Consolatio ad Apollonium

Aeschylus [*](From an unknown play; cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Aeschylus, No. 353.) seems admirably to rebuke those who think that death is an evil. He says:

Men are not right in hating Death, which is The greatest succour from our many ills.

In imitation of Aeschylus some one else has said:

O Death, healing physician, come.[*](Somewhat similar to a line from the Philoctetes of Aeschylus; cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Aeschylus, No. 255.)

For it is indeed true that

A harbour from all distress is Hades.[*](Author unknown; Cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Adespota, No. 369.)

For it is a magnificent thing to be able to say with undaunted conviction:

What man who recks not death can be a slave?[*](From an unknown play of Euripides; Cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Euripides, No. 958, and Plutarch, Moralia, 34 B.)

and

With Hades’ help shadows I do not fear.[*](Author unknown; cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Adespota, No. 370.)

For what is there cruel or so very distressing in being dead ? It may be that the phenomenon of death, from being too familiar and natural to us, seems somehow, under changed circumstances, to be painful, though I know not why. For what wonder if the separable be separated, if the soluble be dissolved, if the combustible be consumed, and the corruptible be corrupted ? For at what time is death not existent in our very selves ? As Heracleitus [*](Cf. Diels, Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, i. p. 95, No. 88.) says: Living and dead are potentially the same thing, and so too waking and sleeping, and young and old; for the latter revert to the former, and the former in turn to the latter. For as one is able from the same clay to model figures of living things and to obliterate them, and again to model and obliterate, and alternately to repeat these operations without ceasing, so Nature, using the same material, a long time ago raised up our forefathers, and then in close succession to them created our fathers, and then ourselves, and later will create others and still others in a neverending cycle; and the stream of generation, thus flowing onward perpetually, will never stop, and so likewise its counterpart, flowing in the opposite direction—which is the stream of destruction, whether it be designated by the poets as Acheron or as Cocytus. The same agency which at the first showed us the light of the sun brings also the darkness of Hades. May not the air surrounding us serve to symbolize this, causing as it does day and night alternately, which bring us life and death, and sleep and waking ? Wherefore it is said that life is a debt to destiny, the idea being that the loan which our forefathers contracted is to be repaid by us. This debt we ought to discharge cheerfully and without bemoaning whenever the lender asks for payment; for in this way we should show ourselves to be most honourable men.

I imagine also that it was because Nature saw the indefiniteness and the brevity of life that she caused the time allowed us before death to be kept from us. And it is better so; for if we knew this beforehand, some persons would be utterly wasted by griefs before their time, and would be dead long before they died. Observe too the painfulness of life, and the exhaustion caused by many cares; if we should wish to enumerate all these, we should too readily condemn life, and we should confirm the opinion which now prevails in the minds of some that it is better to be dead than to live. Simonides [*](Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Graec. iii., Simonides, No. 39.) at any rate says:

Petty indeed is men’s strength; All their strivings are vain; Toil upon toil in a life of no length.

Death hovers over them all, Death which is foreordained. Equal the share by the brave is attained In death with the base.

And Pindar [*](Pyth.iii. 82; Cf. Homer, Il. xxiv. 527, quoted supra 105 C.) says:

A pair of miseries with each good The deathless gods mete out to mortal man. The foolish cannot bear them as they should.

And Sophocles [*](From an unknown play; Cf. Nauck, T.G.F., Sophocles, No. 761.) says:

Mourn you a mortal if he’s passed away, Not knowing if the future brings him gain ?

And Euripides [*](Alcestis, 780.) says:

Know you the nature of this mortal world ? I wot not. For whence could you ? But hear me. By all mankind is owed a debt to death, And not a single man can be assured If he shall live throughout the coming day. For Fortune’s movements are inscrutable.

Since, then, the life of men is such as these poets say it is, surely it is more fitting to felicitate those who have been released from their servitude in it than to pity them and bewail them, as the majority do through ignorance.