An seni respublica gerenda sit
Plutarch
Plutarch. Moralia, Vol. X. Fowler, Harold North, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1936 (printing).
Certainly the office of king, the most perfect and the greatest of all political offices, has the most cares, labours, and occupations. At any rate Seleucus, they used to tell us, constantly repeated that if people in general knew what a task it was merely to read and write so many letters, they would not even pick up a crown that had been thrown away. And Philip, we are told, when he heard, as he was on the
point of encamping in a suitable place, that there was no fodder for the beasts of draught, exclaimed: O Heracles, what a life is mine, if I must needs live to suit the convenience even of my asses! There is, then, a time to advise even a king when he has become an old man to lay aside the crown and the purple, to assume a cloak and a crook, and to live in the country, lest it be thought, if he continues to rule when his hair is grey, that he is busying himself with superfluous and unseasonable occupations. But if it is not fitting to say this about an Agesilaüs or a Numa or a Dareius, let us neither remove a Solon from the Council of the Areopagus nor a Cato from the Senate on account of old age, and let us not advise a Pericles to leave the democracy in the lurch. For anyhow it is absurd that a man when he is young should prance (about upon the platform and then, after having poured out upon the public all those insane ambitions and impulses, when the age arrives which brings wisdom through experience, should give up public life and desert it like a woman of whom he has had all the use.Aesop’s fox, we recall, would not let the hedgehog, although he offered to do so, remove the ticks from her: For if you remove these, she said, which are full, other hungry ones will come on; and the State which always discards the old men must necessarily be filled up with young men who are thirsty for reputation and power, but do not possess a statesmanlike mind. And where should they acquire it, if they are Rot to be pupils or even spectators of any old man active in public life? Treatises on navigation do not make ship-captains of men who have not often stood upon the stern and been spectators
of the struggles against wind and wave and wintry night,and can a youngster manage a State rightly and persuade an assembly or a senate after reading a book or writing in the Lyceum a school exercise about political science, if he has not stood many a time by the driver’s rein or the pilot’s steering-oar,[*](Aristophanes, Knights, 542, uses the metaphor of the pilot, though with a different application.) leaning this way and that with the politicians and generals as they contend with the aid of their experiences and their fortunes, thus amid dangers and troubles acquiring the knowledge they need? No one can assert that. But if for no other reason, old men should engage in affairs of State for the education and instruction of the young. For just as the teachers of letters or of music themselves first play the notes or read to their pupils and thus show them the way, so the statesman, not only by speech or by making suggestions from outside, but by action in administering the affairs of the community, directs the young man, whose character is moulded and formed by the old man’s actions and words alike. For he who is trained in this way - not in the wrestling-schools or training-rings of masters of the arts of graceful speech where no danger is, but, we may say, in truly Olympic and Pythian games, -
Keeps pace as foal just weaned runs with the mare,[*](Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Graec. ii. p. 445, no. 5 (6).)to quote Simonides. So Aristeides ran in the footsteps of Cleisthenes and Cimon in those of Aristeides, Phocion followed Chabrias, Cato had Fabius Maximus as his guide, Pompey had Sulla, and Polybius had Philopoemen; for these men, coming when young in contact with older men and then, as it were, sprouting up beside them and growing up with their policies and actions, gained experience and familiarity with public affairs and at the same time reputation and power.
Aeschines the Academic philosopher, when some sophists declared that he pretended to have been a pupil of Carneades although he had not been so, replied, Oh, but I did listen to Carneades at the time when his speech had given up noisy declamation on account of his old age and had reduced itself to what is useful and of common interest. But the public activity of old men is not only in speech but also in actions, free from ostentation and desire for popularity, and, therefore, just as they say that the iris, when it has grown old and has blown off its fetid and foul smell, acquires a more fragrant odour, so no opinion or counsel of old men is turbulent, but they are all weighty and composed. Therefore it is also for the sake of the young, as has been said above, that old men ought to engage in affairs of State, in order that, as Plato said[*](Plato, Laws, 773 d. He refers to Dionysus (wine) and Poseidon (water).) in reference to pure wine mixed with water, that an insane god was made reasonable when chastised by another who was sober, so the discretion of old age, when mixed in the people with boiling youth drunk with reputation and ambition, may remove that which is insane and too violent.
But apart from all this, they are mistaken who
think that engaging in public affairs is, like going to sea or to a war, something undertaken for an object distinct from itself and ceasing when that object is attained; for engaging in public affairs is not a special service which is ended when the need ends, but is a way of life of a tamed social animal[*](Cf. Aristotle, Politics, i. 2, where man is called a social (πολιτικόν) animal.) living in an organized society, intended by nature to live throughout its allotted time the life of a citizen and in a manner devoted to honour and the welfare of mankind. Therefore it is fitting that men should be engaged, not merely have ceased to be engaged, in affairs of State, just as it is fitting that they should be, not have ceased to be, truthful, that they should do, not have ceased to do, right, and that they should love, not have ceased to love, their native land and their fellow-citizens. For to these things nature leads, and these words she suggests to those who are not entirely ruined by idleness and effeminacy:Your sire begets you of great worth to men[*](Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. p. 917, adespota no. 410 quoted also Moralia, 1099 a.)and
Let us ne’er cease from doing mortals good.[*](Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. p. 917, adespota no. 410 quoted also Moralia, 1099 a.)
But those who adduce weakness and disability are accusing disease and infirmity rather than old age. For there are many sickly young men and vigorous old men, so that the proper course is to dissuade, not the aged, but the disabled, and to summon into service, not the young, but those who are competent to serve. Aridaeus, for example, was young and Antigonus an old man, but the latter gained possession of almost all Asia, whereas the former, like a mute guardsman on the stage, was
the mere name and figure of a king, exposed to the wanton insults of those who happened to have the real power. As, therefore, he is a fool who would demand that a person like Prodicus the sophist or a person like Philetas the poet should take part in the affairs of State, - they who were young, to be sure, but thin, sickly, and for the most part bedridden on account of sickness, - so he is foolish who would hinder from being rulers or generals such old men as were Phocion, the Libyan Masinissa, and the Roman Cato. For Phocion, when the Athenians were rushing into war at an unfavourable time, gave orders that all citizens up to sixty years of age should take their weapons and follow him; and when they were indignant he said: There is nothing terrible about it, for I shall be with you as general, and I am eighty years old. And Polybius tells us that Masinissa died at the age of ninety years, leaving a child of his own but four years old, and that a little before his end, on the day after defeating the Carthaginians in a great battle, he was seen in front of his tent eating a dirty piece of bread, and that when some expressed surprise at this he said that he did it [to keep in practice],as Sophocles says; but we say that this is true of that brilliance and light of the soul, by means of which we reason, remember, and think.
- For when in use it gleams like beauteous bronze;
- An unused house through time in ruin falls,[*](Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. p. 314, no. 780; cf. Moralia, 792 a, 1129 c.)
For that reason kings are said to grow better among wars and campaigns than when they live at
leisure. Attalus certainly, the brother of Eumenes, because he was completely enfeebled by long inactivity and peace, was actually kept and fattened like a sheep by Philopoemen, one of his courtiers; so that even the Romans used in jest to ask those who came from Asia if the king had any influence with Philopoemen. And it would be impossible to find many abler generals among the Romans than Lucullus, when he combined thought with action; but when he gave himself up to a life of inactivity and to a home-keeping and thought-free existence, he became a wasted skeleton, like sponges in calm seas, and then when he committed his old age to the care and nursing of one of his freedmen named Callisthenes, it seemed as if he were being drugged by him with potions and quackeries, until his brother Marcus drove the fellow away and himself managed and tended him like a child the rest of his life, which was not long. Dareius the father of Xerxes used to say that when dangers threatened he excelled himself in wisdom,[*](Cf. Moralia, 172 f.) and Ateas the Scythian said that he considered himself no better than his grooms when he was idle; and Dionysius the Elder, when someone asked if he was at leisure, replied: May that never happen to me! For a bow, they say, breaks when too tightly stretched, but a soul when too much relaxed. In fact musicians, if they give up listening to music, and geometricians if they give up solving problems, and arithmeticians if they give up the practice of calculating, impair, as they advance in age, their habits of mind as well as their activities, although the studies which they pursue are not concerned with action but with contemplation; but the mental habit of public men - deliberation, wisdom, and justice, and, besides these, experience, which hits upon the proper moments and words and is the power that creates persuasion - is maintained by constantly speaking, acting, reasoning, and judging; and it would be a crime if, by deserting these activities, it should allow such great and so many virtues to leak out from the soul; for it is reasonable to suppose that love of humanity, public spirit, and graciousness would waste away, none of which ought to have any end or limit.Certainly if you had Tithonus as your father, who was immortal but always needed much care on account of old age, I do not believe you would avoid or grow weary of attending to him, speaking to him, and helping him on the ground that you had performed those duties for a long time; and your fatherland or, as the Cretans call it, your mother country, which has earlier and greater rights than your parents, is long lived, to be sure, but by no means ageless or self-sufficient; on the contrary, since it always needs much consideration and assistance and anxious thought, it draws the statesman to itself and holds him,
Grasping him fast by the cloak, and restrains him though hastening onward.[*](Homer, Il. xvi. 9.)Now surely you know that I have been serving the Pythian Apollo for many Pythiads,[*](Periods of four years marked by the quadrennial celebration of the Pythian games in honour of Apollo at Delphi.) but you would not say: Plutarch, you have done enough sacrificing, marching in processions, and dancing in choruses, and now that you are older it is time to put off the garland and to desert the oracle on account of your age. And so do not imagine that you yourself, being a leader and interpreter of the sacred rites of civic life, ought to give up the worship of Zeus of the State and of the Forum, rites to which you have for a long time been consecrated.
But let us now, if you please, leave the argument which tries to withdraw the aged man from civic activities and turn to the examination and discussion of the question how we may assign to old age only what is appropriate without imposing upon it any burdensome struggle, since political activity has many parts fitting and suitable for men of such years. For just as, if it were fitting for us to continue singing to the end, we ought, since there are many underlying tones and modes of the voice, which musical people call harmonies, we ought, I say, when we have grown old, not to attempt that which is at once high pitched and intense, but that which is easy and also possesses the fitting ethical quality; just so, since it is more natural for human beings to act and speak to the end than for swans to sing, we must not give up activity as if it were a lyre too tightly strung, but we should relax the activity and adapt it to those public services which are light and moderate and attuned to old men. For we do not let our bodies be entirely without motion and exercise when we are unable to wield the mattock or use jumping-weights or throw the discus or fight in armour as we used to do, but by swinging and walking, and in some instances by light ball-playing and by conversation, old men accelerate their breathing and revive the body’s heat. Let us, then, neither allow ourselves to be entirely frozen and chilled by inaction nor, on the other hand, by again burdening ourselves with every office and engaging in every kind of public
activity, force our old age, convicted of its weakness, to descend to words like these:For even a man at the height of his powers is not commended if he takes upon himself, in a word, all public activities at once and is unwilling to leave, as the Stoics say of Zeus,[*](The Stoic doctrine of the infinite variety of Zeus and his activities is beautifully expressed in the hymn to Zeus by Cleanthes, Stobaeus, Ecl. i. 1. 12, p. 25 ed. Wachsmuth; A. C. Pearson, The Fragments of Zeno and Cleanthes, p. 274; cf. Diogenes Laertius, vii. 147.) anything to anyone else, intruding and mixing himself in everything through insatiable desire for reputation or through envy of those who obtain any share whatsoever of honour and power in the State. But for a very aged man that love of office which invariably offers itself as a candidate at every election, that busy restlessness which lies in wait for every opportunity offered by court of justice or council of State, and that ambition which snatches at every ambassadorship and at every precedence in legal matters, are, even if you eliminate the discredit attached to them, toilsome and miserable. For to do these things even with the goodwill of others is too burdensome for advanced age, but, in fact, the result is the very opposite; for such old men are hated by the young, who feel that they do not allow them opportunities for public activity and do not permit them to come before the public, and by people in general their love of precedence and of office is held in no less disrepute than is other old men’s love of wealth and pleasure.
- O my right hand, thou yearn’st to seize the spear,
- But weakness brings thy yearning all to naught.[*](Euripides, Herc. Fur. 269.)
And just as Alexander, wishing not to work Bucephalus too hard when he was old, used to ride other horses before the battle in reviewing the
phalanx and drawing it up in line, and then, after giving the watchword and mounting him, immediately charged the enemy, and fought the battle to its end; so the statesman, if he is sensible, will curb himself when he has grown old, will keep away from unnecessary activities and allow the State to employ men in their prime for lesser matters, but in important affairs will himself take part vigorously. For athletes keep their bodies untouched by necessary tasks and in full force for useless toils, but we, on the contrary, letting petty and worthless matters go, will save ourselves for things that are seriously worth while. For perhaps, as Homer says,[*](Homer, Il. xxii. 71.) to a young man everything is becoming, and people accept and love him, calling the one who does many little things a friend of the common folk and hardworking, and the one who does brilliant and splendid things noble and high-minded; and under some conditions even contentiousness and rashness have a certain timeliness and grace becoming to men of that age. But the old man in public life who undertakes subordinate services, such as the farming of taxes and the supervision of harbours and of the market-place, and who moreover works his way into diplomatic missions and trips abroad to visit commanders and potentates, in which there is nothing indispensable or dignified, but which are merely flattery to curry favour, seems to me, my friend, a pitiable and unenviable object, and to some people, perhaps, a burdensome and vulgar one.