1. I am well aware, O Euphanes, that you admire Pindar and so are often repeating something that he has articulated well and persuasively: “When the contests are being set, a pretext casts one’s courage into utter darkness.”¹ Now with respect to political contests, our hesitations and weaknesses find abundant pretexts, and as a final excuse they bring up our old age, just as though they were making “the sacred move.”² And with this move they seem to blunt and shame our ambition, convincing us that there is some proper finale not only for athletes but also for politicians. This being so, I think that I should explain for you what I regularly conclude for myself about being involved in politics in old age. I do not want us to abandon our long companionship on the journey that we have made together till now, nor to cast aside our political life, which is like an old and familiar friend, and switch to a new, unfamiliar life that will be too short to become familiar and friendly. My hope instead is that we will remain true to the life we chose in the beginning, when we decided that “living” and “living nobly” were one and the same goal. Unless, of course, we intend to prove in the short period of our life which remains that we lived the longer part in vain and ignobly.

THE VALUE OF THE
SENIOR POLITICIAN

Contrary to what someone once said to Dionysius, tyranny does not in fact make for a noble funeral shroud. But Dionysius also combined his long reign as tyrant with injustice, which made his disaster even more complete. And later, when Diogenes saw Dionysius’s son in Corinth, living as a private citizen after also having been a tyrant himself, rightly did the philosopher say to him, “How unworthy of your stature is the fortune you’re experiencing, Dionysius! For you ought not to live here among us, free and without fear, but like your father you ought to live on into old age back home, hidden away in the tyrant’s palace.” However, when people are accustomed to make themselves useful to the state as private citizens no less than when they hold office, the reputation they earn in life through their democratic and law-abiding political activity becomes the reputation they enjoy in death. This is the reputation that makes for a genuinely noble funeral shroud, because it “last of all, sinks down into the earth,” as Simonides says. But there is no such reputation for those whose love of humanity and love of goodness die before they do, or whose zeal for true beauty and goodness fails before their desire for basic bodily needs, just as in the soul the practical and divine elements are more fleeting than the emotional and physical elements.³ Nor is it right to say, or to agree when others say it, that only while earning a profit do we fail to grow tired in our efforts. We should instead improve on the saying of Thucydides, believing not only that “love of honor is ageless,”⁴ but also that community and politics, which even among ants and bees endure to the end, are ageless as well. For no one has ever seen a honey bee that has become a drone due to old age, in the way that some people believe it is best for politicians, once past their prime, to sit at home taking their meals and to remain out of the way, watching their practical expertise become dull through disuse, as an iron tool is blunted by rust. For Cato the Elder used to say that we ought not willingly add to old age, which has many of its own problems, the shame of misbehavior. And of the many forms of misbehavior, idleness and cowardice and moral weakness bring more shame than any other to an old person who is descending from public service to women’s work in the home, or who oversees the reapers and the threshers in the field. We may rightly ask that person, “What has become of Oedipus and his famous riddles?”⁵

In contrast to those who retire early, what about those who commence their political careers in old age rather than early in life, as they say Epimenides slept away his youth and awoke as an old man fifty years later? These people set aside the quiet life that they have lived for so long and throw themselves into competitions and offices, being unaccustomed, unpracticed, and unconversant with the business of politics and the people involved. This scenario could allow some critic to say, as the Pythia did, “You’ve come too late” seeking office and public leadership; you are knocking at the door to the general’s headquarters in the wrong season of life. You are like a party guest who is quite ignorant of social norms and so arrives late at night, or like a foreigner, but not one who changes location or country, but one who exchanges a known way of life for one that is completely unfamiliar. For the saying of Simonides, “The city teaches the man,” is true in the case of those who still have time to be retrained and to learn a new lesson. Even this education is barely accomplished via many political contests and public affairs, if the city, at just the right moment, lays hold of a nature that is able to withstand toil and misery with ease.⁶ This advice will strike a chord with those who are just beginning a political career in old age.

2. On the other hand, however, we also observe that youths and people just starting out are turned away from public affairs by those who are sensible. The laws testify to this through the heralds at the assemblies, since they do not set the likes of Alcibiades and Pytheas upon the speaker’s platform first,⁷ but rather they summon those who are more than fifty years old to speak and give advice. This is because older politicians have plenty of experience and are no strangers to daring deeds, and so they are not tempted to score victories over their political opponents, as younger people are. Now Cato the Elder, when he was on trial at more than eighty years old, said that it was difficult, having lived his life with one generation, to defend himself before another. And everyone agrees that Caesar (that is Augustus, the one who defeated Antony) made his administration quite a bit more kinglike and advantageous to the people near the end of his life. Augustus himself was taming the youth severely by means of habits and laws, and when they raised an uproar he said, “Listen, young men, to an old man, to whom old men used to listen when he was young.” The political leadership of Pericles was most powerful in his old age, when he convinced the Athenians to undertake even the war.⁸ And when the Athenians were eager to do battle against sixty thousand hoplites at an inopportune moment, he stood in their way and prevented them, all but sealing up the people’s weapons and the keys to the city’s gates. But what Xenophon has written about Agesilaus is worth quoting verbatim:⁹ “To what youth was that man’s old age not clearly superior? Who in their prime was as fearsome to his political enemies as Agesilaus was at the very end of his life? Whom were his military enemies gladder to have out of the way than Agesilaus, even though he died quite old? Who but Agesilaus gave courage to the allies, even when he was already near the end of his life? What young man was more missed by his friends than Agesilaus although he died an old man?”

3. Old age did not keep those leaders from performing such great deeds. But as for us who live easily nowadays in political systems that include neither tyranny nor any war or siege, should we exhibit fear when facing peaceful conflicts and rivalries that are for the most part settled justly by means of law and debate? If we do, we are admitting that we are inferior not only to the generals and popular leaders of the past, but even to the poets and teachers and actors. Indeed, Simonides won a choral contest in old age, as this epigram demonstrates with its closing lines: “For his training of the chorus, glory followed Simonides, the eighty-year-old son of Leoprepes.” And Sophocles, they say, in order to acquit himself against the charge of dementia brought by his children, read aloud the first choral song from his Oedipus at Colonus, which begins as follows: “You have arrived, stranger, at the land’s mightiest houses in this country famed for horses, shining Colonus, where the sweet-voiced nightingale comes most often to sing, down in the green glens.”¹⁰ The song was so obviously magnificent that Sophocles, they say, was escorted from the court, as if from a theater, to the applause and cheers of those in attendance. And everyone agrees that Sophocles wrote this brief epigram: “At the age of fifty-five, Sophocles wrote a song for Herodotus.” Death snatched Philemon the comic poet and Alexis, too, as they were performing on stage and receiving crowns. And Eratosthenes and Philochorus report that Polus the tragic actor, at seventy years of age, performed in eight tragedies over four days just before he died.

4. Is it not a shame, then, that the old people who appear on the stage are viewed as more noble than those who appear on the speaker’s platform, and who, after withdrawing from the contests that are truly sacred, set aside their political role and take up instead something inconceivable? For the role of a farmer is humble after playing a king.¹¹ Demosthenes says that the Paralus was treated unworthily because it was a sacred ship, but Meidias nonetheless used it to transport wood and vine props and feed for animals.¹² On the same basis, will not politicians appear to one and all to have put themselves voluntarily “out to pasture,” as they say, if they abandon directorships of games, leadership of the Boeotian cities, and presidencies of Amphictyonic Councils, but then are later observed distributing barley and crushed olives and shearing sheep? To take on menial and common work after practicing politics is like stripping away the dress of a free and modest woman, replacing it with an apron, and then forcing her to work in a tavern. For in this way, the dignity and stature of one’s political virtue is ruined when it is transferred to managing the household and moneymaking.

But if—and this is the only option that remains—one gives the names “relaxation and enjoyment” to “high living and luxury” and then invites politicians to grow old in that environment as they fade quietly away, I do not know which of these two shameful pictures describes that life better. Maybe it is that of the sailors who abandon their ship still under sail and before they even reach port, and then spend the whole rest of their lives indulging in sexual pleasures. Or, as some artists playfully and inaccurately represent Hercules at the court of Omphale—wearing a saffron robe and submitting to the Lydian maidservants, fanning himself and curling his hair—shall we likewise entertain politicians extravagantly after stripping them of their lion skins and making them recline at the table to forever enjoy music and be charmed by the aulos?¹³ And in doing so, shall we be undeterred by Pompey the Great’s admonishment of Lucullus? Now Lucullus, after his military and political career, gave himself up to baths, dinners, sex in the daytime, prolonged tedium, and the construction of buildings such as a young man would undertake, while he criticized Pompey for a love of holding office and a love of honor that he said were inappropriate for his age. Pompey, in response, said that it was in fact more unseasonable for an old man to indulge in luxurious living than to continue serving in government. And further, when a doctor prescribed that Pompey should eat a thrush when he was sick, but the bird was out of season and hard to procure, someone told him that many thrushes were being raised on Lucullus’s estate. He did not send for one, however, but instead he exclaimed, “So, Pompey would not survive if Lucullus were not a hedonist?”

5. Even if our human nature seeks pleasure and joy by all means, the bodies of old people have given up on all pleasures, except those few that are necessary. And not only “is Aphrodite exasperated by the elderly,” as Euripides says, but old people possess desires for food and drink that are for the most part dull and toothless, and only barely do they whet and sharpen them, so to speak.¹⁴ But we must cultivate pleasures in our souls that are neither ignoble nor servile, unlike Simonides, who used to say to those who were charging him with avarice that after being deprived by old age of all other pleasures, he was still nourished in his declining years by a single one, that of turning a profit. But participation in politics provides the finest and greatest of pleasures, in which alone, or above all others, even the gods probably rejoice. These are the pleasures imparted by doing something well and accomplishing a noble deed. Now Nicias the painter took such joy in working at his art that he was often asking his servants whether he had bathed or eaten lunch. When Archimedes was absorbed in his writing tablet, his servants used to drag him away by force to strip and anoint him, while he kept drawing his plans in the oil on his body.¹⁵ And Canus the aulos player, whom you know, too, used to say that people were ignorant of how much more he enjoyed his music than they did. For if they knew, his audiences would charge him rather than pay him to perform. In light of these examples, do we not perceive how exercising one’s virtues generates such great pleasures, which arise from noble deeds and communal and philanthropic works? And do we not perceive how we experience these pleasures without the gnawing and corruption that accompany the smooth and soft pleasures of the flesh? For pleasures of the flesh consist of a tickling that is frenzied, irregular, and mingled with throbbing, while pleasures based on noble works—of the sort created by one who rightly engages in politics—elevate the soul as it acquires stature and purpose, together with joy. We should compare these noble works not to the golden wings of Euripides, but to those heavenly wings described by Plato.¹⁶

6. Remind yourself of the examples you have often heard. When Epaminondas was asked what pleased him most, he answered that it was to have won the battle at Leuctra while his father and mother were still alive. And when Sulla first arrived at Rome after having cleansed Italy of civil war, he slept not a bit that night because he was carried away in his soul by great delight and joy as though by the wind; he has even written this about himself in his commentaries. Now I concede that nothing we hear is more pleasant than praise, as Xenophon says, but there is no sight nor recollection nor thought of anything which brings as much gratification as reflecting on the deeds you have performed in highly visible and public spaces, that is to say, while holding office and practicing politics. What is more, a kindly gratitude that bears witness to your deeds and is accompanied by praise leads the way for justly earned goodwill, and it adds a sort of shine and brilliance to the joy of your virtue. And we must not disregard our reputation when, like the athlete’s crown, it has become dry in old age, but we must always add to it something new and fresh. Thus, we revive the gratitude expressed for those former deeds and make our reputation stronger and permanent. In this we are like the craftsmen who have been assigned to care for the integrity of the Delian ship: by inserting and fitting new wood in place of that which has worn out, they seem to preserve the ship eternal and undecayed from days gone by.¹⁷

It happens that the preservation and safekeeping of both reputation and fire is quite simple and requires little kindling, but neither reputation nor fire, once extinguished and cooled, may be reignited without effort. Thus, when Lampis the ship-owner was asked how he acquired his wealth, he replied, “The greater part came quite easily, but the first, smaller part took time and effort.” And so, in the beginning it is difficult to acquire one’s reputation and power in politics, but once they have become great, it is easy to protect and increase them by means of ordinary deeds. A friendship, once established, does not require many great services in order to be maintained, but small gestures frequently made will preserve the friends’ goodwill. Nor do the friendship and trust of the people always require that you sponsor choruses or appear in court or hold office, but they are maintained by your very eagerness, and by not quitting or walking away from your commission and responsibility. Military campaigns do not entail only marshalling troops, fighting battles, and laying siege, but they also consist sometimes of sacrifices and parties between battles and plenty of free time spent in play and triviality. Why, then, must practicing politics be feared as though it were comfortless, toilsome, and a burden, when the theaters and parades and distributions of land and “choruses and the Muse and Aglaea”¹⁸ and the honor always being paid to some god bring cheer to every town hall and council chamber, and repay politicians many times over with delight and pleasure?¹⁹

7. Envy, however, which is the greatest evil in political life, hardly comes into conflict with old age. “For dogs bark at those they don’t know,” as Heraclitus says, and so envy does battle with the ones getting their start on the speaker’s platform (knocking at the door, so to speak) and does not allow them to pass. It accepts the familiar and well-known reputation, however, not with savageness or anger, but mildly. Wherefore some liken envy to smoke, for though it pours forth abundantly in front of those starting out because they are just kindling their careers, it dissipates once they are in full flame. Now on the one hand, people attack every other form of superiority and argue especially over virtue, birth, and ambition, as though they would deprive themselves of whatever distinctions they allowed to someone else. But on the other hand, the primacy that is earned over time, which is properly called “the privilege of age,” is not begrudged but is rather conceded. For in fact no other honor besides that paid to our elders adorns the one who gives it more than the one who receives it. Moreover, not everyone expects to acquire the authority that comes from wealth or clever speaking or wisdom, but there is no one engaged in politics who does not hope for the reverence and reputation that old age delivers. There is no difference, then, between the ship’s pilot who, after sailing dangerously against an opposing sea and wind, seeks a safe anchorage once fair weather and a favorable wind have returned,²⁰ and the politician who, after maintaining a sea battle against envy over a long career, backs-water away from political life and abandons partnerships, clubs, and all other activity once envy has ceased and been made calm. For the longer your career, the more friends and colleagues you make. But you cannot escort them all off with you, as a music director can lead off the chorus, nor is it right to leave them behind. But just as with aged trees, it is not easy to dig up a long political career, which has branching roots and has become intertwined with one’s other affairs. This creates more upheaval and rending for those who withdraw than for those who remain active. And if there survives some remnant of envy or contentiousness against our elders as a result of their political contests, they must snuff this out with their authority, not turn their backs and walk away, unprotected and unarmed. For others do not, out of envy, attack them for continuing to fight, but out of contempt, they attack them for having renounced politics.

8. Evidence for this is what the great Epaminondas said to the Thebans when they were passing through Arcadia in the midst of winter. The Arcadians invited the Theban soldiers into their city to stay in their homes, but Epaminondas would not allow it. “Now they marvel at you and look on as you train in arms and wrestle,” he said, “but if they see you sitting around the fire and eating beans, they will believe that you are no different from them.” Thus, elders, when saying or doing something or being honored, are a noble sight, while old people who pass the day on the couch or sit in the corner of a portico,²¹ talking nonsense and wiping their nose, are contemptible. Homer, of course, teaches this to those who hear him correctly: Nestor, who went out on the campaign to Troy, was noble and held in high regard, while Peleus and Laertes,²² who remained at home, were disparaged and held in contempt. For the habit of thinking does not persist in those who otherwise neglect themselves, but diluted and dissolved little by little through disuse, it constantly yearns for some exercise of the mind, which rouses and purges the logical and practical elements of the soul: “For it shines when being used, like fine-looking bronze.”²³

Even if political activity suffers because of the bodily weakness of those who ascend the speaker’s platform or enter the general’s headquarters at an advanced age, the harm is not as great as the benefit conferred by the elders’ discretion and practical wisdom. Nor are elders prone, as young people are, to being carried away—sometimes to cover a mistake, sometimes to build a hollow reputation—and then to jump into public affairs and drag the mob along with them, stirred up like a sea in high winds. Instead, older politicians manage circumstances mildly and with moderation. This is why cities, when in a crisis or frightened, long for the leadership of their elders. Oftentimes they will even bring an old man back from his farm, though he is not asking or wishing to be restored, and compel him to take the helm, so to speak, and stabilize their affairs, while in the meantime they have pushed aside generals and popular leaders who are able to shout loudly, to speak without taking a breath, and—by Zeus!—to plant their feet firmly and do battle with the enemy. For example, the speakers in the assembly at Athens were once promoting Chares, son of Theochares, as a rival to Timotheus and Iphicrates, because he was vigorous and flourishing in bodily strength. They thought that a strong man like that was worthy to be the Athenians’ general, but Timotheus protested, “No, by the gods! That is the sort of man who should carry the general’s bedding! The real general is the one who sees ‘both beyond and behind’ political affairs and, when deciding upon a course of action, remains untroubled by any passion.” For Sophocles said that in growing old he gladly escaped sexual pleasures, as though he had escaped a savage and rabid master. But in politics we must escape not a single master (that is, the desire for youths or women), but many masters even more maniacal than this: contentiousness, love of glory, the desire to be first and greatest, and the sickness that produces envy, jealousy, and dissention in abundance. Old age slackens and blunts some of these desires, while it snuffs out entirely and cools others, not so much by denying people their impulse to act as by separating them from the uncontrolled and fiery passions, so that they may apply a sober and stable reasoning to their thinking.

9. Even so, let the following warning be considered dissuasive—and may it actually be dissuasive—when spoken to a grey-hair who begins to swagger like a youth, or when used to chastise an old person who is arising from a long spell at home as if from a convalescence and is entering upon a generalship or some other official duty: “Lie still, poor soul, in your bed.”²⁴ But as for the warning that prevents people who have spent a lifetime contending in politics from continuing until the finale of their lives, and instead recalls them and orders them to change course as after a long journey, this warning is entirely hard-hearted and wholly inappropriate. Now, when an old man is preparing to marry, having put on his wedding crown and smelling of perfume, the one who dissuades him and speaks the advice given to Philoctetes—“Who would be your bride? What youthful maiden would take you? You wretch, aren’t you a great catch!”—is not out of line. For even old men say many such things in jest about themselves, such as, “I’m marrying as an old man, I well know, and for the neighbors’ benefit, too.”²⁵ But when a man has long shared his home and life contentedly over many years, if someone thinks he ought to send away his wife on account of old age and then live alone or replace his lawful spouse with a mistress, that person knows no limit of perversity. Thus, it makes some sense to admonish people such as Chlidon the farmer, Lampon the ship-owner, or one of the philosophers of the garden,²⁶ who appear before the assembly for the first time in old age, and to restrict them to their usual apolitical life. But one is unjustly deceptive and does the politician a disservice if he lays hold of a Phocion, a Cato, or a Pericles and says, “O Athenian or Roman friend, now that ‘you’ve adorned your head with withered old age as for your funeral,’ divorce yourself from politics and stop worrying about the speaker’s platform and the general’s headquarters! Then get yourself to the country to live with farming as your handmaid or to devote your remaining years to house-holding and budgets.”

10. “But wait,” someone might say. “Don’t we hear a soldier in a comedy claim, ‘My grey hair grants me a discharge from service’”? Of course, my friend. For to be young and vigorous suits the servants of Ares, since they are engaged in “war, and the destructive deeds of war.”²⁷ In such circumstances, a helmet may conceal the old man’s grey hair, “but his limbs are weighed down invisibly”²⁸ and his strength gives out before his enthusiasm. But from the servants of Zeus of the Council, of the Marketplace, and of the City we do not demand deeds of the feet or hands, but rather of counsel, foresight, and speech, and not speech that creates an uproar among the people or mere noise, but speech that consists of sense, wise judgment, and stability. In the context of these sorts of deeds, the derided grey hair and wrinkles appear as witnesses to experience, and they collaborate in making a person persuasive and impute a reputation for character. For obedience belongs to youth, while old age is made to lead. And a city is safest “where the counsels of elders and the spears of young men hold the highest distinction” and where the verses, “first he seated a council of great-hearted elders alongside Nestor’s ship”²⁹ are especially admired. For this reason, Pythian Apollo used the name “first-borns” for the aristocratic class that is associated with the kings in Sparta, while Lycurgus openly called them “old men,” and the council of Romans is to this day called the “senate.”³⁰ And just as the law places the diadem and the crown upon a leader’s head, so nature places grey hair as an honored symbol of a leader’s rank. And I think “geras” (“gift of honor”) and “geraiein” (“to give a gift of honor”) maintain their nobility because they are derived from “gerontes” (“old men”). They are noble not because old men take warm baths and sleep on softer bedding, but because they hold a king’s rank³¹ in their cities as befits their practical wisdom. Nature allows one to possess this sort of wisdom as a good and perfect thing only in old age, as though it came from a plant that bears fruit late in the season. And so not one of the “warlike” and “force-breathing Achaeans” found fault with the king of kings³² when he prayed to the gods, “I wish I had ten counselors among the Achaeans” like Nestor, but they all agreed that old age has great influence not only in politics but also in war. “For a single wise plan defeats many hands,”³³ and a single decision based on reason, together with persuasiveness, accomplishes the noblest and greatest of public deeds.

11. Now truly even monarchy, the most perfect and greatest of all constitutions, requires very great attention, toil, and official duty. It is reported, for instance, that Seleucus said repeatedly that if the people only knew how much effort he expended just to write and read all his letters, they would not even bother to pick up a crown that a king had cast aside. And we hear that when Philip was about to make his camp in a fine location but then learned that there was no place to pasture the pack animals, he exclaimed, “O Hercules, what a life I lead, if I’m obliged to live for the benefit of my asses!” There is a right time, however, to advise even a king who has become aged to set aside the crown and the purple garment, and after adopting ordinary clothes and a crooked staff, to spend his life in the country, so as not to be seen acting strangely and unseasonably while ruling in grey hair. But if it is not proper to say this about Agesilaus and Numa and Darius, nor to lead Solon out of the council of the Areopagus or Cato the Elder from the senate on account of their age,³⁴ then let us not advise Pericles to abandon his democracy. For it makes no sense that we should prance upon the speaker’s platform and pour our crazed ambitions and impulses into public affairs when we are young, but once old age arrives bringing wisdom through experience, we should give up and abandon politics, as one might dissolve a marriage, in the belief that there is no more to be gained from it.³⁵

12. Now Aesop’s fox would not allow the hedgehog to remove her ticks even though the hedgehog wished to do it: “For if you take away these full ticks,” she said, “other hungry ones will take their place.” By necessity, the political system that continually pushes out its elders is refilled with younger people who thirst for glory and power but lack political sense. For where would they get it, if they have been neither students nor observers of their elders as they practice politics? And if books about piloting ships do not produce captains, unless those captains have often stood upon the stern to observe the struggles against wave and wind and stormy night, “when a desire for the sons of Tyndareus strikes the sailor upon the sea,”³⁶ could a young person successfully manage a city and persuade the assembly or senate after reading a book or writing an essay about the constitution in school, without first having stood often near the reins and rudder, pulling left and right and sharing the experiences and fortunes of the popular leaders and generals as they contend in politics, and so learn a lesson amidst dangerous affairs? Of course not. But if for no other reason, elders should engage in politics for the sake of teaching and training the young. For as teachers of literature and music guide their students by playing and reading aloud as an example, so politicians, not only by speaking and dictating from the sidelines but also by engaging in and directing public affairs, guide young people, whose minds are shaped and molded by deeds and words together. For the one trained in this manner—not in the risk-free schools and wrestling rings of the graceful professors, but as though in actual Olympic and Pythian games—“runs like the newly-weaned foal alongside a horse,” as Simonides says. And thus, Aristides ran alongside Cleisthenes and then Cimon alongside Aristides, and Phocion ran alongside Chabrias, Cato the Elder alongside Fabius Maximus, Pompey alongside Sulla, and Polybius alongside Philopoemen. For while young, these men devoted themselves to their elders. Then in a sense they sprouted and grew amidst their elders’ political deeds, and so they acquired experience and familiarity with public affairs, together with glory and power.

13. Consider what Aeschines the Academic philosopher said when some sophists charged that he was pretending to have been a student of Carneades but really was not: “But I was listening to Carneades at that time when his manner of speaking had lost its crashing roar and noisiness on account of age, and was instead focused on utility and the common good.” The political activity of elders, however, is free from ostentation and desire for glory in its actions as well as in its manner of speaking. For just as they say the iris, when it has become old, loses its foul, dirty scent and has a sweeter aroma, so no opinion or counsel of an elder is muddled, but all of them are weighty and well-established. Wherefore, as I have said, the elder must engage in politics for the sake of the young, so that, in the way that Plato speaks about neat wine mixed with water (namely, that a raging god is brought to his senses when a punished by a sober god),³⁷ so the discretion of an elder, when mixed into youth as it boils in public and is in a frenzy over glory and love of honor, takes away its madness and excessive lack of self-control.

14. Moreover, it is a mistake to believe that practicing politics is like sailing or going on a military campaign, as though we engage in politics to achieve some external goal and then we stop once that goal has been achieved. For politics is not a public service with a functional objective. Rather, it is a way of life for a tamed, political, and social animal,³⁸ one that by its nature must live its whole life interacting with its fellow citizens, pursuing what is good, and caring for humankind. Therefore, it is proper for us to be engaged in politics continuously and not simply to have been engaged in politics in the past, just as it is proper for us to be speaking the truth and not to have spoken it once, to be acting honestly and not simply to have acted honestly, and to be loving our country and fellow citizens, not only to have loved them. For nature leads us in this direction, and it speaks in these voices to those who are not entirely undone by idleness and moral weakness: “Your father begets you to be of much worth to mortals” and “Let us in no way stop treating mortals well.”

15. Now those who use infirmities and weaknesses as excuses are really finding fault with sickness and disability rather than with old age. For many young people are sickly, and many old people are vigorous, so that we ought to reject not the old but the weak, and we ought to encourage not the young but the able. For in fact Arrhidaeus was young and Antigonus was old, but Antigonus gained control over nearly all of Asia, while Arrhidaeus, like the silent character of the bodyguard in a play, had the title and role of a king but was abused by the people who actually wielded power. And so, one is foolish who thinks that Prodicus the sophist or Philetas the poet should engage in politics: they were indeed young, but they were also feeble and sickly, and they spent most of their time in bed due to illness. Foolish likewise is anyone who stops old men such as Phocion, Masinissa the Libyan, or Cato the Elder in Rome from holding office or commanding an army. For when the Athenians were mobilizing for an ill-timed war, Phocion summoned all men up to sixty years old to take up arms and follow him. When they were upset by this, he said, “Not to worry, for I will accompany you as general, and I am over eighty!”³⁹ And Polybius reports in his history that Masinissa died at ninety years old, leaving behind a four-year-old child that he had fathered. Just a little before his death he won a great battle against the Carthaginians, and then was seen the very next day eating a dirty piece of bread in front of his tent. To those who wondered at what he did, he said he was doing it to maintain the habit, “for when it’s being used a house shines like handsome bronze, but through disuse it collapses with time,” as Sophocles says. And we say the same thing about that brilliance and splendor of the soul, by which we reason and remember and are wise.

16. And this is why they say that kings become better in the midst of wars and campaigns than when they remain at leisure. Attalus the brother of Eumenes, once he had been completely mollified by a long period of inactivity and peace, was simply beguiled and fattened up by Philopoemen, one of his companions, so that even the Romans used to ask jokingly of everyone sailing out of Asia whether the king had any influence with Philopoemen.⁴⁰ And one would not find many Roman generals more clever than Lucullus, when he combined thought with action. But then he surrendered himself to an idle way of life and the carefree routine of a stay-at-home man, which caused him to wither up and die away as sponges do in calm seas, and he essentially handed his twilight years over to a certain Callisthenes, one of his freedmen,⁴¹ to maintain and cultivate. It seemed as though Callisthenes had drugged him with potions and charms, until his brother Marcus drove the freedman away and took it upon himself to arrange and manage the rest of Lucullus’s life, which in fact was not very long. But Darius the father of Xerxes used to say that he became wiser than he really was when facing dangers, and the Scythian Ateas said that he thought himself no different from the men who tended his horse when he was inactive. And when someone asked the elder Dionysius if he ever had any leisure time, he said, “I hope I never do!” For, as they say, a bow breaks when it is stretched, but a soul breaks when relaxed. Now when musicians stop listening to compositions, and geometricians stop solving problems, and arithmeticians stop their constant reckoning, the skills that they acquired through habit fade as they grow old and cease to practice them, even though they are not engaged in practical but rather in contemplative arts. But the skills that politicians acquire through habit are good counsel and wisdom and justice, and, in addition, experience, which allows them to select the right moments and words. This experience, in turn, gives them the ability to be persuasive. These skills are maintained by constantly speaking, acting, reasoning, and judging about some matter, and it is a terrible thing if, having abandoned such activities, one allows such great and numerous virtues to seep out of the soul. Indeed, one’s concern for others, sense of community, and graciousness are all liable to waste away, even though there ought to be no end or limit to them.

17. Now Tithonus was immortal but constantly required a great deal of attention on account of his old age.⁴² If he were your father, I do not think that you would leave him or decline to care for, speak to, or help him on the ground that you had already been attending to him for a long time. But your fatherland (or as the Cretans say, your motherland), which is older and has greater rights than your parents, though it may be long-lived is neither ageless nor self-sufficient. Rather, it is always in need of attention, help, and care, and it draws in and holds the politician, “laying hold of his cloak and holding him back as he rushes along.”⁴³ And you know that I have been serving the Pythian god⁴⁴ for many Pythiads, but you would not say to me, “There have been enough sacrifices and processions and choral dances for you, Plutarch. Now that you’re older, it’s time to set aside the crown and leave behind the oracle on account of old age.” And surely you do not think that you yourself, who preside over and act as interpreter at your city’s religious rites, should forgo the honors of Zeus of the City and Marketplace, into which you were initiated so long ago.

THE ROLE OF THE SENIOR POLITICIAN

18. But now that we have disposed of the argument for excluding our elders from politics, let us, if you wish, consider in our discussion how we may avoid assigning to old age any duties that are inappropriate or burdensome, since there are in fact many aspects of politics that are fitting and suitable for older people. Now there exist many pitches and modes of the human voice, which musicians call harmonies, and supposing it were proper to continue singing even when we have become old, we should not, then, attempt to reach the piercing and high-pitched notes, but rather we should attempt to sing those that are easy and suit our character. In the same way, since it is more natural for humans to remain active and to keep speaking until the time they die than even for swans to sing, we must not set aside our active political life as we would set aside a high-pitched lyre,⁴⁵ but we must relax our actions and adapt them to political deeds that are light, measured, and in harmony with older people. For we do not allow the body to remain completely sedentary and unexercised when we are no longer able to use a shovel or jumping weights or to throw the discus or to fight in arms as in our younger years. We turn instead to light exercise and walks, and some people, by training lightly with a ball and engaging in conversation, breathe deeply and rekindle their body heat.

And so, let us not allow ourselves to become entirely stiff and cold through inaction, but at the same time, let us not, by getting excited about every office and about being involved in every political activity, force our old age to be proved deficient and brought to the point of saying, “O my right hand, how you long to hold the spear, but in your weakness your longing has come to nothing.”⁴⁶ For we do not even praise those who are in their prime and powerful if they take upon themselves practically all public business and wish to yield nothing to anyone else. In this way, they act as the Stoics say that Zeus behaves: they intrude and involve themselves in everything because of their insatiable desire for glory or their envy of anyone who in any way shares some honor or power in the city. But for the older person—even if you disregard the bad reputation earned by such an attitude—the love of holding office that asserts itself at every election, the meddlesomeness that watches for every opportunity to appear in court or at a council meeting, and the love of honor that grasps at every embassy and guardianship, all of this is wearying and miserable. For to do these things at an advanced age, even with good will, is overbearing and produces the opposite of the desired outcome. Such old people are hated by the young, on the ground that they do not yield to them any occasion for action or allow them any public exposure. In addition, their fellow citizens have contempt for their love of being first and holding office no less than they have contempt for the love of money and pleasure found in other old people.

19. Alexander did not wish to stress Bucephalus when the horse was older, and so he used to ride other horses before battle as he reviewed and arranged his troops. Then, once he had given the signal to fight, he would switch to Bucephalus and straightaway attack the enemy and run every risk. Sensible politicians likewise will apply the reins to themselves once they have grown older, keeping themselves out of unnecessary business and allowing the city to use those in their prime for smaller matters, while still contending eagerly in the important affairs. Now athletes keep their bodies untouched by necessary labors and strong for work that serves no practical purpose, while we elders, by contrast, will disregard the small and ordinary matters, and instead reserve ourselves for problems that deserve our attention. Perhaps “everything is appropriate to the young man,” as Homer says,⁴⁷ and people welcome and adore him, calling the one who takes on many small matters “democratic” and “industrious,” and the one who does splendid and honorable deeds “noble” and “high-minded.” And there are situations where even contentiousness or rashness are called for and have a certain charm that suits people who are young. But older people who endure servile political duties, such as the awarding of contracts to tax collectors and the oversight of ports and the marketplace, and who moreover get themselves sent abroad on the sorts of embassies and missions that are unnecessary and lack dignity, but only involve paying court and currying favor, these people seem to me, my friend, to be pitiable and unappealing, and perhaps they also appear onerous and wearisome to others.

20. For old age is not the right time for someone to be appointed to office, except those offices that have acquired a certain stature and honor, like authority over the council of the Areopagus, which you now exercise at Athens, and, by Zeus, membership in the Amphictyonic Council, which your native city has conferred upon you for your whole life and which involves “a pleasant toil and labor easily endured.”⁴⁸ But we elders ought not chase after even these sorts of honors. Rather, we should take up offices while at the same time trying to avoid them. We ought not be asking for them but begging ourselves off, on the principle that we do not take leadership roles for ourselves but rather we surrender ourselves to being leaders. Contrary to what Tiberius Caesar used to say, there is in fact no shame in extending your hand to the doctor when you are over sixty years old, but the shame lies in extending that hand to the people as you ask them to cast a ballot or vote in the assembly: that is ignoble and dishonorable. But the opposite approach possesses a certain dignity and decorum, when your native city elects you, summons you, and awaits you, and you return with honor and kindliness to welcome and greet their gift of honor,⁴⁹ which truly is honorable and universally admired.

21. This principle in some respects also applies to elders when they speak in the assembly. They should not be leaping continually upon the speaker’s platform or singing like a rooster in response to the other speakers, nor should they toss away the respect of the younger people through fighting and provocation, or instill in them the regular habit of disobeying and disregarding their elders. Rather, they ought sometimes to allow others to rear up and show their spirit, and so to enhance their own reputations. They ought sometimes to stay away and not meddle, except where the city’s safety or what is right and proper is in great danger. In that situation, even with no one summoning them, elders should rush forward at a run, overcoming their infirmity by entrusting themselves to guides or even being carried on a litter, as the historians say happened with Appius Claudius in Rome. For after the Romans had been defeated by Pyrrhus in a great battle, Appius learned that the senate was entertaining arguments for a peace treaty, which he found unbearable. And so, despite having lost sight in both his eyes, he was carried through the forum and arrived at the senate house. After he entered and stood in the midst of the senators, he said that previously he had been vexed by the loss of his eyes, but now he prayed not to hear the senators deliberating and acting upon such shameful and ignoble plans. In this way, by confronting the Romans, instructing them, and urging them on, he convinced them straightaway to take up arms and to fight against Pyrrhus for the sake of Italy. And there is the example of Solon. When the demagoguery of Pisistratus had openly become a means to achieve tyranny, but no one was daring to put up a defense or obstruct him, Solon himself brought out his weapons, set them in front of his house, and asked the citizens to take action. And when Pisistratus sent a messenger to ask what gave him the confidence to take this stand, Solon replied, “My old age.”

22. Now such pressing situations will inflame and arouse even old people whose fire is all but extinguished, if they are at least still breathing. In other situations, as I have said, elders will be doing the right thing if they decline duties that are troublesome and servile and require an effort on the part of the doer that is greater than the benefit to the people on whose account the duties are being performed. In some situations, if elders wait for their fellow citizens to summon them, long for them, and come get them from home, they return more trusted by the people who need them. And even when they are present, in most cases they remain silent and allow the younger people to speak, acting like judges at a contest of political ambitions. And when others go too far, the elder politician confronts them gently and, with goodwill, relieves them of their contentiousness, slander, and anger. The elder speaks soothingly and, without finding fault, instructs those who are mistaken in their judgments, fearlessly praising those who get things right and willingly losing political contests. Oftentimes the elder forgoes the chance to persuade and come out on top so that others may grow and gain confidence. And the elder will compensate for what is lacking in some people by offering a helpful comment, as when Nestor said, “No one of all the Achaeans will reproach your speech, nor speak against it, though you have not had the final word. Indeed, you are a young man; you could even be my own son.”⁵⁰

23. But elders are even more diplomatic than this, for not only do they reproach other politicians openly and in public without the stinging rebukes that demean and belittle, but more often they privately instruct those who have innate political talent and kindly advise them about effective speaking and public policy. Thus, elders facilitate their moral improvement, aid in the enlightenment of their intellect, and, as riding instructors do with horses, make the people manageable and gentle when the young politician first climbs into the saddle. And when young politicians stumble in some way, the elders do not allow them to be disheartened, but they raise them up and encourage them, as Aristides did for Cimon and Mnesiphilus for Themistocles. For when the city was scorning and insulting those men early in their careers for being reckless and lacking self-control, Aristides and Mnesiphilus lifted them up and gave them courage. It is said that when Demosthenes was rejected by the assembly and was taking it hard, a very old man from the generation that had heard Pericles address the assembly approached Demosthenes and told him that he was very much like Pericles in his nature and so was condemning himself unjustly. And likewise, when Timotheus⁵¹ was being booed for his inventiveness and was believed to be violating musical standards, Euripides urged him to take heart, saying that within a short time he would come to dominate the theaters.

24. Just as in Rome the service of the Vestal Virgins is divided into a period of training, a period of performing the rites, and a third period of teaching, and likewise each of the attendants at the temple of Artemis in Ephesus is called first “Novice Priestess,” then “Priestess,” and third “Retired Priestess,” so full-career politicians follow the same trajectory, spending their early years learning and being initiated into politics, and then in their later years they teach and initiate others. Now those who supervise athletes at games cannot themselves enter the competitions, but the one who trains young people for public affairs and civic contests, making them “to be a speaker of words and doer of deeds”⁵² for their native cities, plays no small or trivial role in politics. Indeed, this person contributes towards that element to which Lycurgus turned his attention first and foremost: habituating the youth continually to obey all elders as though they were lawgivers.⁵³ And when Lysander said that people grow old most honorably in Lacedaemon, what was he thinking about? Was it that in Lacedaemon elders can most easily be idle and lend money, or sit together playing dice, or gather early to drink? Of course not. But he said this because all of the elders there, who in effect hold the rank of civic leaders or councilors or teachers, not only oversee public affairs, but they also continuously examine with great care everything that is related to the training, education, and daily regimen of the young people. This duty makes the elders fearsome to those who go wrong, and revered and beloved to those who are good. For the young people constantly minister to their elders and seek them out, while the elders increase and encourage the decorum and nobility of the young without provoking envy.

25. Now this emotion, envy, is inappropriate to any stage of life. Nonetheless, among the young it has many positive names, being called “competition,” “zeal,” and “ambition,” while among elders it is completely out of season, uncivilized, and ignoble. And so, elder politicians, being well past feeling envy, must not, like malicious old trees, prevent and obstruct the blossoming and the growth of the young politicians that are conspicuously blooming near them and growing underneath them. Instead, they must receive them kindly and make themselves available to the young people who reach out and make connections. Elder politicians must correct them, guide them, and help them grow, not only by offering leadership and good advice, but also by yielding to them public duties that bring honor and reputation, or certain tasks that cause no harm to the people but will in fact please them and earn their gratitude. But as for public duties that provoke resistance and adversity, just like drugs that sting and cause pain when first taken but later provide what is good and beneficial, elders must steer young people away from these sorts of duties and avoid subjecting them to public uproar, since they are not ready for the mobs that treat politicians unfairly. Rather, the elders themselves must bear the enmity that comes with doing what is good for the people, for thus they will make the young better disposed and more eager in the rest of their service.

26. In addition to stating all these things, we must mention that practicing politics does not consist only in holding office, leading embassies, shouting loudly in the assembly, and raging around the speaker’s platform while giving a speech or proposing a law. Most people think that those activities are the sum of politics, however, just as they doubtless think that practicing philosophy is only a matter of conducting dialogues from a chair and reciting lectures from books. But the continuous practice of both politics and philosophy, which may be observed on a daily basis in deeds and in actions, escapes those people. For they claim that those who walk back and forth in the porticoes are “peripatetic,”⁵⁴ as Dicaearchus used to say, while that those who walk to the countryside or to a friend’s house are not. But practicing politics is just like practicing philosophy. Socrates, for instance, did not set up desks for his students, sit in a teacher’s chair, or reserve a prearranged time for lecturing and walking with his pupils. No, he practiced philosophy while joking around (when the chance arose) and drinking and serving on military campaigns and hanging around the market-place with some of his students, and finally, even while under arrest and drinking the hemlock. He was the first to demonstrate that our lives are open to philosophy at all times and in every aspect, while experiencing every emotion, and in each and every activity.

This, then, is how we must also conceive of the political life. Foolish people practice politics, not by serving as generals, secretaries, or popular leaders, but by inciting the mob, giving public speeches, fostering discord, or performing public service out of obligation; and, conversely, those who are civic-minded, philanthropic, devoted to the city, attentive, and truly political are always practicing politics by the promotion of those in power, the guidance of those needing direction, the support of those deliberating, the correction of those causing harm, and the reinforcement of those who are sensible. It is clear that these people attend to public business not only as a sideline; that they go to the theater⁵⁵ and the council chamber not merely to take pride of place when there is important business at hand or they are summoned there; that when they come to meetings, moreover, they attend not simply for their amusement as though they were attending a show or a lecture; and that even when they are not physically present, they nonetheless participate by thinking about the business at hand and inquiring about what occurred, approving of some of the actions taken, and expressing dissatisfaction with others.

27. For Aristides at Athens and Cato the Elder at Rome did not hold office very many times, but they did constantly dedicate their whole lives to serving their cities. Epaminondas had many great accomplishments as general, but no less worthy of memory is what he accomplished in Thessaly while serving neither as general nor elected leader. When the actual generals had led the army into a difficult position and were in disorder, for the enemy was pressing them and hurling weapons, they recalled Epaminondas from among the troops. First, he encouraged the army and so put a stop to its distress and fear. Then, having reordered and rearranged the battle formation, which had become jumbled, he easily led it out and confronted the enemy, so that they turned and marched away. And when King Agis had led his army against the enemy in Arcadia and had arrayed it for battle, one of the elder Spartan citizens called out to him, saying that he was intending to cure one evil with another. Thus, he showed Agis that his present ill-timed enthusiasm was a hopeful attempt to make amends for his blameworthy retreat from Argos. When Agis heard the elder, he obeyed and withdrew his army.⁵⁶ And every day the ephors used to reserve a chair near the doors of the town hall for Menecrates. They would often get up and go out to him, to ask him questions and get his advice on the most important matters, for they found him wise and intelligent whenever they consulted him. And once, after he had lost his physical strength entirely and was spending his days for the most part bedridden, the ephors summoned him to the marketplace. He arose and started to walk, barely and with great difficulty making his way forward. Along the way to the town hall, he met some young boys and asked them if they knew of anything that imposed a greater obligation than obeying one’s master, to which they answered, “The inability to obey.” Menecrates reasoned, then, that he had reached the limit of his useful service, and he returned home. Our willingness to obey, therefore, should not give out before our ability, but once our willingness has been abandoned by our ability, we should not force ourselves to serve. Indeed, Scipio Aemilianus employed Gaius Laelius as his advisor whenever he was on campaign or holding office, so that some even claim that Scipio was an actor and Laelius had written his script. And Cicero himself confesses that the finest and greatest of his recommendations to the senate, by which he set the state aright while he was consul, were devised in cooperation with the philosopher Publius Nigidius.

28. Thus, through many forms of political activity, there is nothing that prevents older people from benefiting the public by means of their gifts: speech, judgment, frankness, and “wisdom of the mind,” as the poets say. For not only does our city lay claim to our hands, feet, and bodily vigor, but above all it possesses our souls and the beauty that our souls contain, namely justice, self-control, and practical wisdom. These qualities develop late and slowly, and so it makes no sense that they should benefit our houses, fields, and other property and possessions, but no longer be of service to our country and fellow citizens merely on account of our age. For advanced age does not deprive us of the ability to serve so much as it augments our ability to lead and to practice politics.