Marcus Aurelius Knew the Score and I Love His Memory for It

“Hippocrates cured many illnesses—and then fell ill and
died. The Chaldaeans predicted the deaths of many others; in
due course their own hour arrived. Alexander, Pompey,
Caesar—who utterly destroyed so many cities, cut down so
many thousand foot and horse in battle—they too departed this life.

Heraclitus often told us the world would end in fire.
But it was moisture that carried him off; he died smeared
with cowshit.

Democritus was killed by ordinary vermin,
Socrates by the human kind.
And?

You boarded, you set sail, you’ve made the passage. Time
to disembark. If it’s for another life, well, there’s nowhere
without gods on that side either. If to nothingness, then you no
longer have to put up with pain and pleasure, or go on
dancing attendance on this battered crate, your body—so
much inferior to that which serves it.
One is mind and spirit, the other earth and garbage.”