strength may be recruited, not
opprest. Nor, indeed, must the body alone be supported, but the mind
and the soul much more; for these also, unless you drop oil on them as
on a lamp, are extinguished by old age. And our bodies, indeed, by
weariness and exercise, become opprest; but our minds are rendered
buoyant by exercise. For as to those of whom Caecilius speaks, "foolish
old men," fit characters for comedy, by these he denotes the
credulous, the forgetful, the dissolute, which are the faults not of
old age, but of inactive, indolent, drowsy old age. As petulance and
lust belong to the young more than to the old, yet not to all young
men, but to those who are not virtuous; so that senile folly, which is
commonly called dotage, belongs to weak old men, and not to all. Four
stout sons, five daughters, so great a family, and such numerous
dependents, did Appius manage, altho both old and blind; for he kept
his mind intent like a bow, nor did he languidly sink under the weight
of old age. He retained not only authority, but also command, over
his family; the slaves feared him; the children respected him; all
held him dear; there prevailed in that house the manners and good
discipline of our fathers. For on this condition is old age honored if
it maintains itself, if it keeps up its own right, if it is
subservient to no one, if even to its last breath it exercises control
over its dependents. For, as I like a young man in whom there is
something of the old, so I like an old man in whom there is something
of the young; and he who follows this maxim, in body will possibly be
an old man, but he will never be an old man in mind.

I have in hand my seventh book of Antiquities; I am collecting all the
materials of our early history; of all the famous causes which I have
defended; I am now completing the pleadings;[9] I am employed on a law
of augurs, of pontiffs, of citizens. I am much engaged also in Greek
literature, and, after the manner of the Pythagoreans, for the purpose
of exercising my memory, I call to mind in the evening what I have
said, heard, and done on each day. These are the exercises of the
understanding; these are the race-courses of the mind; while I am
perspiring and toiling over these, I do not greatly miss my strength
of body. I attend my friends, I come into the senate very often, and
spontaneously bring forward things much and long thought of, and I
maintain them by strength of mind, not of body; and if