Cicero: PHILOSOPHIA

novi enim moderationem animi tui et aequitatem, teque non cognomen solum Athenis deportasse, sed humanitatem et prudentiam intellego. Et tamen te suspicor eisdem rebus quibus me ipsum interdum gravius commoveri, quarum consolatio et maior est et in aliud tempus differenda. Nunc autem visum est mihi de senectute aliquid ad te conscribere.

For I know the moderation of your mind and your equity, and I understand that you have brought back from Athens not the cognomen alone, but humanity and prudence. And yet I suspect you to be sometimes more seriously moved by the same matters as I myself, the consolation of which is both greater and to be deferred to another time. Now, however, it has seemed good to me to compose something to you about old age.

2. Hoc enim onere, quod mihi commune tecum est, aut iam urgentis aut certe adventantis senectutis et te et me etiam ipsum levari volo; etsi te quidem id modice ac sapienter, sicut omnia, et ferre et laturum esse certo scio. Sed mihi, cum de senectute vellem aliquid scribere, tu occurrebas dignus eo munere, quo uterque nostrum communiter uteretur. Mihi quidem ita iucunda huius libri confectio fuit, ut non modo omnis absterserit senectutis molestias, sed effecerit mollem etiam et iucundam senectutem.

2. For from this burden, which is common to me with you—of old age either now pressing or certainly approaching—I wish both you and even myself to be lightened; although I, indeed, am certain that you, as in all things, both bear it and will bear it with moderation and wisdom. But when I wanted to write something about old age, you kept occurring to me as worthy of that gift by which each of us might make common use. To me indeed the completion of this book was so pleasant that it has not only wiped away all the annoyances of old age, but has made old age gentle and pleasant as well.

Numquam igitur satis digne laudari philosophia poterit, cui qui pareat, omne tempus aetatis sine molestia possit degere.

Therefore philosophy will never be able to be praised worthily enough, obedience to which allows one to pass the whole span of life without vexation.

3. Sed de ceteris et diximus multa et saepe dicemus; hunc librum ad te de senectute misimus. Omnem autem sermonem tribuimus non Tithono, ut Aristo Cius, (parum enim esset auctoritatis in fabula), sed M. Catoni seni, quo maiorem auctoritatem haberet oratio; apud quem Laelium et Scipionem facimus admirantis quod is tam facile senectutem ferat, eisque eum respondentem. Qui si eruditius videbitur disputare quam consuevit ipse in suis libris, attribuito litteris Graecis, quarum constat eum perstudiosum fuisse in senectute.

3. But about the others we have both said many things and we shall often say them; this book about old age we have sent to you. Now the whole discourse we have assigned not to Tithonus, as Aristo of Chios did (for there would be too little authority in a fable), but to M. Cato the elder, that the oration might have greater authority; in whose company we make Laelius and Scipio marvel that he bears old age so easily, and him responding to them. And if he shall seem to dispute more eruditely than he was accustomed in his own books, attribute it to Greek letters, of which it is agreed that he was very studious in his old age.

Sed quid opus est plura? Iam enim ipsius Catonis sermo explicabit nostram omnem de senectute sententiam.

But what need is there of more? For now the discourse of Cato himself will explicate our whole judgment on old age.

II.4. Scipio. Saepe numero admirari soleo cum hoc C. Laelio cum ceterarum rerum tuam excellentem, M. Cato, perfectamque sapientiam, tum vel maxime quod numquam tibi senectutem gravem esse senserim, quae plerisque senibus sic odiosa est, ut onus se Aetna gravius dicant sustinere. Cato.

2.4. Scipio. I am accustomed very often to admire, together with this C. Laelius, both your, M. Cato, excellent and perfected wisdom in other matters, and most especially because I have never perceived old age to be burdensome to you, which is so odious to most old men that they say they bear a burden heavier than Etna. Cato.

Rem haud sane difficilem, Scipio et Laeli, admirari videmini. Quibus enim nihil est in ipsis opis ad bene beateque vivendum, eis omnis aetas gravis est; qui autem omnia bona a se ipsi petunt, eis nihil malum potest videri quod naturae necessitas adferat. Quo in genere est in primis senectus, quam ut adipiscantur omnes optant, eandem accusant adeptam; tanta est stultitiae inconstantia atque perversitas.

You seem to marvel at a matter by no means difficult, Scipio and Laelius. For those who have no resource in themselves for living well and blessedly, every age is burdensome; but those who seek all goods from themselves, nothing that the necessity of nature brings can seem evil to them. In this category is, first and foremost, old age, which all desire to attain, yet the same they arraign once attained; so great is the inconstancy and perversity of folly.

Obrepere aiunt eam citius, quam putassent. Primum quis coegit eos falsum putare? Qui enim citius adulescentiae senectus quam pueritiae adulescentia obrepit?

They say that it creeps upon more quickly than they had supposed. First, who compelled them to think something false? For how, indeed, does old age creep upon adolescence any more quickly than adolescence upon boyhood?

Deinde qui minus gravis esset eis senectus, si octingentesimum annum agerent quam si octogesimum? Praeterita enim aetas quamvis longa cum effluxisset, nulla consolatio permulcere posset stultam senectutem.

Then why would old age be any less burdensome to them, if they were living their eight-hundredth year than their eightieth? For the age that has passed, however long, once it has flowed away, no consolation could soothe a foolish old age.

5. Quocirca si sapientiam meam admirari soletis (quae utinam digna esset opinione vestra nostroque cognomine!), in hoc sumus sapientes, quod naturam optimam ducem tamquam deum sequimur eique paremus; a qua non veri simile est, cum ceterae partes aetatis bene descriptae sint, extremum actum tamquam ab inerti poeta esse neglectum. Sed tamen necesse fuit esse aliquid extremum et, tamquam in arborum bacis terraeque fructibus maturitate tempestiva quasi vietum et caducum, quod ferundum est molliter sapienti. Quid est enim aliud Gigantum modo bellare cum dis nisi naturae repugnare?

5. Wherefore, if you are wont to admire my wisdom (which I would that it were worthy of your opinion and of my cognomen!), in this we are wise: that we follow Nature, the best leader, as if a god, and obey her; and it is not likely of her, since the other parts of life have been well written, that the final act has been neglected, as if by a slothful poet. Yet it was necessary that there be something ultimate, and—just as in the berries of trees and the fruits of the earth, with timely maturity—something, as it were, withered and caducous, which the wise man must bear gently. For what else is it, in the Giants’ manner, to wage war with the gods, than to repugn Nature?

6. Laelius. Atqui, Cato, gratissimum nobis, ut etiam pro Scipione pollicear, feceris, si, quoniam speramus, volumus quidem certe senes fieri, multo ante a te didicerimus, quibus facillime rationibus ingravescentem aetatem ferre possimus. Cato.

6. Laelius. And yet, Cato, you will have done for us a most gratifying thing—and I will promise it even on Scipio’s behalf—if, since we hope, indeed we certainly wish, to become old men, we may learn from you long beforehand by what reasons we can most easily bear age as it grows heavy. Cato.

Faciam vero, Laeli, praesertim si utrique vestrum, ut dicis, gratum futurum est. Laelius. Volumus sane, nisi molestum est, Cato, tamquam longam aliquam viam confeceris, quam nobis quoque ingrediundum sit, istuc, quo pervenisti videre quale sit.

I will indeed do so, Laelius, especially if, as you say, it will be gratifying to you both. Laelius. We do indeed wish it, unless it is troublesome, Cato, as though you had completed some long road, which we too must enter upon, to see what that place, whither you have arrived, is like.

III.7. Cato. Faciam, ut potero, Laeli.

3.7. Cato. I will do it, as I can, Laelius.

Saepe enim interfui querellis aequalium meorum—pares autem, vetere proverbio, cum paribus facillime congregantur--quae C. Salinator, quae Sp. Albinus, homines consulares nostri fere aequales, deplorare solebant, tum quod voluptatibus carerent sine quibus vitam nullam putarent, tum quod spernerentur ab eis, a quibus essent coli soliti. Qui mihi non id videbantur accusare, quod esset accusandum. Nam si id culpa senectutis accideret, eadem mihi usu venirent reliquisque omnibus maioribus natu, quorum ego multorum cognovi senectutem sine querella, qui se et libidinum vinculis laxatos esse non moleste ferrent nec a suis despicerentur.

Often indeed I was present at the complaints of my contemporaries—equals moreover, by an old proverb, with equals most easily congregate--which Gaius Salinator, which Spurius Albinus, consular men almost our coevals, were wont to lament: both that they lacked pleasures, without which they thought there was no life, and that they were scorned by those by whom they had been accustomed to be courted. They did not seem to me to be accusing that which ought to be accused. For if that befell by the fault of old age, the same would have come to me and to all the rest older in years, of whom I have known many to have an old age without complaint, who did not take it ill that they had been loosened from the bonds of desires nor were they looked down upon by their own.

Sed omnium istius modi querellarum in moribus est culpa, non in aetate. Moderati enim et nec difficiles nec inhumani senes tolerabilem senectutem agunt; importunitas autem et inhumanitas omni aetati molesta est.

But in all complaints of this sort the fault lies in morals, not in age. For elders who are moderate, and neither difficult nor inhuman, lead a tolerable old age; whereas importunity and inhumanity are burdensome to every age.

8. Laelius. Est, ut dicis, Cato; sed fortasse dixerit quispiam tibi propter opes et copias et dignitatem tuam tolerabiliorem senectutem videri, id autem non posse multis contingere. Cato.

8. Laelius. It is, as you say, Cato; but perhaps someone would say that, on account of your opulence and resources and your dignity, old age seems to you more tolerable, and that this cannot befall many. Cato.

Est istuc quidem, Laeli, aliquid, sed nequaquam in isto sunt omnia. Ut Themistocles fertur Seriphio cuidam in iurgio respondisse, cum ille dixisset non eum sua, sed patriae gloria splendorem adsecutum: 'Nec hercule,' inquit, 'si ego Seriphius essem, nec tu, si Atheniensis clarus umquam fuisses.' Quod eodem modo de senectute dici potest. Nec enim in summa inopia levis esse senectus potest ne sapienti quidem, nec insipienti etiam in summa copia non gravis.

That indeed, Laelius, is something, but by no means is everything in that. As Themistocles is said to have answered a certain Seriphian in a quarrel, when the latter had said that he had attained splendor not by his own merits but by the glory of his fatherland: 'By Hercules, neither I, if I were a Seriphian, nor you, if you were an Athenian, would ever have been famous.' The same can be said, in like manner, about old age. For in extreme indigence old age cannot be light even to a sapient man, nor is it other than burdensome to a foolish man even in the greatest abundance.

9. Aptissima omnino sunt, Scipio et Laeli, arma senectutis artes exercitationesque virtutum, quae in omni aetate cultae, cum diu multumque vixeris, mirificos ecferunt fructus, non solum quia numquam deserunt, ne extremo quidem tempore aetatis (quamquam id quidem maximum est), verum etiam quia conscientia bene actae vitae multorumque bene factorum recordatio iucundissima est.

9. Most apt altogether, Scipio and Laelius, are the arms of old age, the arts and exercises of the virtues, which, cultivated in every age, when you have lived long and much, bring forth marvelous fruits, not only because they never desert you, not even at the final time of life (although that indeed is the greatest), but also because the conscience of a well-acted life and the recollection of many good deeds is most delightful.

IV.10. Ego Q. Maximum, eum qui Tarentum recepit, senem adulescens ita dilexi, ut aequalem; erat enim in illo viro comitate condita gravitas, nec senectus mores mutaverat. Quamquam eum colere coepi non admodum grandem natu, sed tamen iam aetate provectum. Anno enim post consul primum fuerat quam ego natus sum, cumque eo quartum consule adulescentulus miles ad Capuam profectus sum quintoque anno post ad Tarentum.

4.10. I, a youth, so loved Q. Maximus—the one who retook Tarentum—though he was an old man, as an equal; for in that man there was a gravity seasoned with comity, nor had old age altered his character. Although I began to cultivate him not when he was very great in years, yet nevertheless already advanced in age. For he had been consul for the first time the year after I was born; and when he was consul for the fourth time, I, a very young soldier, set out for Capua, and in the fifth year thereafter for Tarentum.

Quaestor deinde quadriennio post factus sum, quem magistratum gessi consulibus Tuditano et Cethego, cum quidem ille admodum senex suasor legis Cinciae de donis et muneribus fuit. Hic et bella gerebat ut adulescens, cum plane grandis esset, et Hannibalem iuveniliter exsultantem patientia sua molliebat; de quo praeclare familiaris noster Ennius:

Then, four years thereafter, I was made quaestor, which magistracy I carried in the consulship of Tuditanus and Cethegus, when indeed that man, already quite an old man, was the proposer of the Lex Cincia concerning gifts and gratuities. This man both waged wars as though an adolescent, though he was plainly of great age, and he used to mollify Hannibal, exulting youthfully, by his patience; about whom our familiar Ennius phrased it splendidly:

                              Unus homo nobis cunctando restituit rem,
                              Noenum rumores ponebat ante salutem:
                              Ergo plusque magisque viri nunc gloria claret.

                              One man for us, by delaying, restored the state,
                              He did not put rumors before safety:
                              Therefore now the man’s glory shines more and more.

11. Tarentum vero qua vigilantia, quo consilio recepit! cum quidem me audiente Salinatori, qui amisso oppido fugerat in arcem, glorianti atque ita dicenti; 'Mea opera, Q. Fabi, Tarentum recepisti,' 'Certe,' inquit ridens, 'nam nisi tu amisisses numquam recepissem.' Nec vero in armis praestantior quam in toga; qui consul iterum Sp. Carvilio conlega quiescente C. Flaminio tribuno plebis, quoad potuit, restitit agrum Picentem et Gallicum viritim contra senatus auctoritatem dividenti; augurque cum esset, dicere ausus est optimis auspiciis ea geri, quae pro rei publicae salute gererentur, quae contra rem publicam ferrentur, contra auspicia ferri.

11. Indeed, with what vigilance, with what counsel he recovered Tarentum! when, with me hearing, to Salinator—who, the town having been lost, had fled into the citadel—boasting and thus saying, 'By my doing, Q. Fabius, you recovered Tarentum,' he said, laughing, 'Certainly; for if you had not lost it, I would never have recovered it.' Nor indeed was he more preeminent in arms than in the toga; who, as consul a second time, with his colleague Sp. Carvilius keeping quiet, resisted, so far as he could, C. Flaminius, tribune of the plebs, as he was dividing the Picentine and Gallic land individually against the authority of the senate; and, though he was an augur, he dared to say that those things are conducted with the best auspices which are done for the safety of the Republic, and that those measures which are carried against the Republic are carried against the auspices.

12. Multa in eo viro praeclara cognovi; sed nihil admirabilius, quam quo modo ille mortem fili tulit clari viri et consularis. Est in manibus laudatio, quam cum legimus, quem philosophum non contemnimus? Nec vero ille in luce modo atque in oculis civium magnus, sed intus domique praestantior.

12. Many preeminent things I recognized in that man; but nothing more admirable than the manner in which he bore the death of his son, a renowned man and a consular. There is a laudation in our hands; when we read it, what philosopher do we not contemn? Nor indeed was he great only in the light and in the eyes of the citizens, but more preeminent within and at home.

Qui sermo, quae praecepta, quanta notitia antiquitatis, scientia iuris auguri! Multae etiam, ut in homine Romano, litterae. Omnia memoria tenebat, non domestica solum, sed etiam externa bella.

What speech, what precepts, how great a knowledge of antiquity, a science of augural law! Many letters too, for a Roman man. He held everything in memory, not domestic wars only, but also foreign wars.

Cuius sermone ita tum cupide fruebar, quasi iam divinarem id quod evenit, illo exstincto, fore, unde discerem, neminem.

I was then so eagerly enjoying his discourse, as if I were already divining that which came to pass, that, with him extinguished, there would be no one from whom I might learn.

V.13. Quorsus igitur haec tam multa de Maximo? Quia profecto videtis nefas esse dictu miseram fuisse talem senectutem. Nec tamen omnes possunt esse Scipiones aut Maximi, ut urbium expugnationes, ut pedestres navalesve pugnas, ut bella a se gesta, ut triumphos recordentur.

5.13. To what end, then, so much about Maximus? Because indeed you see that it is impious to say that such an old age was wretched. Nor, however, can all be Scipios or Maximi, so as to recall expugnations of cities, land and naval battles, wars waged by themselves, triumphs.

Est etiam quiete et pure atque eleganter actae aetatis placida ac lenis senectus, qualem accepimus Platonis, qui uno et octogesimo anno scribens est mortuus, qualem Isocratis, qui eum librum, qui Panathenaicus inscribitur, quarto et nonagesimo anno scripsisse se dicit, vixitque quinquennium postea; cuius magister Leontinus Gorgias centum et septem complevit annos neque umquam in suo studio atque opere cessavit. Qui, cum ex eo quaereretur, cur tam diu vellet esse in vita, 'Nihil habeo,' inquit, 'quod accusem senectutem.' Praeclarum responsum et docto homine dignum.

There is also a placid and gentle old age of a life spent quietly and purely and elegantly, such as we have received of Plato’s, who died writing in his 81st year; such as Isocrates’, who says that he wrote that book which is entitled Panathenaicus in his 94th year, and he lived a five-year period thereafter; whose teacher, Gorgias the Leontine, completed 107 years and never at any time ceased in his pursuit and work. He, when he was asked why he wished to be in life for so long, said, ‘I have nothing with which to accuse old age.’ A very illustrious answer, and worthy of a learned man.

14. Sua enim vitia insipientes et suam culpam in senectutem conferunt, quod non faciebat is, cuius modo mentionem feci, Ennius:

14. For the insipient shift their own vices and their own culpability onto old age, which that man did not do, of whom I just made mention, Ennius:

Sicut fortis equus, spatio qui saepe supremo
Vicit Olympia, nunc senio confectus quiescit.

Just as a strong horse, who often in the supreme course
has won at Olympia, now, worn out by old age, rests.

Equi fortis et victoris senectuti comparat suam. Quem quidem probe meminisse potestis; anno enim undevicesimo post eius mortem hi consules T. Flamininus et M'. Acilius facti sunt; ille autem Caepione et Philippo iterum consulibus mortuus est, cum ego quinque et sexaginta annos natus legem Voconiam magna voce et bonis lateribus suasissem. Annos septuaginta natus (tot enim vixit Ennius) ita ferebat duo, quae maxima putantur onera, paupertatem et senectutem, ut eis paene delectari videretur.

He compares his own old age to that of a strong and victorious horse. Him, indeed, you can well remember; in the nineteenth year after his death these consuls, T. Flamininus and M'. Acilius, were elected; but he died when Caepio and Philippus were consuls again, at which time I, sixty-five years old, had urged the Voconian Law with a loud voice and good lungs. Seventy years old (for so long did Ennius live) he bore the two burdens that are thought the greatest, poverty and old age, in such a way that he seemed almost to take delight in them.

15. Etenim, cum complector animo, quattuor reperio causas, cur senectus misera videatur: unam, quod avocet a rebus gerendis; alteram, quod corpus faciat infirmius; tertiam, quod privet fere omnibus voluptatibus; quartam, quod haud procul absit a morte. Earum, si placet, causarum quanta quamque sit iusta una quaeque, videamus. VI. A rebus gerendis senectus abstrahit.

15. Indeed, when I embrace it in my mind, I find four causes why old age seems wretched: first, that it calls one away from conducting affairs; second, that it makes the body more infirm; third, that it deprives one of almost all pleasures; fourth, that it is not far removed from death. Of these causes, if it please you, let us see how great each is and how just each one is. 6. Old age draws one away from conducting affairs.

Quibus? An eis, quae iuventute geruntur et viribus? Nullaene igitur res sunt seniles quae, vel infirmis corporibus, animo tamen administrentur?

By which? By those that are conducted in youth and by strength? Are there, then, no senile matters which, even with infirm bodies, are nevertheless administered by the mind?

Nihil ergo agebat Q. Maximus, nihil L. Paulus, pater tuus, socer optimi viri, fili mei? Ceteri senes, Fabricii, Curii, Coruncanii, cum rem publicam consilio et auctoritate defendebant, nihil agebant?

Was Quintus Maximus, then, doing nothing; was Lucius Paulus, your father, the father-in-law of that best man, my son, doing nothing? Were the other old men—the Fabricii, the Curii, the Coruncanii—when they were defending the republic by counsel and authority, doing nothing?

16. Ad Appi Claudi senectutem accedebat etiam, ut caecus esset; tamen is, cum sententia senatus inclinaret ad pacem cum Pyrrho foedusque faciendum, non dubitavit dicere illa, quae versibus persecutus est Ennius:

16. To the old age of Appius Claudius there was added also that he was blind; nevertheless, when the opinion of the senate was inclining toward peace and a treaty to be made with Pyrrhus, he did not hesitate to say those things which Ennius has pursued in verses:

Quo vobis mentes, rectae quae stare solebant
Antehac, dementis sese flexere viai?

Whither have your minds, which used to stand straight,
formerly, bent themselves to a demented way?

ceteraque gravissime; notum enim vobis carmen est; et tamen ipsius Appi exstat oratio. Atque haec ille egit septimo decimo anno post alterum consulatum, cum inter duos consulatus anni decem interfuissent, censorque ante superiorem consulatum fuisset; ex quo intellegitur Pyrrhi bello grandem sane fuisse; et tamen sic a patribus accepimus.

and the rest most gravely; for the poem is known to you; and yet the oration of Appius himself exists. And he did these things in the seventeenth year after his second consulship, when ten years had come between the two consulships, and he had been censor before the earlier consulship; whence it is understood that in the war of Pyrrhus he was indeed of great age; and yet thus we have received it from our elders.

17. Nihil igitur adferunt qui in re gerenda versari senectutem negant, similesque sunt ut si qui gubernatorem in navigando nihil agere dicant, cum alii malos scandant, alii per foros cursent, alii sentinam exhauriant, ille autem clavum tenens quietus sedeat in puppi, non faciat ea quae iuvenes. At vero multo maiora et meliora facit. Non viribus aut velocitate aut celeritate corporum res magnae geruntur, sed consilio, auctoritate, sententia; quibus non modo non orbari, sed etiam augeri senectus solet.

17. Therefore they bring forward nothing who deny that old age takes part in the conduct of affairs, and they are like those who would say that the helmsman does nothing in sailing, when some climb the masts, others run along the gangways, others bail the bilge, while he, holding the helm, sits quiet at the stern and does not do the things the young men do. But in truth he does much greater and better things. Great matters are not carried out by strength or by speed or by the quickness of bodies, but by counsel, authority, judgment; in which old age is not only not bereft, but is even wont to be increased.

18. Nisi forte ego vobis, qui et miles et tribunus et legatus et consul versatus sum in vario genere bellorum, cessare nunc videor, cum bella non gero. At senatui, quae sint gerenda, praescribo et quo modo; Karthagini male iam diu cogitanti bellum multo ante denuntio; de qua vereri non ante desinam quam illam excisam esse cognovero.

18. Unless perhaps I seem to you—to whom I, who have been engaged as a soldier, tribune, legate, and consul in various kinds of wars—now to be idle, since I am not waging wars. But to the senate I prescribe what things are to be undertaken, and in what manner; against Carthage, long plotting ill, I declare war long beforehand; concerning which I shall not cease to fear until I have learned that it has been razed.

19. Quam palmam utinam di immortales, Scipio, tibi reservent, ut avi reliquias persequare! cuius a morte tertius hic et tricesimus annus est, sed memoriam illius viri omnes excipient anni consequentes. Anno ante me censorem mortuus est, novem annis post meum consulatum, cum consul iterum me consule creatus esset.

19. May the immortal gods, Scipio, reserve for you that palm of victory, that you may pursue to the end the remnants of your grandsire! From whose death this is the thirty-third year, but all the subsequent years will take up the memory of that man. He died a year before my censorship, nine years after my consulship, when he had been created consul a second time, I being consul.

Num igitur, si ad centesimum annum vixisset, senectutis eum suae paeniteret? Nec enim excursione nec saltu nec eminus hastis aut comminus gladiis uteretur, sed consilio, ratione, sententia; quae nisi essent in senibus, non summum consilium maiores nostri appellassent senatum.

Would he then, if he had lived to his 100th year, have regretted his old age? For he would employ neither running nor leaping nor spears at a distance nor swords at close quarters, but counsel, reason, judgment; and unless these were in old men, our ancestors would not have called the highest council the Senate.

20. Apud Lacedaemonios quidem ei, qui amplissimum magistratum gerunt, ut sunt, sic etiam nominantur senes. Quod si legere aut audire voletis externa, maximas res publicas ab adulescentibus labefactatas, a senibus sustentatas et restitutas reperietis.

20. Among the Lacedaemonians indeed, those who hold the most distinguished magistracy, as they are, so also are they named “elders.” But if you will wish to read or to hear things abroad, you will find the greatest commonwealths undermined by young men, sustained and restored by old men.

Cedo, qui vestram rem publicam tantam amisistis tam cito?

Come now, how did you lose your so great republic so quickly?

Sic enim percontantur in Naevi poetae Ludo. Respondentur et alia et hoc in primis:

For thus they inquire in the Play of Naevius the poet. Both other things are answered, and this in the first place:

Proveniebant oratores novi, stulti adulescentuli.

New orators were coming forth, foolish adolescent youths.

Temeritas est videlicet florentis aetatis, prudentia senescentis.

Temerity is, to wit, of a flourishing age; prudence, of one growing old.

VII.21. At memoria minuitur. Credo, nisi eam exerceas, aut etiam si sis natura tardior.

7.21. But memory is diminished. I believe, unless you exercise it, or even if you are slower by nature.

Themistocles omnium civium perceperat nomina; num igitur censetis eum, cum aetate processisset, qui Aristides esset, Lysimachum salutare solitum? Equidem non modo eos novi, qui sunt, sed eorum patres etiam et avos, nec sepulcra legens vereor, quod aiunt, ne memoriam perdam; his enim ipsis legendis in memoriam redeo mortuorum. Nec vero quemquam senem audivi oblitum, quo loco thesaurum obruisset; omnia, quae curant, meminerunt; vadimonia constituta, quis sibi, cui ipsi debeant.

Themistocles had taken in the names of all the citizens; do you then suppose that, when he had advanced in age, he used to greet the one who was Aristides as Lysimachus? For my part, I not only know those who are, but also their fathers and grandfathers, nor, while reading tombs, do I fear, as they say, lest I lose my memory; for by reading these very things I return into the remembrance of the dead. Nor indeed have I heard of any old man who forgot in what place he had buried a treasure; they remember everything that they care about: the court dates set, who owes to them, and to whom they themselves owe.

22. Quid iuris consulti, quid pontifices, quid augures, quid philosophi senes, quam multa meminerunt! Manent ingenia senibus, modo permaneat studium et industria, neque ea solum in claris et honoratis viris, sed in vita etiam privata et quieta. Sophocles ad summam senectutem tragoedias fecit; quod propter studium cum rem neglegere familiarem videretur, a filiis in iudicium vocatus est, ut, quem ad modum nostro more male rem gerentibus patribus bonis interdici solet, sic illum quasi desipientem a re familiari removerent iudices.

22. What of the jurisconsults, what of the pontiffs, what of the augurs, what of the aged philosophers—how many things they remember! Capacities remain for the old, provided zeal and industry remain, and not only in renowned and honored men, but in a private and quiet life as well. Sophocles composed tragedies to the utmost old age; because, on account of his zeal, he seemed to neglect his household estate, he was summoned into court by his sons, in order that, just as by our custom fathers who conduct their estate badly are wont to be interdicted from their goods, so the judges might remove him, as if doting, from the family property.

Tum senex dicitur eam fabulam, quam in manibus habebat et proxime scripserat, Oedipum Coloneum, recitasse iudicibus quaesisseque, num illud carmen desipientis videretur. Quo recitato sententiis iudicum est liberatus.

Then the old man is said to have recited to the judges that play which he had in hand and had most recently written, the Oedipus at Colonus, and to have asked whether that poem seemed to be the work of a man out of his wits. When this had been recited, he was acquitted by the verdicts of the judges.

23. Num igitur hunc, num Homerum, Hesiodum, Simonidem, Stesichorum, num, quos ante dixi, Isocraten, Gorgian, num philosophorum principes, Pythagoram, Democritum, num Platonem, num Xenocraten, num postea Zenonem, Cleanthem, aut eum, quem vos etiam vidistis Romae, Diogenem Stoicum, coegit in suis studiis obmutescere senectus? An in omnibus studiorum agitatio vitae aequalis fuit?

23. Did then old age compel this man, did it compel Homer, Hesiod, Simonides, Stesichorus, did it, those whom I mentioned before, Isocrates, Gorgias, did it the chiefs of the philosophers, Pythagoras, Democritus, did it Plato, did it Xenocrates, did it afterwards Zeno, Cleanthes, or that man whom you even saw at Rome, Diogenes the Stoic, to fall silent in their own studies? Or in all was the agitation of studies equal to life itself?

24. Age, ut ista divina studia omittamus, possum nominare ex agro Sabino rusticos Romanos, vicinos et familiares meos, quibus absentibus numquam fere ulla in agro maiora opera fiunt, non serendis, non percipiendis, non condendis fructibus. Quamquam in aliis minus hoc mirum est; nemo enim est tam senex qui se annum non putet posse vivere: sed idem in eis elaborant quae sciunt nihil ad se omnino pertinere.

24. Come now, so that we may omit those divine studies, I can name from the Sabine countryside rustic Romans, my neighbors and kin, in whose absence scarcely ever any greater works are done in the field—neither for sowing, nor for harvesting, nor for storing the fruits. Although in other cases this is less a marvel; for there is no one so old that he does not think he can live a year: yet these same men toil at things which they know pertain in no way to themselves.

Serit arbores, quae alteri saeclo prosint,

He plants trees, which may profit another age,

ut ait Statius noster in Synephebis.

as our Statius says in the Synephebi.

25. Nec vero dubitat agricola, quamvis sit senex, quaerenti, cui serat respondere: 'Dis immortalibus, qui me non accipere modo haec a maioribus voluerunt, sed etiam posteris prodere.' VIII. Et melius Caecilius de sene alteri saeclo prospiciente quam illud idem:

25. Nor indeed does the farmer hesitate, although he is an old man, when one asks for whom he sows, to answer: 'For the immortal gods, who wished me not only to receive these things from my ancestors, but also to hand them down to posterity.' 8. And Caecilius puts it better about the old man looking ahead to another age than that same thing:

                              Edepol, senectus, si nil quicquam aliud viti
                              Adportes tecum, cum advenis, unum id sat est,
                              Quod diu vivendo multa, quae non volt, videt.

                              By Pollux, old age, if you bring nothing else at all of vice
                              with you, when you arrive, that one thing is enough—
                              that by living long one sees many things which he does not wish.

Et multa fortasse, quae volt; atque in ea, quae non volt, saepe etiam adulescentia incurrit. Illud vero idem Caecilius vitiosius:

And many things, perhaps, which he does want; and upon those which he does not want, adolescence too often also incurs. But that same Caecilius expresses it more faultily:

Tum equidem in senecta hoc deputo miserrimum,
Sentire ea aetate eumpse esse odiosum alteri.

Then indeed in old age I reckon this the most wretched:
to feel, at that age, that oneself is odious to another.

26. Iucundum potius quam odiosum. Ut enim adulescentibus bona indole praeditis sapientes senes delectantur, leviorque fit senectus eorum qui a iuventute coluntur et diliguntur, sic adulescentes senum praeceptis gaudent, quibus ad virtutum studia ducuntur; nec minus intellego me vobis quam mihi vos esse iucundos. Sed videtis, ut senectus non modo languida atque iners non sit, verum etiam sit operosa et semper agens aliquid et moliens, tale scilicet quale cuiusque studium in superiore vita fuit.

26. Pleasant rather than odious. For just as wise old men are delighted by young men endowed with a good disposition, and the old age of those who are honored and loved by the youth is made lighter, so young men rejoice in the precepts of the old, by which they are led to the pursuits of virtues; nor do I understand less that I am agreeable to you than you are to me. But you see that old age is not only not languid and inert, but is even industrious and always doing and contriving something—such, of course, as each person’s pursuit in his earlier life has been.

Quid qui etiam addiscunt aliquid? ut et Solonem versibus gloriantem videmus, qui se cotidie aliquid addiscentem dicit senem fieri, et ego feci qui litteras Graecas senex didici; quas quidem sic avide arripui quasi diuturnam sitim explere cupiens, ut ea ipsa mihi nota essent quibus me nunc exemplis uti videtis. Quod cum fecisse Socratem in fidibus audirem, vellem equidem etiam illud (discebant enim fidibus antiqui), sed in litteris certe elaboravi.

What of those who even learn something in addition? As we see Solon boasting in his verses, who says that he becomes an old man by learning something every day, I too did so, who as an old man learned Greek letters; which indeed I seized so avidly, as if desiring to slake a long-continued thirst, so that those very things might be familiar to me with which you now see me employing examples. And when I heard that Socrates had done this on the lyre, I for my part would have wished that too (for the ancients used to learn the lyre), but in letters at any rate I labored.

IX.27. Ne nunc quidem vires desidero adulescentis (is enim erat locus alter de vitiis senectutis), non plus quam adulescens tauri aut elephanti desiderabam. Quod est, eo decet uti et, quicquid agas, agere pro viribus. Quae enim vox potest esse contemptior quam Milonis Crotoniatae?

9.27. Not even now do I desire the strength of an adolescent (for that was the second point about the vices of old age), any more than, as an adolescent, I desired that of a bull or an elephant. What one has, it is fitting to use; and whatever you do, to do it according to your powers. For what voice can be more contemptible than that of Milo of Croton?

qui, cum iam senex esset athletasque se exercentes in curriculo videret, aspexisse lacertos suos dicitur inlacrimansque dixisse: 'At hi quidem mortui iam sunt.' Non vero tam isti quam tu ipse, nugator; neque enim ex te umquam es nobilitatus, sed ex lateribus et lacertis tuis. Nihil Sex. Aelius tale, nihil multis annis ante Ti. Coruncanius, nihil modo P. Crassus, a quibus iura civibus praescribebantur, quorum usque ad extremum spiritum est provecta prudentia.

who, when he was now an old man and saw athletes exercising themselves in the racecourse, is said to have looked at his own upper arms and, weeping, to have said: ‘But these indeed are already dead.’ Not so much those, in truth, as you yourself, you trifler; for you were never ennobled by yourself, but by your flanks and your biceps. Nothing of this sort did Sextus Aelius, nothing many years before Tiberius Coruncanius, nothing just now Publius Crassus—men by whom the laws were prescribed for the citizens, whose prudence was advanced right up to their last breath.

28. Orator metuo ne languescat senectute; est enim munus eius non ingeni solum, sed laterum etiam et virium. Omnino canorum illud in voce splendescit etiam nescio quo pacto in senectute, quod equidem adhuc non amisi, et videtis annos. Sed tamen est decorus seni sermo quietus et remissus, facitque per se ipsa sibi audientiam diserti senis composita et mitis oratio.

28. I fear lest the orator languish in old age; for his office is not of genius alone, but also of the lungs and of strength. Altogether, that canorous quality in the voice even, somehow I know not how, grows resplendent in old age—a thing which indeed I have not yet lost, and you see the years. Yet, nevertheless, a quiet and unstrained discourse is seemly for an old man, and of itself the composed and gentle oration of an eloquent elder procures for itself an audience.

Quam si ipse exsequi nequeas, possis tamen Scipioni praecipere et Laelio. Quid enim est iucundius senectute stipata studiis iuventutis?

Which, if you cannot yourself carry out, you can nevertheless enjoin upon Scipio and Laelius. For what is more delightful than an old age thronged with the studies of youth?

29. An ne illas quidem vires senectuti relinquemus, ut adulescentis doceat, instituat, ad omne offici munus instruat? Quo quidem opere quid potest esse praeclarius? Mihi vero et Cn. et P. Scipiones et avi tui duo, L. Aemilius et P. Africanus, comitatu nobilium iuvenum fortunati videbantur nec ulli bonarum artium magistri non beati putandi, quamvis consenuerint vires atque defecerint.

29. Or shall we not even leave to old age those strengths, that it may teach the young, set them in order, equip them for every office of duty? Indeed, what work can be more preclarious than this? To me, both Cn. and P. Scipio, and your two grandsires, L. Aemilius and P. Africanus, seemed fortunate in the company of noble youths; nor should any masters of the good arts be thought other than blessed, although their strengths have grown old and have failed.

Etsi ipsa ista defectio virium adulescentiae vitiis efficitur saepius quam senectutis; libidinosa enim et intemperans adulescentia effetum corpus tradit senectuti.

Although that very failure of strength is effected more often by the vices of youth than of old age; for a libidinous and intemperate youth hands over an effete body to old age.

30. Cyrus quidem apud Xenophontem eo sermone, quem moriens habuit, cum admodum senex esset, negat se umquam sensisse senectutem suam imbecilliorem factam, quam adulescentia fuisset. Ego L. Metellum memini puer, qui cum quadriennio post alterum consulatum pontifex maximus factus esset viginti et duos annos ei sacerdotio praefuit, ita bonis esse viribus extremo tempore aetatis, ut adulescentiam non requireret. Nihil necesse est mihi de me ipso dicere, quamquam est id quidem senile aetatique nostrae conceditur.

30. Cyrus indeed, in Xenophon, in that discourse which he delivered when dying, when he was a very old man, says that he never felt his senescence made more feeble than his adolescence had been. I remember L. Metellus as a boy, who, when four years after his second consulship he had been made pontifex maximus, presided over that priesthood for 22 years, being of such good strength at the extreme time of life that he did not feel the want of adolescence. It is not necessary for me to say anything about myself, although that indeed is senile and is conceded to our age.

X.31. Videtisne, ut apud Homerum saepissime Nestor de virtutibus suis praedicet? Tertiam iam enim aetatem hominum videbat, nec erat ei verendum ne vera praedicans de se nimis videretur aut insolens aut loquax. Etenim, ut ait Homerus, 'ex eius lingua melle dulcior fluebat oratio,' quam ad suavitatem nullis egebat corporis viribus.

10.31. Do you see how in Homer Nestor very often proclaims his own virtues? For he was already seeing the third generation of men, nor had he to fear that, while proclaiming truths about himself, he would seem excessive—either insolent or loquacious. For, as Homer says, 'from his tongue oratory flowed sweeter than honey,' which, for its suavity, had need of no strength of body.

Et tamen dux ille Graeciae nusquam optat, ut Aiacis similis habeat decem, sed ut Nestoris; quod si sibi acciderit, non dubitat, quin brevi sit Troia peritura.

And yet that leader of Greece never wishes to have ten like Ajax, but like Nestor; and if this should befall him, he does not doubt that Troy will shortly be about to perish.

32. Sed redeo ad me. Quartum ago annum et octogesimum; vellem equidem idem possem gloriari quod Cyrus, sed tamen hoc queo dicere, non me quidem eis esse viribus, quibus aut miles bello Punico aut quaestor eodem bello aut consul in Hispania fuerim aut quadriennio post, cum tribunus militaris depugnavi apud Thermopylas M'. Glabrione consule; sed tamen, ut vos videtis, non plane me enervavit, non adflixit senectus, non curia vires meas desiderat, non rostra, non amici, non clientes, non hospites. Nec enim umquam sum adsensus veteri illi laudatoque proverbio, quod monet 'mature fieri senem, si diu velis senex esse.' Ego vero me minus diu senem esse mallem quam esse senem, ante quam essem. Itaque nemo adhuc convenire me voluit, cui fuerim occupatus.

32. But I return to myself. I am passing my eighty-fourth year; I would indeed wish that I could boast the same as Cyrus, yet I can say this: that I am not, to be sure, with those forces with which I was either a soldier in the Punic War, or a quaestor in the same war, or consul in Spain, or four years later, when, as military tribune, I fought it out at Thermopylae, with M'. Glabrio as consul; yet nevertheless, as you see, senescence has not completely enervated me, has not afflicted me; the Curia does not miss my strength, nor the Rostra, nor friends, nor clients, nor guests. For I have never assented to that old and much-praised proverb which advises, “become an old man early, if you wish to be an old man for a long time.” For my part, I would prefer to be an old man for a shorter time than to be an old man before I was one. And so, no one has yet wished to come see me whom I have put off as “occupied.”

32. At minus habeo virium quam vestrum utervis. Ne vos quidem T. Ponti centurionis vires habetis; num idcirco est ille praestantior? Moderatio modo virium adsit, et tantum quantum potest quisque nitatur, ne ille non magno desiderio tenebitur virium.

32. But I have less strength than either of you. Not even you have the strength of T. Pontius, a centurion; is he on that account more preeminent? Only let moderation of strength be present, and let each strive just as much as he can, and then he will not be held by any great longing or want of strength.

Olympiae per stadium ingressus esse Milo dicitur, cum umeris sustineret bovem. Utrum igitur has corporis an Pythagorae tibi malis vires ingeni dari? Denique isto bono utare, dum adsit, cum absit, ne requiras, nisi forte adulescentes pueritiam, paululum aetate progressi adulescentiam debent requirere.

Milo is said to have gone through the stadium at Olympia, while he was sustaining a bull on his shoulders. Which, then, would you prefer to be given to you: these corporeal strengths, or the forces of intellect of Pythagoras? Finally, make use of that good while it is present; when it is absent, do not seek it—unless, perhaps, adolescents ought to seek boyhood, and those progressed a little in age ought to seek adolescence.

Cursus est certus aetatis et una via naturae, eaque simplex, suaque cuique parti aetatis tempestivitas est data, ut et infirmitas puerorum, et ferocitas iuvenum et gravitas iam constantis aetatis et senectutis maturitas naturale quiddam habeat, quod suo tempore percipi debeat.

There is a fixed course of age and a single path of nature, and that simple; and to each part of age its own timeliness has been given, so that both the infirmity of children, and the ferocity of youths, and the gravity of a now-settled age, and the maturity of old age may have something natural, which ought to be apprehended in its own time.

34. Audire te arbitror, Scipio, hospes tuus avitus Masinissa quae faciat hodie nonaginta natus annos; cum ingressus iter pedibus sit, in equum omnino non ascendere; cum autem equo, ex equo non descendere; nullo imbri, nullo frigore adduci ut capite operto sit, summam esse in eo siccitatem corporis, itaque omnia exsequi regis officia et munera. Potest igitur exercitatio et temperantia etiam in senectute conservare aliquid pristini roboris. XI. Non sunt in senectute vires.

34. I think you hear, Scipio, what your ancestral guest-friend Masinissa does today, now ninety years old; when he has set out on a journey on foot, he does not mount a horse at all; but when on a horse, he does not dismount from the horse; by no rain, by no cold is he induced to have his head covered; there is in him the utmost siccity of body, and so he carries out all the offices and duties of a king. Therefore exercise and temperance can preserve even in old age something of pristine robustness. 11. Strength is not in old age.

Ne postulantur quidem vires a senectute. Ergo et legibus et institutis vacat aetas nostra muneribus eis, quae non possunt sine viribus sustineri. Itaque non modo, quod non possumus, sed ne quantum possumus quidem cogimur.

Strength is not even demanded of old age. Therefore both by laws and by institutions our age is exempt from those duties which cannot be sustained without strength. And so we are not compelled, not only to what we cannot do, but not even to the extent that we can.

35. At multi ita sunt imbecilli senes, ut nullum offici aut omnino vitae munus exsequi possint. At id quidem non proprium senectutis vitium est, sed commune valetudinis. Quam fuit imbecillus P. Africani filius, is qui te adoptavit, quam tenui aut nulla potius valetudine!

35. But many old men are so feeble that they cannot execute any office or, indeed, any function of life at all. But that, to be sure, is not a vice proper to old age, but a common one of ill-health. How feeble was the son of P. Africanus, the one who adopted you—of how tenuous, or rather of no, health!

Quod ni ita fuisset, alterum illud exstitisset lumen civitatis; ad paternam enim magnitudinem animi doctrina uberior accesserat. Quid mirium igitur in senibus si infirmi sint aliquando, cum id ne adulescentes quidem effugere possint? Resistendum, Laeli et Scipio, senectuti est, eiusque vitia diligentia compensanda sunt, pugnandum tamquam contra morbum sic contra senectutem;

Had it not been so, that other light of the civic community would have arisen; for to his father’s magnitude of spirit a more abundant doctrine had been added. What wonder, then, in old men, if they are at times infirm, since not even adolescents can escape that? Old age must be resisted, Laelius and Scipio, and its vices must be compensated by diligence; one must fight, as against a disease, so against old age;

36. habenda ratio valetudinis, utendum exercitationibus modicis, tantum cibi et potionis adhibendum ut reficiantur vires, non opprimantur. Nec vero corpori solum subveniendum est, sed menti atque animo multo magis; nam haec quoque, nisi tamquam lumini oleum instilles, exstinguuntur senectute. Et corpora quidem exercitationum defatigatione ingravescunt, animi autem exercendo levantur.

36. regard must be had to health; moderate exercises must be used; only so much food and drink should be applied as will restore the strengths, not overwhelm them. Nor indeed must succor be afforded to the body alone, but to the mind and spirit much more; for these too, unless, as to a lamp, you instill oil, are extinguished by old age. And bodies indeed grow heavier by the fatigue of exercises, but spirits by exercising are lightened.

Nam quos ait Caecilius

For those whom Caecilius says

- comicos stultos senes,

- the foolish old men of comedy,

hos significat credulos, obliviosos, dissolutos, quae vitia sunt non senectutis, sed inertis, ignavae, somniculosae senectutis. Ut petulantia, ut libido magis est adulescentium quam senum, nec tamen omnium adulescentium, sed non proborum, sic ista senilis stultitia, quae deliratio appellari solet, senum levium est, non omnium.

by these he means the credulous, the oblivious, the dissolute—vices which are not of old age as such, but of an inert, slothful, drowsy old age. Just as petulance, just as libido, belongs more to the young than to the old, and yet not to all young people, but not to the upright, so that senile stupidity, which is wont to be called delirium, belongs to flighty old men, not to all.

37. Quattuor robustos filios, quinque filias, tantam domum, tantas clientelas Appius regebat et caecus et senex, intentum enim animum tamquam arcum habebat nec languescens succumbebat senectuti. Tenebat non modo auctoritatem, sed etiam imperium in suos: metuebant servi, verebantur liberi, carum omnes habebant; vigebat in illa domo mos patrius et disciplina.

37. Appius governed four robust sons, five daughters, so great a household, such great clienteles, both blind and aged; for he kept his mind taut like a bow, nor, growing languid, did he succumb to old age. He held not only authority, but even command over his own: the slaves were afraid, the children felt reverence, all held him dear; in that house the ancestral custom and discipline thrived.

38. Ita enim senectus honesta est, si se ipsa defendit, si ius suum retinet, si nemini emancipata est, si usque ad ultimum spiritum dominatur in suos. Ut enim adulescentem in quo est senile aliquid, sic senem in quo est aliquid adulescentis probo; quod qui sequitur, corpore senex esse poterit, animo numquam erit. Septimus mihi liber Originum est in manibus; omnia antiquitatis monumenta colligo; causarum inlustrium quascumque defendi nunc cum maxime conficio orationes; ius augurium, pontificium, civile tracto; multum etiam Graecis litteris utor, Pythagoreorumque more exercendae memoriae gratia, quid quoque die dixerim, audierim, egerim, commemoro vesperi.

38. For old age is honorable, if it defends itself, if it retains its own right, if it has been emancipated to no one, if it rules over its own down to its last breath. For as I approve a youth in whom there is something senile, so I approve an old man in whom there is something of the youth; whoever follows this, he will be able to be old in body, but in mind he will never be. The seventh book of my Origins is in my hands; I collect all the monuments of antiquity; the speeches for illustrious cases, whichever I have defended, I am now especially bringing to completion; I handle augural, pontifical, and civil law; I make much use also of Greek literature, and after the manner of the Pythagoreans, for the sake of exercising the memory, I recount in the evening what I have said, heard, and done each day.

Hae sunt exercitationes ingeni, haec curricula mentis, in his desudans atque elaborans corporis vires non magno opere desidero. Adsum amicis, venio in senatum frequens ultroque adfero res multum et diu cogitatas, easque tueor animi, non corporis viribus. Quas si exsequi nequirem, tamen me lectulus meus oblectaret ea ipsa cogitantem, quae iam agere non possem; sed ut possim, facit acta vita.

These are the exercises of ingenuity, these the curricula of the mind; sweating it out and laboring in these, I do not much miss the strengths of the body. I am at hand for friends, I come into the senate frequently, and of my own accord I bring forward matters much and long cogitated, and I defend them by the forces of mind, not of body. Which, if I were unable to execute, still my little couch would delight me as I pondered those very things which I could no longer do; but that I can, a life acted has brought about.

Semper enim in his studiis laboribusque viventi non intellegitur quando obrepat senectus. Ita sensim sine sensu aetas senescit nec subito frangitur, sed diuturnitate exstinguitur.

For indeed, to one living always in these studies and labors, it is not perceived when old age creeps upon him. Thus gradually, imperceptibly, age grows old and is not suddenly broken, but is extinguished by long duration.

XII.39. Sequitur tertia vituperatio senectutis, quod eam carere dicunt voluptatibus. O praeclarum munus aetatis, siquidem id aufert a nobis, quod est in adulescentia vitiosissimum!

12.39. There follows the third vituperation of old age, that they say it lacks pleasures. O splendid gift of age, since indeed it takes away from us that which is most vicious in adolescence!

Accipite enim, optimi adulescentes, veterem orationem Archytae Tarentini, magni in primis et praeclari viri, quae mihi tradita est cum essem adulescens Tarenti cum Q. Maximo. Nullam capitaliorem pestem quam voluptatem corporis hominibus dicebat a natura datam, cuius voluptatis avidae libidines temere et ecfrenate ad potiendum incitarentur.

Receive, then, most excellent young men, the old oration of Archytas of Tarentum, a man great above all and illustrious, which was handed down to me when I was a youth at Tarentum with Q. Maximus. He used to say that no more capital pest than the pleasure of the body had been given by nature to human beings, whose pleasure’s avid libidinous desires are incited rashly and unbridledly to obtain it.

40. Hinc patriae proditiones, hinc rerum publicarum eversiones, hinc cum hostibus clandestina colloquia nasci; nullum denique scelus, nullum malum facinus esse, ad quod suscipiendum non libido voluptatis impelleret; stupra vero et adulteria et omne tale flagitium nullis excitari aliis inlecebris nisi voluptatis; cumque homini sive natura sive quis deus nihil mente praestabilius dedisset, huic divino muneri ac dono nihil tam esse inimicum quam voluptatem;

40. Hence betrayals of the fatherland, hence overthrows of commonwealths, hence clandestine colloquies with enemies arise; finally, that there is no crime, no evil deed, to the undertaking of which the lust of pleasure would not impel; debaucheries indeed and adulteries and every such disgrace are aroused by no other enticements than those of pleasure; and since to man, whether nature or some god had given nothing more outstanding than the mind, to this divine munus and gift nothing is so inimical as pleasure;

41. nec enim libidine dominante temperantiae locum esse, neque omnino in voluptatis regno virtutem posse consistere. Quod quo magis intellegi posset, fingere animo iubebat tanta incitatum aliquem voluptate corporis, quanta percipi posset maxima; nemini censebat fore dubium, quin tam diu, dum ita gauderet, nihil agitare mente, nihil ratione, nihil cogitatione consequi posset. Quocirca nihil esse tam detestabile tamque pestiferum quam voluptatem, siquidem ea, cum maior esset atque longinquior, omne animi lumen exstingueret.

41. for with libido dominating there is no place for temperance, nor at all can virtue stand in the kingdom of pleasure. That this might be the more understood, he would bid one in mind to imagine someone so incited by bodily pleasure as great as could be perceived at the maximum; he judged it would be doubtful to no one that, for so long as he rejoiced thus, he could turn over nothing in his mind, attain nothing by reason, achieve nothing by cogitation. Wherefore nothing is so detestable and so pestiferous as pleasure, since it, when greater and more long-continued, extinguishes every light of the mind.

Haec cum C. Pontio Samnite, patre eius, a quo Caudino proelio Sp. Postumius, T. Veturius consules superati sunt, locutum Archytam Nearchus Tarentinus, hospes noster, qui in amicitia populi Romani permanserat, se a maioribus natu accepisse dicebat, cum quidem ei sermoni interfuisset Plato Atheniensis, quem Tarentum venisse L. Camillo Ap. Claudio consulibus reperio.

Nearchus the Tarentine, our guest‑friend, who had remained in the friendship of the Roman people, used to say that he had received from his elders that Archytas had spoken these things with C. Pontius the Samnite, the father of him by whom in the Caudine battle the consuls Sp. Postumius and T. Veturius were defeated; and that Plato the Athenian had been present at that conversation, whom I find to have come to Tarentum in the consulship of L. Camillus and Ap. Claudius.

42. Quorsus hoc? Ut intellegeretis, si voluptatem aspernari ratione et sapientia non possemus, magnam habendam esse senectuti gratiam, quae efficeret, ut id non liberet, quod non operteret. Impedit enim consilium voluptas, rationi inimica est, mentis, ut ita dicam, praestringit oculos, nec habet ullum cum virtute commercium.

42. To what end is this? That you might understand that, if we could not spurn pleasure by reason and wisdom, great gratitude ought to be had to old age, which brings it about that it is not free to do what ought not to be done. For pleasure impedes counsel, is inimical to reason, as it were blinds the eyes of the mind, and has no commerce with virtue.

Invitus feci, ut fortissimi viri T. Flaminini fratrem L. Flamininum e senatu eicerem septem annis post quam consul fuisset, sed notandam putavi libidinem. Ille enim, cum esset consul in Gallia, exoratus in convivio a scorto est, ut securi feriret aliquem eorum, qui in vinculis essent, damnati rei capitalis. Hic Tito fratre suo censore, qui proximus ante me fuerat, elapsus est; mihi vero et Flacco neutiquam probari potuit tam flagitiosa et tam perdita libido, quae cum probro privato coniungeret imperi dedecus.

Unwillingly I did it, that I expel from the senate Lucius Flaminius, brother of the most valiant man Titus Flaminius, seven years after he had been consul, but I thought his lust was to be marked. For he, when he was consul in Gaul, was prevailed upon at a banquet by a harlot to strike with the axe one of those who were in chains, condemned on a capital charge. This man escaped when his brother Titus was censor, who had been immediately before me; but to me and to Flaccus by no means could so scandalous and so depraved a lust be approved, which joined to a private disgrace the disgrace of the imperium.

XIII.43. Saepe audivi ex maioribus natu, qui se porro pueros a senibus audisse dicebant, mirari solitum C. Fabricium, quod, cum apud regem Pyrrhum legatus esset, audisset a Thessalo Cinea esse quendam Athenis, qui se sapientem profiteretur, eumque dicere omnia, quae faceremus, ad voluptatem esse referenda. Quod ex eo audientis M'. Curium et Ti. Coruncanium optare solitos, ut id Samnitibus ipsique Pyrrho persuaderetur, quo facilius vinci possent, cum se voluptatibus dedissent.

13.43. I have often heard from elders, who said that they in turn, as boys, had heard from old men, that C. Fabricius was wont to marvel because, when he was legate at King Pyrrhus’s court, he had heard from the Thessalian Cineas that there was a certain man at Athens who professed himself a wise man, and that he said all the things we do must be referred to pleasure. On hearing this from him, M'. Curius and Ti. Coruncanius were accustomed to wish that this should be persuaded to the Samnites and to Pyrrhus himself, so that they might be more easily conquered, since they had given themselves over to pleasures.

Vixerat M'. Curius cum P. Decio, qui quinquennio ante eum consulem se pro re publica quarto consulatu devoverat; norat eundem Fabricius, norat Coruncanius; qui cum ex sua vita, tum ex eius, quem dico, Deci, facto iudicabant esse profecto aliquid natura pulchrum atque praeclarum, quod sua sponte peteretur, quodque spreta et contempta voluptate optimus quisque sequeretur.

Manius Curius had lived with Publius Decius, who, five years before him as consul, had devoted himself for the republic in his fourth consulship; the same man was known by Fabricius, he was known by Coruncanius; and they, both from their own life and from the deed of that Decius whom I mention, judged that there is indeed something by nature beautiful and splendid, which is sought of its own accord, and which, pleasure spurned and contemned, all the best men follow.

44. Quorsus igitur tam multa de voluptate? Quia non modo vituperatio nulla, sed etiam summa laus senectutis est, quod ea voluptates nullas magno opere desiderat. Caret epulis extructisque mensis et frequentibus poculis; caret ergo etiam vinulentia et cruditate et insomniis.

44. To what end, then, so much about pleasure? Because not only is there no vituperation, but even the highest praise of old age, in that it does not greatly desire pleasures. It is without banquets, heaped-up tables, and frequent cups; therefore it is also without vinolence (drunkenness), crudity (indigestion), and sleeplessness.

Sed si aliquid dandum est voluptati, quoniam eius blanditiis non facile obsistimus, --divine enim Plato 'escam malorum' appellat voluptatam, quod ea videlicet homines capiantur ut pisces, --quamquam immoderatis epulis caret senectus, modicis tamen coviviis delectari potest. C. Duellium M. f., qui Poenos classe primus devicerat, redeuntem a cena senem saepe videbam puer; delectabatur cereo funali et tibicine, quae sibi nullo exemplo privatus sumpserat; tantum licentiae dabat gloria.

But if anything is to be granted to pleasure, since we do not easily withstand its blandishments, --for the divine Plato calls pleasure the 'bait of evils,' because by it, to wit, men are caught like fishes, --although old age is without immoderate banquets, yet it can be delighted by moderate convivials. Gaius Duellius, son of Marcus, who was the first to defeat the Carthaginians by a fleet, I, as a boy, often saw the old man returning from dinner; he took delight in a wax torch and a flute-player, which, with no precedent, he had assumed for himself as a private citizen; so much license did his glory grant.

45. Sed quid ego alios? Ad me ipsum iam revertar. Primum habui semper sodalis.

45. But why should I speak of others? I will now return to myself. In the first place, I have always had companions.

Sodalitates autem me quaestore constitutae sunt sacris Idaeis Magnae Matris acceptis. Epulabar igitur cum sodalibus omnino modice, sed erat quidam fervor aetatis; qua progrediente omnia fiunt in dies mitiora. Neque enim ipsorum conviviorum delectationem voluptatibus corporis magis quam coetu amicorum et sermonibus metiebar.

Sodalities, moreover, were instituted by me as quaestor, when the Idaean rites of the Great Mother had been received. I therefore banqueted with the sodales altogether moderately, but there was a certain fervor of age; as that advances, everything becomes milder by the day. For I measured the delight of the banquets themselves not so much by the pleasures of the body as by the gathering of friends and by conversations.

Bene enim maiores accubitionem epularem amicorum, quia vitae coniunctionem haberet, convivium nominaverunt, melius quam Graeci, qui hoc idem tum compotationem, tum concenationem vocant, ut, quod in eo genere minimum est, id maxime probare videantur.

For our elders rightly named the friends’ banquet-accubation “convivium” (living-together), because it had a conjunction of life—better than the Greeks, who call this same thing now “compotation,” now “concenation,” so that they seem to approve most that which is the least in that kind.

XIV.46. Ego vero propter sermonis delectationem tempestivis quoque conviviis delector, nec cum aequalibus solum, qui pauci admodum restant, sed cum vestra etiam aetate atque vobiscum, habeoque senectuti magnam gratiam, quae mihi sermonis aviditatem auxit, potionis et cibi sustulit. Quod si quem etiam ista delectant, (ne omnino bellum indixisse videar voluptati, cuius est fortasse quidam naturalis modus), non intellego ne in istis quidem ipsis voluptatibus carere sensu senectutem.

14.46. I indeed, on account of the delectation of conversation, also take delight in seasonable convivials, not only with my equals, who are very few remaining, but also with your age and with you; and I owe great gratitude to old age, which has increased for me an avidity for conversation, and has taken away that for drink and food. But if these things too delight someone (lest I seem to have altogether declared war on pleasure, of which perhaps there is a certain natural modus), I do not understand that old age is devoid of sense even in those very pleasures.

Me vero et magisteria delectant a maioribus instituta et is sermo, qui more maiorum a summo adhibetur in poculo, et pocula, sicut in Symposio Xenophontis est, minuta atque rorantia, et refrigeratio aestate et vicissim aut sol aut ignis hibernus; quae quidem etiam in Sabinis persequi soleo, conviviumque vicinorum cotidie compleo, quod ad multam noctem quam maxime possumus vario sermone producimus.

Indeed, the magisterships instituted by the ancestors delight me, and that discourse which, in the manner of the ancestors, is called upon from the highest at the cup, and the cups, as in Xenophon’s Symposium, minute and dewy-dripping, and cooling in summer and, in turn, either the sun or a winter fire; which things I am accustomed also to pursue in the Sabine country, and I daily make up a neighbors’ dinner-party, which we prolong as far into the night as we can with varied discourse.

47. At non est voluptatum tanta quasi titillatio in senibus. Credo, sed ne desideratio quidem; nihil autem est molestum, quod non desideres. Bene Sophocles, cum ex eo quidem iam adfecto aetate quaereret, utereturne rebus veneriis, 'Di meliora!' inquit; 'libenter vero istinc sicut ab domino agresti ac furioso profugi.' Cupidis enim rerum talium odiosum fortasse et molestum est carere, satiatis vero et expletis iucundius est carere quam frui.

47. But in the old there is not so great a, as it were, titillation of pleasures. I believe it; but neither is there desire; moreover, nothing is troublesome which you do not desire. Well said Sophocles, when someone asked him, already affected by age, whether he still made use of venereal matters: 'May the gods grant better!' he said; 'indeed, I have gladly fled from that, as from a rustic and frenzied master.' For to those desirous of such things it is perhaps odious and burdensome to be without them; but to those sated and filled, it is more pleasant to be without than to enjoy.

Quamquam non caret is, qui non desiderat; ergo hoc non desiderare dico esse iucundius.

Although he who does not desire does not lack; therefore I say that not desiring this is more pleasant.

48. Quod si istis ipsis voluptatibus bona aetas fruitur libentius, primum parvulis fruitur rebus, ut diximus, deinde eis, quibus senectus, etiamsi non abunde potitur, non omnino caret. Ut Turpione Ambivio magis delectatur, qui in prima cavea spectat, delectatur tamen etiam, qui in ultima, sic adulescentia voluptates propter intuens magis fortasse laetatur, sed delectatur etiam senectus procul eas spectans tantum quantum sat est.

48. But if in those very pleasures the good age takes its enjoyment more willingly, first it enjoys little things, as we have said, then those things of which old age, even if it does not possess them in abundance, is not entirely deprived. Just as Turpio Ambivius delights more the one who watches in the front tier, yet he also delights the one who is in the last; so adolescence, gazing at pleasures close at hand, perhaps rejoices more, but old age too takes delight, viewing them from afar, only so much as suffices.

49. At illa quanti sunt, animum, tamquam emeritis stipendiis libidinis, ambitionis, contentionis, inimicitiarum cupiditatum omnium, secum esse secumque, ut dicitur, vivere! Si vero habet aliquod tamquam pabulum studi atque doctrinae, nihil est otiosa senectute iucundius. Videbamus in studio dimetiendi paene caeli atque terrae C. Galum, familiarem patris tui, Scipio.

49. But how precious are those things: the mind, as if, its campaigns of lust, ambition, contention, enmities, the cupidities of all kinds having been served out, to be with itself and, as the saying goes, to live with itself! If indeed it has some, as it were, fodder of zeal and doctrine, nothing is more pleasant than a leisurely old age. We used to see, devoted to the study of measuring almost the sky and the earth, C. Gallus, your father’s familiar, Scipio.

Quotiens illum lux noctu aliquid describere ingressum, quotiens nox oppressit, cum mane coepisset! Quam delectabat eum defectiones solis et lunae multo ante nobis praedicere!

How often did the light catch him, having at night set about to write something; how often did night overtake him when he had begun in the morning! How it delighted him to predict to us the defections of the sun and the moon long beforehand!

50. Quid in levioribus studiis, sed tamen acutis? Quam gaudebat bello suo Punico Naevius! quam Truculento Plautus, quam Pseudolo!

50. What of lighter studies, yet nevertheless sharp? How Naevius exulted in his own Punic War! how Plautus in his Truculentus, how in his Pseudolus!

Vidi etiam senem Livium; qui, cum sex aniis ante quam ego natus sum fabulam docuisset Centone Tuditanoque consulibus, usque ad adulescentiam meam processit aetate. Quid de P. Licini Crassi et pontifici et civilis iuris studio loquar aut de huius P. Scipionis qui his paucis diebus pontifex maximus factus est? Atque eos omnis, quos commemoravi, his studiis flagrantis senes vidimus.

I also saw the old man Livius; who, when six years before I was born he had staged a play, with Cento and Tuditanus as consuls, advanced in age all the way to my adolescence. What shall I say of P. Licinius Crassus and his zeal both as pontifex and for civil law, or of this P. Scipio, who in these last few days has been made pontifex maximus? And all of them, whom I have mentioned, we saw as old men blazing with these pursuits.

M. vero Cethegum, quem recte 'Suadae medullam' dixit Ennius, quanto studio exerceri in dicendo videbamus etiam senem! Quae sunt igitur epularum aut ludorum aut scortorum voluptates cum his voluptatibus comparandae? Atque haec quidem studia doctrinae, quae quidem prudentibus et bene institutis pariter cum aetate crescunt, ut honestum illud Solonis sit, quod ait versiculo quodam, ut ante dixi, senescere se multa in dies addiscentem, qua voluptate animi nulla certe potest esse maior.

But M. Cethegus, whom Ennius rightly called 'the marrow of Suada (Persuasion),' with what zeal we used to see him being exercised in speaking even as an old man! What pleasures of banquets or of games or of courtesans, then, are to be compared with these pleasures? And these are indeed studies of doctrine, which in the prudent and the well-instituted grow apace together with age, so that that honorable saying of Solon holds, when he says in a certain versicle, as I said before, that he is growing old while learning many things day by day—than which no delight of the mind surely can be greater.

XV.51. Venio nunc ad voluptates agricolarum, quibus ego incredibiliter delector; quae nec ulla impediuntur senectute et mihi ad sapientis vitam proxime videntur accedere. Habent enim rationem cum terra, quae numquam recusat imperium nec umquam sine usura reddit, quod accepit, sed alias minore, plerumque maiore cum faenore. Quamquam me quidem non fructus modo, sed etiam ipsius terrae vis ac natura delectat.

15.51. I come now to the pleasures of agriculturists, with which I am incredibly delighted; which are hindered by no old age and seem to me to approach most nearly to the life of the wise man. For they have a reckoning with the earth, which never refuses command and never returns what it has received without interest, but sometimes with a lesser, more often with a greater, usury. Yet indeed it is not only the fruits that delight me, but also the power and nature of the earth itself.

Quae cum gremio mollito ac subacto sparsum semen excepit, primum id occaecatum cohibet, ex quo occatio, quae hoc efficit, nominata est, deinde tepefactum vapore et compressu suo diffundit et elicit herbescentem ex eo viriditatem, quae nixa fibris stirpium sensim adulescit culmoque erecta geniculato vaginis iam quasi pubescens includitur; ex quibus cum emersit, fundit frugem spici ordine structam et fcontra avium minorum morsus munitur vallo aristarum.

Which, when in its softened and subjugated bosom it has received the scattered seed, first keeps it occluded—whence the harrowing (occatio), which accomplishes this, has been named—then, the seed having been made tepid by its vapor and by its own compression, it diffuses it and elicits from it a herbescent viridity, which, leaning upon the fibers of the roots, gradually comes to adolescence, and, the jointed stalk having been raised upright, now as if pubescent is enclosed in sheaths; when it has emerged from these, it pours forth the fruit of grain arranged in the order of the ear, and against the bites of smaller birds it is fortified by a rampart of awns.

52. Quid ego vitium ortus, satus, incrementa commemorem? Satiari delectatione non possum, ut meae senectutis requiem oblectamentumque noscatis. Omitto enim vim ipsam omnium, quae generantur e terra; quae ex fici tantulo grano aut ex acini vinaceo aut ex ceterarum frugum aut stirpium minutissimis seminibus tantos truncos ramosque procreet.

52. Why should I commemorate the vine’s origins, plantings, increments? I cannot be satiated with delectation, that you may know the repose and delight of my old age. For I omit the very power of all things that are generated from the earth; which from a very tiny grain of the fig, or from a grape-stone (seed), or from the tiniest seeds of other fruits or plants, procreates such great trunks and branches.

Malleoli, plantae, sarmenta, viviradices, propagines, nonne efficiunt, ut quemvis cum admiratione delectent? Vitis quidem, quae natura caduca est et, nisi fulta est, fertur ad terram, eadem, ut se erigat claviculis suis quasi manibus quicquid est nacta, complectitur; quam serpentem multiplici lapsu et erratico ferro amputans coercet ars agricolarum, ne silvescat sarmentis et in omnis partis nimia fundatur.

Malleoli, plantings, sarments, live-roots, propagations—do they not bring it about that they delight anyone with admiration? The vine indeed, which is caducous by nature and, unless propped, is borne down to the earth, that same vine, in order to raise itself, with its tendrils, as if with hands, embraces whatever it has gotten hold of; and this vine, crawling with manifold slipping and errant wandering, the art of the farmers restrains, cutting it back with the iron, lest it grow wild with sarments and be spread out excessively into all directions.

53. Itaque ineunte vere in eis, quae relicta sunt, exsistit tamquam ad articulos sarmentorum ea, quae gemma dicitur, a qua oriens uva se ostendit, quae et suco terrae et calore solis augescens primo est peracerba gustatu, deinde maturata dulcescit, vestitaque pampinis nec modico tepore caret et nimios solis defendit ardores. Qua quid potest esse cum fructu laetius, tum aspectu pulchrius? Cuius quidem non utilitas me solum, ut ante dixi, sed etiam cultura et natura ipsa delectat, adminiculorum ordines, capitum iugatio, religatio et propagatio vitium, sarmentorum ea, quam dixi aliorum amputatio, aliorum immissio.

53. And so, with spring entering, in those shoots which have been left there arises, as it were at the joints of the shoots, that which is called the gemma (bud), from which the rising grape shows itself, which, growing by the juice of the earth and the heat of the sun, is at first very acerb to the taste, then, having ripened, it sweetens; and, clothed with pampins (vine‑leaves), it neither lacks a moderate warmth, and it shields against the excessive ardors of the sun. What can be, both in its fruit more gladsome and in its aspect more beautiful? Of which, indeed, not its utility alone, as I said before, but also its culture (cultivation) and its very nature delights me—the rows of supports (adminicles), the jugation of the heads, the religation and propagation of the vines, and, of the sarments (shoots), that pruning which I mentioned: the amputation of some, the immission (insertion, training‑in) of others.

Quid ego irrigationes, quid fossiones agri repastinationesque proferam, quibus fit multo terra fecundior?

Why should I bring forward irrigations, why the fossions of the field and the repastinations, by which the earth becomes much more fecund?

54. Quid de utilitate loquar stercorandi? Dixi in eo libro, quem de rebus rusticis scripsi; de qua doctus Hesiodus ne verbum quidem fecit, cum de cultura agri scriberet. At Homerus, qui multis, ut mihi videtur, ante saeculis fuit, Laeten lenientem desiderium, quod capiebat e filio, colentem agrum et eum stercorantem facit.

54. What shall I say about the utility of manuring? I have spoken in that book which I wrote on rustic matters; about which the learned Hesiod did not say even a word, when he was writing about the cultivation of the field. But Homer, who, as it seems to me, was many ages earlier, portrays Laertes easing the longing which he felt for his son, tending the field and manuring it.

Nec vero segetibus solum et pratis et vineis et arbustis res rusticae laetae sunt, sed hortis etiam et pomariis, tum pecudum pastu, apium examinibus, florum omnium varietate. Nec consitiones modo delectant sed etiam insitiones, quibus nihil invenit agri cultura sollertius.

Nor indeed are rural affairs gladsome only with the grain-crops and meadows and vineyards and arboreta, but also with gardens and orchards, then with the pasturing of herds, the swarms of bees, the variety of all flowers. Nor do plantings only delight, but also graftings, than which agriculture has discovered nothing more skillful.

XVI.55. Possum persequi permulta oblectamenta rerum rusticarum, sed haec ipsa, quae dixi, sentio fuisse longiora. Ignoscetis autem; nam et studio rusticarum rerum provectus sum, et senectus est natura loquacior, ne ab omnibus eam vitiis videar vindicare.

16.55. I can pursue very many delights of rural affairs, but these very things which I have said I perceive to have been too long. You will pardon me, however; for both I have been carried along by zeal for rural matters, and old age is by nature more loquacious, lest I seem to vindicate it from all vices.

Ergo in hac vita M'. Curius, cum de Samnitibus, de Sabinis, de Pyrrho triumphasset, consumpsit extremum tempus aetatis. Cuius quidem ego villam contemplans (abest enim non longe a me) admirari satis non possum vel hominis ipsius continentiam vel temporum disciplinam. Curio ad focum sedenti magnum auri pondus Samnites cum attulissent, repudiati sunt; non enim aurum habere praeclarum sibi videri dixit, sed eis qui haberent aurum imperare.

Therefore in this way of life M'. Curius, when he had triumphed over the Samnites, the Sabines, and Pyrrhus, spent the final period of his age. Indeed, as I contemplate his villa (for it is not far from me), I cannot sufficiently marvel either at the man’s own continence or at the discipline of the times. When the Samnites had brought a great weight of gold to Curius as he sat at the hearth, they were repudiated; for he said that it did not seem illustrious to him to have gold, but to command those who had gold.

56. Poteratne tantus animus efficere non iucundam senctutem? Sed venio ad agricolas, ne a me ipso recedam. In agris erant tum senatores, id est senes, siquidem aranti L. Quinctio Cincinnato nuntiatum est eum dictatorem esse factum; cuius dictatoris iussu magister equitum C. Servilius Ahala Sp. Maelium regnum adpetentem occupatum interemit.

56. Could so great a spirit fail to make old age pleasant? But I come to the agriculturalists, so as not to depart from my own subject. In the fields then were the senators, that is, old men, since to L. Quinctius Cincinnatus, while he was plowing, it was announced that he had been made dictator; by the order of which dictator the master of horse, Gaius Servilius Ahala, slew Spurius Maelius, aiming at kingship, when apprehended.

A villa in senatum arcessebatur et Curius et ceteri senes, ex quo, qui eos arcessebant viatores nominati sunt. Num igitur horum senectus miserabilis fuit, qui se agri cultione oblectabant? Mea quidem sententia haud scio an nulla beatior possit esse, neque solum officio, quod hominum generi universo cultura agrorum est salutaris, sed et delectatione, quam dixi, et saturitate copiaque rerum omnium, quae ad victum hominum, ad cultum etiam deorum pertinent, ut, quoniam haec quidem desiderant, in gratiam iam cum voluptate redeamus.

From the villa both Curius and the other elders were being summoned into the senate, whence those who summoned them were named viatores. Was therefore the old age of these men miserable, who amused themselves with the cultivation of their fields? In my opinion, I hardly know whether any could be happier— and not only by its office, since the cultivation of the fields is salutary to the entire human race, but also by the delectation, which I have mentioned, and by the satiety and abundance of all things that pertain to the sustenance of men and even to the worship of the gods—so that, since these matters indeed demand it, let us now return into favor with pleasure.

Semper enim boni assiduique domini referta cella vinaria, olearia, etiam penaria est, villaque tota locuples est, abundat porco, haedo, agno, gallina, lacte, caseo, melle. Iam hortum ipsi agricolae succidiam alteram appellant. Conditiora facit haec supervacaneis etiam operis aucupium atque venatio.

For indeed, with good and assiduous masters, the wine-cellar, the oil-cellar, and even the pantry are crammed full, and the whole villa is well-supplied, abounding in pork, kid, lamb, chicken, milk, cheese, and honey. Moreover, the farmers themselves call the garden a second larder. And fowling and hunting, even as work done in spare time, make these provisions more seasoned.

57. Quid de pratorum viriditate aut arborum ordinibus aut vinearum olivetorumve specie plura dicam? Brevi praecidam: agro bene culto nihil potest esse nec usu uberius nec specie ornatius; ad quem fruendum non modo non retardat, verum etiam invitat atque adlectat senectus. Ubi enim potest illa aetas aut calescere vel apricatione melius vel igni, aut vicissim umbris aquisve refrigerari salubrius?

57. What more shall I say about the greenness of meadows, or the rows of trees, or the appearance of vineyards and olive-groves? I will cut it short: than a well-cultivated field nothing can be either more abundant in use or more ornate in appearance; to the enjoyment of which not only does old age not retard one, but it even invites and allures. For where can that age either be warmed better by sun-basking or by fire, or, in turn, be cooled more healthfully by shade or by waters?

58. Sibi habeant igitur arma, sibi equos, sibi hastas, sibi clavam et pilam, sibi natationes atque cursus, nobis senibus ex lusionibus multis talos relinquant et tesseras, id ipsum ut lubebit, quoniam sine eis beata esse senectus potest.

58. Let them have for themselves, then, arms, for themselves horses, for themselves spears, for themselves the club and the ball, for themselves swimming and running; for us old men, out of the many pastimes let them leave knucklebones and dice— that very thing as it will please— since without them old age can be blessed.

XVII.59. Multas ad res perutiles Xenophontis libri sunt, quos legite, quaeso, studiose, ut facitis. Quam copiose ab eo agri cultura laudatur in eo libro, qui est de tuenda re familiari, qui Oeconomicus inscribitur!

17.59. The books of Xenophon are very useful for many matters; read them, I beg, studiously, as you do. How copiously agriculture is praised by him in that book which is about the safeguarding of the family estate, which is entitled Oeconomicus!

Atque ut intellegatis nihil ei tam regale videri quam studium agri colendi, Socrates in eo libro loquitur cum Critobulo Cyrum minorem, Persarum regem, praestantem ingenio atque imperi gloria, cum Lysander Lacedaemonius, vir summae virtutis, venisset ad eum Sardis eique dona a sociis adtulisset, et ceteris in rebus communem erga Lysandrum atque humanum fuisse et ei quendam consaeptum agrum diligenter consitum ostendisse. Cum autem admiraretur Lysander et proceritates arborum et derectos in quincuncem ordines et humum subactam atque puram et suavitatem odorum, qui adflarentur ex floribus, tum eum dixisse mirari se non modo diligentiam, sed etiam sollertiam eius, a quo essent illa dimensa atque discripta; et Cyrum respondisse: 'Atqui ego ista sum omnia dimensus; mei sunt ordines, mea discriptio, multae etiam istarum arborum mea manu sunt satae.' Tum Lysandrum intuentem purpuram eius et nitorem corporis ornatumque Persicum multo auro multisque gemmis dixisse; 'Recte vero te, Cyre, beatum ferunt, quoniam virtuti tuae fortuna coniuncta est.'

And that you may understand that nothing seemed to him so royal as the pursuit of cultivating the field, Socrates in that book speaks with Critobulus about Cyrus the Younger, king of the Persians, outstanding in genius and in the glory of command, when Lysander the Lacedaemonian, a man of the highest virtue, had come to him at Sardis and had brought him gifts from the allies; and that in other matters he had been affable and humane toward Lysander, and had shown him a certain fenced plot carefully planted. But when Lysander admired both the loftiness of the trees and the straight rows set out in quincunx, and the soil subdued and clean, and the sweetness of the odors that were wafted from the flowers, then he said that he marveled not only at the diligence but also at the skill of the person by whom those things had been measured out and laid out; and Cyrus answered: 'Why, I myself measured out all those things; the rows are mine, the layout mine; many also of those trees were planted by my own hand.' Then Lysander, gazing upon his purple and the sheen of his person and his Persian adornment with much gold and many gems, said: 'Rightly indeed do they call you happy, Cyrus, since Fortune has been conjoined to your Virtue.'

60. Hac igitur fortuna frui licet senibus, nec aetas impedit, quo minus et ceterarum rerum et in primis agri colendi studia teneamus usque ad ultimum tempus senectutis. M. quidem Valerium Corvinum accepimus ad centesimum annum perduxise, cum esset acta iam aetate in agris eosque coleret; cuius inter primum et sextum consulatum sex et quadraginta anni interfuerunt. Ita, quantum spatium aetatis maiores ad senectutis initium esse voluerunt, tantus illi cursus honorum fuit; atque huius extrema aetas hoc beatior quam media, quod auctoritatis habebat plus, laboris minus; apex est autem senectutis auctoritas.

60. Accordingly, it is permitted for old men to enjoy this fortune, nor does age impede us from holding the pursuits both of other matters and, in the first place, of cultivating the field, right up to the ultimate time of old age. We have received that M. Valerius Corvinus was brought to the 100th year, when, his age already spent, he was in the fields and was cultivating them; between his first and sixth consulship there intervened 46 years. Thus, as great a span of life as the elders wished to be the beginning of old age, so great was his cursus honorum; and his last age was for this reason happier than his middle, because it had more authority, less labor; moreover, the apex of old age is authority.

61. Quanta fuit in L. Caecilio Metello, quanta in A. Atilio Calatino! in quem illud elogium: 'Hunc unum plurimae consentiunt gentes populi primarium fuisse virum.' Notum est carmen incisum in sepulcro. Iure igitur gravis, cuius de laudibus omnium esset fama consentiens.

61. How great it was in L. Caecilius Metellus, how great in A. Atilius Calatinus! regarding whom that elogium: 'Very many nations of the people agree that this one man was a foremost man.' The poem engraved on his tomb is known. Rightly, then, he was a man of weight, since the fame concerning his praises was unanimous among all.

Quem virum nuper P. Crassum, pontificem maximum, quem postea M. Lepidum eodem sacerdotio praeditum, vidimus! Quid de Paulo aut Africano loquar aut, ut iam ante, de Maximo? quorum non in sententia solum, sed etiam in nutu residebat auctoritas.

What a man we lately saw in Publius Crassus, the pontifex maximus, and afterwards in Marcus Lepidus, endowed with the same priesthood! What shall I say of Paulus or Africanus, or, as just now, of Maximus? in whom authority resided not only in their judgment but even in a nod.

Habet senectus, honorata praesertim, tantam auctoritatem, ut ea pluris sit quam omnes adulescentiae voluptates.

Old age, especially when honored, has such authority that it is of more worth than all the pleasures of adolescence.

XVIII.62. Sed in omni oratione mementote eam me senectutem laudare, quae fundamentis adulescentiae constituta sit. Ex quo efficitur id quod ego magno quondam cum assensu omnium dixi, miseram esse senectutem quae se oratione defenderet.

18.62. But in every oration remember that I am praising that kind of old age which has been established upon the foundations of youth. From which it follows what I once said with the great assent of all: that wretched is the old age which has to defend itself by oration.

Non cani, nec rugae repente auctoritatem arripere possunt, sed honeste acta superior aetas fructus capit auctoritatis extremos.

Neither gray hairs nor wrinkles can suddenly seize authority, but an earlier age honorably conducted reaps the ultimate fruits of authority.

63. Haec enim ipsa sunt honorabilia quae videntur levia atque communia, salutari, adpeti, decedi, adsurgi, deduci, reduci, consuli; quae et apud nos et in aliis civitatibus, ut quaeque optime morata est, ita diligentissime observantur. Lysandrum Lacedaemonium, cuius modo feci mentionem, dicere aiunt solitum Lacedaemonem esse honestissimum domicilium senectutis: nusquam enim tantum tribuitur aetati, nusquam est senectus honoratior. Quin etiam memoriae proditum est, cum Athenis ludis quidam in theatrum grandis natu venisset, magno consessu locum nusquam ei datum a suis civibus; cum autem ad Lacedaemonios accessisset, qui legati cum essent, certo in loco consederant, consurrexisse omnes illi dicuntur et senem sessum recepisse.

63. For these very things are honorable which seem light and common: to be saluted, to be sought out, to be yielded precedence, to have people rise, to be escorted forth, to be escorted back, to be consulted; which both among us and in other states, as each is most well-mannered, so are most diligently observed. Lysander the Lacedaemonian, whom I mentioned a moment ago, they say was accustomed to say that Lacedaemon is the most honorable domicile of old age: for nowhere is so much granted to age, nowhere is old age more honored. Indeed it has even been handed down to memory that, when at Athens during the games a certain man great in years had come into the theater, in that great concourse a place was nowhere given to him by his own fellow citizens; but when he came near to the Lacedaemonians, who, since they were legates, had sat down in a fixed place, they are said all to have risen and to have welcomed the old man to a seat.

64. Quibus cum a cuncto consessu plausus esset multiplex datus, dixisse ex eis quendam Atheniensis scire, quae recta essent, sed facere nolle. Multa in nostro collegio praeclara, sed hoc de quo agimus in primis, quod, ut quisque aetate antecedit, ita sententiae principatum tenet, neque solum honore antecedentibus, sed eis etiam, qui cum imperio sunt, maiores natu augures anteponuntur. Quae sunt igitur voluptates corporis cum auctoritatis praemiis comparandae?

64. To whom, when manifold applause had been given by the whole assembly, one of them is said to have said that the Athenians know the things that are right, but are unwilling to do them. Many things in our college are preeminent, but this one about which we are treating especially: that, as each person goes before in age, so he holds the primacy of opinion; and elder augurs are given precedence not only over those who precede in honor, but even over those who hold imperium. What pleasures of the body, then, are to be compared with the rewards of authority?

Quibus qui splendide usi sunt, ei mihi videntur fabulam aetatis peregisse nec tamquam inexercitati histriones in extremo actu corruisse.

Those who have made splendid use of these seem to me to have carried through the play of life, and not, like untrained actors, to have collapsed in the final act.

65. At sunt morosi et anxii et iracundi et difficiles senes. Si quaerimus, etiam avari; sed haec morum vitia sunt, non senectutis. Ac morositas tamen et ea vitia, quae dixi, habent aliquid excusationis non illius quidem iustae, sed quae probari posse videatur; contemni se putant, despici, inludi; praeterea in fragili corpore odiosa omnis offensio est.

65. But there are morose and anxious and irascible and difficult old men. If we inquire, even avaricious; but these are vices of character, not of old age. And moroseness, however, and those vices which I have mentioned, have some excuse—not indeed a just one, but one which may seem able to be approved: they think themselves contemned, despised, mocked; besides, in a fragile body every offense is odious.

Quae tamen omnia dulciora fiunt et moribus bonis et artibus; idque cum in vita, tum in scaena intellegi potest ex eis fratribus, qui in Adelphis sunt. Quanta in altero diritas, in altero comitas! Sic se res habet; ut enim non omne vinum, sic non omnis natura vetustate coacescit.

Yet all these things are made sweeter both by good morals and by the arts; and this can be understood both in life and on the stage from those brothers who are in the Adelphi. How much severity in the one, how much comity in the other! So the matter stands; for as not all wine, so not every nature turns sour with age.

Severitatem in senectute probo, sed eam, sicut alia, modicam, acerbitatem nullo modo.

I approve severity in old age, but that, like other things, moderate; harshness in no way.

66. Avaritia vero senilis quid sibi velit, non intellego; potest enim quicquam esse absurdius quam, quo viae minus restet, eo plus viatici quaerere? XIX. Quarta restat causa, quae maxime angere atque sollicitam habere nostram aetatem videtur, adpropinquatio mortis, quae certe a senectute non potest esse longe.

66. But as for the avarice of old age, what it would mean for itself, I do not understand; for can anything be more absurd than, the less of the road remains, to seek the more travel-money? 19. The fourth cause remains, which seems most to anguish and to keep our age solicitous, the approach of death, which certainly cannot be far from old age.

O miserum senem qui mortem contemnendam esse in tam longa aetate non viderit! quae aut plane neglegenda est, si omnino exstinguit animum, aut etiam optanda, si aliquo eum deducit, ubi sit futurus aeternus; atqui tertium certe nihil inveniri potest.

O wretched old man who has not seen that death is to be contemned in so long an age! It is either plainly to be neglected, if it utterly extinguishes the soul, or even to be desired, if it conducts it to some place where it will be eternal; and assuredly no third can be found.

67. Quid igitur timeam, si aut non miser post mortem aut beatus etiam futurus sum? Quamquam quis est tam stultus, quamvis sit adulescens, cui sit exploratum se ad vesperum esse victurum? Quin etiam aetas illa multo pluris quam nostra casus mortis habet; facilius in morbos incidunt adulescentes, gravius aegrotant, tristius curantur.

67. What, then, should I fear, if I am either not wretched after death or even going to be blessed? Although, who is so foolish—though he be a youth—for whom it is ascertained that he will live until evening? Nay rather, that age has many more chances of death than ours: young men fall into illnesses more easily, are sick more gravely, are treated more unhappily.

Itaque pauci veniunt ad senectutem; quod ni ita accideret, melius et prudentius viveretur. Mens enim et ratio et consilium in senibus est; qui si nulli fuissent, nullae omnino civitates fuissent. Sed redeo ad mortem impendentem.

Accordingly, few come to old age; and if it did not so befall, life would be lived better and more prudently. For mind and reason and counsel are in old men; and if there had been none such, there would have been no states at all. But I return to the impending death.

Quod est istud crimen senectutis, cum id ei videatis cum adulescentia esse commune?

What is this crime of old age, when you see that it is common to it with youth?

68. Sensi ego in optimo filio, tu in exspectatis ad amplissimam dignitatem fratribus, Scipio, mortem omni aetati esse communem. At sperat adulescens diu se victurum, quod sperare idem senex non potest. Insipienter sperat.

68. I perceived in my excellent son—and you, Scipio, in your brothers expected for the amplest dignity—that death is common to every age. But the adolescent hopes that he will live long, which the old man cannot likewise hope. He hopes unwisely.

Quid enim stultius quam incerta pro certis habere, falsa pro veris? At senex ne quod speret quidem habet. At est eo meliore condicione quam adulescens, quoniam id, quod ille sperat, hic consecutus est; ille vult diu vivere, hic diu vixit.

For what is more foolish than to hold uncertain things for certain, false things for true? But the old man has not even anything to hope for. Yet he is in that much better a condition than the adolescent, since that which the latter hopes for, this man has attained; the former wishes to live long, this man has lived long.

69. Quamquam, O di boni! quid est in hominis natura diu? Da enim summum tempus, exspectemus Tartessiorum regis aetatem (fuit enim, ut scriptum video, Arganthonius quidam Gadibus, qui octoginta regnavit annos, centum viginti vixit)--sed mihi ne diuturnum quidem quicquam videtur in quo est aliquid extremum.

69. And yet, O good gods! what in a human’s nature is “long”? Grant, indeed, the utmost term; let us look to the age of the king of the Tartessians (for there was, as I see it written, a certain Arganthonius at Gades, who reigned eighty years, lived one hundred twenty)--but to me not even anything long-lasting seems long, in which there is some end.

Cum enim id advenit, tum illud, quod praeteriit, effluxit; tantum remanet, quod virtute et recte factis consecutus sis; horae quidem cedunt et dies et menses et anni, nec praeteritum tempus umquam revertitur, nec quid sequatur sciri potest; quod cuique temporis ad vivendum datur, eo debet esse contentus.

For when that arrives, then that which has gone by has flowed away; only that remains which you have attained by virtue and by rightly-done deeds; hours indeed recede, and days and months and years, and past time never returns, nor can what follows be known; with the amount of time which is given to each for living, with that he ought to be content.

70. Neque enim histrioni, ut placeat, peragenda fabula est, modo, in quocumque fuerit actu, probetur, neque sapientibus usque ad 'Plaudite' veniendum est. Breve enim tempus aetatis satis longum est ad bene honesteque vivendum; sin processerit longius, non magis dolendum est, quam agricolae dolent praeterita verni temporis suavitate aestatem autumnumque venisse. Ver enim tamquam adulescentiam significat ostenditque fructus futuros, reliqua autem tempora demetendis fructibus et percipiendis accommodata sunt.

70. For an actor the play does not have to be carried through to the end in order to please, provided that, in whatever act he may be, he is approved; nor must wise men come all the way to “Plaudite.” For the brief span of life is long enough for living well and honorably; but if it goes on longer, one should no more grieve than farmers grieve that, the sweetness of the springtime having passed, summer and autumn have come. For spring, as it were, signifies adolescence and shows the fruits to come, while the remaining seasons are suited to reaping and to gathering in the fruits.

71. Fructus autem senectutis est, ut saepe dixi, ante partorum bonorum memoria et copia. Omnia autem quae secundum naturam fiunt sunt habenda in bonis. Quid est autem tam secundum naturam quam senibus emori?

71. The fruit of old age is, as I have often said, the memory and abundance of goods previously acquired. Moreover, all things which happen according to nature are to be accounted among good things. And what is so according to nature as for the old to die?

Quod idem contingit adulescentibus adversante et repugnante natura. Itaque adulescentes mihi mori sic videntur, ut cum aquae multitudine flammae vis opprimitur, senes autem sic, ut cum sua sponte nulla adhibita vi consumptus ignis exstinguitur; et quasi poma ex arboribus, cruda si sunt, vix evelluntur, si matura et cocta, decidunt, sic vitam adulescentibus vis aufert, senibus maturitas; quae quidem mihi tam iucunda est, ut, quo propius ad mortem accedam, quasi terram videre videar aliquandoque in portum ex longa navigatione esse venturus.

That same thing befalls adolescents, with nature opposing and resisting. And so adolescents seem to me to die as when the force of a flame is overpowered by a multitude of water, but old men thus, as when a fire, spent, is extinguished of its own accord with no force applied; and as fruits from trees, if they are crude, are scarcely torn off, if mature and ripened, they fall, so violence carries off life from adolescents, from old men, maturity; which indeed is so pleasant to me that, the nearer I approach to death, I seem as it were to see land and to be going to come someday into port after a long navigation.

XX.72. Senectutis autem nullus est certus terminus, recteque in ea vivitur, quoad munus offici exsequi et tueri possit [mortemque contemnere]; ex quo fit, ut animosior etiam senectus sit quam adulescentia et fortior. Hoc illud est quod Pisistrato tyranno a Solone responsum est, cum illi quaerenti, qua tandem re fretus sibi tam audaciter obsisteret, respondisse dicitur: 'Senectute.' Sed vivendi est finis optimus, cum integra mente certisque sensibus opus ipsa suum eadem quae coagmentavit, natura dissolvit. Ut navem, ut aedificium idem destruit facillime, qui construxit, sic hominem eadem optime quae conglutinavit natura dissolvit.

20.72. But of old age there is no fixed terminus, and one lives rightly in it so long as it can execute and maintain the office of duty [and to contemn death]; whence it comes about that old age is even more high-spirited and stronger than adolescence. This is that which was answered to the tyrant Pisistratus by Solon, when, to him inquiring on what resource relying he dared so audaciously to oppose him, he is said to have responded: “On old age.” But the best end of living is, when, with mind intact and senses certain, Nature—the same who co-agglomerated her own work—dissolves it. As the same person who constructed a ship or an edifice most easily destroys it, so Nature, the same who conglutinated the human being, most fitly dissolves him.

Iam omnis conglutinatio recens aegre, inveterata facile divellitur. Ita fit ut illud breve vitae reliquum nec avide adpetendum senibus nec sine causa deserendum sit; vetatque Pythagoras iniussu imperatoris, id est dei, de praesidio et statione vitae decedere.

By now every recent conglutination is torn asunder with difficulty, but once inveterate, easily. Thus it comes about that that brief remainder of life is neither to be greedily sought by old men nor to be abandoned without cause; and Pythagoras forbids, without the order of the commander, that is, of God, to depart from the garrison and station of life.

73. Solonis quidem sapientis est elogium, quo se negat velle suam mortem dolore amicorum et lamentis vacare. Volt, credo, se esse carum suis; sed haud scio an melius Ennius:

73. There is, indeed, the elogium of the wise Solon, in which he says that he does not wish his death to be free from the grief of friends and from lamentations. He wants, I believe, to be dear to his own; but I do not know whether Ennius spoke better:

Nemo me lacrumis decoret neque funera fletu faxit.

Let no one adorn me with tears, nor make the funeral with weeping.

74. Non censet lugendam esse mortem, quam immortalitas consequatur. Iam sensus moriendi aliquis esse potest, isque ad exiguum tempus, praesertim seni; post mortem quidem sensus aut optandus aut nullus est. Sed hoc meditatum ab adulescentia debet esse mortem ut neglegamus, sine qua meditatione tranquillo animo esse nemo potest.

74. He does not consider death to be lamented, which immortality follows. Now some sense of dying can exist, and that for a brief time, especially for an old man; after death indeed sensation is either to be desired or none at all. But this—death—ought to have been meditated from adolescence, so that we may disregard it; without which meditation no one can be of a tranquil mind.

Moriendum enim certe est, et incertum an hoc ipso die. Mortem igitur omnibus horis impendentem timens qui poterit animo consistere?

For one must certainly die, and it is uncertain whether on this very day. Therefore, who, fearing death impending at every hour, will be able to stand firm in mind?

75. De qua non ita longa disputatione opus esse videtur, cum recorder non L. Brutum, qui in liberanda patria est interfectus, non duos Decios, qui ad voluntariam mortem cursum equorum incitaverunt, non M. Atilium, qui ad supplicium est profectus, ut fidem hosti datam conservaret, non duos Scipiones, qui iter Poenis vel corporibus suis obstruere voluerunt, non avum tuum L. Paulum, qui morte luit conlegae in Cannensi ignominia temeritatem, non M. Marcellum, cuius interitum ne crudelissimus quidem hostis honore sepulturae carere passus est, sed legiones nostras, quod scripsi in Originibus, in eum locum saepe profectas alacri animo et erecto, unde se redituras numquam arbitrarentur. Quod igitur adulescentes, et ei quidem non solum indocti, sed etiam rustici, contemnunt, id docti senes extimescent?

75. On which matter there seems no need of so long a disputation, since I recall not L. Brutus, who was slain in liberating the fatherland, not the two Decii, who incited the course of their horses to a voluntary death, not M. Atilius, who set out to execution, in order to preserve the pledge given to the enemy, not the two Scipios, who wished to obstruct the march of the Phoenicians even with their own bodies, not your grandfather L. Paulus, who by his death paid for his colleague’s rashness in the Cannaean ignominy, not M. Marcellus, whose death not even the most cruel enemy allowed to be without the honor of burial, but our legions, as I wrote in the Origines, often set out with a lively and uplifted spirit into that place whence they thought they would never return. What therefore young men—and those indeed not only unlearned, but even rustic—spurn, will learned old men dread?

76. Omnino, ut mihi quidem videtur, studiorum omnium satietas vitae facit satietatem. Sunt pueritiae studia certa; num igitur ea desiderant adulescentes? Sunt ineuntis adulescentiae: num ea constans iam requirit aetas quae media dicitur?

76. Altogether, as it seems to me at least, the satiety of all pursuits makes a satiety of life. There are definite pursuits of childhood; do adolescents, then, long for those? There are pursuits of beginning adolescence: does the age which is now settled, which is called the middle age, require those?

Sunt etiam eius aetatis; ne ea quidem quaeruntur in senectute. Sunt extrema quaedam studia senectutis: ergo, ut superiorum aetatum studia occidunt, sic occidunt etiam senectutis; quod cum evenit, satietas vitae tempus maturum mortis adfert.

There are also studies of that age; not even those are sought in old age. There are certain ultimate studies of old age: therefore, as the studies of the earlier ages die, so too do those of old age; and when this happens, a satiety of life brings the mature time of death.

XXI.77. Non enim video cur, quid ipse sentiam de morte, non audeam vobis dicere, quod eo cernere mihi melius videor, quo ab ea propius absum. Ego vestros patres, P. Scipio, tuque, C. Laeli, viros clarissimos mihique amicissimos, vivere arbitror, et eam quidem vitam, quae est sola vita nominanda.

21.77. For I do not see why I should not dare to tell you what I myself think about death, because I seem to discern it the better the nearer I am to it. I judge that your fathers, Publius Scipio, and you, Gaius Laelius, most illustrious men and my very dearest friends, live—and indeed that life which alone is to be called life.

Nam, dum sumus inclusi in his compagibus corporis, munere quodam necessitatis et gravi opere perfungimur; est enim animus caelestis ex altissimo domicilio depressus et quasi demersus in terram, locum divinae naturae aeternitatique contrarium. Sed credo deos immortalis sparsisse animos in corpora humana, ut essent, qui terras tuerentur, quique caelestium ordinem contemplantes imitarentur eum vitae modo atque constantia. Nec me solum ratio ac disputatio impulit, ut ita crederem, sed nobilitas etiam summorum philosophorum et auctoritas.

For, while we are enclosed within these frameworks of the body, we discharge a certain duty of necessity and a heavy task; for the spirit, heavenly, has been depressed from its most lofty domicile and, as it were, plunged down into the earth—a place contrary to divine nature and to eternity. But I believe the immortal gods have scattered souls into human bodies, in order that there might be those who would watch over the earth, and who, contemplating the order of the celestials, might imitate it in the mode and constancy of their life. Nor have reason and disputation alone impelled me to believe thus, but also the nobility and authority of the highest philosophers.

78. Audiebam Pythagoram Pythagoreosque, incolas paene nostros, qui essent Italici philosophi quondam nominati, numquam, dubitasse, quin ex universa mente divina delibatos animos haberemus. Demonstrabantur mihi praeterea, quae Socrates supremo vitae die de immortalitate aminorum disseruisset, is qui esset omnium sapientissimus oraculo Apollinis iudicatus. Quid multa?

78. I used to hear that Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans—almost our fellow-inhabitants, who were once named Italian philosophers—never doubted that we have souls portioned off from the universal divine mind. Moreover, it was pointed out to me what Socrates, on the last day of his life, had discoursed concerning the immortality of souls—he who had been judged the wisest of all by the oracle of Apollo. Why say more?

Sic persuasi mihi, sic sentio, cum tanta celeritas animorum sit, tanta memoria praeteritorum futurorumque prudentia, tot artes, tantae scientiae, tot inventa, non posse eam naturam, quae res eas contineat, esse mortalem, cumque semper agitetur animus nec principium motus habeat, quia se ipse moveat, ne finem quidem habiturum esse motus, quia numquam se ipse sit relicturus; et, cum simplex animi esset natura, neque haberet in se quicquam admixtum dispar sui atque dissimile, non posse eum dividi; quod si non posset, non posse interire; magnoque esse argumento homines scire pleraque ante quam nati sint, quod iam pueri, cum artis difficilis discant, ita celeriter res innumerabilis arripiant, ut eas non tum primum accipere videantur, sed reminisci et recordari. Haec Platonis fere.

S thus I have persuaded myself, thus I think: since there is such celerity of souls, such memory of past things and prudence regarding future things, so many arts, so great sciences, so many inventions, the nature that contains these things cannot be mortal; and since the soul is always set in motion and has no principle of motion, because it moves itself, it will have no end of motion either, because it will never abandon itself; and, since the nature of the soul is simple, and has in itself nothing admixed, disparate from itself and dissimilar, it cannot be divided; and if it cannot, it cannot perish; and it is a great argument that human beings know very many things before they are born, because even boys, when they learn a difficult art, so swiftly seize upon innumerable things that they seem not then for the first time to be receiving them, but to be remembering and recalling. These are, for the most part, Plato’s.

XXII.79. Apud Xenophontem autem moriens Cyrus maior haec dicit: 'Nolite arbitrari, O mihi carissimi filii, me, cum a vobis discessero, nusquam aut nullum fore. Nec enim, dum eram vobiscum, animum meum videbatis, sed eum esse in hoc corpore ex eis rebus quas gerebam intellegebatis.

22.79. But in Xenophon, the dying Cyrus the Elder says these things: ‘Do not suppose, O my dearest sons, that I, when I have departed from you, shall be nowhere or be nothing. For indeed, while I was with you, you did not see my mind, but you understood that it was in this body from those deeds which I was doing.’

Eundem igitur esse creditote, etiamsi nullum videbitis.

Therefore believe me to be the same, even if you see nothing.

80. Nec vero clarorum virorum post mortem honores permanerent, si nihil eorum ipsorum animi efficerent, quo diutius memoriam sui teneremus. Mihi quidem numquam persuaderi potuit animos, dum in corporibus essent mortalibus, vivere, cum excessissent ex eis, emori, nec vero tum animum esse insipientem, cum ex insipienti corpore evasisset, sed cum omni admixtione corporis liberatus purus et integer esse coepisset, tum esse sapientem. Atque etiam cum hominis natura morte dissolvitur, ceterarum rerum perspicuum est quo quaeque discedat; abeunt enim illuc omnia, unde orta sunt, animus autem solus nec cum adest nec cum discedit, apparet.

80. Nor indeed would the honors of illustrious men after death endure, if the souls of those very men effected nothing by which we might hold their memory longer. For my part, it could never be persuaded to me that souls, while they are in mortal bodies, live, but when they have departed from them, die; nor indeed that then the soul is unwise, when it has escaped from an unwise body; rather, when, freed from every admixture of body, it has begun to be pure and whole, then it is wise. And moreover, when the nature of a man is dissolved by death, it is evident, in the case of the other things, whither each departs; for all things go back thither whence they arose, but the soul alone neither when it is present nor when it departs appears.

Iam vero videtis nihil esse morti tam simile quam somnum.

Now indeed you see that nothing is so similar to death as sleep.

81. Atqui dormientium animi maxime declarant divinitatem suam; multa enim, cum remissi et liberi sunt, futura prospiciunt. Ex quo intellegitur quales futuri sint, cum se plane corporis vinculis relaxaverint. Qua re, si haec ita sunt, sic me colitote,' inquit, 'ut deum; sin una est interiturus animus cum corpore, vos tamen, deos verentes, qui hanc omnem pulchritudinem tuentur et regunt, memoriam nostri pie inviolateque servabitis.'

81. And yet the minds of sleepers most clearly declare their divinity; for when they are relaxed and free, they foresee many future things. From this it is understood what they will be like, when they shall have entirely loosened themselves from the bonds of the body. Wherefore, if these things are so, 'revere me,' he says, 'as a god; but if the soul is going to perish together with the body, you nevertheless, revering the gods, who watch over and rule all this beauty, will preserve our memory piously and inviolate.'

XXIII.82. Cyrus quidem haec moriens; nos, si placet, nostra videamus. Nemo umquam mihi, Scipio, persuadebit aut patrem tuum Paulum, aut duos avos, Paulum et Africanum, aut Africani patrem, aut patruum, aut multos praestantis viros quos enumerare non est necesse, tanta esse conatos, quae ad posteritatis memoriam pertinerent, nisi animo cernerent posteritatem ad se ipsos pertinere.

23.82. Cyrus indeed said these things as he was dying; let us, if it pleases, look to our own. No one will ever persuade me, Scipio, that either your father Paulus, or your two grandfathers, Paulus and Africanus, or Africanus’s father, or your paternal uncle, or many preeminent men whom it is not necessary to enumerate, endeavored such great things as pertained to the memory of posterity, unless in spirit they discerned that posterity pertained to themselves.

Anne censes, ut de me ipse aliquid more senum glorier, me tantos labores diurnos nocturnosque domi militiaeque suscepturum fuisse, si eisdem finibus gloriam meam, quibus vitam, essem terminaturus? Nonne melius multo fuisset otiosam et quietam aetatem sine ullo labore et contentione traducere? Sed nescio quo modo animus erigens se posteritatem ita semper prospiciebat, quasi, cum excessisset e vita, tum denique victurus esset.

Do you think—so that I may, in the manner of old men, boast something about myself—that I would have undertaken such great labors, by day and by night, at home and in military service, if I were going to terminate my glory within the same boundaries as my life? Would it not have been much better to conduct a quiet and idle age without any toil or contention? But somehow the spirit, lifting itself up, always looked forward to posterity, as if, when it had departed from life, then at last it would live.

Quod quidem ni ita se haberet, ut animi inmortales essent, haud optimi cuiusque animus maxime ad inmortalitatem et gloriam niteretur.

Indeed, if the case were not thus, that souls are immortal, the animus of each best man would not strive most toward immortality and glory.

83. Quid, quod sapientissimus quisque aequissimo animo moritur, stultissimus iniquissimo, nonne vobis videtur is animus qui plus cernat et longius, videre se ad meliora proficisci, ille autem cuius obtusior sit acies, non videre? Equidem efferor studio patres vestros, quos colui et dilexi videndi, neque vero eos solos convenire aveo quos ipse cognovi, sed illos etiam de quibus audivi et legi et ipse conscripsi; quo quidem me proficiscentem haud sane quid facile retraxerit, nec tamquam Peliam recoxerit. Et si quis deus mihi largiatur, ut ex hac aetate repuerascam et in cunis vagiam, valde recusem, nec vero velim quasi decurso spatio ad carceres a calce revocari.

83. What then of this, that the wisest man dies with the most even-tempered spirit, the most foolish with the most uneven—does it not seem to you that the soul which discerns more and farther sees itself setting out toward better things, while that one whose edge is more blunted does not see? For my part, I am carried away by zeal to see your fathers, whom I cultivated and loved; nor indeed do I long to meet only those whom I myself knew, but also those about whom I have heard and read and myself composed. From that departure, in truth, scarcely anything would easily draw me back, nor will it, like Pelias, reboil me. And if some god should grant me to grow boyish again from this age and to wail in the cradle, I would emphatically refuse; nor, indeed, would I wish, as after a course has been run, to be called back from the finish to the starting-gates.

84. Quid habet enim vita commodi? Quid non potius laboris? Sed habeat sane, habet certe tamen aut satietatem aut modum.

84. For what has life of advantage? What, rather, has it not of labor? But let it have them, by all means; still it surely has either satiety or a limit.

Non lubet enim mihi deplorare vitam, quod multi, et ei docti, saepe fecerunt, neque me vixisse paenitet, quoniam ita vixi, ut non frustra me natum existimem, ut ex vita ita discedo tamquam ex hospitio, non tamquam e domo. Commorandi enim natura devorsorium nobis, non habitandi dedit. O praeclarum diem, cum in illud divinum animorum concilium coetumque proficiscar cumque ex hac turba et conluvione discedam!

For I do not care to deplore life, as many, and even learned men, have often done, nor am I penitent for having lived, since I have so lived that I do not consider myself born in vain; and so I depart from life as from an inn, not as from a home. For nature has given us a lodging for tarrying, not for inhabiting. O illustrious day, when I shall set out to that divine council and assembly of souls, and shall depart from this rabble and dregs!

Proficiscar enim non ad eos solum viros, de quibus ante dixi, verum etiam ad Catonem meum, quo nemo vir melior natus est, nemo pietate praestantior; cuius a me corpus est crematum, quod contra decuit ab illo meum, animus vero, non me deserens sed respectans, in ea profecto loca discessit, quo mihi ipsi cernebat esse veniendum. Quem ego meum casum fortiter ferre visus sum, non quo aequo animo ferrem, sed me ipse consolabar existimans non longinquum inter nos digressum et discessum fore.

For I shall set out not to those men only of whom I spoke before, but even to my own Cato, than whom no better man has been born, none more preeminent in piety; whose body was cremated by me, whereas, contrariwise, it was fitting that mine be by him, but his spirit, not deserting me but looking back, surely departed to those places whither he discerned that I myself must come. That misfortune of mine I seemed to bear bravely, not that I bore it with an even mind, but I consoled myself, supposing that the digression and departure between us would not be long.

85. His mihi rebus, Scipio (id enim te cum Laelio admirari solere dixisti), levis est senectus, nec solum non molesta sed etiam iucunda. Quod si in hoc erro, qui animos hominum inmortalis esse credam, libenter erro; nec mihi hunc errorem, quo delector, dum vivo, extorqueri volo; sin mortuus, ut quidam minuti philosophi censent, nihil sentiam, non vereor, ne hunc errorem meum philosophi mortui irrideant. Quod si non sumus inmortales futuri, tamen exstingui homini suo tempore optabile est.

85. By these considerations, Scipio (for you said that you, together with Laelius, are accustomed to admire this), old age is light for me, and not only not troublesome but even delightful. But if in this I err, in that I believe the souls of men to be immortal, I err gladly; nor do I wish this error, in which I take delight, to be wrenched from me while I live; but if, when dead, as certain minute philosophers judge, I shall feel nothing, I do not fear that dead philosophers will mock at this my error. And if we are not going to be immortal, nevertheless for a man to be extinguished in his own time is desirable.

Nam habet natura, ut aliarum omnium rerum, sic vivendi modum. Senectus autem aetatis est peractio tamquam fabulae, cuius defatigationem fugere debemus, praesertim adiuncta satietate. Haec habui, de senectute quae dicerem, ad quam utinam perveniatis, ut ea, quae ex me audistis, re experti probare possitis.

For nature has, as of all other things, so also of living, its measure. Old age, moreover, is the completion of age, as of a play, whose fatigue we ought to flee, especially with satiety adjoined. These were the things I had to say about old age; would that you might attain to it, so that, having tested in reality, you may be able to approve the things you have heard from me.