An seni respublica gerenda sit

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:

1. O my right hand, thou yearn’st to seize the spear,
2. But weakness brings thy yearning all to naught.[*](Euripides, Herc. Fur. 269.)

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.

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.