Three outcomes, and none of them chosen. EXERCISEἤτοι EXERCISEσβεσθῆναιEXERCISE ἢ EXERCISEσκεδασθῆναιEXERCISE ἢ EXERCISEσυμμεῖναι — "to be quenched, or scattered, or to hold together." Marcus lists three physical hypotheses about what follows death — the extinction of the fiery soul, the dispersal of atoms, survival until the universal renewal — and does not choose between them. The readiness required is the same under any of them; that is the whole move. Cf. 7.32, where the same fork is drawn explicitly: "dispersal, if atoms; but if unity, then either extinction or transposition."

Where the readiness must be rooted. τὸ δὲ ἕτοιμον τοῦτο ἵνα ἀπὸ ἰδικῆς κρίσεως ἔρχηται — "that this readiness should come from a judgement of one's own." The adjective ἰδικός ("particular, proper to one") is opposed not to another's opinion but to an impersonal disposition: what will serve is not resolve in general but a decision taken by this soul on this matter. Readiness to die turns out to be a matter of the discipline of assent, not of temperament; what is meant is the same as ὑπόληψις, but Marcus does not use that word here — he uses κρίσις.

What exactly is condemned. μὴ κατὰ ψιλὴν παράταξιν — "not by a bare formation." Παράταξις is a military term: the drawing-up of a battle line, the readiness to hold the rank. "Bare" (ψιλή) means backed by nothing but the position itself. Rogovin renders it «слепым упорством», Long "mere obstinacy." The reproach, then, is not to belief nor to courage but to the fact that the resolve is corporate: a man is ready because that is how everyone stands, not because he has judged for himself.

Three requirements in its place. λελογισμένως ("with reasoning") restores the κρίσις; σεμνῶς ("with gravity") excludes both bravado and strain; ὥστε καὶ ἄλλον πεῖσαι — "so as to convince another too": dying remains a social act, a last lesson. And then the final word, unique of its kind: ἀτραγῴδως — "without tragic performance."

The theatrical thread running through the book's opening. ἀτραγῴδως picks up what has already sounded twice: at 11.1 life is not likened to ὄρχησις and ὑπόκρισις ("dancing and acting"), because it needs no finale; at 11.2 a dance is taken apart into poses. Here the prohibition is carried through: if life is no play, then death is no closing scene, and it cannot be acted. The first three passages of Book XI hang together on a single refusal of the theatre. The governing discipline is assent, the sustaining one desire.