Whether an Aged Man Ought to Meddle in State Affairs. (14-16)

But besides all this, they are under a mistake who think that, as sailing and going to the wars, so also acting in the state is done for a certain end, and ceases when that is obtained. For the managing of state affairs is not a ministry which has profit for its end; but the life of gentle, civil, and sociable animals, framed by nature to live civilly, honestly, and for the benefit of mankind. Wherefore it is fit he should be such a one as that it may be said of him, he is employed in state affairs, and not he has been so employed; as also, that he is true, and not he has been true; he acts justly, and not he has acted justly; and that he loves his country and fellow-citizens, and not he has loved them. For to these things does Nature direct, and these voices does she sound to those who are not totally corrupted with sloth and effeminacy:

Thy father has engendered thee a man,

Worthy of much esteem with men:

Let us not cease to benefit mankind.

Now as for those who pretend weakness and impotency, they accuse rather sickness and infirmity of body than old age; for there are many young men sickly, and many old ones lusty; so that we are not to remove from the administration of the state aged, but impotent persons; nor call to it such as are young, but such as are able. For Aridaeus was young, and Antigonus old; and yet the latter conquered in a manner all Asia, whereas the former, as if he had only been to make a dumb show with his guards upon a stage, was but the bare name of a king, a puppet always mocked by those who were in power. As therefore he would be a very fool that should think Prodicus the sophister and Philetas the poet—men indeed young, but withal weak, sickly, and almost always confined by their infirmity to their beds—fit to be concerned in the management of the state; so he would be no less absurd that should hinder such vigorous old men as were Phocion, Masinissa the Libyan, and Cato the Roman, from governing or leading forth of armies. For Phocion, when the Athenians were at an unseasonable time hurrying to war, made proclamation that all who were not above sixty years of age should take up arms and follow him; and when they were offended at it, he said, There is no hardship put upon you, for I, who am above fourscore years old, will be your general. And Polybius relates, that Masinissa, dying at the age of ninety years, left behind him a young son of his own begetting, not above four years old; and that, having a little before been in a great fight, he was the next day seen at the door of his tent eating a dirty piece of bread, and that he said to those who wondered at it, that he did this....

For brass by use and wear its gleam displays,

But every house untenanted decays;

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