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Part II.
Part II.
12. 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
blot of youth! Listen, my dear young friends, to a speech of Archytas 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 Q. Maximus. "No ore deadly
curse than sensual pleasure has been inflicted on mankind by nature, to
gratify which our wanton appetites are roused 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 does not impel 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 inimical
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 no one that such a person, so long as
he is 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 execrable 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 Archytas to the Samnite Gaius Pontius,
father of the man by whom the consuls Spurius Postumius and Titus Veturius
were beaten in the battle of Caudium. My friend Nearchus of Tarentum, who had
remained loyal to Rome, told me that he had heard them repeated by some old
men; and that Plato the Athenian was present, who visited Tarentum, I find, in
the consulship of L. Camillus and Appius Claudius.
What is the point of all this? It is to show you that, if we were unable
to scorn 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 Titus 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 his 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
Flaccus could not countenance an act of such criminal and abandoned lust,
especially as, besides the personal dishonour, it brought disgrace on the
Government.
13. I have often been told by men older than myself, who said that they
had heard it as boys from old men, that Gaius Fabricius was in the habit of
expressing astonishment at having heard, when envoy at the headquarters of
King Pyrrhus, from the Thessalian Cineas, that there was a man of Athens who
professed to be a "philosopher," and affirmed that everything we did was to be
referred to pleasure. When he told this to Manius Curius and Publius Decius,
they used to remark that they wished that the Samnites and Pyrrhus himself
would hold the same opinion. It would be much easier to conquer them, if they
had once given themselves over to sensual indulgences. Manius Curius had been
intimate with P. Decius, who four years before the former`s consulship had
devoted himself to death for the Republic. Both Fabricius and Coruncanius knew
him also, and from the experience of their own lives, as well as from the
action of P. Decius, they were of 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 the subject of pleasure? Why, because, far from being a
charge against old age, that it does not much feel the want of any pleasures,
it is its highest praise.
But, you will say, it is deprived of the pleasures of the table, the
heaped - up board, the rapid passing of the wine - cup. Well, then, it is also
free from headache, disordered 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 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 Duilius, 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 quaestorship on the reception of the Magna Mater from Ida.
So I used to dine at their feast with the members of my club - on the whole
with moderation, though there was a certain warmth of temperament 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
any one 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`
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 is 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
having 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 grapestone 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 any
one 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 overlong. 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 circumstances 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
sitting by the fire, or at the proper time cool itself more wholesomely by the
help of shade or 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.
17. 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 husbanding one`s property, which
is called Oeconomicus! But to show you that he thought nothing so worthy of a
prince as the taste for cultivating the soil, I will translate what Socrates
says to Critobulus in that book:
"When that most gallant Lacedaemonian, Lysander, came to visit the
Persian prince Cyrus at Sardis, so eminent for his character and the glory of
his rule, bringing him presents from his allies, he treated Lysander in all
ways with courteous familiarity and kindness, and, among other things, took
him to see a certain park carefully planted. Lysander expressed admiration of
the height of the trees and the exact arrangement of their rows in the
quincunx, the careful cultivation of the soil, its freedom from weeds, and the
sweetness of the odours 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. Cyrus replied: `Well, it was I who planned
the whole thing; these rows are my doing, the 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, and his 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 is age any bar to our maintaining pursuits of every other kind, and
especially of agriculture, to the very extreme verge of old age. For instance,
we have it on record that M. Valerius Corvus kept it up to his hundredth year,
living on his land and cultivating it after his active career was over, though
between his first and sixth consulships 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, inasmuch as he had greater influence and less labour. For the
crowning grace of old age is influence.
How great was that of L. Caecilius Metellus! How great that of Atilius
Calatinus, 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 Publius Crassus, Pontifex Maximus, and his
successor in the same office, M. Lepidus! I need scarcely mention Paulus or
Africanus, or, as I did before, Maximus. It was not only their senatorial
utterances that had weight: their least gesture had it also. In fact, old age,
especially when it has enjoyed honours, has an influence worth all the
pleasures of youth put together.
18. But throughout my discourse remember that my panegyric 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 honourable 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, being
escorted to and from the forum, being referred to for advice - all these are
marks of respect, observed among us and in other States - always most
sedulously where the moral tone is highest. They say that Lysander the
Spartan, whom I have 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 honour. Nay, the story is told of how when
a man of advanced years came into the theatre at Athens when the games were
going on, no place was given him anywhere in that large assembly by his own
countrymen; 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 will not do it."
There are many excellent rules in our augural college, but among the best
is one which affects our subject - that precedence in speech goes by
seniority; and augurs who are older are preferred 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 to have
played the drama of life to its end, and not to have broken down in the last
act like unpractised players.
But, it will be said, old men 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 and
the other faults I mentioned admit 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 both by good character and good
education. Illustrations of this may be found in real life, as also on the
stage in the case of the brothers in the Adelphi. What harshness in the one,
what gracious manners in the other! The fact is that, just as it is not every
wine, so it is not every life, that turns sour from keeping. Serious gravity I
approve 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 anything more absurd than to seek more
journey money, the less there remains of the journey?
19. 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 dotard must he 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 where he is to exist forever. A 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 is 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 are
more serious; 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 in old men 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 youth? I had
reason in the case of my excellent son - as you had, Scipio, in that of your
brothers, who were expected to attain the highest honours - to realise 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 as true? "An old man has nothing even to hope." Ah, but it
is just there that he is in a better position than a 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 the Tartessi. For
there was, as I find recorded, a certain Agathonius at Gades who reigned
eighty years and lived a hundred and twenty. 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. Hours indeed, and days and months 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 the play from beginning to end; let him
only satisfy the audience in whatever act he appears. Nor need a wise man go
on to the concluding "plaudite." For a short term of life is long enough for
living well and honourably. But if you go farther, you have no more right to
grumble than farmers do because the charm of the spring season is past and the
summer and autumn have come. For the word "spring" in a way suggests youth,
and points to the harvest to be: the other seasons are suited for the reaping
and storing of the crops. Now the harvest of old age is, as I have often said,
the memory and rich store of 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
befalls young men, though Nature revolts and fights against it. Accordingly,
the death of young men seems to me like putting out a great fire with a deluge
of water; but old men die like a fire going out because it has 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 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.
20. Again, there is no fixed border - line 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 meaning of Solon`s answer to
the tyrant Pisistratus. When the latter asked him what he relied upon in
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, Nature 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 any one else, so the Nature that knit together the human frame can
also best unfasten it. Moreover, a thing freshly glued together is always
difficult to pull asunder; if old, this is easily done.
The result is that the short time of life left to them is not to be
grasped at by old men with greedy eagerness, or abandoned without cause.
Pythagoras forbids us, without an order from our commander, that is God, to
desert life`s fortress and outpost. Solon`s 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 and lamentations of his friends. He wants, I suppose, to be beloved
by them. But I rather think Ennius says better:
None grace me with their tears, nor weeping loud
Make sad my funeral rites!
He holds that a 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. For die we certainly
must, and that too without being certain whether it may not be 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 enlarge: when I remember what
Lucius Brutus did, who was killed while defending his country; or the two
Decii, who spurred their horses to a gallop and met a voluntary death; or M.
Atilius Regulus, who left his home to confront a death of torture, rather than
break the word which he had pledged to the enemy; or the two Scipios, who
determined to block the Carthaginian advance even with their own bodies; or
your grandfather Lucius Paulus, who paid with his life for the rashness of his
colleague in the disgrace at Cannae; or M. 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 have recorded in my Origins)
have often marched with cheerful and lofty spirit to ground from which they
believed that they would never return. That, therefore, which young men - 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 settled time of life
called "middle age" ask for them? There are others, again, suited to that age,
but not looked for in old age. There are, finally, some which belong to old
age. Therefore, as the pursuits of the earlier ages have their time for
disappearing, so also have those of old age. And when that takes place, a
satiety of life brings on the ripe time for death.
21. For I do not see why I should not venture to tell you my personal
opinion as to death, of which I seem to myself to have a clearer vision in
proportion as I am nearer to it. I believe, Scipio and Laelius, 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 in the 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 the Pythagoreans - almost natives of our country, who
in old times had been called the Italian school of philosophers - never
doubted that we had souls 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 view of the rapid movement of
the soul, its vivid memory of the past and its prophetic knowledge of the
future, its many accomplishments, its vast range of knowledge, its numerous
discoveries - that a 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 that it 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.
22. Once more in Xenophon we have the elder Cyrus on his deathbed
speaking as follows:
"Do not suppose, my dearest 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 that it was in this body of mine from what I did. Believe then that it is
still the same, even though you see it not. The honours 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 in
mortal bodies were alive, and died directly they left them; nor, in fact, that
the soul only lost all intelligence when it left the unintelligent body. I
believe rather that 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 man`s natural frame is resolved into its elements by death, it is
clearly seen whither 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
as sleep. And yet it is in sleepers that souls most clearly reveal 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 freed themselves from the fetters of the 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 awe of the gods, who guard and govern this fair
universe, preserve my memory by the loyalty and piety of your lives."
23. Such are the words of the dying Cyrus. I will 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 be remembered by
posterity, had they not seen in their minds that future ages concerned them.
Do you suppose - to take an old man`s privilege of a little self - praise -
that I should have been likely to undertake such heavy labours 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 labour 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 the case that souls were immortal, it would not have been the
souls of all the best men that made the greatest efforts after an immortality
of fame.
Again, is there not the fact that the wisest man ever dies with the
greatest cheerfulness, the most unwise with the least? Don`t you think that
the soul which has the clearer and longer sight sees that it is starting for
better things, while the soul whose vision is dimmer does not see it? For my
part, I am transported with the desire to see your fathers, who were the
object of my reverence and affection. Nor is it only those whom I knew that I
long to see; it is those also of whom I have been told and have read, whom I
have myself recorded in my history. When I am setting out for that, there is
certainly no one who will find it easy to draw me back, or boil me up again
like second Pelios. 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 in truth be willing, after having, as it were, run the
full course, to be recalled from the winning - crease to the barriers. For
what blessing has life to offer? Should we not rather say, what labour? 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
would an inn, not as I would a home. For nature has given us a place of
entertainment, not of residence.
Oh, glorious day when I shall set out to join that heavenly conclave and
company of souls, and depart from the turmoil and impurities of this world!
For I shall not go to join only those whom I have before mentioned, but also
my son Cato, than whom no better man was ever born, nor one more conspicuous
for piety. His body was burnt by me, though mine ought, on the contrary, to
have been burnt by him; but his spirit, not abandoning, but ever looking back
upon me, has certainly gone whither he saw that I too 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 Scipio, - for you said that you and Laelius
were wont to express surprise on this point, - that my old age sits lightly on
me, and is not only not oppressive but even delightful. But if I am wrong in
thinking the human soul immortal, I am glad to be wrong; nor will I allow the
mistake which gives me so much pleasure to be wrested 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 of dead philosophers deriding my errors.
Again, if we are not to be immortal, it is nevertheless what a man must wish -
to have his life end at its proper time. For nature puts a limit to living as
to everything else. Now, 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.
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