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.This, indeed, I have not yet lost, and you see how old I am.But the eloquence that becomes one of advanced years is calm and gentle, and not infrequently a clear-headed old man commands special attention by the simple, quiet elegance of his style.If, however, you cannot attain this merit, you may be able at least to give wholesome advice to Scipio and Laelius.You can at least help others by your counsel; and what is more pleasant than old age surrounded by young disciples? Must we not, indeed, admit that old age has sufficient strength to teach young men, to educate them, to train them for the discharge of every duty? And what can be more worthy of renown than work like this? I used to think Cneius and Publius Scipio, and, Scipio, your two grandfathers, Lucius Aemilius and Publius Africanus, truly fortunate in being surrounded by noble youth; nor are there any masters of liberal culture who are not to be regarded as happy, even though their strength may have failed with lengthened years.This failure of strength, however, is due oftener to the vices of youth than to the necessary infirmity of age; for a licentious and profligate youth transmits to one’s later years a worn-out bodily constitution.Cyrus indeed, in his dying speech which Xenophon records, though somewhat advanced in years, says that he has never felt that his old age was more feeble than his youth.I remember in my boyhood Lucius Metellus, who, having been made high-priest four years after his second consulate, served in that office twenty-two years, and was to the very last in such full strength that he did not even feel the loss of youth.There is no need of my speaking of myself, though that is an old man’s habit, and is conceded as a privilege of age.X.Do you not know how very often Homer introduces Nestor as talking largely of his own merits? Nor was there any fear that, while he told the truth about himself, he would incur the reproach of oddity or garrulity; for, as Homer says, “words sweeter than honey flowed from his tongue.” For this suavity of utterance he had no need of bodily strength; yet for this alone the leader of the Greeks, while not craving ten like Ajax, says that with ten like Nestor he should be sure of the speedy fall of Troy.— But to return to my own case, I am now in my eighty-fourth year.I should be glad if I could make precisely the same boast with Cyrus; yet, in default of it, I can say this at least, that, while I am not so strong as I was when a soldier in the Punic war, or a Quaestor in the same war, or Consul in Spain, or when, four years afterward, I fought as military Tribune at Thermopylae, in the consulate of Manius Acilius Glabrio, still, as you see, old age has not wholly unstrung my nerves or broken me down.Neither the Senate, nor the rostrum, nor my friends, nor my clients, nor my guests miss the strength that I have lost.Nor did I ever give assent to that ancient and much-lauded proverbial saying, that you must become an old man early if you wish to be an old man long.I should, indeed, prefer a shorter old age to being old before my time.Thus no one has wanted to meet me to whom I have denied myself on the plea of age.Yet I have less strength than either of you.Nor have you indeed the strength of Titus Pontius the centurion.Is he therefore any better than you? Provided one husbands his strength, and does not attempt to go beyond it, he will not be hindered in his work by any lack of the requisite strength.It is said that Milo walked the whole length of the Olympian race-ground with a living ox on his shoulders; but which would you prefer, — this amount of bodily strength, or the strength of mind that Pythagoras had? In fine, I would have you use strength of body while you have it: when it fails, I would not have you complain of its loss, unless you think it fitting for young men to regret their boyhood, or for those who have passed on a little farther in life to want their youth back again.Life has its fixed course, and nature one unvarying way; each age has assigned to it what best suits it, so that the fickleness of boyhood, the sanguine temper of youth, the soberness of riper years, and the maturity of old age, equally have something in harmony with nature, which ought to be made availing in its season [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]