lame 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 be 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