Die grateful & gracious. Marcus Aurelius 4.48

Marcus advises himself to die grateful, and gracious.

Ἐννοεῖν συνεχῶς πόσοι μὲν ἰατροὶ ἀποτεθνήκασι, πολλάκις τὰς ὀφρῦς ὑπὲρ τῶν ἀρρώστων συσπάσαντες· πόσοι δὲ μαθηματικοί, ἄλλων θανάτους ὥς τι μέγα προειπόντες· πόσοι δὲ φιλόσοφοι, περὶ θανάτου ἢ ἀθανασίας μυρία διατεινάμενοι· πόσοι δὲ ἀριστεῖς, πολλοὺς ἀποκτείναντες· πόσοι δὲ τύραννοι, ἐξουσίᾳ ψυχῶν μετὰ δεινοῦ φρυάγματος ὡς ἀθάνατοι κεχρημένοι· πόσαι δὲ πόλεις ὅλαι, ἵν’ οὕτως εἴπω, τεθνήκασιν, Ἑλίκη καὶ Πομπήιοι καὶ Ἡρκλᾶνον καὶ ἄλλαι ἀναρίθμητοι. ἔπιθι δὲ καὶ ὅσους οἶδας, ἄλλον ἐπ’ ἄλλῳ· ὁ μὲν τοῦτον κηδεύσας εἶτα ἐξετάθη, ὁ δὲ ἐκεῖνον, πάντα δὲ ἐν βραχεῖ. τὸ γὰρ ὅλον, κατιδεῖν ἀεὶ τὰ ἀνθρώπινα ὡς ἐφήμερα καὶ εὐτελῆ καὶ ἐχθὲς μὲν μυξάριον, αὔριον δὲ τάριχος ἢ τέφρα. τὸ ἀκαριαῖον οὖν τοῦτο τοῦ χρόνου κατὰ φύσιν διελθεῖν καὶ ἵλεων καταλῦσαι, ὡς ἂν εἰ ἐλαία πέπειρος γενομένη ἔπιπτεν, εὐφημοῦσα τὴν ἐνεγκοῦσαν καὶ χάριν εἰδυῖα τῷ φύσαντι δένδρῳ.

Remind yourself constantly how many doctors have died, after worrying repeatedly over the fate of sick patients. How many scholars, too, after foretelling the deaths of others as though it were some great feat. How many philosophers, after ten thousand animated discourses on death or immortality. How many lords of the battlefield, after slaying multitudes. How many tyrants, when their power to dominate others with the insolence of gods met its end. How many cities have perished all at once, in a single moment: Helice (†), Pompeii, Herculaneum (‡), and others without number. Now think of all the people you know, face by face. One was laid out just after getting married. Now his comrade is forging another alliance, but all our deeds are brief. Regard human affairs always from the vantage offered by the universe, and you see that we are fleeting and paltry: a little ball of mucus yesterday, and tomorrow a mummy or a mound of ash. Make your way through this little moment of time as nature wills, then, and release it graciously, falling from it the way a ripe olive falls, blessing and appreciating the favor of the tree that bore you.

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(†) A city of Achaea, on the coast between the rivers Selinus and Cerynites, that was destroyed in a sudden earthquake in 373 BCE (cf. Pausanias 7.24.6-13).

(‡) Pompeii and Herculaneum were urban settlements in the bay of Cumae (now the bay of Naples) destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE (cf. Plinius Minor, Epistulae 6.16, 6.20; Josephus, Antiquitates Iudaicae 20.141-4).