Part 2

Then follows the third topic of blame against old age, that they say it has no pleasures. Oh, noble privilege of age! if indeed it takes from us that which is in youth the greatest defect. For listen, most excellent young men, to the ancient speech of Archytas[10] of Tarentum, a man eminently great and illustrious, which was reported to me when I, a young man, was at Tarentum with Quintus Maximus. He said that no more deadly plague than the pleasure of the body was inflicted on men by nature; for the passions, greedy of that pleasure, were in a rash and unbridled manner incited to possess it; that hence arose treasons against one's country, hence the ruining of states, hence clandestine conferences with enemies--in short, that there was no crime, no wicked act, to the undertaking of which the lust of pleasure did not impel; but that fornications and adulteries and every such crime were provoked by no other allurements than those of pleasure. And whereas either nature or some god had given to man nothing more excellent than his mind, that to this divine function and gift, nothing was so hostile as pleasure; since where lust bore sway, there was no room for self-restraint; and in the realm of pleasure, virtue could by no possibility exist. And that this might be the better understood, he begged you to imagine in your mind any one actuated by the greatest pleasure of the body that could be enjoyed; he believed no one would doubt but that so long as the person was in that state of delight, he would be able to consider nothing in his mind, to attain nothing by reason, nothing by reflection; wherefore that there was nothing so detestable and so destructive as pleasure, inasmuch as that when it was excessive and very prolonged, it extinguished all the light of the soul.

Nearchus of Tarentum, our host, who had remained throughout in friendship with the Roman people, said he had heard from older men that Archytas held this conversation with Caius Pontius the Samnite, the father of him by whom, in the Caudian[11] battle, Spurius Postumius and Titus Veturius, the consuls, were overcome, on which occasion Plato the Athenian had been present at that discourse; and I find that he came to Tarentum in the consulship of Lucius Camillus and Appius Claudius.[12] Wherefore do I adduce this? that we may understand that if we could not by reason and wisdom despise pleasure, great gratitude would be due to old age for bringing it to pass that that should not be a matter of pleasure which is not a matter of duty. For pleasure is hostile to reason, hinders deliberation, and, so to speak, closes the eyes of the mind, nor does it hold any intercourse with virtue. I indeed acted reluctantly in expelling from the senate Lucius Flaminius, brother of that very brave man Titus Flaminius,[13] seven years after he had been Consul; but I thought that his licentiousness should be stigmatized. For that man, when he was Consul in Gaul, was prevailed on at a banquet by a courtezan to behead one of those who were in chains, condemned on a capital charge. He escaped in the censorship of his brother Titus, who had immediately preceded me; but so profligate and abandoned an act of lust could by no means be allowed to pass by me and Flaccus, since with private infamy it combined the disgrace of the empire.

I have often heard from my elders, who said that, in like manner, they, when boys, had heard from old men, that Caius Fabricius was wont to wonder that when he was ambassador to King Pyrrhus, he had heard from Cineas the Thessalian that there was a certain person at Athens who profest himself a wise man, and that he was accustomed to say that all things which we did were to be referred to pleasure; and that hearing him say so, Manius Curius and Titus Coruncanius were accustomed to wish that that might be the persuasion of the Samnites and Pyrrhus[14] himself, that they might the more easily be conquered when they had given themselves up to pleasure. Manius Curius had lived with Publius Decius, who, five years before the consulship of the former, had devoted himself for the commonwealth in his fourth consulship. Fabricius had been acquainted with him, and Coruncanius had also known him, who, as well from his own conduct in life, as from the great action of him whom I mention, Publius Decius, judged that there was doubtless something in its own nature excellent and glorious, which should be followed for its own sake, and which, scorning and despising pleasure, all the worthiest men pursued....

But why do I refer to others? Let me now return to myself. First of all, I always had associates in clubs; and clubs were established when I was questor, on the Idaean worship of the great mother being adopted. Therefore I feasted with my associates altogether in a moderate way, but there was a kind of fervor peculiar to that time of life, and as that advances, all things will become every day more subdued. For I did not calculate the gratification of those banquets by the pleasures of the body so much as by the meetings of friends and conversations. For well did our ancestors style the reclining of friends at an entertainment, because it carried with it a union of life, by the name "convivium" better than the Greeks do, who call this same thing as well by the name of "compotatio" as "concoenatio"; so that what in that kind (of pleasures) is of the least value that they appear most to approve of.

For my part, on account of the pleasure of conversation, I am delighted also with seasonable entertainments, not only with those of my own age, of whom very few survive, but with those of your age, and with you; and I give great thanks to old age, which has increased my desire for conversation, and taken away that of eating and drinking. But even if such things delight any person (that I may not appear altogether to have declared war against pleasure, of which perhaps a certain limited degree is even natural), I am not aware that even in these pleasures themselves old age is without enjoyment. For my part, the presidencies established by our ancestors delight me; and that conversation, which after the manner of our ancestors, is kept up over our cups from the top of the table; and the cups, as in the Symposium of Xenophon, small and dewy, and the cooling of the wine in summer, and in turn either the sun, or the fire in winter--practises which I am accustomed to follow among the Sabines also--and I daily join a party of neighbors, which we prolong with various conversation till late at night, as far as we can. But there is not, as it were, so ticklish a sensibility of pleasures in old men. I believe it; but then neither is there the desire. However, nothing is irksome unless you long for it. Well did Sophocles, when a certain man inquired of him advanced in age whether he enjoyed venereal pleasures, reply, "The gods give me something better; nay, I have run away from them with gladness, as from a wild and furious tyrant." For to men fond of such things, it is perhaps disagreeable and irksome to be without them; but to the contented and satisfied it is more delightful to want them than to enjoy them; and yet he does not want who feels no desire; therefore I say that this freedom from desire is more delightful than enjoyment.

But if the prime of life has more cheerful enjoyment of those very pleasures, in the first place they are but petty objects which it enjoys, as I have said before; then they are those of which old age, if it does not abundantly possess them, is not altogether destitute. As he is more delighted with Turpio Ambivius, who is spectator on the foremost bench, yet he also is delighted who is in the hindmost; so youth having a close view of pleasures is perhaps more gratified; but old age is as much delighted as is necessary in viewing them at a distance. However, of what high value are the following circumstances, that the soul, after it has served out, as it were, its time under lust, ambition, contention, enmities, and all the passions, shall retire within itself, and, as the phrase is, live with itself? But if it has, as it were, food for study and learning, nothing is more delightful than an old age of leisure. I saw Caius Gallus, the intimate friend of your father, Scipio, almost expiring in the employment of calculating the sky and the earth. How often did daylight overtake him when he had begun to draw some figure by night, how often did night, when he had begun in the morning! How it did delight him to predict to us the eclipses of the sun and the moon, long before their occurrence! What shall we say in the case of pursuits less dignified, yet, notwithstanding, requiring acuteness! How Naevius did delight in his Punic war! how Plautus in his Truculentus! how in his Pseudolus! I saw also the old man Livy,[15] who, tho he had brought a play upon the stage six years before I was born, in the consulship of Cento and Tuditanus, yet advanced in age even to the time of my youth. Why should I speak of Publius Licinius Crassus' study both of pontifical and civil law? or of the present Publius Scipio, who within these few days was created chief pontiff? Yet we have seen all these persons whom I have mentioned, ardent in these pursuits when old men. But as to Marcus Cethegus, whom Ennius rightly called the "marrow of persuasion," with what great zeal did we see him engage in the practise of oratory, even when an old man! What pleasures, therefore, arising from banquets, or plays, or harlots, are to be compared with these pleasures? And these, indeed, are the pursuits of learning, which too, with the sensible and well educated, increase along with their age; so that is a noble saying of Solon, when he says in a certain verse, as I observed before, that he grew old learning many things every day--than which pleasure of the mind, certainly, none can be greater.

I come now to the pleasures of husbandmen, with which I am excessively delighted, which are not checked by any old age, and appear in my mind to make the nearest approach to the life of a wise man. For they have relation to the earth, which never refuses command, and never returns without interest that which it hath received; but sometimes with less, generally with very great interest. And yet for my part it is not only the product, but the virtue and nature of the earth itself that delight me, which, when in its softened and subdued bosom it has received the scattered seed, first of all confines what is hidden within it, from which harrowing, which produces that effect, derives its name (_occatio_); then, when it is warmed by heat and its own compression, it spreads it out, and elicits from it the verdant blade, which, supported by the fibers of the roots, gradually grows up, and, rising on a jointed stalk, is now enclosed in a sheath, as if it were of tender age, out of which, when it hath shot up, it then pours forth the fruit of the ear, piled in due order, and is guarded by a rampart of beards against the pecking of the smaller birds. Why should I, in the case of vines, tell of the plantings, the risings, the stages of growth? That you may know the repose and amusement of my old age, I assure you that I can never have enough of that gratification. For I pass over the peculiar nature of all things which are produced from the earth; which generates such great trunks and branches from so small a grain of the fig or from the grape-stone, or from the minutest seeds of other fruits and roots; shoots, plants, twigs, quicksets, layers, do not these produce the effect of delighting any one even to admiration? The vine, indeed, which by nature is prone to fall, and is borne down to the ground, unless it be propt, in order to raise itself up, embraces with its tendrils, as it were with hands, whatever it meets with, which, as it creeps with manifold and wandering course, the skill of the husbandmen pruning with the knife, restrains from running into a forest of twigs, and spreading too far in all directions.

Accordingly, in the beginning of spring, in those twigs which are left, there rises up as it were at the joints of the branches that which is called a bud, from which the nascent grape shows itself, which, increasing in size by the moisture of the earth and the heat of the sun, is at first very acid to the taste, and then as it ripens grows sweet, and being clothed with its large leaves does not want moderate warmth, and yet keeps off the excessive heat of the sun; than which what can be in fruit on the one hand more rich, or on the other hand more beautiful in appearance? Of which not only the advantage, as I said before, but also the cultivation and the nature itself delight me; the rows of props, the joining of the heads, the tying up and propagation of vines, and the pruning of some twigs, and the grafting of others, which I have mentioned. Why should I allude to irrigations, why to the diggings of the ground, why to the trenching by which the ground is made much more productive? Why should I speak of the advantage of manuring? I have treated of it in that book which I wrote respecting rural affairs, concerning which the learned Hesiod has not said a single word, tho he has written about the cultivation of the land. But Homer, who, as appears to me, lived many ages before, introduces Laertes soothing the regret which he felt for his son by tilling the land and manuring it. Nor indeed is rural life delightful by reason of corn-fields only and meadows and vineyards and groves, but also for its gardens and orchards; also for the feeding of cattle, the swarms of bees, and the variety of all kinds of flowers. Nor do plantings only give me delight, but also graftings, than which agriculture has invented nothing more ingenious....

Was then their old age to be pitied who amused themselves in the cultivation of land? In my opinion, indeed, I know not whether any other can be more happy; and not only in the discharge of duty, because to the whole race of mankind the cultivation of the land is beneficial; but also from the amusement, which I have mentioned, and that fulness and abundance of all things which are connected with the food of men, and also with the worship of the gods; so that, since some have a desire for these things, we may again put ourselves on good terms with pleasure. For the wine-cellar of a good and diligent master is always well stored; the oil-casks, the pantry also, the whole farmhouse is richly supplied; it abounds in pigs, kids, lambs, hens, milk, cheese, honey. Then, too, the countrymen themselves call the garden a second dessert. And then what gives a greater relish to these things is that kind of leisure labor, fowling and hunting. Why should I speak of the greenness of meadows, or the rows of trees, or the handsome appearance of vineyards and olive grounds? Let me cut the matter short. Nothing can be either more rich in use or more elegant in appearance than ground well tilled, to the enjoyment of which old age is so far from being an obstacle that it is even an invitation and allurement. For where can that age be better warmed either by basking in the sun or by the fire, or again be more healthfully refreshed by shades or waters? Let the young, therefore, keep to themselves their arms, horses, spears, clubs, tennis-ball, swimmings, and races; to us old men let them leave out of many amusements the _tali_ and _tesserae_; and even in that matter it may be as they please, since old age can be happy without these amusements....

What, therefore, should I fear if after death I am sure either not to be miserable or to be happy? Altho who is so foolish, even if young, as to be assured that he will live even till the evening? Nay, that period of life has many more probabilities of death that ours has; young men more readily fall into diseases, suffer more severely, are cured with more difficulty, and therefore few arrive at old age. Did not this happen so we should live better and more wisely, for intelligence, and reflection, and judgment reside in old men, and if there had been none of them, no states could exist at all. But I return to the imminence of death. What charge is that against old age, since you see it to be common to youth also? I experienced not only in the case of my own excellent son, but also in that of your brothers, Scipio, men plainly marked out for the highest distinction, that death was common to every period of life. Yet a young man hopes that he will live a long time, which expectation an old man can not entertain. His hope is but a foolish one; for what can be more foolish than to regard uncertainties as certainties, delusions as truths? An old man indeed has nothing to hope for; yet he is in so much the happier state than a young one; since he has already attained what the other is only hoping for. The one is wishing to live long, the other has lived long.

And yet, good gods! what is there in man's life that can be called long? For allow the latest period; let us anticipate the age of the kings of Tartessii. For there dwelt, as I find it recorded, a man named Arganthonius at Gades;[16] who reigned for eighty years, and lived 120. But to my mind, nothing whatever seems of long duration to which there is any end. For when that arrives, then the time which has passed has flown away; that only remains which you have secured by virtue and right conduct. Hours indeed depart from us, and days and months and years; nor does past time ever return, nor can it be discovered what is to follow. Whatever time is assigned to each to live, with that he ought to be content; for neither need the drama be performed entire by the actor in order to give satisfaction, provided he be approved in whatever act he may be; nor need the wise man live till the _plaudite_. For the short period of life is long enough for living well and honorably, and if you should advance further, you need no more grieve than farmers do when the loveliness of spring-time hath passed, that summer and autumn have come. For spring represents the time of youth, and gives promise of the future fruits; the remaining seasons are intended for plucking and gathering in those fruits. Now the harvest of old age, as I have often said, is the recollection and abundance of blessings previously secured. In truth everything that happens agreeably to nature is to be reckoned among blessings. What, however, is so agreeable to nature as for an old man to die which even is the lot of the young, tho nature opposes and resists. And thus it is that young men seem to me to die just as when the violence of flame is extinguished by a flood of water; whereas old men die, as the exhausted fire goes out, spontaneously, without the exertion of any force; and as fruits when they are green are plucked by force from the trees, but when ripe and mellow drop off, so violence takes away their lives from youths, maturity from old men--a state which to me indeed is so delightful that the nearer I approach to death, I seem, as it were, to be getting sight of land, and at length, after a long voyage, to be just coming into harbor.

Of all the periods of life there is a definite limit; but of old age there is no limit fixt; and life goes on very well in it, so long as you are able to follow up and attend to the duty of your situation, and, at the same time, to care nothing about death; whence it happens that old age is even of higher spirit and bolder than youth. Agreeable to this was the answer given to Pisistratus,[17] the tyrant, by Solon, when on the former inquiring, "in reliance on what hope he so boldly withstood him," the latter is said to have answered, "on old age." The happiest end of life is this--when the mind and the other senses being unimpaired, the same nature which put it together takes asunder her own work. As in the case of a ship or a house, he who built them takes them down most easily; so the same nature which has compacted man most easily breaks him up. Besides, every fastening of glue, when fresh, is with difficulty torn asunder, but easily when tried by time. Hence it is that that short remnant of life should be neither greedily coveted nor without reason given up; and Pythagoras forbids us to abandon the station or post of life without the orders of our commander, that is, of God.[18] There is indeed a saying of the wise Solon in which he declares that he does not wish his own death to be unattended by the grief and lamentation of friends. He wishes, I suppose, that he should be dear to his friends. But I know not whether Ennius does not say with more propriety,

"Let no one pay me honor with tears, nor celebrate my funeral with mourning."

He conceives that a death ought not to be lamented when immortality follows. Besides, a dying man may have some degree of consciousness, but that for a short time, especially in the case of an old man; after death, indeed, consciousness either does not exist or it is a thing to be desired. But this ought to be a subject of study from our youth to be indifferent about death, without which study no one can be of tranquil mind. For die we certainly must, and it is uncertain whether or not on this very day. He, therefore, who at all hours dreads impending death, how can he be at peace in his mind? concerning which there seems to be no need of such long discussion, when I call to mind not only Lucius Brutus, who was slain in liberating his country; nor the two Decii, who spurred on their steeds to a voluntary death; nor Marcus Atilius,[19] who set out to execution that he might keep a promise pledged to the enemy; nor the two Scipios, who even with their very bodies sought to obstruct the march of the Carthaginians; nor your grandfather Lucius Paulus,[20] who by his death atoned for the temerity of his colleague in the disgraceful defeat at Cannae; nor Marcus Marcellus,[21] whose corpse not even the most merciless foe suffered to go without the honor of sepulture; but that our legions, as I have remarked in my Antiquities, have often gone with cheerful and undaunted mind to that place from which they believed that they should never return. Shall, then, well-instructed old men be afraid of that which young men, and they not only ignorant, but mere peasants, despise? On the whole, as it seems to me indeed, a satiety of all pursuits causes a satiety of life. There are pursuits peculiar to boyhood; do therefore young men regret the loss of them? There are also some of early youth; does settled age, which is called middle life, seek after these? There are also some of this period; neither are they looked for by old age. There are some final pursuits of old age; accordingly, as the pursuits of the earlier parts of life fall into disuse, so also do those of old age; and when this has taken place, satiety of life brings on the seasonable period of death.