kingdom. But when such an expression is used respecting the dead, it is
absolutely unintelligible. For to want implies to be sensible; but the
dead are insensible: therefore, the dead can be in no want.

XXXVII. But what occasion is there to philosophize here in a matter
with which we see that philosophy is but little concerned? How often
have not only our generals but whole armies, rushed on certain death!
But if it had been a thing to be feared, L. Brutus would never have
fallen in fight, to prevent the return of that tyrant whom he had
expelled; nor would Decius the father have been slain in fighting with
the Latins; nor would his son, when engaged with the Etruscans, nor his
grandson with Pyrrhus have exposed themselves to the enemy's darts.
Spain would never have seen, in one campaign, the Scipios fall fighting
for their country; nor would the plains of Cannæ have witnessed the
death of Paulus and Geminus, or Venusia that of Marcellus; nor would
the Latins have beheld the death of Albinus, nor the Leucanians that of
Gracchus. But are any of these miserable now? Nay, they were not so
even at the first moment after they had breathed their last; nor can
any one be miserable after he has lost all sensation. Oh, but the mere
circumstance of being without sensation is miserable. It might be so if
being without sensation were the same thing as wanting it; but as it is
evident there can be nothing of any kind in that which has no
existence, what can there be afflicting to that which can neither feel
want nor be sensible of anything? We might be said to have repeated
this over too often, only that here lies all that the soul shudders at
from the fear of death. For whoever can clearly apprehend that which is
as manifest as the light--that when both soul and body are consumed,
and there is a total destruction, then that which was an animal becomes
nothing--will clearly see that there is no difference between a
Hippocentaur, which never had existence, and King Agamemnon, and that