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write to you something on Old Age; for of this burden which I have in common with you of old age, either now weighing upon, or at any rate approaching us, I wish both you and myself to be relieved, although I am very sure that you indeed bear it, and will bear it, with temper and wisdom (as you do all things). But to my mind, when I was about to write an essay on old age, you occurred as worthy of a gift, which each of us might enjoy in common. For my part I have found the composition of this book so delightful, that it has not only wiped off all the annoyance of old age, but has rendered old age even easy and delightful. Never, therefore, can philosophy be praised in a manner sufficiently worthy, inasmuch as he who obeys philosophy is able to pass every period of life without irksomeness. But upon other subjects we both have discoursed much, and often shall discourse: this book, on the subject of old age, I have sent to you. And all the discourse we have assigned not to Tithonus,' as Aristo' the Chian did, lest there should be too little of authority in the tale; but to Marcus Cato,' when an old man, that the discourse might carry with it the greater weight; at whose house we introduce Lælius* and Scipio, expressing their wonder that he so patiently bears old age, and him replying to them. And if he shall appear to discourse more learnedly than he himself was accustomed to do in his own books, ascribe it to Greek literature, of which it is well known that he was very studious in old age. But what need is there to say more? for now the conversation of Cato himself shall unfold all my sentiments on old age.

II. SCIPIO. I am very often accustomed with my friend here, C. Lælius, to admire as well your surpassing and accomplished wisdom in all other matters, O Marcus Cato, as also especially that I have never perceived old age to be

1

Tithonus, son of Laomedon, king of Troy. He was carried away by Aurora, who made him immortal.

2 Aristo, a philosopher of Chios, a pupil of Zeno the Stoic.

M. Cato. M. Porcius Cato was a Roman censor, famed for the strictness of his morals. He died at an advanced age, about B.C. 151. He wrote a work called "Origines," i. e., antiquities, some fragments of which are still extant.

4 Lælium. C. Lælius, a Roman consul, A.U.C. 614. He was the intimate friend of Africanus the younger, and is the principal character in Cicero's treatise, "De Amicitiâ."

burdensome to you; which to most old men is so disagreeable, that they say they support a burden heavier than Ætna. CATO. It is not a very difficult matter, Scipio, and Lælius, which you seem to be surprised at; for to those who have no resource in themselves for living well and happily, every age is burdensome; but to those who seek all good things from themselves, nothing can appear evil which the necessity of nature entails; in which class particularly is old age, which all men wish to attain, and yet they complain of it when they have attained it; so great is the inconsistency and waywardness of folly. They say that it steals over them more quickly than they had supposed. Now, first of all, who compelled them to form a false estimate of its progress? for how does old age more quickly steal upon youth, than youth upon boyhood? Then, again, how would old age be less burdensome to them, if they were in their 800th year than in their 80th? for the past time, however long, when it had flowed away, would not be able to soothe with any consolation an old age of folly. Wherefore, if you are accustomed to admire my wisdomand I would that it were worthy of your high opinion and my surname in this I am wise that I follow nature, that best guide, as a god, and am obedient to her;' by whom it is not likely, when the other parts of life have been well represented, that the last act should have been ill done, as it were, by an indolent poet. But yet it was necessary that there should be something final, and, as in the berries of trees and the fruits of the earth, something withered and falling through seasonable ripeness; which must be taken quietly by a wise man for what else is it, to war with nature, than, after the manner of the giants, to fight with the gods? LELIUS. But, Cato, you will do a very great favor to us, as I may also engage on behalf of Scipio, if inasmuch as we hope, or at

"The acknowledgment of the intention of the Creator as the proper rule of man's actions, has sometimes been expressed by saying that men ought to live according to nature, and that virtue and duty are according to nature, vice and moral transgression contrary to nature; for man's nature is a constitution in which reason and desire are elements, but of these elements it was plainly intended that reason should control desire, not that desire should overmaster reason."-Whewell's Elements of Morality, book iv. cap. 10.

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Seneca also has a similar idea: "Quid enim aliud est natura quam deus et divina ratio toti mundo et partibus ejus inserta."-De Benef. iv. 7.

least desire, to become old men, we shall have learned long before from you by what methods we may most easily be able to bear the increasing burden of age. CATO. Well, I will do so, Lælius; especially if, as you say, it is likely to be pleasant to each of you. SCIPIO. In truth we wish, unless it be irksome, Cato, just as if you had completed some long journey, on which we also must enter, to see of what nature that spot is at which you have arrived.

III. CATO. I will do it as well as I shall be able, Lælius; for I have often been present at the complaints of men of my own age (and equals with equals, according to the old proverb, most easily flock together), and have heard the things which Caius Salinator and Spurious Albinus, men of consular rank, and nearly of my age, were wont to deplore: on the one hand, that they had no pleasures, without which they thought life was valueless; on the other, that they were neglected by those by whom they had been accustomed to be courted, in which they appeared to me not to accuse that which deserved accusation; for if that happened from the fault of old age, the same things would be experienced by me and all others advanced in years: and yet the old age of many of them I have remarked to be without complaint, who were grieved to be let free from the thralldom of the passions, and were not looked down upon by their friends; but of all complaints of this kind, the fault lies in the character of the man, not in his age. For old men of regulated minds, and neither testy nor ill-natured, pass a very tolerable old age. But a discontented and ill-natured disposition is irksome in every age.' LELIUS. It is as you say, Cato. But perhaps some

not

1 "It may very reasonably be suspected that the old draw upon themselves the great part of those insults which they so much lament; and that age is rarely despised but when it is contemptible. If men imagine that excess of debauchery can be made reverend by time; that knowledge is the consequence of long life, however idly and thoughtlessly employcd; that priority of birth will supply the want of steadiness or honesty, can it raise much wonder that their hopes are disappointed, and that they see their posterity rather willing to trust their own eyes in their progress into life, than enlist themselves under guides who have lost their way? "He that would pass the latter part of life with honor and decency, must, when he is young, consider that he shall one day be old; and remember, when he is old, that he has once been young. In youth he must lay up knowledge for his support, when his powers of acting shall forsake him; and in age forbear to animadvert with rigor on faults which experience only can correct."-Johnson's Rambler, No. 50.

one may say, that to you, on account of your wealth, and resources, and dignity, old age appears better to endure, but that this can not be the lot of many. CATO. That to be sure, Lælius, is something, but all things are by no means involved in it as Themistocles is said to have replied to a certain man of Seriphus' in a dispute, when the other had said that he had gained distinction, not by his own glory, but by that of his country; neither, by Hercules, said he, if I had been a man of Seriphus, should I ever have been eminent, nor if you had been an Athenian, would you ever have been renowned. Which, in like manner, can be said about old age. For neither can old age be easy in extreme poverty, not even to a wise man; nor to a foolish man, even in the greatest plenty, otherwise than burdensome. The fittest arms of old age, Scipio and Lælius, are the attainment and practice of the virtues; which, if cultivated at every period of life, produce wonderful fruits when you have lived to a great age; not only, inasmuch as they never fail, not even in the last period of life-and yet that is a very great point-but also because the consciousness of a life well spent, and the recollection of many virtuous actions, is most delightful.'

3

IV. I, when a young man, was as fond of Quintus Maximus, the same who recovered Tarentum, though an old man, as if he had been one of my own age.

For there

1 Seriphus was a barren island, or rock, in the Egean Sea, used by the Romans as a place of banishment for criminals:

"Cui vix in Cyclada mitti

Contigit, et parvâ tandem caruisse Seripho."

Juvenal, 6th Sat. 56. lib. iii.

2 "As to all the rational and worthy pleasures of our being, the conscience of a good fame, the contemplation of another life, the respect and commerce of honest men; our capacities for such enjoyments are enlarged by years. While health endures, the latter part of life, in the eye of reason, is certainly the more eligible. The memory of a well-spent youth gives a peaceable, unmixed, and elegant pleasure to the mind; and to such who are so unfortunate as not to be able to look back on youth with satisfaction, they may give themselves no little consolation that they are under no temptation to repeat their follies, and that they at present despise them."-Spectator, No. 153.

3 Quintus Maximus, a Roman general of the Fabian family, who received the surname of Cunctator from his harassing Hannibal by delays. After the battle of Cannæ, he retook Tarentum from the Carthaginians. Virgil alludes to him in a passage quoted from Ennius, in the Æneid, Book vi. 846, "Unus qui nobis cunctando restituit rem."

was in that man dignity refined by courtesy; nor had old age changed his character. And yet I began to cultivate his acquaintance when he was not a very old man, but still when somewhat advanced in age. For he had been consul for the first time in the year after I was born, and in his fourth consulship I, then a stripling, marched with him as a soldier to Capua, and in the fifth year after, as quæstor to Tarentum; I was next made ædile, and four years afterward prætor, an office which I held in the consulship of Tuditanus' and Cethegus, when he, a very old man, was the promoter of the Cincian' law, about fees and presents. He both carried on campaigns like a young man when he was quite old, and by his temper cooled Hannibal when impetuous from the fire of youth, about whom our friend Ennius has admirably spoken :-"Who alone, by delay retrieved our state; for he did not value rumor above our safety, therefore brighter and brighter is now the glory of that man." And with what vigilance, with what talent did he recover Tarentum? When too, in my hearing, as Salinator, who, after losing the town, had taken refuge in the citadel, was boasting and speaking thus: "It was owing to my exertions, Quintus Fabius, that you recovered Tarentum." Unquestionably," said he, laughing, "for unless you had lost it, I should never have regained it." Nor in truth was he more excellent in arms than in civil affairs; for, in his second consulship, when Spurius Carvilius, his colleague, was neuter, he made a stand to the utmost of his power against Caius Flaminius, tribune of the commons, when he was for distributing the Picenian and Gallic land to individuals, contrary to the authority of the senate; and when he was augur, he had the spirit to say that those things were performed with the best auspices which were performed for the welfare of the commonwealth; that those things which were undertaken against the commonwealth were undertaken in opposition to the auspices. Many excellent points have I 1 Consulibus Tuditano, etc. A.U.C. 550.

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2 A law enacted by M. Cincius, tribune of the people, A.U.C. 549. By this law no one was allowed to receive a present for pleading a cause.

3 "Homer," says Melmoth, "puts a sentiment of the same spirited kind into the mouth of Hector. That gallant prince, endeavoring to force the Grecian intrenchments, is exhorted by Polydamas to discontinue the attack, on occasion of an unfavorable omen which appears on

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