The Best of the Worlds Classics, Restricted to prose | Page 4

do it with all your strength. For what expression
can be more contemptible than that of Milo[5] of Crotona, who, when
he was now an old man, and was looking at the prize-fighters
exercising themselves on the course, is reported to have looked at his
arms, and, weeping over them, to have said, "But these, indeed, are
now dead." Nay, foolish man, not these arms so much as yourself; for
you never derived your nobility from yourself, but from your chest and
your arms. Nothing of the kind did Sextus Ælius ever say, nothing of
the kind many years before did Titus Coruncanius, nothing lately did
Publius Crassus; by whom instructions in jurisprudence were given to
their fellow citizens, and whose wisdom was progressive even to their
latest breath. For the orator, I fear lest he be enfeebled by old age; for
eloquence is a gift not of mind only, but also of lungs and strength. On
the whole, that melodiousness in the voice is graceful, I know not how,
even in old age; which, indeed, I have not lost, and you see my years.
Yet there is a graceful style of eloquence in an old man, unimpassioned
and subdued, and very often the elegant and gentle discourse of an
eloquent old man wins for itself a hearing; and if you have not yourself
the power to produce this effect, yet you may be able to teach it to
Scipio and Lælius. For what is more delightful than old age surrounded
with the studious attention of youth? Shall we not leave even such a
resource to old age, as to teach young men, instruct them, train them to
every department of duty? an employment, indeed, than which what
can be more noble? But, for my part, I thought the Cneius and Publius
Scipios,[6] and your two grandfathers, L. Æmilius and P. Africanus,
quite happy in the attendance of noble youths; nor are any preceptors of
liberal accomplishments to be deemed otherwise than happy, tho their
strength hath fallen into old age and failed; altho that very failure of
strength is more frequently caused by the follies of youth than by those
of old age; for a lustful and intemperate youth transmits to old age an
exhausted body. Cyrus too, in Xenophon, in that discourse which he

delivered on his deathbed when he was a very old man, said that he
never felt that his old age had become feebler than his youth had been. I
recollect, when a boy, that Lucius Metellus,[7] who, when four years
after his second consulship he had been made "pontifex maximus," and
for twenty-two years held that sacerdotal office, enjoyed such good
strength at the latter period of his life, that he felt no want of youth.
There is no need for me to speak about myself, and yet that is the
privilege of old age, and conceded to my time of life.
Do you see how, in Homer, Nestor very often proclaims his own
virtues? for he was now living in the third generation of men; nor had
he occasion to fear lest, when stating the truth about himself, he should
appear either too arrogant or too talkative; for, as Homer says, from his
tongue speech flowed sweeter than honey; for which charm he stood in
need of no strength of body; and yet the famous chief of Greece
nowhere wishes to have ten men like Ajax, but like Nestor; and he does
not doubt if that should happen, Troy would in a short time perish.
But I return to myself. I am in my eighty-fourth year. In truth I should
like to be able to make the same boast that Cyrus did; but one thing I
can say, that altho I have not, to be sure, that strength which I had
either as a soldier in the Punic war or as questor in the same war, or as
Consul in Spain, or, four years afterward, when as military tribune I
fought a battle at Thermopylæ, in the consulship of Marcus Acilius
Glabrio; yet, as you see, old age has not quite enfeebled me or broken
me down: the senate-house does not miss my strength, nor the rostra,
nor my friends, nor my clients, nor my guests; for I have never agreed
to that old and much-praised proverb which advises you to become an
old man early if you wish to be an old man long. I for my part would
rather be an old man for a shorter length of time than be an old man
before I was one. And, therefore, no one as yet has wished to have an
interview with me to whom I have been denied as engaged.
But I have less strength than either of you two. Neither even