Plutarch, An seni respublica gerenda sit, Harold North Fowler (Translator), 1

Search the Perseus Catalog for:

← Previous Next →

[1] We are well aware, Euphanes, that you, who are an outspoken admirer of Pindar, often repeat, as well and convincingly expressed, these lines of his,

When contests are before us, an excuse

Casts down our manhood into abysmal gloom.¹

But inasmuch as our shrinking from the contests of political life and our various infirmities furnish innumerable excuses and offer us finally, like the move from the sacred line² in draughts, old age; and since it is more especially because of this last that these excuses seem to blunt and baffle our ambition and begin to convince us that there is a fitting limit of age, not only to the athlete’s career, but to the statesman’s as well, I therefore think it my duty to discuss with you the thoughts which I am continually going over in my own mind concerning the activity of old men in public affairs, that neither of us shall desert the long companionship in the journey which we have thus far made together, and neither shall renounce public life, which is, as it were, a familiar friend of our own years, only to change and adopt another which is unfamiliar and for becoming familiar with which and making it our own time does not suffice, but that we shall abide by the choice which we made in the beginning when we fixed the same end and aim for life as for honourable life - unless indeed we were in the short time remaining to us to prove that the long time we have lived was spent in vain and for no honourable purpose.

For the fact is that tyranny, as someone said to Dionysius, is not an honourable winding-sheet³; no, and in his case its continuance made his unjust monarchy a more complete misfortune. And at a later time, at Corinth, when Diogenes saw the son of Dionysius no longer a tyrant but a private citizen, he very aptly said, How little you deserve your present fate, Dionysius! For you ought not to be living here with us in freedom and without fear, but you should pass your life to old age over yonder walled up in the royal palace, as your father did, But a democratic and legal government, by a man who has accustomed himself to be ruled for the public good no less than to rule, gives to his death the fair fame won in life as in very truth an honourable winding-sheet; for this, as Simonides⁴ says,

last of all descends below the ground,

except in the case of those whose love of mankind and of honour dies first, and whose zeal for what is noble fails before their desire for material necessities, as if the active and divine qualities of the soul were less enduring than the passive and physical. And it is not right to say, or to accept when said by others, that the only time when we do not grow weary is when we are making money. On the contrary, we ought even to emend the saying of Thucydides⁵ and believe, not only that the love of honour never grows old, but that the same is even truer of the spirit of service to the community and the State, which persists to the end even in ants and bees. For no one ever saw a bee that had on account of age become a drone, as some people claim that public men, when they have passed their prime, should sit down in retirement at home and be fed, allowing their worth in action to be extinguished by idleness as iron is destroyed by rust. Cato,⁶ for example, used to say that we ought not voluntarily to add to the many evils of its own which belong to old age the disgrace that comes from baseness. And of the many forms of baseness none disgraces an aged man more than idleness, cowardice, and slackness, when he retires from public offices to the domesticity befitting women or to the country where he oversees the harvesters and the women who work as gleaners.

But Oedipus, where is he and his riddles famed?⁷

For as to beginning public life in old age and not before (as they say that Epimenides slept while a youth and awoke as an aged man after fifty years), and then, after casting off such a long-familiar state of repose, throwing oneself into strife and timeabsorbing affairs when one is unaccustomed to them and without practice and is conversant neither with public affairs nor with public men; that might give a fault-finder a chance to quote the Pythia and say, Too late you have come seeking for office and public leadership, and you are knocking unseasonably at the door of the praetorium, like some ignorant man who comes by night in festive condition or a stranger exchanging, not your place of residence or your country, but your mode of life for one in which you have had no experience. For the saying of Simonides, the State teaches a man,⁸ is true for those who still have time to unlearn what they have been taught and to learn a new subject which can hardly be acquired through many struggles and labours, even if it encounters at the proper time a nature capable of bearing toil and misery with ease. Such are the remarks which one may believe are fittingly addressed to a man who begins public life in his old age.

An seni respublica gerenda sit. Plutarch. Harold North Fowler (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1936.

Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.

Funding provided by The National Endowment for the Humanities.

Current edition Perseus

Whether an Old Man Should Engage in Public Affairs (English) (Plutarch. Moralia, Vol. X. Fowler, Harold North, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1936 (printing).)

Editions (1)

Εἰ πρεσβυτέρῳ πολιτευτέον Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarchi Chaeronensis Moralia, Vol V. Vernardakēs, Grēgorios N., editor. Leipzig. Teubner, 1893.) — 1 focus

[1] 783b ὅτι μέν, ὦ Εὔφανες, ἐπαινέτης ὢν Πινδάρου πολλάκις ἔχεις διὰ στόματος ὡς εἰρημένον εὖ καὶ πιθανῶς ὑπʼ αὐτοῦ 5

τιθεμένων ἀγώνων πρόφασις

ἀρετὰν² ἐς³ αἰπὺν ἔβαλε σκότον

οὐκ ἀγνοοῦμεν. ἐπειδὴ δὲ πλείστας αἱ πρὸς τοὺς πολιτικοὺς ἀγῶνας ἀποκνήσεις καὶ μαλακίαι προφάσεις ἔχουσαι τελευταίαν ὥσπερ τὴν ἀφʼ ἱερᾶς⁴ ἐπάγουσιν 10 ἡμῖν τὸ γῆρας, καὶ μάλιστα δὴ τούτῳ τὸ φιλότιμον ἀμβλύνειν καὶ δυσωπεῖν δοκοῦσαι πείθουσιν εἶναί τινα πρέπουσαν οὐκ ἀθλητικῆς μόνον 783c ἀλλὰ καὶ πολιτικῆς περιόδου κατάλυσιν οἴομαι δεῖν ἃ πρὸς ἐμαυτὸν ἑκάστοτε λογίζομαι καὶ πρὸς σὲ 15 διελθεῖν περὶ τῆς πρεσβυτικῆς πολιτείας· ὅπως; μηδέτερος ἀπολείψει τὴν μακρὰν συνοδίαν μέχρι δεῦρο κοινῇ προερχομένην μηδὲ τὸν πολιτικὸν βίον ὥσπερ ἡλικιώτην καὶ συνήθη φίλον ἀπορρίψας μεταβαλεῖται⁵ πρὸς ἄλλον ἀσυνήθη καὶ χρόνον οὐκ ἔχοντα 20 συνήθη γενέσθαι καὶ οἰκεῖον, ἀλλʼ ἐμμενοῦμεν οἷς ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς προειλόμεθα, ταὐτὸ τοῦ ζῆν καὶ τοῦ ἀν σενι ρεσπιιβλιξα ʽʼἐερενδα σιτ. καλῶς ζῆν ποιησάμενοι πέρας εἴ γε δὴ μὴ μέλλοιμεν ἐν βραχεῖ τῷ λειπομένῳ τὸν πολὺν ἐλέγγειν χρόνον, 783d · ὡς ἐπʼ οὐδενὶ καλῷ μάτην ἀνηλωμένον. οὐ γὰρ ἡ τυραννίς, ὥς τις εἶπε Διονυσίῳ, καλὸν ἐντάφιον⁶· 5 ἀλλʼ ἐκείνῳ γε⁷ τὴν μοναρχίαν μετὰ τῆς ἀδικίας τὸ γε μὴ παύσασθαι συμφορὰν τελεωτέραν ἐποίησε. καὶ καλῶς⁸ Διογένης ὕστερον ἐν Κορίνθῳ τὸν υἱὸν αὐτοῦ θεασάμενος, ἰδιώτην ἐκ τυράννου γεγενημένον ὡς ἀναξίως ἔφη Διονύσιε, σεαυτοῦ πράττεις· οὐ 10 γὰρ ἐνταῦθά σε μεθʼ ἡμῶν ἔδει ζῆν ἐλευθέρως καὶ ἀδεῶς, ἀλλʼ ἐκεῖ τοῖς τυραννείοις ἐγκατῳκοδομημένον ὥσπερ ὁ πατὴρ ἄχρι γήρως ἐγκαταβιῶσαι πολιτεία δὲ δημοκρατικὴ καὶ νόμιμος ἀνδρὸς εἰθισμένου παρέχειν αὑτὸν οὐχ ἧττον ἀρχόμενον ὠφελίμως 15 783e ἢ ἄρχοντα καλὸν ἐντάφιον ὡς ἀληθῶς τὴν ἀπὸ τοῦ βίου δόξαν τῷ θανάτῳ προστίθησι τοῦτο γάρ

ἔσχατον δύεται κατὰ γᾶς

⁹

ὥς φησι Σιμωνίδης, πλὴν ὧν προαποθνήσκει τὸ φιλάνθρωπον καὶ φιλόκαλον καὶ προαπαυδᾷ τῆς 20 τῶν ἀναγκαίων ἐπιθυμίας ὁ τῶν καλῶν ζῆλος, ὡς τὰ πρακτικὰ μέρη καὶ θεῖα τῆς ψυχῆς ἐξιτηλότερα τῶν παθητικῶν καὶ σωματικῶν ἐχούσης· ὅπερ¹⁰ οὐδὲ λέγειν καλὸν οὐδʼ ἀποδέχεσθαι τῶν¹¹ λεγόντων, ὡς 783f κερδαίνοντες μόνον οὐ κοπιῶμεν ἀλλὰ καὶ τὸ τοῦ 25 Θουκυδίδου παράγειν ἐπὶ τὸ βέλτιον, μὴ τὸ φιλότιμον ἀγήρων¹² μόνον ἡγουμένους, ἀλλὰ μᾶλλον τὸ κοινωνικὸν καὶ πολιτικόν, ὃ καὶ μύρμηξιν ἄχρι τέλους παραμένει καὶ μελίτταις· οὐδεὶς γὰρ πώποτʼ¹³ εἶδεν¹⁴ ὑπὸ γήρως κηφῆνα γενομένην μέλιτταν, ὥσπερ 5 ἔνιοι τοὺς πολιτικοὺς ἀξιοῦσιν, ὅταν παρακμάσωσιν, οἴκοι σιτουμένους καθῆσθαι καὶ ἀποκεῖσθαι, καθάπερ ἰῷ σίδηρον ὑπʼ ἀργίας τὴν πρακτικὴν ἀρετὴν 784a σβεννυμένην περιορῶντας. ὁ γὰρ Κάτων¹⁵ ἔλεγεν, ὅτι πολλὰς ἰδίας ἔχοντι τῷ γήρᾳ κῆρας οὐ δεῖ τὴν 10 ἀπὸ τῆς κακίας ἑκόντας ἐπάγειν αἰσχύνην· πολλῶν δὲ κακιῶν οὐδεμιᾶς ἧττον ἀπραξία καὶ δειλία καὶ μαλακία καταισχύνουσιν ἄνδρα πρεσβύτην, ἐκ πολιτικῶν ἀρχείων καταδυόμενον εἰς οἰκουρίαν γυναικῶν ἢ κατʼ ἀγρὸν ἐφορῶντα καλαμητρίδας¹⁶ καὶ 15 θεριστάς·

ὁ δʼ Οἰδίπους ποῦ καὶ τὰ κλείνʼ αἰνίγματα

¹⁷

τὸ μὲν γὰρ ἐν γήρᾳ πολιτείας ἄρχεσθαι καὶ μὴ πρότερον, ὥσπερ¹⁸ Ἐπιμενίδην λέγουσι κατακοιμηθέντα νεανίαν ἐξεγρέσθαι¹⁹ γέροντα μετὰ πεντήκοντα 20 784b ἔτη· εἶτα τὴν²⁰ οὕτω μακρὰν καὶ συμβεβιωκυῖαν²¹ ἡσυχίαν ἀποθέμενον ἐμβαλεῖν ἑαυτὸν εἰς ἀγῶνας καὶ ἀσχολίας, ἀήθη καὶ ἀγύμναστον ὄντα καὶ μήτε πράγμασιν ἐνωμιληκότα πολιτικοῖς μήτʼ ἀνθρώποις, ἴσως ἂν αἰτιωμένῳ τινὶ παράσχοι τὸ τῆς Πυθίας εἰπεῖν ὄψʼ²² ἦλθες ἀρχὴν καὶ δημαγωγίαν διζήμενος, καὶ παρʼ ὥραν στρατηγίου κόπτεις θύραν, ὥσπερ τις ἀτεχνότερος²³ ὢν νύκτωρ ἐπίκωμος ἀφιγμένος, ἢ ξένος οὐ τόπον οὐδὲ χώραν ἀλλὰ βίον, οὗ μὴ²⁴ πεπείρασαι, 5 μεταλλάττων²⁵. τὸ γάρ πόλις ἄνδρα διδάσκει²⁶ κατὰ Σιμωνίδην ἀληθές ἐστιν ἐπὶ τῶν ἔτι χρόνον ἐχόντων μεταδιδαχθῆναι καὶ μεταμαθεῖν μάθημα, διὰ πολλῶν ἀγώνων καὶ πραγμάτων μόλις 784c ἐκπονούμενον, ἄνπερ ἐν καιρῷ φύσεως ἐπιλάβηται 10 καὶ πόνον ἐνεγκεῖν καὶ δυσημερίαν εὐκόλως δυναμένης. ταῦτα δόξει τις μὴ κακῶς λέγεσθαι πρὸς τὸν ἀρχόμενον ἐν γήρᾳ πολιτείας.

Translations (1)

Whether an Aged Man Ought to Meddle in State Affairs. Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals, Vol. V. Goodwin, William W., editor; Fetherston, F., translator. Boston. Little, Brown, and Company, 1874.) — 1 focus

[1] We are not ignorant, O Euphanes, that you, being an extoller of Pindar, have often in your mouth this saying of his, as a thing well and to the purpose spoken by him:

When as the combat’s once agreed,

Who by pretence seeks to be freed

Obscures his virtue quite.

But since sloth and effeminacy towards civil affairs, having many pretences, do for the last, as if it were drawn from the sacred line, tender to us old age, and thinking by this chiefly to abate and cool our honorable desire, allege that there is a certain decent dissolution, not only of the athletical, but also of the political period, or that there is in the revolution of our years a certain set and limited time, after which it is no more proper for us to employ ourselves in the conduct of the state than in the corporeal and robust exercises of youth; I esteem myself obliged to communicate also to you those sentiments of mine concerning old men’s intermeddling with public matters, which I am ever and anon ruminating on by myself; so that neither of us may desert that long course we have to this day held together, nor rejecting the political life, which has been (as it were) an intimate friend of our own years, change it for another to which we are absolute strangers, and with which we have not time to become acquainted and familiar, but that we may persist in what we had chosen and have been inured to from the beginning, putting the same conclusion to our life and our living honorably; unless we would, by the short space of life we have remaining, disgrace that longer time we have already lived, as having been spent idly and in nothing that is commendable. For tyranny is not an honorable sepulchre, as one told Dionysius, whose monarchy, obtained by and administered with injustice, did by its long continuance bring on him but a more perfect calamity; as Diogenes afterwards let his son know, when, seeing him at Corinth, of a tyrant become a private person, he said to him: How unworthy of thyself, Dionysius, thou actest! For thou oughtest not to live here at liberty and fearless with us, but to spend thy life, as thy father did, even to old age, immured within a tyrannical fortress. But the popular and legal government of a man accustomed to show himself no less profitable in obeying than in commanding is an honorable monument, which really adds to death the glory accruing from life. For this thing, as Simonides says, goes last under the ground; unless it be in those in whom humanity and the love of honor die first, and whose zeal for goodness sooner decays than their covetousness after temporal necessaries; as if the soul had its active and divine parts weaker than those that are passive and corporeal; which it were neither honest to say, nor yet to admit from those who affirm that only of gaining we are never weary. But we ought to turn to a better purpose the saying of Thucydides, and believe that it is not the desire of honor only that never grows old,¹ but much more also the inclinations to society and affection to the state, which continue even in ants and bees to the very last. For never did any one know a bee to become by age a drone, as some think it requisite of statesmen, of whom they expect that, when the vigor of their youth is past, they should retire and sit mouldy at home, suffering their active virtue to be consumed by idleness, as iron is by rust. For Cato excellently well said, that we ought not willingly to add the shame proceeding from vice to those many afflictions which old age has of its own. For of the many vices everywhere abounding, there is none which more disgraces an old man than sloth, delicacy, and effeminateness, when, retiring from the court and council, he mews himself up at home like a woman, or getting into the country oversees his reapers and gleaners; for of such a one we may say,

Where’s Oedipus, and all his famous riddles?

But as for him who should in his old age, and not before, begin to meddle with public matters,—as they say of Epimenides, that having fallen asleep while he was a young man, he awakened fifty years after,—and shaking off so long and so close-sticking a repose, should thrust himself, being unaccustomed and unexercised, into difficult and laborious employs, without having been experienced in civil affairs, or inured to the conversations of men, such a man may perhaps give occasion to one that would reprehend him, to say with the prophetess Pythia:

Thou com’st too late,

seeking to govern in the state and rule the people, and at an unfit hour knocking at the palace gate, like an ill-bred guest coming late to a banquet, or a stranger, thou wouldst change, not thy place or region, but thy life for one of which thou hast made no trial. For that saying of Simonides,

The state instructs a man,

is true in those who apply themselves to the business of the commonweal whilst they have yet time to be taught, and to learn a science which is scarce attained with much labor through many strugglings and negotiations, even when it timely meets with a nature that can easily undergo toil and difficulty. These things seem not to be impertinently spoken against him who in his old age begins to act in the management of the state.

Notes on the current edition

Whether an Old Man Should Engage in Public Affairs

1. Pindar, ed. Bergk-Schroeder, p. 475, no. 228 (252).

2. In one form of the game of draughts the pieces or men stood on lines, of which there were five for each of the two players. One of these, perhaps the middle one, was called the sacred line. The expression as here used seems to be about equivalent to playing the highest trump.

3. Cf. Isocrates, vi. 125.

4. Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Graec. iii. p. 417, no. 63 (104).

5. Thucydides, ii. 44. 4. Pericles, in his great oration over the Athenians who fell in war, says The love of honour alone never grows old, and in the useless time of old age the greatest pleasure is not, as some say, in gaining money, but in being honoured.

6. See Life of Cato the Elder, ix. 10.

7. Euripides, Phoen. 1688. This line is spoken by Antigonê to her blind father Oedipus. Plutarch seems to imply that the old man who enters political life without experience is no better off than was Oedipus, in spite of his famous solution of the riddle of the sphinx, when exposed to the vicissitudes of exile.

8. Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Graec. iii. p. 418, no. 67 (109).

Plutarch An seni respublica gerenda sit 1

Harold North Fowler (Translator)

Search the Perseus Catalog for:

Current edition Perseus

Notes on the current edition

Stable identifiers