interest in the opinion which future generations might entertain concerning them. And do you imagine, my noble friends (if I may be indulged in an old man's privilege to boast of himself), do you imagine I would have undergone those labours I have sustained both in my civil and military employments if I had supposed that the conscious satisfaction I received from the glory of my actions was to terminate with my present existence? If such had been my persuasion, would it not have been far better and more rational to have passed my days in an undisturbed and indolent repose, without labour and without contention? But my mind, by I know not what secret impulse, was ever raising its views into future ages, strongly persuaded that I should then only begin to live when I ceased to exist in the present world. Indeed, if the soul were not naturally immortal, never, surely, would the desire of immortal glory be a passion which always exerts itself with the greatest force in the noblest and most exalted bosoms.

Tell me, my friends, whence is it that those men who have made the greatest advances in true wisdom and genuine philosophy are observed to meet death with the most perfect equanimity, while the ignorant and unimproved part of our species generally see its approach with the utmost discomposure and reluctance? Is it not because the more enlightened the mind is, and the further it extends its view, the more clearly it discerns in the hour of its dissolution (what narrow and vulgar souls are too shortsighted to discover) that it is taking its flight into some happier region?

For my own part, I feel myself transported with the most ardent impatience to join the society of my two departed friends, your illustrious fathers, whose characters I greatly respected, and whose persons I sincerely loved. Nor is this my earnest desire confined to those excellent persons alone with whom I was formerly connected: I ardently wish to visit also those celebrated worthies, of whose honourable conduct I have heard and read much, or whose virtues I have myself commemorated in some of my writings. To this glorious assembly I am speedily advancing: and I would not be turned back in my journey even on the assured condition that my youth, like that of Pelias, should again be restored. The sincere truth is, if some divinity would confer on me a new grant of my life, and replace me once more in the cradle, I would utterly, and without the least hesitation, reject the offer: having well-nigh finished my race, I have no inclination to return to the goal. For what has life to recommend it? or rather, indeed, to what evils does it not expose us? But admit that its satisfactions are many; yet surely there is a time when we have had a sufficient measure of its enjoyments, and may well depart contented with our share of the feast: for I mean not, in imitation of some very considerable philosophers, to represent the condition of human nature as a subject of just lamentation: on the contrary, I am far from regretting that life was bestowed on me, as I have the satisfaction to think that I have employed it in such a manner as not to have lived in vain. In short, I consider this world as a place which Nature never designed for my permanent abode; and I look on my departure out of it not as being driven from my habitation, but as leaving my inn.

O glorious day! when I shall retire from this low and sordid scene to associate with the divine assembly of departed spirits; and not with those only whom I just now mentioned, but with my dear Cato, that best of sons and most valuable of men! It was my sad fate to lay his body on the funeral pile, when by the course of nature I had reason to hope he would have performed the same last office to mine. His soul, however, did not desert me, but still looked back on me in its flight to those happy mansions to which he was assured I should one day follow him. If I seemed to bear his death with fortitude, it was by no means that I did not most sensibly feel the loss I had sustained: it was because I supported myself with the consoling reflection that we could not long be separated.

Thus to think, and thus to act, has enabled me, Scipio, to bear up under a load of years with that ease and complacency which both you and Lælius have so frequently, it seems, remarked with admiration; as, indeed, it has rendered my old age not only no inconvenient state to me, but even an agreeable one. And, after all, should this my firm persuasion of the soul's immortality prove to be a mere delusion, it is at least a pleasing delusion, and I will cherish it to my latest breath. I have the satisfaction in the meantime to be assured that if death should utterly extinguish my existence, as some minute philosophers assert, the groundless hope I entertained of an after-life in some better state can not expose me to the derision of these wonderful sages when they and I shall be no more. At all events, and even admitting that our expectations of immortality are utterly vain, there is a certain period, nevertheless, when death would be a consummation most earnestly to be desired: for Nature has appointed to the days of man, as to all things else, their proper limits, beyond which they are no longer of any value. In fine, old age may be considered as the last scene in the great drama of life; and one would not, surely, wish to lengthen out his part till he sank down sated with repetition and exhausted with fatigue.

These, my noble friends, are the reflections I had to lay before you on the subject of old age-a period to which, I hope, you will both of you in due time arrive, and prove by your own experience the truth of what I have asserted to you on mine.

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NOTES

Translated by William Melmoth.