Publius Scipio,[1] who has just been put at the head of the pontifical college? We have seen all these whom I have named ardently engaged in their old age in their several departments of mental labor. Marcus Cethegus,[2] too, whom Ennius rightly called the "Marrow of Persuasion,"—how zealously did we see him exercise himself when an old man in the art of speaking! What, then, are the pleasures of feasts, and games, and sensual indulgence, compared with these pleasures? Indeed, it is these intellectual pursuits that for wise and well-nurtured men grow with years, so that it is to Solon's honor that he says, in the verse which I just now quoted, that as he advanced in age he learned something every day,—a pleasure of the mind than which there can be none greater.
XV. I pass now to the pleasures of agriculture, which give me inconceivable delight, to which age is no impediment, and in which one makes the nearest approach to the life of the true philosopher. For the farmer keeps an open account with the
- ↑ Publius Cornelius Scipio Corculum, twice Consul, also Censor and pontifex maximus, a man of superior integrity as well as learning, and a strong conservative as to manners and morals. The surname of Corculum, a diminutive of cor, was given him, it is said, for his wisdom, but more probably for the combined qualities of mind and heart that won for him the confidence of the people.
- ↑ He filled successively the highest offices in the republic, and was for many years pontifex maximus. Horace refers to him as valid authority for the use of words that were obsolescent when he wrote.
