It is well known, Euphanes, that as an admirer of Pindar you "783 B" are fond of quoting his ‘fine and forcible words’:

In connexion with the struggles of public life timidity and weakness can find plenty of excuses, but as a last and most desperate plea they urge ‘advancing years’. This is their pretext par excellence for blunting ambition and putting it out of countenance. They argue that there is a fitting close to a public, as much as to an athletic, career. For these reasons "C" I think it well to take my own ordinary reflections upon ‘old men in public life’ and lay them before yourself. They may prevent either of us from deserting that long companionship which has hitherto followed a common path, and from abandoning that public life which may be regarded as a familiar friend from youth up, in order to adopt another which is unfamiliar, and with which there is no time for us to become thoroughly intimate. I would have us abide by our original principle, and determine that life and the worthy life shall end together. It is not for us to convert the brief remainder into a confession that the bulk of our time has been wastefully applied to no good purpose. "D"

It is not, indeed, true—as some one told Dionysius—that ‘despotism is a fine shroud’. In his case the combination of absolutism with injustice was only made all the more complete a calamity by the fact that it never ceased. It was therefore a shrewd remark of Diogenes, when at a later date he saw Dionysius’ son in a humble private station at Corinth. ‘Dionysius,’ said he, ‘you are far from receiving your deserts. Instead of living a free and fearless life here with us, you ought to have been there, housed in the despot’s palace and made to live in it, like your father, till old age.’ It is different with constitutional and democratic statesmanship. When a man has learned to show himself a profitable subject as well as a profitable ruler, he "E" does indeed obtain at death a ‘fine shroud’, in the shape of the good name earned by his life. For this—to quote Simonides—

except in cases where high human interests and noble zeal are earlier to fail and die than natural desires.

Are the active and divine elements of our being more evanescent than the passionate and corporeal? That were an unworthy view to hold; as unworthy as to accept the doctrine that the "F" only thing of which we never weary is making gain. On the contrary, we should improve upon Thucydides, and regard as ‘the only thing that never ages’ not ‘the love of honour‘, but that public spirit and activity which even ants and bees maintain till the end. No one has ever seen old age convert a bee into a drone. Yet there are some who claim that public men who have passed their prime should sit and be fed in seclusion at home, allowing their practical abilities to rust away in idleness. "784" Cato used to say that, to the many plagues of its own from which old age suffers, there is no justification for deliberately adding the disgrace of vice. There are many vices, but none can do more than weak and cowardly inactivity to disgrace a man in years—a man who skulks away from the public offices to look after a houseful of women, or to supervise gleaners and reapers in the country.

It is one thing to wait till old age before commencing public life, and to be like Epimenides, who—so they say—fell asleep a youth and fifty years afterwards awoke an old man. If, in "B" such a case, one were to divest himself of that quiet habit which has lasted all his life, and were to plunge into struggles and worries with which he was unfamiliar, and for which he was not trained by intercourse with public affairs or with mankind, there would be room for remonstrance. We might say, as the Pythian priestess said, ‘You come too late’ in your quest of office and leadership. You are past the time for knocking at the door of the Presidency. You are like some blundering reveller whose surprise visit is not made till night; or like some stranger who is in quest, not of a new district or country, but of a new life, about which you know nothing. If Simonides says

The State is a man’s teacher,

it is true only of those who have the time to change their teacher and learn a new lesson—a lesson slowly and laboriously acquired by means of many a struggle and experience, and only when it "C" can take its hold sufficiently early on a natural genius for bearing toils and troubles with equanimity.

To resume. We find that, on the contrary, it is striplings and youths whom sensible men do their best to keep out of public business. Witness our laws, under which the crier in the Assembly, when inviting speech and advice, calls upon the platform in the first instance not an Alcibiades or a Pytheas, but persons over fifty. Foolish audacity and lack of experience "D" are nowhere so out of place as in a deliberator or a judge.^[34] Cato, when past eighty and on his defence, said it was hard to have to defend himself before one set of people after having lived with another. It is agreed on all hands that the measures of Caesar—the conqueror of Antony—became considerably more regal and good for the public towards the end of his life. Once, when by stern application of custom and law he was correcting the rising generation, and they made an outcry, his own words were: ‘Young men, listen to an old man to whom old men listened "E" when he was young.’ It was in old age, too, that the statesmanship of Pericles reached its greatest influence. This was the time when he induced the Athenians to enter upon the war, and when he successfully opposed their ill-timed eagerness to fight a battle against sixty thousand men-at-arms, by all but sealing up the public armouries and the locks of the gates. As for what Xenophon writes of Agesilaus, it is best to quote verbatim. ‘Is there any youth with whom this old man did not compare to advantage? Who in the prime of life was so formidable to an enemy as Agesilaus was at the most advanced age? Of whom was the foe so glad to be rid as of Agesilaus, though he was old "F" when his end came? Who inspired such courage in his own side as Agesilaus, although close upon the end of life? What young man was more regretted by his friends than Agesilaus, though he died when full of years?’

Well, if time was no hindrance to the great actions of men like these, what of us, who nowadays enjoy the luxury of a public life which admits of no despots, no fighting, no sieges, but only of warless contests and of ambitions which are for the most part settled by just means according to law and reason? Are we "785" to play the coward? Must we confess that we are the inferiors, not merely of the commanders and popular leaders of those days, but of the poets, leaders of thought, and actors? Take Simonides. He won choric victories in old age, as is evident from the last lines of the epigram:

Take Sophocles. It is said that, when his sons charged him with being in his dotage, he read in his defence the entrance ode of the Oedipus at Colonus, beginning:

a lyric which won such admiration that he left the court, as it "B" might have been the theatre, amid the applause and cheers of the audience. A little epigram, admitted to be by Sophocles, contains the words:

Take Philemon, the comic poet, and Alexis. They were still putting plays upon the stage, still winning crowns, when death overtook them. Take Polus, the tragedian. Eratosthenes and Philochorus inform us that, shortly before his end, and when "C" he was seventy, he acted eight tragedies in four days.

Is it, I say, creditable that old men of the platform should show a poorer spirit than old men of the stage? That they should retire from the sacred contests—for ‘sacred’ these veritably are—and give up the rÔle of the public man in exchange for goodness knows what other part? From king, say, to farmer is a descent indeed. Demosthenes calls it cruel treatment of the Paralus, to make that sacred warship carry cargoes of timber, vine-stakes, and cattle for Meidias. But suppose a public man abandons the Presidentship of Games, his seat on the Federal Board, his high place in the Sacred League, and is found "D" measuring out barley-meal and olive-cake, or shearing sheep. It cannot but look as if he were needlessly courting the status of ‘old worn-out horse’. As for leaving a public career to engage in vulgar and petty trade, one might as well take some self-respecting lady, strip off her gown, give her an apron, and keep her in a tavern. Turn public ability to mere business and money-making, and its rank and character "E" are lost.

Or if, as a last alternative, people choose to talk of ‘ease and enjoyment’, when they mean luxurious self-indulgence; if they recommend the public man to adopt that process of idle senile decay, I hardly know which of two ugly comparisons will best hit off such a life. Shall I say it is a case of sailors taking ‘Aphrodite-holiday’ and keeping it up for ever, without waiting till their ship is berthed, but deserting it while still on the voyage? Or is it a case of ‘Heracles-chez-Omphale’—as some sorry humourists depict him—wearing a saffron gown and quietly allowing Lydian handmaids to fan him and braid his hair? Are we to treat our public man in that way? To strip off his "F" lion’s-skin, lay him on a couch, and feast him, with lute and flute lulling him all the while? Or should we not take warning by the retort of Pompey the Great to Lucullus? The latter, after his campaigns and public services, had given himself up to baths, dinners, social entertainments in the daytime, profound indolence, and new-fangled notions in the way of house-building. Meanwhile he accused Pompey of a fondness for place and power unsuited to his years. Pompey replied that for an old man effeminacy was more unseasonable than office. When he was "786" ill and the doctor ordered him fieldfares—the bird being then out of season and difficult to procure—and when some one told him that Lucullus had a large number in his preserves, he refused to send for or receive one, exclaiming, ‘What? Pompey could not live but for the luxury of Lucullus?’

It may be true that nature ordinarily seeks pleasure and delight. But, with an old man, the body has become incapable of all pleasures except a few which are essential. Not only is it the case that

"B" as Euripides has it. Though they may retain the appetite for eating and drinking—generally in a dulled or toothless form—they find a difficulty in whetting the edge or sharpening the teeth even of that. It is in the mind that one must lay up a stock of pleasures, though not of the mean and ignoble kind indicated by Simonides, when he told those who reproached him with avarice that, though age had robbed him of other joys, he had still one left to support his declining years—the joy of money-making. In public activity there are pleasures of the greatest and noblest sort, such as we may believe to be the only, or the chief, enjoyment of the gods themselves—I mean those which result from a beneficent deed or a fine achievement.

Nicias the painter was so taken up with his artistic work that he was often obliged to ask his servants whether he had had his "C" bath or his breakfast. Archimedes stuck so closely to his drawing-board that, in order to anoint him, his attendants had to drag him away and strip him by force. He then went on drawing his diagrams in the ointment on his body. Carus the flutist (an acquaintance of your own) used to say that people did not know how much more pleasure he himself got from playing than he gave to others; otherwise an audience would be paid to listen instead of paying. Can we fail to perceive how great are the pleasures derived from fine actions and public-spirited achievements by those who put high qualities to use? Nor is it by means of those effeminate titillations which soft and agreeable movements exert upon the flesh. The ticklings of the flesh "D" are spasmodic, fickle, intermittent, whereas the pleasures of noble deeds—the creations of the true statesman’s art—will bear the soul aloft in grandeur and pride and joy, as if, I will not say upon the ‘golden wings’ of Euripides, but upon those ‘celestial pinions’ described by Plato.

Remember the instances of which you have so often heard. Epaminondas, when asked what had been his most pleasurable experience, replied, ‘Having been victorious at Leuctra while "E" my father and mother were still alive.’ When Sulla first reached Rome after purging Italy of its civil wars, he could not sleep a wink that night. As he has written in his own Notes and Recollections, so elated was his mind with the greatness of his joy and happiness, that it seemed to walk on air. If we admit, with Xenophon, that ‘no hearing is so agreeable as praise‘, no sight, recollection, or reflection is so fraught with gratification as the contemplation of exploits of our own in the conspicuous public arena of office and statesmanship. Not but what, when "F" a grateful goodwill testifies to our achievements, and when there is a rivalry of commendation productive of well-earned popularity, our merit acquires a gloss and brilliance which adds to our sense of pleasure.

Therefore, instead of permitting our reputation to wither in our old age like an athlete’s crown, we must be constantly adopting new devices and making fresh efforts to enliven the sense of past obligation, to enhance it, and to make it permanent. We must act like the craftsmen who were required to provide for the security of the Delian ship. They used to replace unsound timbers by others, and, by means of insertions and repairs, were regarded as keeping the vessel immortal and indestructible from "787" the oldest times. Reputation is like flame. There is no difficulty in keeping it alive; it merely requires a little feeding with fuel. But let either of them become extinct and cold, and it will take some trouble to rekindle.

Lampis, the shipowner, was once asked how he made his fortune. ‘Making the big one,’ he answered, ‘was easy enough; but it was a long and hard business to make the little one.’ So with political power and reputation. Though not easy to get in the first instance, anything will suffice to maintain and increase them when once they are great. It is as with a friend, when once he becomes such. He does not look for a large number of important services in order to retain his friendship; "B" small tokens, consistently shown, will keep his constant affection. Nor are the confidence and friendship of the people perpetually calling for you to open your purse, to play the champion, or to hold an office. They are retained by mere public spirit—by being in no haste to desert or shirk the burden of care and watchfulness.

Campaigns are not matters of everlastingly facing the enemy, fighting, and besieging. They have also their times of sacrifice, their occasional social gatherings, their periods of ample leisure, when jest and nonsense are toward. And why should one look upon public life with dread, as being laborious, wearisome, and devoid of consolations, seeing that the theatre, processions, awards, ‘dances of the Muses and Gladsomeness,’ and honour "C" after honour to the gods relax the stern brow of the Bureau or the Chamber, and yield a manifold return of inviting entertainment?

In the next place jealousy, the greatest bane of public life, is less severe upon old age. For, to quote Heracleitus, ‘dogs bark at the man they do not know.’ Though jealousy may fight with the beginner at the doors of the platform and refuse him access, no savageness or fierceness is shown to a man of familiar and established reputation, but he finds friendly admittance. For this reason some have compared jealousy to smoke. In the case of beginners, during the process of kindling, it pours forth in clouds; when they are in full blaze, it disappears. And while "D" people resist and dispute other forms of superiority—in merit, birth, or public spirit—through a belief that any acknowledgement to others means so much derogation to themselves, the primacy which is due to time—‘seniority’ in the proper sense—is conceded without a grudge. Respect paid to the aged has the unique quality of doing more honour to the giver than to the recipient.

Moreover it is not every one who expects to attain to the power derived from wealth, eloquence, or wisdom; whereas no public man despairs of winning the esteem and distinction to which age gradually leads.

Imagine a navigator, who has managed his ship safely in the face of contrary winds and waves, and then, when the weather "E" becomes fair and calm, wishes to lay her to. It is just as strange when a man has fought his ship in a long battle with jealousies, and then, after they are quietly laid, backs out of public life, and, in abandoning his activities, abandons his partners and associates. The more time there has been, the more friends and fellow-workers he has made; but he is neither in a position to lead them with him off the stage, as a poet does his chorus, "F" nor has he the right to leave them in the lurch. A long public life is like an old tree. To pull it up is no easy task, because of its many roots and its entanglement with many interests, which involve worse wrenching and disturbance when you leave them than when you stay.

And if political conflict does leave you some remnant of jealousy or antagonism to face when you are old, it is better to quell it by means of your position than to turn your back and retire without armour or weapons of defence. People are not so ready to attack you out of jealousy when you are still in action as they are out of contempt when you give it up.

"788" We may also appeal to the great Epaminondas and his remark to the Thebans. It was winter at the time, and the Arcadians were inviting them to enter the city and live in the houses. This he refused to allow, observing: ‘At the present time they come to look at you and admire your wrestling and military exercises; but if they see you sitting by the fire and chewing your beans, they will regard you as no better than themselves.’ So with an aged man. When making a speech, transacting business, or receiving honours, he is a dignified spectacle; but when he lies all day on a couch or sits in the corner of a public "B" resort talking drivel and wiping his nose, he is an object of contempt. This is precisely what Homer teaches, if you read him rightly. Nestor, who was campaigning at Troy, received high respect and honour; whereas Peleus and Laertes, the stay-at-homes, were despised, and counted for nothing.

Nay, even intellectual power begins to fail those who have let themselves relax. Idleness gradually renders it feeble and flaccid, in the absence of some necessary exercise of thought to keep the logical and practical faculty perpetually alive and in trim.

Bodily weakness may be a drawback to public activity in the "C" case of those who, in spite of their years, make the platform or the Cabinet their goal. But it is more than compensated by the advantage of their caution and prudence. They do not dash into public affairs with the expression of opinions prompted by error or vanity as the case may be, and carrying the mob with them in as excited a condition as a stormy sea; but they deal in a mild and reasonable fashion with such matters as arise. It is for this reason that, in times of disaster or alarm, communities feel the need of a Board of Government consisting of senior men. Often they have fetched back from the country "D" an old man who neither asked nor wished it, and have compelled him to put his hand to the helm and steer the ship of State into safety, while they thrust aside generals and popular leaders, despite all their ability to shout, to talk without taking breath, and also, no doubt, to make ‘sturdy stand and doughty fight’ against the enemy. When Chares, the son of Theochares—a man in the prime of bodily strength and condition—was brought into the ring in opposition to Timotheus and Iphicrates by the public speakers of Athens, with the claim that ‘this is the kind of general the Athenians should have’, Timotheus "E" replied: ‘By no manner of means. No doubt that is the sort needed to carry the general’s baggage; but the general should be one who “sees before and after”, and whose calculations as to policy no distractions can disturb.’ Sophocles said ‘he was glad that old age had enabled him to escape from sexual passion—a fierce and mad master.’ But in public life we have to escape, not from one master—the love of women—but from many madder still; from contentiousness, vanity, and the desire to be first and greatest—a malady most fertile in envy, jealousy, and "F" feud. Some of these feelings are abated or dulled, some are altogether chilled and quenched, by old age. And though old age may do something to diminish our zest for action, it does more to guard us from the intemperate heat of passion, so that we can bring a sober and steady reason to bear upon our thoughts.

By all means, in dealing with one who begins to play the youth when his hair is grey, let it be—as it is considered—sound warning to say:

"789" Let us remonstrate with an old man when he rises from a long privacy, as from a bed of sickness, and bestirs himself to obtain a command or an official post. But suppose a man has lived a life of public action and thoroughly played the part. To prevent him from going on till ‘finis and the torch’, to call him back and bid him change the road he has long followed, is utterly unfeeling, and bears no resemblance to the case just given. If an old man has his wreath on and is scenting himself in readiness to marry, there is nothing unreasonable in trying to dissuade him by quoting the lines addressed to Philoctetes:

Nay, they are fond of making jests of the kind at their own "B" expense:

But when a man has been long married, and has lived with his wife for years without a fault to find, to tell him that he should divorce her because he is old, and that he should live by himself or get a wretched concubine in place of his lawful spouse, is the very extreme of absurdity. In the same way when an aged man seeks to enter politics—Chlidon the farmer, Lampon the ship’s captain, or some philosopher from the Garden^[35]—there is some reason in admonishing him, and keeping him to the state of inactivity to which he has been used. But it is urging a public man to act "C" with injustice and ingratitude, when we take hold of a Phocion, a Cato, or a Pericles, and say, ‘Sir Athenian—or Sir Roman—

therefore sue for a divorce from statesmanship, have done with the worrying business of the platform and the Board of War, and make haste into the country, to live with farming “for a waiting-maid” or to occupy the rest of your days with thrift and the keeping of accounts.’

Well, but (it may be asked) what of the soldier in the comedy with his

Quite true, my friend. The War-God’s servants must be in the prime of manly vigour. Their business is with

in which, though an old man’s grey hair may be hidden by his "D" helmet,

and, though the spirit be willing, the strength can no longer respond.

But the ministers of Zeus—the God of Council, of Assembly, of the State—are not asked for deeds of hand and foot, but for counsel and foresight. We ask them for advice, not such as to evoke roars of mere noise in the Assembly, but full of sense and shrewdness, and safe to follow. In their case the despised white hair and wrinkles become the visible tokens of experience. They suggest moral force, and are therefore a help to persuasion. "E" It is the part of youth to obey; of old age to guide; and that state is safest where

Homer’s

is a touch greatly admired. For the same reason the Select Board associated with the kings at Sparta was called by the Pythian oracle ‘elder-born’, but by Lycurgus ‘old men’ sans phrase, while the Roman Council is called Senatus down to the present time. The law crowns a man with the circlet and the wreath, Nature crowns him with grey hair, and both are the venerable emblems of sovereign rank. Moreover, the words "F" geras, ‘prerogative,’ and gerairein, ‘honour with prerogative’—derived from geron, ‘old man’—retain a dignified sense, not because the old man’s bath is warmed and his bed a softer one, but because he amounts to a king in the state by virtue of his wisdom; and wisdom is like a late-fruiting plant, it is only in old age that nature brings out its special excellence and perfect quality.

When the king of kings prayed to the gods

"790" —meaning Nestor—not one of the ‘valorous’ and ‘prowess-breathing’ Achaeans complained. They all admitted that not only in statesmanship, but in war also, age was of great moment, since

and one rational and cogent judgement achieves the finest and most important results in public affairs.

Now kingship, the most complete and comprehensive form of public activity, is full of cares, labours, and preoccupations. Seleucus, it was said, used to declare that if ordinary people knew what a business it was merely to write and read so many letters, they would not pick up the crown if they found it "B" lying in the street. And the story goes that, when Philip was proposing to encamp in an excellent position, but was told that there was no fodder for the pack-animals, he exclaimed: ‘Good Heavens! what is our life worth, when we are obliged to suit it to the convenience of our asses?’ Ought we then to give the same advice to a king when he has grown old? Bid him lay aside the crown and the purple, take to a cloak and a crutched stick, and live in the country, for fear people should think it officious and unseasonable of him to be reigning when he is grey?

But we have no right to talk in this way about an Agesilaus, or a Numa, or a Darius. Neither then should we compel a Solon "C" to leave the Council of the Areopagus, nor a Cato the Senate, nor yet urge a Pericles to leave popular government to look after itself. It is contrary to reason that in our youth we should bounce upon the platform, spend upon the public all the passionate licence of our ambition, and then, when age arrives and brings the wisdom of experience, desert and betray our public standing like a woman whom we have used at our pleasure.

In Aesop, when the hedgehog wanted to pick off his ticks, the fox would not let him. ‘These are glutted,’ said he, ‘and "D" if you get rid of them, hungry ones will be at you in their place.’ So with public life. If it is perpetually shedding the old men, it will necessarily be plagued with young ones, who are thirsting for notoriety and power but devoid of political sense. How can they be otherwise, if they are to have no elderly statesman to watch and learn from? A ship’s captain is not made by treatises on navigation. He must often have stood upon the quarter-deck and watched the struggle with wave and wind and stormy nights, when

And can the handling of a State and the persuading of Assembly "E" or Council be rightly left to a young man because he has read a book or taken down a lecture on statesmanship in the Lyceum? Though he has not taken his stand many a time beside rudder-rope and tiller, leaned first to this side and then to that, while generals and public leaders were pitting their knowledge and experience against each other, and so learned his lesson in the midst of dangers and difficulties? Beyond question, No! For the education and training of the young, if for no other reason, old men should play a public part. A teacher of letters or of music himself reads or plays a passage over first by way of example "F" to his pupils. So the authority on statesmanship must guide a young man, not simply by talking or suggesting from outside, but by the practical administration of public business. It is by deeds as well as by words that he will mould him to the true shape, filled with the breath of life. It is training of this kind—not in the schools where you practise safe forms of wrestling under mannerly professors, but in contests truly Olympian and Pythian—that makes one, as Simonides puts it,

"791" —Aristeides with Cleisthenes, Cimon with Aristeides, Phocion with Chabrias, Cato with Fabius Maximus, Pompeius with Sulla, Polybius with Philopoemen. It was by attaching themselves when young to older men, by using them as supports to their own growth, by being raised to their standard of statesmanlike achievement, that they acquired the political experience which brought them fame and power.

When certain professors declared that the claim of Aeschines, the Academic philosopher, to have been a pupil of Carneades was contrary to fact, he replied, ‘O yes: I was a disciple of Carneades at the time when age had taken all the fuss and noise "B" out of his teaching and reduced it to practical and serviceable shape.’ With the statesmanship of an old man, however, it is not merely the talking, but the deeds, that lose all ostentation and itch for notoriety. They tell us that, when the iris has grown old and exhausted all crude exuberance of perfume, its fragrance gains in sweetness. So with the views and suggestions of the old. There is no crudeness in them, but always a quality of quiet solidity. For this reason, as I have said, we must have elderly men in public life. Plato speaks of mixing water with neat wine as the bringing of a ‘frenzied god’ to sanity by the "C" ‘chastening of another who is sober’. So when young spirits in the Assembly are a-boil with the intoxication of glory and ambition, we need the old men’s caution to qualify them and to eliminate their mad excess of fire.

There is another consideration. It is an error to suppose that statesmanship is like a voyage or a campaign—carried on for an ulterior object and discontinued when that is attained. Statesmanship is not a public burden, to be borne only so long as needs must. It is the career of a civilized being with a gift for citizenship and society, and with a natural disposition to live a life of public influence, worthy aims, and social helpfulness for as long as occasion calls.

The right course therefore is to be a public man, not to have been one; just as it is right to speak the truth, not to "D" have spoken it; to act honestly, not to have so acted; to love one’s country and fellow-citizens, not to have loved them. Those are Nature’s objects, and where men are not utterly demoralized by idleness and effeminacy, her promptings are such as these:

and

To urge the plea of ill-health or disablement is to blame disease and injury, not old age. Young men are often sickly, old men often vigorous. It is therefore not the old whom we should discourage, but the incapable. It is the capable whom "E" we should encourage, not the young. Aridaeus was young, and Antigonus old; but while Antigonus annexed nearly the whole of Asia, Aridaeus was like the ‘super’ upon the stage—a king with nothing to say, and a butt for whoever happened to be in power. To demand of the sophist Prodicus or the poet Philetas—who, young though they might be, were thin, sickly, and constantly taking to their beds through ill-health—that they should take up public life, were folly. But it were folly also to hinder old men like Phocion, or Masinissa the African, or the Roman Cato, from holding office or military command. The "F" Athenians being set upon an ill-timed war, Phocion ordered that every man under sixty should take up arms and serve. When this made them angry, he said, ‘There is no hardship. I, who am to be with you in command, am over eighty.’ And of Masinissa Polybius relates that he died when he was ninety, leaving a child of four, of whom he was the father. Shortly before his death he beat the Carthaginians in a great battle, "792" and the next day was seen in front of his tent eating a loaf of cheap coarse bread. To expressions of surprise he answered that he did so to keep himself in training.

says Sophocles. We may say the same of that glossy brightness of the mind, to which we owe calculation, memory, and sound judgement.

For the same reason it is said that wars and campaigns make better kings than inactivity. Attalus, the brother of Eumenes, was so thoroughly enervated by long peace and "B" idleness that Philopoemen, one of his intimates, had simply to shepherd him and keep him fat. In fact, the Romans used to inquire of arrivals from Asia, whether ‘the king had any influence with Philopoemen’. It would be hard to find a Roman general more able than Lucullus, so long as he kept his intellect braced with action. But he surrendered himself to a life of inactivity, stayed at home, thought of nothing, and became as lifeless and shrunken as a sponge in a calm. Afterwards, in his old age, he so tamely accepted a certain freedman, Callisthenes, for his keeper, that the man "C" was thought to be bewitching him with spells and drugs, till at last his brother Marcus drove the fellow away and himself took to managing and tutoring him for the short remainder of his life. On the other hand, Darius, the father of Xerxes, used to say that he became his wisest in times of danger; and Ateas the Scythian declared that, when he had nothing to do, he could see nothing to distinguish him from his grooms. When some one asked the elder Dionysius if he had time to spare, he replied: ‘Heaven forbid I ever should!’ Whereas a bow, they tell us, is broken by stringing it tight, a mind is broken by leaving it loose. If a musician gives up listening "D" for pitch, a geometrician the solving of problems, an arithmetician the constant habit of calculation, old age will enfeeble the ability along with the loss of its exercise, although the art in these cases is not a ‘practic’ one, but a ‘theoretic’. In the case of the special ability of the statesman—his caution, wisdom, and justice, together with an experienced knack of hitting the right language at the right time; that is to say, a faculty for creating persuasion—it is kept in good condition by constant speech, action, calculation, and judicial decision. It would be a dire mistake for it to abandon such activities "E" and permit all those important virtues to leak away from the mind. For it naturally means a decline of kindly interest in man and society—a thing which should be without limit or end.

Suppose your father had been Tithonus. Suppose, though he was immortal, old age had made him require close and constant care. You would not, I imagine, have run away and repudiated the task of tending him, talking to him, and helping him, just because you had ‘borne the burden for a long time’. Well, your fatherland—or ‘motherland’ as it is called in Crete—has claims prior to those of parents, and greater. Your country’s life has been a long one, but she is not without old age. She is "F" not sufficient to herself, but is in perpetual need of watchful and considerate help. She therefore grasps at the statesman and holds him back:

You are aware that I have performed my public duty at many a Pythian festival. But you would not say ‘Plutarch, you have done enough in the way of sacrifices, processions, and choruses. You are now in years; it is time to put off your wreath; age entitles you to leave the shrine alone’. Well, look at your own duty in the same way. In the sacred service of the State you are coryphaeus and prophet, and it is not for you to abandon that worship of Zeus, God of State and Assembly, in which you have been so long initiated and are so thoroughly versed.

"793" Permit me now to leave the arguments for quitting public life, and to examine another point. We must beware of inflicting upon our old age an unbecoming or exacting task, when so many portions of public work are so well suited to that time of life. If it had been proper for us to go on singing all our days, there are at our disposal many keys and modes, or, as the musicians call them, ‘systems.’ Our right course in our old age would have been to cultivate, not a mode both high and sharp, but one combining ease with appropriate character. And since Nature prompts mankind to act and speak—even more "B" than it prompts the swan to sing—until the end, our duty is not to lay action aside, like a lyre of too high a pitch, but to lower the key and adapt it to such forms of public effort as are light, unexacting, and within an old man’s compass. We do not leave our bodies entirely without muscular exercise because we cannot use the spade and the jumping-weights, or hurl the discus, or practise fencing, as we used to do. We swing or walk, and in some cases the breathing is exercised and warmth stimulated by playing a gentle game of ball, or by conversation.

On the one hand, then, do not let us allow ourselves to become "C" stiff and torpid from inactivity. On the other, let us not undertake any and every official position, clutch at any and every kind of public work, and bring such an exposure upon old age that it is driven to exclaim in despair:

Even in the prime of strength a man wins no credit if he tries to take on his shoulders the whole pack of public business, and "D" refuses—like Zeus, according to the Stoics—to leave anything to others; if he insinuates himself everywhere and has his finger in everything, through an insatiable greed for notoriety or through jealousy of any one who contrives to get a share of honour and power in the community. But when a man is quite old, then, apart from the discredit, wretchedly hard work is entailed by that itch for office which is always courting every ballot-box, that meddlesomeness which lies in wait for every opportunity of acting on a jury or a committee, that ambition which snaps up every appointment as delegate or proctor. "E" Such work is a heavy tax on an old man, even when people are well-disposed. But the opposite may very well be the case. For young men hate him because he leaves them no opportunities and prevents them from coming to the front; while the rest of the community looks upon his itch for office and precedence with the same disapproval as upon the itch of other old men for money and pleasure.

When Bucephalus was growing old, Alexander, being unwilling to overwork him, used to ride some other horse while reviewing the phalanx and getting it into position before the "F" battle. Then, after giving the word for the day, he changed his mount to Bucephalus, and at once led the charge and tried the fortunes of war. In the same way a sensible public man—in this case handling his own reins—will, when in years, hold aloof from unnecessary effort, leaving more vigorous persons to deal with the minor matters of state, but himself playing a zealous part in great ones.

Athletes keep their bodies from all contact with necessary labours and in perfect trim for useless ones. We, on the contrary, will leave petty little details alone, and will keep ourselves in reserve for matters of moment. No doubt, as Homer says,

and the world gives consent and approval, calling them ‘public-spirited’ and ‘energetic’ when they do a large number of little things, and ‘noble’ and ‘lofty-minded’ when they do brilliant and distinguished things. At that time of life there are "794" occasions when a venturesome aggressiveness is more or less in season and wears a grace of its own. But what when an elderly man consents to perform routine services to the public, such as letting out taxes, or superintending harbours and markets? What when he seizes opportunities of being sent on a mission to some governor or other powerful personage—a position for which there is no necessity, which contains no dignity, and which necessitates time-serving and complaisance? To my mind, my friend, his case is one for regret and commiseration; some may even think it distressingly vulgar.

Not even positions of authority are any longer a suitable "B" sphere for him, unless they are of high rank and importance; such a position, for example, as you now hold in the Presidentship of the Areopagite Council, not to mention the distinguished rank of Amphictyon,^[36] which your country has imposed upon you all your life, with its

Even these honours we should not seek, but should make from holding them. We should ask, not for them, but to be excused from them. It should seem, not that we are taking office to ourselves, but that we are surrendering ourselves to office. The Emperor Tiberius used to say that a man over sixty should be ashamed of holding out his wrist to a physician. But he should "C" be more ashamed of holding out his hand to the public in solicitation of its ‘vote and influence’. That situation is as humiliating and ignoble as the contrary is honourable and dignified—I mean when your country chooses you, calls you, and waits for you, and when you come down amidst respect and welcome, a ‘reverend signior’ indeed, to meet your distinction with gracious acceptance.

Similarly with speaking in the Assembly. A man of advanced age should not be perpetually springing upon the platform and crowing back to every cock that crows. Young men are like horses, and he should not, by constantly grappling with "D" them and irritating them, lose control of their respect, or encourage the practice and habit of resistance to the reins. He should sometimes leave them to make a restive plunge for distinction, keeping out of the way and not interfering, unless the matter at stake is vital to the public safety or to decency and honour. In that case he should not wait to be called, but should let some one take him by the hand, or carry him in his chair, and push his way at more than full speed, like Appius Claudius in Roman history. The Romans had been defeated by Pyrrhus in a great battle, and Appius heard that the Senate "E" was listening to proposals for a truce and a peace. This was more than he could bear, and, though blind of both eyes, along he came in his chair through the Forum to the Senate House. He went in, planted himself before them, and said: ‘Hitherto I have been distressed at the loss of my sight; now I could pray to be also unable to hear—that you are meditating so ignoble and disgraceful a transaction.’ Thereupon, partly by reproaches, partly by advice and encouragement, he persuaded them to have "F" immediate recourse to arms and to fight Pyrrhus to a finish for the prize of Italy.

Again, when it became manifest that, in acting the demagogue, Peisistratus was aiming at absolutism, and yet no one ventured to resist or prevent it, Solon brought out his weapons with his own hands, piled them in front of his house, and called upon the citizens to help. And when Peisistratus sent and asked him what gave him the confidence to do so, he replied, ‘My age.’

Things so vital as these, it is true, are rousing enough to fire even the most worn-out of old men, so long as he possesses the breath of life at all. Otherwise he will sometimes, as I have said, be showing good taste if he declines to perform paltry and menial tasks which bring more worry to the doer than good "793" to the persons for whom they are done. There are also occasions when he will wait for the citizens to call for him, feel the need of him, and come to his house to fetch him. He is wanted, and therefore his appearance on the scene will carry more weight. But for the most part, though present, he will be silent and will leave the younger generation to do the speaking, while he acts as umpire to the match of political ambition. And if it goes beyond bounds, he will offer a mild reproof and courteously put an end to outbreaks of self-assertion, recrimination, or ill-temper. When a motion is wrong, he will reason with and correct the mover, but without blaming him. When it is right, he will commend it without reserve and will cheerfully acquiesce, often surrendering an argumentative victory in order that "B" a young man may get on in the world and be in good heart. In some cases he will supply a deficiency while paying a compliment, like Nestor with his

There is a practice still more statesmanlike. One may not merely teach a lesson openly in public by means of a reproval unaccompanied by any sting of humiliation or injury to prestige. Still more may be done in private for persons with good political abilities. We may offer them kindly suggestions and assistance "C" towards the bringing forward of useful arguments and public measures, encourage them to high aims, help them to acquire a distinguished tone of mind, and—as riding-masters do with their horses—see that at first the people shall be gentle and docile for them to mount. And if so be a young man should make a failure, instead of leaving him to despond, we may rouse and comfort him. It was in this way that the spirits and courage of Cimon were revived by Aristeides, and those of Themistocles by Mnesiphilus, when they began by incurring ill-odour and a bad name for forwardness and recklessness. It is also said of Demosthenes that, when he was in great distress at his failure "D" in the Assembly, he was taken to task by a very old man who had heard Pericles, and who told him that he had no right to despair of himself, seeing that he possessed gifts so much like those of that eminent person. So when Timotheus was hissed for his innovations and treated as guilty of an outrage on music, Euripides bade him keep up his courage, since he would soon be dictating to his audience.

At Rome the term of the Vestal Virgins is divided into three stages—one for learning, one for the performance of the ceremonies, and the third for teaching. So with the votaries of "E" Artemis at Ephesus; each is called first a novice, next a priestess, and then a past-priestess. In the same way the complete statesman is during the first part of his public career still engaged in learning the mysteries; during the last part he is engaged in teaching and initiating.

Whereas to superintend the athletics of others is to take no part in them oneself, it is otherwise with those who train a youth in public business and the political arena, and who make sure that for the good of his country he shall

They perform good service, not in some petty inconsiderable "F" part of public life, but in one to which Lycurgus devoted his first and foremost attention—training the young to give to every old man the same unfailing obedience as to a lawgiver. What had Lysander in his mind, when he declared that the finest form of old age is to be found at Lacedaemon? Did he mean that at Lacedaemon elderly people had the best opportunities of doing nothing, of lending money, of sitting together and playing dice, or of meeting together at an early hour to drink? Surely not. He meant that all persons at that time of life hold, as it were, a magisterial position; that they are, in a sense, public fathers or guardians, who not only look after matters of state, but take active cognisance of everything a young "796" man may do in connexion with his training-school, his pastimes, or his style of living. Such a position makes them an object of fear to wrong-doers, and of respect and affection to the well-behaved. For young men make a point of cultivating their society, because of the way in which they encourage steadiness and nobility of character by sympathy and approbation and without jealousy.

The last-named feeling is not a becoming one at any time of life. But whereas in the case of a young man it finds plenty of respectable names—‘rivalry’, ‘emulation’, ‘ambition’—in an old man it is a coarse and vulgar sentiment altogether out of place. The aged statesman should therefore be entirely free from jealousy. He should be no malignant old tree, "B" unequivocally snubbing the shoots and checking the growth of plants which spring up beside or beneath it, but should give them a kindly welcome and every opportunity to cling to him and twine about him. He should hold young people upright, lead them by the hand, and foster them, not only by wise suggestion and advice, but by surrendering to them political tasks which bring honour and distinction, or which afford scope for services of an innocent nature and yet welcome and gratifying to the public.

When a task is a stubborn and arduous one, or when it is like a medicine which stings and gives pain at the moment, while its beneficial effects are not produced till afterwards, he "C" should not prescribe it for young people. Instead of subjecting them in their inexperienced state to the uproars of an unreasonable mob, he should himself accept the unpopularity attaching to salutary measures. By this means he will render a youth both more well-disposed and also more zealous in other duties.

Meanwhile it must be remembered that statesmanship does not consist solely in holding office, acting as envoy, shouting loudly in the Assembly, and indulging in a fine frenzy of speeches and motions on the platform. The generality of people may think that these make a statesman, just as they think that talking "D" from a chair and delivering lectures based on books make a philosopher. But they fail to discern the sustained statesmanship or philosophy which is revealed consistently day after day in actions and conduct. As Dicaearchus used to say, the word peripatein, ‘walk’, has now come to be used of persons taking a turn in the colonnades rather than of those who are walking into the country or to see a friend. It is the same with acting the statesman as it is with acting the philosopher. For Socrates to play the philosopher there was no arranging of forms, seating himself in a chair, or observing a fixed time—arranged with his associates—for a discussion or discourse. He played the philosopher while joking with you, perhaps, or drinking with you, "E" or possibly campaigning with you, or at market with you, and finally when he was in prison and drinking the poison. He was thus the first to show that life affords scope for philosophy at every moment, in every detail, in every feeling and circumstance whatsoever. Statesmanship should be regarded in the same light. Foolish persons, even if they are Ministers of War, or Secretaries, or platform-speakers, should not be considered as acting the statesman, but as courting the mob, or making a display, or creating dissension, or doing public service because they must. But when a man possesses public spirit and broad interests, and is a keen patriot and a ‘state’s man’ in the literal sense, even if he has never worn official garb, he is playing the statesman all the time. He does so by stimulating men of "F" ability, giving advice to those who need it, lending his help to deliberation, discouraging bunglers, and fortifying persons of sense. And this does not mean that he goes to the Assembly Theatre or Senate House out of pride of place when canvassed or pressed, and, when he gets there, merely puts in an appearance—if he does so—by way of pastime, as he might at a show or entertainment. It means that, even if not present in body, he "797" is present in spirit; that he asks how the business goes, and is pleased or vexed as the case may be.

Aristeides at Athens and Cato at Rome held few public offices; but they made their whole life a perpetual service to their country. Though Epaminondas won many a distinguished success as commander-in-chief, he is no less famous for what he did in Thessaly at a time when he held no command or office. The generals had plunged the phalanx into a difficult situation. The enemy was attacking them with his missiles, "B" and they were in confusion. Epaminondas was therefore summoned from the ranks, and, after allaying the panic of the army by words of encouragement, he proceeded to make an orderly disposition of the phalanx—which was in a state of turmoil—extricated it with ease, posted it so as to confront the enemy, and compelled him to change his tactics and retire.

Once when King Agis was in Arcadia, and was in the act of leading his army into action in full order of battle, one of the elder Spartans shouted out that he was proposing to ‘mend one error by another’, meaning (as Thucydides says) that ‘his "C" present unseasonable ardour was intended to repair the discredit of his retreat’ from Argos. Agis listened, took the advice, and retired. Menecrates actually had a seat placed for him every day at the doors of the Government Office, and the Ephors frequently rose and consulted him upon questions of the first importance; so great was his reputation for wisdom and shrewdness. The story goes that, when he had completely lost all physical strength and was for the most part confined all day to his bed, upon the Ephors sending for him to the Agora, he got up and set out to walk. As he was toiling slowly along, he met "D" some children on the way, and asked them: ‘Do you know anything more binding than to obey a master?’ Upon their replying, ‘Lack of the power,’ his reason told him that this brought his service to an end, and he turned back home. For though zeal should not fail so long as ability lasts, we must not put pressure upon it when left helpless.

Once more, Scipio, whether in the field or in politics, constantly sought the advice of Gaius Laelius to such an extent as to make some people say of his achievements that Scipio was the actor, but the author was Gaius. And Cicero himself acknowledges that the greatest and finest of the successful measures of his consulship were devised with the help of the philosopher Publius Nigidius.

"E" There is, then, nothing to prevent an aged man from advancing the public good in many a department of statesmanship. He has the best of means thereto: reason, judgement, plain-speaking, and ‘thought discreet‘, as the poets say. It is not merely our hands and feet or the strength of our bodies that are part and parcel of the possessions of the State. Most important are the mind and the beauties of the mind—temperance, justice, and wisdom. It is monstrous that, as these come late and "F" slowly to their own, our house and farm and other goods and chattels should get the benefit of them, while, in a public way, to our country and our fellow-citizens, we make ourselves of no further use because of ‘time’. For what time takes away from our powers of active effort is less than what it adds to those of guidance and statesmanship. It is for this reason that, when Hermes is represented in an elderly form, though he has no hands or feet, his virile parts are tense—an indirect way of saying that there is little need for old men’s bodies to be hard at work, so long as their power of reasoned speech is—as it ought to be—vigorous and generative.