se of his approaching woe,
With other gestures, and a different eye,
Proclaim our pleasure when he's bid to die.(75)

There is something like this in Crantor's Consolation; for he says, that
Terinaeus of Elysia, when he was bitterly lamenting the loss of his son,
came to a place of divination to be informed why he was visited with so
great affliction, and received in his tablet these three verses,--

Thou fool, to murmur at Euthynous' death
The blooming youth to fate resigns his breath:
The fate, whereon your happiness depends,
At once the parent and the son befriends.(76)

On these and similar authorities they affirm that the question has been
determined by the Gods. Nay more; Alcidamas, an ancient rhetorician of the
very highest reputation, wrote even in praise of death, which he
endeavoured to establish by an enumeration of the evils of life; and his
Dissertation has a great deal of eloquence in it, but he was unacquainted
with the more refined arguments of the philosophers. By the orators,
indeed, to die for our country is always considered not only as glorious,
but even as happy; they go back as far as Erechtheus,(77) whose very
daughters underwent death, for the safety of their fellow-citizens: they
instance Codrus, who threw himself into the midst of his enemies, dressed
like a common man, that his royal robes might not betray him; because the
oracle had declared the Athenians conquerors, if their king was slain.
Menoeceus(78) is not overlooked by them, who, in compliance with the
injunctions of an oracle, freely shed his blood for his country. Iphigenia
ordered herself to be conveyed to Aulis, to be sacrificed, that her blood
might be the cause of spilling that of her enemies.

XLIX. From hence they proceed to instances of a fresher date. Harmodius
and Aristogiton are in everybody's mouth; the memory of Leonidas the
Lacedaemonian, and Epaminondas the Theban, is as fresh as ever. Those
philosophers were not acquainted with the many instances in our country--to
give a list of whom would take up too much time--who, we see, considered
death desirable as long as it was accompanied with honour. But,
notwithstanding this is the correct view of the case, we must use much
persuasion, speak as if we were endued with some higher authority, in
order to bring men to begin to wish to die, or cease to be afraid of
death. For if that last day does not occasion an entire extinction, but a
change