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[8]
LAELIUS. What you say is true, Cato; but
perhaps some one may reply that old age seems more
tolerable to you because of your resources, means,
and social position, and that these are advantages
which cannot fall to the lot of many.
CATO. There is something in that objection,
Laelius, but not everything. For example, there is
a story that when, in the course of a quarrel, a certain
Seriphian1 had said to Themistocles, “Your brilliant
reputation is due to your country's glory, not your
own,” Themistocles replied, “True, by Hercules,
I should never have been famous if I had been a
Seriphian, nor you if you had been an Athenian.”
The same may be said of old age; for amid utter
want old age cannot be a light thing, not even to a
wise man; nor to a fool, even amid utmost wealth,
can it be otherwise than burdensome.
1 Seriphos, an island of the Cyclades group, a symbol of smallness and insignificance.
Cicero: De Senectute De Amicitia De Divinatione. With An English Translation. William Armistead Falconer. Cambridge. Harvard University Press; Cambridge, Mass., London, England. 1923.
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