ier state than
a young one; since he has already attained what the other is only
hoping for. The one is wishing to live long, the other has lived long.

And yet, good gods! what is there in man's life that can be called
long? For allow the latest period; let us anticipate the age of the
kings of Tartessii. For there dwelt, as I find it recorded, a man
named Arganthonius at Gades;[16] who reigned for eighty years, and
lived 120. But to my mind, nothing whatever seems of long duration to
which there is any end. For when that arrives, then the time which has
passed has flown away; that only remains which you have secured by
virtue and right conduct. Hours indeed depart from us, and days and
months and years; nor does past time ever return, nor can it be
discovered what is to follow. Whatever time is assigned to each to
live, with that he ought to be content; for neither need the drama be
performed entire by the actor in order to give satisfaction, provided
he be approved in whatever act he may be; nor need the wise man live
till the _plaudite_. For the short period of life is long enough for
living well and honorably, and if you should advance further, you need
no more grieve than farmers do when the loveliness of spring-time hath
passed, that summer and autumn have come. For spring represents the
time of youth, and gives promise of the future fruits; the remaining
seasons are intended for plucking and gathering in those fruits. Now
the harvest of old age, as I have often said, is the recollection and
abundance of blessings previously secured. In truth everything that
happens agreeably to nature is to be reckoned among blessings. What,
however, is so agreeable to nature as for an old man to die which even
is the lot of the young, tho nature opposes and resists. And thus it
is that young men seem to me to die just as when the violence of flame
is extinguished by a flood of water; whereas old men die, as the
exhausted fire goes out, spontaneously, without the exertion of any
force; and as fruits when they are green are plucked by force from the
trees, but when ripe and mellow drop off, so violence takes away their
lives from youths, maturity from old men--a state which to me indeed
is so delightful that the nearer I approach to death, I seem, as it
were, to be getting sight of land, and at length, after a long voyage,
to be just coming into harbor.

Of all the periods of life there is a definite limit; but of old age
there