Page:Cicero - de senectute (on old age) - Peabody 1884.djvu/64

26 which cannot be borne without strength. Therefore we are compelled to do, not what we are unable to do, but even less than we can do. Is it said that many old men are so feeble that they are incapable of any duty or charge whatsoever? This, I answer, is not an inability peculiar to old age, but common to bodily infirmity at whatever period of life. How feeble, Scipio, was that son of Africanus who adopted you! But for this, he would have shone second in his family as a luminary of the state, adding to his father's greatness a more ample intellectual culture. What wonder, then, is it that old men are sometimes feeble, when it is a misfortune which even the young cannot always escape? Old age, Laelius and Scipio, should be resisted, and its deficiencies should be supplied by faithful effort. Old age, like disease, should be fought against. Care must be bestowed upon the health; moderate exercise must be taken; the food and drink should be sufficient to recruit the strength, and not in such excess as to become oppressive. Nor yet should the body alone be sustained in vigor, but much more the powers of mind; for these too, unless you pour oil into the lamp,