Tusculan Disputations 1 ¶125 — Cicero (on the Stoics)

Cicero (on the Stoics), Tusculan Disputations 1 ¶125

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 Cannae 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 anyone 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 M. Camillus is no more concerned about this present civil war than I was at the sacking of Rome when he was living.