LAELIUS.- You will confer, then, a very acceptable service on both of us, Cato (for I will venture to answer for my friend Scipio as well as for myself), if you will mark out to us by what means we may most effectually be enabled to support the load of incumbent years. For although we are at present far distant from old age, we have reason, however, to expect- at least to hope- that it is a period we shall live to attain.

CATO.- Most willingly, Laelius, I yield to your request, especially as you assure me that my compliance will be equally agreeable to both of you.

SCIPIO.- Yes, my venerable friend; like travellers who mean to take the same long journey you have gone before us, we should be glad (if it be not imposing too much trouble upon you) that you would give us some account of the advanced stage at which you are now arrived.

CATO.- I am ready, Scipio, to the best of my power, to give you the information you desire. And, indeed, I am the more qualified for the task you assign me, as I have always (agreeably to the old proverb) associated much with men of my own years. This has given me frequent opportunities of being acquainted with their grievances; and I particularly remember to have often heard Caius Salinator and Spurius Albinus (men of consular rank and nearly of the same age as myself) bewail their condition. The principal subject of their complaint was, in the first place, that they were no longer capable of enjoying the sensual gratifications without which, in their estimation, life was of no value; and in the next, that they found themselves neglected by those who had formerly paid their court to them with the greatest attention. But they imputed their grievances, I think, to a wrong cause. For had they arisen merely from the circumstance of their age, they would have been common to myself, and to every other man of the same advanced years. But the fact is much otherwise; and I have known many, at that period of life, who passed their time without the least repining- who neither regretted that they were released from the dominion of their passions, nor had reason to think themselves treated with disrespect by any of their connections. In fact, the true grievance, in all complaints of this kind, lies in the man and not in the age. They whose desires are properly regulated, and who have nothing morose or petulant in their temper and manners, will find old age, to say the least of it, is a state very easily to be endured, whereas unsubdued passions and a froward disposition will equally embitter every season of human life.

LAELIUS.- Your observations, Cato, are undoubtedly just. Yet some, perhaps, may be apt to say, that your ample possessions, together with the power and influence of your rank and character, have very much contributed to soften the inconveniences of old age, and render it more than usually easy to you, but that these are advantages which cannot possibly fall to the lot of many.

CATO.- I must acknowledge that the circumstances you mention have some beneficial influence, but I can by no means admit that the whole depends upon them. When a certain native of the paltry island of Seriphos told Themistocles, in an altercation which arose between them, that he was indebted for the lustre of his fame not to the intrinsic splendour of his actions, but to the country in which he had the good fortune to be born. "It may be so," replied the Athenian general, "for if I had received my birth at Seriphos, I could have had no opportunity of producing my talents; but give me leave to tell you, that yours would never have made a figure though you had been born in Athens." The same sentiment is justly applicable to the case in question; for although it must be confessed that old age, under the pressure of extreme indigence, cannot possibly prove an easy state, not even to a wise and virtuous mind, yet without those essential qualities it must necessarily prove the reverse, although it should be accompanied with every external advantage. Believe me, my young friends, the best and surest guard against the inconveniences of old age, is to cultivate in each preceding period the principles of moral science, and uniformly to exercise those virtues it prescribes. The good seeds which you shall thus have sown in the former seasons of life will, in the winter of your days, be wonderfully productive of the noblest and most valuable fruit- valuable not only as a possession which will remain with you even to your latest moments (though, indeed, that circumstance alone is a very considerable recommendation), but also as a conscious retrospect on a long life marked with an uninterrupted series of laudable and beneficent actions affords a perpetual source of the sweetest and most exquisite satisfaction.

When I was very young I conceived as strong an affection for Quintus Maximus (the celebrated General who recovered Tarentum) as if we had been of equal years. There was a dignity in the deportment of this excellent old man, which was tempered with singular politeness and affability of manners, and time had wrought no sort of alteration in his amiable qualities. He was not, it is true, at a time of life which could properly be called infirm age when I first began to cultivate his friendship; but he was certainly, however, advanced in years, for I was not born till the year before his first consulate. In his fourth, I served as a very young man in the army he commanded at Capua; and five years afterwards I was his Quaestor at Tarentum. From that post I succeeded to the Edileship; and four years after, in the consulate of Tuditanus and Cethegus, I was chosen Praetor. It was at this period that, by the advice and eloquence of my venerable friend, who was now become extremely old, the Cincian law concerning donatives was enacted. This great man led our troops to battle in his old age with as much spirit as if he had been in the prime and vigour of life; and when Hannibal, with all the gaiety of a youthful conqueror, was exulting in the success of his arms, he gave a check to his victories by a cool and patient perseverance in avoiding a general engagement. It is to this part of his judicious conduct that those famous lines of my friend Ennius allude:- -

'Twas his to save the State by wise delay,

Regardless what the censuring world might say.

Time proves the merit of the glorious deed,

His fame still rising as the years succeed. -