consulate devoted his own life for the safety of the state.[1] Fabricius had known Publius Decius, Coruncanius had known him, and from that act of self-sacrifice, as well as from his whole life, they inferred that there is that which in its very nature is beautiful and excellent, which is chosen of one's own free will, and which every truly good man pursues, spurning and despising pleasure. But to what purpose am I saying so much about pleasure? Because it is not only no reproach to old age, but even its highest merit, that it does not severely feel the loss of bodily pleasures. But, you may say, it must dispense with sumptuous feasts, and loaded tables, and oft-drained cups. True, but it equally dispenses with sottishness, and indigestion, and troubled dreams.[2] But if any license is to be given to pleasure, seeing that we do not easily resist its allurements,—insomuch that Plato calls pleasure the bait of evil, because, forsooth, men are caught by it as fishes by the hook,—old age, while it dispenses with excessive feasting, yet can find delight in moderate conviviality. When I was a boy I
- ↑ In the battle of Sentinura, Decius, finding that his soldiers were giving way before the fierce onslaught of the Gauls, called one of the pontifices, and asked him to dictate the proper form of self-devotion, with imprecation upon the enemy. Then, repeating the sacred words, he rushed into the ranks of the enemy and was slain. His army, inspirited by his self-sacrifice, won a splendid victory. His father had, on a previous occasion, devoted himself in like form and manner.
- ↑ Latin, insomniis, which literally means sleeplessness.
