For I may be permitted to address you, Atticus, in the very verses in which Flamininus is addressed by

for I know the moderation and evenness of your temperament, and am aware that you brought away from Athens, not only your surname, but also liberal culture and practical wisdom. Yet I am inclined to think that you are sometimes seriously disturbed by the same things that weigh heavily on my mind, under which such comfort as may be had is a matter of graver moment, and must be deferred to some other time. But my present purpose is to write to you something about Old Age. For I desire that you and I may be lightened of this burden, which we have in common, of old age already pressing upon us or drawing close at hand, though I am certain that you indeed bear and will bear it, as all things else, serenely and wisely. But when it came into my mind to write something about old age, you occurred to me as worthy to receive in this essay an offering of which you and I may in common enjoy the benefit. Indeed, the composition of this book has been so pleasant to me, that it has not only brushed away all the vexations of old age, but has made it even easy and agreeable. In truth, sufficiently worthy praise can  never be given to philosophy, whose votaries can pass every period of life without annoyance. But on other philosophical subjects I have said much, and hope to revert to them often; this book, on Old Age, I send specially to you. I put what I have to say, not, like Aristo of Chios, into the mouth of Tithonus (for a fictitious character cannot speak with authority), but into that of the aged Cato, that the discourse may gain authority from his name. With him I introduce Laelius and Scipio, admiring the ease with which he bears old age, and I give his answers to them. If I make him talk more learnedly than he was wont to do in his books, you may ascribe it to the Greek literature and philosophy, of which, as is well known, he was very studious in his latter years. But what need is there of a longer preface? For, as it were in Cato's own words, you shall forthwith hear all that I think and feel about old age.

 Scipio. I often express, Marcus Cato, in conversation with Caius Laelius, now present, my admiration of your surpassing and consummate wisdom, in other matters indeed, but especially because I have never perceived that old age was grievous to you, though to old men in general it is so hateful that they account themselves as bearing a burden heavier than Aetna.

Cato. You seem, Scipio and Laelius, to admire what has been to me by no means difficult. For those who have in themselves no resources for a good and happy life, every period of life is burdensome; but to those who seek all goods from within, nothing which comes in the course of nature can seem evil. Under this head a place especially belongs to old age, which all desire to attain, yet find fault with it when they have reached it. Such is the inconsistency and perverseness of human folly. They say that age creeps upon them faster than they had thought possible. In the first place, who forced them to make this false estimate? In the next place, how could old age be less burdensome to them if it came on their eight-hundredth year than it is in their eightieth? For the time past, however long, when it had elapsed, could furnish no comfort to soothe a foolish old age. If, then, you are wont to admire my wisdom,—would that it  were worthy of your appreciation and of my own surname,—I am wise in this respect, that I follow and obey Nature, the surest guide, as if she were a god, and it is utterly improbable that she has well arranged the other parts of life, and yet, like an unskilled poet, slighted the last act of the drama. There must, however, of necessity, be some end, and, as in the case of berries on the trees and the fruits of the earth, there must be that which in its season of full ripeness is, so to speak, ready to wither and fall,—which a wise man ought to bear patiently. For to rebel against Nature is but to repeat the war of the Giants with the Gods.

Laelius. Indeed, Cato, you will have rendered us a most welcome service—I will answer for Scipio—if, since we hope, indeed wish, at all events, to become old, we can learn of you, far in advance, in what ways we can most easily bear the encroachment of age.

Cato. I will render this service, Laelius, if, as you say, it will be agreeable to both of you.

Laelius. We do indeed desire, Cato, unless it will give you too much trouble, since you have  taken a long journey which we must begin, that you will show us the goal which you have reached.

Cato. I will do so, Laelius, to the best of my ability. I have, indeed, often been a listener to complaints of men of my own age,—for, as the old proverb says, "Like best mates with like,"—such complaints, for instance, as those which Caius Salinator and Spurius Albinus, men of consular dignity, nearly my coevals, used to make, because they were deprived of the sensual gratifications without which life appeared to them a blank, and because they were neglected by those by whom they were wont to be held in reverence. They seemed to me to lay the blame where it did not belong. For if old age had been at fault, I and all other persons of advanced years would have the same experience; while I have known many old men who have made no complaint, who did not regret their release from the slavery of sensual appetite, and were not despised by their fellow-citizens. But all complaints of this kind are chargeable to character, not to age. Old men who are moderate in their desires, and are neither testy nor morose, find old age endurable; but rudeness and incivility are offensive at any age.

Laelius. You are right, Cato; yet some one may perhaps say that old age seems to you less   burdensome on account of your wealth, your large resources, your high rank, but that these advantages fall to the lot of very few.

Cato. There is, indeed, Laelius, something in this; but it by no means gives the full explanation. It is somewhat as in the case of Themistocles in an altercation with a certain native of Seriphos, who told him that he owed his illustrious fame, not to his own greatness, but to that of his country; and Themistocles is said to have answered, "If I had been born in Seriphos, I should not have been renowned, nor, by Hercules, would you have been eminent had you been an Athenian." Very much the same may be said about old age, which cannot be easy in extreme poverty, even to a wise man, nor can it be otherwise than burdensome to one destitute of wisdom, even with abundant resources of every kind. The best-fitting defensive armor of old age, Scipio and Laelius, consists in the knowledge and practice of the virtues, which, assiduously cultivated, after the varied experiences of a long life, are wonderfully fruitful, not only because they never take flight, not even at the last  moment,—although this is a consideration of prime importance,—but because the consciousness of a well-spent life and a memory rich in good deeds afford supreme happiness.

In my youth I loved Quintus Maximus, the one who recovered possession of Tarentum, then an elderly man, as if he had been of my own age; for in him gravity was seasoned by an affable deportment, nor had time made his manners less agreeable. When I first became intimate with him, he was not, indeed, so very old, though advanced in years. I was born the year after his first consulate. In my early youth I served as a soldier under him at Capua, and five years afterward at Tarentum. Four years later I was made Quaestor, and held that office in the consulship of Tuditanus and Cethegus, at the time when he, then quite old, urged the passage of the Cincian law concerning gifts and fees. He in his age showed in military command all the vigor of youth, and by his perseverance put a check to Hannibal's  youthful enthusiasm. My friend Ennius well said of him,—

How much vigilance, how much wisdom, did he show in the retaking of Tarentum! In my hearing, indeed, when Salinator, who, after the town was taken, had retreated to the citadel, boastfully said, "You recovered Tarentum, Quintus Fabius, by my aid," he replied, laughing, "Very true, for, if you had not lost it, I should never have recovered it." Nor had he more eminence as a soldier than he won as a civilian, when, in his second consulate, unsupported by his colleague, Carvilius, he resisted to the utmost of his ability Caius Flaminius, tribune of the people, in his division in equal portions, to the plebeians, of conquered territory in Picenum and Gaul; and when, holding the office of augur, he dared to say that whatever was done for the well-being of the republic was done under the most favorable auspices, but that whatever measures were passed to the injury of the republic were passed under  adverse auspices. In him I knew many things worthy of renown, but nothing more admirable than the way in which he bore the death of his son, an illustrious man and of consular dignity. We have in our hands his eulogy on his son, and in reading it we feel that he surpassed in this vein even trained philosophers. Nor was he great only in public and in the eyes of the community; but he was even more excellent in private and domestic life. How rich in conversation! How wise in precept! How ample his knowledge of early times! How thorough his legal science in everything appertaining to his office as an augur! He had, too, for a Roman, a large amount of literary culture. He retained in his memory, also, all the details of our wars, whether in Italy or in regions more remote. I indeed availed myself as eagerly of my opportunities of conversing with him as if I had already divined, what proved to be true, that, when he should pass away, no man of equal intelligence and information would be left.

 To what purpose have I said so much about Maximus? That you may be assured by his  example that one has no right to pronounce an old age like his wretched. Yet it is not every one that can be a Scipio or a Maximus, so that he can recall the memory of cities taken, of battles by land and sea, of wars conducted, of triumphs won. There is, however, a calm and serene old age, which belongs to a life passed peacefully, purely, and gracefully, such as we learn was the old age of Plato, who died while writing in his eighty-first year; or that of Isocrates, who says that he wrote the book entitled Panathenaicus in his ninety-fourth year, and who lived five years afterwards, and whose preceptor, Leontinus Gorgias, filled out one hundred and seven years without suspending his study and his labor. When he was asked why he was willing to live so long, he replied, "I have no fault to find with old age,"—a noble answer, worthy of a learned man. Unwise men, indeed, charge their vices and their faults upon old age. So did not Ennius, of whom I have just spoken, who writes,

comparing his own age to that of the brave horse that had been wont to win the race. You can distinctly remember him. The present Consuls, Titus Flamininus and Manius Acilius, were chosen nineteen years after his death, which took place in the  consulship of Caepio and the second consulship of Philippus, when I, being sixty-five years old, with a strong voice and sound lungs, spoke in favor of the Voconian law. At the age of seventy years—for so many did Ennius live—he bore the two burdens which are esteemed the heaviest, poverty and old age, in such a way that he almost seemed to take delight in them. To enter into particulars, I find on reflection four reasons why old age seems wretched;—one, that it calls us away from the management of affairs; another, that it impairs bodily vigor; the third, that it deprives us to a great degree of sensual gratifications; the fourth, that it brings one to the verge of death. Let us see, if you please, how much force and justice there is in each of these reasons.

Old age cuts one off from the management of affairs. Of what affairs? Of those which are managed in youth and by strength of body? But are there not affairs properly belonging to the later years of life, which may be administered by the mind, even though the body be infirm? Did Quintus Maximus then do nothing? Did Lucius Paullus,  your father, Scipio, the father-in-law of that excellent man, my son, do nothing? Did other old men that I might name—the Fabricii, the Curii, the Coruncanii—do nothing, when they defended the republic by their counsel and influence? Blindness came upon Appius Claudius in his old age; yet he, when the sentiment of the Senate leaned toward the conclusion of peace and a treaty with Pyrrhus, did not hesitate to say to them what Ennius has fully expressed in verse,—

and more, most forcibly, to the same purpose. You know the poem, and the speech that Appius actually made is still extant. This took place seventeen years after his second consulship, ten years having  intervened between his two consulates, his censorship having preceded the first,—so that you may infer that he was far advanced in age at the time of the war with Pyrrhus, and such is the tradition that has come to us from our fathers. Those, therefore, who deny that old age has any place in the management of affairs, are as unreasonable as those would be who should say that the pilot takes no part in sailing a ship because others climb the masts, others go to and fro in the gangways, others bail the hold, while he sits still in the stern and holds the helm. The old man does not do what the young men do; but he does greater and better things. Great things are accomplished, not by strength, or swiftness, or suppleness of body, but by counsel, influence, deliberate opinion, of which old age is not wont to be bereft, but, on the other hand, to possess them more abundantly. This you will grant, unless I, having been soldier, and military Tribune, and second in command, and as Consul at the head of the army, seem to you now idle and useless, because I am no longer actively engaged in war. I now prescribe to the Senate what ought to be done, and how. I declare war far in advance against Carthage, which has long been plotting to our detriment, and whose hostility I shall never cease to fear, till I know that the city is utterly swept out  of being. O that the immortal gods may reserve for you, Scipio, this honor, that you may fully accomplish what your grandfather left to be yet done! This is the thirty-third year since his death; but the memory of such a man all coming years will hold in special honor. He died the year before my censorship, nine years after my consulate, during which he was chosen Consul for the second time. If he had lived till his hundredth year, would he have had reason to regret his old age? He would not, indeed, have sought added distinction by running, or leaping, or hurling the spear, or handling the sword, but by counsel, reason, judgment. Unless these were the characteristics of seniors in age, our ancestors would not have called the supreme council the Senate. Among the Lacedaemonians, too, the corresponding name is given to the magistrates of the highest grade, who are really old men. But if you see fit to read or hear the history of foreign nations, you will find that states have been undermined by young men, maintained and restored by old men.

For this men ask, as it is asked in Naevius's play of The School, and with other answers this is among the first:—

 But memory is impaired by age. I have no doubt that it is, in persons who do not exercise their memory, and in those who are naturally slow-minded. But Themistocles knew by name all the citizens of Athens, and do you suppose that, at an advanced age, when he met Aristides he called him Lysimachus? I not only know the men who are now living; but I have a clear remembrance of their fathers and their grandfathers. Nor am I afraid to read sepulchral inscriptions, an occupation which is said to destroy the memory; on the other hand, my recollection of the dead is thus made more vivid. Then, too, I never heard of an old man's forgetting where he had buried his money. Old men remember everything that they care about,—the bonds they have given, what is due to them, what they owe. What shall we say of lawyers?  Of priests? Of augurs? Of philosophers? How many things do they retain in their memory! Old men have their powers of mind unimpaired, when they do not suspend their usual pursuits and their habits of industry. Nor is this the case only with those in conspicuous stations and in public office; it is equally true in private and retired life. Sophocles in extreme old age still wrote tragedies. Because in his close application he seemed to neglect his property, his sons instituted judicial proceedings to deprive him, as mentally incompetent, of the custody of his estate, in like manner as by our law fathers of families who mismanage their property have its administration taken from them. The old man is said to have then recited to the judges the Oedipus at Colonus, the play which he had in hand and had just written, and to have asked them whether that poem seemed the work of a failing intellect. On hearing this, the judges dismissed the case. Did old age then impose silence, in their several modes of utterance, on him, on Homer, on Hesiod, on Simonides, on Stesichorus, on Isocrates and Gorgias of whom I have just spoken, on those  foremost of philosophers, Pythagoras and Democritus, on Plato, on Xenocrates, in later time, on Zeno and Cleanthes, or on that Diogenes the Stoic whom you saw when he was in Rome? Or with all these men was not activity in their life-work coextensive with their lives? But leaving out of the account these pursuits, which have in them a divine element, I can name old Romans who are farmers in what was the Sabine territory, my neighbors and friends, without whose oversight hardly any important work is ever done on their land, whether in sowing, or harvesting, or storing their crops. This, however, is not so surprising in them; for no one is so old that he does not expect to live a year longer. But the same persons bestow great pains in labor from which they know that they shall never derive any benefit.

as our poet Statius says in his Synephebi. Nor, indeed can the farmer, though he be an old man, if asked for whom he is planting, hesitate to answer, "For the immortal gods, whose will it was, not only  that I should receive this estate from my ancestors, but that I should also transmit it in undiminished value to my posterity."

What I have just quoted from Caecilius about the old man's providing for a coming generation, is very far preferable to what he says elsewhere,—

and much, it may be, that he is glad to see; while youth, too, often encounters what it would willingly shun. Still worse, that same Caecilius writes,—

Agreeable rather than hateful; for as wise old men are charmed with well-disposed youth, so do young men delight in the counsels of the old, by which they are led to the cultivation of the virtues. I do not feel that I am less agreeable to you than you are to me.—To return to our subject, you see that old age is not listless and inert, but is even laborious, with work and plans of work always in hand, generally, indeed, with employments corresponding to the pursuits of earlier life. But what shall we say of those who even make new acquisitions?  Thus we see Solon, in one of his poems, boasting that, as he grows old, he widens the range of his knowledge every day. I have done the like, having learned Greek in my old age, and have taken hold of the study so eagerly—as if to quench a long thirst—that I have already become familiar with the topics from Greek authors which I have been using, as I have talked with you, by way of illustration. When I read that Socrates in his old age learned to play on the lyre, I could have wished to do the same, had the old custom been still rife; but I certainly have worked hard on my Greek.

 Old age lacks strength, it is said. But strength is not demanded of old age. My period of life is exempted by law and custom from offices  which cannot be borne without strength. Therefore we are compelled to do, not what we are unable to do, but even less than we can do. Is it said that many old men are so feeble that they are incapable of any duty or charge whatsoever? This, I answer, is not an inability peculiar to old age, but common to bodily infirmity at whatever period of life. How feeble, Scipio, was that son of Africanus who adopted you! But for this, he would have shone second in his family as a luminary of the state, adding to his father's greatness a more ample intellectual culture. What wonder, then, is it that old men are sometimes feeble, when it is a misfortune which even the young cannot always escape? Old age, Laelius and Scipio, should be resisted, and its deficiencies should be supplied by faithful effort. Old age, like disease, should be fought against. Care must be bestowed upon the health; moderate exercise must be taken; the food and drink should be sufficient to recruit the strength, and not in such excess as to become oppressive. Nor yet should the body alone be sustained in vigor, but much more the powers of mind; for these too, unless you pour oil into the lamp,  are extinguished by old age. Indeed, while over-exertion tends by fatigue to weigh down the body, exercise makes the mind elastic. For, when Caecilius speaks of

he means those who are credulous, forgetful, weak-minded, and these are the faults, not of old age, but of lazy, indolent, drowsy old age. As wantonness and licentiousness are the faults of the young rather than of the old, yet not of all young men, but only of such of them as are depraved, so the senile folly which is commonly called dotage belongs not to all, but only to frivolous old men. Appius, when both blind and old, governed four grown-up sons, five daughters, a very large household, a numerous body of clients; for he had his mind on the alert, like a bent bow, nor did he, as he became feeble, succumb to old age. He maintained, not only authority, but absolute command over all who belonged to him. His servants feared him; his children held him in awe; all loved him. In that family the manners and discipline of the earlier time were still in the ascendant. Old age,  indeed, is worthy of honor only when it defends itself, when it asserts its rights, when it comes into bondage to no one, when even to the last breath it maintains its sway over those of its own family. Still farther, as I hold in high esteem the youth who has in him some of the qualities of age, I have like esteem for the old man in whom there is something of the youth, which he who cultivates may be old in body, but will never be so in mind. I have now in hand the seventh Book of my History. I am collecting all the memorials of earlier times. I am just now writing out, as my memory serves me, my speeches in the celebrated cases that I have defended. I am treating of augural, pontifical, civil law. I read a good deal of Greek. At the same time, in order to exercise my memory in the method prescribed by Pythagoras, I recall every evening whatever I have said, heard, or done during the day. These are the exercises of the mind; these, the race-ground of the intellect. In these pursuits while I labor vigorously, I hardly feel my loss of bodily strength. I appear in court in behalf of my friends. I often take my place in the Senate,  and I there introduce of my own motion subjects on which I have thought much and long, and I defend my opinions with strength of mind, not of body. If I were too feeble to pursue this course of life, I still on my bed should find pleasure in thinking out what I could no longer do; but that I am able still to do, as well as to think, is the result of my past life. One who is always occupied in these studies and labors is unaware when age creeps upon him. Thus one grows old gradually and unconsciously, and life is not suddenly extinguished, but closes when by length of time it is burned out.

 Xenophon's books are in many ways very useful, and I beg you to continue to read them. With what a flow of eloquence does he praise agriculture in that book of his about the care of one's estate, called Oeconomicus! Still more, to show that there is nothing so worthy of a king as the pursuits of agriculture, he introduces in that book Socrates as telling this story to Critobolus. Cyrus  the younger, king of Persia, of surpassing genius and renown, when Lysander, the Lacedaemonian, a man of the highest military reputation,came to him at Sardis to bring presents from the confederate states, having treated Lysander in other ways with familiar courtesy, showed him an enclosed field planted with the utmost care. Lysander, marvelling at the great height of the trees, their arrangement in ornamental groups, the ground thoroughly tilled and free from weeds, and the delicious odors breathing from the flowers, said that he admired, not only the care, but also the skill of him who had planned and laid out these grounds. Cyrus answered, "I myself laid out all this field. The plan is mine; the arrangement is mine, and many of these trees I planted with my own hand." Then Lysander, looking at his purple robe, his elegance of person,and his Persian ornaments rich in gold and precious stones, said, "Men may well call  you happy, Cyrus, since your fortune corresponds to your merit." This fortune, then, old men can enjoy, nor does age preclude our interest in other things indeed, but least of all in agriculture, to the very last moment of life. We have heard that Marcus Valerius Corvus lived to his hundredth year, passing the close of his life in the country, and engaged to the last in labors of the field. There were forty-six years between his first and his sixth consulship. Thus his term of public life lasted the full number of years which our ancestors accounted as the beginning of old age, and his old age was happier than middle life, having more authority with less labor. Indeed, the crowning glory of old age is authority. How great was this in Lucius Caecilius Metellus! How great in Atilius Calatinus! whose eulogy is,—

This, you know, is the inscription on his tomb. He was rightly held, then, in the highest esteem, since all were unanimous in his praise. How great a man did we see in Publius Crassus, the chief priest, of whom I have just spoken, and afterward in Marcus Lepidus, invested with the same priesthood! What shall I say of Paullus or of Africanus? Or of Maximus, if I may name him again?  These were men, not only in whose uttered opinion, but in whose very nod, dwelt authority. Old age, especially when it has filled offices of high public trust, has so much authority, that for this alone it is worth all the pleasures of youth.

The close of other ages is definitely fixed; but old age has no fixed term, and one may fitly live in it so long as he can observe and discharge the duties of his station, and yet despise death. Old age, fearless of death, may transcend youth in courage and in fortitude. Such is the meaning of Solon's answer to the tyrant Pisistratus, who asked him what was his ground of confidence in resisting him so boldly, and Solon replied, "Old age." But the most desirable end of life is when—the understanding and the other faculties unimpaired—Nature, who put together, takes apart her own work. As he who built a ship or a house can take it to pieces the most easily, so Nature, who compacted the human frame, is the best agent for its dissolution. Then, again, whatever has been recently put together is torn apart with difficulty; old fabrics, easily. Thus what brief remainder there may be of life ought to be neither greedily sought by old men, nor yet abandoned without cause, and Pythagoras forbids one to desert the garrison and post of life without the order of the commander, that is,  God. There are extant, indeed, verses of Solon the Wise, in which he says that he does not want to die without the grief and lamentation of his friends, desiring, as I suppose, to be held dear by those in intimate relation with him; but I am inclined to prefer what Ennius writes,—

He thinks that death is not to be mourned, since it is followed by immortality. There may be, indeed, some painful sensation in dying, yet for only a little while, especially for the old; after death there is either desirable sensation or none at all. But such thoughts as this ought to be familiar to us from youth, that we may make no account of death. Without such habits of thought one cannot be of a tranquil mind; for it is certain that we must die, and it is uncertain whether it be not this very passing day. How then can one be composed in mind while he fears death, which impends over him every hour? On this subject there seems no need of a long discussion, when I recall to memory,—not Lucius Brutus, who was slain in setting his country free; not the two Decii, spurring their horses to a death of their own choice; not Marcus Atilius, returning to the punishment of death that he might keep faith with an enemy; not the two Scipios, who wanted to block the way for the Carthaginians even  with their own bodies; not your grandfather, Lucius Paullus, who yielded up his life to expiate his colleague's rashness in the ignominious battle of Cannae; not Marcus Marcellus, whose body not even the most cruel of enemies would suffer to lack the honor of a funeral,—but our legions, often going, as I have said in my History, with a firm and cheerful mind, to scenes of peril whence they expected never to return. Shall well-trained old men, then, fear what youth, and they not only untrained, but even fresh from the country, despise?—In fine, satiety of life, as it seems to me, creates satiety of pursuits of every kind. There are certain pursuits belonging to boyhood; do grown-up young men therefore long for them? There are others appertaining to early youth; are they required in the sedate period of life which we call middle age? This, too, has its own pursuits, and they are not sought in old age. As the pursuits of earlier periods of life fail, so in like manner do those of old age. When this period is reached, satiety of life brings a season ripe for death.