44 BC

CATO

OR, AN ESSAY ON OLD AGE

by Cicero

translated by W. Melmoth

TO TITUS POMPONIUS ATTICUS. -

Ah, could my numbers charm thy anxious breast

And lull the sorrows of thy soul to rest;

Would'st thou not deem the poet's lenient lay

More worth than sums of countless gold could pay?

[Ennius, Ann. x.] -

For well may I address you, my friend, in those lines of the honest bard, -

Far less for wealth than probity renowned, -

with which he opens his poem inscribed to Flamininus. I am sensible at the same time that when the poet adds, -

Each rising sun beholds thy ceaseless grief,

And night returning brings thee no relief. -

he holds a language by no means applicable to you. I perfectly well know the moderation and equanimity you possess; and that you have derived from Athens, not only an honourable addition to your name, but that calm and philosophic spirit which so peculiarly distinguishes your character. Nevertheless, I have reason to believe that the present unpleasing posture of public affairs sometimes interrupts your tranquillity of mind; as it frequently, I confess, discomposes my own. But it is not my present purpose to offer you any consolation upon that subject: the case requires a very powerful application; and I will reserve what I have to say upon it to some future opportunity. My design at this time is only to communicate to you a few reflections concerning Old Age: the infirmities whereof we are now beginning to feel, or at least are advancing fast towards them: and I am desirous of rendering the burthen as easy as possible to you and to myself. I am well convinced indeed that as you have hitherto borne its weight, so you will continue to support its increasing pressure, with the same good sense and composure of mind which you have so happily discovered upon every other important occasion. However, having resolved to publish some reflections upon the subject, I determined to address them to you, who have a peculiar claim to this pledge of my affection: and it is a present to which we may both of us have recourse with equal advantage. For myself, at least, the considerations I now lay before you have had so happy an effect on my own mind, as not only to reconcile me to all the inconveniences of old age, but to render it even an agreeable state to me.

Can we sufficiently then express our sense of the obligations we owe to philosophy, who thus instructs her disciples how to pass through every successive period of human life with equal satisfaction and complacency? The advantages to be derived from her precepts, in other important situations, is a topic upon which I have frequently had occasion to expatiate, and shall often perhaps resume: but in the papers I now send you, my purpose is to consider those advantages with respect only to our declining years. To have put these reflections into the mouth of an imaginary character, like the Tithonus of Aristo, would have made but little impression upon the reader: in order therefore to give them the greater force, I have represented them as delivered by the venerable Cato. To this end I have introduced Scipio and Laelius, as expressing to him their admiration of the wonderful ease with which he supported his old age: and this gives him occasion to enter into a full explanation of his ideas upon the subject. If you should think that he discovers, in this conversation, a richer vein of literature than appears in his own compositions, you must impute it to the acquaintance he afterwards made with the Greek authors, whose language and philosophy, it is well known, he passionately studied in the latter end of his long life. I have only to add, that in delivering the sentiments of Cato, I desire to be understood as fully declaring my own. -

SCIPIO.- I have frequently, Cato, joined with our friend Laelius, in admiring that consummate wisdom and virtue, which upon all occasions so eminently distinguishes your character; but particularly, in that singular ease and cheerfulness with which you seem to bear up under those years which are pressing upon you. I could never observe that they are attended with the least inconvenience to you: whereas the generality of men, at your time of life, usually complain of old age as the heaviest and most insupportable of burthens.