 On Old Age, by Cicero. And should my service, Titus, ease the weight of care that rings your heart, and draw the sting which rankles there, what Geradon shall there be? For I may address you, Atticus, in the lines in which Flamininus was addressed by the man who, poor in wealth, was rich in honor's gold, though I am well assured that you are not, as Flamininus was, kept on the rack of care by night and day. For I know how well, ordered and equable your mind is, and am fully aware that it was not a surname alone which we bought home with you for mathens, but its culture in good sense. And yet, I have an idea that you are, at time, stirred to the heart by the same circumstances as myself. To console you for these is a more serious matter, and must be put off to another time. For the present, I have resolved to dedicate to you an essay on old age. For from the burden of impending, or at least advancing age, common to us both, I would do something to relieve us both, though as to yourself, I am fully aware that you support and will support it as you do everything else, with calmness and philosophy. But directly, I resolve to write on old age, you at once occurred to me as a deserving a gift of which both of us might take advantage. To myself, indeed, the composition of this book has been so delightful that it has not only wiped away all the disagreeables of old age, but has even made it luxurious and delightful too. Never therefore can philosophy be praised as highly as it deserves, considering that its faithful disciple is able to spend every period of his life with unruffled feelings. However, on other subjects I have spoken at large, and shall often speak again. This book, which I herewith send to you, is on old age. I have put the whole discourse not as a listo of costed, in the mouth of Tythonus, for a mere fable would have lacked conviction, but in that of Marcus Cato, when he was an old man, to give my essay greater weight. I represent Lelius and Scipio at his house, expressing surprise at his caring his years so lightly, and Cato answering them. If you so seem to show somewhat more learning in this discourse than he generally did in his own books, put it down to Greek literature of which it is known that he became an eager student in his old age. But what need of more? Cato's own words will at once explain all I feel about old age. M. Cato, Publis Cornelius Scipio Africanus the Younger, Gaius Lelius. Scipio. Many a time have I in conversation with my friend Gaius Lelius here expressed my admiration, Marcus Cato. Of the eminent, nay perfect wisdom displayed by you indeed at all points, but above everything because I have noticed that old age never seemed a burden to you. Went to most old men, it is so hateful that they declare themselves under a weight heavier than Etna. Cato. Your admiration is easily excited, it seems, my dear Scipio and Lelius. Men of course, who have no resources in themselves for securing a good and happy life, find every age burdensome. But those who look for all happiness from within can never think anything bad which nature makes inevitable. In that category, before anything else comes old age, to which all wish to attain and at which all grumble when attained, such as follies in consistency and unreasonableness. They say that it is stealing upon them faster than they expected. In the first place, who compelled them to hug an illusion? Or in what respect did old age steal upon manhood faster than manhood upon childhood? In the next place, in what way would old age have been less disagreeable to them if they were in their eight hundredth year than their eightieth? For the past however long when once it was past would have no consolation for a stupid old age. Wherefore, if it is your want to admire my wisdom, and I would that it were worthy of your good opinion and of my own name of sapiens, it really consists in the fact that I follow nature, the best of guides as I would of God and am loyal to her commands. It is not likely if she has written the rest of the play well that she has been careless about the last act like some idle poet. But after all, some, quote, last was inevitable, just as to the berries of a tree and the fruits of the earth there comes in the fullness of time a period of decay and fall. A wise man will not make agreements of this. To rebel against nature, is that not to fight like the giants with the gods? Leilius. And yet, Cato, you will do us a very great favor. I venture to speak for Scipio as for myself. If, since we all hope or at least wish to become old men, you would allow us to learn from you in good time before it arrives by what methods we most easily acquire the strength to support the burden of advancing age. Cato. I will do so without doubt, Leilius, especially if, as you say, it will be agreeable to Scipio as well. Leilius, we do which very much, Cato, if it's no trouble to you, to be allowed to see the nature of the born which you have reached after completing a long journey as it were upon which we too are to embark. Cato. I will do the best that I can, Leilius. It has often been my fortune to hear the complaints of my contemporaries. Like will to like. You know, according to the old proverb, complaints to which men like Salonator and Albinus, who were of consular rank in about my time, used to give vent. They were, first, that they had lost the pleasures of the senses, without which they did not regard life as full at all. And secondly, that they were neglected by those from whom they had been used to receive attentions. Such men appear to me to lay the blame on the wrong thing, for if it had been the fault of old age, then the same misfortunes would befall on me in all other men of advanced years. But I have known many of them who never said a word of complaint against old age, for they were only too glad to be freed from the bondage of passion, and were not looked at all down upon by their friends. The fact is that the blame for all complaints of that kind is to be charged to character, not to a particular time of life. For old men who are reasonable and neither cross-grained nor churlish find old age tolerable enough, whereas unreason and churlishness cause uneasiness at every time of life. It is, as you say, Cato, but perhaps someone may suggest that it is your large means, wealth and high position that makes you think old age tolerable, whereas such good fortune only falls to few. Cato. There is something in that, Lelius, but by no means all. For instance, the story is told of the answer of the mysticlies in a wrangle with a certain Seraphion, who asserted that he owed his brilliant position to the reputation of his country, not to his own. Quote, If I had been a Seraphion, said he, even I should never have been famous, nor would you if you had been an Athenian. End quote. Something like this may be said of old age, for the philosopher himself could not find old age easy to bear in the depths of poverty, nor the fool fear of anything but a burden though he were a millionaire. You may be sure, my dear Cipio and Lelius, that the arms best adapted to old age are culture and the active exercise of virtues, for if they have been maintained at every period, if one has lived much as well as long, the harvest they produce is wonderful, not only because they never fail us even in our last days, though that in itself is supremely important, but also because the consciousness of a well spent life and the recollection of many virtuous actions are exceedingly delightful. Take the case of Fabius Maximus, the man, I mean, who recovered to rent him. When I was a young man, and he an old one, I was as much attached to him as if he had been my contemporary. For that great man's serious dignity was tempered by courteous manners, nor had old age made any change in his character. True, he was not exactly an old man when my devotion to him began, yet he was nevertheless well on in life, for his first consulship fell in the year after my birth. And quite a stripling, I went with him in his fourth consulship as a soldier in a ranks on the expedition against Capua, and in a fifth year after that against Tarentum. Four years after that, I was elected Kester, holding office in the consulship of Tudantius and Cethigus, in which year indeed, he as a very old man spoke in favor of the Sincenian law, quote, on gifts and fees, end quote. Now this man conducted wars with all the spirit of youth when he was far advanced in life, and by his persistence gradually wearied out handable when riding in all the confidence of his youth. How brilliant are those lines of my friend Ineos on him. For us, down beaten by the storms of fate, one man by wise delays restored the state. Praise or dispraise moved not his constant mood, true to his purpose, to his country's good. Down ever-lengthening avenues of fame thus shines and shall shine still his glorious name. Again, what vigilance, what profound skill that he showed in the capture of Tarentum. It was indeed in my hearing that he made his favorites for Tortus Salonator, who had retreated into the citadel after losing the town. Quote, it was owing to me, Quintus Fabius, that you retook Tarentum. Quite so, he replied with a laugh, for had you not lost it, I should never have recovered it, nor was he less eminent in civil life than in war. In his second consulship, though his colleague would not move in the matter, he resisted as long as he could the proposal and the tribune flabberiness to divide the territory of the Piscinians and Gauls in free allotments and defiance of the resolution of the Senate. Again, though he was an augur, he ventured to say that whatever was done in the interest of the state was done with the best possible auspices, that any laws proposed against its interest were proposed against the auspices. I was cognizant of much that was admirable in that great man, but nothing struck me with greater astonishment than the way in which he bore the death of his son. A man of brilliant character and who had been consul. His funeral speech over him is in wide circulation, and when we read it, is there any philosopher of whom we do not think meanly, nor in truth was he only great in the light of day and in the sight of his fellow citizens, he was still more eminent in private and at home. What a wealth conversation! What weighty maxims! What a wide acquaintance with ancient history! What an accurate knowledge of the science of augury! For a Roman too, he had a great picture of letters. He had a tenacious memory for military history of every sort, whether of Roman or of foreign wars. And I used at that time to enjoy his conversation with a passionate eagerness, as though I had already divined what actually turned out to be the case, that when he died there would be no one to teach me anything. What then is the purpose of such a long disquisition on maximus? It is because you now see that old age like his cannot conscientiously be called unhappy. Yet it is after all true that everybody cannot be acipio or a maximus, with storming of cities with battles by land and sea, with wars in which they themselves commanded and with triumphs to recall. Besides this there is a quiet, pure and cultivated life which produces a calm and gentle old age, such as we have been told Plato's was, who died at his writing desk in his eighty-first year, or like that of isocrates, who says that he wrote the book called the Pangeric in his ninety-fourth year, and who lived for five years afterwards, while his master, Gorgias of Leontini, completed a hundred and seven years without ever relaxing his diligence or giving up work. When someone asked him why he consented to remain so long alive, I have no fault, said he, defined with old age. That was a noble answer, and worthy of a scholar. For fools impute their own frailties and guilt to old age, contrary to the practice of Enius, whom I mentioned just now, in the Lines, like some braves deeded off before the Olympic wreath of victory bore, now by the weight of years oppressed forgets the race and takes his rest. He compares his own old age to that of a high spirit and successful racehorse, and him indeed you may very well remember, for the present councils Titus Flamininus and Manius Acelius were elected in the ninety-ieth year after his death, and his death occurred in the consulship of Capio and Philippus, the latter council for the second time, in which year I, then sixty-six years old, spoke in favor of the Volconian law and avoids it was still strong with lungs still sound, while he, though seven years old, supported two burdens considered the heaviest of all, poverty and old age, in such a way as to be all but fond of them. The fact is, that when I come to think it over, I find there are four reasons for old age being thought unhappy. First, that it withdraws us from active employment. Second, that it enfeebles the body. Third, that it deprives us of nearly all physical pleasures. Fourth, that it is the next step to death. Of each of these reasons, if you will allow me, let us examine the force and justice separately. Old age withdraws us from active employment. From which of them? Do you mean from those carried on by youth and bodily strength? Are there then no old men's employments to be after all conducted by the intellect, evil when bodies are weak? So then Maximus did nothing, nor Amelius, your father, Scipio, and my excellent son's father-in-law. So with other old men, the Fabrici, the Curie, the Cor insani, when they were supporting the state by their advice and influence they were doing nothing. To old age, Apius Claudius had the additional disadvantage of being blind. Yet it was he who, when the state was inclining towards a peace with Pyrus and was making for a treaty, did not hesitate to say what any of us has embalmed in the verses. Whether have swerved the soul so firm of your? Is sense-growing senseless? Can feet stand no more? And so on, in a tone of the most passionate vehemence. You know the poem, and the speech of Apius himself is extant. Now he delivered at seventeen years after his second councilship, there having been an interval of ten years between the two councilships, and he having been censored before his previous councilship. This will show you that at the time of the war with Pyrus he was a very old man. Yet this is the story handed down to us. There is therefore nothing in the arguments of those who say that old age takes no part in public business. They are like men who would say that a steersman does nothing in sailing a ship, because while some of the crew are climbing the mast, others hurrying up and down the gangways, others pumping out the bilge water, he sits quietly in the stern holding the tiller. He does not do what young men do. Nevertheless, he does what is much more important and better. The great affairs of life are not performed by physical strength, or activity, or nimbleness of body, but by deliberation, character, expression of opinion. Of these, old age is not only not deprived, but as a rule has them in greater degree. Unless by any chance I, who as a soldier in the ranks, as military tribune, as legate, and as consul have been employed in various kinds of war, now will appear to you to be idle because not actively engaged in war. But I enjoined upon the senate what is to be done and how. Carthage has long been harboring evil designs, and I accordingly proclaim war against her in good time. I shall never cease to entertain fears about her till I hear of her having been leveled with the ground. The glory of doing that, I pray to the immortal gods may reserve to you, Sipio, so that you may complete the task begun by your grandfather. Now dead more than thirty-two years ago, though all the years to come will keep that great man's memory green. He died in the year before my censorship, nine years after my consulship having been returned consul for a second time in my own consulship. If then he had lived to his hundredth year, would he have regretted having lived to be old? For he would of course not have been practicing rapid marches, nor dashing on a foe, nor hurling spears from a distance, nor using swords at close quarters, but only consul reason and senatorial eloquence. And if those qualities had not resided in us seniors, our ancestors would never have called their supreme consul a senate. At Sparta indeed, those who hold the highest magistracies are in accordance with the fact actually called elders. But if you take the trouble to read or listen to foreign history, you will find that the mightiest states have been bought into peril by young men, have been supported and restored by old. The question occurs in the Poet Nevious's sport. Pray, who are those who brought your state with such despatch to meet its fate? There is a long answer, but this is the chief point. A crop of brand new orators regrew and foolish paltry lads who thought they knew. For of course rashness is the note of youth, prudence of old age, but it is said memory dwindles. No doubt, unless you keep it unless you keep it in practice or if you happen to be somewhat dull by nature. Themistocles had the names of all his fellow citizens by heart. Do you imagine that in his old age he used to address Aristides as Lysimachus? For my part, I know not only the present generation, but their father also and their grandfathers, nor have I any fear of losing my memory by reading tombstones according to the vulgar superstition. On the contrary, by reading them I renew my memory of those who are dead and gone. Nor, in point of fact, have I ever heard of any old man forgetting where his hidden his money. They remember everything that interests them. Went to answer to their bail, business appointments, who owes them money and to whom they owe it. What about lawyers, pontiffs, augers, philosophers when old? What a multitude of things they remember. Old men retain their intellects well enough if only they keep their minds active and fully employed. Nor is that the case only with men of high position in great office. It applies equally to private life and peaceful pursuits. Sophocles composed tragedies to extreme old age and being brought to court to get a judicial decision depriving him of the management of his property and the grounds of weak intellect, just as in our law it is customary to deprive a pat of familias of the management of his property if he is squandering it. Thereupon the old poet is said to have read to the judges the play he had on hand and had just composed, the Oedipus Colonius, and to have asked them whether they thought that the work of a man of weak intellect. After reading he was acquitted by the jury. Did old age then compel this man to become silent in his particular act, or Homer, Hesiod, Simonides, or Isocrates and Gorgias, whom I mentioned before, or the founders of schools of philosophy, Pythagoras, Democrates, Plato, Xenocrates, or Leto Xeno and Cleanthes, or Diogenes the Stoic, whom you too saw at Rome. Is it not rather the case with all these that the active pursuit of study only ended with life, but to pass over these sublime studies, I can name some rustic Romans from the Sabine District, neighbors and friends of my own, without whose presence farm work of importance is scarcely ever performed, whether sowing or harvesting or storing crops. And yet, in other things, this is less surprising, for no one is so old to think that he may not live a year, but they bestow their labor on what they know does not affect them in any case. He plants his trees to serve a race to come, as our old poet statue saying his comrades, nor indeed with a farmer, however old, hesitate to answer anyone who asked him for what he was planting. For the immortal gods whose will it was that I should not merely receive these things from my ancestors, but should also hand them on to the next generation, that remark about the old man is better than the following. If age bought nothing worse than this, it were enough to mar our bliss, that he who buys for many years sees much to shun and much for tears. Yes, and perhaps much that gives him pleasure too. Besides, as the subject for tears, he often comes upon them in youth as well. A still more questionable sentiment in the same Sicilius is, no greater misery can of age be told than this, be sure, the young dislike the old. Delighten them as near the mark than dislike. For just as old men, if they are wise, take pleasure in the society of young men of good parts, and as old ages rendered less dreary for those who were accorded and liked by the youth, so also do young men find pleasures in the maxims of the old, by which they are drawn to the pursuit of excellence. Nor do I perceive that you find my society less pleasant than I do yours. But this is enough to show you how, so far from being listless and sluggish, old age is ever a busy time, always doing and attempting something, of course of the same nature as each man's taste had been in the previous part of his life. Nay, do not some even add to their stock of learning? We see Solon, for instance, boasting his poems that he grows old, quote, daily learning something new, end quote. Or again, in my own case, it was only when an old man that I became acquainted with Greek literature, which in fact, I absorbed with such avidity in my yearning to quench as it wore a long continued thirst that I became acquainted with the very facts which you now see me using as precedence. When I heard what Socrates had done about the liar, I should have liked from my part to have done that too. For the ancients used it to learn the liar, but at any rate, I worked hard at literature. Nor again, do I now miss the bodily strengths of a young man, for that was the second point as to the disadvantages of old age. Any more, than as a young man, I miss the strength of a bull or an elephant. You should use what you have and at whatever you may chance to be doing, do it with all your might. What could be weaker than Milo of Croton's exclamation? When in his old age he was watching some athletes practicing in the course, he is said to have looked at his arms and to have exclaimed with tears in his eyes. Ah, well, these are now as good as dead. Not a bit more so than yourself, you trifler, for at no time were you made famous by your real self, but by the chest and biceps. Sixteen years alias never gave Ventus such a remark, nor many years before him, Titus Caruncunanus, nor more recently Peacrossus, all of them learned to jurist consults and acted to practice, whose knowledge of their profession was maintained to their last breath. I am afraid that an orator does lose vigor by old age, for his art is not a matter of the intellect alone, but of lungs and bodily strength. There was a rule that musical ring and the voice seeming gains in brilliance in a certain way as one grows old. Certainly, I have not yet lost it, and you see my years. Yet after all, the style of being suitable to an old man is the quiet and unemotional, and it often happens that the chasing and calm delivery of an old man eloquent secures a hearing. If you cannot attain that at yourself, you might still instruct the Scipio and the Leilius, for what is more charming than old age surrounded by the enthusiasm of youth? Shall we not allow old age even the strength to teach the young to train and equip them for all the duties of life? And what can be a nobler employment? From my part, I used to think Publius and Gnaeus Scipio and your two grandfathers, Emilius and Africana, fortunate men, when I saw them with a company of young nobles about them. Nor should we think any teachers of the fine arts otherwise than happy, however much of their bodily forces may have decayed and failed. And yet that same failure of the body forces is more often brought about by the vices of youth than of old age, for a disloot and intemperate youth hands down the body to old age in a worn-out state. Xenophon Cyrus, for instance, in his discourse delivered on his deathbed and at a very advanced age says that he never perceived his old age to have become weaker than his youth had been. I remember as a boy, Lucius Medellus, who, having been created Pontifex Maximus four years after his second consulship, held that office twenty-two years, enjoying such excellent strength of the body in the very last hours of his life as to not miss his youth. I need not speak of myself, though that indeed is an old man's way and is generally allowed into my time of life. Don't you see in Homer how frequently Nestor talks of his own good qualities? For he was living through a third generation, nor had he any reason to fear that upon saying what was true about himself, he should appear either overvane or talkative. For as Homer says, from his lips flowed discourse sweeter than honey, for which sweet breath he wanted no bodily strength. And yet, after all, the famous leader of the Greeks nowhere wishes to have ten men like Ajax, but like Nestor, if you could get them, he feels no doubt of Troy shortly falling. But to return to my own case, I am in my 84th year. I could wish that I had been able to make the same boast to Cyrus, but after all, I can say this. I am not indeed as vigorous as I was as a private soldier in the Punic War, or as a quest during the same war or as a consul in Spain, and four years later when as military tribune I took part in the engagement at Thermophili under the council Marcus Acelisk Lebrio. But yet, as you see, old age has not entirely destroyed my muscles, has not quite brought me to the ground, the Senate House does not find all my vigor gone nor the rostra, nor my friends, nor my clients, nor my foreign guests, for I have never given into that ancient and much praised proverb, old when young is old for long. For myself, I had rather be an old man a somewhat shorter time than an old man before my time. Accordingly, no one up to the president wished to see me to whom I have been denied as engaged. But as it may be said, I have less strength than either of you. Neither have you the strength of the Centurion T. Pontius. Is he the more eminent man on that account? Let there be only a proper husband of strength, and let each man proportion his efforts to his powers. Such a one will assuredly not be possessed with any great regret for the Lord's loss of strength. At Olympia, Milo is said to have stepped into the course carrying a live ox on his shoulders. Which then of the two would you prefer to have given to you? Bodily strength like that? Or intellectual strength like that of Pythagoras? In fine, enjoy the blessing when you have it. When it is gone, don't wish it back, unless we are to think that young men should wish their childhood back, and those somewhat older their youth. The course of life is fixed, and nature admits of it being run, but in one way, and only once, and to each part of our life there is something especially seasonable, so that the feebleness of children, as well as the high spirit of youth, the soberness of mature years and the ripe wisdom of old age, all have a certain natural advantage which should be secured in its proper season. I think you are informed, Sipio, what your grandfather's foreign friend Massenisa does to this day, though 90 years old. When he has once begun a journey on foot, he does not mount his horse at all. When on horseback, he never gets off his horse. By no rain or cold, can he be induced to cover his head. His body is absolutely free from unhealthy humors, and so he still performs all the duties and functions of a king. Active exercise, therefore, and temperance can preserve some part of one's former strength, even in old age. Bodily strength is wanting to old age, but neither is bodily strength demanded from old men. Therefore, both by law and custom, men of my time of life are exempt from those duties which cannot be supported without bodily strength. Accordingly, not only are we not forced to do what we cannot do. We are not even obliged to do as much as we can. But it will be said, many old men are so feeble that they cannot perform any duty in life of any sort or kind. That is not a weakness to be set down as peculiar to old age. It is one shared by ill health. How feeble was the son of Africanus who adopted you. What weak, healthy had, or rather no health at all. If that had not been the case, we should have had him in a second brilliant light in political horizon, for he had added a wider cultivation to his father's greatness of spirit. What wonder then that old men are eventually feeble when even the young cannot escape it? My dear laelius and sipio, we must stand up against old age and make up for its drawbacks by taking pains. We must fight it as we should in illness. We must look after our health, use moderate exercise, take just enough food and drink to recruit but not to overload our strength. Nor is it the body alone that must be supported, but the intellect and soul much more. For they are like lamps. Unless you feed them with oil, they too go out from old age. Again, the body is apt to get gross from exercise, but the intellect becomes nimbler by exercising itself. For what Cecilis means by, quote, old daughters of the comic stage, end quote, are the credulous to forgetful in a slip shot. These are false that do not attach to old age as such, but to a sluggish, spiritless, and sleepy old age. Young men are more frequently wanted and disloyal than old men. But yet, as it is not all young men that are so, but the bad set among them, even so senile fondly, usually called a facility, applies to old men of unsound character, not to all. Appiest govern four sturdy sons, five daughters, that great establishment and all those clients though he was both old and blind. For he kept his mind at full stretch like a bow and never gave in to old age by growing slack. He maintained not merely an influence, but an absolute command over his family. His slaves feared him, his sons were in awe of him, all loved him. In that family indeed, ancestral custom and discipline were in full vigor. The fact is that old age is respectable just as long as it asserts itself, maintains its proper rights and is not enslaved to anyone. For as I admire young man who is something of the old man in him, so do I an old one who is something of a young man. The man who aims at this may possibly become old and body, in mind he never will. I am now engaged in composing the seventh book of my origins. I collect all the records of antiquity, the speeches delivered in all celebrated cases which I have defended. I am at this particular time getting into shape for publication. I am writing treatises on agro, pontifical and civil law. I am besides studying hard at Greek and after the manner of the Pythagoreans to keep my memory in working order. I repeat in the evening whatever I have said, heard or done in the course of each day. These are the exercises of the intellect. These the training grounds of the mind. While I sweat and labor on these I don't much feel the loss of bodily strength. I appear in court for my friends. I frequently attend the Senate and bring motions before it on my own responsibility, prepared after deep and long reflections. And these I support by my intellectual, not my bodily forces. And if I were not strong enough to do these things, yet I should enjoy my sofa. Imagining the very operations which I was now unable to perform. But what makes me capable of doing this is my past life. For a man who is always living in the midst of these studies and labors does not perceive when old age creeps up on him. Thus by slow and imperceptible degrees life draws to an end. There is no sudden breakage. It just slowly goes out. The third charge against old age is that it lacks sensual pleasures. What a splendid service does old age render if it takes from us the greatest plot of youth. Listen, my dear young friends, to a speech of Arctius of Tarentum, among the greatest and most illustrious of men, which was put into my hands when as a young man I was at Tarentum with Maximus, quote, no or deadly cursed and sensual pleasure has been inflicted on mankind by nature to gratify which our wanton appetites arouse beyond all prudence or restraint. It is a fruitful source of treasons, revolutions, secret communications with the enemy. In fact, there is no crime, no evil deed to which the appetite for sensual pleasures is not impelled us. Fornications and adulteries and every abomination of that kind are brought about by the enticements of pleasure and by them alone. Intellect is the best gift of nature or God. To this divine gift and endowment there is nothing so inimicable as pleasure. For when appetite is our master there is no place for self-control nor where pleasure reigns supreme can virtue hold its ground. To see this more vividly, imagine a man excited to the highest conceivable pitch of sensual pleasure. It can be doubtful to know when that such a person so long as under the influence of such excitation of the senses will be unable to use to any purpose either intellect, reason, or thought. Therefore nothing can be so exeggable Therefore nothing can be so exeggable and so fatal as pleasure. Since when more than ordinarily violent and lasting it darkens all the light of the soul." These were the words addressed by Arctius to the Salmonite Gaius Pontius, father of the man by whom the consul spurious posthumous and tightest veritorious were beaten in the battle of Claudium. My friend Nurchius of Tarentium, who would remain loyal to Rome, told me that he has heard them repeated by some old men, and that Plato the Athenian was present who visited Tarentum I find in the consul shipped of Camillus and Apius Claudius. What is the point of all this? It is to show you that if we were unable to score in pleasure by the aid of reason and philosophy we ought to have been very grateful to old age for depriving us of all inclination for that which it was wrong to do. For pleasure hinders thought is a foe to reason and so to speak blinds the eyes of the mind. It is moreover entirely alien to virtue. I was sorry to have to expel Lucius, brother of the gallant tightest flamininus from the senate seven years after his consulship, but I thought it imperative to affix a stigma on an act of gross sensuality. For when he was in Gaul as consul he had yielded to the entreaties of paramour at a dinner party to behead a man who happened to be in prison condemned on a capital charge. When his brother Titus was censor, who preceded me, he escaped. But I and flakus could not countenance an act of such criminal unabandoned lust, especially as, besides the personal dishonor, it brought disgrace on the government. I have been told by men older than myself, who said that they have heard it as boys from older men, that Gaus Fabricius was in the habit of expressing astonishment and having heard when envoyed the headquarters of King Pyrus from the Thessalion Cineus and his brother that there was a man of Athens who professed to be a philosopher and who affirmed that everything we did was to be heard to as pleasure. When he told us to Mannyus Curius and Publius Dessius, they used to remark that they wished that the Samnites and Pyrus himself would hold the same opinion. It would be much easier to conquer them if they had once given themselves over to sensual indulgence. Mannyus Curius had been intimate with P. Dessius, who four years before the former's consul shift had devoted himself to death for the Republic. Both Fabricius and Caron Canlius knew him also and from the experience of their own lives as well as from the action of Dessius they were of the opinion that there did exist something intrinsically noble and great which was sought for its own sake and at which all the best men aimed to the contempt and neglect of pleasure. Why then do I spend so many words on a subject of pleasure? Why? Because far from being a charge against old age that it does not much feel to want of any pleasure it is its highest praise. But you will say it is deprived of the pleasures of the table, the heaping upboard, the rapid passing of the wine cup. Well then it is also free from headache, disorder, digestion, broken sleep. But if we must grant pleasure something since we do not find it easy to resist its charms for Plato with happy inspiration calls pleasure vice's bait because of course men are caught by it as a fish by a hook. Yet although old age has to abstain from extravagant banquets it is still capable of enjoying modest festivities. As a boy I often used to see Gaius Dullius, the son of Marcus, then an old man returning from a dinner party. He thoroughly enjoyed the frequent use of torch and flute player. Distinctions which he had assumed though unprecedented in the case of a private person. It was the privilege of his glory. But why mention others? I will come back to my own case. To begin with I have always remained a member of a club. Clubs you know were established in my kestership on reception of the Magna Mater from Ida. So I used to dine at their feast with members of my club. On the whole with moderation though there was a certain warmth that temperamental natural in my time of life. But as that advances there is a daily decrease of all excitement. Nor was I in fact ever want to measure my enjoyment even of these banquets by the physical pleasures they gave more than by the gathering and conversation of friends. For it was a good idea of our ancestors to style the presence of guests at a dinner table seeing that it implied a community of enjoyment. A convivium, a living together. It is a better term than the Greek words which mean a drinking together or an eating together. For they would seem to give the preference to what is really the least important part of it. For myself owing to the pleasure I take in conversation I enjoy even banquets that begin early in afternoon. And not only in company with my contemporaries of whom very few survive but also with men of your age and with yourselves. I am thankful to old age which has decreased my avidity for conversation while it has removed that for eating and drinking. But if anyone does enjoy these not to seem to have proclaimed war against all pleasure without exception which is perhaps a feeling inspired by nature. I fail to perceive even in these very pleasures that old age is entirely without the power of appreciation. For myself I take delight even in the old fashioned appointment of Master of the Feast and in the arrangement of the conversation which according to ancestral custom is begun from the last place on the left hand couch when the wine is bought in. And also in the cups which as in Xenophon's banquet are small and filled by driblets and in the contrivance for cooling in the summer and for warming in the winter sun or winter fire. These things I keep up even among my Sabian countrymen and every day have a full dinner party of neighbors which we prolong as far into the night as we can with varied conversation. But you may urge there is not the same tingling sensation of pleasure in old men. No doubt but neither do they miss it so much. For nothing gives you uneasiness which you do not miss. That was a fine answer of Sophocles to a man who asked him when in extreme old age whether he was still a lover heaven forbid he replied I was only too glad to escape from that as though from abortion insane master. The men indeed who are keen after such things it may possibly appear disagreeable and uncomfortable to be without them. But to jaded appetites it is pleasant to lack than to enjoy. However he cannot be said to lack who does not want. My contention is not to want is a pleasanter thing but even granting that youth enjoys these pleasures with more zest in the first place they are insignificant things to enjoy as I've said and in the second place such as age is not entirely without if it does not possess them in profusion. Just as a man gets greater pleasure from ambivious terpio seated in the front row of the theater than if he was in the blast yet after all the man in the last row does get pleasure. So youth because it looks at pleasure at close quarters perhaps enjoys it more yet even old age looking at them from a distance does enjoy itself well enough. Why what blessings are these that the soul having served its time so to speak in the campaigns of desire and ambition rivalry and hatred and all the passions should live in its own thoughts and as the expression goes should dwell apart. Indeed if it has in store any of what I may call the food of study and philosophy nothing can be pleasanter than an old age of leisure. We were witnesses to Galleus the friend of your father Scipio intent to the day of his death on mapping out the sky and land how often did the light surprise him and still working on a problem begun during the night how often did night find him busy on what he had begun at dawn how he delighted in predicting for us solar and lunar eclipses long before they occurred. Or again in studies of a lighter nature though still required in keenness of intellect what a pleasure nevious took in his punic war Plattus in his Truculentus and Seudalus I even saw Livius Andronicus who having produced to play six years before I was born in the consulship of Cinto and two Danches lived till I'd become a young man. Why speak of Publius Lysius and Crassus devoted to Pontifical and Cifical law or Publius Scipio or the present time who within these last few days has been created Pontifix Maximus and yet I have seen all whom I have mentioned ardent in these pursuits when old men then there is Marcus Cethigus whom any is just called quote persuasions marrow quote with what enthusiasm did we see him exert himself in oratory even when quite old what pleasure are there in feast games or mistresses compared to the pleasure such as these and they are all taste to connected with learning which in men of sense and good education grow with their growth it is indeed an honorable sentiment which Olin expresses in a verse which I've quoted before that he grew old learning many a fresh lesson every day then that intellectual pleasure none certainly can be greater I come now to the pleasures of the farmer in which I take amazing delight these are not hindered by any extent of old age and seem to me to approach nearest the ideal wise man's life which never refuses as obedience nor ever returns what it has received without usury sometimes indeed with less but generally with greater interest for my part however it is not merely the thing produced but the earth's own force and natural productiveness to delight me for having received in its bosom the seeds scattered broadcast upon it soften and broken up she first keeps it concealed therein hence to harrowing which accomplishes this gets its name from a word meaning to hide next when it has been warmed by her heat and close pressure she splits it open and draws from it the greenery of the blade this supported by the fibers of the root little by little grows up and held upright by its jointed stock is enclosed in sheets as still being immature when it has emerged from them it produces an ear of corn arranged in order and is defended against the pecking of the smaller birds by a regular palisade of spikes need I mentioned to let you into the secret what gives my old age repose an amusement for I say nothing here of the natural force which all things propagated from the earth's possess the earth from which that tiny grain in the fig or the grape stone in a grape or the most minute seeds of the other cereals and plants produces such huge trunks and boughs mallet chute slips cuttings quicksets layers are they not enough to fill anyone with the light and astonishment the vine by nature is up to fall and unless supported drops down to earth yet in order to keep itself upright it embraces whatever reaches with its tendrils as though they were hands then as it creeps on spreading itself intricate and wild profusion the dresser's art prunes it with a knife and prevents it growing a forest of shoots and expanding excess in every direction accordingly at the beginning of spring in the shoots which have been left there protrudes at each of the joints what is termed an I from this the grape emerges and shows itself which swollen by the juice of the earth and heat of the sun is at first very bitter to the taste but afterward grows sweet as it matures and being covered with tendrils is never without a moderate warmth and yet is able to ward off the fiery heat of the sun can anything be richer in product or more beautiful to contemplate it is not its utility only as I said before that charge me but the method of its cultivation and the natural process of its growth the rows of uprights the crosspieces for the tops of the plants the tying up of the vines in their propagation by layers the pruning to which I have already referred of some shoots the setting of others I need hardly mention irrigation or trenching and digging the soil which much increase its fertility as to the advantages of maneuvering I have spoken my book of agriculture the learned Hesia did not see a single word on the subject that we was writing on the cultivation of soil yet Homer who in my opinion was many generations earlier represents laertes a softening his regret for his son by cultivating and maneuvering his farm nor is it only in cornfields and meadows and vineyards and plantations that a farmer's life is made cheerful there are the garden and the orchard the feeding of sheep the swarms of bees endless varieties of flowers nor is it only planting out the charms there is also grafting surely the most ingenious invention ever made by husbandmen I might continue my list of the delights of country life but even what I've said I think is somewhat over long however you must pardon me for farming is a very favorite hobby of mine an old age is naturally rather garrulous for I would not be thought to acquitted of all faults well it wasn't a life of this sort that many is curious after celebrating triumphs over the salmonites the say beans and pirates spent his last days when I look at his villa for it is not far for my own I can never enough admire the man's own frugality or the spirit of the age as curious was sitting at his hearth the salmonites who brought him a large some of gold were repulsed by him for it was not he said a fine thing in his eyes to possess gold but to rule those who possessed it could such a high spirit fell to make old age pleasant but to return to farmers not to wander far for my own mediate in those days there were senators that is old men on their farms for Cincinnati was actually at the plow when word was bought to him that he had been named dictator it was by his order is dictator by the way that a holla the master of the horse when attempting to obtain royal power curious as well as other old men used to receive their summons is to attend a Senate in their farmhouses from which circumstances the summons were called vayatires or travelers was this men's old age an object of pity who found their pleasure in the cultivation of the land in my opinion scarcely any life could be more blessed not alone from its utility for agriculture is beneficial to the whole human race but also as much from the mere pleasure of the thing to which I've already alluded and from the rich abundance and supply of all things necessary for the food of man and for the worship of the gods above so as these are objects of desire to certain people let us make our peace with pleasure for the good and hard-working farmers wine settle on an oil store as well at his larder are always well filled and his whole farmhouse is richly furnished it abounds and pigs goats lambs fouls milk cheese and honey then there is the garden it's the farmers themselves called their second flitch a zest and flavor is added to all these by hunting and fowling and spare hours need I mentioned the greenery of meadows the rows of trees the beauty of the vineyard and olive grove I will but put it briefly nothing can either furnish necessities more richly or present a fairer spectacle than well-cultivated land and to the enjoyment of that old age does not merely present no hindrance it actually invites and allures to it for where else can it better warm itself either by basking in the sun or by sitting by the fire or at the proper time cool itself more wholesomely by the help of shade and water let the young keep their arms then to themselves their horses spears their foils and ball their swimming baths and running path to us old men let them out of the many forms of sport leave dice and counters but even that as they choose since old age can be quite happy without them Xenophon's books are very useful for many purposes pray go on reading them with attention as you have ever done in what ample terms is agriculture lauded by him in the book about husband and one's property which is called economics but to show you that he thought nothing so worthy of a princess to taste for cultivating the soil I will translate what Socrates says to credible list in that book when that most gallant last the demonian Lysander came to visit the person Prince Cyrus at Sardist so eminent first character in the glory of his rule bringing him present some of the allies he treated Lysander in all ways with courteous familiarity and kindness and among other things took him to see a certain part carefully planted Lysander expressed admiration of the height of the trees and the exact arrangement of the rows into Queen Koonix the careful cultivation of the soil is freedom from weeds and the sweetness of the odors exhaled from the flowers and went on to say that what he admired was not the industry only but also the skill of the man by whom this had been planned and laid out it was I who planted the whole thing these rows are my doing and laying out is all mine many of the trees were even planted by my own hand then Lysander looking at his purple robe the brilliance of his person in the adornment Persian fashion with gold and many jewels said people are quite right Cyrus to call you happy since the advantages of high fortune have been joined to an excellence like yours this kind of good fortune then it is in the power of old men to enjoy Nor his age any bar to our maintaining pursuits of every other kind and especially of agriculture to the very extreme birds of old age for instance we have it on record that Valerius Corvus kept it up to his hundredth year living on his land and cultivating after this active career was over though between his first and six console ships there was an interval of six and forty years so that he had an official career lasting the number of years which our ancestors defined as coming between birth and the beginning of old age moreover that last period of his old age was more blessed than that of his middle life and as much as he had greater influence and less labor for the crowning grace of old age is influence how great was that of Celius medallus how great that of Attilus Colatinus over whom the famous epitaph was placed very many classes agree in deeming this to have been the very first man of the nation the line cut on his tomb is well known it is natural then that a man should have had influence in whose praise the verdict of history is unanimous again in recent times what a great man was who believes crosses Pontifex Maximus and his successor in the same office and Lepidus I need scarcely mentioned Paulus or Africanus or as I did before Maximus it was not only their senatorial utterances that had wait their least gesture had it also in fact old age especially when it has enjoyed honors has an influence worth all the pleasures of youth put together but throughout my discourse remember that my panjiric applies to an old age that has been established on foundations laid by youth from which may be deduced what I once said with universal applause that it was a wretched old age that had to defend itself by speech neither white hairs nor wrinkles can at once claim influence in themselves it is the honorable conduct of earlier days that is rewarded by possessing influence at the last even things generally regarded as trifling and matters of course being saluted being courted having way made for one people rising when one approaches respect observed among us and in other states always most sedulously where the moral tone is highest they say that Lysander the Spartan who I mentioned before used to remark that Sparta was the most dignified home for old age for that nowhere was more respect paid to years nowhere was old age held in higher honor nay the story is told of how when a man advanced in years came into the theater but when he came near the Lacedaemonians who as ambassadors had a fixed place assigned to them they rose as one man out of respect for him and gave the veteran a seat when they were greeted with rounds of applause from the whole audience one of them remarked the Athenians know what is right but we'll not do it there are many excellent rules in our inaugural college but among the best is one which affects our subject that precedence and speech goes by seniority and augurs who are older not only to those who have held higher office but even to those who are actually in possession of Imperium what then are the physical pleasures to be compared with the reward of influence those who have employed it with distinction appear to me have played the drama of life to its end and not to have broken down in the last act like unpracticed players but it will be said old man are fretful fidgety ill tempered and disagreeable if you come to that they are also avaricious but these are faults of character not of the time of life and after all fretfulness in the other faults I mentioned admits of some excuse not indeed a complete one but one that may possibly pass muster they think themselves neglected looked down upon mocked besides with bodily weakness every rub is a source of pain yet all these faults are softened by both good character and good education illustrations of this be found in real life as also on the stage in the case of the brothers in the Delphi what harshness in the one what gracious manners in the other the fact is that justice is not every wine so it is not every life that turns sour from keeping serious gravity I prove of in old age but as in other things it must be within due limits bitterness I can in no case approve what the object of senile avarice may be I cannot conceive for can there be more absurd than to seek more journey money the lesser remains of the journey there remains the fourth reason which more than anything else appears to torment men of my age and keep them in a flutter the nearness of death which it must be allowed cannot be far from an old man but what a poor daughter it must be who has not learnt in the course of so long a life that death is not a thing to be feared death that is either to be totally disregarded if it entirely extinguishes the soul or is even to be desired if it brings him worries to exist forever the third alternative at any rate cannot possibly be discovered why then should I be afraid if I am destined either not to be miserable after death or even to be happy after all who was such a fool as to feel certain however young he may be that he will be alive in the evening nay that time of life has many more chances of death than ours young men more easily contract diseases their illnesses their treatment has to be more severe accordingly only a few arrive at old age if that were not so life would be conducted better and more wisely for it is an old man that thought reason and prudence are to be found and if there had been no old men states would never have existed at all but I return to the subject of the imminence of death what sort of charge is this against old age when you see that it is shared by I had reason in the case of my excellent son as you had Cypio and that of your brothers who were expected to attain the highest honors to realize that death is common to every time of life yes you will say but a young man expects to live long an old man cannot expect to do so well he is a fool to expect it for what can be more foolish than to regard the uncertain as certain the false is true an old man has nothing even to hope ah but it is just there that he is in a better position than the young man since what the latter only hopes he has obtained the one wishes to live long the other has lived long and yet good heavens what is long in a man's life for grant the utmost limit let us expect an age like that of the king of Tartesi for there was as I find recorded a certain Agonius at Gades who reigned 80 years and lived 120 but to my mind nothing seems even long in which there is any last for when that arrives then all the past has slipped away only that remains to which you have attained by virtue and righteous actions ours indeed and days and month and years depart nor does past time ever return nor can the future be known whatever time each is granted for life with that he is bound to be content an actor in order to earn approval is not bound to perform a play and let him only satisfy the audience of whatever act he appears nor need a wise man go on to the concluding plodite for a short term of life is long enough for living well and honorably but if you go farther you have no more right to grumble than farmers do because the charm of the spring season has passed and the summer of autumn have come for the word spring in a way suggests youth and points to the harvest to be the other seasons of the crops now the harvest of old ages as I have often said the memory and rich door blessings laid up in earlier life again all things that accord with nature are to be counted as good but what can be more in accordance with nature than for old men to die a thing indeed which also befall young men though nature revolts and fights against it accordingly the death of water but old men die like a fire going out because it is burnt down of its own nature without artificial means again just as apples when unripe are torn from trees but when ripe and mellow drop down so it is violence that takes the life from young men ripeness from old this ripeness is so delightful to me that as I approach nearer to death I seem as it were to be sighting land and to be coming to port at last after a long voyage again there is no fixed borderline for old age and you are making a good and proper use of it as long as you can satisfy the call of duty and disregard death the result of this is that old age is even more confident and courageous than youth that is the meeting of Solon's answer to the tyros pististratus when the latter asked him what he relied upon and opposing him with such boldness he is said to have replied on my old age but that end of life is the best when without the intellect or senses being impaired that herself takes to pieces her own handiwork which she also put together just as the builder of a ship or a house can break them up more easily than anyone else so the nature and together the human frame can also best unfasten it moreover a thing freshly glued together is always difficult to pull sunder if old this is easily done the result is that the short time of life left to them is not to be grasped by old men with greedy eagerness or abandoned without cause by thagorous forbids us without an order from our commander that is God to deserts life fortress and outpost solence epitaph indeed is that of a wise man in which he says that he does not wish his death to be unaccompanied by the sorrow of lamentations of friends he wants I suppose to be beloved by them but I rather think any asses it better none grace me with their tears nor weeping loud make sad my funeral rites death is not a subject for mourning when it is followed by immortality again there may possibly be some sensation of dying and that only for a short time especially in the case of an old man after death indeed sensation is either what one would desire or it disappears altogether but to disregard death is a lesson which must be studied from our youth up for unless that is learnt no one can have a quiet mind it may not be at this very day a death therefore is hanging over our head every hour how can a man ever be unshaken in soul if he fears it but on this theme I don't think I need much in large when I remember what Lucius Brutus did who was killed while defending his country or the two desi-i who spurred their horses to a gallop and met a voluntary death or Attilius Regulus who left or the two Cipios who determined to block to Carthenian advance even with their own bodies or your grandfather Lucius Paulus who paid with his life for the rations of his colleagues in the disgraced Caini or Marcellus whose death not even the most bloodthirsty of enemies would allow to go without the honour of burial it is enough to recall that our legions as I've recorded in my origins have often marched with cheerful and lofty spirit to ground from which they believed they would never return not only uninstructed but absolutely ignorant treat as of no account shall men who are neither young nor ignorant shrink from in terror as a general truth as it seems to me it is weariness of all pursuits that creates weariness of life there are certain pursuits adapted to childhood do young men miss them? there are others suited to early manhood does that settle time of life called middle age asked for them? there are others again suited to that age but not look for an old age there are finally some which belong to old age therefore as the pursuit of the earlier ages have their time for disappearing so also those of old age and when that takes place satiety of life brings on the right time for death for I do not see why I should not venture to tell you my personal opinion as to death of which I see myself to have a clearer vision and proportion as I am nearer to it I believe Sipio and Leilius that your fathers those illustrious men and my dearest friends are still alive and that too with a life which alone deserves the name for as long as we are imprisoned in this framework of the body we perform a certain function and laborious work assigned us by fate the soul in fact is of heavenly origin forced down from its home in the highest and so to speak buried in earth a place quite opposed to its divine nature and its immortality but I suppose the immortal gods to have sown souls broadcast in human bodies that there might be some to survey the world and while contemplating the order of the heavenly bodies to imitate it an unvarying regularity of their life nor is it only reason and arguments that have brought me to this belief but the great fame and authority of the most distinguished philosophers I used to be told that Pythagoras and Pythagoreans almost natives of our country who in old times had been called the Italian school of philosophers drafted from the universal divine intelligence I used besides to have pointed out to me the discourse delivered by Socrates on the last day of his life upon the immortality of the soul Socrates who was pronounced by the oracle at Delphi to be the wisest of men I need say no more I have convinced myself and I hold in the view of the rapid movement of the soul its vim and memory of the past and its prophetic knowledge of the future its many accomplishments its vast range of knowledge its numerous discoveries that in nature embracing such varied gifts cannot itself be mortal and since the soul is always in motion and yet has no external source of motion for it is self moved I conclude again that will also have no end to its motion because it is not likely ever to abandon itself again since the nature of the soul is not composite nor has in it any admixture that is not homogeneous and similar I conclude that it is indivisible and if indivisible that it cannot perish it is again a strong proof of men knowing most things before birth that when mere children they grasp innumerable facts with such speed as to show that they are not then taking them in for the first time but remembering and recalling them this is roughly Plato's argument once more in Xenophon we have the elder Cyrus on his deathbed speaking as follows do not suppose my dear sons that when I have left you I shall be nowhere and no one even when I was with you you did not see my soul but knew it was a body of mine from what I did believe then that it is still the same even though you see it not the honors paid to illustrious men had not continued to exist after their death had the souls of these very men not done something to make us retain our recollection of them beyond the ordinary time for myself I never could be persuaded that soul while and mortar bodies were alive and died directly they left them nor in fact that the soul only lost all intelligence when it left leave rather than when by being liberated from all corporeal admixture it has begun to be pure and undefiled it is then that it becomes wise and again when a man's natural frame is resolved into its elements by death it is clearly seen whether each of the other elements departs for they all go to the place from which they came but the soul alone is invisible alike when present and when departing once more you see that nothing is so like death by their divine nature for they foresee many events when they are allowed to escape and are left free this shows what they are likely to be when they have completely free themselves from the fetters of body wherefore if these things are so obey me as a god but if my soul is to perish with my body nevertheless do you from all of the gods who guard and govern this fair universe preserve my memory by the loyalty and piety of your lives and now with your good leave look at home no one, my dear Scipio shall ever persuade me that your father Paulus and your two grandfathers Paulus and Africanus or the father of Africanus or his uncle or many other illustrious men not necessary to mention would have attempted such lofty deeds as to remember by posterity had they not seen in their minds that the future ages concerned them do you suppose to take an old man privilege of little self praise such heavy labors by day and night at home and abroad if I had been destined to have the same limit to my glory as to my life had it not been much better to pass an age of ease and repose without any labor or exertion but my soul I know not how refusing to be kept down ever fixed its eyes upon future ages as though from a conviction that it would begin to live only when it had left the body but had it not been cast that souls were immortal just efforts after an immortality of fame again is there not the fact that the wisest man ever dies with the greatest cheerfulness and the most unwise with the least don't you think that the soul which has the clearer and longer sight see that it is starting for better things while the soul whose vision is dimmer does not see it from my part I am transported with the desire to see your fathers who of whom I have been told and have read whom I have myself recorded in my history when I am sitting out for that there is certainly no one who will find it easy to draw me back or boil me up again like second Peleos nay if some god should grant me to renew my childhood from my present age and once more to be crying in my cradle I would firmly refuse nor should I be in truth willing after having as it were run the full course I would rather say what labor but granting that it has at any rate it has after all a limit either to enjoyment or to existence I don't wish to depreciate life as many men and good philosophers have often done nor do I regret having lived for I have done so in a way that lets me think that I was not born in vain but I quit life as I wouldn't in not as I would at home for nature has given us a place and I shall set out to join that heavenly conclave and company of souls and apart from the turmoil and purities of this world for I shall not go to join only those who I have before mentioned but also my son Kato then whom no better ban was never born nor one more conspicuous for piety his body was burnt by me though mine ought on the country to have been burnt by him must come I was thought to bear that loss heroically not that I really bore it without distress but I found my own consolation in the thought that the parting and separation between us was not to be for long it is by these means my dear Sibio for you said to you and ladies for want to express a prize on this point that my old age sits lightly to be wrong nor will I allow the mistake which gives me so much pleasure to be rested from me as long as I live but if when dead as some insignificant philosophers think I am to be without sensation I am not afraid dead philosophers deriding my errors again if we are not to be immortal is nevertheless what a man must wish to have his life end as well old age is as it were the playing out of the drama the full fatigue of which we should shun especially when we also feel that we have had more than enough of it this is all I had to say on old age I pray that you may arrive at it that you may put my words to a practical test end of on old age by Cicero read by 2411.com Cleveland, Ohio, September 2007 on the unjust causes of war by Hugo Gotjes this is a Liberfox recording all Liberfox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit Liberfox.org recording by Anna Simon on the unjust causes of war by Hugo Gotjes or Hugo de Groot chapter 22 from the rights of war and peace published in 1625 translated by AC Campbell 1901 in a former part of this work where the justice of war was discussed it was observed that some wars were founded upon real motives and others only upon colorable pretexts this distinction was first noticed by Polybius who calls the pretexts prophecies and the real causes thus Alexander made war upon Darius under the pretense of avenging the former wrongs done by the Persians to the Greeks but the real motive of that bold and enterprising hero was the easy acquisition of wealth and dominion which the expeditions of Xenophon and Acce Laos had opened to his view in the same manner a dispute about second time furnished the Catterginians with colorable modality they could not brook the indignity of having consented to a treaty which the Romans had extorted from them at an unfavorable moment and more especially as their spirits were revived by their recent successes in Spain the real causes assigned by Tucydides for the Peloponnesian war were the jealousies entertained by the lessidimonians of the then growing power of the Athenians though the quarrels of the Corcurians and other secondary states there are some who have neither ostensible reasons nor just causes to plead for their hostilities in which as Thesedos says they engage from the pure love of enterprise and danger a disposition to which Aristotle gives the name of ferocity and in the last book of his Nicomachean ethics he calls it a bloody cruelty to convert friends into enemies whom you may slaughter engaging in war are desires to color over their real motives with justifiable pretexts yet some totally disregarding such methods of vindication seem able to give no better reason for their conduct than what is told by the Roman lawyers of a robber who being asked what right he had to a thing which had seized replied it was his own because had taken it into his possession Aristotle in the third book of his rhetoric speaking of the promoters of war asks what is done just for a neighboring people to be enslaved and if those promoters have no regard to the rights of unoffending nations Cicero in the first book of his offices speaks in the same strain and calls the courage which is conspicuous in danger and enterprise if devoid of justice absolutely undeserving of the name of valor it should rather be considered as a brutal fierceness outraging every principle of humanity of pretexts which though plausible at first sight will not bear the examination and test of moral rectitude and when stripped of their disguise such pretexts will be found fraught with injustice in such hostilities says Livy it is not a trial of right but some object of secret and unruly ambition which acts as the chief spring most powers it is said by Plutarch employ the relative situations of peace for the purchase of whatever they deem expedient by having before examined and established the principles of just and necessary war we may form a better idea of what goes to the constitute the injustice of the same as the nature of things is best seen by contrast and we judge of what is crooked by comparing it with what is trade but for the sake of perspicuity it will be necessary to treat upon the leading apprehensions from a neighbouring power are not a sufficient ground for war for to authorise hostilities as a defensive measure they must arise from the necessity which just apprehensions create apprehensions not only of the power but of the intentions of a formidable state and such apprehensions as amount to a moral certainty for which reason the opinion of those is by no means the construction of fortifications in a neighbouring country with whom there is no existing treaty to prohibit such constructions or the securing of a stronghold which may at some future period prove a means of annoyance for as a guard against such apprehensions every power may construct in its own territory strong works and other military securities of the same kind without having any conditions for which there is no tension the hardship and the vulnerability of the security of the military and with the resistance of the , and with the和 the responsibility breed of horses to form a well-mounted cavalry, and, with all these advantages, upholding their reputation in the midst of peace. Nor can the advantage to be gained by a war be ever pleaded as a motive of equal weight and justice with necessity. Neither can the desire of emigrating to a more favourable soil and climate justify an attack upon a neighbouring power. This, as we are informed by Thacitus, was a frequent cause of war among the ancient Germans. There is no less injustice in setting up claims under the pretence of newly discovered titles to what belongs to another. Neither can the wickedness and impiety nor any other incapacity of the original owner justify such a claim, for the title and right by discovery can apply only to countries and places that have no owner. Under moral nor religious virtue nor any intellectual excellence is requisite to form a good title to property. Only where a race of man is so destitute of reason as to be incapable of exercising any active ownership, they can hold no property, nor will the law of charity require that they should have more than the necessaries of life. For the rules of the law of nations can only be applied to those who are capable of political or commercial intercourse, but not to a people entirely destitute of reason, though it is a matter of just doubt whether any such is to be found. It was an absurdity therefore when the Greeks disposed that difference of manners or inferiority of intellect made those whom they were pleased to call barbarians their natural enemies. But as to atrocious crimes striking at the very root and existence of society, the forfeiture of property ensuing from thence is a question of a different nature, belonging to punishments, under the head of which it was discussed. But neither the independence of individuals nor that of states is a motive that can at all times justify recourse to arms, as if all persons indiscriminately had a natural right to do so. For where liberty is said to be a natural right belonging to all men and states, by that expression is understood a right of nature and decedent to every human obligation or contract. But in that case liberty is spoken of in a negative sense, and not by way of contrast to independence, the meaning of which is that no one is by the law of nature doomed to servitude, though he is not forbidden by that law to enter into such a condition. For in this sense no one can be called free if nature leaves him not the privilege of choosing his own condition, as Abush's pertinently remarks, the terms freedom and servitude are not founded in the principles of nature, but are names subsequently applied to men according to the dispositions of fortune. And Aristotle defines the relations of master and servant to be the result of political and not of natural appointment. Whenever therefore the condition of servitude, either personal or political, subsists from lawful causes, men should be contented with that state according to the injunction of the apostle, art thou cold being a servant that not that be an anxious concern? And there is equal injustice in the desire of reducing, by force of arms, any people to a state of servitude under the pretext of its being the condition for which they are best qualified by nature. It does not follow that, because any one is fitted for a particular condition, another has a right to impose it upon him. For every reasonable creature ought to be left free in the choice of what may be deemed useful or prejudicial to him, provided another has no just right to a control over him. The case of children has no connection with the question, as they are necessarily under the discipline of others. It would scarcely have been necessary to refute the foolish opinion of some who have ascribed to the Roman emperors dominion over the most remote and unknown nations if Bartolos, deemed a lawyer of the first eminence, had not pronounced it heresy to deny those pretensions. This opinion has been built upon the Roman emperors sometimes having styled himself sovereign of the whole world, a term which was not unusual for many people to apply to their own country. Thus, in the scriptures we find Judea frequently called the whole inhabited earth. Therefore, when the Jews in their proverbial expression called Jerusalem the centre of the world, nothing more is to be implied than that it was situated in the middle of Judea. As to the argument in favour of universal dominion from its being so beneficial to mankind, it may be observed that all its advantages are counterbalanced by still greater disadvantages, for as a ship may be built too large to be conveniently managed, so an empire may be too extensive in population and territory to be directed and governed by one head. Such granting the expediency of universal empire, that expediency cannot give such a right as can be acquired only by treaty or conquest. There were many places formally belonging to the Roman empire over which the emperor has at present no control. For war, treaty or session have made many changes by which the rights of territory have passed to other states or sovereign princes and the standards of different communities, whether kingdoms or commonwealths, now wave in places which the Roman eagle once overshadowed with his wings. These are losses and changes that have been experienced by other powers no less than that which was once mistress of the world. But there have been some who have asserted the rights of the church over unknown parts of the world, though the apostle Paul himself has expressly said that Christians were not to judge those who were without the pill of their own community, and though the right of judging which belonged to the apostles might in some cases apply to worldly concerns, yet in its general nature it was of celestial rather than an earthly kind, a judgment not exercised by fire and sword, but by the word of God, proposed to all men and adapted to their peculiar circumstances, a judgment exercised by displaying or withholding the seals of divine grace as it might be most expedient. Lastly, it was a judgment exercised in supernatural punishments, in punishments proceeding from God, like the punishments of Ananias, Elimas, Hemenias and others. Christ himself, the spring from whence all the power of the church was derived and whose life is the model for the church to follow, said his kingdom was not of this world, that is, was not of the same nature with other kingdoms, otherwise like the rest of sovereigns he would have maintained his authority by the power of the sword, for if he had pleased to call up the aid of legions he would have called up hosts of angels and not of men, and every exercise of his right was performed by the influence of divine and not of human power, even when he drove the cellars out of the temple, for the rod was the emblem and not the instrument of divine wrath, as Unction was once a sign of healing and not the healing power itself. St. Augustine, on the 18th chapter of St. John, and 36th verse, invites sovereign princes into this kingdom in these terms, quote, here, O Jews and Gentiles, here, O earthly sovereigns, I will not obstruct your authority, for my kingdom is not of this world. Be not alarmed like Herod, who trembled when he heard that Christ was born and slew so many innocent children, hoping to include the Saviour in that calamity. His fear shoot itself in cruel wrath, but my kingdom, says Christ, is not of this world, therefore enter this kingdom without fear. Come with faith, and provoke not the king to anger by your delay, end of quote. There is a caution too necessary to be given against drawing too close a parallel between ancient and modern times, for it is but seldom that anyone can induce a case exactly conformable to his own circumstances. To draw such pretexts from the interpretation of prophecy is the highest presumption. For no prophecy that is yet to be fulfilled can be unfolded without the aid of a prophetic spirit. The times even of events that are certain may escape our notice, nor is it every prediction unless it be accompanied with an express command from God that can justify recourse to arms. Sometimes indeed God brings his predicted designs to their issue by the means of wicked instruments. As the imperfect obligations of charity and other virtues of the same kind are not cognisable in a court of justice, so neither can the performance of them be compelled by force of arms. For it is not the moral nature of a duty that can enforce its fulfilment, but there must be some legal right in one of the parties to exact the obligation. For the moral obligation receives an additional weight from such a right. This obligation therefore must be united to the former to give a war the character of a just war. Thus a person who has conferred a favour has not, strictly speaking, a right to demand a return, for that would be converting an act of kindness into a contract. It is necessary to observe that a war may be just in its origin, and yet the intentions of its authors may become unjust in the course of its prosecution. For some other motive, not unlawful in itself, may actuate them more powerfully than the original right for the attainment of which the war was begun. It is laudable, for instance, to maintain national honour. It is laudable to pursue a public or a private interest, and yet those objects may not form the justifiable grounds of the war in question. A war may gradually change its nature and its object from the prosecution of a right to the desire of seconding or supporting the aggrandisement of some other power. But such motives, though blamable, when even connected with a just war, do not render the war itself unjust, nor invalidate its conquests. End of On the Unjust Causes of War by Hugo Jotis. This recording is in the public domain. The Sacredness of Work by Thomas Carlisle. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Sacredness of Work All true work is sacred. In all true hand labour, there is something of divineness. Labour wide as the earth has its summit in heaven. Sweat of the brow, and up from that to sweat of the brain, sweat of the heart, which includes all Kepler's calculations, Newton's meditations, all sciences, all spoken epics, all acted heroism, martyrdoms, up to that agony of bloody sweat, which all men have called divine. O brother, if this is not worship, then I say, the more pity for worship. For this is the noblest thing yet discovered under God's sky. Who art thou that complainest of thy life of toil? Complain not. Look up, my wearied brother. See thy fellow workmen there, in God's eternity, surviving there. They alone surviving. Sacred band of the immortals. Full bodyguard of the empire of mind. Even in the weak human memory, they survive so long, as saints, as heroes, as gods. They alone surviving. Peopling the immeasured solitudes of time. To thee, heaven though severe, is not unkind. Heaven is kind as a noble mother. As that Spartan mother saying, while she gave her son his shield, quote, with it my son, or upon it, end quote. Thou too, shalt return home, in honor to thy far distant home. Doubt it not. If in the battle thou keep thy shield, end of The Sacredness of Work by Thomas Carlyle. Coming by Robert Scott. September the 13th, 2007. SESSION By Alexander H. Stevens. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. SESSION Mr. President, this step of secession, once taken, can never be recalled, and all the baleful and withering consequences that must follow will rest on the convention for all coming time. When we and our posterity shall see our lovely South desolated by the demon of war, which this act of yours will inevitably invite and call forth, when our green fields of waving harvest shall be trodden down by the murderous soldiery and fiery car of war, sweeping over our land. Our temples of justice laid in ashes, all the horrors and desolation of war upon us. Who but this convention will be held responsible for it? Who but him who shall have given his vote for the unwise and ill-timed measure, as I honestly think and believe, shall be held to strict account for this suicidal act by the present generation, and probably cursed and execrated by posterity for all coming time? For the wide and desolating ruin that will inevitably follow this act, you now propose to perpetrate. Pause, I entreat you, and consider for a moment what reasons you can give that will even satisfy yourselves in calmer moments. What reason you can give to your fellow sufferers in the calamity that it will bring upon us? What reason can you give the nations of the earth to justify it? They will be the calm and deliberate judges in this case, and what cause or one overt act can you name or point, on which to rest the plea of justification? What right has the North assailed? What interest of the South has been invaded? What justice has been denied? And what claim founded in justice and right has been withheld? Can either of you today name one governmental act of wrong deliberately and purposely done by the government of Washington, of which the South has a right to complain? I challenge the answer, while on the other hand let me show the facts of which I wish you to judge, and I will only state the facts, which are clear and undeniable, and which now stand as records authentic in the history of our country. When we of the South demanded the slave trade, or the importation of Africans for the cultivation of our lands, did they not yield the right for twenty years? When we asked a three-fifths representation in Congress for our slaves, was it not granted? When we asked and demanded the return of any fugitive from justice, or the recovery of those persons owing labor or allegiance, was it not incorporated in the Constitution, and again ratified and strengthened by the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850? But do you reply that in many instances they have violated this compact and have not been faithful to their engagements? As individual and local communities they may have done so, but not by the sanction of government, for that has always been true to Southern interests. Again gentlemen, look at another act. When we have asked that more territory should be added, that we might spread the institution of slavery. Have they not yielded to our demands in giving us Louisiana, Florida, and Texas? From these four states have been carved, and ample territory for four more is to be added in due time. With you by this unwise and impolitic act, do not destroy this hope and perhaps by it lose all, and have your last slave wretched from you by stern military rule as South America and Mexico were, or by the vindictive decree of a universal emancipation which may reasonably be expected to follow. But again, gentlemen, what have we to gain by this proposed change of our relation to the general government? We have always had the control of it, and can yet, if we remain in it, and are as united as we have been. We have had a majority of the presidents chosen from the South, as well as the control and management of most of those chosen from the North. We have had sixty years of Southern presidents to their twenty-four, thus controlling the Executive Department. So of the judges of the Supreme Court, we have had eighteen from the South, and but eleven from the North. Although nearly four-fifths of the judicial business has arisen in the free states, yet a majority of the court has always been from the South. This we have required so as to guard against any interpretation of the Constitution unfavorable to us. In like manner, we have been equally watchful to guard our interests in the legislative branch of government. In choosing the presidents of the Senate, we have had twenty-four to their eleven. Judges of the House, we have had twenty-three, and they twelve. While the majority of the representatives from the greater population have always been from the North, yet we have generally secured the speaker, because he, to a great extent, shapes and controls the legislation of the country. Or have we had less control in every other department of the general government? Attorney Generals, we have had fourteen, while the North have had but five. Foreign Ministers, we have had eighty-six, and they but fifty-four. While three-fourths of the business, which demands diplomatic agents abroad, is clearly from the free states, from their greater commercial interests, yet we have had the principal embassies, so as to secure the world markets for our cotton, tobacco, and sugar on the best possible terms. We have had a vast majority of the higher offices of both Army and Navy, while a larger proportion of the soldiers and sailors were drawn from the North. Again, from official documents, we learn that a fraction over three-fourths of the revenue collected for the support of the government has uniformly been raised from the North. Leaving out a view for the present, the countless millions of dollars you must expend in a war with the North, with tens of thousands of your sons and brothers slain in battle and offered up as sacrifices upon the altar of your ambition. And for what? We ask again, is it for the overthrow of the American government, established by our common ancestry, cemented and built up by their sweat and blood, and founded on the principles of right, justice, and humanity? And as such I must declare here, as I have often done before, and which has been repeated by the greatest and wisest of statesmen and patriots in this and other lands, that it is the best and freest government, the most equal in its rights, the most just in its decisions, the most lenient in its measures, and the most aspiring in its principles, to elevate the race of men that the Son of Heaven ever shone upon. Now for you to attempt to overthrow such a government as this, under which we have lived for more than three quarters of a century, in which we have gained our wealth, our standing as a nation, our domestic safety, while the elements of peril are around us, with peace and tranquility accompanied with unbounded prosperity and rights unassailed, is the height of madness, folly and wickedness, to which I neither lend my sanction nor my vote, footnote, delivered at the Georgia State Convention January 1861.