All perishes — the spectators too. A double wave of decay: EXERCISE"all that you see will soon perish" (τάχιστα φθαρήσεται), and after it, those who watched it perish. Neither the object nor the witness holds: the one gazing at the dissolution is himself dissolving.

The old man and the infant — level. The levelling argument: one who dies in extreme old age (ἐσχατόγηρως) "is brought level" (εἰς ἴσον) with one who died before his time (πρόωρος). Against boundless time, a difference of a few decades is nothing (cf. 4.50 — the abyss of time before and after; 6.24 — Alexander and his muleteer received into the same principles). Long life confers no advantage where the measure is eternity. The governing discipline is desire.