Cicero wrote this famous essay at the beginning of 44 B.C., completing its revision some six months later, and dedicating it to his friend Atticus. This is one, slighter and more rapidly written than On Duties (Chapter 4), of the astonishingly numerous philosophical or semi-philosophical works which he produced at this time of his enforced political inaction during the dictatorship of Caesar and its unsatisfactory aftermath.1
In his discussion on old age, that ’seductive combination of increased wisdom and decaying powers’, as E. M. Forster calls it, ‘to which too little intelligence is devoted’, Cicero anticipates Schopenhauer and modern gerontological research. The Wisdom of Solomon was unknown to him, but he drew upon a number of Greek treatises on the same subject – he mentions a certain Aristo as the author of one, and Theophrastus was another writer on this theme. However, the discussion which he pretends to reproduce here is staged at Rome in 150 B.C. The main speaker is Marcus Porcius Cato the Elder, known as ‘the Censor’ -farmer, soldier, statesman, orator, writer, and stem patriotic moralist, aged 84 at the time of this imaginary conversation. Cicero was a great admirer of Cato (whom Seneca was to recognize as the historical embodiment of the Stoic sage), and had already mentioned him at least sixty times in his previous writings. Though Cicero admits that Cato may not have been so profoundly Hellenized as he appears here, he was likewise not the rough and aggressive anti-Hellenic rustic presented by Greek writers: he was no peasant but a capitalist who thought like other Senators, though more effectively than most of them.
With Cato are Scipio Aetnilianus (Lucius Cornelius Scipio Africanus the younger), patron of letters and writer – aged 35 at the time – who was to destroy Carthage in the Third Punic War four years later; and his friend Gaius Laelius, known, like Cato himself, as ‘the wise’. Scipio and Laelius also appear in On the State, and Laelius is the chief speaker in On Friendship. Scipio – unlike the leading orators of his day – admired the Greek philosophical ideal, and his circle helped decisively to introduce this and other aspects of Greek culture into Roman education.
Cicero, writing under an autocrat who had profited from disharmony, makes his idealized Cato – a ‘new man’ like himself- the spokesman for an unspoilt Republican past in which, allegedly, leading politicians had been friends with one another.
The Romans were like brothers
In the brave days of old.
This picture, dwelling upon the happy relations between Cato and Scipio Aemilianus, draws a veil over an earlier period in which Cato had determinedly opposed the elder Scipio Africanus after the latter’s successful conclusion of the Second Punic War.
Cicero’s many illustrations from the history of Rome and other countries -derived from many sources, including a genealogical work by Atticus and various treatises by Varro (including perhaps one on Old Age) – display Cicero at his unsurpassed best as raconteur and anecdotist; the tone is somewhat reminiscent of Hellenistic discussions on popular philosophy such as the ‘Diatribes’ (‘leisure hours’) of Bion of Borysthenes (c. 325–255 B.C.).
Cicero’s reflections on immortality come from the heart because of the recent death of his beloved daughter Tullia. He himself, when he composed this essay, was sixty-two, and one of his aims, as he fretted in retirement, may have been to show that he was still capable of playing an important part in affairs of state. Furthermore, by giving the chief role to Cato the Elder, he indirectly compliments his own austerely Republican contemporary Cato the Younger (the elder Cato’s great-grandson), who had killed himself at Utica in North Africa after the failure of the Republican cause at Thapsus (46 B.C.). Even if Cicero often disagreed with Cato’s politics (p. 193), he greatly respected his high principles – and had recently written him a flattering obituary, to which Caesar replied with an Anti-Cato (though each praised the style of the other’s pamphlet).
I. CATO AND HIS FRIENDS
II. ACTIVITIES FOR THE OLD
III. CONSOLATIONS FOR LOST STRENGTH
IV. THE PLEASURES OF AGE V. THE JOYS OF FARMING
IV. HONOURS AND FAULTS
VII. WHERE IS DEATH’S STING?
VIII. THB AFTER-LIFE
‘If I can give you any help, Titus, if I can lighten the cares which are implanted in your breast and are roasting and turning you on the spit, what will be my reward?’1
Our poet Ennius attributed those words to’ that man of little wealth but rich in loyalty’, as he described Titus Quinctius Flamininus. I take leave to copy them, Atticus, and address them to yourself. I am certain, however, that you cannot be described, like Flamininus in the same passage, as ‘full of anxiety day and night’. For I know you are a moderate even-tempered man – who have imported more than just your surname from Athens! You have brought back a civilized, intelligent point of view as well. Nevertheless, I suspect that at times you too are more than a little disturbed by the events which are causing me such grave anxiety today. However, the search for comfort in these troubles would be too great a task for now, and must be left for another time.
My present intention, instead, is to write you an essay on Old Age. For this is a burden which you and I share;2 if not already imminent, age cannot fail to be upon us before long. What I shall try to compose for you – as well as for myself- is a consolation for this prospect. True, you face it, I know, and you will continue to face it, with philosophical calm. That is why, when I thought I would write something about old age, I felt you deserved its dedication! The book was to be 1,2 something that we should have in common. I have so greatly enjoyed its composition that the task has rid me of any thought of the irritations which age will bring, and has even made the condition seem agreeable and attractive.
No praise, then, is too great for philosophy ! – which enables this period in her obedient disciples’ lives, like every other period, to be lived without anxiety.
Other aspects of philosophical study I have dealt with elsewhere, at length – and I shall do so again on other occasions – whereas the book I am sending you now will concentrate on old age. When Aristo of Chios1 wrote on this theme, he made Tithonus his spokesman. I have not followed his lead because a myth seems too insubstantial. I have instead put my sentiments in the mouth of the aged Marcus Porcius Cato (the Censor), so that his personality may confer authority upon the discussion. At Cato’s house, I shall imagine Gaius Laelius and Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus. They are expressing wonder at the ease with which their host endures being old, and Cato explains why this is. And if his arguments may seem to show greater learning than was habitually displayed in the books he wrote, the credit must go to Greek literature – which he is known to have studied extensively in his last years.
That is all I shall say at this point. From now on you will hear my views on old age from Cato’s lips.