and death sets us free even from the greatest evils.
14. The Gods themselves bear witness to the truth of this, for many
have obtained death as a gratuity from them. The less famous instances
I will pass by, that I may not be prolix, and only mention those who
are the most celebrated and in all men’s mouths. And in the first
place, I will relate what befell Biton and Cleobis, two young men of
Argos. They report that their mother being the priestess of Juno, and
the time being come that she was to go up to the temple to perform
the rites of the Goddess, and those whose office it was to draw her
chariot tarrying longer than usual, these two young men harnessed
themselves and took it up, and so carried their mother to the temple.
She, being extremely taken with the piety of her sons, petitioned the
Goddess that she would bestow upon them the best present that could
be given to men; accordingly she cast them into that deep sleep out
of which they never awoke, taking this way to recompense their filial
zeal with death. Pindar writes of Agamedes and Trophonius, that after
they had built a temple at Delphi, they requested of Apollo a reward
for their work. It was answered them that they should have it within
seven days, but in the mean while they were commanded to live freely
and indulge their genius; accordingly they obeyed the dictate, and the
seventh night they died in their beds. It is said also of Pindar, that
when the deputies of the Boeotians were sent to consult the oracle, he
desired them to enquire of it which was the best thing amongst men,
and that the Priestess of the tripod gave them this answer,—that he
could not be ignorant of it, if he was the author of those writings
concerning Agamedes and Trophonius; but if he desired personally to
know, it should in a little time be made manifest to him; and that
Pindar hearing this prepared himself for the stroke of Fate, and died
in a short time after. Of Euthynous the Italian there is this memorable
story, that he died suddenly, without anybody’s knowing the cause of
his death. His father was Elysius the Terinean, who was a man of the
first condition for his estate and virtue, being rich and honorable,
and this being his only son and heir to all his fortune, which was very
great, he had a strong jealousy upon him that he was poisoned, and not
knowing how he should come to the information of it, he went into the
vault where they invoke the dead, and after having offered sacrifice,
as it is enjoined by the law, he slept in the place; when all things
were in a midnight silence, he had this vision. His father appeared
to him, to whom after having related his lamentable misfortune, he
earnestly desired the ghost that he would assist him in finding out the
cause. He answered that he was come on purpose to do it. But first,
saith he, receive from this one what he hath brought thee, and thereby
thou wilt understand the reason of all thy sorrow. The person that the
father meant was very like to Euthynous both for years and stature; and
the question being put to him who he was, he answered, I am the genius
of thy son; and at the same time he reached out a book to him, which he
opened and found these verses written therein:—
’Tis ignorance makes wretched men to err;
Fate did to happiness thy son prefer.
By destined death Euthynous seized we see;
So ’twas the better both for him and thee.
These are the stories which the ancients tell us.
15. But lastly, if death be the entire dissipation of soul and body
(which was the third part of Socrates’s comparison), even then it
cannot be an evil. For this would produce a privation of sense, and
consequently a complete freedom from all solicitude and care; and if
no good, so no evil would befall us. For good and evil alike must by
nature inhere in that which has existence and essence; but to that
which is nothing, and wholly abolished out of the nature of things,
neither of the two can belong. Therefore, when men die, they return to
the same condition they were in before they were born. For as, before
we came into the world, we were neither sensible of good nor afflicted
with evil, so it will be when we leave it; and as those things which
preceded our birth did not concern us, so neither will those things
which are subsequent to our death:—
The dead secure from sorrow safe do lie,
’Tis the same thing not to be born and die.[156]
For it is the same state of existence after death as it was before we
were born. Unless perhaps you will make a difference between having
no being at all and the utter extinction of it, after the same manner
that you make a distinction between an house and a garment after they
are ruined and worn out, and at the time before the one was built and
the other made. And if in this case there is no difference, it is plain
that there is none between the state before we were born and that after
we are dead. It is elegantly said by Arcesilaus, that death, which is
called an evil, hath this peculiarly distinct from all that are thought
so, that when it is present it gives us no disturbance, but when remote
and in expectation only, it is then that it afflicts us. And indeed
many out of the poorness of their spirit, having entertained most
injurious opinions of it, have died even to prevent death. Epicharmus
hath said excellently to this purpose: “It was united, it is now
dissolved; it returns back whence it came,—earth to earth, the spirit
to regions above. What in all this is grievous? Nothing at all.” But
that which Cresphontes in Euripides saith of Hercules,—
For if he dwells below, beneath the earth,
With those whose life is gone, his strength is nought,