If we
have utterly conquered the fear of death, nothing else can daunt us.
What is disgrace to one who stands above the opinion of the multitude?
what was even a death of disgrace to Socrates, who by entering a prison
made it cease to be disgraceful? Cato was twice defeated in his
candidature for the praetorship and consulship: well, this was the
disgrace of those honours, and not of Cato. No one can be despised by
another until he has learned to despise himself. The man who has learned
to triumph over sorrow wears his miseries as though they were sacred
fillets upon his brow, and nothing is so entirely admirable as a man
bravely wretched. Such men inflict disgrace upon disgrace itself. Some
indeed say that death is preferable to contempt; to whom I reply that he
who is great when he falls is great in his prostration, and is no more
an object of contempt than when men tread on the ruins of sacred
buildings, which men of piety venerate no less than if they stood.
"On my behalf therefore, dearest mother; you have no cause for endless
weeping: nor have you on your own. You cannot grieve for me on selfish
grounds, in consequence of any personal loss to yourself; for you were
ever eminently unselfish, and unlike other women in all your dealings
with your sons, and you were always a help and a benefactor to them
rather than they to you.
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