1For I do not agree with those who have lately begun to argue that souls perish together with bodies and that all things are destroyed by death. 1The authority of the ancients counts more with me, whether of our own ancestors, who paid such reverent rites to the dead, which surely they would not have done if they thought those rites in no way concerned them, or of those who lived in this land and instructed Magna Graecia, which is now indeed destroyed but then flourished, with their institutions and precepts, or of him who was judged wisest by the oracle of Apollo, who did not say now this, now that, as in most matters, but always the same thing: that the souls of men are divine, and that when they have left the body a return to heaven lies open to them, and the readiest return to each in proportion as he is best and most just.
14This was Scipio's view too, who, as though he had a presentiment, a very few days before his death, when Philus and Manilius were present and several others, and you too, Scaevola, had come with me, discussed the state for three days, and the last part of that discussion was, roughly speaking, about the immortality of souls, things which he said he had heard from Africanus in a vision during his sleep. 14If it is so, that the souls of all the best men fly off most easily at death, as if from the prison and chains of the body, to whom do we suppose the journey to the gods was easier than to Scipio?
14Therefore to grieve at this fate of his, I fear, would be the part of an envious man rather than of a friend. 14But if the other view is truer, that the death of souls and of bodies is the same and that no sensation remains, then, just as there is nothing good in death, so certainly there is nothing bad. 14For when sensation is lost, it becomes the same as if he had never been born at all, and yet we rejoice that he was born, and this state will be glad of it as long as it exists. 15Therefore with him, as I said above, things have gone very well, with me less happily, for it would have been fairer that, as I had entered life first, so I should leave it first.
15But still I so enjoy the recollection of our friendship that I seem to have lived happily because I lived with Scipio, with whom I shared concern for public and private affairs, with whom I had a home and military service in common, and, that in which the whole force of friendship lies, the most complete agreement in wishes, pursuits and opinions. 15And so it is not so much that reputation for wisdom which Fannius mentioned just now that delights me, especially as it is false, as the hope that the memory of our friendship will last for ever; and this is all the dearer to my heart because out of all the ages scarcely three or four pairs of friends are named, and in this class I seem to hope that the friendship of Scipio and Laelius will be known to posterity.
16FANNIUS. 16That, Laelius, must indeed be so. 16But since you have mentioned friendship, and we are at leisure, you will do me a great kindness, and Scaevola too, I hope, if, as you are accustomed to do on other subjects when questions are put to you, so you will discuss friendship: what you feel about it, what you judge its nature to be, what precepts you give. 16SCAEVOLA. 16To me indeed it will be welcome, and just when I was trying to press that very request on you, Fannius got in first. 16So you will do a very great kindness to us both.