Moral Letters to Lucilius

​Suddenly today the Alexandrian ships appeared to us, which are usually sent ahead to announce the arrival of the fleet that is to follow; they call them mail-boats. Their appearance is welcome to Campania; the whole crowd stands on the piers of Puteoli, and from the very style of their sails, they recognize the Alexandrian ships even in a great crowd of vessels. For they alone are permitted to keep their topsails spread, which all ships have up on the high seas.

​For nothing helps the course as much as the uppermost part of the sail; from there the ship is driven most of all. Therefore, as often as the wind has grown stronger and is greater than is expedient, the yard-arm is lowered; the breeze has less power from a low position. When they have entered Capreas and the promontory from which “High Pallas watches from her stormy peak,” the other ships are ordered to be content with a single sail; the topsail is the special distinction of the Alexandrian ships.

​In this general rush of everyone to the shore, I felt a great pleasure from my own laziness, because, though about to receive letters from my people, I did not hurry to know what the state of my affairs was there, or what they were bringing; for a long time now nothing has been lost to me, nor is anything acquired. This, even if I were not an old man, should have been felt; but now, indeed, much more. However little I might have, yet there would remain more of travel-money for me than of the journey, especially since we have entered upon that road which it is not necessary to travel to the end.

​A journey will be incomplete if you stop in the middle or short of the place you aimed for; life is not incomplete if it is honorable. Wherever you leave off, if you leave off well, it is whole. Moreover, we must often leave off both bravely and not for the greatest reasons; for indeed, those reasons which hold us back are not the greatest.

​Tullius Marcellinus, whom you knew very well, a quiet young man who quickly became old, when seized by a disease—not indeed incurable, but long and troublesome and demanding much—began to deliberate about death. He called together several friends. Each one, either because he was timid, advised him what he would have advised himself, or because he was a flatterer and fawning, gave that counsel which he suspected would be more pleasing to him as he deliberated; but our Stoic friend, an excellent man, and, to praise him in words by which he is worthy to be praised, a brave and vigorous man, seems to me to have encouraged him best.

​For he began thus: “Do not, my Marcellinus, be tormented as if you were deliberating about a great matter. To live is not a great thing; all your slaves live, all animals do; it is a great thing to die honorably, prudently, bravely. Think how long now you have been doing the same thing: food, sleep, lust—this is the circle we run. Not only a wise or brave or miserable man can wish to die, but even one who is bored.”

​He did not need someone to persuade him, but someone to help him; his slaves were unwilling to obey. First, he took away their fear, and pointed out that the household only runs into danger when it is uncertain whether the master’s death was voluntary; otherwise, it is as bad an example to kill a master as to prevent him from dying.

​Next, he advised Marcellinus himself that it was not unkind, just as when a dinner is finished, the remnants are distributed to the bystanders, so when life is finished, something should be handed out to those who had been the servants of his whole life. Marcellinus was of an easy and generous mind, even when it came from his own pocket. Therefore, he distributed small sums of money to his weeping slaves and even consoled them.

​He had no need of steel, nor of blood; for three days he abstained from food and ordered a tent to be pitched in his very bedchamber. Then a bath-tub was brought in, in which he lay for a long time, and hot water being poured in from time to time, he gradually slipped away, not, as he said, without a certain pleasure, which a gentle dissolution is accustomed to bring, an experience not unfamiliar to us who have sometimes fainted.

​I have drifted into a little story not unwelcome to you. For you will learn that the end of your friend was neither difficult nor miserable. For although he took his own life, yet he departed most gently and slipped out of life. But indeed, this little story will not be useless. For necessity often demands such examples. Often we ought to die and do not wish to; we die and do not wish to.