to die; but, by the latter, sometimes not to be unwilling, and at
others to be wholly indifferent about it. But the effect of your whole
argument is, that I am convinced that death ought not to be classed
among the evils.

_M._ Do you, then, expect that I am to give you a regular peroration,
like the rhetoricians, or shall I forego that art?

_A._ I would not have you give over an art which you have set off to
such advantage; and you were in the right to do so, for, to speak the
truth, it also has set you off. But what is that peroration? For I
should be glad to hear it, whatever it is.

_M._ It is customary, in the schools, to produce the opinions of the
immortal Gods on death; nor are these opinions the fruits of the
imagination alone of the lecturers, but they have the authority of
Herodotus and many others. Cleobis and Biton are the first they
mention, sons of the Argive priestess; the story is a well-known one.
As it was necessary that she should be drawn in a chariot to a certain
annual sacrifice, which was solemnized at a temple some considerable
distance from the town, and the cattle that were to draw the chariot
had not arrived, those two young men whom I have just mentioned,
pulling off their garments, and anointing their bodies with oil,
harnessed themselves to the yoke. And in this manner the priestess was
conveyed to the temple; and when the chariot had arrived at the proper
place, she is said to have entreated the Goddess to bestow on them, as
a reward for their piety, the greatest gift that a God could confer on
man. And the young men, after having feasted with their mother, fell
asleep; and in the morning they were found dead. Trophonius and
Agamedes are said to have put up the same petition, for they, having