loss of those we love; but Fortune has preserved to us all whom we loved. It is in this one matter only that the day will come which will require us to test our training. You need not think that none but great men have had the strength to burst the bonds of human servitude; you need not believe that this cannot be done except by a Cato,—Cato, who with his hand dragged forth the spirit which he had not succeeded in freeing by the sword. Nay, men of the meanest lot in life have by a mighty impulse escaped to safety, and when they were not allowed to die at their own convenience, or to suit themselves in their choice of the instruments of death, they have snatched up whatever was lying ready to hand, and by sheer strength have turned objects which were by nature harmless into weapons of their own. For example, there was lately in a training-school for wild-beast gladiators a German, who was making ready for the morning exhibition; he withdrew in order to relieve himself,—the only thing which he was allowed to do in secret and without the presence of a guard. While so engaged, he seized the stick of wood, tipped with a sponge, which was devoted to the vilest uses, and stuffed it, just as it was, down his throat; thus he blocked up his windpipe, and choked the breath from his body. That was truly to insult death! Yes, indeed; it was not a very elegant or becoming way to die; but what is more foolish than to be over-nice about dying? What a brave fellow! He surely deserved to be allowed to choose his fate! How bravely he would have wielded a sword! With what courage he would have hurled himself into the depths of the sea, or down a precipice! Cut off from resources on every hand, he yet found a way to furnish himself with death, and with a weapon for death. Hence you can understand that nothing but the will need postpone death. Let each man judge the deed of this most zealous fellow as he likes, provided we agree on this point,—that the foulest death is preferable to the fairest slavery. Inasmuch as I began with an illustration taken from humble life, I shall keep on with that sort. For men will make greater demands upon themselves, if they see that death can be despised even by the most despised class of men. The Catos, the Scipios, and the others whose names we are wont to hear with admiration, we regard as beyond the sphere of imitation; but I shall now prove to you that the virtue of which I speak is found as frequently in the gladiators’ training-school as among the leaders in a civil war. Lately a gladiator, who had been sent forth to the morning exhibition, was being conveyed in a cart along with the other prisoners; nodding as if he were heavy with sleep, he let his head fall over so far that it was caught in the spokes; then he kept his body in position long enough to break his neck by the revolution of the wheel. So he made his escape by means of the very wagon which was carrying him to his punishment. When a man desires to burst forth and take his departure, nothing stands in his way. It is an open space in which Nature guards us. When our plight is such as to permit it, we may look about us for an easy exit. If you have many opportunities ready to hand, by means of which you may liberate yourself, you may make a selection and think over the best way of gaining freedom; but if a chance is hard to find, instead of the best, snatch the next best, even though it be something unheard of, something new. If you do not lack the courage, you will not lack the cleverness, to die. See how even the lowest class of slave, when suffering goads him on, is aroused and discovers a way to deceive even the most watchful guards! He is truly great who not only has given himself the order to die, but has also found the means. I have promised you, however, some more illustrations drawn from the same games. During the second event in a sham sea-fight one of the barbarians sank deep into his own throat a spear which had been given him for use against his foe. “Why, oh why,” he said, “have I not long ago escaped from all this torture and all this mockery? Why should I be armed and yet wait for death to come?” This exhibition was all the more striking because of the lesson men learn from it that dying is more honourable than killing. What, then? If such a spirit is possessed by abandoned and dangerous men, shall it not be possessed also by those who have trained themselves to meet such contingencies by long meditation, and by reason, the mistress of all things? It is reason which teaches us that fate has various ways of approach, but the same end, and that it makes no difference at what point the inevitable event begins. Reason, too, advises us to die, if we may, according to our taste; if this cannot be, she advises us to die according to our ability, and to seize upon whatever means shall offer itself for doing violence to ourselves. It is criminal to “live by robbery"; but, on the other hand, it is most noble to “die by robbery.” Farewell.

[1] Post longum intervallum Pompeios tuos vidi. In conspectum adulescentiae meae reductus sum; quidquid illic iuvenis feceram videbar mihi facere adhuc posse et paulo ante fecisse. [2] Praenavigavimus, Lucili, vitam et quemadmodum in mari, ut ait Vergilius noster, sic in hoc cursu rapidissimi temporis primum pueritiam abscondimus, deinde adulescentiam, deinde quidquid est illud inter iuvenem et senem medium, in utriusque confinio positum, deinde ipsius senectutis optimos annos; novissime incipit ostendi publicus finis generis humani. [3] Scopulum esse illum putamus dementissimi: portus est, aliquando petendus, numquam recusandus, in quem si quis intra primos annos delatus est, non magis queri debet quam qui cito navigavit. Alium enim, ut scis, venti segnes ludunt ac detinent et tranquillitatis lentissimae taedio lassant, alium pertinax flatus celerrime perfert. [4] Idem evenire nobis puta: alios vita velocissime adduxit quo veniendum erat etiam cunctantibus, alios maceravit et coxit. Quae, ut scis, non semper retinenda est; non enim vivere bonum est, sed bene vivere. Itaque sapiens vivet quantum debet, non quantum potest. [5] Videbit ubi victurus sit, cum quibus, quomodo, quid acturus. Cogitat semper qualia vita, non quanta sit. [sit] Si multa occurrunt molesta et tranquillitatem turbantia, emittit se; nec hoc tantum in necessitate ultima facit, sed cum primum illi coepit suspecta esse fortuna, diligenter circumspicit numquid illic desinendum sit. Nihil existimat sua referre, faciat finem an accipiat, tardius fiat an citius: non tamquam de magno detrimento timet; nemo multum ex stilicidio potest perdere. [6] Citius mori aut tardius ad rem non pertinet, bene mori aut male ad rem pertinet; bene autem mori est effugere male vivendi periculum. Itaque effeminatissimam vocem illius Rhodii existimo, qui cum in caveam coniectus esset a tyranno et tamquam ferum aliquod animal aleretur, suadenti cuidam ut abstineret cibo, 'omnia' inquit 'homini, dum vivit, speranda sunt'. [7] Ut sit hoc verum, non omni pretio vita emenda est. Quaedam licet magna, licet certa sint, tamen ad illa turpi infirmitatis confessione non veniam: ego cogitem in eo qui vivit omnia posse fortunam, potius quam cogitem in eo qui scit mori nil posse fortunam? [8] Aliquando tamen, etiam si certa mors instabit et destinatum sibi supplicium sciet, non commodabit poenae suae manum: sibi commodaret. Stultitia est timore mortis mori: venit qui occidat, exspecta. Quid occupas? quare suscipis alienae crudelitatis procurationem? utrum invides carnifici tuo an parcis? [9] Socrates potuit abstinentia finire vitam et inedia potius quam veneno mori; triginta tamen dies in carcere et in exspectatione mortis exegit, non hoc animo tamquam omnia fieri possent, tamquam multas spes tam longum tempus reciperet, sed ut praeberet se legibus, ut fruendum amicis extremum Socraten daret. Quid erat stultius quam mortem contemnere, venenum timere? [10] Scribonia, gravis femina, amita Drusi Libonis fuit, adulescentis tam stolidi quam nobilis, maiora sperantis quam illo saeculo quisquam sperare poterat aut ipse ullo. Cum aeger a senatu in lectica relatus esset non sane frequentibus exsequis - omnes enim necessarii deseruerant impie iam non reum sed funus -, habere coepit consilium utrum conscisceret mortem an exspectaret. Cui Scribonia 'quid te' inquit 'delectat alienum negotium agere?' Non persuasit illi: manus sibi attulit, nec sine causa. Nam post diem tertium aut quartum inimici moriturus arbitrio si vivit, alienum negotium agit. [11] Non possis itaque de re in universum pronuntiare, cum mortem vis externa denuntiat, occupanda sit an exspectanda; multa enim sunt quae in utramque partem trahere possunt. Si altera mors cum tormento, altera simplex et facilis est, quidni huic inicienda sit manus? Quemadmodum navem eligam navigaturus et domum habitaturus, sic mortem exiturus e vita. [12] Praeterea quemadmodum non utique melior est longior vita, sic peior est utique mors longior. In nulla re magis quam in morte morem animo gerere debemus. Exeat qua impetum cepit: sive ferrum appetit sive laqueum sive aliquam potionem venas occupantem, pergat et vincula servitutis abrumpat. Vitam et aliis approbare quisque debet, mortem sibi: optima est quae placet. [13] Stulte haec cogitantur: 'aliquis dicet me parum fortiter fecisse, aliquis nimis temere, aliquis fuisse aliquod genus mortis animosius'. Vis tu cogitare id in manibus esse consilium ad quod fama non pertinet! Hoc unum intuere, ut te fortunae quam celerrime eripias; alioquin aderunt qui de facto tuo male existiment. [14] Invenies etiam professos sapientiam qui vim afferendam vitae suae negent et nefas iudicent ipsum interemptorem sui fieri: exspectandum esse exitum quem natura decrevit. Hoc qui dicit non videt se libertatis viam cludere: nihil melius aeterna lex fecit quam quod unum introitum nobis ad vitam dedit, exitus multos. [15] Ego exspectem vel morbi crudelitatem vel hominis, cum possim per media exire tormenta et adversa discutere ? Hoc est unum cur de vita non possimus queri: neminem tenet. Bono loco res humanae sunt, quod nemo nisi vitio suo miser est. Placet? vive: non placet? licet eo reverti unde venisti. [16] Ut dolorem capitis levares, sanguinem saepe misisti; ad extenuandum corpus vena percutitur. Non opus est vasto vulnere dividere praecordia: scalpello aperitur ad illam magnam libertatem via et puncto securitas constat. Quid ergo est quod nos facit pigros inertesque? Nemo nostrum cogitat quandoque sibi ex hoc domicilio exeundum; sic veteres inquilinos indulgentia loci et consuetudo etiam inter iniurias detinet. [17] Vis adversus hoc corpus liber esse? tamquam migraturus habita. Propone tibi quandoque hoc contubernio carendum: fortior eris ad necessitatem exeundi. Sed quemadmodum suus finis veniet in mentem omnia sine fine concupiscentibus? [18] Nullius rei meditatio tam necessaria est; alia enim fortasse exercentur in supervacuum. Adversus paupertatem praeparatus est animus: permansere divitiae. Ad contemptum nos doloris armavimus: numquam a nobis exegit huius virtutis experimentum integri ac sani felicitas corporis. Ut fortiter amissorum desideria pateremur praecepimus nobis: omnis quos amabamus superstites fortuna servavit. [19] Huius unius rei usum qui exigat dies veniet. Non est quod existimes magnis tantum viris hoc robur fuisse quo servitutis humanae claustra perrumperent; non est quod iudices hoc fieri nisi a Catone non posse, qui quam ferro non emiserat animam manu extraxit: vilissimae sortis homines ingenti impetu in tutum evaserunt, cumque e commodo mori non licuisset nec ad arbitrium suum instrumenta mortis eligere, obvia quaeque rapuerunt et quae natura non erant noxia vi sua tela fecerunt. [20] Nuper in ludo bestiariorum unus e Germanis, cum ad matutina spectacula pararetur, secessit ad exonerandum corpus - nullum aliud illi dabatur sine custode secretum; ibi lignum id quod ad emundanda obscena adhaerente spongia positum est totum in gulam farsit et interclusis faucibus spiritum elisit. Hoc fuit morti contumeliam facere. Ita prorsus, parum munde et parum decenter: quid est stultius quam fastidiose mori? [21] O virum fortem, o dignum cui fati daretur electio! Quam fortiter ille gladio usus esset, quam animose in profundam se altitudinem maris aut abscisae rupis immisisset! Undique destitutus invenit quemadmodum et mortem sibi deberet et telum, ut scias ad moriendum nihil aliud in mora esse quam velle. Existimetur de facto hominis acerrimi ut cuique visum erit, dum hoc constet, praeferendam esse spurcissimam mortem servituti mundissimae. [22] Quoniam coepi sordidis exemplis uti, perseverabo; plus enim a se quisque exiget, si viderit hanc rem etiam a contemptissimis posse contemni. Catones Scipionesque et alios quos audire cum admiratione consuevimus supra imitationem positos putamus: iam ego istam virtutem habere tam multa exempla in ludo bestiario quam in ducibus belli civilis ostendam. [23] Cum adveheretur nuper inter custodias quidam ad matutinum spectaculum missus, tamquam somno premente nutaret, caput usque eo demisit donec radiis insereret, et tamdiu se in sedili suo tenuit donec cervicem circumactu rotae frangeret; eodem vehiculo quo ad poenam ferebatur effugit. [24] Nihil obstat erumpere et exire cupienti: in aperto nos natura custodit. Cui permittit necessitas sua, circumspiciat exitum mollem; cui ad manum plura sunt per quae sese asserat, is dilectum agat et qua potissimum liberetur consideret: cui difficilis occasio est, is proximam quamque pro optima arripiat, sit licet inaudita, sit nova. Non deerit ad mortem ingenium cui non defuerit animus. [25] Vides quemadmodum extrema quoque mancipia, ubi illis stimulos adegit dolor, excitentur et intentissimas custodias fallant? Ille vir magnus est qui mortem sibi non tantum imperavit sed invenit. Ex eodem tibi munere plura exempla promisi. [26] Secundo naumachiae spectaculo unus e barbaris lanceam quam in adversarios acceperat totam iugulo suo mersit. 'Quare, quare' inquit 'non omne tormentum, omne ludibrium iamdudum effugio? quare ego mortem armatus exspecto?' Tanto hoc speciosius spectaculum fuit quanto honestius mori discunt homines quam occidere. [27] Quid ergo? quod animi perditi quoque noxiosi habent non habebunt illi quos adversus hos casus instruxit longa meditatio et magistra rerum omnium ratio? Illa nos docet fati varios esse accessus, finem eundem, nihil autem interesse unde incipiat quod venit. [28] Eadem illa ratio monet ut si licet moriaris <quemadmodum placet, si minus> quemadmodum potes, et quidquid obvenerit ad vim afferendam tibi invadas. Iniuriosum est rapto vivere, at contra pulcherrimum mori rapto. Vale.