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+Project Gutenberg Treatises on Friendship and Old Age by Cicero
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+Title: Treatises on Friendship and Old Age 
+
+Author: Marcus Tullius Cicero
+
+Translator:  E. S. Shuckburgh
+
+September, 2001  [Etext #2808]
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+Prepared by David Reed haradda@aol.com or davidr@inconnect.com
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+
+Treatises on Friendship and Old Age 
+
+by Marcus Tullius Cicero 
+
+
+
+
+Translated by E S Shuckburgh
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY NOTE
+
+MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO, the greatest of Roman orators and
+the chief master of Latin prose style, was born at Arpinum, Jan.
+3,106 B.C. His father, who was a man of property and belonged
+to the class of the "Knights," moved to Rome when Cicero was a
+child; and the future statesman received an elaborate education in
+rhetoric, law, and philosophy, studying and practising under some
+of the most noted teachers of the time.  He began his career as an
+advocate at the age of twenty-five, and almost immediately came
+to be recognized not only as a man of brilliant talents but also as a
+courageous upholder of justice in the face of grave political
+danger.  After two years of practice he left Rome to travel in
+Greece and Asia, taking all the opportunities that offered to study
+his art under distinguished masters.  He returned to Rome greatly
+improved in health and in professional skill, and in 76 B. C. was
+elected to the office of quaestor. He was assigned to the province
+of Lilybarum in Sicily, and the vigor and justice of his
+administration earned him the gratitude of the inhabitants. It was
+at their request that he undertook in 70 B. C. the Prosecution of
+Verres, who as Praetor had subjected the Sicilians to incredible
+extortion and oppression; and his successful conduct of this case,
+which ended in the conviction and banishment of Verres, may be
+said to have launched him on his political career. He became
+aedile in the same year, in 67 B.C. praetor, and in 64 B. C. was
+elected consul by a large majority. The most important event of the
+year of his consulship was the conspiracy of Catiline. This
+notorious criminal of patrician rank had conspired with a number
+of others, many of them young men of high birth but dissipated
+character, to seize the chief offices of the state, and to extricate
+themselves from the pecuniary and other difficulties that had
+resulted from their excesses, by the wholesale plunder of the city. 
+The plot was unmasked by the vigilance of Cicero, five of the
+traitors were summarily executed, and in the overthrow of the
+army that had been gathered in their support Catiline himself
+perished. Cicero regarded himself as the savior of his country, and
+his country for the moment seemed to give grateful assent.
+
+But reverses were at hand. During the existence of the political
+combination of Pompey, Caesar, and Crassus, known as the first
+triumvirate, P. Clodius, an enemy of Cicero's, proposed a law
+banishing "any one who had put Roman citizens to death without
+trial." This was aimed at Cicero on account of his share in the
+Catiline affair, and in March, 58 B. C., he left Rome. The same
+day a law was passed by which he was banished by name, and his
+property was plundered and destroyed, a temple to Liberty being
+erected on the site of his house in the city. During his exile
+Cicero's manliness to some extent deserted him. He drifted from
+place to place, seeking the protection of officials against
+assassination, writing letters urging his supporters to agitate for his
+recall, sometimes accusing them of lukewarmness and even
+treachery, bemoaning the ingratitude of his' country or regretting
+the course of action that had led to his outlawry, and suffering
+from extreme depression over his separation from his wife and
+children and the wreck of his political ambitions. Finally in
+August, 57 B. C., the decree for his restoration was passed, and he
+returned to Rome the next month, being received with immense
+popular enthusiasm. During the next few years the renewal of the
+understanding  among the triumvirs shut Cicero out from any
+leading part in politics, and he resumed his activity in the
+law-courts, his most important case being, perhaps, the defence of
+Milo for the murder. of Clodius, Cicero's most troublesome
+enemy.  This oration, in the revised form in which it has come
+down to us, is ranked as among the finest specimens of the art of
+the orator, though in its original form it failed to secure Milo's
+acquittal. Meantime, Cicero was also devoting much time to
+literary composition, and his letters show great dejection over the
+political situation, and a somewhat wavering attitude towards the
+various parties in the state. In 55 B. C. he went to Cilicia in Asia
+Minor as proconsul, an office which he administered with
+efficiency and integrity in civil affairs and with success in military.
+He returned to Italy in the end of the following year, and he was
+publicly thanked by the senate for his services, but disappointed in
+his hopes for a triumph.  The war for supremacy between Caesar
+and Pompey which had for some time been gradually growing
+more certain, broke out in 49 B.C., when Caesar led his army
+across the Rubicon, and Cicero after much irresolution threw in his
+lot with Pompey, who was overthrown the next year in the battle
+of Pharsalus and later murdered in Egypt. Cicero returned to Italy,
+where Caesar treated him magnanimously, and for some time he
+devoted himself to philosophical and rhetorical writing.  In 46 B.C.
+he divorced his wife Terentia, to whom he had been married for
+thirty years and married the young and wealthy Publilia in order to
+relieve himself from financial difficulties; but her also he shortly
+divorced.  Caesar, who had now become supreme in Rome, was
+assassinated in 44 B.C., and though Cicero was not a sharer in the
+conspiracy, he seems to have approved the deed. In the confusion
+which followed he supported the cause of the conspirators against
+Antony; and when finally the triumvirate of Antony, Octavius, and
+Lepidus was established, Cicero was included among the
+proscribed, and on December 7, 43 B.C., he was killed by agents
+of Antony. His head and hand were cut off and exhibited at Rome.
+
+The most important orations of the last months of his life were the
+fourteen "Philippics" delivered against Antony, and the price of
+this enmity he paid with his life.
+
+To his contemporaries Cicero was primarily the great forensic and
+political orator of his time, and the fifty-eight speeches which have
+come down to us bear testimony to the skill, wit, eloquence, and
+Passion which gave him his pre-eminence.  But these speeches of
+necessity deal with the minute details of the occasions which
+called them forth, and so require for their appreciation a full
+knowledge of the history, political and personal, of the time. The
+letters, on the other hand, are less elaborate both in style and in the
+handling of current events, while they serve to reveal his
+personality, and to throw light upon Roman life in the last days of
+the Republic in an extremely vivid fashion.  Cicero as a man, in
+spite of his self-importance, the vacillation of his political conduct
+in desperate crises, and the whining despondency of his times of
+adversity, stands out as at bottom a patriotic Roman of substantial
+honesty, who gave his life to check the inevitable fall of the
+commonwealth to which he was devoted. The evils which were
+undermining the Republic bear so many striking resemblances to
+those which threaten the civic and national life of America to-day
+that the interest of the period is by no means merely historical.
+
+As a philosopher, Cicero's most important function was to make
+his countrymen familiar with the main schools of Greek thought.
+Much of this writing is thus of secondary interest to us in
+comparison with his originals, but in the fields of religious theory
+and of the application of philosophy to life he made important
+first-hand contributions.  From these works have been selected the
+two treatises, on Old Age and on Friendship, which have proved of
+most permanent and widespread interest to posterity, and which
+give a clear impression of the way in which a high-minded Roman
+thought about some of the main problems' of human life.
+
+On Friendship
+by Marcus Tullius Cicero translated by E. S. Shuckburgh
+
+THE augur Quintus Mucius Scaevola used to recount a number of
+stories about his father-in-law Galus Laelius, accurately
+remembered and charmingly told; and whenever he talked about
+him always gave him the title of "the wise" without any hesitation.
+I had been introduced by my father to Scaevola as soon as I had
+assumed the _toga virilis_, and I took advantage of the
+introduction never to quit the venerable man's side as long as I was
+able to stay and he was spared to us.  The consequence was that I
+committed to memory many disquisitions of his, as well as many
+short pointed apophthegms, and, in short, took as much advantage
+of his wisdom as I could. When he died, I attached myself to
+Scaevola the Pontifex, whom I may venture to call quite the most
+distinguished of our countrymen for ability and uprightness.  But
+of this latter I shall take other occasions to speak. To return to
+Scaevola the augur. Among many other occasions I particularly
+remember one. He was sitting on a semicircular garden-bench, as
+was his custom, when I and a very few intimate friends were there,
+and he chanced to turn the conversation upon a subject which
+about that time was in many people's mouths.  You must
+remember, Atticus, for you were very intimate with Publius
+Sulpicius, what expressions of astonishment, or even indignation,
+were called forth by his mortal quarrel, as tribune, with the consul
+Quintus Pompeius, with whom he had formerly lived on terms of
+the closest intimacy and affection. Well, on this occasion,
+happening to mention this particular circumstance, Scaevola
+detailed to us a discourse of Laelius on friendship delivered to
+himself and Laelius's other son-in-law Galus Fannius, son of
+Marcus Fannius, a few days after the death of Africanus. The
+points of that discussion I committed to memory, and have
+arranged them in this book at my own discretion.  For I have
+brought the speakers, as it were, personally on to my stage to
+prevent the constant "said I" and "said he" of a narrative, and to
+give the discourse the air of being orally delivered in our hearing.
+
+You have often urged me to write something on Friendship, and I
+quite acknowledged that the subject seemed one worth everybody's
+investigation, and specially suited to the close intimacy that has
+existed between you and me. Accordingly I was quite ready to
+benefit the public at your request.
+
+As to the _dramatis personae_. In the treatise on Old Age, which I
+dedicated to you, I introduced Cato as chief speaker. No one, I
+thought, could with greater propriety speak on old age than one
+who had been an old man longer than any one else, and had been
+exceptionally vigorous in his old age. Similarly, having learnt from
+tradition that of all friendships that between Gaius Laelius and
+Publius Scipio was the most remarkable, I thought Laelius was just
+the person to support the chief part in a discussion on friendship
+which Scaevola remembered him to have actually taken.
+Moreover, a discussion of this sort gains somehow in weight from
+the authority of men of ancient days, especially if they happen to
+have been distinguished.  So it comes about that in reading over
+what I have myself written I have a feeling at times that it is
+actually Cato that is speaking, not I.
+
+Finally, as I sent the former essay to you as a gift from one old
+man to another, so I have dedicated this _On Friendship_ as a most
+affectionate friend to his friend. In the former Cato spoke, who
+was the oldest and wisest man of his day; in this Laelius speaks on
+friendship-Laelius, who was at once a wise man (that was the title
+given him) and eminent for his famous friendship.  Please forget
+me for a while; imagine Laelius to be speaking.
+
+Gaius Fannius and Quintus Mucius come to call on their
+father-in-law after the death of Africanus. They start the subject;
+Laelius answers them.  And the whole essay on friendship is his. In
+reading it you will recognise a picture of yourself.
+
+2. _Fannius_. You are quite right, Laelius! there never was a better
+or more illustrious character than Africanus. But you should
+consider that at the present moment all eyes are on you. Everybody
+calls you "the wise" _par excellence_, and thinks you so. The same
+mark of respect was lately paid Cato, and we know that in the last
+generation Lucius Atilius was called "the wise."  But in both cases
+the word was applied with a certain difference. Atilius was so
+called from his reputation as a jurist; Cato got the name as a kind
+of honorary title and in extreme old age because of his varied
+experience of affairs, and his reputation for foresight and firmness,
+and the sagacity of the opinions which he delivered in senate and
+forum.  You, however, are regarded as  wise  in a somewhat
+different sense not alone on account of natural ability and
+character, but also from your industry and learning; and not in the
+sense in which the vulgar, but that in which scholars, give that
+title.  In this sense we do not read of any one being called wise in
+Greece except one man at Athens; and he, to be sure, had been
+declared by the oracle of Apollo also to be "the supremely wise
+man." For those who commonly go by the name of the Seven
+Sages are not admitted into the category of the wise by fastidious
+critics.  Your wisdom people believe to consist in this, that you
+look upon yourself as self-sufficing and regard the changes and
+chances of mortal life as powerless to affect your virtue. 
+Accordingly they are always asking me, and doubtless also our
+Scaevola here, how you bear the death of Africanus.  This curiosity
+has been the more excited from the fact that on the Nones of this
+month, when we augurs met as usual in the suburban villa of
+Decimus Brutus for consultation, you were not present, though it
+had always been your habit to keep that appointment and perform
+that duty with the utmost punctuality.
+
+_Scaevola_. Yes, indeed, Laelius, I am often asked the question
+mentioned by Fannius.  But I answer in accordance with what I
+have observed: I say that you bear in a reasonable manner the grief
+which you have sustained in the death of one who was at once a
+man of the most illustrious character and a very dear friend.  That
+of course you could not but be affected-anything else would have
+been wholly unnatural in a man of your gentle nature-but that the
+cause of your non-attendance at our college meeting was illness,
+not melancholy.
+
+_Laelius_.  Thanks, Scaevola!  You are quite right; you spoke the
+exact truth. For in fact I had no right to allow myself to be
+withdrawn from a duty which I had regularly performed, as long as
+I was well, by any personal misfortune; nor do I think that anything
+that can happen will cause a man of principle to intermit a duty.
+As for your telling me, Fannius, of the honourable appellation
+given me (an appellation to which I do not recognise my title, and
+to which I make no claim), you doubtless act from feelings of
+affection; but I must say that you seem to me to do less than justice
+to Cato. If any one was ever "wise,"-of which I have my doubts,-he
+was.  Putting aside everything else, consider how he bore his son's
+death! I had not forgotten Paulus; I had seen with my own eyes
+Gallus.  But they lost their sons when mere children; Cato his
+when he was a full-grown man with an assured reputation.  Do not
+therefore be in a hurry to reckon as Cato's superior even that same
+famous personage whom Apollo, as you say, declared to be "the
+wisest."  Remember the former's reputation rests on deeds, the
+latter's on words.
+
+3. Now, as far as I am concerned (I speak to both of you now),
+believe me the case stands thus. If I were to say that I am not
+affected by regret for Scipio, I must leave the philosophers to
+justify my conduct, but in point of fact I should be telling a lie.
+Affected of course I am by the loss of a friend as I think there will
+never be again, such as I can fearlessly say there never was before. 
+But I stand in no need of medicine. I can find my own consolation,
+and it consists chiefly in my being free from the mistaken notion
+which generally causes pain at the departure of friends. To Scipio I
+am convinced no evil has befallen  mine is the disaster, if disaster
+there be; and to be severely distressed at one's own misfortunes
+does not show that you love your friend, but that you love yourself.
+
+As for him, who can say that all is not more than well? For, unless
+he had taken the fancy to wish for immortality, the last thing of
+which he ever thought, what is there for which mortal man may
+wish that he did not attain? In his early manhood he more than
+justified by extraordinary personal courage the hopes which his
+fellow-citizens had conceived of him as a child. He never was a
+candidate for the consulship, yet was elected consul twice: the first
+time before the legal age; the second at a time which, as far as he
+was concerned, was soon enough, but was near being too late for
+the interests of the State. By the overthrow of two cities which
+were the most bitter enemies of our Empire, he put an end not only
+to the wars then raging, but also to the possibility of others in the
+future.  What need to mention the exquisite grace of his manners,
+his dutiful devotion to his mother, his generosity to his sisters, his
+liberality to his relations, the integrity of his conduct to every one? 
+You know all this already.  Finally, the estimation in which his
+fellow-citizens held him has been shown by the signs of mourning
+which accompanied his obsequies.  What could such a man have
+gained by the addition of a few years? Though age need not be a
+burden,-as I remember Cato arguing in the presence of myself and
+Scipio two years before he died,-yet it cannot but take away the
+vigour and freshness which Scipio was still enjoying. We may
+conclude therefore that his life, from the good fortune which had
+attended him and the glory he had obtained, was so circumstanced
+that it could not be bettered, while the suddenness of his death
+saved him the sensation of dying.  As to the manner of his death it
+is difficult to speak; you see what people suspect.  Thus much,
+however, I may say: Scipio in his lifetime saw many days of
+supreme triumph and exultation, but none more magnificent than
+his last, on which, upon the rising of the Senate, he was escorted
+by the senators and the people of Rome, by the allies, and by the
+Latins, to his own door. From such an elevation of popular esteem
+the next step seems naturally to be an ascent to the gods above,
+rather than a descent to Hades.
+
+4. For I am not one of these modern philosophers who maintain
+that our souls perish with our bodies, and that death ends all. With
+me ancient opinion has more weight: whether it be that of our own
+ancestors, who attributed such solemn observances to the dead, as
+they plainly would not have done if they had believed them to be
+wholly annihilated; or that of the philosophers who once visited
+this country, and who by their maxims and doctrines educated
+Magna Graecia, which at that time was in a flourishing condition,
+though it has now been ruined; or that of the man who was
+declared by Apollo's oracle to be "most wise," and who used to
+teach without the variation which is to be found in most
+philosophers that "the souls of men are divine, and that when they
+have quitted the body a return to heaven is open to them, least
+difficult to those who have been most virtuous and just." This
+opinion was shared by Scipio.  Only a few days before his death-as
+though he had a presentiment of what was coming-he discoursed
+for three days on the state of the republic. The company consisted
+of Philus and Manlius and several others, and I had brought you,
+Scaevola, along with me.  The last part of his discourse referred
+principally to the immortality of the soul; for he told us what he
+had heard from the elder Africanus in a dream.  Now if it be true
+that in proportion to a man's goodness the escape from what may
+be called the prison and bonds of the flesh is easiest, whom can we
+imagine to have had an easier voyage to the gods than Scipio? I am
+disposed to think, therefore, that in his case mourning would be a
+sign of envy rather than of friendship. If, however, the truth rather
+is that the body and soul perish together, and that no sensation
+remains, then though there is nothing good in death, at least there
+is nothing bad. Remove sensation, and a man is exactly as though
+he had never been born; and yet that this man was born is a joy to
+me, and will be a subject of rejoicing to this State to its last hour.
+
+Wherefore, as I said before, all is as well as possible with him. Not
+so with me; for as I entered life before him, it would have been
+fairer for me to leave it also before him. Yet such is the pleasure I
+take in recalling our friendship, that I look upon my life as having
+been a happy one because I have spent it with Scipio.  With him I
+was associated in public and private business; with him I lived in
+Rome and served abroad; and between us there was the most
+complete harmony in our tastes, our pursuits, and our sentiments,
+which is the true secret of friendship. It is not therefore in that
+reputation for wisdom mentioned just now by Fannius-especially
+as it happens to be groundless-that I find my happiness so much, as
+in the hope that the memory of our friendship will be lasting. What
+makes me care the more about this is the fact that in all history
+there are scarcely three or four pairs of friends on record; and it is
+classed with them that I cherish a hope of the friendship of Scipio
+and Laelius being known to posterity.
+
+_Fannius_. Of course that must be so, Laelius.  But since you have
+mentioned the word friendship, and we are at leisure, you would
+be doing me a great kindness, and I expect Scaevola also, if you
+would do as it is your habit to do when asked questions on other
+subjects, and tell us your sentiments about friendship, its nature,
+and the rules to be observed in regard to it.
+
+_Scaevola_. I shall of course be delighted.  Fannius has anticipated
+the very request I was about to make.  So you will be doing us both
+a great favour.
+
+5. _Laelius_.  I should ccrtainly have no objection if I felt
+confidence in myself. For the theme is a noble one, and we are (as
+Fannius has said) at leisure. But who am I? and what ability have
+I? What you propose is all very well for professional philosophers,
+who are used, particularly if Greeks, to have the subject for
+discussion proposed to them on the spur of the moment.  It is a
+task of considerable difficulty, and requires no little practice. 
+Therefore for a set discourse on friendship you must go, I think, to
+professional lecturers. All I can do is to urge on you to regard
+friendship as the greatest thing in the world; for there is nothing
+which so fits in with our nature, or is so exactly what we want in
+prosperity or adversity.
+
+But I must at the very beginning lay down this principle-
+_friendship can only exist between good men_.  I do not, however,
+press this too closely, like the philosophers who push their
+definitions to a superfluous accuracy. They have truth on their
+side, perhaps, but it is of no practical advantage.  Those, I mean,
+who say that no one but the "wise" is "good." Granted, by all
+means. But the "wisdom" they mean is one to which no mortal
+ever yet attained. We must concern ourselves with the facts of
+everyday life as we find it-not imaginary and ideal perfections.
+Even Gaius Fannius, Manius Curius, and Tiberius Coruncanius,
+whom our ancestors decided to be "wise," I could never declare to
+be so according to their standard.  Let them, then, keep this word
+"wisdom" to themselves. Everybody is irritated by it; no one
+understands what it means.  Let them but grant that the men I
+mentioned were "good." No, they won't do that either. No one but
+the "wise" can be allowed that title, say they. Well, then, let us
+dismiss them and manage as best we may with our own poor
+mother wit, as the phrase is.
+
+We mean then by the "good" _those whose actions and lives leave
+no question as to their honour, purity, equity, and liberality; who
+are free from greed, lust, and violence; and who have the courage
+of their convictions_. The men I have just named may serve as
+examples.  Such men as these being generally accounted "good,"
+let us agree to call them so, on the ground that to the best of
+human ability they follow nature as the most perfect guide to a
+good life.
+
+Now this truth seems clear to me, that nature has so formed us that
+a certain tie unites us all, but that this tie becomes stronger from
+proximity.  So it is that fellow-citizens are preferred in our
+affections to foreigners, relations to strangers; for in their case
+Nature herself has caused a kind of friendship to exist, though it is
+one which lacks some of the elements of permanence.  Friendship
+excels relationship in this, that whereas you may eliminate
+affection from relationship, you cannot do so from friendship. 
+Without it relationship still exists in name, friendship does not.
+You may best understand this friendship by considering that,
+whereas the merely natural ties uniting the human race are
+indefinite, this one is so concentrated, and confined to so narrow a
+sphere, that affection is ever shared by two persons only or at most
+by a few.
+
+6. Now friendship may be thus defined: a complete accord on all
+subjects human and divine, joined with mutual goodwill and
+affection. And with the exception of wisdom, I am inclined to
+think nothing better than this has been given to man by the
+immortal gods.  There are people who give the palm to riches or to
+good health, or to power and office, many even to sensual
+pleasures.  This last is the ideal of brute beasts; and of the others
+we may say that they are frail and uncertain, and depend less on
+our own prudence than on the caprice of fortune. Then there are
+those who find the "chief good" in virtue.  Well, that is a noble
+doctrine.  But the very virtue they talk of is the parent and
+preserver of friendship, and without it friendship cannot possibly
+exist.
+
+Let us, I repeat, use the word virtue in the ordinary acceptation and
+meaning of the term, and do not let us define it in high-flown
+language. Let us account as good the persons usually considered
+so, such as Paulus, Cato, Gallus, Scipio, and Philus.  Such men as
+these are good enough for everyday life; and we need not trouble
+ourselves about those ideal characters which are nowhere to be
+met with.
+
+Well, between men like these the advantages of friendship are
+almost more than I can say. To begin with, how can life he worth
+living, to use the words of Ennius, which lacks that repose which
+is to be found in the mutual good-will of a friend? What can be
+more delightful than to have some one to whom you can say
+everything with the same absolute confidence as to yourself?  Is
+not prosperity robbed of half its value if you have no one to share
+your joy? On the other hand, misfortunes would be hard to bear if
+there were not some one to feel them even more acutely than
+yourself.  In a word, other objects of ambition serve for particular
+ends-riches for use, power for securing homage, office for
+reputation, pleasure for enjoyment, health for' freedom from pain
+and the full use of the functions of the body.  But friendship
+embraces innumerable advantages. Turn which way you please,
+you will find it at hand. It is everywhere; and yet never out of
+place, never unwelcome. Fire and water themselves, to use a
+common expression, are not of more universal use than friendship.
+I am not now speaking of the common or modified form of it,
+though even that is a source of pleasure and profit, but of that true
+and complete friendship which existed between the select few who
+are known to fame.  Such friendship enhances prosperity, and
+relieves adversity of its burden by halving and sharing it.
+
+7. And great and numerous as are the blessings of friendship, this
+certainly is the sovereign one, that it gives us bright hopes for the
+future and forbids weakness and despair. In the face of a true
+friend a man sees as it were a second self.  So that where his friend
+is he is; if his friend be rich, he is not poor; though he be weak, his
+friend's strength is his; and in his friend's life he enjoys a second
+life after his own is finished. This last is perhaps the most difficult
+to conceive. But such is the effect of the respect, the loving
+remembrance, and the regret of friends which follow us to the
+grave.  While they take the sting out of death, they add a glory to
+the life of the survivors. Nay, if you eliminate from nature the tie
+of affection, there will be an end of house and city, nor will so
+much as the cultivation of the soil be left.  If you don't see the
+virtue of friendship and harmony, you may learn it by observing
+the effects of quarrels and feuds. Was any family ever so well
+established, any State so firmly settled, as to be beyond the reach
+of utter destruction from animosities and factions? This may teach
+you the immense advantage of friendship.
+
+They say that a certain philosopher of Agrigentum, in a Greek
+poem, pronounced with the authority of an oracle the doctrine that
+whatever in nature and the universe was unchangeable was so in
+virtue of the binding force of friendship; whatever was changeable
+was so by the solvent power of discord.  And indeed this is a truth
+which everybody understands and practically attests by experience. 
+For if any marked instance of loyal friendship in confronting or
+sharing danger comes to light, every one applauds it to the echo.
+What cheers there were, for instance, all over the theatre at a
+passage in the new play of my friend and guest Pacuvius; where
+the king, not knowing which of the two was Orestes, Pylades
+declared himself to be Orestes, that he might die in his stead, while
+the real Orestes kept on asserting that it was he.  The audience rose
+_en masse_ and clapped their hands. And this was at an incident in
+fiction: what would they have done, must we suppose, if it had
+been in real life? You can easily see what a natural feeling it is,
+when men who would not have had the resolution to act thus
+themselves, shewed how right they thought it in another.
+
+I don't think I have any more to say about friendship. If there is any
+more, and I have no doubt there is much, you must, if you care to
+do so, consult those who profess to discuss such matters.
+
+_Fannius_. We would rather apply to you.  Yet I have often
+consulted such persons, and have heard what they had to say with a
+certain satisfaction.  But in your discourse one somehow feels that
+there is a different strain.
+
+_Scaevola_. You would have said that still more, Fannius, if you
+had been present the other day in Scipio's pleasure-grounds when
+we had the discussion about the State. How splendidly he stood up
+for justice against Philus's elaborate speech.
+
+_Fannius_.  Ah! it was naturally easy for the justest of men to
+stand up for justice.
+
+_Scaevola_. Well, then, what about friendship? Who could
+discourse on it more easily than the man whose chief glory is a
+friendship maintained with the most absolute fidelity, constancy,
+and integrity?
+
+8. _Laclius_. Now you are really using force. It makes no
+difference what kind of force you use: force it is. For it is neither
+easy nor right to refuse a wish of my sons-in-law, particularly
+when
+the wish is a creditable one in itself.
+
+Well, then, it has very often occurred to me when thinking about
+friendship, that the chief point to be considered was this: is it
+weakness and want of means that make friendship desired? I
+mean, is its object an interchange of good offices, so that each may
+give that in which he is strong, and receive that in which he is
+weak? Or is it not rather true that, although this is an advantage
+naturally belonging to friendship, yet its original cause is quite
+other, prior in time, more noble in character, and springing more
+directly from our nature itself? The Latin word for friendship-
+_amicitia_-is derived from that for love-_amor_; and love is
+certainly the prime mover in contracting mutual affection. 
+For as to material advantages, it often happens that those are
+obtained even by men who are courted by a mere show of
+friendship and treated with respect from interested motives.  But
+friendship by its nature admits of no feigning, no pretence: as far
+as it goes it is both genuine and spontaneous. Therefore I gather
+that friendship springs from a natural impulse rather than a wish
+for help: from an inclination of the heart, combined with a certain
+instinctive feeling of love, rather than from a deliberate calculation
+of the material advantage it was likely to confer. The strength of
+this feeling you may notice in certain animals. They show such
+love to their offspring for a certain period, and are so beloved by
+them, that they clearly have a share in this natural, instinctive
+affection. But of course it is more evident in the case of man: first,
+in the natural affection between children and their parents, an
+affection which only shocking wickedness can sunder; and next,
+when the passion of love has attained to a like strength-on our
+finding, that is, some one person with whose character and nature
+we are in full sympathy, because we think that we perceive in him
+what I may call the beacon-light of virtue. For nothing inspires
+love, nothing conciliates affection, like virtue.  Why, in a certain
+sense we may be said to feel affection even for men we have never
+seen, owing to their honesty and virtue. Who, for instance, fails to
+dwell on the memory of Gaius Fabricius and Manius Curius with
+some affection and warmth of feeling, though he has never seen
+them?  Or who but loathes Tarquinius Superbus, Spurius Cassius,
+Spurius Maelius? We have fought for empire in Italy with two
+great generals, Pyrrhus and Hannibal. For the former, owing to his
+probity, we entertain no great feelings of enmity: the latter, owing
+to his cruelty, our country has detested and always will detest.
+
+9. Now, if the attraction of probity is so great that we can love it
+not only in those whom we have never seen, but, what is more,
+actually in an enemy, we need not be surprised  if men's affections
+are roused when they fancy that they have seen virtue and
+goodness in those with whom a close intimacy is possible. I do not
+deny that affection is strengthened by the actual receipt of benefits,
+as well as by the perception of a wish to render service, combined
+with a closer intercourse.  When these are added to the original
+impulse of the heart, to which I have alluded, a quite surprising
+warmth of feeling springs up. And if any one thinks that this
+comes from a sense of weakness, that each may have some one to
+help him to his particular need, all I can say is that, when he
+maintains it to be born of want and poverty, he allows to friendship
+an origin very base, and a pedigree, if I may be allowed the
+expression, far from noble. If this had been the case, a man's
+inclination to friendship would be exactly in proportion to his low
+opinion of his own resources.  Whereas the truth is quite the other
+way. For when a man's confidence in himself is greatest, when he
+is so fortified by virtue and wisdom as to want nothing and to feel
+absolutely self-dependent, it is then that he is most conspicuous for
+seeking out and keeping up friendships. Did Africanus, for
+example, want anything of me?  Not the least in the world! 
+Neither did I of him.  In my case it was an admiration of his virtue,
+in his an opinion, may be, which he entertained of my character,
+that caused our affection. Closer intimacy added to the warmth of
+our feelings. But though many great material advantages did
+ensue, they were not the source from which our affection
+proceeded. For as we are not beneficent and liberal with any view
+of extorting gratitude, and do not regard an act of kindness as an
+investment, but follow a natural inclination to liberality; so we
+look on friendship as worth trying for, not because we are attracted
+to it by the expectation of ulterior gain, but in the conviction that
+what it has to give us is from first to last included in the feeling
+itself.
+
+Far different is the view of those who, like brute beasts, refer
+everything to sensual pleasure. And no wonder. Men who have
+degraded all their powers of thought to an object so mean and
+contemptible can of course raise their eyes to nothing lofty, to
+nothing grand and divine.  Such persons indeed let us leave out of
+the present question. And let us accept the doctrine that the
+sensation of love and the warmth of inclination have their origin in
+a spontaneous feeling which arises directly the presence of probity
+is indicated.  When once men have conceived the inclination, they
+of course try to attach themselves to the object of it, and move
+themselves nearer and nearer to him. Their aim is that they may be
+on the same footing and the same level in regard to affection, and
+be more inclined to do a good service than to ask a return, and that
+there should be this noble rivalry between them. Thus both truths
+will be established.  We shall get the most important material
+advantages from friendship; and its origin from a natural impulse
+rather than from a sense of need will be at once more dignified and
+more in accordance with fact. For if it were true that its material
+advantages cemented friendship, it would be equally true that any
+change in them would dissolve it.  But nature being incapable of
+change, it follows that genuine friendships are eternal.
+
+So much for the origin of friendship.  But perhaps you would not
+care to hear any more.
+
+_Fannius_. Nay, pray go on; let us have the rest, Laelius. I take on
+myself to speak for my friend here as his senior.
+
+_Scaevola_. Quite right! Therefore, pray let us hear.
+
+10. _Loelius_. Well, then, my good friends, listen to some
+conversations about friendship which very frequently passed
+between Scipio and myself.  I must begin by telling you, however,
+that be used to say that the most difficult thing in the world was for
+a friendship to remain unimpaired to the end of life.  So many
+things might intervene: conflicting interests; differences of opinion
+in politics; frequent changes in character, owing sometimes to
+misfortunes, sometimes to advancing years. He used to illustrate
+these facts from the analogy of boyhood, since the warmest
+affections between boys are often laid aside with the boyish toga;
+and even if they did manage to keep them up to adolescence, they
+were sometimes broken by a rivalry in courtship, or for some other
+advantage to which their mutual claims were not compatible. 
+Even if the friendship was prolonged beyond that time, yet it
+frequently received a rude shock should the two happen to be
+competitors for office.  For while the most fatal blow to friendship
+in the majority of cases was the lust of gold, in the case of the best
+men it was a rivalry for office and reputation, by which it had
+often happened that the most violent enmity had arisen between
+the closest friends.
+
+Again, wide breaches and, for the most part, justifiable ones were
+caused by an immoral request being made of friends, to pander to
+a man's unholy desires or to assist him in inflicting a wrong.  A
+refusal, though perfectly right, is attacked by those to whom they
+refuse compliance as a violation of the laws of friendship. Now the
+people who have no scruples as to the requests they make to their
+friends, thereby allow that they are ready to have no scruples as to
+what they will do for their friends; and it is the recriminations of
+such people which commonly not only quench friendships, but
+give rise to lasting enmities.  " In fact," he used to say, "these
+fatalities overhang friendship in such numbers that it requires not
+only wisdom but good luck also to escape them all."
+
+11. With these premises, then, let us first, if you please, examine
+the question-how far ought personal feeling to go in friendship? 
+For instance: suppose Coriolanus to have had friends, ought they to
+have joined him in invading his country?  Again, in the case of
+Vecellinus or Spurius Maelius, ought their friends to have assisted
+them in their attempt to establish a tyranny?  Take two instances of
+either line of conduct. When Tiberius Gracchus attempted his
+revolutionary measures he was deserted, as we saw, by Quintus
+Tubero and the friends of his own standing.  On the other hand, a
+friend of your own family, Scaevola, Gains Blossius of Cumae,
+took a different course. I was acting as assessor to the consuls
+Laenas and Rupilius to try the conspirators, and Blossius pleaded
+for my pardon on the ground that his regard for Tiberius Gracchus
+had been so high that he looked upon his wishes as law. "Even if
+he had wished you to set fire to the Capitol?" said I. "That is a
+thing," he replied, "that he never would have wished."  "Ah, but if
+he had wished it?" said I. "I would have obeyed."  The wickedness
+of such a speech needs no comment.  And in point of fact he was
+as good and better than his word for he did not wait for orders in
+the audacious proceedings of Tiberius Gracchus, but was the head
+and front of them, and was a leader rather than an abettor of his
+madness. The result of his infatuation was that he fled to Asia,
+terrified by the special commission appointed to try him, joined
+the enemies of his country, and paid a penalty to the republic as
+heavy as it was deserved.  I conclude, then, that the plea of having
+acted in the interests of a friend is not a valid excuse for a wrong
+action.  For, seeing that a belief in a man's virtue is the original
+cause of friendship, friendship can hardly remain if virtue he
+abandoned. But if we decide it to be right to grant our friends
+whatever they wish, and to ask them for whatever we wish, perfect
+wisdom must be assumed on both sides if no mischief is to
+happen. But we cannot assume this perfect wisdom; for we are
+speaking only of such friends as are ordinarily to be met with,
+whether we have actually seen them or have been told about
+them-men, that is to say, of everyday life.  I must quote some
+examples of such persons, taking care to select such as approach
+nearest to our standard of wisdom. We read, for instance, that
+Papus Aemilius was a close friend of Gaius Luscinus.  History tells
+us that they were twice consuls together, and colleagues in the
+censorship.  Again, it is on record that Manius Curius and Tiberius
+Coruncanius were on the most intimate terms with them and with
+each other. Now, we cannot even suspect that any one of these
+men ever asked of his friend anything that militated against his
+honour or his oath or the interests of the republic. In the case of
+such men as these there is no point in saying that one of them
+would not have obtained such a request if he had made it; for they
+were men of the most scrupulous piety, and the making of such a
+request would involve a breach of religious obligation no less than
+the granting it. However, it is quite true that Gaius Carbo and
+Gaius Cato did follow Tiberius Gracchus; and though his brother
+Caius Gracchus did not do so at the time, he is now the most eager
+of them all.
+
+12. We may then lay down this rule of friendship-neither ask nor
+consent to do what is wrong. For the plea "for friendship's sake" is
+a discreditable one, and not to be admitted for a moment.  This
+rule holds good for all wrong-doing, but more especially in such as
+involves disloyalty to the republic.  For things have come to such a
+point with us, my dear Fannius and Scaevola, that we are bound to
+look somewhat far ahead to what is likely to happen to the
+republic.  The constitution, as known to our ancestors, has already
+swerved somewhat from the regular course and the lines marked
+out for it.  Tiberius Gracchus made an attempt to obtain the power
+of a king, or, I might rather say, enjoyed that power for a few
+months. Had the Roman people ever heard or seen the like before?
+What the friends and connexions that followed him, even after his
+death, have succeeded in doing in the case of Publius Scipio I
+cannot describe without tears.  As for Carbo, thanks to the
+punishment recently inflicted on Tiberius Gracchus, we have by
+hook or by crook managed to hold out against his attacks.  But
+what to expect of the tribuneship of Caius Gracchus I do not like
+to forecast. One thing leads to another; and once set going, the
+downward course proceeds with ever-increasing velocity.  There is
+the case of the ballot: what a blow was inflicted first by the lex
+Gabinia, and two years afterwards by the lex Cassia! I seem
+already to see the people estranged from the Senate, and the most
+important affairs at the mercy of the multitude. For you may be
+sure that more people will learn how to set such things in motion
+than how to stop them. What is the point of these remarks? This:
+no one ever makes any attempt of this sort without friends to help
+him.  We must therefore impress upon good men that, should they
+become inevitably involved in friendships with men of this kind,
+they ought not to consider themselves under any obligation to
+stand by friends who are disloyal to the republic.  Bad men must
+have the fear of punishment before their eyes: a punishment not
+less severe for those who follow than for those who lead others to
+crime. Who was more famous and powerful in Greece than
+Themistocles? At the head of the army in the Persian war he had
+freed Greece; he owed his exile to personal envy: but he did not
+submit to the wrong done him by his ungrateful country as he
+ought to have done. He acted as Coriolanus had acted among us
+twenty years before. But no one was found to help them in their
+attacks upon their fatherland. Both of them accordingly committed
+suicide.
+
+We conclude, then, not only that no such confederation of evilly
+disposed men must be allowed to shelter itself under the plea of
+friendship, but that, on the contrary, it must be visited with the
+severest punishment, lest the idea should prevail that fidelity to a
+friend justifies even making war upon one's country. And this is a
+case which I am inclined to think, considering how things are
+beginning to go, will sooner or later arise. And I care quite as
+much what the state of the constitution will be after my death as
+what it is now.
+
+13. Let this, then, be laid down as the first law of friendship, that
+_we should ask from friends, and do for friends', only what is
+good_.  But do not let us wait to be asked either: let there be ever
+an eager readiness, and an absence of hesitation. Let us have the
+courage to give advice with candour.  In friendship, let the
+influence of friends who give good advice be paramount; and let
+this influence be used to enforce advice not only in plain-spoken
+terms, but sometimes, if the case demands it, with sharpness; and
+when so used, let it be obeyed.
+
+I give you these rules because I believe that some wonderful
+opinions are entertained by certain persons who have, I am told, a
+reputation for wisdom in Greece.  There is nothing in the world, by
+the way, beyond the reach of their sophistry.  Well, some of them
+teach that we should avoid very close friendships, for fear that one
+man should have to endure the anxieties of several. Each man, say
+they, has enough and to spare on his own hands; it is too bad to be
+involved in the cares of other people. The wisest course is to hold
+the reins of friendship as loose as possible; you can then tighten or
+slacken them at your will. For the first condition of a happy life is
+freedom from care, which no one's mind can enjoy if it has to
+travail, so to speak, for others besides itself. Another sect, I am
+told, gives vent to opinions still less generous.  I briefly touched on
+this subject just now.  They affirm that friendships should be
+sought solely for the sake of the assistance they give, and not at all
+from motives of feeling and affection; and that therefore just in
+proportion as a man's power and means of support are lowest, he is
+most eager to gain. friendships: thence it comes that weak women
+seek the support of friendship more than men, the poor more than
+the rich, the unfortunate rather than those esteemed prosperous. 
+What noble philosophy! You might just as well take the sun out of
+the sky as friendship from life; for the immortal gods have given
+us nothing better or more delightful.
+
+But let us examine the two doctrines. What is the value of this "
+freedom from care"? It is very tempting at first sight, but in
+practice it has in many cases to be put on one side. For there is no
+business and no course of action demanded from us by our honour
+which you can consistently decline, or lay aside when begun, from
+a mere wish to escape from anxiety. Nay, if we wish to avoid
+anxiety we must avoid virtue itself, which necessarily involves
+some anxious thoughts in showing its loathing and abhorrence for
+the qualities which are opposite to itself-as kindness for ill-nature,
+self-control for licentiousness, courage for cowardice. Thus you
+may notice that it is the just who are most pained at injustice, the
+brave at cowardly actions, the temperate at depravity. It is then
+characteristic of a rightly ordered mind to be pleased at what is
+good and grieved at the reverse. Seeing then that the wise are not
+exempt from the heart-ache (which must be the case unless we
+suppose all human nature rooted out of their hearts), why should
+we banish friendship from our lives, for fear of being involved by
+it in some amount of distress? If you take away emotion, what
+difference remains I don't say between a man and a beast, but
+between a man and a stone or a log of wood, or anything else of
+that kind?
+
+Neither should we give any weight to the doctrine that virtue is
+something rigid and unyielding as iron.  In point of fact it is in
+regard to friendship, as in so many other things, so supple and
+sensitive that it expands, so to speak, at a friend's good fortune,
+contracts at his misfortunes. We conclude then that mental pain
+which we must often encounter on a friend's account is not of
+sufficient consequence to banish friendship from our life, any
+more than it is true that the cardinal virtues are to be dispensed
+with because they involve certain anxieties and distresses.
+
+14. Let me repeat then, "the clear indication of virtue, to which a
+mind of like character is naturally attracted, is the beginning of
+friendship." When that is the case the rise of affection is a
+necessity. For what can be more irrational than to take delight in
+many objects incapable of response, such as office, fame, splendid
+buildings, and personal decoration, and yet to take little or none in
+a sentient being endowed with virtue, which has the faculty of
+loving or, if I may use the expression, loving back? For nothing is
+really more delightful than a return of affection, and the mutual
+interchange of kind feeling and good offices. And if we add, as we
+may fairly do, that nothing so powerfully attracts and draws one
+thing to itself as likeness does to friendship, it wilt at once be
+admitted to be true that the good love the good and attach them to
+themselves as though they were united by blood and nature. For
+nothing can be more eager, or rather greedy, for what is like itself
+than nature. So, my dear Fannius and Scaevola, we may look upon
+this as an established fact, that between good men there is, as it
+were of necessity, a kindly feeling, which is the source of
+friendship ordained by nature.  But this same kindliness affects the
+many also.  For that is no unsympathetic or selfish or exclusive
+virtue, which protects even whole nations and consults their best
+interests. And that certainly it would not have done had it
+disdained all affection for the common herd.
+
+Again, the believers in the "interest" theory appear to me to destroy
+the most attractive link in the chain of friendship. For it is not so
+much what one gets by a friend that gives one pleasure, as the
+warmth of his feeling; and we only care for a friend's service if it
+has been prompted by affection. And so far from its being true that
+lack of means is a motive for seeking friendship, it is usually those
+who being most richly endowed with wealth and means, and above
+all with virtue (which, after all, is a man's best support), are least
+in need of another, that are most openhanded and beneficent.
+Indeed I am inclined to think that friends ought at times to be in
+want of something. For instance, what scope would my affections
+have had if Scipio had never wanted my advice or co-operation at
+home or abroad? It is not friendship, then, that follows material
+advantage, but material advantage friendship.
+
+15. We must not therefore listen to these superfine gentlemen
+when they talk of friendship, which they know neither in theory
+nor in practice. For who, in heaven's name, would choose a life of
+the greatest wealth and abundance on condition of neither loving
+or being beloved by any creature? That is the sort of life tyrants
+endure. They, of course, can count on no fidelity, no affection, no
+security for the goodwill of any one. For them all is suspicion and
+anxiety; for them there is no possibility of friendship. Who can
+love one whom he fears, or by whom he knows that he is feared?
+Yet such men have a show of friendship offered them, but it is
+only a fair-weather show. If it ever happen that they fall, as it
+generally does, they will at once understand how friendless they
+are.  So they say Tarquin observed in his exile that he never knew
+which of his friends were real and which sham, until he had ceased
+to be able to repay either.  Though what surprises me is that a man
+of his proud and overbearing character should have a friend at all.
+And as it was his character that prevented his having genuine
+friends, so it often happens in the case of men of unusually great
+means-their very wealth forbids faithful friendships. For not only is
+Fortune blind herself; but she generally makes those blind also
+who enjoy her favours. They are carried, so to speak, beyond
+themselves with self-conceit and self-will; nor can anything be
+more perfectly intolerable than a successful fool.  You may often
+see it. Men who before had pleasant manners enough undergo a
+complete change on attaining power of office. They despise their
+old friends: devote themselves to new.
+
+Now, can anything be more foolish than that men who have all the
+opportunities which prosperity, wealth, and great means can
+bestow, should secure all else which monev can buy-horses,
+servants, splendid upholstering, and costly plate-but do not secure
+friends, who are, if I may use the expression, the most valuable
+and beautiful furniture of life?  And yet, when they acquire the
+former, they know not who will enjoy them, nor for whom they
+may be taking all this trouble; for they will one and all eventually
+belong to the strongest: while each man has a stable and
+inalienable ownership in his friendships. And even if those
+possessions, which are, in a manner, the gifts of fortune, do prove
+permanent, life can never be anything but joyless which is without
+the consolations and companionship of friends.
+
+16. To turn to another branch of our subject.  We must now
+endeavour to ascertain what limits are to be observed in
+friendship-what is the boundary-line, so to speak, beyond which
+our affection is not to go. On this point I notice three opinions,
+with none of which I agree. One is _that we should love our friend
+just as much as we love ourselves, and no more; another, that our
+affection to them should exactly correspond and equal theirs to us;
+a third, that a man should be valued at exactly the same rate as he
+values himself_. To not one of these opinions do I assent.  The
+first, which holds that our regard for ourselves is to be the measure
+of our regard for our friend, is not true; for how many things there
+are which we would never have done for our own sakes, but do for
+the sake of a friend! We submit to make requests from unworthy
+people, to descend even to supplication; to be sharper in invective,
+more violent in attack. Such actions are nut creditable in our own
+interests, but highly so in those of our friends. There are many
+advantages too which men of upright character voluntarily forego,
+or of whichh they are content to be deprived, that their friends may
+enjoy them rather than themselves.
+
+The second doctrine is that which limits friendship to an exact
+equality in mutual good offices and good feelings. But such a view
+reduces friendship to a question of figures in a spirit far too narrow
+and illiberal, as though the object were to have an exact balance in
+a debtor and creditor account.  True friendship appears to me to be
+something richer and more generous than that comes to; and not to
+be so narrowly on its guard against giving more than it receives. In
+such a matter we must not be always afraid of something being
+wasted or running over in our measure, or of more than is justly
+due being devoted to our friendship.
+
+But the last limit proposed is the worst, namely, that a friend's
+estimate of himself is to be the measure of our estimate of
+him. It often happens that a man has too humble an idea of
+himself, or takes too despairing a view of his chance of bettering
+his fortune.  In such a case a friend ought not to take the view of
+him which he takes of himself. Rather he should do all he can to
+raise his drooping spirits, and lead him to more cbeerful hopes and
+thoughts.
+
+We must then find some other limit. But I must first mention the
+sentiment which used to call forth Scipio's severest criticism.  He
+often said that no one ever gave utterance to anything more
+diametrically opposed to the spirit of friendship than the author of
+the dictum, "You should love your friend with the consciousness
+that you may one day hate him." He could not be induced to
+believe that it was rightfully attributed to Bias, who was counted
+as one of the Seven Sages.  It was the sentiment of some person
+with sinister motives or selfish ambition, or who regarded
+everything as it affected his own supremacy. How can a man be
+friends with another, if he thinks it possible that be may be his
+enemy?  Why, it will follow that he must wish and desire his friend
+to commit as many mistakes as possible, that he may have all the
+more handles against him; and, conversely, that he must be
+annoyed, irritated, and jealous at the right actions or good fortune
+of his friends.  This maxim, then, let it be whose it will, is the utter
+destruction of friendship.  The true rule is to take such care in the
+selection of our friends as never to enter upon a friendship with a
+man whom we could under any circumstances come to hate.  And
+even if we are unlucky in our choice, we must put up with
+it-according to Scipio-in preference to making calculations as to a
+future breach.
+
+17. The real limit to be observed in friendship is this: the
+characters of two friends must be stainless. There must be
+complete harmony of interests, purpose, and aims, without
+exception.  Then if the case arises of a friend's wish (not strictly
+right in itself) calling for support in a matter involvmg his life or
+reputation, we must make some concession from the straight
+path-on condition, that is to say, that extreme disgrace is not the
+consequence.  Something must be conceded to friendship. And yet
+we must not be entirely careless of our reputation, nor regard the
+good opinion of our fellow-citizens as a weapon which we can
+afford to despise in conducting the business of our life, however
+lowering it may be to tout for it by flattery and smooth words. We
+must by no means abjure virtue, which secures us affection.
+
+But to return again to Scipio, the sole author of the discourse on
+friendship. He used to complain that there was nothing on which
+men bestowed so little pains: that every one could tell exactly how
+many goats or sheep he had, but not how many friends; and while
+they took pains in procuring the former, they were utterly careless
+in selecting friends, and possessed no particular marks, so to
+speak, or tokens by which they might judge of their suitability for
+friendship.  Now the qualities we ought to look out for in making
+our selection are firmness, stability, constancy. There is a plentiful
+lack of men so endowed, and it is difficult to form a judgment
+without testing.  Now this testing can only be made during the
+actual existence of the friend-ship; for friendship so often precedes
+the formation of a judgment, and makes a previous test impossible.
+If we are prudent then, we shall rein in our impulse to affection as
+we do chariot horses.  We make a preliminary trial of horses.  So
+we should of friendship; and should test our friends' characters by
+a kind of tentative friendship.  It may often happen that the
+untrustworthiness of certain men is completely displayed in a
+small money matter; others who are proof against a small sum are
+detected if it be large. But even if some are found who think it
+mean to prefer money to friendship, where shall we look for those
+who put friendship before office, civil or military promotions, and
+political power, and who, when the choice lies between these
+things on the one side and the claims of friendship on the other, do
+not give a strong preference to the former? It is not in human
+nature to be indifferent to political power; and if the price men
+have to pay for it is the sacrifice of friendship, they think their
+treason will be thrown into the shade by the magnitude of the
+reward.  This is why true friendship is very difficult to find among
+those who engage in politics and the contest for office. Where can
+you find the man to prefer his friend's advancement to his own? 
+And to say nothing of that, think how grievous and almost
+intolerable it is to most men to share political disaster. You will
+scarcely find anyone who can bring himself to do that. And though
+what Ennius says is quite true,-" the hour of need shews the friend
+indeed,"-yet it is in these two ways that most people betray their
+untrustworthiness and inconstancy, by looking down on friends
+when they are themselves prosperous, or deserting them in their
+distress.  A man, then, who has shewn a firm, unshaken, and
+unvarying friendship in both these contingencies we must reckon
+as one of a class the rarest in the world, and all but superhuman.
+
+18. Now, what is the quality to look out for as a warrant for the
+stability and permanence of friendship?  It is loyalty. Nothing that
+lacks this can be stable. We should also in making our selection
+look out for simplicity, a social disposition, and a sympathetic
+nature, moved by what moves us.  These all contribute to maintain
+loyalty. You can never trust a character which is intricate and
+tortuous.  Nor, indeed, is it possible for one to be trustworthy and
+firm who is unsympathetic by nature and unmoved by what affects
+ourselves.  We may add, that he must neither take pleasure in
+bringing accusations against us himself, nor believe them when
+they are brought.  All these contribute to form that constancy
+which I have been endeavouring to describe. And the result is,
+what I started by saying, that friendship is only possible between
+good men.
+
+Now there are two characteristic features in his treatment of his
+friends that a good (which may be regarded as equivalent to a
+wise) man will always display. First, he will be entirely without
+any make-believe or pretence of feeling; for the open display even
+of dislike is more becommg to an ingenuous character than a
+studied concealment of sentiment.  Secondly, he will not only
+reject all accusations brought against his friend by another, but he
+will not be suspicious himself either, nor be always thinking that
+his friend has acted improperly. Besides this, there should be a
+certain pleasantness in word and manner which adds no little
+flavour to friendship. A gloomy temper and unvarying gravity
+may be very impressive; but friendship should be a little less
+unbending, more indulgent and gracious, and more inclined to all
+kinds of good-fellowship and good-nature.
+
+19. But here arises a question of some little difficulty. Are there
+any occasions on which, assuming their worthiness, we should
+prefer new to old friends, just as we prefer young to aged horses? 
+The answer admits of no doubt whatever.  For there should be no
+satiety in friendship, as there is in other things. The older the
+sweeter, as in wines that keep well. And the proverb is a true one,
+"You must eat many a peck of salt with a man to be thorough
+friends with him."  Novelty, indeed, has its advantage, which we
+must not despise.  There is always hope of fruit, as there is in
+healthy blades of corn.  But age too must have its proper position;
+and, in fact, the influence of time and habit is very great.  To recur
+to the illustration of the horse which I have just now used. Every
+one likes _ceteris paribus_ to use the horse to which he has been
+accustomed, rather than one that is untried and new. And it is not
+only in the case of a living thing that this rule holds good, but in
+inanimate things also; for we like places where we have lived the
+longest, even though they are mountainous and covered with
+forest.  But here is another golden rule in friendship: _put yourself
+on a level with your friend_. For it often happens that there are
+certain superiorities, as for example Scipio's in what I may call our
+set. Now he never assumed any airs of superiority over Philus, or
+Rupilius, or Mummius, or over friends of a lower rank stilt.  For
+instance, he always shewed a deference to his brother Quintus
+Maximus because he was his senior, who, though a man no doubt
+of eminent character, was by no means his equal. He used also to
+wish that all his friends should be the better for his support.  This
+is an example we should all follow.  If any of us have any
+advantage in personal character, intellect, or fortune, we should be
+ready to make our friends sharers and partners in it with ourselves. 
+For instance, if their parents are in humble circumstances, if their
+relations are powerful neither in intellect nor means, we should
+supply their deficiencies and promote their rank and dignity. You
+know the legends of children brought up as servants in ignorance
+of their parentage and family. When they are recognized and
+discovered to be the sons of gods or kings, they still retain their
+affection for the shepherds whom they have for many years looked
+upon as their parents.  Much more ought this to be so in the case of
+real and undoubted parents.  For the advantages of genius and
+virtue, and in short,of every kind of superiority, are never
+realized to their fullest  extent until they are bestowed upon our
+nearest and dearest.
+
+20. But the converse must also be observed.  For in friendship and
+relationship, just as those who possess any superiority must put
+themselves on an equal footing with those who are less fortunate,
+so these latter must not be annoyed at being surpassed in genius,
+fortune, or rank. But most people of that sort are forever either
+grumbling at something, or harping on their claims; and especially
+if they consider that they have services of their own to allege
+involving zeal and friendship and some trouble to themselves.
+People who are always bringing up their services are a nuisance.
+The recipient ought to remember them; the performer should never
+mention them.  In the case of friends, then, as the superior are
+bound to descend, so are they bound in a certain sense to raise
+those below them.  For there are people who make their friendship
+disagreeable by imagining themselves undervalued.  This generally
+happens only to those who think that they deserve to be so; and
+they ought to be shewn by deeds as well as by words the
+groundlessness of their opinion. Now the measure of your benefits
+should he in the first place your own power to bestow, and in the
+second place the capacity to bear them on the part of him on whom
+you are bestowing affection and help. For, however great your
+personal prestige may be, you cannot raise all your friends to the
+highest offices of the State. For instance, Scipio was able to make
+Publius Rupilius consul, but not his brother Lucius.  But granting
+that you can give anyone anything you choose, you must have a
+care that it does not prove to be beyond his powers. As a general
+rule, we must wait to make up our mind about friendships till
+men's characters and years have arrived at their full strength and
+development. People must not, for instance, regard as fast friends
+all whom in their youthful enthusiasm for hunting or football they
+liked for having the same tastes.  By that rule, if it were a mere
+question of time, no one would have such claims on our affections
+as nurses and slave-tutors.  Not that they are to be neglected, but
+they stand on a different ground.  It is only these mature
+friendships that can be permanent.  For difference of character
+leads to difference of aims, and the result of such diversity is to
+estrange friends.  The sole reason, for instance, which prevents
+good men from making friends with bad, or bad with good, is that
+the divergence of their characters and aims is the greatest possible.
+
+Another good rule in friendship is this: do not let an excessive
+affection hinder the highest interests of your friends.  This very
+often happens.  I will go again to the region of fable for an
+instance.  Neoptolemus could never have taken Troy if he had
+been willing to listen to Lycomedes, who had brought him up, and
+with many tears tried to prevent his going there.  Again, it often
+happens that important business makes it necessary to part from
+friends: the man who tries to baulk it, because he thinks that he
+cannot endure the separation, is of a weak and effeminate nature,
+and on that very account makes but a poor friend.  There are, of
+course, limits to what you ought to expect from a friend and to
+what you should allow him to demand of you. And these you must
+take into calculation in every case.
+
+21. Again, there is such a disaster, so to speak, as having to break
+off friendship.  And sometimes it is one we cannot avoid. For at
+this point the stream of our discourse is leaving the intimacies of
+the wise and touching on the friendship of ordinary people. It will
+happen at times that an outbreak of vicious conduct affects either a
+man's friends themselves or strangers, yet the discredit falls on the
+friends. In such cases friendships should be allowed to die out
+gradually by an intermission of intercourse.  They should, as I have
+been told that Cato used to say, rather be unstitched than toni in
+twain; unless, indeed, the injurious conduct be of so violent and
+outrageous a nature as to make an instant breach and separation
+the only possible course consistent with honour and rectitude. 
+Again, if a change in character and aim takes place, as often
+happens, or if party politics produces an alienation of feeling (I am
+now speaking, as I said a short time ago, of ordinary friendships,
+not of those of the wise), we shall have to be on our guard against
+appearing to embark upon active enmity while we only mean to
+resign a friendship.  For there can be nothing more discreditable
+than to be at open war with a man with whom you have been
+intimate.  Scipio, as you are aware, had abandoned his friendship
+for Quintus Pompeius on my account; and again, from differences
+of opinion in politics, he became estranged from my colleague
+Metellus. In both cases he acted with dignity and moderation,
+shewing that he was offended indeed, but without Tancour.
+
+Our first object, then, should be to prevent a breach; our second, to
+secure that, if it does occur, our friendship should seem to have
+died a natural rather than a violent death.  Next, we should take
+care that friendship is not converted into active hostility, from
+which flow personal quarrels,  abusive  language,  and  angry 
+recriminations. These last, however, provided that they do not pass
+all reasonable limits of forbearance, we ought to put up with, and,
+in compliment to an old friendship, allow the party that inflicts the
+injury, not the one that submits to it, to be in the wrong. Generally
+speaking, there is but one way of securing and providing oneself
+against faults and inconveniences of this sort-not to be too hasty in
+bestowing our affection, and not to bestow it at all on unworthy
+objects.
+
+Now, by "worthy of friendship" I mean those who have in
+themselves the qualities which attract affection. This sort of man is
+rare; and indeed all excellent things are rare; and nothing in the
+world is so hard to find as a thing entirely and completely perfect
+of its kind. But most people not only recognize nothing as good in
+our life unless it is profitable, but look upon friends as so much
+stock, caring most for those by whom they hope to make most
+profit. Accordingly they never possess that most beautiful and
+most spontaneous friendship which must be sought solely for itself
+without any ulterior object. They fail also to learn from their own
+feelings the nature and the strength of friendship.  For every one
+loves himself, not for any reward which such love may bring, but
+because he is dear to himself independently of anything else.  But
+unless this feeling is transferred to another, what a real friend is
+will never be revealed; for he is, as it were, a second self.  But if
+we find these two instincts shewing themselves in animals,-
+whether of the air or the sea or the land, whether wild or
+tame,-first, a love of self, which in fact is born in everything that
+lives alike; and, secondly, an eagerness to fiud and attach
+themselves to other creatures of their own kind; and if this natural
+action is accompanied by desire and by something resembling
+human love, how much more must this be the case in man by the
+law of his nature?  For man not only loves himself, but seeks
+another whose spirit he may so blend with his own as almost to
+make one being of two.
+
+22. But most people unreasonably, not to speak of modesty, want
+such a friend as they are unable to be themselves, and expect from
+their friends what they do not themselves give. The fair course is
+first to be good yourself, and then to look out for another of like
+character. It is between such that the stability in friendship of
+which we have been talking can be secured; when, that is to say,
+men who are united by affection learn, first of all, to rule those
+passions which enslave others, and in the next place to take delight
+in fair and equitable conduct, to bear each other's burdens, never to
+ask each other for anything inconsistent with virtue and rectitude,
+and not only to serve and love but also to respect each other. I say
+"respect"; for if respect is gone, friendship has lost its brightest
+jewel.  And this shows the mistake of those who imagine that
+friendship gives a privilege to licentiousness and sin.  Nature has
+given us friendship as the handmaid of virtue, not as a partner in
+guilt: to the end that virtue, being powerless when isolated to reach
+the highest objects, might succeed in doing so in union and
+partnership with another. Those who enjoy in the present, or have
+enjoyed in the past, or are destined to enjoy in the future such a
+partnership as this, must be considered to have secured the most
+excellent and auspicious combination for
+ON FRIENDSHIP
+
+reaching nature's highest good.  This is the partnership, I say,
+which combines moral rectitude, fame, peace of mind, serenity: all
+that men think desirable because with them life is happy, but
+without them cannot be so.  This being our best and highest object,
+we must, if we desire to attain it, devote ourselves to virtue; for
+without virtue we can obtain neither friendship nor anything else
+desirable.  In fact, if virtue be neglected, those who imagine
+themselves to possess friends will find out their error as soon as
+some grave disaster forces them to make trial of them. Wherefore,
+I must again and again repeat, you must satisfy your judgment
+before engaging your affections: not love first and judge
+afterwards. We suffer from carelessness in many of our
+undertakings: in none more than in selecting and cultivating our
+friends.  We put the cart before the horse, and shut the stable door
+when the steed is stolen, in defiance of the old proverb.  For,
+having mutually involved ourselves in a long-standing intimacy or
+by actual obligations, all on a sudden some cause of offence arises
+and we break off our friendships in full career.
+
+23.
+
+It is this that makes such carelessness in a matter of supreme
+importance all the more worthy of blame.  I say "supreme
+importance," because friendship is the one thing about the utility
+of which everybody with one accord is agreed. That is not the case
+in regard even to virtue itself; for many people speak slightingly of
+virtue as though it were mere puffing and self-glorification. Nor is
+it the case with riches. Many look down on riches, being content
+with a little and taking pleasure in poor fare and dress, And as to
+the political offices for which some have a burning desire
+-how many entertain such a contempt for them as to think nothing
+in the world more empty and trivial!
+
+And so on with the rest; things desirable in the eyes of some are
+regarded by very many as worthless.  But of friendship all think
+alike to a man, whether those have devoted themselves to politics,
+or those who delight in science  and  philosophy,  or those  who 
+follow a private way of life and care for nothing but their own
+business, or those lastly who have given themselves body and soul
+to sensuality-they all think, I say, that without friendship life is no
+life, if they want some part of it, at any rate, to be noble.  For
+friendship, in one way or another, penetrates into the lives of us
+all, and suffers no career to be entirely free from its influence.
+Though a man be of so churlish and unsociable a nature as to
+loathe and shun the company of mankind, as we are told was the
+case with a certain Timon at Athens, yet even he cannot refrain
+from seeking some one in whose hearing he may disgorge the
+venom of his bitter temper. We should see this most clearly, if it
+were possible that some god should carry us away from these
+haunts of men, and place us some-where in perfect solitude, and
+then should supply us in abundance with everything necessary to
+our nature, and yet take from us entirely the opportunity of looking
+upon a human being.  Who could steel himself to endure such a
+life?  Who would not lose in his loneliness the zest for all
+pleasures?  And indeed this is the point of the observation of, I
+think, Archytas of Tarentum. I have it third hand; men who were
+my seniors told me that their seniors had told them. It was this: "If
+a man could ascend to heaven and get a clear view of the natural
+order of the universe, and the beauty of the heavenly bodies, that
+wonderful spectacle would give him small pleasure, though
+nothing could be conceived more delightful if he had but had some
+one to whom to tell what he had seen."  So true it is that nature
+abhors isolation, and ever leans upon some-thing as a stay and
+support; and this is found in its most pleasing form in our closest
+friend.
+
+24.
+
+But though Nature also declares by so many indications what her
+wish and object and desire is, we yet in a manner turn a deaf ear
+and will not hear her warnings. The intercourse between friends is
+varied and complex, and it must often happen that causes of
+suspicion and offence arise, which a wise man will sometimes
+avoid, at other times remove, at others treat with indulgence.  The
+one possible cause of offence that must be faced is when the
+interests of your friend and your own sincerity are at stake.  For
+instance, it often happens that friends need remonstrance and even
+reproof.  When these are administered in a kindly spirit they ought
+to be taken in good part. But somehow or other there is truth in
+what my friend Terence says in his _Andria_:
+
+Compliance gets us friends, plain speaking hate.
+
+Plain speaking is a cause of trouble, if the result of It is
+resentment, which is poison of friendship; but compliance is really
+the cause of much more trouble, because by indulging his faults it
+lets a friend plunge into headlong ruin. But the man who is most to
+blame is he who resents plain speaking and allows flattery to egg
+him on to his ruin. On this point, then, from first to last there is
+need of deliberation and care. If we remonstrate, it should be
+without bitterness; if we reprove, there should be no word of
+insult. In the matter of compliance (for I am glad to adopt
+Terence's word), though there should be every courtesy, yet that
+base kind which assists a man in vice should be far from us, for it
+is unworthy of a free-born man, to say nothing of a friend. It is one
+thing to live with a tyrant, another with a friend. But if a man's ears
+are so closed to plain speaking that be cannot hear to hear the truth
+from a friend, we may give him "p in despair. This remark of
+Cato's, as so many of his did, shews great acuteness: "There are
+people who owe more to bitter enemies than to apparently pleasant
+friends: the former often speak the truth, the latter never." Besides,
+it is a strange paradox that the recipients of advice should feel no
+annoyance where they ought to feel it, and yet feel so much where
+they ought not. They are not at all vexed at having committed a
+fault, but very angry at being reproved for it.  On the contrary, they
+ought to be grieved at the crime and glad of the correction.
+
+25. Well, then, if it is true that to give and receive advice
+-the former with freedom and yet without bitterness, the latter with
+patience and without irritation-is peculiarly appropriate to genuine
+friendship, it is no less true that there can be nothing more utterly
+subversive of friendship than flattery, adulation, and base
+compliance.  I use as many terms as possible to brand this vice of
+light-minded, untrustworthy men, whose sole object in speaking is
+to please with-out any regard to truth. In everything false pretence
+is bad. for it suspends and vitiates our power of discerning the
+truth. But to nothing it is so hostile as to friendship; for it destroys
+that frankness without which friendship is an empty name. For the
+essence of friendship being that two minds become as one, how
+can that ever take place if the mind of each of the separate parties
+to it is not single and uniform, but variable, changeable, and
+complex?  Can anything be so pliable, so wavering, as the mind of
+a man whose attitude depends not only on another's feeling and
+wish, but on his very looks and nods?
+
+If one says "No," I answer "No" ; if "Yes," I answer "Yes."
+In fine, I've laid this task upon myself
+To echo all that's said-
+
+to quote my old friend Terence again.  But he puts these words
+into the mouth of a Gnatho.  To admit such a man into one's
+intimacy at all is a sign of folly.  But there are many people like
+Gnatho, and it is when they are superior either in position or
+fortune or reputation that their flatteries become mischievous, the
+weight of their position making up for the lightness of their
+character.  But if we only take reasonable care, it is as easy to
+separate and distinguish a genuine from a specious friend as
+anything else that is coloured and artificial from what is sincere
+and genuine. A public assembly, though composed of men of the
+smallest possible culture, nevertheless will see clearly the
+difference between a mere demagogue (that is, a flatterer and
+untrustworthy citizen) and a man of principle, standing, and
+solidity. It was by this kind of flattering language that Gaius
+Papirius the other day endeavoured to tickle the ears of the
+assembled people, when proposing his law to make the tribunes
+re-eligible.  I spoke against it.  But I will leave the personal
+question.  I prefer speaking of Scipio.  Good heavens! how
+impressive his speech was, what a majesty there was in it!  You
+would have pronounced him, without hesitation, to be no mere
+henchman of the Roman people, but their leader. However, you
+were there, and moreover have the speech in your hands.  The
+result was that a law meant to please the people was by the
+people's votes rejected.  Once more to refer to myself, you
+remember how apparently popular was the law proposed by Gaius
+Licinius Crassus "about the election to the College of Priests" in
+the consulship of Quintus Maximus, Scipio's brother, and Lucius
+Mancinus.  For the power of filling up their own vacancies on the
+part of the colleges was by this proposal to be transferred to the
+people. It was this man, by the way, who began the practice of
+twrning towards the forum when addressing the people.  In spite of
+this, however, upon my speaking on the conservative side, religion
+gained an easy victory over his
+plausible speech. This took place in my praetorship, five years
+before I was elected consul, which shows that the cause was
+successfully maintained more by the merits of the case than by the
+prestige of the highest office.
+
+26. Now, if on a stage, such as a public assembly essentially is,
+where there is the amplest room for fiction and half-truths, truth
+nevertheless prevails if it be but fairly laid open and brought into
+the light of day, what ought to happen in the case of friendship,
+which rests entirely on truthfulness? Friendship, in which, unless
+you both see and show an open breast, to use a common
+expression, you can neither trust nor be certain of anything-no, not
+even of mutual affection, since you cannot be sure of its sincerity. 
+However, this flattery, injurious as it is, can hurt no one but the
+man who takes it in and likes it. And it follows that the man to
+open his ears widest to flatterers is he who first flatters himself and
+is fondest of himself.  I grant you that Virtue naturally loves
+herself; for she knows herself and perceives how worthy of love
+she is. But I am not now speaking of absolute virtue, but of the
+belief men have that they possess virtue. The fact is that fewer
+people are endowed with virtue than wish to be thought to be so. It
+is such people that take delight in flattery.  When they are
+addressed in language expressly adapted to flatter their vanity, they
+look upon such empty persiflage as a testimony to the truth of their
+own praises.  It is not then properly friendship at all when the one
+will not listen to the truth, and the other is prepared to lie. Nor
+would the servility of parasites in comedy have seemed humorous
+to us had there been no such things as braggart captains. "Is
+Thais really much obliged to me?"  It would have been quite
+enough to answer "Much," but he must needs say "Immensely." 
+Your servile flatterer always exaggerates what his victim wishes to
+be put strongly.  Wherefore, though it is with those who catch at
+and invite it that this flattering falsehood is especially powerful,
+yet men even of solider and steadier character must be warned tn
+be on the watch against being taken in by cunningly disguised
+flattery. An open flatterer any one can detect, unless he is an
+absolute fool the covert insinuation of the cunning and the sly is
+what we have to be studiously on our guard against.  His detection
+is not by any means the easiest thing in the world, for he often
+covers his servility under the guise of contradiction, and flatters by
+pretending to dispute, and then at last giving in and allowing
+himself to be beaten, that the person hoodwinked may think
+himself to have been the clearer-sighted. Now what can be more
+degrading than to be thus hoodwinked? You must be on your guard
+against this happening to you, like the man in the _Heiress_:
+
+How have I been befooled! no drivelling dotards 
+On any stage were e'er so p1ayed upon.
+
+For even on the stage we have no grosser representation of folly
+than that of short-sighted and credulous old men. But somehow or
+other I have strayed away from the friendship of the perfect, that is
+of the "wise" (meaning, of course, such "wisdom" as human nature
+is capable of), to the subject of vulgar, unsubstantial friendships. 
+Let us then return to our original theme, and at length bring that,
+too, to a conclusion.
+
+27. Well, then, Fannius and Mucius, I repeat what I said before.  It
+is virtue, virtue, which both creates and preserves friendship.  On it
+depends harmony of interest, permanence, fidelity.  When Virtue
+has reared her head and shewn the light of her countenance, and
+seen and recognised the same light in another, she gravitates
+towards it, and in her turn welcomes that which the other has to
+shew; and from it springs up a flame which you may call love or
+friendship as you please.  Both words are from the same root in
+Latin; and love is just the cleaving to him whom you love without
+the prompting of need or any view to advantage-though this latter
+blossoms spontaneously on friendship, little as you may have
+looked for it. It is with such warmth of feeling that I cherished
+Lucius Paulus, Marcus Cato,  Galus Gallus, Publius Nasica, 
+Tiberius Gracchus, my dear Scipio's father-in-law.  It shines with
+even greater warmth when men are of the same age, as in the case
+of Scipio and Lucius Furius, Publius Rupilius, Spurius Mummius,
+and myself. _En revanche_, in my old age I find comfort in the
+affection of young men, as in the case of yourselves and Quintus
+Tubero: nay more, I delight in the intimacy of such a very young
+man as Publius Rutilius and Aulus Verginius. And since the law of
+our nature and of our life is that a new generation is for ever
+springing up, the most desirable thing is that along with your
+contemporaries, with whom you started in the race, you may also
+teach what is to us the goal. But in view of the in-stability and
+perishableness of mortal things, we should be continually on the
+look-out for some to love and by whom to be loved; for if we lose
+affection and kindliness from our life, we lose all that gives it
+charm. For me, indeed, though torn away by a sudden stroke,
+Scipio still lives and ever wilt live. For it was the virtue of the man
+that I loved, and that has not suffered death. And it is not my eyes
+only, because I had all my life a personal experience of it, that
+never lose sight of it: it will shine to posterity also with undimmed
+glory.  No one will ever cherish a nobler ambition or a loftier hope
+without thinking his memory and his image the best to put before
+his eyes.  I declare that of all the blessings which either fortune or
+nature has bestowed upon me I know none to compare with
+Scipio's friendship. In it I found sympathy in public, counsel in
+private business; in it too a means of spending my leisure with
+unalloyed delight.  Never, to the best of my knowledge, did I
+offend him even in the most trivial point; never did I hear a word
+from him I could have wished unsaid. We had one house, one
+table, one style of living; and not only were we together on foreign
+service, but in our tours also and country sojourns. Why speak of
+our eagerness to be ever gaining some knowledge, to be ever
+learning something, on which we spent all our leisure hours far
+from the gaze of the world? If the recollection and memory of
+these things had  perished with the man, I could not possibly have
+endured the regret for one so closely united with me in life and
+affection.  But these things have not perished; they are rather fed
+and strengthened by reflexion and memory. Even supposing me to
+have been entirely bereft of them, still my time of life of itself
+brings me no small consolation: for I cannot have much longer
+now to bear this regret; and everything that is brief ought to be
+endurable, however severe.
+
+This is all I had to say on friendship. One piece of advice on
+parting. Make up your minds to this. Virtue (without which
+friendship is impossible) is first; but next to it, and to it alone, the
+greatest of all things is Friendship.
+
+On Old Age
+by Marcus Tullius Cicero translated by E. S. Shuckburgh
+
+1. And should my service, Titus, ease the weight
+Of care that wrings your heart, and draw the sting 
+Which rankles there, what guerdon shall there he?
+
+FOR I may address you, Atticus, in the lines in which Flamininus
+was addressed by the man,
+
+who, poor in wealth, was rich in honour's gold,
+
+though I am well assured that you are not, as Flamininus was,
+
+kept on the rack of care by night and day.
+
+For I know how well ordered and equable your mind is, and am
+fully aware that it was not a surname alone which you brought
+home with you from Athens, hut its culture and good sense. And
+yet I have an idea that you are at times stirred to the heart by the
+same circumstances as myself. To console you for these is a more
+serious matter, and must be put off to another time. For the present
+I have resolved to dedicate to you an essay on Old Age.  For from
+the burden of impending or at least advancing age, common to us
+both, I would do something to relieve us both though as to yourself
+I am fully aware that you support and will support it, as you do
+everything else, with calmness and philosophy.  But directly I
+resolved to write on old age, you at once occurred to me as
+deserving a gift of which both of us might take advantage.  To
+myself, indeed, the composition of this book has been so
+delightful, that it has not only wiped away all the disagreeables of
+old age, but has even made it luxurious and delightful too.  Never,
+therefore, can philosophy be praised as highly as it deserves
+considering that its faithful disciple is able to spend every period
+of his life with unruffled feelings. However, on other subjects I
+have spoken at large, and shall often speak again:
+this hook which I herewith send you is on Old Age.  I have put the
+whole discourse not, as Alisto of Cos did, in the mouth of
+Tithonus-for a mere fable would have lacked conviction-but in that
+of Marcus Cato when he was an old man, to give my essay greater
+weight. I represent Laelius and Scipio at his house expressing
+surprise at his carrying his years so lightly, and Cato answering
+them.  If he shall seem to shew somewhat more learning in this
+discourse than he generally did in his own books, put it down to
+the Greek literature of which it is known that he became an eager
+student in his old age.  But what need of more? Cato's own words
+will at once explain all I feel about old age.
+
+
+
+M. Cato.  Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus (the younger). Gaius
+Laelius.
+
+2. _Scipio_. Many a time have I in conversation with my friend
+Gaius Laelius here expressed my admiration, Marcus Cato, of the
+eminent, nay perfect, wisdom displayed by you indeed at all
+points, but above everything because I have noticed that old age
+never seemed a burden to you, while to most old men it is so
+hateful that they declare themselves under a weight heavier than
+Aetna.
+
+_Cato_.  Your admiration is easily excited, it seems, my dear
+Scipio and Laelius.  Men, of course, who have no resources in
+themselves for securing a good and happy life find every age
+burdensome.  But those who look for all happiness from within
+can never think anything had which nature makes inevitable.  In
+that category before anything else comes old age) to which all
+wish to attain, and at which all grumble when attained.  Such is
+Folly's inconsistency and unreasonableness!  They say that it is
+stealing upon them faster than they expected. In the first place,
+who compelled them to hug an illusion? For in what respect did
+old age steal upon manhood faster than manhood upon childhood?
+In the next place, in what way would old age have been less
+disagreeable to them if they were in their eight-hundredth year
+than in their eightieth?  For their past, however long, when once it
+was past, would have no consolation for a stupid old age.
+Wherefore, if it is your wont to admire my wisdom-and I would
+that it were worthy of your good opinion and of my own surname
+of Sapiens-it really consists in the fact that I follow Nature, the
+best of guides, as I would a god, and am loyal to her commands. It
+is not likely, if she has written the rest of the play well, that she
+has been careless about the last act like some idle poet.  But after
+all some "last" was inevitable, just as to the berries of a tree and
+the fruits of the earth there comes in the fulness of time a period of
+decay and fall.  A wise man will not make a grievance of this.  To
+rebel against nature-is not that to fight like the giants with the
+gods?
+
+_Laelius_. And yet, Cato, you will do us a very great favour (I
+venture to speak for Scipio as for myself) if-since we all hope, or
+at least wish, to become old men-you would allow us to learn from
+you in good time before it arrives, by what methods we may most
+easily acquire the strength to support the burden of advancing age.
+
+_Cato_. I will do so without doubt, Laelius, especially if, as you
+say, it will be agreeable to you both.
+
+
+_Laelius_ We do wish very much, Cato, if it is no trouble to you,
+to be allowed to see the nature of the bourne which you have
+reached after completing a long journey, as it were, upon which we
+too are bound to embark.
+
+3. _Cato_.  I will do the best I can, Laelius.  It has often been my
+fortune to bear the complaints of my contemporaries-like will to
+like, you know, according to the old proverb-complaints to which
+men like C. Salinator and Sp. Albinus, who were of consular rank
+and about my time, used to give vent. They were, first, that they
+had lost the pleasures of the senses, without which they did not
+regard life as life at all; and, secondly, that they were neglected by
+those from whom they had been used to receive attentions. Such
+men appear to me to lay the blame on the wrong thing.  For if it
+had been the fault of old age, then these same misfortunes would
+have befallen me and all other men of advanced years.  But I have
+known many of them who never said a word of complaint against
+old age; for they were only too glad to be freed from the bondage
+of passion, and were not at all looked down upon by their friends.
+The fact is that the blame for all complaints of that kind is to be
+charged to character, not to a particular time of life. For old men
+who are reasonable and neither cross-grained nor churlish find old
+age tolerable enough: whereas unreason and churlishness cause
+uneasiness at every time of life.
+
+_Laelius_  It is as you say, Cato.  But perhaps some one may
+suggest that it is your large means, wealth, and high position that
+make you think old age tolerable: whereas such good fortune only
+falls to few.
+
+_Cato_.  There is something in that, Laelius, but by no means all. 
+For instance, the story is told of the answer of Themistocles in a
+wrangle with a certain Seriphian, who asserted that he owed his
+brilliant position to the reputation of his country, not to his own. 
+"If I had been a Seriphian," said he, "even I should never have been
+famous, nor would you if you had been an Athenian.  Something
+like this may be said of old age. For the philosopher himself could
+not find old age easy to bear in the depths of poverty, nor the fool
+feel it anything but a burden though he were a millionaire.  You
+may he sure, my dear Scipio and Laelius, that the arms best
+adapted to old age are culture and the active exercise of the
+virtues.  For if they have been maintained at every period-if one
+has lived much as well as long-the harvest they produce is
+wonderful, not only because they never fail us even in our last days
+(though that in itself is supremely important), but also because the
+consciousness of a well-spent life and the recollection of many
+virtuous actions are exceedingly delightful.
+
+4. Take the case of Q. Fabius Maximus, the man, I mean, who
+recovered Tarentum.  When I was a young man and he an old one,
+I was as much attached to him as if he had been my contemporary. 
+For that great man 5 serious dignity was tempered by courteous
+manners, nor had old age made any change in his character.  True,
+he was not exactly an old man when my devotion to him began, yet
+he was nevertheless well on in life; for his first consulship fell in
+the year after my birth.  When quite a stripling I went with him in
+his fourth consulship as a soldier in the ranks, on the expedition
+against Capua, and in the fifth year after that against Tarentum. 
+Four years after that I was elected Quaestor, holding office in the
+consulship of Tuditanus and Cethegus, in which year, indeed, he as
+a very old man spoke in favour of the Cincian law "on gifts and
+fees."
+
+Now this man conducted wars with all the spirit of youth when he
+was far advanced in life, and by his persistence gradually wearied
+out Hannibal, when rioting in all the confidence of youth.  How
+brilliant are those lines of my friend Ennius on him!
+
+For us, down beaten by the storms of fate,
+One man by wise delays restored the State.
+Praise or dispraise moved not his constant mood,
+True to his purpose, to his country's good!
+Down ever-lengthening avenues of fame
+Thus shines and shall shine still his glorious name.
+
+Again what vigilance, what profound skill did he show in the
+capture of Tarentum!  It was indeed in my hearing that he made
+the famous retort to Salinator, who had retreated into the citadel
+after losing the town: "It was owing to me, Quintus Fabius, that
+you retook Tarentum." Quite so," he replied with a laugh; "for had
+you not lost it, I should never have recovered it." Nor was he less
+eminent in civil life than in war.  In his second consulship, though
+his colleague would not move in the matter, he resisted as long as
+he could the proposal of the tribune C. Flaminius to divide the
+territory of the Picenians and Gauls in free allotments in defiance
+of a resolution of the Senate.  Again, though he was an augur, he
+ventured to say that whatever was done in the interests of the State
+was done with the best possible auspices, that any laws proposed
+against its interest were proposed against the auspices. I was
+cognisant of much that was admirable in that great man, but
+nothing struck me with greater astonishment than the way in which
+he bore the death of his son-a man of brilliant character and who
+had been consul. His funeral speech over him is in wide
+circulation, and when we read it, is there any philosopher of whom
+we do not think meanly? Nor in truth was he only great in the light
+of day and in the sight of his fellow-citizens; he was still more
+eminent in private and at home.  What a wealth of conversation!
+What weighty maxims!  What a wide acquaintance with ancient
+history! What an accurate knowledge of the science of augury! For
+a Roman, too, he had a great tincture of letters.  He had a tenacious
+memory for military history of every sort, whether of Roman or
+foreign wars. And I used at that time to enjoy his conversation with
+a passionate eagerness, as though I already divined, what actually
+turned out to be the case, that when he died there would be no one
+to teach me anything.
+
+5. What then is the purpose of such a long disquisition on
+Maximus? It is because you now see that an old age like his cannot
+conscientiously be called unhappy. Yet it is after all true that
+everybody cannot be a Scipio or a Maximus, with stormings of
+cities, with battles by land and sea, with wars in which they
+themselves commanded, and with triumphs to recall. Besides this
+there is a quiet, pure, and cultivated life which produces a calm
+and gentle old age, such as we have been told Plato's was, who
+died at his writing-desk in his eighty-first year; or like that of
+Isocrates, who says that he wrote the book called The Panegyric in
+his ninety-fourth year, and who lived for five years afterwards;
+while his master Gorgias of Leontini completed a hundred and
+seven years without ever relaxing his diligence or giving up work. 
+When some one asked him why he consented to remain so long
+alive-" I have no fault," said he, "to find with old age." That was a
+noble answer, and worthy of a scholar. For fools impute their own
+frailties and guilt to old age, contrary to the practice of Enniu9,
+whom I mentioned just now. In the lines-
+
+Like some brave steed that oft before
+The Olympic wreath of victory bore,
+Now by the weight of years oppressed,
+Forgets the race, and takes his rest-
+
+he compares his own old age to that of a high-spirited and
+successfal race-horse. And him indeed you may very well
+remember.  For the present consuls Titus Flamininus and Manius
+Acilius were elected in the nineteenth year after his death; and his
+death occurred in the consulship of Caepio and Philippus, the
+latter consul for the second time: in which year I, then sixty-six
+years old, spoke in favour of the Voconian law in a voice that was
+still strong and with lungs still sound; while be, though seventy
+years old, supported two burdens considered the heaviest of
+all-poverty and old age-in such a way as to be all but fond of them.
+
+The fact is that when I come to think it over, I find that there are
+four reasons for old age being thought unhappy:
+First, that it withdraws us from active employments; second, that it
+enfeebles the body; third, that it deprives us of nearly all physical
+pleasures; fourth, that it is the next step to death.  Of each of these
+reasons, if you will allow me, let us examine the force and justice
+separately.
+
+6. OLD AGE WITHDRAWS US FROM ACTIVE
+EMPLOYMENTS. From which of them?  Do you mean from thosc
+carried on by youth and bodily strength?  Are there then no old
+men's employments to be after all conducted by the intellect, even
+when bodies are weak?  So then Q. Maximus did nothing; nor L.
+Aemilius-our father, Scipio, and my excellent son's father-in-law! 
+So with other old men-the Fabricii, the Guru and Coruncanii-when
+they were supporting the State by their advice and influence, they
+were doing nothing! To old age Appius Claudius had the
+additional disadvantage of being blind; yet it was he who, when
+the Senate was inclining towards a peace with Pyrrhus and was for
+making a treaty, did not hesitate to say what Ennius has embalmed
+in the verses:
+
+Whither have swerved the souls so firm of yore?
+Is sense grown senseless? Can feet stand no more?
+
+And so on in a tone of the most passionate vehemence. You know
+the poem, and the speech of Appius himself is extant. Now, he
+delivered it seventeen years after his second consulship, there
+having been an interval of ten years between the two consulships,
+and he having been censor before his previous consulship.  This
+will show you that at the time of the war with Pyrrhus he was a
+very old man. Yet this is the story handed down to us.
+
+There is therefore nothing in the arguments of those who say that
+old age takes no part in public business. They are like men who
+would say that a steersman docs nothing in sailing a ship, because,
+while some of the crew are climbing the masts, others hurrying up
+and down the gangways, others pumping out the bilge water, he
+sits quietly in the stern holding the tiller.  He does not do what
+young men do; nevertheless he does what is much more important
+and better.  The great affairs of life are not performed by physical
+strength, or activity, or nimbleness of body, but by deliberation,
+character, expression of opinion. Of these old age is not only not
+deprived, but, as a rule, has them in a greater degree. Unless by
+any chance I, who as a soldier in the ranks, as military tribune, as
+legate, and as consul have been employed in various kinds of war,
+now appear to you to be idle because not actively engaged in war.
+But I enjoin upon the Senate what is to be done, and how.
+Carthage has long been harbouring evil designs, and I accordingly
+proclaim war against her in good time.  I shall never cease to
+entertain fears about her till I bear of her having been levelled with
+the ground.  The glory of doing that I pray that the immortal gods
+may reserve for you, Scipio, so that you may complete the task
+begun by your grand-father, now dead more than thirty-two years
+ago; though all years to come will keep that great man's memory
+green. He died in the year before my censorship, nine years after
+my consulship, having been returned consul for the second time in
+my own consulship.  If then he had lived to his hundredth year,
+would he have regretted having lived to be old? For he would of
+course not have been practising rapid marches, nor dashing on a
+foe, nor hurling spears from a distance, nor using swords at close
+quarters-but only counsel, reason, and senatorial eloquence. And if
+those qualities had not resided in us _seniors_, our ancestors
+would never have called their supreme council a Senate.  At
+Sparta, indeed, those who hold the highest magistracies are in
+accordance with the fact actually called "elders."  But if you will
+take the trouble to read or listen to foreign history, you will find
+that the mightiest States have been brought into peril by young
+men, have been supported and restored by old. The question
+occurs in the poet Naevius's _Sport_:
+
+Pray, who are those who brought your State 
+With such despatch to meet its fate?
+
+There is a long answer, but this is the chief point:
+
+A crop of brand-new orators we grew,
+And foolish, paltry lads who thought they knew.
+
+For of course rashness is the note of youth, prudence of old age.
+
+7. But, it is said, memory dwindles. No doubt, unless you keep it in
+practice, or if you happen to be somewhat dull by nature. 
+Themistocles had the names of all his fellow-citizens by heart.  Do
+you imagine that in his old age he used to address Aristides as
+Lysimachus?  For my part, I know not only the present generation,
+but their fathers also, and their grandfathers. Nor have I any fear of
+losing my memory by reading tombstones, according to the vulgar
+superstition.   On the contrary, by reading them I renew my
+memory of those who are dead and gone. Nor, in point of fact,
+have I ever heard of any old man forgetting where he had hidden
+his money.  They remember everything that interests them: when
+to answer to their bail, business appointments, who owes them
+money, and to whom they owe
+it.  What about lawyers, pontiffs, augurs, philosophers, when old? 
+What a multitude of things they remember! Old men retain their
+intellects well enough, if only they keep their minds active and
+fully employed.  Nor is that the case only with men of high
+position and great office:
+it applies equally to private life and peaceful pursuits. Sophocles
+composed tragedies to extreme old age; and being believed to
+neglect the care of his property owing to his devotion to his art, his
+sons brought him into court to get a judicial decision depriving
+him of the management of his property on the ground of weak
+intellect-just as in our law it is customary to deprive a
+paterfamilias of the management of his property if he is
+squandering it. There-upon the old poet is said to have read to the
+judges the play he had on hand and had just composed-the
+_Oedipus Coloneus_-and to have asked them whether they thought
+that the work of a man of weak intellect. After the reading he was
+acquitted by the jury.  Did old age then compel this man to become
+silent in his particular art, or Homer, Hesiod, Simonides, or
+Isocrates and Gorgias whom I mentioned before, or the founders of
+schools of philosophy, Pythagoras, Democritus, Plato, Xenocrates,
+or later Zeno and Cleanthus, or Diogenes the Stoic, whom you too
+saw at Rome? Is it not rather the case with all these that the active
+pursuit of study only ended with life?
+
+But, to pass over these sublime studies, I can name some rustic
+Romans from the Sabine district, neighbours and friends of my
+own, without whose presence farm work of importance is scarcely
+ever performed-whether sowing, or harvesting or storing crops.
+And yet in other things this s' less surprising; for no one is so old
+as to think that he may not live a year. But they bestow their labour
+on what they know does not affect them in any case:
+
+He plants his trees to serve a race to come,
+
+as our poet Statius says in his Comrades.  Nor indeed would a
+farmer, however old, hesitate to answer any one who asked him for
+whom he was planting: "For the immortal gods, whose will it was
+that I should not merely receive these things from my ancestors,
+but should also hand them on to the next generation."
+
+8. That remark about the old man is better than the following:
+
+If age brought nothing worse than this,
+It were enough to mar our bliss,
+That he who bides for many years
+Sees much to shun and much for tears.
+
+Yes, and perhaps much that gives him pleasure too.  Besides, as to
+subjects for tears, he often comes upon them in youth as well.
+
+A still more questionable sentiment in the same Caecilius is:
+
+No greater misery can of age be told
+Than this: be sure, the young dislike the old.
+
+Delight in them is nearer the mark than dislike.  For Just as old
+men, if they are wise, take pleasure in the society of young men of
+good parts, and as old age is rendered less dreary for those who are
+courted and liked by the youth, so also do young men find pleasure
+in the maxims of the old, by which they are drawn to the pursuit of
+excellence.  Nor do I perceive that you find my society less
+pleasant than I do yours.  But this is enough to show you how, so
+far from being listless and sluggish, old age is even a busy time,
+always doing and attempting something, of course of the same
+nature as each man's taste had been in the previous part of his life.
+Nay, do not some even add to their stock of learning?  We see
+Solon, for instance, boasting in his poems that he grows old "daily
+learning something new."  Or again in my own case, it was only
+when an old man that I became acquainted with Greek literature,
+which in fact I absorbed with such avidity-in my yearning to
+quench, as it were, a long-continued thirst-that I became
+acquainted with the very facts which you see me now using as
+precedents.  When I heard what Socrates had done about the lyre I
+should have liked for my part to have done that too, for the
+ancients used to learn the lyre but, at any rate, I worked hard at
+literature.
+
+9. Nor, again, do I now MISS THE BODILY STRENGTH  OF A
+YOUNG MAN (for that was the second point as to the
+disadvantages of old age) any more than as a young man I missed
+the strength of a bull or an elephant.  You should use what you
+have, and whatever you may chance to be doing, do it with all your
+might.  What could be weaker than Milo of Croton's exclamation?
+When in his old age he was watching some athletes practising in
+the course, he is said to have looked at his arms and to have
+exclaimed with tears in his eyes: "Ah well! these are now as good
+as dead." Not a bit more so than yourself, you trifler!  For at no
+time were you made famous by your real self, but by chest and
+biceps.  Sext. Aelius never gave vent to such a remark, nor, many
+years before him, Titus Coruncanius, nor, more recently, P.
+Crassus-all of them learned juris-consults in active practice, whose
+knowledge of their profession was maintained to their last breath. I
+am afraid an orator does lose vigour by old age, for his art is not a
+matter of the intellect alone, but of lungs and bodily strength. 
+Though as a rule that musical ring in the voice even gains in
+brilliance in a certain way as one grows old-certainly I have not yet
+lost it, and you see my years.  Yet after all the style of speech
+suitable to an old man is the quiet and unemotional, and it often
+happens that the chastened and calm delivery of an old man
+eloquent secures a hearing. If you cannot attain to that yourself,
+you might still instruct a Scipio and a Laelius.  For what is more
+charming than old age surrounded by the enthusiasm of youth?
+Shall we not allow old age even the strength to teach the young, to
+train and equip them for all the duties of life? And what can be a
+nobler employment? For my part, I used to think Publius and
+Gnaeus Scipio and your two grandfathers, L. Aemilius and P.
+Africanus, fortunate men when I saw them with a company of
+young nobles about them.  Nor should we think any teachers of the
+fine arts otherwise than happy, however much their bodily forces
+may have decayed and failed.  And yet that same failure of the
+bodily forces is more often brought about by the vices of youth
+than of old age; for a dissolute and intemperate youth hands down
+the body to old age in a worn-out state. Xenophon's Cyrus, for
+instance, in his discourse delivered on his death-bed and at a very
+advanced age, says that he never perceived his old age to have
+become weaker than his youth had been.  I remember as a boy
+Lucius Metellus, who having been created Pontifex Maximus four
+years after his second consul-ship, held that office twenty-two
+years, enjoying such excellent strength of body in the very last
+hours of his life as not to miss his youth.  I need not speak of
+myself; though that indeed is an old man's way and is generally
+allowed to my time of life.  Don't you see in Homer how frequently
+Nestor talks of his own good qualities? For he was living through a
+third generation; nor had he any reason to fear that upon saying
+what was true about himself he should appear either over vain or
+talkative. For, as Homer says, "from his lips flowed discourse
+sweeter than honey," for which sweet breath he wanted no bodily
+strength. And yet, after all, the famous leader of the Greeks
+nowhere wishes to have ten men like Ajax, but like Nestor: if he
+could get them, he feels no doubt of Troy shortly falling.
+
+10. But to return to my own case: I am in my eighty-fourth year.  I
+could wish that I had been able to make the same boast as Cyrus;
+but, after all, I can say this: I am not indeed as vigorous as I was as
+a private soldier in the Punic war, or as quaestor in the same war,
+or as consul in Spain, and four years later when as a military
+tribune I took part in the engagement at Thermopylae under the
+consul Manius Acilius Glabrio; but yet, as you see, old age has not
+entirely destroyed my muscles, has not quite brought me to the
+ground. The Senate-house does not find all my vigour gone, nor
+the rostra, nor my friends, nor my clients, nor my foreign guests.
+For I have never given in to that ancient and much-praised proverb:
+
+Old when young
+Is old for long.
+
+For myself, I had rather be an old man a somewhat shorter time
+than an old man _before_ my time. Accordingly, no one up to the
+present has wished to see me, to whom I have been denied as
+engaged. But, it may be said, I have less strength than either of
+you.  Neither have you the strength of the centurion T. Pontius: is
+he the more eminent man on that account?  Let there be only a
+proper husbanding of strength, and let each man proportion his
+efforts to his powers.  Such an one will assuredly not be possessed
+with any great regret for his loss of strength. At Olympia Milo is
+said to have stepped into the course carrying a live ox on his
+shoulders. Which then of the two would you prefer to have given
+to you-bodily strength like that, or intellectual strength like that of
+Pythagoras? In fine, enjoy that blessing when you have it; when it
+is gone, don't wish it back-unless we are to think that young men
+should wish their childhood back, and those somewhat older their
+youth! The course of life is fixed, and nature admits of its being
+run but in one way, and only once; and to each part of our life
+there is something specially seasonable; so that the feebleness of
+children, as well as the high spirit of youth, the soberness of
+maturer years, and the ripe wisdom of old age-all have a certain
+natural advantage which should be secured in its proper season. I
+think you are informed, Scipio, what your grandfather's foreign
+friend Masinissa does to this day, though ninety years old.  When
+he has once begun a journey on foot he does not mount his horse at
+all; when on horseback he never gets off his horse.  By no rain or
+cold can he be induced to cover his head.  His body is absolutely
+free from unhealthy humours, and so he still performs all the
+duties and functions of a king.  Active exercise, therefore, and
+temperance can preserve some part of one's former strength even
+in old age.
+
+11. Bodily strength is wanting to old age; but neither is bodily
+strength demanded from old men. Therefore, both by law and
+custom, men of my time of life are exempt from those duties
+which cannot be supported without bodily strength. Accordingly
+not only are we not forced to do what we cannot do; we are not
+even obliged to do as much as we can.  But, it will be said, many
+old men are so feeble that they cannot perform any duty in life of
+any sort or kind. That is not a weakness to be set down as peculiar
+to 61d age:
+it is one shared by ill health.  How feeble was the son of P.
+Africanus, who adopted you!  What weak health he had, or rather
+no health at all!  If that had not been the case, we should have had
+in him a second brilliant light in the political horizon; for he had
+added a wider cultivation to his father's greatness of spirit.  What
+wonder, then, that old men are eventually feeble, when even young
+men cannot escape it? My dear Laelius and Scipio, we must stand
+up against old age and make up for its drawbacks by taking pains.
+We must fight it as we should an illness. We must look after our
+health, use moderate exercise, take just enough food and drink to
+recruit, but not to overload, our strength.  Nor is it the body alone
+that must be supported, but the intellect and soul much more.  For
+they are like lamps: unless you feed them with oil, they too go out
+from old age. Again, the body is apt to get gross from exercise; but
+the intellect becomes nimbler by exercising itself. For what
+Caecilius means by "old dotards of the comic stage " are the
+credulous, the forgetful, and the slipshod. These are faults that do
+not attach to old age as such, but to a sluggish, spiritless, and
+sleepy old age. Young men are more frequently wanton and
+dissolute than old men; but yet, as it is not all young men that are
+so, but the bad set among them, even so senile folly-usually called
+imbecility-applies to old men of unsound character, not to all. 
+Appius governed four sturdy sons, five daughters, that great
+establishment, and all those clients, though he was both old and
+blind. For he kept his mind at full stretch like a how, and never
+gave in to old age by growing slack.  He maintained not merely an
+influence, but an absolute command over his family: his slaves
+feared him, his sons were in awe of him, all loved him. In that
+family, indeed, ancestral custom and discipline were in full vigour. 
+The fact is that old age is respectable just as long as it asserts
+itself, maintains its proper rights, and is not enslaved to any one. 
+For as I admire a young man who has something of the old man in
+him, so do I an old one who has something of a young man. The
+man who aims at this may possibly become old in body-in mind he
+never will. I am now engaged in composing the seventh book of
+my _Origins_. I collect all the records of antiquity.  The speeches
+delivered in all the celebrated cases which I have defended I am at
+this particular time getting into shape for publication. I am writing
+treatises on augural, pontifical, and civil law. I am, besides,
+studying hard at Greek, and after the manner of the
+Pythagoreans-to keep my memory in working order-I repeat in the
+evening whatever I have said, heard, or done in the course of each
+day.  These are the exercises of the intellect, these the training
+grounds of the mind: while I sweat and labour on these I don't
+much feel the loss of bodily strength. I appear in court for my
+friends; I frequently attend the Senate and bring motions before it
+on my own responsibility, prepared after deep and long reflection.
+And these I support by my intellectual, not my bodily forces. And
+if I were not strong enough to do these things, yet I should enjoy
+my sofa-imagining the very operations which I was now unable to
+perform.  But what makes me capable of doing this is my past life.
+For a man who is always living in the midst of these studies and
+labours does not perceive when old age creeps upon him. Thus, by
+slow and imperceptible degrees life draws to its end. There is no
+sudden breakage; it just slowly goes out.
+
+12. The third charge against old age is that it LACKS SENSUAL
+PLEASURES.  What a splendid service does old age render, if it
+takes from us the greatest blot of youth!  Listen, my dear young
+friends, to a speech of Archytas of Tarentum, among the greatest
+and most illustrious of men, which was put into my hands when as
+a young man I was at Tarentum with Q. Maximus. "No more
+deadly curse than sensual pleasure has been inflicted on mankind
+by nature, to gratify which our wanton appetites are roused beyond
+all prudence or restraint.  It is a fruitful source of treasons,
+revolutions, secret communications with the enemy.  In fact, there
+is no crime, no evil deed, to which the appetite for sensual
+pleasures does not impel us.  Fornications and adulteries, and
+every abomination of that kind, are brought about by the
+enticements of pleasure and by them alone. Intellect is the best gift
+of nature or God: to this divine gift and endowment there is
+nothing so inimical as pleasure. For when appetite is our master,
+there is no place for self-control; nor where pleasure reigns
+supreme can virtue hold its ground. To see this more vividly,
+imagine a man excited to the highest conceivable pitch of sensual
+pleasure. It can be doubtful to no one that such a person, so long as
+he is under the influence of such excitation of the senses, will be
+unable to use to any purpose either intellect, reason, or thought. 
+Therefore nothing can be so execrable and so fatal as pleasure;
+since, when more than ordinarily violent and lasting, it darkens all
+the light of the soul."
+
+These were the words addressed by Archytas to the Samnite Caius
+Pontius, father of the man by whom the consuls Spurius Postumius
+and Titus Veturius were beaten in the battle of Caudium.  My
+friend Nearchus of Tarentum, who had remained loyal to Rome,
+told me that he had heard them repeated by some old men; and
+that Plato the Athenian was present, who visited Tarentum, I find,
+in the consulship of L. Camillus and Appius Claudius.
+
+What is the point of all this? It is to show you that, if we were
+unable to scorn pleasure by the aid of reason and philosophy, we
+ought to have been very grateful to old age for depriving us of all
+inclination for that which it was wrong to do.  For pleasure hinders
+thought, is a foe to reason, and, so to speak, blinds the eyes of the
+mind. It is, moreover, entirely alien to virtue.  I was sorry to have
+to expel Lucius, brother of the gallant Titus Flamininus, from the
+Senate seven years after his consulship; but I thought it imperative
+to affix a stigma on an act of gross sensuality. For when he was in
+Gaul as consul, he had yielded to the entreaties of his paramour at
+a dinner-party to behead a man who happened to be in prison
+condemned on a capital charge. When his brother Titus was
+Censor, who preceded me, he escaped; but I and Flaccus could not
+countenance an act of such criminal and abandoned lust, especially
+as, besides the personal dishonour, it brought disgrace on the
+Government.
+
+13. I have often been told by men older than myself, who said that
+they had heard it as boys from old men, that Gaius Fabricius was in
+the habit of expressing astonishment at having heard, when envoy
+at the headquarters of king Pyrrhus, from the Thessalian Cineas,
+that there was a man of Athens who professed to be a
+"philosopher," and affirmed that everything we did was to be
+referred to pleasure. When he told this to Manius Curius and
+Publius Decius, they used to remark that they wished that the
+Samnites and Pyrrhus himself would hold the same opinion.  It
+would be much easier to conquer them, if they had once given
+themselves over to sensual indulgences.  Manius Curius had been
+intimate with P. Decius, who four years before the former's
+consulship had devoted himself to death for the Republic. Both
+Fabricius and Coruncanius knew him also, and from the
+experience of their own lives, as well as from the action of P.
+Decius, they were of opinion that there did exist something
+intrinsically noble and great, which was sought for its own sake,
+and at which all the best men aimed, to the contempt and neglect
+of pleasure.  Why then do I spend so many words on the subject of
+pleasure? Why, because, far from being a charge against old age,
+that it does not much feel the want of any pleasures, it is its highest
+praise.
+
+But, you will say, it is deprived of the pleasures of the table, the
+heaped up board, the rapid passing of the wine-cup. Well, then, it
+is also free from headache, disordered digestion, broken sleep. But
+if we must grant pleasure something, since we do not find it easy
+to resist its charms,-for Plato, with happy inspiration, calls
+pleasure "vice's bait," because of course men are caught by it as
+fish by a hook,-yet, although old age has to abstain from
+extravagant banquets, it is still capable of enjoying modest
+festivities. As a boy I often used to see Gaius Duilius the son of
+Marcus, then an old mali, returning from a dinner-party. He
+thoroughly enjoyed the frequent use of torch and flute-player,
+distinctions which he had assumed though unprecedented in the
+case of a private person. It was the privilege of his glory.  But why
+mention others? I will come back to my own case. To begin with, I
+have always remained a member of a "club "-clubs, you know,
+were established in my quaestorship on the reception of the Magna
+Mater from Ida.  So I used to dine at their feast with the members
+of my club-on the whole with moderation, though there was a
+certain warmth of temperament natural to my time of life; but as
+that advances there is a daily decrease of all excitement.  Nor was
+I, in fact, ever wont to measure my enjoyment even of these
+banquets by the physical pleasures they gave more than by the
+gathering and conversation of friends. For it was a good idea of our
+ancestors to style the presence of guests at a dinner-table-seeing
+that it implied a community of enjoyment-a _convivium_, "a living
+together." It is a better term than the Greek words which mean "a
+drinking together," or, "an eating together." For they would seem
+to give the preference to what is really the least important part of
+it.
+
+14. For myself, owing to the pleasure I take in conversation, I
+enjoy even banquets that begin early in the afternoon, and not only
+in company with my contemporaries-of whom very few
+survive-but also with men of your age and with yourselves.  I am
+thankful to old age, which has increased my avidity for
+conversation, while it has removed that for eating and drinking. 
+But if anyone does enjoy these-not to seem to have proclaimed war
+against all pleasure without exception, which is perhaps a feeling
+inspired by nature-I fail to perceive even in these very pleasures
+that old age is entirely without the power of appreciation. For
+myself, I take delight even in the old-fashioned appointment of
+master of the feast; and in the arrangement of the conversation,
+which according to ancestral custom is begun from the last place
+on the left-hand couch when the wine is brought in; as also in the
+cups which, as in Xenophon's banquet, are small and filled by
+driblets; and in the contrivance for cooling in summer, and for
+warming hy the winter sun or winter fire.  These things I keep up
+even among my Sabine countrymen, and every day have a full
+dinner-party of neighbours, which we prolong as far into the night
+as we can with varied conversation.
+
+But you may urge-there is not the same tingling sensation of
+pleasure in old men. No doubt; but neither do they miss it so
+much.  For nothing gives you uneasiness which you do not miss.
+That was a fine answer of Sophocles to a man who asked him,
+when in extreme old age, whether he was still a lover.  "Heaven
+forbid!" he replied; "I was only too glad to escape from that, as
+though from a boorish and insane master."  To men indeed who
+are keen after such things it may possibly appear disagreeable and
+uncomfortable to be without them; but to jaded appetites it is
+pleasanter to lack than to enjoy.  However, he cannot be said to
+lack who does not want: my contention is that not to want is the
+pleasanter thing.
+
+But even granting that youth enjoys these pleasures with more
+zest;  in the first place,  they are insignificant things to enjoy, as I
+have said; and it] the second place, such as age is not entirely
+without, if it does not possess them in profusion.  Just as a man
+gets greater pleasure from Ambivius Turpio if seated in the front
+row at the theatre than if he was in the last, yet, after all, the man
+in the last row does get pleasure; so youth, because it looks at
+pleasures at closer quarters, perhaps enjoys itself more, yet even
+old age, looking at them from a distance, does enjoy itself well
+enough.  Why, what blessings are these-that the soul, having
+served its time, so to speak, in the campaigns of desire and
+ambition, rivalry and hatred, and all the passions, should live in its
+own thoughts, and, as the expression goes, should dwell apart! 
+Indeed, if it has in store any of what I may call the food of study
+and philosophy, nothing can be pleasanter than an old age of
+leisure.  We were witnesses to C. Gallus-a friend of your father's,
+Scipio-intent to the day of his death on mapping out the sky and
+land.  How often did the light surprise him while still working out
+a problem begun during the night! How often did night find him
+busy on what he had begun at dawn!  How he delighted in
+predicting for us solar and lunar eclipses long before they
+occurred!  Or again in studies of a lighter nature, though still
+requiring keenness of intellect, what pleasure Naevius took in his
+_Punic War_! Plautus in his _Truculentus_ and _Pseudolus_! I
+even saw Livius Andronicus, who, having produced a play six
+years before I was born-in the consulship of Cento and
+Tuditanus-lived till I had become a young man.  Why speak of
+Publius Licinius Crassus's devotion to pontifical and civil law, or
+of the Publius Scipio of the present time, who within these last few
+days has been created Pontifex Maximus? And yet I have seen all
+whom I have mentioned ardent in these pursuits when old men.
+Then there is Marcus Cethegus, whom Ennius justly called
+"Persuasion's Marrow "-with what enthusiasm did we see him
+exert himself in oratory even when quite old!  What pleasures are
+there 'n feasts, games, or mistresses comparable to pleasures such
+as these? And they are all tastes, too, connected with learning,
+which in men of sense and good education grow with their growth. 
+It is indeed an honourable sentiment which Solon expresses in a
+verse which I have quoted before-that he grew old learning many a
+fresh lesson every day. Than that intellectual pleasure none
+certainly can be greater.
+
+15.  I come now to the pleasures of the farmer, in which [ take
+amazing delight.  These are not hindered by any extent of old age,
+and seem to me to approach nearest to' the ideal wise man's life.
+For he has to deal with the earth, which never refuses its
+obedience, nor ever returns what it has received without usury;
+sometimes, indeed, with less, but generally with greater interest. 
+For my part, however. it is not merely the thing produced, but the
+earth's own force and natural productiveness that delight me.  For 
+received in its bosom the seed scattered broadcast upon it,
+softened and broken up, she first keeps it concealed therein (hence
+the harrowing which accomplishes this gets its name from a word
+meaning "to hide"); next, when it has been warmed by her heat
+and close pressure, she splits it open and draws from it the
+greenery of the blade. This, supported by the fibres of the root,
+little by little grows up, and held upright by its jointed stalk is
+enclosed in sheaths, as being still immature.  When it has emerged
+from them it produces an ear of corn arranged in order, and is
+defended against the pecking of the smaller birds by a regular
+palisade of spikes.
+
+Need I mention the starting, planting, and growth of vines? I can
+never have too much of this pleasure-to let you into the secret of
+what gives my old age repose and amusement.  For I say nothing
+here of the natural force which all things propagated from the
+earth possess-the earth which from that tiny grain in a fig, or the
+grape-stone in a grape, or the most minute seeds of the other
+cereals and plants, produces such huge trunks and boughs.
+Mallet-shoots, slips, cuttings, quicksets, layers-are they not enough
+to fill anyone with delight and astonishment? The vine by nature is
+apt to fall, and unless supported drops down to the earth; yet in
+order to keep itself upright it embraces whatever it reaches with its
+tendrils as though they were hands.  Then as it creeps on,
+spreading itself in intricate and wild profusion, the dresser's art
+prunes it with the knife and prevents it growing a forest of shoots
+and expanding to excess in every direction. Accordingly at the
+beginning of spring in the shoots which have been left there
+protrudes at each of the joints what is termed an
+From this the grape emerges and shows itself; which, swollen by
+the juice of the earth and the heat of the sun, is at first very bitter
+to the taste, but afterwards grows sweet as it matures; and being
+covered with tendrils is never without a moderate warmth, and yet
+is able to ward off the fiery heat of the sun.  Can anything be richer
+in product or more beautiful to contemplate? It is not its utility
+only, as I said before, that charms me, but the method of its
+cultivation and the natural process of its growth: the rows of
+uprights, the cross-pieces for the tops of the plants, the tying up of
+the vines and their propagation by layers, the pruning, to which I
+have already referred, of some shoots, the setting of others.  I need
+hardly mention irrigation, or trenching and digging the soil, which
+much increase its fertility. As to the advantages of manuring I have
+spoken in my book on agriculture. The learned Hesiod did not say
+a single word on this subject, though he was writing on the
+cultivation of the soil; yet Homer, who in my opinion was many
+generations earlier, represents Laertes as softening his regret for
+his son by cultivating and manuring his farm. Nor is it only in
+cornfields and meadows and vineyards and plantations that a
+farmer's life is made cheerful. There are the garden and the
+orchard, the feeding of sheep, the swarms of bees, endless varieties
+of flowers. Nor is it only planting out that charms: there is also
+grafting-surely the most ingenious invention ever made by
+husbandmen.
+
+i6.  I might continue my list of the delights of country life; but
+even what I have said I think is somewhat over long. However, you
+must pardon me; for farming is a very favourite hobby of mine,
+and old age is naturally rather garrulous-for I would not be thought
+to acquit it of all faults.
+
+Well, it was in a life of this sort that Manius Curius, after
+celebrating triumphs over the Samnites, the Sabines, and Pyrrhus,
+spent his last days.  When I look at his villa-for it is not far from
+my own-I never can enough admire the man's own frugality or the
+spirit of the age. As Curius was sitting at his hearth the Samnites,
+who brought him  a large sum of gold, were repulsed by him; for it
+was not, lie said, a fine thing in his eyes to possess gold, but to rule
+those who possessed it.  Could such a high spirit fail to make old
+age pleasant?
+
+But to return to farmers-not to wander from my own metier. Tn
+those days there were senators, _i. e_. old men, on their farms.  For
+L. Quinctius Cincinnatus was actually at the plough when word
+was brought him that he had been named Dictator.  It was by his
+order as Dictator, by the way, that C. Servilius Ahala, the Master
+of the Horse, seized and put to death Spurius Maelius when
+attempting to obtain royal power.  Curius as well as other old men
+used to receive their summonses to attend the Senate in their
+farm-houses, from which circumstance the summoners were called
+_viatores_ or "travellers." Was these men's old age an object of
+pity who found their pleasure in the cultivation of the land?  In my
+opinion, scarcely any life can be more blessed, not alone from its
+utility (for agriculture is beneficial to the whole human race), but
+also as much from the mere pleasure of the thing, to which I have
+already alluded, and from the rich abundance and supply of all
+things necessary for the food of man and for the worship of the
+gods above.  So, as these are objects of desire to certain people, let
+us make our peace with pleasure.  For the good and hard-working
+farmer's wine-cellar and oil-store, as well as his larder, are always
+well filled, and his whole farm-house is richly furnished. It
+abounds in pigs, goats, lambs, fowls, milk, cheese, and. honey. 
+Then there is the garden, which the farmers themselves call their "
+second flitch."  A zest and flavour is added to all these by hunting
+and fowling in spare hours. Need I mention the greenery of
+meadows, the rows of trees, the beauty of vineyard and
+olive-grove?  I 'will put it briefly: nothing can either furnish
+necessaries more richly, or present a fairer spectacle, than
+well-cultivated land. And to the enjoyment of that, old age does
+not merely present no hindrance-it actually invites and allures to it. 
+For where else can it better warm itself, either by basking in the
+sun or by sitting by the fire, or at the proper time cool itself more
+wholesomely by the help of shade or water? Let the young keep
+their arms then to themselves, their horses, spears, their foils and
+ball, their swimming baths and running path. To us old men let
+them, out of the many forms of sport, leave dice and counters; but
+even that as they choose, since old age can be quite happy without
+them.
+
+17. Xenophon's books are very useful for many purposes. Pray go
+on reading them with attention, as you have ever done. In what
+ample terms is agriculture lauded by him in the book about
+husbanding one's property, which is called _Oceonomicus_! But to
+show you that he thought nothing so worthy of a prince as the taste
+for cultivating the soil, I will translate what Socrates says to
+Critobulus in that book:
+
+"When that most gallant Lacedaemonian Lysander came to visit
+the Persian prince Cyrus at Sardis, so eminent for his character and
+the glory of his rule, bringing him presents from his allies, he
+treated Lysander in all ways with courteous familiarity and
+kindness, and, among other things, took him to see a certain park
+carefully planted. Lysander expressed admiration of the height of
+the trees and the exact arrangement of their rows in the quincunx,
+the careful cultivation of the soil, its freedom from weeds, and the
+sweetness of the odours exhaled from the flowers, and went on to
+say that what he admired was not the industry only, but also the
+skill of the man by whom this had been planned and laid out. 
+Cyrus replied: 'Well, it was I who planned the whole thing these
+rows are my doing, the laying out is all mine; many of the trees
+were even planted by own hand.' Then Lysander, looking at his
+purple robe, the brilliance of his person, and his adornment Persian
+fashion with gold and many jewels, said: 'People are quite right,
+Cyrus, to call you happy, since the advantages of high fortune have
+been joined to an excellence like yours.'"
+
+This kind of good fortune, then, it is in the power of old men to
+enjoy; nor is age any bar to our maintaining pursuits of every other
+kind, and especially of agriculture, to the very extreme verge of
+old age.  For instance, we have it on record that M. Valerius
+Corvus kept it up to his hundredth year, living on his land and
+cultivating it after his active career was over, though between his
+first and sixth consulships there was an interval of six and forty
+years.  So that he had an official career lasting the number of years
+which our ancestors defined as coming between birth and the
+beginning of old age. Moreover, that last period of his old age was
+more blessed than that of his middle life, inasmuch as he had
+greater influence and less labour.  For the crowning grace of old
+age is influence.
+
+How great was that of L. Caecilius Metellus! How great that of
+Atilius Calatinus, over whom the famous epitaph was placed,
+"Very many classes agree in deeming this to have been the very
+first man of the nation"! The line cut on his tomb is well known. It
+is natural, then, that a man should have had influence, in whose
+praise the verdict of history is unanimous.  Again, in recent times,
+what a great man was Publius Crassus, Pontifex Maximus, and his
+successor in the same office, M. Lepidus!  I need scarcely mention
+Paulus or Africanus, or, as I did before, Maximus.  It was not only
+their senatorial utterances that had weight: their least gesture had it
+also.  In fact, old age, especially when it has enjoyed honours, has
+an influence worth all the pleasures of youth put together.
+
+18. But throughout my discourse remember that my panegyric
+applies to an old age that has been established on foundations laid
+by youth.  From which may be deduced what I once said with
+universal applause, that it was a wretched old age that had to
+defend itself by speech.  Neither white hairs nor wrinkles can at
+once claim influence in themselves: it is the honourable conduct of
+earlier days that is rewarded by possessing influence at the last. 
+Even things generally regarded as trifling and matters of
+course-being saluted, being courted, having way made for one,
+people rising when one approaches, being escorted to and from the
+forum, being referred to for advice-all these are marks of respect,
+observed among us and in other States-always most sedulously
+where the moral tone is highest.  They say that Lysander the
+Spartan, whom I have mentioned before, used to remark that
+Sparta was the most dignified home for old age; for that nowhere
+was more respect paid to years, no-where was old age held in
+higher honour.  Nay, the story is told of how when a man of
+advanced years came into the theatre at Athens when the games
+were going on, no place was given him anywhere in that large
+assembly by his own countrymen; but when he came near the
+Lacedaemonians, who as ambassadors had a fixed place assigned
+to them, they rose as one man out of respect for him, and gave the
+veteran a seat.  When they were greeted with rounds of applause
+from the whole audience, one of them remarked:
+
+"The Athenians know what is right, but will not do it." There are
+many excellent rules in our augural college, but among the best is
+one which affects our subject-that precedence in speech goes by
+seniority; and augurs who are older are preferred only to those who
+have held higher office, but even to those who are actually in
+possession of imperium. What then are the physical pleasures to be
+compared with the reward of influence? Those who have
+employed it with distinction appear to me to have played the
+drama of life to its end, and not to have broken down in the last act
+like unpractised players.
+
+But, it will be said, old men are fretful, fidgety, ill-tempered, and
+disagreeable.  If you come to that, they are also avaricious.  But
+these are faults of character, not of the time of life. And, after all,
+fretfulness and the other faults I mentioned admit of some
+excuse-not, indeed, a complete one, but one that may possibly pass
+muster: they think them-selves neglected, looked down upon,
+mocked,  Besides with bodily weakness every rub is a source of
+pain. Yet all these faults are softened both by good character and
+good education. Illustrations of this may be found in real life, as
+also on the stage in the case of the brothers in the _Adeiphi_. What
+harshness in the one, what gracious manners in the other  The fact
+is that, just as it is not every wine, so it is not every life, that turns
+sour from keeping,  Serious gravity I approve of in old age, but, as
+in other things, it must be within due limits: bitterness I can in no
+case approve. What the object of senile avarice may be I cannot
+conceive. For can there be anything more absurd than to seek more
+journey money, the less there remains of the journey?
+
+19. There remains the fourth reason, which more than anything
+else appears to torment men of my age and keep them in a
+flutter-THE NEARNESS OF DEATH, which, it must be allowed,
+cannot be far from an old man.  But what a poor dotard must he be
+who has not learnt in the course of so long a life that death is not a
+thing to be feared?  Death, that is either to be totally disregarded, if
+it entirely extinguishes the soul, or is even to be desired, if it brings
+him where he is to exist forever. A third alternative, at any rate,
+cannot possibly be discovered. Why then should I be afraid if I am
+destined either not to be miserable after death or even to be happy?
+After all, who is such a fool as to feel certain-however young he
+may be-that he will be alive in the evening?  Nay, that time of life
+has many more chances of death than ours, Young men more
+easily contract diseases; their illnesses are more serious; their
+treatment has to be more severe. Accordingly, only a few arrive at
+old age.  If that were not so, life would be conducted better and
+more wisely; for it is in old men that thought, reason, and prudence
+are to be found; and if there had been no old men, States would
+never have existed at all.  But I return to the subject of the
+imminence of death. What sort of charge is this against old age,
+when you see that it is shared by youth? I had reason in the case of
+my excellent son-as you had, Scipio, in that of your brothers, who
+were expected to attain the highest honours-to realise that death is
+common to every time of life. Yes, you will say; but a young man
+expects to live long; an old man cannot expect to do so.  Well, he
+is a fool to expect it.  For what can be more foolish than to regard
+the uncertain as certain, the false as true? "An old man has nothing
+even to hope."  Ah, but it is just there that he is in a better position
+than a young man, since what the latter only hopes he has
+obtained.  The one wishes to live long; the other has lived long.
+
+And yet, good heaven! what is "long" in a man's life? For grant the
+utmost limit: let us expect an age like that of the King of the
+Tartessi.  For there was, as I find recorded, a certain Agathonius at
+Gades who reigned eighty years and lived a hundred and twenty. 
+But to my mind nothing seems even long in which there is any
+"last," for when that arrives, then all the past has slipped away-only
+that remains to which you have attained by virtue and righteous
+actions. Hours indeed, and days and months and years depart, nor
+does past time ever return, nor can the future be known.  Whatever
+time each is granted for life, with that he is bound to be content.
+An actor, in order to earn approval, is not bound to perform the
+play from beginning to end; let him only satisfy the audience in
+whatever act he appears.  Nor need a wise man go on to the
+concluding "plaudite."  For a short term of life is long enough for
+living well and honourably. But if you go farther, you have no
+more right to grumble than farmers do because the charm of the
+spring season is past and the summer and autumn have come.  For
+the word "spring" in a way suggests youth, and points to the
+harvest to be: the other seasons are suited for the reaping and
+storing of the crops. Now the harvest of old age is, as I have often
+said, the memory and rich store of blessings laid up in easier life.
+Again, all things that accord with nature are to be counted as good. 
+But what can be more in accordance with nature than for old men
+to die? A thing, indeed, which also beliefs young men, though
+nature revolts and fights against it. Accordingly, the death of
+young men seems to me like putting out a great fire with a deluge
+of water; but old men die like a fire going out because it has burnt
+down of its own nature without artificial means.  Again, just as
+apples when unripe are torn from trees, but when ripe and mellow
+drop down, so it is violence that takes life from young men,
+ripeness from old.  This ripeness is so delightful to me, that, as I
+approach nearer to death, I seem as it were to be sighting land, and
+to be coming to port at last after a long voyage.
+
+20. Again, there is no fixed borderline for old age, and you are
+making a good and proper use of it as long as you can satisfy the
+call of duty and disregard death.  The result of this is, that old age
+is even more confident and courageous than youth. That is the
+meaning of Solon's answer to the tyrant Pisistratus. When the latter
+asked him what he relied upon in opposing him with such
+boldness, he is said to have replied, "On my old age."  But that end
+of life is the best, when, without the intellect or senses being
+impaired, Nature herself takes to pieces her own handiwork which
+she also put together. Just as the builder of a ship or a house can
+break them up more easily than any one else, so the nature that
+knit together the human frame can also best unfasten it.  Moreover,
+a thing freshly glued together is always difficult to pull asunder; if
+old, this is easily done.
+
+The result is that the short time of life left to them is not to be
+grasped at by old men with greedy eagerness, or abandoned
+without cause. Pythagoras forbids us, without an order from our
+commander, that is God, to desert life's fortress and outpost.
+Solon's epitaph, indeed, is that of a wise man, in which he says that
+he does not wish his death to be unaccompanied by the sorrow and
+lamentations of his friends. He wants, I suppose, to be beloved by
+them. But I rather think Ennius says better:
+
+None grace me with their tears, nor weeping loud
+Make sad my funeral rites!
+
+He holds that a death is not a subject for mourning when it is
+followed by immortality.
+
+Again, there may possibly be some sensation of dying
+and that only for a short time, especially in the case of an old man:
+after death, indeed, sensation is either what one would desire, or it
+disappears altogether.  But to disregard death is a lesson which
+must be studied from our youth up; for unless that is learnt, no one
+can have a quiet mind.  For die we certainly must, and that too
+without being certain whether it may not be this very day.  As
+death, therefore, is hanging over our head every hour, how can a
+man ever be unshaken in soul if he fears it?
+
+But on this theme I don't think I need much enlarge: when I
+remember what Lucius Brutus did, who was killed while defending
+his country; or the two Decii, who spurred their horses to a gallop
+and met a voluntary death; or M. Atilius Regulus, who left his
+home to confront a death of torture, rather than break the word
+which lie had pledged to the enemy; or the two Scipios, who
+determined to block the Carthaginian advance even with their own
+bodies; or your grandfather Lucius Paulus, who paid with his life
+for the rashness of his colleague in the disgrace at Cannae; or M.
+Marcellus, whose death not even the most bloodthirsty of enemies
+would allow to go without the honour of burial. It is enough to
+recall that our legions (as I have recorded in my _Origins_) have
+often marched with cheerful and lofty spirit to ground from which
+they believed that they would never return.  That, therefore, which
+young men-not only uninstructed, but absolutely ignorant-treat as
+of no account, shall men who are neither young nor ignorant shrink
+from in terror? As a general truth, as it seems to me, it is weariness
+of all pursuits that creates weariness of life.  There are certain
+pursuits adapted to childhood: do young men miss them? There are
+others suited to early manhood: does that settled time of life called
+"middle age" ask for them? There are others, again, suited to that
+age, but not looked for in old age.  There are, finally, some which
+belong to Old age.  Therefore, as the pursuits of the earlier ages
+have their time for disappearing, so also have those of old age.
+And when that takes place, a satiety of life brings on the ripe time
+for death.
+
+21. For I do not see why I should not venture to tell you my
+personal opinion as to death, of which I seem to myself to have a
+clearer vision in proportion as I am nearer to it. I believe, Scipio
+and Laelius, that your fathers-those illustrious men and my dearest
+friends-are still alive, and that too with a life which alone deserves
+the name. For as long as we are imprisoned in this framework of
+the body, we perform a certain function and laborious work
+assigned us by fate. The soul, in fact, is of heavenly origin, forced
+down from its home in the highest, and, so to speak, buried in
+earth, a place quite opposed to its divine nature and its
+immortality.  But I suppose the immortal gods to have sown souls
+broadcast in human bodies, that there might be some to survey the
+world, and while contemplating the order of the heavenly bodies to
+imitate it in the unvarying regularity of their life. Nor is it only
+reason and arguments that have brought me to this belief, but the
+great fame and authority of the most distinguished philosophers. I
+used to be told that Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans-almost
+natives of our country, who in old times had been called the Italian
+school of philosophers-never doubted that we had souls drafted
+from  the universal Divine intelligence.  I used be-sides to have
+pointed out to me the discourse delivered by Socrates on the last
+day of his life upon the immortality of the soul-Socrates who was
+pronounced by the oracle at Delphi to be the wisest of men.  I need
+say no more.  I have convinced myself, and T hold-in view of the
+rapid movement of the soul, its vivid memory of the past and its
+prophetic knowledge of the future, its many accomplishments, its
+vast range of knowledge, its numerous discoveries
+-that a nature embracing such varied gifts cannot itself be mortal. 
+And since the soul is always in motion and yet has no external
+source of motion, for it is self-moved, I conclude that it will also
+have no end to its motion, because it is not likely ever to abandon
+itself.  Again, since the nature of the soul is not composite, nor has
+in it any admixture that is not homogeneous an(l similar, I
+conclude that it is indivisible, and, if indivisible, that it cannot
+perish. It is again a strong proof of men knowing most things
+before birth, that when mere children they grasp innumerable facts
+with such speed as to show that they are not then taking them in
+for the first time, but remembering and recalling them. This is
+roughly Plato's argument.
+
+22. Once more in Xenophon we have the elder Cyrus on his
+deathbed speaking as follows:-
+
+"Do not suppose, my dearest sons, that when I have left you I shall
+be nowhere and no one. Even when I was with you, you did not see
+my soul, but knew that it was in this body of mine from what I did. 
+Believe then that it is still the same, even though you see it not.
+The honours paid to illustrious men had not continued to exist
+after their death, had the souls of these very men not done
+something to make us retain our recollection of them beyond the
+ordinary time. For myself, I never could be persuaded that souls
+while in mortal bodies were alive, and died directly they left them;
+nor, in fact, that the soul only lost all intelligence when it left the
+unintelligent body. I believe rather that when, by being liberated
+from all corporeal admixture, it has begun to be pure and
+undefiled, it is then that it becomes wise. And again, when man's
+natural frame is resolved into its elements by death, it is clearly
+seen whither each of the other elements departs: for they all go to
+the place from which they came: but the soul alone is invisible
+alike when present and when departing.  Once more, you see that
+nothing is so like death as sleep. And yet it is in sleepers that souls
+most clearly reveal their divine nature; for they foresee many
+events when they are allowed to escape and are left free. This
+shows what they are likely to be when they have completely freed
+themselves from the fetters of the body. Wherefore, if these things
+are so, obey me as a god.  But if my soul is to perish with my body,
+nevertheless do you from awe of the gods, who guard and govern
+this fair universe, preserve my memory by the loyalty and piety of
+your lives."
+
+23.
+Such are the words of the dying Cyrus. I will now, with your good
+leave, look at home. No one, my dear Scipio, shall ever persuade
+me that your father Paulus and your two grandfathers Paulus and
+Africanus, or the father of Africanus, or his uncle, or many other
+illustrious men not necessary to mention, would have attempted
+such lofty deeds as to be remaindered by posterity, had they not
+seen in their minds that future ages concerned them. Do you
+suppose-to take an old man's privilege of a little self-praise-that I
+should have been likely to undertake such heavy labours by day
+and night, at home and abroad, if I had been destined to have the
+same limit to my glory as to my life? Had it not been much better
+to pass an age of ease and repose without any labour or exertion? 
+But my soul, I know not how, refusing to be kept down, ever fixed
+its eyes upon future ages, as though from a conviction that it would
+begin to live only when it had left the body. But had it not been the
+case that souls were immortal, it would not have been the souls of
+all the best men that made the greatest efforts after an immortality
+of fame.
+
+Again, is there not the fact that the wisest man ever dies with the
+greatest cheerfulness, the most unwise with the least? Don't you
+think that the soul which has the clearer and longer sight sees that
+it is starting for better things, while the soul whose vision is
+dimmer does not see it?  For my part, I am transported with the
+desire to see your fathers, who were the object of my reverence
+and affection.  Nor is it only those whom I knew that I long to see;
+it is those also of whom I have been told and have read, whom I
+have myself recorded in my history. When I am setting out for that,
+there is certainly no one who will find it easy to draw me back, or
+boil me up again like second Pelios.  Nay, if some god should
+grant me to renew my childhood from my present age and once
+more to be crying in my cradle, I would firmly refuse; nor should I
+in truth be willing, after having, as it were, run the full course, to
+be recalled from the winning-crease to the barriers. For what
+blessing has life to offer? Should we not rather say what labour?
+But granting that it has, at any rate it has after all a limit either to
+enjoyment or to existence. I don't wish to depreciate life, as many
+men and good philosophers have often done; nor do I regret having
+lived, for I have done so in a way that lets me think that I was not
+born in vain. But I quit life as I would
+
+ON OLD AGE
+77
+
+an inn, not as I would a home. For nature has given us a place of
+entertainment, not of residence.
+
+Oh glorious day when I shall set out to join that heavenly conclave
+and company of souls, and depart from the turmoil and impurities
+of this world! For I shall not go to join only those whom I have
+before mentioned, but also my son Cato, than whom no better man
+was ever born, nor one more conspicuous for piety. His body was
+burnt by me, though mine ought, on the contrary, to have been
+burnt by him; but his spirit, not abandoning, but ever looking back
+upon me, has certainly gone whither he saw that I too must come. I
+was thought to bear that loss heroically, not that I really bore it
+without distress, but I found my own consolation in the thought
+that the parting and separation between us was not to be for long.
+
+It is by these means, my dear Scipio,-for you said that you and
+Laelius were wont to express surprise on this point, -that my old
+age sits lightly on me, and is not only not oppressive but even
+delightful. But if I am wrong in thinking the human soul immortal,
+I am glad to be wrong; nor will I allow the mistake which gives me
+so much pleasure to be wrested from me as long as I live. But if
+when dead, as some insignificant philosophers think, I am to be
+without sensation, I am not afraid of dead philosophers deriding
+my errors. Again, if we are not to be immortal, it is nevertheless
+what a man must wish-to have his life end at its proper time. For
+nature puts a limit to living as to everything else. Now, old age is
+as it were the playing out of the drama, the full fatigue of which
+we should shun, especially when we also feel that we have had
+more than enough of it.
+
+This is all I had to say on old age.  I pray that you may arrive at it,
+that you may put my words to a practical test.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Treatises on Friendship and Old Age by Cicero
+
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