What then? someone may say; do we not hear a soldier say in a comedy My white hair grants me henceforth full discharge? Kock, Com. Att. Frag. iii. p. 451, no. 226. Poet and play are unknown. Certainly, my friend, for the servants of Ares should properly be young and in their prime, as practising war and war’s practices baneful, Homer, Il. viii. 453. in which even if an old mans hoary hair is covered by a helmet, Yet are his limbs by unseen weight oppressed, Homer, Il. xix. 165. and though the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak; but from the servants of Zeus, god of the Council, the Market-place, and the State, we do not demand deeds of hands and feet, but of counsel, foresight, and speech - not such speech as makes a roar and a clamour among the people, but that which contains good sense, prudent thought, and conservatism; and in these the hoary hair and the wrinkles that people make fun of appear as witnesses to a man’s experience and strengthen him by the aid of persuasiveness and the reputation for character. For youth is meant to obey and old age to rule, and that State is most secure Where old men’s counsels and the young men’s spears Hold highest rank Pindar, Bergk-Schroeder, p. 467, no. 199 (213). ; and the lines First he established a council of old men lofty in spirit Hard by the vessel of Nestor Homer, Il. ii. 53. meet with wonderful approval. And therefore the Pythian Apollo named the aristocracy which was coupled with the kingship at Lacedaemon Ancients ( Presbygeneas ), and Lycurgus named it Elders ( Gerontes ), and the council at Rome is still called the Senate ( body of elders ). And just as the law places diadem and crown upon the head, so nature puts grey hair upon it as an honourable symbol of the high dignity of leadership. And the words geras ( honour, also reward ) and gerairein ( venerate ) retain, I believe, a meaning of veneration derived from old men ( gerontes ), not because they bathe in warm water or sleep in softer beds than other men, but because they hold royal rank in the States in accordance with their wisdom, the proper and perfect fruit of which, as of a late-bearing plant, nature produces after long effort in old age. At any rate when the king of kings prayed to the gods: Would that I had ten such advisers among the Achaeans Homer, Il. ii. 372. Agamemnon is the speaker. as Nestor was, not one of the martial and might-breathing Achaeans found fault with him, but all conceded that, not in civil affairs alone, but in war as well, old age has great weight; For one wise counsel over many hands Is victor, Euripides, Antiopê , Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. p. 419, no. 200. and one sensible and persuasive expression of opinion accomplishes the greatest and most excellent public measures. Certainly the office of king, the most perfect and the greatest of all political offices, has the most cares, labours, and occupations. At any rate Seleucus, they used to tell us, constantly repeated that if people in general knew what a task it was merely to read and write so many letters, they would not even pick up a crown that had been thrown away. And Philip, we are told, when he heard, as he was on the point of encamping in a suitable place, that there was no fodder for the beasts of draught, exclaimed: O Heracles, what a life is mine, if I must needs live to suit the convenience even of my asses! There is, then, a time to advise even a king when he has become an old man to lay aside the crown and the purple, to assume a cloak and a crook, and to live in the country, lest it be thought, if he continues to rule when his hair is grey, that he is busying himself with superfluous and unseasonable occupations. But if it is not fitting to say this about an Agesilaüs or a Numa or a Dareius, let us neither remove a Solon from the Council of the Areopagus nor a Cato from the Senate on account of old age, and let us not advise a Pericles to leave the democracy in the lurch. For anyhow it is absurd that a man when he is young should prance (about upon the platform and then, after having poured out upon the public all those insane ambitions and impulses, when the age arrives which brings wisdom through experience, should give up public life and desert it like a woman of whom he has had all the use. Aesop’s fox, we recall, would not let the hedgehog, although he offered to do so, remove the ticks from her: For if you remove these, she said, which are full, other hungry ones will come on ; and the State which always discards the old men must necessarily be filled up with young men who are thirsty for reputation and power, but do not possess a statesmanlike mind. And where should they acquire it, if they are Rot to be pupils or even spectators of any old man active in public life? Treatises on navigation do not make ship-captains of men who have not often stood upon the stern and been spectators of the struggles against wind and wave and wintry night, When yearning for the twin Tyndaridae Castor and Pollux, who were supposed to aid sailors. Doth strike the sailor driven o’er the sea; Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Graec. iii. p. 719, no. 91. and can a youngster manage a State rightly and persuade an assembly or a senate after reading a book or writing in the Lyceum a school exercise about political science, if he has not stood many a time by the driver’s rein or the pilot’s steering-oar, Aristophanes, Knights , 542, uses the metaphor of the pilot, though with a different application. leaning this way and that with the politicians and generals as they contend with the aid of their experiences and their fortunes, thus amid dangers and troubles acquiring the knowledge they need? No one can assert that. But if for no other reason, old men should engage in affairs of State for the education and instruction of the young. For just as the teachers of letters or of music themselves first play the notes or read to their pupils and thus show them the way, so the statesman, not only by speech or by making suggestions from outside, but by action in administering the affairs of the community, directs the young man, whose character is moulded and formed by the old man’s actions and words alike. For he who is trained in this way - not in the wrestling-schools or training-rings of masters of the arts of graceful speech where no danger is, but, we may say, in truly Olympic and Pythian games, - Keeps pace as foal just weaned runs with the mare, Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Graec. ii. p. 445, no. 5 (6). to quote Simonides. So Aristeides ran in the footsteps of Cleisthenes and Cimon in those of Aristeides, Phocion followed Chabrias, Cato had Fabius Maximus as his guide, Pompey had Sulla, and Polybius had Philopoemen; for these men, coming when young in contact with older men and then, as it were, sprouting up beside them and growing up with their policies and actions, gained experience and familiarity with public affairs and at the same time reputation and power. Aeschines the Academic philosopher, when some sophists declared that he pretended to have been a pupil of Carneades although he had not been so, replied, Oh, but I did listen to Carneades at the time when his speech had given up noisy declamation on account of his old age and had reduced itself to what is useful and of common interest. But the public activity of old men is not only in speech but also in actions, free from ostentation and desire for popularity, and, therefore, just as they say that the iris, when it has grown old and has blown off its fetid and foul smell, acquires a more fragrant odour, so no opinion or counsel of old men is turbulent, but they are all weighty and composed. Therefore it is also for the sake of the young, as has been said above, that old men ought to engage in affairs of State, in order that, as Plato said Plato, Laws , 773 d. He refers to Dionysus (wine) and Poseidon (water). in reference to pure wine mixed with water, that an insane god was made reasonable when chastised by another who was sober, so the discretion of old age, when mixed in the people with boiling youth drunk with reputation and ambition, may remove that which is insane and too violent. But apart from all this, they are mistaken who think that engaging in public affairs is, like going to sea or to a war, something undertaken for an object distinct from itself and ceasing when that object is attained; for engaging in public affairs is not a special service which is ended when the need ends, but is a way of life of a tamed social animal Cf. Aristotle, Politics , i. 2, where man is called a social ( πολιτικόν ) animal. living in an organized society, intended by nature to live throughout its allotted time the life of a citizen and in a manner devoted to honour and the welfare of mankind. Therefore it is fitting that men should be engaged, not merely have ceased to be engaged, in affairs of State, just as it is fitting that they should be, not have ceased to be, truthful, that they should do, not have ceased to do, right, and that they should love, not have ceased to love, their native land and their fellow-citizens. For to these things nature leads, and these words she suggests to those who are not entirely ruined by idleness and effeminacy: Your sire begets you of great worth to men Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. p. 917, adespota no. 410 quoted also Moralia , 1099 a. and Let us ne’er cease from doing mortals good. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. p. 917, adespota no. 410 quoted also Moralia , 1099 a.