can be more bountiful for use, or more ornate to the eye, than a well-cultivated farm, to the enjoyment of which advanced years not only interpose no hindrance, but hold forth invitation and allurement; for where can old age find more genial warmth of sunshine or fire, or, on the other hand, more cooling shade or more refreshing waters? Let others take for their own delight arms, horses, spears, clubs, balls, swimming-bouts, and foot-races. From their many diversions let them leave for us old men knuckle-bones and dice.[1] Either will serve our turn; but without them old age can hardly be contented.
XVII. Xenophon's books are in many ways very useful, and I beg you to continue to read them. With what a flow of eloquence does he praise agriculture in that book of his about the care of one's estate, called Oeconomicus![2] Still more, to show that there is nothing so worthy of a king as the pursuits of agriculture, he introduces in that book Socrates as telling this story to Critobolus. Cyrus
- ↑ Latin, talos et tesseras. Talus means an ankle- or knuckle-bone. The tali used by the Romans were either the actual bones of animals, or imitations of them in ivory, bronze, or stone. They were employed sometimes as jack-stones or dib-stones are now, in games of skill, and sometimes with the numbers I., II., III., and IV. on their four plane surfaces, in games of chance. The tesserae were cubes of ivory, bone, or wood, like our dice, numbered from one to six.
- ↑ Οἰκονομικός, a work wholly devoted to the care of property.
