EPISTLE LXX.
are times, nevertheless, when a man, even though certain death impends and he knows that torture is in store for him, will refrain from lending a hand to his own punishment, to himself, however, he would lend a hand.[1] It is folly to die through fear of dying. The executioner is upon you; wait for him. Why anticipate him? Why assume the management of a cruel task that belongs to another? Do you grudge your executioner his privilege, or do you merely relieve him of his task? 9. Socrates might have ended his life by fasting; he might have died by starvation rather than by poison. But instead of this he spent thirty days in prison awaiting death, not with the idea “everything may happen,” or “so long an interval has room for many a hope” but in order that he might show himself submissive to the laws[2] and make the last moments of Socrates an edification to his friends. What would have been more foolish than to scorn death, and yet fear poison?[3]
10. Scribonia, a woman of the stern old type, was an aunt of Drusus Libo.[4] This young man was as stupid as he was well born, with higher ambitions than anyone could have been expected to entertain in that epoch, or a man like himself in any epoch at all. When Libo had been carried away ill from the senate-house in his litter, though certainly with a very scanty train of followers,—for all his kinsfolk undutifully deserted him, when he was no longer a criminal but a corpse,—he began to consider whether he should commit suicide, or await death. Scribonia said to him: “What pleasure do
- ↑ i.e., if he must choose between helping along his punishment by suicide, or helping himself stay alive under torture and practising the virtues thus brought into play, he will choose the latter,—sibi commodare.
- ↑ See the imaginary dialogue in Plato’s Crito (50 ff.) between Socrates and the Laws—a passage which develops this thought.
- ↑ And to commit suicide in order to escape poisoning.
- ↑ For a more complete account of this tragedy see Tacitus, Annals, ii. 27 ff. Libo was duped by Firmius Catus (16 A.D.) into seeking imperial power, was detected, and finally forced by Tiberius to commit suicide.
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