[52] ‘caram te, vita, beneficio mortis habeo’ Sen. Dial. vi 20, 3; ‘nullo nos invida tanto | armavit natura bono, quam ianua mortis | quod patet’ Silius Pun. xi 186-8; ‘adeo mors timenda non est, ut beneficio eius nihil timendum sit’ Sen. Ep. 24, 11.
[53] ‘[mors] quin habeat aliquid in se terribile, ut et animos nostros, quos in amorem sui natura formavit, offendat, nemo dubitat’ ib. 36, 8.
[54] So Heraclitus had said ‘unus dies par omni est’ ib. 12, 7; ‘ut prorogetur tibi dies mortis, nihil proficitur ad felicitatem: quoniam mora non fit beatior vita, sed longior’ Ben. v 17, 6.
[55] ‘si [senectus] coeperit concutere mentem, si partes eius convellere, si mihi non vitam reliquerit sed animam, prosiliam ex aedificio putri ac ruenti’ Ep. 58, 35.
[56] ‘melius nos | Zenonis praecepta docent; nec enim omnia, quaedam | pro vita facienda putant’ Juv. Sat. xv 106 to 108.
[57] Diog. L. vii 130. Ingenious members of the school found five good reasons for voluntarily quitting life, resembling the causes for breaking up a banquet. As the guests part, because of (i) a sudden need, such as the arrival of a friend, (ii) revellers breaking in and using violent language, (iii) the food turning bad, (iv) the food being eaten up, or (v) the company being drunk; so the wise man will depart, because of (i) a call to sacrifice himself for his country, (ii) tyrants doing him violence, (iii) disease hindering the use of the body, (iv) poverty, (v) madness, which is the drunkenness of the soul. See Arnim iii 768.
[58] Notably in the case of Cato.
[59] ‘in quo plura sunt, quae secundum naturam sunt, huius officium est in vita manere; in quo autem aut sunt plura contraria, aut fore videntur, huius officium est e vita excedere’ Cic. Fin. iii 18, 60.
[60] ‘perspicuum est etiam stultorum, qui iidem miseri sint, officium esse manere in vita, si sint in maiore parte earum rerum, quas secundum naturam esse dicimus’ ib. iii 18, 61.
[61] He might easily have obtained acquittal by a judicious defence: Xen. Mem. iv 4, 4.