Dear Cicero,
This book of yours, these Tusculan Disputations, are difficult to start talking about. Section by section you say so much, on so many topics; so tonight, leafing through my rather cheap, and already falling apart paperback edition, I found what you had to say on the differing burial customs of other cultures. Since my father's death...well, there's a lot going on and I think about death every day. One must be prepared for death, in order to truly live.
Book 1: On contempt of death
XLV
The Egyptians embalm their dead, and keep them in their houses; the Persians dress them over with wax, and then bury them, that they may preserve their bodies as long as possible. It is customary with the the Magi to bury none of their order unless they have been first torn by wild beasts. In Hyrcania, the people maintain dogs for the public use; the nobles have their own – and we know that they have a good breed of dogs; but every one, according to his ability, provides himself with some, in order to be torn by them, and they hold that to be the best kind of investment...
...But the living, indeed, should consider what is due to custom and opinion; only they should at the same time consider that the dead are no-ways interested in it. But death truly is then met with the greatest tranquillity when the dying man can comfort himself with his own praise. No one dies too soon who has finished the course of perfect virtue. I myself have known many occasions when I have seemed in danger of immediate death; oh! How I wish it had come for me! For I have gained nothing by the delay. I had gone over and over again the duties of life; nothing remained but to contend with fortune.
'I have gained nothing by the delay.' Now Cicero, I know that you have read Herodotus and that you know the story of King Croesus. I have had that story running through my mind a lot this week. Call no man happy till he die, is a simple way to summarise the whole thing, but I feel you would appreciate an actual quote, so I shall fetch my deSelincourt translation. (Herodotus Histories, Book 1, Sect 30-33)
Solon visited the richest king in the land, Croesus, and having been given the grand tour of all the king's treasures, Croesus asked Solon:
'Well my Athenian friend, I have heard a great deal about your wisdom, and how widely you have travelled in the pursuit of knowledge. I cannot resist my desire to ask you a question: who is the happiest man you have ever seen?'
The point of the question was that Croesus supposed himself to be he happiest of men. Solon, however, refused to flatter, and answered in strict accordance with his view of the truth. 'An Athenian,' he said, 'called Tellus.'
Croesus was taken aback. 'And what,' he asked sharply, 'is your reason for this choice?'
'There are two good reasons,' said Solon, 'first, his city was prosperous, and he had fine sons, and lived to see children born to each of them, and all these children surviving: secondly, he had wealth enough by our standards and he had a glorious death. In battle with the neighbouring town of Eleusis, he fought for his countrymen, routed the enemy, and died like a soldier; and the Athenians paid him the high honour of a public funeral on the spot where he fell.'
All these details about the happiness of Tellus, Solon doubtless intended as a moral lesson for the king; Croesus, however, thinking he would at least be awarded second prize, asked who was the next happiest person whom Solon had seen.
'Two young me of Argos,' was the reply; 'Cleobis and Biton. They had enough to live on comfortably; and their physical strength is proved not merely by their success in athletics, but much more by the following incident. The Argives were celebrating the festival of Hera, and it was most important that the mother of the two young men should drive to the temple in her ox-cart; but it so happened that the oxen were late in coming back from the fields. Her two sons therefore, as their was not time to loose, harnessed themselves to the cart and dragged it along, with their mother inside, for a distance of nearly six miles, until they reached the temple. After this exploit, which was witnessed by the assembled crowd, they had a most enviable death – a heaven-sent proof of how much better it is to be dead than alive. Men kept crowding around them and congratulating them on their strength, and women kept telling the mother how lucky she was to have such sons, when, in sheer pleasure at this pleasure at this public recognition of her sons' act, she prayed to the goddess Hera, before whose shrine she stood, to grant Cleobis and Biton, who had brought her such honour, the greatest blessing that can fall to mortal man.
'After her prayer came the ceremonies of sacrifice and feasting; and the two lads, when all was over, fell asleep in the temple – and that was the end of them, for they never woke again.'
Croesus was vexed with Solon for giving the second prize for happiness to the two young Argives, and snapped out: 'That's all very well, my Athenian friend; but what of my own happiness? Is it so utterly contemptible that you won't even compare me with mere common folk like those you have mentioned?'
'My lord,' replied Solon, 'I know God is envious of human prosperity and likes to trouble us; and you question me about the lot of man. Listen then: as the years lengthen out there is much both to see and to suffer which we would wish otherwise. Take seventy years as the span of a man's life: those seventy years contain...26, 250 days, and not a single one is like the next in what it brings. You can see from that, Croesus, what a chancy thing life is. You are very rich, and you rule a numerous people; but the question you asked me I will not answer, until I know that you have died happily. Great wealth can make a man no happier than moderate means, unless he has the luck to continue in prosperity to the end. Many very rich men have been unfortunate, and many with a modest competence have had good luck. The former are better off than the latter in two respects only, whereas the poor lucky man has the advantage in many ways; for thought the rich have means to satisfy their appetites and to bear calamities, and the poor have not, the poor, if they are lucky, are more likely to keep clear of trouble, and will have besides the blessings of a sound body, health, freedom from trouble, fine children, and good looks.
'Now if a man thus favoured dies as he has lived, he will be just the one you are looking for: the only sort of person who deserves to be called happy. But mark this: until he is dead, keep the word “happy” in reserve. Till then, he is not happy, but only lucky.
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