But a living man does not want a good, unless he is distressed without it;
and yet, we can easily understand how any man alive can be without a
kingdom. But this cannot be predicated of you with any accuracy: it might
have been asserted of Tarquin, when he was driven from his kingdom: but
when such an expression is used respecting the dead it is absolutely
unintelligible. For to want, implies to be sensible; but the dead are
insensible; therefore the dead can be in no want.

XXXVII. But what occasion is there to philosophize here, in a matter with
which we see that philosophy is but little concerned? How often have not
only our generals, but whole armies, rushed on certain death! but if it
had been a thing to be feared, L. Brutus would never have fallen in fight,
to prevent the return of that tyrant whom he had expelled; nor would
Decius the father have been slain in fighting with the Latins; nor would
his son, when engaged with the Etruscans, nor his grandson with Pyrrhus,
have exposed themselves to the enemy's darts. Spain would never have seen,
in one campaign, the Scipios fall fighting for their country; nor would
the plains of Cannae have witnessed the death of Paulus and Geminus; or
Venusia, that of Marcellus: nor would the Latins have beheld the death of
Albinus; nor the Lucanians, that of Gracchus. But are any of these
miserable now? nay, they were not so even at the first moment after they
had breathed their last: nor can any one be miserable after he has lost
all sensation. Oh, but the mere circumstance of being without sensation is
miserable. It might be so if being without sensation were the same thing
as wanting it; but as it is evident there can be nothing of any kind in
that which has no existence, what can there be afflicting to that which
can neither feel want, nor be sensible of anything? We might be said to
have repeated this over too often, only that here lies all that the soul
shudders at, from the fear of death. For whoever can clearly apprehend
that which is as manifest as the light, that when both soul and body are
consumed, and there is a total destruction, then that which was an animal,
becomes nothing; will clearly see, that there is no difference between a
Hippocentaur, which never had existence, and king Agamemnon; and that M.
Camillus is no more concerned about this present civil war, than I was at
the sacking of Rome, when he was living.

XXXVIII. Why, then, should Camillus be affected with