143. Such are the topics of consolation, or rather of
patience, which Cicero (ad Familiares, lib. ix. Epist. 17)
suggests to his friend Papirius Paetus, under the military
despotism of Caesar. The argument, however, of "vivere
pulcherrimum duxi," is more forcibly addressed to a Roman
philosopher, who possessed the free alternative of life or
death.