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[77]
21. Really I do not see why I should not
venture to tell you what I, myself, think of death;
for it seems to me that I apprehend it better as I
draw nearer to it. It is my belief, Scipio, that your
father, and yours, Laelius—both of them most
illustrious men and very dear to me—are living yet,
and living the only life deserving of the name.
For while we are shut up within these frames of
flesh we perform a sort of task imposed by necessity1
and endure grievous labour; for the soul is celestial,
brought down from its most exalted home and
buried, as it were, in earth, a place uncongenial
to its divine and eternal nature. But I believe that
the immortal gods implanted souls in human bodies
so as to have beings who would care for the earth
and who, while contemplating the celestial order,
would imitate it in the moderation and consistency
of their lives. Nor have I been driven to this belief
solely by the force of reason and of argument, but
also by the reputation and authority of philosophers
of the highest rank.
1 Or “fate.”
Cicero: De Senectute De Amicitia De Divinatione. With An English Translation. William Armistead Falconer. Cambridge. Harvard University Press; Cambridge, Mass., London, England. 1923.
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