There is also a story told of Silenus, who, when taken prisoner by Midas, is said to have made him this present for his ransom--namely, that he informed him[25] that never to have been born was by far the greatest blessing that could happen to man; and that the next best thing was to die very soon; which very opinion Euripides makes use of in his Cresphontes, saying, When man is born, 'tis fit, with solemn show, We speak our sense of his approaching woe; With other gestures and a different eye, Proclaim our pleasure when he's bid to die.[26] There is something like this in Crantor's Consolation; for he says that Terinaesus of Elysia, when he was bitterly lamenting the loss of his son, came to a place of divination to be informed why he was visited with so great affliction, and received in his tablet these three verses: Thou fool, to murmur at Euthynous' death! The blooming youth to fate resigns his breath: The fate, whereon your happiness depends, At once the parent and the son befriends.[27] On these and similar authorities they affirm that the question has been determined by the Gods.

Nay, more; Alcidamas, an ancient rhetorician of the very highest reputation, wrote even in praise of death, which he endeavored to establish by an enumeration of the evils of life; and his Dissertation has a great deal of eloquence in it; but he was unacquainted with the more refined arguments of the philosophers.

By the orators, indeed, to die for our country is always considered not only as glorious, but even as happy: they go back as far as Erechtheus,[28] whose very daughters underwent death, for the safety of their fellow-citizens: they instance Codrus, who threw himself into the midst of his enemies, dressed like a common man, that his royal robes might not betray him, because the oracle had declared the Athenians conquerors, if their king was slain.

Menoeceus[29] is not overlooked by them, who, in compliance with the injunctions of an oracle, freely shed his blood for his country.

Iphigenia ordered herself to be conveyed to Aulis, to be sacrificed, that her blood might be the cause of spilling that of her enemies.
XLIX.