“Præterea, gigni pariter cum corpore, et unà Crescere sentimus, pariterque senescere, mentem. Nam, velut infirmo pueri, teneroque, vagantur Corpore, sic animi sequitur sententia tenuis; Inde, ubi robustis adolevit viribus ætas, Consilium quoque majus, et auctior est animî vis. Post, ubi jam validis quassatum est viribus ævi Corpus, et obtusis ceciderunt viribus artus, Claudicat ingenium, delirat linguaque mensque; Omnia deficiunt, atque uno tempore desunt: Ergo, dissolvi quoque convenit omnem animäi Naturam, ceu fumus in altas aëris auras; Quandoquidem gigni pariter, pariterque videmus Crescere; et, ut docui, simul, ævo fessa, fatisci.”—III. 446.
Lucretius having, by many arguments, endeavoured to establish the mortality of the soul, proceeds to exhort against a dread of death. The fear of that “last tremendous blow,” appears to have harassed, and sometimes overwhelmed, the minds of the Romans(453). To them, life presented a scene of high duties and honourable labours; and they contemplated, in a long futurity, the distant completion of their serious and lofty aims. They were not yet habituated to regard life as a banquet or recreation, from which they were cheerfully to rise, in due time, sated with the feast prepared for them; nor had they been accustomed to associate death with those softening ideas of indolence and slumber, with which it was the design of Lucretius to connect it. He accordingly represents it as a privation of all sense,—as undisturbed by tumult or terror, by grief or pain,—as a tranquil sleep, and an everlasting repose. How sublime is the following passage, in which, to illustrate his argument, that the long night of the grave can be no more painful than the eternity before our birth, he introduces the war with Carthage; and what a picture does it convey of the energy and might of the combatants!
“Nil igitur Mors est, ad nos neque pertinet hilum, Quandoquidem natura animi mortalis habetur. Et, velut ante acto nil tempore sensimus ægrî, Ad confligundum venientibus undique Pœnis; Omnia quum, belli trepido concussa tumultu, Horrida contremuere sub altis ætheris auris: In dubioque fuere, utrorum ad regna cadundum Omnibus humanis esset, terràque, màrique. Sic, ubi non erimus, quum corporis atque animäi Discidium fuerit, quibus e sumus uniter apti; Scilicet haud nobis quidquam, qui non erimus tum, Accidere omnino poterit, sensumque movere: Non si terra mari miscebitur, et mare cœlo.”—III, 842.