if the chief good is not continued, at least no evil is. Such a man
would even wish to die while in prosperity; for all the favors that
could be heaped on him would not be so agreeable to him as the loss of
them would be painful. That speech of the Lacedæmonian seems to have
the same meaning, who, when Diagoras the Rhodian, who had himself been
a conqueror at the Olympic games, saw two of his own sons conquerors
there on the same day, approached the old man, and, congratulating him,
said, "You should die now, Diagoras, for no greater happiness can
possibly await you." The Greeks look on these as great things; perhaps
they think too highly of them, or, rather, they did so then. And so he
who said this to Diagoras, looking on it as something very glorious,
that three men out of one family should have been conquerors there,
thought it could answer no purpose to him to continue any longer in
life, where he could only be exposed to a reverse of fortune.

I might have given you a sufficient answer, as it seems to me, on this
point, in a few words, as you had allowed the dead were not exposed to
any positive evil; but I have spoken at greater length on the subject
for this reason, because this is our greatest consolation in the losing
and bewailing of our friends. For we ought to bear with moderation any
grief which arises from ourselves, or is endured on our own account,
lest we should seem to be too much influenced by self-love. But should
we suspect our departed friends to be under those evils, which they are
generally imagined to be, and to be sensible of them, then such a
suspicion would give us intolerable pain; and accordingly I wished, for
my own sake, to pluck up this opinion by the roots, and on that account
I have been perhaps somewhat more prolix than was necessary.

XLVII. _A._ More prolix than was necessary? Certainty not, in my
opinion. For I was induced, by the former part of your speech, to wish