But suppose a man deliberately makes himself gloomy, extracts no joy from life; lets himself be overborne by care and sorrow,--is not such a man better dead than living?
Is not a dreamless sleep preferable to misery or even cold asceticism?
And how much more does this all apply when we see a man who makes himself unhappy, preventing by his very act of existence the happiness of another more equably tempered mortal! Now I believe this is the present case.

Drusus, I understand, is leading a spare, joyless, workaday sort of existence, which is, or by every human law should be, to him a burden.

So long as he lives, he prevents you from enjoying the means of acquiring pleasure.

Now I have Socrates of imperishable memory on my side, when I assert that death under any circumstances is either no loss or a very great gain.

Considering then the facts of the case in its philosophic and rational bearings, I may say this: Not merely would it be no wrong to remove Drusus from a world in which he is evidently out of place, but I even conceive such an act to rise to the rank of a truly meritorious deed." Lucius Ahenobarbus was conquered.