We ought also to make ourselves adaptable lest we become too fond of the plans we have formed, and we should pass readily to the condition to which chance has led us, and not dread shifting either purpose or positions — provided that fickleness, a vice most hostile to repose, does not get hold of us. For obstinacy, from which Fortune often wrests some concession, must needs be anxious and unhappy, and much more grievous must be a fickleness that nowhere shows self-restraint. Both are foes to tranquility — both the inability to change and the inability to endure. Most of all, the mind must be withdrawn from external interests into itself. Let it have confidence in itself, rejoice in itself, let it admire its own things, let it retire as far as possible from the things of others and devote itself to itself, let it not feel losses, let it interpret kindly even adversities. Zeno, our master, when he received news of a shipwreck and heard that all his property had been sunk, said: “Fortune bids me to follow philosophy with fewer encumbrances.” A tyrant was threatening the philosopher Theodorus with death and even with lack of burial: “You have the right,” he replied, “to please yourself, you have within your power only a half pint of my blood; for as to burial, you are a fool if you think it makes any difference to me whether I rot above ground or beneath it.” Julius Canus, a rarely great man, whom even the fact that he was born in our own age does not prevent our admiring, had had a long dispute with Gaius,31 and when, as he was leaving, Phalaris said to him: “That you may not by any chance comfort yourself with a foolish hope, I have ordered you to be executed,” he replied: “Most excellent prince, I tender you my thanks.” I am not sure what he meant, for many explanations occur to me. Did he wish to be insulting and show him how great his cruelty must be if it made death a kindness? Or was he taunting him with the everyday proofs of insanity? — for those whose children had been murdered and whose property had been confiscated used to thank him — or was it that he accepted death as a happy escape? However it may be, it was a high-souled reply. But someone will say: “There was a possibility that after this Gaius might order him to live.” Canus had no fear of that; it was well known that in orders of this sort Gaius was a man of his word! Will you believe that Canus spent the ten intervening days before his execution in no anxiety of any sort? What the man said, what he did, how tranquil he was, passes all credence. He was playing chess when the centurion who was dragging off a whole company of victims to death ordered that he also be summoned. Having been called, he counted the pawns and said to his partner: “See that after my death you do not claim falsely that you won”; then nodding to the centurion, he said: “You will bear witness that I am one pawn ahead.” Do you think that at that board Canus was playing a game? Nay, he was making game! His friends were sad at the thought of losing such a man; but “Why,” said he, “are you sorrowful? You are wondering whether our souls are immortal; but I shall soon know.” Nor up to the very end did he cease to search for truth and to make his own death a subject for debate. His own teacher of philosophy was accompanying him, and, when they were not far from the low hill on which the daily sacrifice to Caesar, our god, was made, said: “What are you thinking of now, Canus, or what state of mind are you in?” And Canus said: “I have determined to watch whether the spirit will be conscious that it is leaving the body when that fleetest of moments comes,” and he promised that, if he discovered anything, he would make the round of his friends, and reveal to them what the state of the soul really is. Here is tranquility in the very midst of the storm, here is a mind worthy of immortality — a spirit that summons its own fate to the proof of truth, that, in the very act of taking that one last step, questions the departing soul, and learns, not merely up to the point of death, but seeks to learn something even from death itself. No one has ever played the philosopher longer. Not hastily shall so great a man be abandoned, and he must be spoken of with respect. O most glorious soul, chief victim of the murders of Gaius, to the memory of all time will I consign thee!