Anaxagoras described the Mausoleum as the ghost of wealth
turned into stone.
"But he who has once stood beside the grave to look back on the
companionship which has been for ever closed, feeling how impotent _then_
are the wild love and the keen sorrow, to give one instant's pleasure to
the pulseless heart, or atone in the lowest measure to the departed spirit
for the hour of unkindness, will scarcely for the future incur that debt
to the heart which can only be discharged to the dust." [1]
Death, indeed, cannot sever friendship. "Friends," says Cicero, "though
absent, are still present; though in poverty they are rich; though weak,
yet in the enjoyment of health; and, what is still more difficult to
assert, though dead they are alive." This seems a paradox, yet it there
not much truth in his explanation? "To me, indeed, Scipio still lives, and
will always live; for I love the virtue of that man, and that worth is not
yet extinguished.... Assuredly of all things that either fortune or time
has bestowed on me, I have none which I can compare with the friendship of
Scipio.
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