ve a school like the Greeks. And
lately when you left us, having many of my friends about me, I attempted
at my Tusculan villa what I could do in that way; for as I formerly used
to practise declaiming, which nobody continued longer than myself, so this
is now to be the declamation of my old age. I desired any one to propose a
question which he wished to have discussed: and then I argued that point
either sitting or walking, and so I have compiled the scholae, as the
Greeks call them, of five days, in as many books. We proceeded in this
manner: when he who had proposed the subject for discussion had said what
he thought proper, I spoke against him; for this is, you know, the old and
Socratic method of arguing against another's opinion; for Socrates thought
that thus the truth would more easily be arrived at. But to give you a
better notion of our disputations, I will not barely send you an account
of them, but represent them to you as they were carried on; therefore let
the introduction be thus:--

V. _A._ To me death seems to be an evil.

_M._ What to those who are already dead? or to those who must die?

_A._ To both.

_M._ It is a misery then, because an evil?

_A._ Certainly.

_M._ Then those who have already died, and those who have still got to
die, are both miserable?

_A._ So it appears to me.

_M._ Then all are miserable?

_A._ Every one.

_M._ And, indeed, if you wish to be consistent, all that are already born,
or ever shall be, are not only miserable, but always will be so; for
should you maintain those only to be miserable, you would not except any
one living, for all must die; but there should be an end of misery in
death. But seeing that the dead are miserable, we are born to eternal
misery, for they must of consequence be miserable who died a hundred
thousand years ago; or rather, all that have ever been born.

_A._ So, indeed, I think.

_M._ Tell me, I beseech you, are you afraid of the three-headed Cerberus
in the shades below, and the roaring waves of Cocytus, and the passage
over Acheron, and Tantalus expiring with thirst, while the water touches
his chin; and Sisyphus,

Who sweats with arduous toil in vain
The steepy summit of the mount to gain?

Perhaps, too, you dread the inexorable judges, Minos and Rhadamanthus;
before whom neither L. Crassus, nor M. Antonius can defend you; and where,
since the cause lies before Grecian judges, you will not even be able to
employ