Letters 24.7

Drawing the sword,—which he had kept unstained from all bloodshed against the final day,—he cried: “Fortune, you have accomplished nothing by resisting all my endeavours. I have fought, till now, for my country’s freedom, and not for my own, I did not strive so doggedly to be free, but only to live among the free. Now, since the affairs of mankind are beyond hope, let Cato be withdrawn to safety.”

Seneca, Letters to Lucilius 24.7, translated by Richard Mott Gummere