the end has arrived, I may safely claim to be called fortunate."
He then turned to his sons, and having assigned the succession to the throne to one, and an immense satrapy to another, he exhorted them to live in concord. And he based this exhortation not only on grounds of natural affection and mutual interest, but also on a regard to what would be pleasing to his own disembodied spirit. He said,[1] "You cannot surely believe that when I have ended this mortal life I shall cease to exist. Even in lifetime you have never seen my soul; you have only inferred its existence. And there are grounds for inferring the continuance of the soul after death. Have we not seen what a power is exercised by the souls of murdered men—how they send avenging furies to punish their murderers? It is only to this belief in the power of the soul after death that the custom of paying honour to the dead is due; and the belief is reasonable, for the soul, and not the body, is the principle of life. When soul and body are separated, it is natural to think that the soul will live. And the soul, too, is the principle of intelligence. When severed from the senseless body, it will surely not lose its intelligence, but only become more pure and bright; just as in sleep, when the soul is most independent of the body, it seems to gain the power, by prophetic dreams, of seeing into futurity. Do, then, what I advise, from a
- ↑ The arguments here given in favour of the immortality of the soul, are exactly quoted by Cicero at the end of his dialogue, "On Old Age."
