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⁴ You remember the bitterness of my grief, in which my chief consolation is, that I saw further than anybody else, when what I desired, however unfavourable the terms, was peace. And though that is due to mere chance, and no prophetic inspiration of mine, I still find a pleasure in the hollow credit of having been far-seeing.

In the second place, and this is a source of consolation common to both of us, if I were now called upon to quit the stage of life, the Republic from which I should have to tear myself is not one which it would pain me to forgo, especially when the change would deprive me of all perception. My age too makes it easier for me, and the fact that my life is now at its close, and not only is it gladdened by the thought of a course well run, but it forbids my fearing any violence in that change to which nature herself has nearly brought me.

And lastly, the man, I might even say the men, who have fallen in this war were of such a character, that it seems an act of shamelessness not to accept the same doom should circumstances compel it. For my own part, there is no contingency I do not contemplate, and there is no calamity so crushing but that I believe it to be hanging over my head. But since there is more evil in our anticipation of it than in the very thing we dread, I am ceasing to fear, especially as what hangs over me not only involves no pain, but will itself be the end of pain.

But what I have said is enough, or rather more than I need have said; it is not my garrulity, however, but my friendliness that is to blame for the unusual length of my letters.

⁵ I was sorry that Servius^[1] should have left Athens;