THE SAYINGS OF MARCUS
lest he should seem to betray the State. But when his son answered that his first care was for health, he let him do as he would, begging him however to wait a few days and not take his departure at once. Then he abstained from food and drink,[1] wishing to die, and aggravated the disease. On the sixth day he called for his friends, and mocking earthly things, but setting death at naught, he said to them, Why weep for me and not rather think on the pestilence and the death that awaits all? And when they made as though to retire he said, sighing, If you now give me my dismissal, I give you my farewell and lead the way for you. And when it was asked of him to whom he commended his son, he answered, To you, if he be worthy, and to the immortal Gods. On the seventh day he grew worse, and allowed only his son to be admitted, but dismissed him at once that he might not take the infection. After parting from his son he veiled his head as if he would sleep, but in the night he breathed his last.
(21a) Dio Fragm. Dind. v. p. 206.
When Marcus was seriously ill, so as to have little hope of recovery, he would often cry out in his illness this verse from the tragedy,
(21b) Dio 71. 33, § 4.
When near his death, being asked by the tribune for the watchword, he said, Go to the rising sun, for I am setting.
- ↑ The latter is not likely. He had long been unable to take solid food; see Dio (71. 6, § 4), who says positively that he was poisoned by order of Commodus. Others say he died of the pestilence.
- ↑ This quotation occurs again in Dio, 71. 22, but with a different application, as a sarcasm against the rise of Pertinax, a man of humble birth, to the consulship.
- ↑ Pius in the delirium of his last fever nihil aliud quam de re publica et de regibus, quibus iruscebatur, locutus est (Capit. Vit. Pii, xii. 8). Napoleon's last words were tête d'armée.
