as Euripides has it; but their appetite also to their meat and drink is
for the most part dull, and as one would say, toothless; so that they
have but little gust and relish in them.
They ought therefore to furnish themselves with pleasures of the mind,
not ungenerous or illiberal, like those of Simonides, who said to those
who reproached him with covetousness, that being by his years deprived
of other pleasures, he recreated his old age with the only delight
which remained, that of heaping up riches. But political life has in
it pleasures exceeding great, and no less honorable, being such as it
is probable the very Gods do only or at least chiefly enjoy themselves
in; and these are the delights which proceed from doing good and
performing what is honest and laudable. For if Nicias the painter took
such pleasure in the work of his hands, that he often was fain to ask
his servants whether he had washed or dined; and if Archimedes was so
intent upon the table in which he drew his geometrical figures, that
his attendants were obliged by force to pluck him from it and strip him
of his clothes that they might anoint him, whilst he in the mean time
drew new schemes on his anointed body; and if Canus the piper, whom you
also know, was wont to say that men knew not how much more he delighted
himself with his playing than he did others, for that then his hearers
would rather demand of him than give him a reward; do we not thence
conceive how great pleasures the virtues afford to those who practise
them, from their honest actions and public-spirited works tending to
the benefit of human society? They do not tickle or weaken, as do
such sweet and gentle motions as are made on the flesh; for these
indeed have a furious and unconstant itching, mixed with a feverish
inflammation; whereas those which accompany the state is worker of, not
like the golden plumes of Euripides, but like those celestial wings of
Plato, elevate the soul which has received a greatness of courage and
wisdom accompanied with joy.
6. Call to mind a little, I entreat you, those things you have so often
heard. For Epaminondas indeed, being asked what was the most pleasant
thing that ever befell him, answered, his having gained the victory at
Leuctra whilst his father and mother were yet living. And Sylla, when,
having freed Italy from civil wars, he came to Rome, could not the
first night fetch the least wink of sleep, having his soul transported
with excessive joy and content, as with a strong and mighty wind; and
this he himself has written in his Commentaries. For be it indeed so,
as Xenophon says, that there is no sound more pleasing than one’s own
praises; yet there is no sight, remembrance, or consideration which
gives a man so much satisfaction as the contemplation of his own
actions, performed by him in offices of magistracy, and management of
the state, in eminent and public places.
It is moreover true, that the courteous thanks attending as a witness
on such virtuous acts, and the emulous praise conferred on them, which
is as a guide conducting us in the way of just benevolence, add a
certain lustre and shining gloss to the joy of virtue. Neither ought a
man negligently to suffer his glory to wither in his old age, like a
wrestler’s garland; but, by adding always something new and fresh, he
should awaken, meliorate, and confirm the grace of his former actions.
For as those workmen on whom was incumbent the charge of keeping in
repair the Delian ship, by supplying and putting into the place of
the decayed planks and timber others that were new and sound, seem
to have preserved it from ancient times, as if it were eternal and
incorruptible; so the preserving and upholding of one’s glory is as
the keeping in of a fire, a work of no difficulty, as requiring only
to be supplied with a little fuel, but when either of them is wholly
extinct and suppressed, one cannot without great labor rekindle it
again. Lampis, the sea commander, being asked how he got his wealth,
answered: “My greatest estate I gained easily enough, but the smaller
slowly and with much labor.” In like manner, it is not easy at the
beginning to acquire reputation and power in the state; but to augment
and conserve it, when it is grown great, is not at all hard for those
who have obtained it. For neither does a friend, when he is once had,
require many and great services that he may so continue, but assiduity
does by small signs preserve his good-will; nor do the friendship
and confidence of the people expect to have a man always bestowing
largesses, defending their causes, or executing of magistracy, but
they are maintained by a readiness, and by not failing or being
weary of carefulness and solicitude for the public. For even wars
themselves have not always conflicts, fights, and sieges; but there
sometimes intervene sacrifices and parleys, and abundance of leisure
for sports and pastimes. Whence then comes it, that the administration
of the commonwealth should be feared as inconsolable, laborious, and
unsupportable, where theatres, processions, largesses, music, joy, and
at every turn the service and festival of some God or other, unbending
the brows of every council and senate, yield a manifold pleasure and
delight?
7. As for envy, which is the greatest evil attending the management
of public affairs, it least attacks old age. For dogs indeed, as
Heraclitus has it, bark at a stranger whom they do not know; and
envy opposes him who is a beginner on the very steps of the tribune,
hindering his access, but she meekly bears an accustomed and familiar
glory, and not churlishly or difficultly. Wherefore some resemble envy
to smoke; for it arises thick at first, when the fire begins to burn;
but when the flame grows clear, it vanishes away. Now men usually
quarrel and contend about other excellences, as virtue, nobility,
and honor, as if they were of opinion that they took from themselves
as much as they give to others; but the precedency of time, which is
properly called by the Greeks Πρεσβεῖον (or the honor of old age), is
free from jealousy, and willingly granted by men to their companions.
For to no honor is it so incident to grace the honorer more than the
honored, as to that which is given to persons in years. Moreover, all
men do not expect to gain themselves authority from wealth, eloquence,
or wisdom; but as for the reverence and glory to which old age brings
men, there is not any one of those who act in the management of the
state but hopes to attain it.
He therefore who, having a long time contended against envy, shall when
it ceases and is appeased withdraw himself from the state, and together
with public actions desert communities and societies, differs nothing
from that pilot who, having kept his ship out at sea when in danger
of being overwhelmed by contrary and tempestuous waves and winds,
seeks to put into harbor as soon as ever the weather is grown calm and
favorable. For the longer time there has been, the more friends and
companions he has made; all which he cannot carry out with him, as a
singing-master does his choir, nor is it just to leave them. But as
it is not easy to root up old trees, so neither is it to extirpate a
long-continued practice in the management of the state, which having
many roots is involved in a tangled mass of affairs, which create more
troubles and vexations to those who retire from them than to those who
continue in them. And if there is any remainder of envy and emulation
against old men from former contentions about civil affairs, they
should rather extinguish it by authority, than turn their backs on it
and go away naked and disarmed. For envious persons do not so much
assail those who contend against them, as they do by contempt insult
over such as retire.
8. And to this bears witness that saying of the great Epaminondas to
the Thebans, when in the winter the Arcadians requested them to come
into their city and dwell in their houses,—which he would not permit,
but said to them: Now the Arcadians admire you, seeing you exercise
yourselves, and wrestle in your armor; but if they shall behold you
sitting by the fire and pounding of beans, they will think you to
differ nothing from themselves. So an old man speaking to the people,
acting in the state, and honored, is a venerable spectacle; but he who
wastes away his days in his bed, or sits discoursing of trivial matters
and wiping his nose in the corner of a gallery, easily renders himself
an object of contempt. And this indeed Homer himself teaches those
who hear him aright. For Nestor, who fought before Troy, was highly
venerated and esteemed; whilst Peleus and Laertes, who stayed at home,
were slighted and despised. For the habit of prudence does not continue
the same in those who give themselves to their ease; but by little and
little diminishes and is dissolved by sloth, as always requiring some
exercise of the thought to rouse up and purify the rational, active
faculty of the soul. For,