Treatises on Friendship and Old Age
2. _Scipio_. Many a time have I in conversation with my friend Gaius
Laelius 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, while to most old men it is so hateful that they declare themselves
under a weight heavier than Aetna.
_Cato_. Your admiration is easily excited, it seems, my dear Scipio
and Laelius. 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 is Folly's inconsistency 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? For 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 in their eightieth?
For their past, however long, when once it was past, would have no
consolation for a stupid old age. Wherefore, if it is your wont to
admire my wisdom--and I would that it were worthy of your good opinion
and of my own surname of Sapiens--it really consists in the fact that I
follow Nature, the best of guides, as I would a 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 "last" was inevitable, just as to the berries of a
tree and the fruits of the earth there comes in the fulness of time a
period of decay and fall. A wise man will not make a grievance of this.
To rebel against nature--is not that to fight like the giants with the
gods?
_Laelius_. And yet, Cato, you will do us a very great favour (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 may most easily acquire the
strength to support the burden of advancing age.
_Cato_. I will do so without doubt, Laelius, especially if, as you say,
it will be agreeable to you both.
_Laelius_ We do wish very much, Cato, if it is no trouble to you, to
be allowed to see the nature of the bourne which you have reached after
completing a long journey, as it were, upon which we too are bound to
embark.
3. _Cato_. I will do the best I can, Laelius. It has often been my
fortune to bear the complaints of my contemporaries--like will to like,
you know, according to the old proverb--complaints to which men like C.
Salinator and Sp. Albinus, who were of consular rank and 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 life 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 these same
misfortunes would have befallen me and 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 at all looked 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.
_Laelius_ It is as you say, Cato. But perhaps some one may suggest that
it is your large means, wealth, and high position that make you think
old age tolerable: whereas such good fortune only falls to few.
_Cato_. There is something in that, Laelius, but by no means all. For
instance, the story is told of the answer of Themistocles in a wrangle
with a certain Seriphian, who asserted that he owed his brilliant
position to the reputation of his country, not to his own. "If I had
been a Seriphian," said he, "even I should never have been famous, nor
would you if you had been an Athenian." 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 feel it anything but a
burden though he were a millionaire. You may be sure, my dear Scipio
and Laelius, that the arms best adapted to old age are culture and the
active exercise of the 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.
4. Take the case of Q. Fabius Maximus, the man, I mean, who recovered
Tarentum. 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. When quite a stripling
I went with him in his fourth consulship as a soldier in the ranks, on
the expedition against Capua, and in the fifth year after that against
Tarentum. Four years after that I was elected Quaestor, holding office
in the consulship of Tuditanus and Cethegus, in which year, indeed,
he as a very old man spoke in favour of the Cincian law "on gifts and
fees."
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 Hannibal,
when rioting in all the confidence of youth. How brilliant are those
lines of my friend Ennius 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 did he show in the capture of
Tarentum! It was indeed in my hearing that he made the famous retort to
Salinator, who had retreated into the citadel after losing the town: "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 of the tribune C. Flaminius
to divide the territory of the Picenians and Gauls in free allotments in
defiance of a resolution of the Senate. Again, though he was an augur,
he ventured to say that whatever was done in the interests of the State
was done with the best possible auspices, that any laws proposed against
its interest were proposed against the auspices. I was cognisant 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 of
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 tincture of letters. He had a tenacious
memory for military history of every sort, whether of Roman or
foreign wars. And I used at that time to enjoy his conversation with a
passionate eagerness, as though I already divined, what actually turned
out to be the case, that when he died there would be no one to teach me
anything.
5. What then is the purpose of such a long disquisition on Maximus? It
is because you now see that an old age like his cannot conscientiously
be called unhappy. Yet it is after all true that everybody cannot be a
Scipio or a Maximus, with stormings 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 Panegyric 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 some one
asked him why he consented to remain so long alive--"I have no fault,"
said he, "to find 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 Ennui, whom I mentioned just now. In the
lines--
Like some brave steed that oft 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-spirited and successful
race-horse. And him indeed you may very well remember. For the present
consuls Titus Flamininus and Manius Acilius were elected in the
nineteenth year after his death; and his death occurred in the
consulship of Caepio and Philippus, the latter consul for the second
time: in which year I, then sixty-six years old, spoke in favour of
the Voconian law in a voice that was still strong and with lungs
still sound; while be, though seventy 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 that there are
four reasons for old age being thought unhappy: First, that it withdraws
us from active employments; 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.
6. OLD AGE WITHDRAWS US FROM ACTIVE EMPLOYMENTS. 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, even when bodies are weak? So then Q. Maximus did
nothing; nor L. Aemilius--our father, Scipio, and my excellent son's
father-in-law! So with other old men--the Fabricii, the Guru and
Coruncanii--when they were supporting the State by their advice and
influence, they were doing nothing! To old age Appius Claudius had the
additional disadvantage of being blind; yet it was he who, when the
Senate was inclining towards a peace with Pyrrhus and was for making a
treaty, did not hesitate to say what Ennius has embalmed in the verses:
Whither have swerved the souls so firm of yore?
Is sense grown senseless? Can feet stand no more?
And so on in a tone of the most passionate vehemence. You know the