II. Scipio. I often express, Marcus Cato, in conversation with Caius Laelius, now present, my admiration of your surpassing and consummate wisdom, in other matters indeed, but especially because I have never perceived that old age was grievous to you, though to old men in general it is so hateful that they account themselves as bearing a burden heavier than Aetna.[1]
Cato. You seem, Scipio and Laelius, to admire what has been to me by no means difficult. For those who have in themselves no resources for a good and happy life, every period of life is burdensome; but to those who seek all goods from within, nothing which comes in the course of nature can seem evil. Under this head a place especially belongs to old age, which all desire to attain, yet find fault with it when they have reached it. Such is the inconsistency and perverseness of human folly. They say that age creeps upon them faster than they had thought possible. In the first place, who forced them to make this false estimate? In the next place, how could old age be less burdensome to them if it came on their eight-hundredth year than it is in their eightieth? For the time past, however long, when it had elapsed, could furnish no comfort to soothe a foolish old age. If, then, you are wont to admire my wisdom,—would that it
