The Roman History · Amm. 25.3.15

And while these events were taking place, Julian, lying in his tent, thus addressed those who stood around him sorrowing and mourning: "The seasonable moment for my surrendering this life, O comrades, has now arrived, and, like an honest debtor, I exult in preparing to restore what nature reclaims; not in affliction and sorrow, since I have learnt, from the general teaching of philosophers, how much more capable of happiness the mind is than the body; and considering that when the better part is separated from the worse, it is a subject of joy rather than of mourning. Reflecting, also, that there have been instances in which even the gods have given to some persons of extreme piety, death as the best of all rewards.

Ammianus Marcellinus · translated by C. D. Yonge · 1911 reprint
C. D. Yonge translation (preface dated February 1862); G. Bell and Sons, 1911; Project Gutenberg #28587
Passage preview. Read in context for the complete text, notes and references.