Page:Cicero - de senectute (on old age) - Peabody 1884.djvu/94

56 with their own bodies; not your grandfather, Lucius Paullus, who yielded up his life to expiate his colleague's rashness in the ignominious battle of Cannae; not Marcus Marcellus, whose body not even the most cruel of enemies would suffer to lack the honor of a funeral, —but our legions, often going, as I have said in my History, with a firm and cheerful mind, to scenes of peril whence they expected never to return. Shall well-trained old men, then, fear what youth, and they not only untrained, but even fresh from the country, despise?—In fine, satiety of life, as it seems to me, creates satiety of pursuits of every kind. There are certain pursuits belonging to boyhood; do grown-up young men therefore long for them? There are others appertaining to early youth; are they required in the sedate period of life which we call middle age? This, too, has its own pursuits, and they are not sought in old age. As the pursuits of earlier periods of life fail, so in like manner do those of old age. When this period is reached, satiety of life brings a season ripe for death. XXI. I see, indeed, no reason why I should hesitate to tell you how I myself feel about death; for I seem to have a clearer view of it, the nearer I approach it. My belief is that your father, Pub-