Lettres à Lucilius Section 31

Nam hoc scis, puto, Platoni diligentiae suae beneficio contigisse, quod natali suo decessit et annum unum atque octogensimum inplevit sine ulla deductione. Ideo magi, qui forte Athenis erant, inmolaverunt defuncto, amplioris fuisse sortis quam humanae rati, quia consummasset perfectissimum numerum, quem novem novies multiplicata conponunt. Non dubito, quin paratus sit et paucos dies ex ista summa et sacrificium remittere.

Car tu sais, je pense, que Platon, grâce à son régime et par un singulier hasard, mourut le jour anniversaire de sa naissance, sa quatre-vingt-unième année pleinement révolue. En considération de quoi, des Mages, qui se trouvaient à Athènes, offrirent un sacrifice aux mânes de celui qu’ils croyaient favorisé d’une destinée plus qu’humaine pour avoir accompli le plus parfait des nombres, le nombre de neuf multiplié par lui-même. Je ne doute pas qu’il n’eût été prêt à faire sur ce total remise de quelques jours et des honneurs du sacrifice.

You know, I am sure, that Plato had the good fortune, thanks to his careful living, to die on his birthday, after exactly completing his eighty-first year. For this reason wise men of the East, who happened to be in Athens at that time, sacrificed to him after his death, believing that his length of days was too full for a mortal man, since he had rounded out the perfect number of nine times nine. I do not doubt that he would have been quite willing to forgo a few days from this total, as well as the sacrifice.