But the honorable character and the glory of the death which they were seeking made all fear of death of little weight.

Do you imagine that Epaminondas groaned when he perceived that his life was flowing out with his blood?
No; for he left his country triumphing over the Lacedaemonians, whereas he had found it in subjection to them.

These are the comforts, these are the things that assuage the greatest pain.
XXV.

You may ask, How the case is in peace?
What is to be done at home?
How we are to behave in bed?
You bring me back to the philosophers, who seldom go to war.

Among these, Dionysius of Heraclea, a man certainly of no resolution, having learned fortitude of Zeno, quitted it on being in pain; for, being tormented with a pain in his kidneys, in bewailing himself he cried out that those things were false which he had formerly conceived of pain.