45. For thus it is, men of Athens, in truth: wherever a man has placed himself thinking it the best place for him, or has been placed by a commander, there in my opinion he ought to stay and to abide the hazard, taking nothing into the reckoning, either death or anything else, before the baseness [of deserting his post]. 46. But, my good friend, reflect whether that which is noble and good is not something different from saving and being saved; for† as to a man living such or such a time, at least one who is really a man, consider if this is not a thing to be dismissed from the thoughts:† and there must be no love of life: but as to these matters a man must intrust them to the Deity and believe what the women say, that no man can escape his destiny, the next inquiry being how he may best live the time that he has to live. 47. Look round at the courses of the stars, as if thou wert going along with them; and constantly consider the changes of the elements into one another, for such thoughts purge away the filth of the terrene life. 48. This is a fine saying of Plato: That he who is discoursing about men should look also at earthly things as if he viewed them from some higher place; should look at them in their assemblies, armies, agricultural labors, marriages, treaties, births, deaths, noise of the courts of justice, desert places, various nations of barbarians, feasts, lamentations, markets, a mixture of all things and an orderly combination of contraries.