He
promised, too, that if he made any discoveries, he would come around to his
friends and tell them what the condition of the souls of the departed might be.
Here
was peace in the very midst of the storm; here was a soul worthy of eternal
life, which used its own fate as a proof of truth, which when at the last step
of life experimented upon his fleeting breath, and did not merely continue to
learn until he died, but learned something even from death itself.
No
man has carried the life of a philosopher further. I will not hastily leave the
subject of a great man, and one who deserves to be spoken of with respect. I
will hand you down to all posterity, you most noble heart, chief among the many
victims of Gaius.
If people
do somehow continue on after death, I might wonder why we have never heard back
from them, or why they don’t tell us all about what they have found.
Then it
occurs to me that we may no longer recognize them for what they are when we do come
across them, precisely because they are something quite different than what
they once were.
The cynical
and skeptical side of me wants to say that Canius had nothing more to say,
since there clearly was no more of Canius.
Oh no,
there is certainly something left of Canius, since all things are constantly being
transformed in Nature. What was then is something else now, and what is now
will all too soon be something new. Nothing comes from nothing, and everything
is reborn and rebuilt.
What
Canius made completely clear, while we were able to understand him, is all
about how any one of us is able to find a peace of mind and a contentment of
spirit. No secret wisdom is necessary, no inhuman strength is required.
Enough
is given, right here and now, to make sense of any hardship. It only asks for
an honest appreciation of what is truly good in life, and then so much that
seemed unbearable can now become a means for happiness.
Is the force
thrown at my body too great, or is the pain more than my mind can face without
being destroyed? Then it will kill me, as it killed Canius.
Caligula
would soon die himself, at the hands of his own Praetorian Guard, and so, at
least in one sense, both the victim and the oppressor ended up in exactly the
same place.
In
another sense, however, how they chose to live before that end was completely
different. Canius learned to love the world as it was, and he learned to find
joy in everything that he did.
Caligula
was always ill at ease, worried about winning this or losing that, and he saw threats
around every corner.
Canius
even used the act of dying itself to learn something new, and he lifted the
spirits of his friends.
I can
only imagine what was going through Caligula’s head as they stabbed him to
death, though Suetonius claims he cried out “I live!” before the final blows
came.
Canius
was the happier man, because he was the better man. Caligula was the miserable
man, because he was never satisfied with anything that Nature had already given
him.
I
sincerely hope I will use my terrible stubbornness rightly when the time comes,
and that I will insist on my character instead of my vanity.
Live
better, or live longer? Be more, or have more?
Written in 12/2011
IMAGE: The Assassination of Caligula
IMAGE: The Assassination of Caligula
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