old man can have no such hope. The hope, at any rate, is unwise; for what is more foolish than to take things uncertain for certain, false for true? Is it urged that the old man has absolutely nothing to hope? For that very reason he is in a better condition than the young man, because what the youth hopes he has already obtained. The one wishes to live long; the other has lived long. Yet, ye good gods, what is there in man's life that is long? Grant the very latest term of life; suppose that we expect to reach the age of the king of Tartessus.[1] For it is on record that a certain Arganthonius, who reigned eighty years in Gades, lived to the age of a hundred and twenty. But to me no life seems long that has any end. For when the end comes, then that which has passed has flowed away; that alone remains which you have won by virtue and by a good life. Hours, indeed, and days, and months, and years, glide by, nor does the past ever return, nor yet can it be known what is to come. Each one should be content with such time as it is allotted to him to live. In order to give pleasure to the audience, the actor need not finish
- ↑ A region in the southwest corner of Spain, supposed, not unreasonably, to be the Tarshish of the Hebrew Scriptures. Its chief city was Gades (a plural form, including adjacent islands), or Gadis, known in modern geography by the slightly altered name of Cadiz. This city was the seat of a very ancient Phoenician colony. The longevity of Arganthonius is mentioned by several writers, who do not agree as to his age. Pliny says that he lived a hundred and thirty years.
