is no limit fixt; and life goes on very well in it, so long as
you are able to follow up and attend to the duty of your situation,
and, at the same time, to care nothing about death; whence it happens
that old age is even of higher spirit and bolder than youth. Agreeable
to this was the answer given to Pisistratus,[17] the tyrant, by Solon,
when on the former inquiring, "in reliance on what hope he so boldly
withstood him," the latter is said to have answered, "on old age." The
happiest end of life is this--when the mind and the other senses
being unimpaired, the same nature which put it together takes asunder
her own work. As in the case of a ship or a house, he who built them
takes them down most easily; so the same nature which has compacted
man most easily breaks him up. Besides, every fastening of glue, when
fresh, is with difficulty torn asunder, but easily when tried by time.
Hence it is that that short remnant of life should be neither greedily
coveted nor without reason given up; and Pythagoras forbids us to
abandon the station or post of life without the orders of our
commander, that is, of God.[18] There is indeed a saying of the wise
Solon in which he declares that he does not wish his own death to be
unattended by the grief and lamentation of friends. He wishes, I
suppose, that he should be dear to his friends. But I know not whether
Ennius does not say with more propriety,

"Let no one pay me honor with tears, nor
celebrate my funeral with mourning."

He conceives that a death ought not to be lamented when immortality
follows. Besides, a dying man may have some degree of consciousness,
but that for a short time, especially in the case of an old man; after
death, indeed, consciousness either does not exist or it is a thing to
be desired. But this ought to be a subject of study from our youth to
be indifferent about death, without which study no one can be of
tranquil mind. For die we certainly must, and it is uncertain whether
or not on this very day. He, therefore, who at all hours dreads
impending death, how can he be at peace in his mind? concerning which
there seems to be no need of such long discussion, when I call to mind
not only Lucius Brutus, who was slain in liberating his country; nor
the two Decii, who spurred on their steeds to a voluntary death; nor
Marcus Atilius,[19] who set out to execution that he might keep a
promise pledged to the enemy; nor the two Scipios, who even with t