ndered more apparent in our hereditary
and time-honoured customs and laws. For when infants die no libations
are poured out for them, nor are any other rites performed for them,
such as are always performed for adults. For they have no share in the
earth or in things of the earth, nor do parents haunt their tombs or
monuments, or sit by their bodies when they are laid out. For the laws
do not allow us to mourn for such, seeing that it is an impious thing to
do so in the case of persons who have departed into a better and more
divine place and sphere. I know that doubts are entertained about this,
but since to doubt is harder for them than to believe, let us do
externally as the laws enjoin, and internally let us be more holy and
pure and chaste.[204]

[191] Timoxena, as we see later on, Sec. ix.

[192] Adopting Reiske's reading, [Greek: maston
keleuousa, proekaleito kathaper].

[193] Euripides' "Phaethon," which exists only in
fragments. Clymene was the daughter of Oceanus, and
mother of Phaethon.

[194] An allusion to Euripides, "Bacchae," 317, 318.

[195] Reading with Reiske [Greek: oudeni logo de], or
[Greek: alogos de]. Some such reading seems necessary to
comport with the [Greek: ti gar alogoteron] two lines
later.

[196] Reading [Greek: pareiches] with Xylander.

[197] A great craving for sympathy would be the modern
way of putting it.

[198] See the Fable of AEsop, entitled [Greek: Penthous
geras], No. 355. Halme. See also Plutarch's "Consolation
to Apollonius," Sec. xix., where the Fable is told at some
length.

[199] Reading with Reiske [Greek: ouk an eipein
phobetheien].

[200] An allusion to Euripides, "Andromache," 930. See
Plutarch's "Conjugal Precepts," Sec. xl.

[201] The whole subject is discussed in full by
Athenaeus, p. 632, F. F. A false quantity we see was a
bugbear even before the days of Universities.

[202] Homer, "Iliad," v. 646; xxiii. 71.

[203] This section is dreadfully corrupt. I have
adopted, it will be seen, the suggestions of Wyttenbach.

[204] This Consolatory Letter ends rather abruptly. It
is probable that there was more of it.

THAT VIRTUE MAY BE TAUGHT.

Sec. I. As to virtue we deliberate and dispute whether good sense, and
justice, and rectitude can be taught: and then we are not surprised
that, while the works of orators, and pilots