Treatises on Friendship and Old Age
natural to my time of life; but as that advances there is a daily
decrease of all excitement. Nor was I, in fact, ever wont 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.
14. For myself, owing to the pleasure I take in conversation, I enjoy
even banquets that begin early in the 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
increased 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 brought in; as also in the cups which,
as in Xenophon's banquet, are small and filled by driblets; and in the
contrivance for cooling in summer, and for warming by the winter sun or
winter fire. These things I keep up even among my Sabine countrymen, and
every day have a full dinner-party of neighbours, 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 a boorish and insane master." To
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 pleasanter to lack than to enjoy. However, he cannot be
said to lack who does not want: my contention is that not to want is the
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 have 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 Ambivius Turpio if seated in the front row at the theatre than if
he was in the last, yet, after all, the man in the last row does get
pleasure; so youth, because it looks at pleasures at closer quarters,
perhaps enjoys itself 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 C. Gallus--a friend of your
father's, Scipio--intent to the day of his death on mapping out the sky
and land. How often did the light surprise him while still working out
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 requiring keenness of intellect, what
pleasure Naevius took in his _Punic War_! Plautus in his _Truculentus_
and _Pseudolus_! I even saw Livius Andronicus, who, having produced
a play six years before I was born--in the consulship of Cento and
Tuditanus--lived till I had become a young man. Why speak of Publius
Licinius Crassus's devotion to pontifical and civil law, or of the
Publius Scipio of the present time, who within these last few days
has been created Pontifex Maximus? And yet I have seen all whom I have
mentioned ardent in these pursuits when old men. Then there is Marcus
Cethegus, whom Ennius justly called "Persuasion's Marrow"--with what
enthusiasm did we see him exert himself in oratory even when quite old!
What pleasures are there in feasts, games, or mistresses comparable to
pleasures such as these? And they are all tastes, too, connected with
learning, which in men of sense and good education grow with their
growth. It is indeed an honourable sentiment which Solon expresses in a
verse which I have quoted before--that he grew old learning many a fresh
lesson every day. Than that intellectual pleasure none certainly can be
greater.
15. 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 to the ideal wise man's life. For he has to deal
with the earth, which never refuses its 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
that delight me. For received in its bosom the seed scattered broadcast
upon it, softened and broken up, she first keeps it concealed therein
(hence the 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 fibres of the root, little by little grows
up, and held upright by its jointed stalk is enclosed in sheaths, as
being still 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 mention the starting, planting, and growth of vines? I can never
have too much of this pleasure--to let you into the secret of what gives
my old age repose and amusement. For I say nothing here of the natural
force which all things propagated from the earth possess--the earth
which from that tiny grain in a 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-shoots, slips, cuttings, quicksets,
layers--are they not enough to fill anyone with delight and
astonishment? The vine by nature is apt to fall, and unless supported
drops down to the earth; yet in order to keep itself upright it embraces
whatever it reaches with its tendrils as though they were hands. Then
as it creeps on, spreading itself in intricate and wild profusion, the
dresser's art prunes it with the knife and prevents it growing a forest
of shoots and expanding to 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 eye. From this the grape emerges and
shows itself; which, swollen by the juice of the earth and the heat
of the sun, is at first very bitter to the taste, but afterwards 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 charms me, but the
method of its cultivation and the natural process of its growth: the
rows of uprights, the cross-pieces for the tops of the plants, the tying
up of the vines and 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 manuring I have spoken
in my book on agriculture. The learned Hesiod did not say a single word
on this subject, though he was writing on the cultivation of the soil;
yet Homer, who in my opinion was many generations earlier, represents
Laertes as softening his regret for his son by cultivating and manuring
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 that charms: there
is also grafting--surely the most ingenious invention ever made by
husbandmen.
16. I might continue my list of the delights of country life; but even
what I have said I think is somewhat over long. However, you must
pardon me; for farming is a very favourite hobby of mine, and old age is
naturally rather garrulous--for I would not be thought to acquit it of
all faults.
Well, it was in a life of this sort that Manius Curius, after
celebrating triumphs over the Samnites, the Sabines, and Pyrrhus, spent
his last days. When I look at his villa--for it is not far from my
own--I never can enough admire the man's own frugality or the spirit of
the age. As Curius was sitting at his hearth the Samnites, who brought
him a large sum 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 fail to make old age pleasant?
But to return to farmers--not to wander from my own metier. In those
days there were senators, _i. e_. old men, on their farms. For L.
Quinctius Cincinnatus was actually at the plough when word was brought
him that he had been named Dictator. It was by his order as Dictator,
by the way, that C. Servilius Ahala, the Master of the Horse, seized
and put to death Spurius Maelius when attempting to obtain royal power.
Curius as well as other old men used to receive their summonses to
attend the Senate in their farm-houses, from which circumstance the
summoners were called _viatores_ or "travellers." Was these men's old
age an object of pity who found their pleasure in the cultivation of the
land? In my opinion, scarcely any life can 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 have 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 farmer's
wine-cellar and oil-store, as well as his larder, are always well
filled, and his whole farm-house is richly furnished. It abounds in
pigs, goats, lambs, fowls, milk, cheese, and honey. Then there is the
garden, which the farmers themselves call their "second flitch." A zest
and flavour is added to all these by hunting and fowling in spare hours.
Need I mention the greenery of meadows, the rows of trees, the beauty
of vineyard and olive-grove? I will put it briefly: nothing can either
furnish necessaries 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