Octogenerians (1-5)

At the behest of a dream, illustrious Quintillus, I make you a present of the “Octogenarians.” I had the dream and told my friends of it long since, when you were christening your second child. At the time, however, not being able to understand what the god meant by commanding me to “present you the octogenarians,” I merely offered a prayer that you and your children might live very long, thinking that this would benefit not only the whole human race but, more than anyone else, me in person and all my kin; for I too, it seemed, had a blessing predicted for me by the god.

But as I thought the matter over by myself, I hit upon the idea that very likely in giving such an order to a literary man, the gods were commanding him to present you something from his profession. Therefore, on this your birthday, which I thought the most auspicious occasion, I give you the men who are related to have attained great age with a sound mind and a perfect body. Some profit may accrue to you from the treatise in two ways: on the one hand, encouragement and good hopes of being able to live long yourself, and on the other hand, instruction by examples, if you observe that it is the men who have paid most

Nestor, you know, the wisest of the Achaeans, outlasted three genera- tions, Homer says: [*] and he tells us that he was splendidly trained. in mind and in body. ‘Likewise Teiresias the seer outlasted six generations, tragedy says:[*] and one may well believe that a man consecrated to the gods, following a simpler diet, lives very long.

Moreover, it is related that, owing to their diet, whole castes of men live long like the so-called scribes in Egypt, the story-tellers in Syria and Arabia, and the so-called Brahmins in India, men scrupulously attentive to philosophy. Also the so-called Magi, a prophetic caste consecrated to the gods, dwelling among the Persians, the Parthians, the Bactrians, the Chorasmians, the Arians, the Sacae, the Medes and many other barbarian peoples, are strong and long-lived, on account of practising magic, for they diet very scrupulously.

Indeed, there are even whole nations that are very long-lived, like the Seres, who are said to live three hundred years: some attribute their old age to the climate, others to the soil and still others to their diet, for they say that this entire nation drinks nothing but water. The people of Athos are also said to live a hundred and thirty years, and it is reported that the Chaldeans live more than a hundred, using barley bread to preserve the sharpness of their eyesight. They say, too, that on account of this diet their other faculties are more vigorous than those of the rest of mankind.