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[82]
No one, my dear Scipio, will ever convince me that
your father Paulus, or your two grandfathers,
Paulus and Africanus, or the latter's father and
uncle, or many other illustrious men, unnecessary
now to name, would have attempted such mighty
deeds, to be remembered by posterity, if they had
not known that posterity belonged to them. Or,
to boast somewhat of myself after the manner of
the old, do you think that I should have undertaken
such heavy labours by day and by night, at home and
abroad, if I had believed that the term of my earthly
life would mark the limits of my fame? Would
[p. 95]
it not have been far better for me to spend a leisured
and quiet life, free from toil and strife? But
somehow, my soul was ever on the alert, looking
forward to posterity, as if it realized that when it
had departed from this life, then at last would it be
alive. And, indeed, were it not true that the soul
is immortal, it would not be the case that it is ever
the souls of the best men that strive most for immortal
glory. And what of the fact that the wisest men
die with the greatest equanimity,
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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