_Would that among the Achaeans were ten such as he to advise me!_
[Sidenote: 790] —meaning Nestor—not one of the ‘_valorous_’ and
‘_prowess-breathing_’ Achaeans complained. They all admitted that not
only in statesmanship, but in war also, age was of great moment, since
_More worth is one sage thought than many a hand_,
and one rational and cogent judgement achieves the finest and most
important results in public affairs.
Now kingship, the most complete and comprehensive form of public
activity, is full of cares, labours, and preoccupations. Seleucus, it
was said, used to declare that if ordinary people knew what a business
it was merely to write and read so many letters, they would not pick up
the crown if they found it [Sidenote: B] lying in the street. And the
story goes that, when Philip was proposing to encamp in an excellent
position, but was told that there was no fodder for the pack-animals, he
exclaimed: ‘Good Heavens! what is our life worth, when we are obliged to
suit it to the convenience of our asses?’ Ought we then to give the same
advice to a king when he has grown old? Bid him lay aside the crown and
the purple, take to a cloak and a crutched stick, and live in the
country, for fear people should think it officious and unseasonable of
him to be reigning when he is grey?
But we have no right to talk in this way about an Agesilaus, or a Numa,
or a Darius. Neither then should we compel a Solon [Sidenote: C] to
leave the Council of the Areopagus, nor a Cato the Senate, nor yet urge
a Pericles to leave popular government to look after itself. It is
contrary to reason that in our youth we should bounce upon the platform,
spend upon the public all the passionate licence of our ambition, and
then, when age arrives and brings the wisdom of experience, desert and
betray our public standing like a woman whom we have used at our
pleasure.
In Aesop, when the hedgehog wanted to pick off his ticks, the fox would
not let him. ‘These are glutted,’ said he, ‘and [Sidenote: D] if you get
rid of them, hungry ones will be at you in their place.’ So with public
life. If it is perpetually shedding the old men, it will necessarily be
plagued with young ones, who are thirsting for notoriety and power but
devoid of political sense. How can they be otherwise, if they are to
have no elderly statesman to watch and learn from? A ship’s captain is
not made by treatises on navigation. He must often have stood upon the
quarter-deck and watched the struggle with wave and wind and stormy
nights, when
_The sailor on the brine longs sore
For Tyndareus’ twin sons._
And can the handling of a State and the persuading of Assembly
[Sidenote: E] or Council be rightly left to a young man because he has
read a book or taken down a lecture on statesmanship in the Lyceum?
Though he has not taken his stand many a time beside rudder-rope and
tiller, leaned first to this side and then to that, while generals and
public leaders were pitting their knowledge and experience against each
other, and so learned his lesson in the midst of dangers and
difficulties? Beyond question, No! For the education and training of the
young, if for no other reason, old men should play a public part. A
teacher of letters or of music himself reads or plays a passage over
first by way of example [Sidenote: F] to his pupils. So the authority on
statesmanship must guide a young man, not simply by talking or
suggesting from outside, but by the practical administration of public
business. It is by deeds as well as by words that he will mould him to
the true shape, filled with the breath of life. It is training of this
kind—not in the schools where you practise safe forms of wrestling under
mannerly professors, but in contests truly Olympian and Pythian—that
makes one, as Simonides puts it,
_Keep pace, as with the steed the wearied colt_;
[Sidenote: 791] —Aristeides with Cleisthenes, Cimon with Aristeides,
Phocion with Chabrias, Cato with Fabius Maximus, Pompeius with Sulla,
Polybius with Philopoemen. It was by attaching themselves when young to
older men, by using them as supports to their own growth, by being
raised to their standard of statesmanlike achievement, that they
acquired the political experience which brought them fame and power.
When certain professors declared that the claim of Aeschines, the
Academic philosopher, to have been a pupil of Carneades was contrary to
fact, he replied, ‘O yes: I was a disciple of Carneades at the time when
age had taken all the fuss and noise [Sidenote: B] out of his teaching
and reduced it to practical and serviceable shape.’ With the
statesmanship of an old man, however, it is not merely the talking, but
the deeds, that lose all ostentation and itch for notoriety. They tell
us that, when the iris has grown old and exhausted all crude exuberance
of perfume, its fragrance gains in sweetness. So with the views and
suggestions of the old. There is no crudeness in them, but always a
quality of quiet solidity. For this reason, as I have said, we must have
elderly men in public life. Plato speaks of mixing water with neat wine
as the bringing of a ‘frenzied god’ to sanity by the [Sidenote: C]
‘chastening of another who is sober’. So when young spirits in the
Assembly are a-boil with the intoxication of glory and ambition, we need
the old men’s caution to qualify them and to eliminate their mad excess
of fire.
There is another consideration. It is an error to suppose that
statesmanship is like a voyage or a campaign—carried on for an ulterior
object and discontinued when that is attained. Statesmanship is not a
public burden, to be borne only so long as needs must. It is the career
of a civilized being with a gift for citizenship and society, and with a
natural disposition to live a life of public influence, worthy aims, and
social helpfulness for as long as occasion calls.
The right course therefore is to _be_ a public man, not to _have_ been
one; just as it is right to speak the truth, not to [Sidenote: D] _have_
spoken it; to act honestly, not to _have_ so acted; to love one’s
country and fellow-citizens, not to _have_ loved them. Those are
Nature’s objects, and where men are not utterly demoralized by idleness
and effeminacy, her promptings are such as these:
_Thy sire begat thee for rich use to men_,
and
_Ne’er let us cease from service to mankind._
To urge the plea of ill-health or disablement is to blame disease and
injury, not old age. Young men are often sickly, old men often vigorous.
It is therefore not the old whom we should discourage, but the
incapable. It is the capable whom [Sidenote: E] we should encourage, not
the young. Aridaeus was young, and Antigonus old; but while Antigonus
annexed nearly the whole of Asia, Aridaeus was like the ‘super’ upon the
stage—a king with nothing to say, and a butt for whoever happened to be
in power. To demand of the sophist Prodicus or the poet Philetas—who,
young though they might be, were thin, sickly, and constantly taking to
their beds through ill-health—that they should take up public life, were
folly. But it were folly also to hinder old men like Phocion, or
Masinissa the African, or the Roman Cato, from holding office or
military command. The [Sidenote: F] Athenians being set upon an
ill-timed war, Phocion ordered that every man under sixty should take up
arms and serve. When this made them angry, he said, ‘There is no
hardship. I, who am to be with you in command, am over eighty.’ And of
Masinissa Polybius relates that he died when he was ninety, leaving a
child of four, of whom he was the father. Shortly before his death he
beat the Carthaginians in a great battle, [Sidenote: 792] and the next
day was seen in front of his tent eating a loaf of cheap coarse bread.
To expressions of surprise he answered that he did so to keep himself in
training.
_For like to goodly bronze, it shines in use,
While a house crumbles, if left idle long_,
says Sophocles. We may say the same of that glossy brightness of the
mind, to which we owe calculation, memory, and sound judgement.
For the same reason it is said that wars and campaigns make better kings
than inactivity. Attalus, the brother of Eumenes, was so thoroughly
enervated by long peace and [Sidenote: B] idleness that Philopoemen, one
of his intimates, had simply to shepherd him and keep him fat. In fact,
the Romans used to inquire of arrivals from Asia, whether ‘the king had
any influence with Philopoemen’. It would be hard to find a Roman
general more able than Lucullus, so long as he kept his intellect braced
with action. But he surrendered himself to a life of inactivity, stayed
at home, thought of nothing, and became as lifeless and shrunken as a
sponge in a calm. Afterwards, in his old age, he so tamely accepted a
certain freedman, Callisthenes, for his keeper, that the man [Sidenote:
C] was thought to be bewitching him with spells and drugs, till at last
his brother Marcus drove the fellow away and himself took to managing
and tutoring him for the short remainder of his life. On the other hand,
Darius, the father of Xerxes, used to say that he became his wisest in
times of danger; and Ateas the Scythian declared that, when he had
nothing to do, he could see nothing to distinguish him from his grooms.
When some one asked the elder Dionysius if he had time to spare, he
replied: ‘Heaven forbid I ever should!’ Whereas a bow, they tell us, is
broken by stringing it tight, a mind is broken by leaving it loose. If a
musician gives up listening [Sidenote: D] for pitch, a geometrician the
solving of problems, an arithmetician the constant habit of calculation,
old age will enfeeble the ability along with the loss of its exercise,
although the art in these cases is not a ‘practic’ one, but a
‘theoretic’. In the case of the special ability of the statesman—his
caution, wisdom, and justice, together with an experienced knack of
hitting the right language at the right time; that is to say, a faculty
for creating persuasion—it is kept in good condition by constant speech,
action, calculation, and judicial decision. It would be a dire mistake
for it to abandon such activities [Sidenote: E] and permit all those
important virtues to leak away from the mind. For it naturally means a
decline of kindly interest in man and society—a thing which should be
without limit or end.
Suppose your father had been Tithonus. Suppose, though he was immortal,
old age had made him require close and constant care. You would not, I
imagine, have run away and repudiated the task of tending him, talking
to him, and helping him, just because you had ‘borne the burden for a
long time’. Well, your fatherland—or ‘motherland’ as it is called in
Crete—has claims prior to those of parents, and greater. Your country’s
life has been a long one, but she is not without old age. She is
[Sidenote: F] not sufficient to herself, but is in perpetual need of
watchful and considerate help. She therefore grasps at the statesman and
holds him back:
_Clutching his garment she stays him, though eager he be for
departure._
You are aware that I have performed my public duty at many a Pythian
festival. But you would not say ‘Plutarch, you have done enough in the
way of sacrifices, processions, and choruses. You are now in years; it
is time to put off your wreath; age entitles you to leave the shrine
alone’. Well, look at your own duty in the same way. In the sacred
service of the State you are coryphaeus and prophet, and it is not for
you to abandon that worship of Zeus, God of State and Assembly, in which
you have been so long initiated and are so thoroughly versed.
[Sidenote: 793] Permit me now to leave the arguments for quitting public
life, and to examine another point. We must beware of inflicting upon
our old age an unbecoming or exacting task, when so many portions of
public work are so well suited to that time of life. If it had been
proper for us to go on singing all our days, there are at our disposal
many keys and modes, or, as the musicians call them, ‘systems.’ Our
right course in our old age would have been to cultivate, not a mode
both high and sharp, but one combining ease with appropriate character.
And since Nature prompts mankind to act and speak—even more [Sidenote:
B] than it prompts the swan to sing—until the end, our duty is not to
lay action aside, like a lyre of too high a pitch, but to lower the key
and adapt it to such forms of public effort as are light, unexacting,
and within an old man’s compass. We do not leave our bodies entirely
without muscular exercise because we cannot use the spade and the
jumping-weights, or hurl the discus, or practise fencing, as we used to
do. We swing or walk, and in some cases the breathing is exercised and
warmth stimulated by playing a gentle game of ball, or by conversation.
On the one hand, then, do not let us allow ourselves to become
[Sidenote: C] stiff and torpid from inactivity. On the other, let us not
undertake any and every official position, clutch at any and every kind
of public work, and bring such an exposure upon old age that it is
driven to exclaim in despair:
_Right hand, how fain art thou to grasp the spear!
How vain thy longing, in thy strengthlessness!_
Even in the prime of strength a man wins no credit if he tries to take
on his shoulders the whole pack of public business, and [Sidenote: D]
refuses—like Zeus, according to the Stoics—to leave anything to others;
if he insinuates himself everywhere and has his finger in everything,
through an insatiable greed for notoriety or through jealousy of any one
who contrives to get a share of honour and power in the community. But
when a man is quite old, then, apart from the discredit, wretchedly hard
work is entailed by that itch for office which is always courting every
ballot-box, that meddlesomeness which lies in wait for every opportunity
of acting on a jury or a committee, that ambition which snaps up every
appointment as delegate or proctor. [Sidenote: E] Such work is a heavy
tax on an old man, even when people are well-disposed. But the opposite
may very well be the case. For young men hate him because he leaves them
no opportunities and prevents them from coming to the front; while the
rest of the community looks upon his itch for office and precedence with
the same disapproval as upon the itch of other old men for money and
pleasure.
When Bucephalus was growing old, Alexander, being unwilling to overwork
him, used to ride some other horse while reviewing the phalanx and
getting it into position before the [Sidenote: F] battle. Then, after
giving the word for the day, he changed his mount to Bucephalus, and at
once led the charge and tried the fortunes of war. In the same way a
sensible public man—in this case handling his own reins—will, when in
years, hold aloof from unnecessary effort, leaving more vigorous persons
to deal with the minor matters of state, but himself playing a zealous
part in great ones.
Athletes keep their bodies from all contact with necessary labours and
in perfect trim for useless ones. We, on the contrary, will leave petty
little details alone, and will keep ourselves in reserve for matters of
moment. No doubt, as Homer says,
_To the young all labours are seemly_,
and the world gives consent and approval, calling them ‘public-spirited’
and ‘energetic’ when they do a large number of little things, and
‘noble’ and ‘lofty-minded’ when they do brilliant and distinguished
things. At that time of life there are [Sidenote: 794] occasions when a
venturesome aggressiveness is more or less in season and wears a grace
of its own. But what when an elderly man consents to perform routine
services to the public, such as letting out taxes, or superintending
harbours and markets? What when he seizes opportunities of being sent on
a mission to some governor or other powerful personage—a position for
which there is no necessity, which contains no dignity, and which
necessitates time-serving and complaisance? To my mind, my friend, his
case is one for regret and commiseration; some may even think it
distressingly vulgar.
Not even positions of authority are any longer a suitable [Sidenote: B]
sphere for him, unless they are of high rank and importance; such a
position, for example, as you now hold in the Presidentship of the
Areopagite Council, not to mention the distinguished rank of
Amphictyon,[36] which your country has imposed upon you all your life,
with its
_Welcome toil and labour sweet to bear._
Even these honours we should not seek, but should make from holding
them. We should ask, not for them, but to be excused from them. It
should seem, not that we are taking office to ourselves, but that we are
surrendering ourselves to office. The Emperor Tiberius used to say that
a man over sixty should be ashamed of holding out his wrist to a
physician. But he should [Sidenote: C] be more ashamed of holding out
his hand to the public in solicitation of its ‘vote and influence’. That
situation is as humiliating and ignoble as the contrary is honourable
and dignified—I mean when your country chooses you, calls you, and waits
for you, and when you come down amidst respect and welcome, a ‘reverend
signior’ indeed, to meet your distinction with gracious acceptance.
Similarly with speaking in the Assembly. A man of advanced age should
not be perpetually springing upon the platform and crowing back to every
cock that crows. Young men are like horses, and he should not, by
constantly grappling with [Sidenote: D] them and irritating them, lose
control of their respect, or encourage the practice and habit of
resistance to the reins. He should sometimes leave them to make a
restive plunge for distinction, keeping out of the way and not
interfering, unless the matter at stake is vital to the public safety or
to decency and honour. In that case he should not wait to be called, but
should let some one take him by the hand, or carry him in his chair, and
push his way at more than full speed, like Appius Claudius in Roman
history. The Romans had been defeated by Pyrrhus in a great battle, and
Appius heard that the Senate [Sidenote: E] was listening to proposals
for a truce and a peace. This was more than he could bear, and, though
blind of both eyes, along he came in his chair through the Forum to the
Senate House. He went in, planted himself before them, and said:
‘Hitherto I have been distressed at the loss of my sight; now I could
pray to be also unable to hear—that you are meditating so ignoble and
disgraceful a transaction.’ Thereupon, partly by reproaches, partly by
advice and encouragement, he persuaded them to have [Sidenote: F]
immediate recourse to arms and to fight Pyrrhus to a finish for the
prize of Italy.
Again, when it became manifest that, in acting the demagogue,
Peisistratus was aiming at absolutism, and yet no one ventured to resist
or prevent it, Solon brought out his weapons with his own hands, piled
them in front of his house, and called upon the citizens to help. And
when Peisistratus sent and asked him what gave him the confidence to do
so, he replied, ‘My age.’
Things so vital as these, it is true, are rousing enough to fire even
the most worn-out of old men, so long as he possesses the breath of life
at all. Otherwise he will sometimes, as I have said, be showing good
taste if he declines to perform paltry and menial tasks which bring more
worry to the doer than good [Sidenote: 793] to the persons for whom they
are done. There are also occasions when he will wait for the citizens to
call for him, feel the need of him, and come to his house to fetch him.
He is wanted, and therefore his appearance on the scene will carry more
weight. But for the most part, though present, he will be silent and
will leave the younger generation to do the speaking, while he acts as
umpire to the match of political ambition. And if it goes beyond bounds,
he will offer a mild reproof and courteously put an end to outbreaks of
self-assertion, recrimination, or ill-temper. When a motion is wrong, he
will reason with and correct the mover, but without blaming him. When it
is right, he will commend it without reserve and will cheerfully
acquiesce, often surrendering an argumentative victory in order that
[Sidenote: B] a young man may get on in the world and be in good heart.
In some cases he will supply a deficiency while paying a compliment,
like Nestor with his
_No man, I trow, will find fault with thy words among all the
Achaeans:
None say thee nay. Yet not to an end hast thou brought all the
matter.
True ’tis, thou art yet but young, and myself might be thine own
father._
There is a practice still more statesmanlike. One may not merely teach a
lesson openly in public by means of a reproval unaccompanied by any
sting of humiliation or injury to prestige. Still more may be done in
private for persons with good political abilities. We may offer them
kindly suggestions and assistance [Sidenote: C] towards the bringing
forward of useful arguments and public measures, encourage them to high
aims, help them to acquire a distinguished tone of mind, and—as
riding-masters do with their horses—see that at first the people shall
be gentle and docile for them to mount. And if so be a young man should
make a failure, instead of leaving him to despond, we may rouse and
comfort him. It was in this way that the spirits and courage of Cimon
were revived by Aristeides, and those of Themistocles by Mnesiphilus,
when they began by incurring ill-odour and a bad name for forwardness
and recklessness. It is also said of Demosthenes that, when he was in
great distress at his failure [Sidenote: D] in the Assembly, he was
taken to task by a very old man who had heard Pericles, and who told him
that he had no right to despair of himself, seeing that he possessed
gifts so much like those of that eminent person. So when Timotheus was
hissed for his innovations and treated as guilty of an outrage on music,
Euripides bade him keep up his courage, since he would soon be dictating
to his audience.
At Rome the term of the Vestal Virgins is divided into three stages—one
for learning, one for the performance of the ceremonies, and the third
for teaching. So with the votaries of [Sidenote: E] Artemis at Ephesus;
each is called first a novice, next a priestess, and then a
past-priestess. In the same way the complete statesman is during the
first part of his public career still engaged in learning the mysteries;
during the last part he is engaged in teaching and initiating.
Whereas to superintend the athletics of others is to take no part in
them oneself, it is otherwise with those who train a youth in public
business and the political arena, and who make sure that for the good of
his country he shall
_Be speaker of words and eke doer of deeds._
They perform good service, not in some petty inconsiderable [Sidenote:
F] part of public life, but in one to which Lycurgus devoted his first
and foremost attention—training the young to give to every old man the
same unfailing obedience as to a lawgiver. What had Lysander in his
mind, when he declared that the finest form of old age is to be found at
Lacedaemon? Did he mean that at Lacedaemon elderly people had the best
opportunities of doing nothing, of lending money, of sitting together
and playing dice, or of meeting together at an early hour to drink?
Surely not. He meant that all persons at that time of life hold, as it
were, a magisterial position; that they are, in a sense, public fathers
or guardians, who not only look after matters of state, but take active
cognisance of everything a young [Sidenote: 796] man may do in connexion
with his training-school, his pastimes, or his style of living. Such a
position makes them an object of fear to wrong-doers, and of respect and
affection to the well-behaved. For young men make a point of cultivating
their society, because of the way in which they encourage steadiness and
nobility of character by sympathy and approbation and without jealousy.
The last-named feeling is not a becoming one at any time of life. But
whereas in the case of a young man it finds plenty of respectable
names—‘rivalry’, ‘emulation’, ‘ambition’—in an old man it is a coarse
and vulgar sentiment altogether out of place. The aged statesman should
therefore be entirely free from jealousy. He should be no malignant old
tree, [Sidenote: B] unequivocally snubbing the shoots and checking the
growth of plants which spring up beside or beneath it, but should give
them a kindly welcome and every opportunity to cling to him and twine
about him. He should hold young people upright, lead them by the hand,
and foster them, not only by wise suggestion and advice, but by
surrendering to them political tasks which bring honour and distinction,
or which afford scope for services of an innocent nature and yet welcome
and gratifying to the public.
When a task is a stubborn and arduous one, or when it is like a medicine
which stings and gives pain at the moment, while its beneficial effects
are not produced till afterwards, he [Sidenote: C] should not prescribe
it for young people. Instead of subjecting them in their inexperienced
state to the uproars of an unreasonable mob, he should himself accept
the unpopularity attaching to salutary measures. By this means he will
render a youth both more well-disposed and also more zealous in other
duties.
Meanwhile it must be remembered that statesmanship does not consist
solely in holding office, acting as envoy, shouting loudly in the
Assembly, and indulging in a fine frenzy of speeches and motions on the
platform. The generality of people may think that these make a
statesman, just as they think that talking [Sidenote: D] from a chair
and delivering lectures based on books make a philosopher. But they fail
to discern the sustained statesmanship or philosophy which is revealed
consistently day after day in actions and conduct. As Dicaearchus used
to say, the word _peripatein_, ‘walk’, has now come to be used of
persons taking a turn in the colonnades rather than of those who are
walking into the country or to see a friend. It is the same with acting
the statesman as it is with acting the philosopher. For Socrates to play
the philosopher there was no arranging of forms, seating himself in a
chair, or observing a fixed time—arranged with his associates—for a
discussion or discourse. He played the philosopher while joking with
you, perhaps, or drinking with you, [Sidenote: E] or possibly
campaigning with you, or at market with you, and finally when he was in
prison and drinking the poison. He was thus the first to show that life
affords scope for philosophy at every moment, in every detail, in every
feeling and circumstance whatsoever. Statesmanship should be regarded in
the same light. Foolish persons, even if they are Ministers of War, or
Secretaries, or platform-speakers, should not be considered as acting
the statesman, but as courting the mob, or making a display, or creating
dissension, or doing public service because they must. But when a man
possesses public spirit and broad interests, and is a keen patriot and a
‘state’s man’ in the literal sense, even if he has never worn official
garb, he is playing the statesman all the time. He does so by
stimulating men of [Sidenote: F] ability, giving advice to those who
need it, lending his help to deliberation, discouraging bunglers, and
fortifying persons of sense. And this does not mean that he goes to the
Assembly Theatre or Senate House out of pride of place when canvassed or
pressed, and, when he gets there, merely puts in an appearance—if he
does so—by way of pastime, as he might at a show or entertainment. It
means that, even if not present in body, he [Sidenote: 797] is present
in spirit; that he asks how the business goes, and is pleased or vexed
as the case may be.
Aristeides at Athens and Cato at Rome held few public offices; but they
made their whole life a perpetual service to their country. Though
Epaminondas won many a distinguished success as commander-in-chief, he
is no less famous for what he did in Thessaly at a time when he held no
command or office. The generals had plunged the phalanx into a difficult
situation. The enemy was attacking them with his missiles, [Sidenote: B]
and they were in confusion. Epaminondas was therefore summoned from the
ranks, and, after allaying the panic of the army by words of
encouragement, he proceeded to make an orderly disposition of the
phalanx—which was in a state of turmoil—extricated it with ease, posted
it so as to confront the enemy, and compelled him to change his tactics
and retire.
Once when King Agis was in Arcadia, and was in the act of leading his
army into action in full order of battle, one of the elder Spartans
shouted out that he was proposing to ‘mend one error by another’,
meaning (as Thucydides says) that ‘his [Sidenote: C] present
unseasonable ardour was intended to repair the discredit of his retreat’
from Argos. Agis listened, took the advice, and retired. Menecrates
actually had a seat placed for him every day at the doors of the
Government Office, and the Ephors frequently rose and consulted him upon
questions of the first importance; so great was his reputation for
wisdom and shrewdness. The story goes that, when he had completely lost
all physical strength and was for the most part confined all day to his
bed, upon the Ephors sending for him to the Agora, he got up and set out
to walk. As he was toiling slowly along, he met [Sidenote: D] some
children on the way, and asked them: ‘Do you know anything more binding
than to obey a master?’ Upon their replying, ‘Lack of the power,’ his
reason told him that this brought his service to an end, and he turned
back home. For though zeal should not fail so long as ability lasts, we
must not put pressure upon it when left helpless.
Once more, Scipio, whether in the field or in politics, constantly
sought the advice of Gaius Laelius to such an extent as to make some
people say of his achievements that Scipio was the actor, but the author
was Gaius. And Cicero himself acknowledges that the greatest and finest
of the successful measures of his consulship were devised with the help
of the philosopher Publius Nigidius.
[Sidenote: E] There is, then, nothing to prevent an aged man from
advancing the public good in many a department of statesmanship. He has
the best of means thereto: reason, judgement, plain-speaking, and
‘_thought discreet_‘, as the poets say. It is not merely our hands and
feet or the strength of our bodies that are part and parcel of the
possessions of the State. Most important are the mind and the beauties
of the mind—temperance, justice, and wisdom. It is monstrous that, as
these come late and [Sidenote: F] slowly to their own, our house and
farm and other goods and chattels should get the benefit of them, while,
in a public way, to our country and our fellow-citizens, we make
ourselves of no further use because of ‘time’. For what time takes away
from our powers of active effort is less than what it adds to those of
guidance and statesmanship. It is for this reason that, when Hermes is
represented in an elderly form, though he has no hands or feet, his
virile parts are tense—an indirect way of saying that there is little
need for old men’s bodies to be hard at work, so long as their power of
reasoned speech is—as it ought to be—vigorous and generative.
Footnote 34:
The text here is corrupt.
Footnote 35:
i.e. Epicurean.
Footnote 36:
Member of a religious council which met at Delphi and represented the
chief states of all Greece.