An seni respublica gerenda sit

For though Nature seeks by all means to delight and rejoice herself, yet the bodies of old men are incapacitated for all pleasures, except a few that are absolutely necessary. For not only

Venus to old men is averse,

[*](Eurip. Aeolus, Frag. 23.)

as Euripides has it; but their appetite also to their meat and drink is for the most part dull, and as one would say, toothless; so that they have but little gust and relish in them..

They ought therefore to furnish themselves with pleasures of the mind, not ungenerous or illiberal, like those of Simonides, who said to those who reproached him with covetousness, that being by his years deprived of other pleasures, he recreated his old age with the only delight which remained, that of heaping up riches. But political life has in it pleasures exceeding great, and no less honorable, being such as it is probable the very Gods do only or at least chiefly enjoy themselves in; and these are the delights which proceed from doing good and performing what is honest and laudable. For if Nicias the painter took such pleasure in the work of his hands, that he often was fain to ask his servants whether he had washed or dined; and if Archimedes was so intent upon the table in which he drew his geometrical figures, that his attendants were obliged by force to pluck him from it and strip him of his clothes that they might anoint him, whilst he in the mean time drew new schemes on his anointed body; and if Canus the piper, whom you also know, was wont to say that men knew not how much more he delighted himself with his playing than he did others, for that then his hearers would rather demand of him than give him a reward; do we not thence conceive how great pleasures the virtues afford to those who practise them, from their honest actions and public-spirited works tending to the benefit of human society? They do not tickle or weaken, as do such sweet and gentle motions as are made on the flesh; for these indeed have a furious and unconstant itching, mixed with a feverish inflammation; whereas those which accompany

such gallant actions as he who rightly administers the state is worker of, not like the golden plumes of Euripides, but like those celestial wings of Plato, elevate the soul which has received a greatness of courage and wisdom accompanied with joy.

Call to mind a little, I entreat you, those things you have so often heard. For Epaminondas indeed, being asked what was the most pleasant thing that ever befell him, answered, his having gained the victory at Leuctra whilst his father and mother were yet living. And Sylla, when, having freed Italy from civil wars, he came to Rome, could not the first night fetch the least wink of sleep, having his soul transported with excessive joy and content, as with a strong and mighty wind; and this he himself has written in his Commentaries. For be it indeed so, as Xenophon says, that there is no sound more pleasing than one’s own praises; yet there is no sight, remembrance, or consideration which gives a man so much satisfaction as the contemplation of his own actions, performed by him in offices of magistracy, and management of the state, in eminent and public places.

It is moreover true, that the courteous thanks attending as a witness on such virtuous acts, and the emulous praise conferred on them, which is as a guide conducting us in the way of just benevolence, add a certain lustre and shining gloss to the joy of virtue. Neither ought a man negligently to suffer his glory to wither in his old age, like a wrestler’s garland; but, by adding always something new and fresh, he should awaken, meliorate, and confirm the grace of his former actions. For as those workmen on whom was incumbent the charge of keeping in repair the Delian ship, by supplying and putting into the place of the decayed planks and timber others that were new and sound, seem to have preserved it from ancient times, as if it were eternal and incorruptible; so the preserving and

upholding of one’s glory is as the keeping in of a fire, a work of no difficulty, as requiring only to be supplied with a little fuel, but when either of them is wholly extinct and suppressed, one cannot without great labor rekindle it again. Lampis, the sea commander, being asked how he got his wealth, answered: My greatest estate I gained easily enough, but the smaller slowly and with much labor. In like manner, it is not easy at the beginning to acquire reputation and power in the state; but to augment and conserve it, when it is grown great, is not at all hard for those who have obtained it. For neither does a friend, when he is once had, require many and great services that he may so continue, but assiduity does by small signs preserve his good-will; nor do the friendship and confidence of the people expect to have a man always bestowing largesses, defending their causes, or executing of magistracy, but they are maintained by a readiness, and by not failing or being weary of carefulness and solicitude for the public. For even wars themselves have not alway conflicts, fights, and sieges; but there sometimes intervene sacrifices and parleys, and abundance of leisure for sports and pastimes. Whence then comes it, that the administration of the commonwealth should be feared as inconsolable, laborious, and unsupportable, where theatres, processions, largesses, music, joy, and at every turn the service and festival of some God or other, unbending the brows of every council and senate, yield a manifold pleasure and delight?

As for envy, which is the greatest evil attending the management of public affairs, it least attacks old age. For dogs indeed, as Heraclitus has it, bark at a stranger whom they do not know; and envy opposes him who is a beginner on the very steps of the tribune, hindering his access, but she meekly bears an accustomed and familiar glory, and not churlishly or difficultly. Wherefore some resemble envy to smoke; for it arises thick at first, when the fire

begins to burn; but when the flame grows clear, it vanishes away. Now men usually quarrel and contend about other excellences, as virtue, nobility, and honor, as if they were of opinion that they took from themselves as much as they give to others; but the precedency of time, which is properly called by the Greeks Πρεσβεῖον (or the honor of old age), is free from jealousy, and willingly granted by men to their companions. For to no honor is it so incident to grace the honorer more than the honored, as to that which is given to persons in years. Moreover, all men do not expect to gain themselves authority from wealth, eloquence, or wisdom; but as for the reverence and glory to which old age brings men, there is not any one of those who act in the management of the state but hopes to attain it.

He therefore who, having a long time contended against envy, shall when it ceases and is appeased withdraw himself from the state, and together with public actions desert communities and societies, differs nothing from that pilot who, having kept his ship out at sea when in danger of being overwhelmed by contrary and tempestuous waves and winds, seeks to put into harbor as soon as ever the weather is grown calm and favorable. For the longer time there has been, the more friends and companions he has made; all which he cannot carry out with him, as a singing-master does his choir, nor is it just to leave them. But as it is not easy to root up old trees, so neither is it to extirpate a long-continued practice in the management of the state, which having many roots is involved in a tangled mass of affairs, which create more troubles and vexations to those who retire from them than to those who continue in them. And if there is any remainder of envy and emulation against old men from former contentions about civil affairs, they should rather extinguish it by authority, than turn their backs on it and go away naked and disarmed. For envious persons do not so much assail those who contend

against them, as they do by contempt insult over such as retire.

And to this bears witness that saying of the great Epaminondas to the Thebans, when in the winter the Arcadians requested them to come into their city and dwell in their houses,—which he would not permit, but said to them: Now the Arcadians admire you, seeing you exercise yourselves, and wrestle in your armor; but if they shall behold you sitting by the fire and pounding of beans, they will think you to differ nothing from themselves. So an old man speaking to the people, acting in the state, and honored, is a venerable spectacle; but he who wastes away his days in his bed, or sits discoursing of trivial matters and wiping his nose in the corner of a gallery, easily renders himself an object of contempt. And this indeed Homer himself teaches those who hear him aright. For Nestor, who fought before Troy, was highly venerated and esteemed; whilst Peleus and Laertes, who stayed at home, were slighted and despised. For the habit of prudence does not continue the same in those who give themselves to their ease; but by little and little diminishes and is dissolved by sloth, as always requiring some exercise of the thought to rouse up and purify the rational, active faculty of the soul. For,

Like glittering brass, by being used it shines.

[*](Sophocles, Frag. 779.)

For the infirmity of the body does not so much incommode the administrations of those who, almost spent with age, go to the tribune or to the council of war, as they are advantageous by the caution and prudence which attend their years, and keep them from thrusting themselves precipitately into affairs, abused partly by want of experience and partly by vain-glory, and hurrying the people along with them by violence, like a sea agitated by the winds; causing them mildly and moderately to manage those with whom they have to do.

Whence cities, when they are in adversity and fear, desire the government of grave and ancient personages; and often having drawn out of his field some old man who had not so much as the least thought of it, have compelled him, though unwilling, to put his hand to the helm, and conduct the ship of the state into the haven of security, rejecting generals and orators, who not only knew how to speak loud and make long harangues without drawing their breath, but were able also valiantly to march forth and fight their enemies. So when the orators one day at Athens, before Timotheus and Iphicrates uncovering Chares the son of Theochares, a vigorous and stout-bodied young man, said they were of opinion that the general of the Athenians ought to be such a one; Not so, by all the Gods, answered Timotheus, but such a one he should be that is to carry the general’s bedding; but the general himself ought to be such a one as can at the same time see both forwards and backwards, and will suffer not his reasonings about things convenient to be disturbed by any passion.

Sophocles indeed said, he was glad that he was got free from the tyranny of wanton love, as being a furious and raging master; but in the administrations of state, we are not to avoid this one only master, the love of women or boys, but many who are madder than he, such as obstinacy in contending ambition, and a desire of being always the first and greatest, which is a disease most fruitful in bringing forth envy, jealousy, and conspiracies; some of which vices old age abates and dulls, while it wholly extinguishes and cools the others, not so much detracting from the practical impulse of the mind, as repressing its impetuous and over-hot passions, that it may apply a sober and settled reasoning to its considerations about the management of affairs.