Memento Mori Tapestry

Memento mori (Latin 'remember that you [have to] die ) is an artistic or symbolic reminder of the inevitability of death. The philosopher Democritus trained himself by going into solitude and frequenting tombs. Plato's Phaedo, where the death of Socrates is recounted, introduces the idea that the proper practice of philosophy is "about nothing else but dying and being dead". The Stoics of classical antiquity were particularly prominent in their use of this discipline, and Seneca's letters are full of injunctions to meditate on death.