VIII
THE AFTER-LIFE

I will tell you1 what I myself believe about death. I do not see why not, for the nearer this comes the better I feel I understand what it means.

I loved your illustrious father, Scipio, and yours too, Laelius; and I am certain that they are still alive – living the only life that is worthy of the name.

As long as we remain within these bodily frames of ours, we are undergoing a heavy labour imposed on us by fate. For our human souls have come into our bodies from heaven: they have been sent down from their lofty abode and plunged, so to speak, into the earth, which is alien to their divine and eternal nature. As I believe, the reason why the immortal gods implanted souls in human beings was to provide the earth with guardians who should reflect their contemplation of the divine order in the orderly discipline of their own lives.

My own powers of logic and reasoning have not brought me to this conviction unaided. I have also relied upon the weighty and authoritative guidance of outstanding thinkers. For Pythagoras and his disciples – practically compatriots of ours, since they were known as the ‘Italian philosophers’ – never doubted, I am told, that each of our souls is a fraction taken from the divine universal Mind. Besides, I have studied the arguments concerning the immortality of the soul which Socrates advanced on the last day of his life;1 and he was the man whom the oracle of Apollo had pronounced to be wiser than all others.

Human souls function at lightning speed, equally remarkable for their memory of the past and knowledge of things to come. Their capabilities, funds of knowledge, and powers of discovery are endless. Their simultaneous possession of all these talents means, I am convinced, that they cannot be mortal. Seeing that their unceasing motion was self-created and had no other originator but themselves, they can likewise have no end, because their self-elimination is inconceivable. Being, furthermore, homogeneous, with the admixture of no different or discordant element whatever, they are indivisible – that is to say, indestructible. The hypothesis that a considerable part of human knowledge is of prenatal origin is supported by a strong argument: even a small child can tackle the most difficult subjects and rapidly master innumerable facts about them. This suggests that he is not learning for the first time but only recollecting what is already in his memory.

That, more or less, is Plato’s teaching. Xenophon tells us² that these problems were debated by the elder Cyrus on his deathbed. ‘My dear sons,’ he said, ‘do not conclude that after I have left you I shall have ceased to exist. Even while I have been with you, you have not seen my soul; you knew it was in this body because of the actions that I performed. In the future, too, my soul will remain invisible to you, but you should still be able to credit its existence just as you have hitherto.

‘The renown of famous men would not survive their deaths but for the continued activity of their own souls in preserving their memory among us. I have never felt able to believe that, whereas souls remain alive while they are still in human bodies, they must perish after they have ceased to dwell in them – for since the soul and not the body does the thinking, why should its departure remove this capacity? On the contrary, I have preferred to believe that it is only after liberation from all bodily admixture has made them pure and undefiled that souls enter upon true wisdom. Furthermore, in a human being’s dissolution by death, the destination of his corporeal elements is evident: each of them returns to its beginnings. Only the soul never appears at all, either when it is present or when it has departed.

‘Again, the closest thing to death (as you can see) is sleep. But sleep is precisely the condition in which souls most clearly manifest their divine nature. For when they are in this liberated and unrestrained state, they can see into the future: and that gives us a hint of what they will be like when they are no longer earth-bound by the human frame.

‘If I am right in believing in eternal life, then I am now turning into a god for you to worship! If, on the other hand, my soul is after all going to the with my body, still I know you will keep me in dutiful memory, reserving your worship for the gods who rule and watch over the beauties of the Universe.’

Those were the dying words of Cyrus. Now let us see about my own.

No one will ever convince me, my dear Scipio, that your father Lucius Aemilius Paullus Macedonicus, or your grandfathers Lucius AemiHus Paullus and Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus, or the father or uncle1 of that Africanus, or other famous men too numerous to be named, would have done such mighty deeds to be remembered by posterity, if they had not understood that posterity was theirs. And now let me say, as old men do, some boastful words about myself. You cannot suppose that I should have worked so hard, day and night, in war and peace alike, if I had believed that my fame would not outlast my life. In that event I should surely have done much better to live in leisurely tranquillity, remote from labour and contention. Yet somehow my soul seemed to understand that its true life would only begin after my death: alertly, unceasingly, it fastened its gaze upon the generations to come. The souls of our finest men engage in this pursuit of immortal fame – and they would not feel this urge unless immortality were really in store for them.

Besides, the wisest people are those who the with greatest equanimity, and the most stupid are the least resigned. This surely indicates that the souls of the former, with their longer and clearer view, perceive that they are on their way to a better world, whereas the others, with their duller vision, do not realize that this is so.

I respected and loved your fathers; I long to see them both again. But those whom I myself have known are not the only men I hope to see. I look forward also to meeting the personages of whom I have heard, and read, and written. So when I start on my journey towards them, it will be extremely difficult for anyone to pull me back, or boil me back to life as they did Pelias.1 Indeed if some god granted me the power to cancel my advanced years and return to boyhood, and wail once more in the cradle, I should firmly refuse. Now that my race is run, I have no desire to be called back from the finish to the starting point!

For what is the advantage of life? – or rather, are not its troubles infinite? No, there are advantages too; yet all the same there comes a time when one has had enough. That does not mean that I am joining the large and learned body of life’s critics! I am not sorry to have lived, since the course my life has taken has encouraged me to believe that I have lived to some purpose. But what nature gives us is a place to dwell in temporarily, not one to make our own. “When I leave life, therefore, I shall feel as if I am leaving a hostel rather than a home.

What a great day it will be when I set out to join that divine assemblage and concourse of souls, and depart from the confusion and corruption of this world! I shall be going to meet not only all those of whom I have spoken, but also my own son. No better, no more devoted man was ever born. He should have cremated my body; but I had to cremate his. Yet his soul has not gone from me, hut looks back and fastens upon me its regard – and the destination to which that soul has departed is surely the place where it knew that I too must come. To the world I have seemed to bear my loss bravely. That does not mean that 1 found it easy to bear, but I comforted myself with the belief that our parting and separation would be of short duration.

You remarked, Scipio, that I appeared to you and Laelius to endure old age lightly; and I have told you why I find this no burden but actually enjoyable. Even if I am mistaken in my belief that the soul is immortal, I make the mistake gladly, for the belief makes me happy, and is one which as long as I live I want to retain. True, certain insignificant philosophers1 hold that I shall feel nothing after death. If so, then at least I need not fear that after their own deaths they will be able to mock my conviction! And if we are not going to be immortal, well, even so it is still acceptable for a man to come to his end at his proper time. For nature, which has marked out the limits of all things, has marked out life’s limits among them. When life’s last act, old age, has become wearisome, when we have had enough, the time has come to go.

That is what I think about old age. May you both live to see the condition! Then you will be able to prove by experience that what I have told you is true.