And they say that Diodorus, [29] the Epicurean philosopher, who within the last few days put an end to his life with his own hand, was not following the teaching of Epicurus when he slashed his own throat. Some would see in his suicide an act of madness, others of recklessness; he, meanwhile, happy and filled with a good conscience bore testimony to himself as he was departing from life; he praised the tranquility of the years he had passed safe at anchor in a haven, and uttered the words which you never have liked to hear, as though you also must do the same thing:
I’ve lived; my destined course I now have run. [30]
You argue about the life of the one, about the death of the other, [31] and when you hear the name of men who have become great on account of some distinguished merit, you bark, just as small dogs do when they meet with strangers; for you find it to your interest that no man should appear to be good, as though virtue in another cast reproach upon the shortcomings of all of you. You jealously compare their glorious appearance with your squalor, and fail to understand with what great disadvantage to yourself you dare to do so. For if those who pursue virtue are avaricious, lustful, and ambitious, what are you yourselves, to whom the very name of virtue is hateful? You say that no one of them practices what he preaches, or models his life upon his own words. But what wonder, since their words are heroic, mighty, and survive all the storms of human life? Though they strive to release themselves from their crosses — those crosses [32] to which each one of you nails himself with his own hand [33] — yet they, when brought to punishment, hang each upon a single gibbet [34]; but these others who bring upon themselves their own punishment are stretched upon as many crosses as they had desires. Yet they are slanderous and witty in heaping insult on others. I might believe that they were free to do so, did not some of them spit upon spectators from their own cross [35]!