2147. CONCERNING THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. I commenced thinking that there are men who long for the immortality of fame by exploits, writings, and the like, as also by sepulchral statues and many other things, from which it is plain that something impelled them to the desire of immortality, though they knew that they were to die, and the greatest part of them could scarce credit that they were to live after death. Such was the case with the Romans, of whom it is known that they longed for immortality more than others, so that they would have devoted themselves to death for their country could but their name survive death. Yet many of them could scarcely have thought about the immortality of the soul, or the life after death.