Page:Cicero - de senectute (on old age) - Peabody 1884.djvu/87

Rh till the old man was seated. When they were applauded for this in every possible way by the whole assembly, one of them said, "The Athenians know what is right, but will not do it." Of many excellent usages in our college of Augurs none deserves higher commendation than this,—that the members give their opinions in the order of age, the elder members taking precedence, not only of those who have held higher official rank, but even of those who for the time being are at the head of the state. What pleasures of body are then to be compared with the prerogatives of authority? Those who have borne these honors with due dignity seem to me to have thoroughly performed their part in the drama of life, and not, like untrained players, to have broken down in the last act.—But it is said that old men are morose, and uneasy, and irritable, and hard to please; and were we to make the inquiry, we might be told that they are avaricious. But these are faults of character, not of age. Yet moroseness and the faults that I named with it have some excuse, sufficient, not indeed to justify, but to extenuate them. Old men imagine that they are scorned, despised, mocked. Then, too, with a frail body, any cause of vexation is felt more keenly. But such infirmities of temper are