indeed, is worthy of honor only when it defends itself, when it asserts its rights, when it comes into bondage to no one, when even to the last breath it maintains its sway over those of its own family. Still farther, as I hold in high esteem the youth who has in him some of the qualities of age, I have like esteem for the old man in whom there is something of the youth, which he who cultivates may be old in body, but will never be so in mind. I have now in hand the seventh Book of my History.[1] I am collecting all the memorials of earlier times. I am just now writing out, as my memory serves me, my speeches in the celebrated cases that I have defended. I am treating of augural, pontifical, civil law. I read a good deal of Greek. At the same time, in order to exercise my memory in the method prescribed by Pythagoras,[2] I recall every evening whatever I have said, heard, or done during the day. These are the exercises of the mind; these, the race-ground of the intellect. In these pursuits while I labor vigorously, I hardly feel my loss of bodily strength. I appear in court in behalf of my friends. I often take my place in the Senate,
- ↑ Latin, Origines. This was an historical work in seven Books, some fragments of which are extant. It purported to give the history of Rome from its foundation to the author's own time. In the seventh Book his own speeches had their proper place. The second and third Books gave the history of the origin of the Italian towns. Hence the name of the entire work.
- ↑ Prescribed by him, however, not for mnemonic, but for moral uses.
