in put ourselves on
good terms with pleasure. For the wine-cellar of a good and diligent
master is always well stored; the oil-casks, the pantry also, the
whole farmhouse is richly supplied; it abounds in pigs, kids, lambs,
hens, milk, cheese, honey. Then, too, the countrymen themselves call
the garden a second dessert. And then what gives a greater relish to
these things is that kind of leisure labor, fowling and hunting. Why
should I speak of the greenness of meadows, or the rows of trees, or
the handsome appearance of vineyards and olive grounds? Let me cut the
matter short. Nothing can be either more rich in use or more elegant
in appearance than ground well tilled, to the enjoyment of which old
age is so far from being an obstacle that it is even an invitation and
allurement. For where can that age be better warmed either by basking
in the sun or by the fire, or again be more healthfully refreshed by
shades or waters? Let the young, therefore, keep to themselves their
arms, horses, spears, clubs, tennis-ball, swimmings, and races; to us
old men let them leave out of many amusements the _tali_ and
_tesserae_; and even in that matter it may be as they please, since old
age can be happy without these amusements....

What, therefore, should I fear if after death I am sure either not to
be miserable or to be happy? Altho who is so foolish, even if young,
as to be assured that he will live even till the evening? Nay, that
period of life has many more probabilities of death that ours has;
young men more readily fall into diseases, suffer more severely, are
cured with more difficulty, and therefore few arrive at old age. Did
not this happen so we should live better and more wisely, for
intelligence, and reflection, and judgment reside in old men, and if
there had been none of them, no states could exist at all. But I
return to the imminence of death. What charge is that against old age,
since you see it to be common to youth also? I experienced not only in
the case of my own excellent son, but also in that of your brothers,
Scipio, men plainly marked out for the highest distinction, that death
was common to every period of life. Yet a young man hopes that he will
live a long time, which expectation an old man can not entertain. His
hope is but a foolish one; for what can be more foolish than to regard
uncertainties as certainties, delusions as truths? An old man indeed
has nothing to hope for; yet he is in so much the happ