modifier. -- SINE CAUSA: 'without sufficient reason'.

73. VETAT PYTHAGORAS etc.: the passage is from Plato, Phaedo 61 A-62 C.
Plato makes Socrates there profess to quote Philolaus, the Pythagorean;
Cic. therefore refers the doctrine to Pythagoras Cf. Tusc. 1, 74; Rep. 6,
15. The Stoics held the same view about suicide, which they authorized in
extreme cases, but much less freely than is commonly supposed; cf. Sen. Ep.
117, 22 _nihil mihi videtur turpius quam optare mortem_. See Zeller,
Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics, Ch. 12, C (2); cf. also Lecky, Hist. of
European Morals, I. p. 228 _et seq_. (Am. ed.) -- IMPERATORIS ...
PRAESIDIO: here Cic. seems to understand Plato's φρουραι as referring to
warfare; in Tusc. and Rep. he understands it of a prison. -- SAPIENTIS:
Solon was one of the 'Seven Sages of Greece'. -- ELOGIUM: the distich is
preserved by Plutarch, and runs thus: μηδε μοι ακλαυστος θανατος μολοι,
αλλα φιλοισι Καλλειποιμι θανων αλγεα και στοναχας. Cic. thus translates it
in Tusc. 1, 117 _Mors mea ne careat lacrimis, linquamus amicis Maerorem, ut
celebrent funera cum gemitu_. The epitaph of Ennius is also quoted there
and is declared to be better than that of Solon (cf. Tusc. 1, 34). -- VOLT
SE ESSE CARUM: 'he wishes to make out that he is beloved'; _volt esse
carus_ would have had quite a different sense. Cf. Fin. 5, 13 _Strato
physicum se volt_, with Madvig's n. -- HAUD SCIO AN: see n. on 56. --
FAXIT: the subject is _quisquam_ understood from _nemo_. For the form see
A. 142, 128, _e_, 3; G. 191, 5; H. 240, 4. The end of the epitaph is
omitted here as in Tusc. 1, 117, but is given in Tusc. 1, 34 _cur? volito
vivas per ora virum_. Notice the alliteration.

74. ISQUE: cf. n. on 13 _vixitque_. -- AUT OPTANDUS AUT NULLUS: cf. 66 _aut
neglegenda ... aut optanda; nullus_ almost = _non_ as in 67, but only in
the Letters does Cic. (imitating Plautus and the other dramatists) attach
_nullus_ in this sense to the name of a particular person; _e.g._ Att. 11,