Cato Maior de Senectute

With Camillus, who saved Rome from the Gauls, he matched Themistocles, who saved Athens from the Persians.

Then followed, as nearly as the order can be determined, for the order of the lives in our collection is not the original one, the Cimon and Lucullus, the Lycurgus and Numa, the Demosthenes and Cicero, the Pelopidas and Marcellus, the Lysander and Sulla, the Philopæmen and Flamininus, the Pericles and Fabius Maximus, the Aristides and Cato Major, and thirteen other pairs.

Eighteen of the twenty-two pairs which have come down to us close with a formal comparison of the two careers and characters.

This is often fanciful and forced, abounds in contrasts rather than resemblances, and is seldom of any special historical value, although it often has great literary charm.

End of introductory note.

Treatise 1 of On Friendship and on Old Age by Marcus Tullius Cicero.

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Treatise 1, On Friendship, Part 1. the augur quintus musius scaevola used to recount a number of stories about his father-in-law gaelus laelius accurately remembered and charmingly told and whenever he talked about him always gave him the title of the wise without any hesitation i had been introduced by my father to scaevola as soon as i had assumed the toga virilis and i took advantage of the introduction never to quit the venerable man's side as long as i was able to stay and he was spared to us the consequence was that i committed to memory many disquisitions of his as well as many short-pointed apothegms and in short took as much advantage of his wisdom as i could when he died i attach myself to schevola the pontifex whom i may venture to call quite the most distinguished of our countrymen for ability and uprightness but of this latter i shall take other occasions to speak to return to schevola the augur among many other occasions i particularly remember one he was sitting on a semicircular garden bench as was his custom when i and a very few intimate friends were there and he chanced to turn the conversation upon a subject which about that time was in many people's mouths you must remember atticus for you were very intimate with publius what expressions of astonishment or even indignation were called forth by his mortal quarrel as tribune with the consul quintus pompeius with whom he had formerly lived on terms of the closest intimacy and affection well on this occasion happening to mention this particular circumstance scivola detailed to us a discourse of laelius on friendship delivered to himself and laelius's other son-in-law galus fannius son of marcus fannius a few days after the death of africanus the points of that discussion i committed to memory and have arranged them in this book at my own discretion for i have brought the speakers as it were personally on to my stage to prevent the constant said i and said he of a narrative and to give the discourse the air of being orally delivered in our hearing you have often urged me to write something on friendship and i quite acknowledged that the subject seemed one worth everybody's investigation and especially suited to the close intimacy that has existed between you and me accordingly i was quite ready to benefit the public at your request as to the dramatis personae in the treatise on old age which i dedicated to you i introduced cato as chief speaker no one i thought could with greater propriety speak on old age than one who had been an old man longer than any one else and had been exceptionally vigorous in his old age similarly having learnt from tradition that of all friendships that between gaius laelius and publius scipio was the most remarkable i thought laelius was just the person to support the chief part in a discussion on friendship which scaevola remembered him to have actually taken moreover a discussion of this sort gains somehow in weight from the authority of men of ancient days especially if they happen to have been distinguished so it comes about that in reading over what i have myself written i have a feeling at times that it is actually cato that is speaking not i finally as i sent the former essay to you as a gift from one old man to another so i have dedicated this on friendship as a most affectionate friend to his friend in the former cato spoke who was the oldest and wisest man of his day in this laelius speaks on friendship laelius who was at once a wise man that was the title given him and eminent for his famous friendship please forget me for a while imagine laelius to be speaking gaius fannius and quintus musius come to call on their father-in-law after the death of africanus they start the subject laelius answers them and the whole essay on friendship is his in reading it you will recognize a picture of yourself two funniest you are quite right lelius there never was a better or more illustrious character than africanus but you should consider that at the present moment all eyes are on you everybody calls you the wise par excellence and thinks you so the same mark of respect was lately paid cato and we know that in the last generation lucius attilius was called the wise but in both cases the word was applied with a certain difference attilius was so called from his reputation as a jurist cato got the name as a kind of honorary title and in extreme old age because of his varied experience of affairs and his reputation for foresight and firmness and the sagacity of the opinions which he delivered in senate and forum you however are regarded as wise in a somewhat different sense not alone on account of natural ability and character but also from your industry and learning and not in the sense in which the vulgar but that in which scholars give that title in this sense we do not read of any one being called wise in greece except one man at athens and he to be sure had been declared by the oracle of apollo also to be the supremely wise man for those who commonly go by the name of the seven sages are not admitted into the category of the wise by fastidious critics your wisdom people believe to consist in this that you look upon yourself as self-sufficing and regard the changes and chances of mortal life as powerless to affect your virtue accordingly they are always asking me and doubtless also are scaevola here how you bear the death of africanus this curiosity has been the more excited from the fact that on the nones of this month when we auguries met as usual in the suburban villa of decimus brutus for consultation you were not present though it had always been your habit to keep that appointment and perform that duty with the utmost punctuality scaevola yes indeed laelius i am often asked the question mentioned by phanius but i answer in accordance with what i have observed i say that you bear in a reasonable manner the grief which you have sustained in the death of one who was at once a man of the most illustrious character and a very dear friend that of course you could not but be affected anything else would have been wholly unnatural in a man of your gentle nature but that the cause of your non-attendance at our college meeting was illness not melancholy laelius thanks scaevola you are quite right you spoke the exact truth for in fact i had no right to allow myself to be withdrawn from a duty which i had regularly performed as long as i was well by any personal misfortune nor do i think that anything that can happen will cause a man of principle to intermit a duty as for your telling me phanias of the honourable appellation given me an appellation to which i do not recognise my title and to which i make no claim you doubtless act from feelings of affection but i must say that you seem to me to do less than justice to cato if any one was ever wise of which i have my doubts he was putting aside everything else consider how he bore his son's death i had not forgotten paulus i had seen with my own eyes gallus but they lost their sons when mere children cato his when he was a full-grown man with an assured reputation do not therefore be in a hurry to reckon as cato superior even that same famous personage whom apollo as you say declared to be the wisest remember the former's reputation rests on deeds the latter's on words three now as far as i am concerned i speak to both of you now believe me the case stands thus if i were to say that i am not affected by regret for scipio i must leave the philosophers to justify my conduct but in point of fact i should be telling a lie affected of course i am by the loss of a friend as i think there will never be again such as i can fearlessly say there never was before but i stand in no need of medicine i can find my own consolation and it consists chiefly in my being free from the mistaken notion which generally causes pain at the departure of friends to scipio i am convinced no evil has befallen mine is the disaster if disaster there be and to be severely distressed at one's own misfortunes does not show that you love your friend but that you love yourself as for him who can say that all is not more than well for unless he had taken the fancy to wish for immortality the last thing of which he ever thought what is there for which mortal man may wish that he did not attain in his early manhood he more than justified by extraordinary personal courage the hopes which his fellow-citizens had conceived of him as a child he never was a candidate for the consulship yet was elected consul twice the first time before the legal age the second at a time which as far as he was concerned was soon enough but was near being too late for the interests of the state by the overthrow of two cities which were the most bitter enemies of our empire he put an end not only to the wars then raging but also to the possibility of others in the future what need to mention the exquisite grace of his manners his dutiful devotion to his mother his generosity to his sisters his liberality to his relations the integrity of his conduct to every one you know all this already finally the estimation in which his fellow-citizens held him has been shown by the signs of mourning which accompanied his obsequies what could such a man have gained by the addition of a few years though age need not be a burden as i remember cato arguing in the presence of myself and scipio two years before he died yet it cannot but take away the vigour and freshness which scipio was still enjoying we may conclude therefore that his life from the good fortune which had attended him and the glory he had attained was so circumstanced that it could not be bettered while the suddenness of his death saved him the sensation of dying as to the manner of his death it is difficult to speak you see what people suspect thus much however i may say scipio in his lifetime saw many days of supreme triumph and exultation but none more magnificent than his last on which upon the rising of the senate he was escorted by the senators and the people of rome by the allies and by the latins to his own door from such an elevation of popular esteem the next step seems naturally to be an ascent to the gods above rather than a descent to hades

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Wielding the Claymore can be a life of chaos.

Make up your minds to this.

Virtue, without which friendship is impossible, is first, but next to it, and to it alone, the greatest of all things, is friendship.

The respectful attention shown to him by Socrates, whose love of conversation, no less than the mission imposed upon him by the oracle, leads him to ask questions of all men, young and old alike, should also be noted.

Who better suited to raise the question of justice than Cephalus, whose life might seem to be the expression of it? The moderation with which old age is pictured by Cephalus as a very tolerable portion of existence is characteristic not only of him, but of Greek feeling generally, and contrasts with the exaggeration of Cicero in De Senectute.

The evening of life is described by Plato in the most expressive manner, yet with the fewest possible touches.

As Cicero remarks, the aged Cephalus would have been out of place in the discussion which follows, and which he could neither have understood nor taken part in, without a violation of dramatic propriety.

Such then is the nature of his famous sayings.

End of Cato Major, Part 1 Part thirteen of Volume Two of Plutarch's Parallel Lives.

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For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Volume Two of Plutarch's Parallel Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans, translated by Bernadotte Perrin.

Marcus Cato Major, Part Two.

Having been elected consul with Valerius Flaccus, his intimate friend, the province which the Romans call Hither Spain was allotted to his charge.

Here, while he was subduing some of the tribes and winning over others by diplomacy, a great host of barbarians fell upon him and threatened to drive him disgracefully out of the province.

The respectful attention shown to him by Socrates, whose love of conversation, no less than the mission imposed upon him by the oracle, leads him to ask questions of all men, young and old alike, should also be noted.

Who better suited to raise the question of justice than Cephalus, whose life might seem to be the expression of it? The moderation with which old age is pictured by Cephalus as a very tolerable portion of existence is characteristic not only of him, but of Greek feeling generally, and contrasts with the exaggeration of Cicero in De Senectute.

The evening of life is described by Plato in the most expressive manner, yet with the fewest possible touches.

As Cicero remarks, the aged Cephalus would have been out of place in the discussion which follows, and which he could neither have understood nor taken part in without a violation of dramatic propriety.

Book with Vrbo.

Introductory note of On Friendship and On Old Age.

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For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by David Wales.

On Friendship and On Old Age by Marcus Tullius Cicero, translated by E.S. Schackburg.

Introductory note.

Marcus Tullius Cicero, the greatest of Roman orators and the chief master of Latin prose style, was born at Arpinum, January 3, 106 BC.

The respectful attention shown to him by Socrates, whose love of conversation, no less than the mission imposed upon him by the oracle, leads him to ask questions of all men, young and old alike, should also be noted.

Who better suited to raise the question of justice than Cephalus, whose life might seem to be the expression of it? The moderation with which old age is pictured by Cephalus as a very tolerable portion of existence is characteristic not only of him, but of Greek feeling generally, and contrasts with the exaggeration of Cicero in De Senectute.

The evening of life is described by Plato in the most expressive manner, yet with the fewest possible touches.

As Cicero remarks, the aged Cephalus would have been out of place in the discussion which follows, and which he could neither have understood nor taken part in without a violation of dramatic propriety.