An seni respublica gerenda sit

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],

1. For when in use it gleams like beauteous bronze;
2. An unused house through time in ruin falls,[*](Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. p. 314, no. 780; cf. Moralia, 792 a, 1129 c.)

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.