1Not even now do I miss the strength of a young man — for that was the second heading on the faults of old age — any more than as a young man I missed the strength of a bull or an elephant. 1What one has, one ought to use, and whatever one does, to do it in proportion to one's strength. 1For what utterance can be more contemptible than that of Milo of Croton? 1When he was already an old man and saw athletes training on the track, he is said to have looked at his own arms and said, weeping, 'But these are already dead.' 1Not so much these, indeed, as you yourself, you trifler, for you were never made famous by your own self, but by your lungs and your arms.
1Sextus Aelius said nothing of the kind, nor Tiberius Coruncanius many years before, nor Publius Crassus lately, men by whom laws were laid down for the citizens, and whose wisdom was carried on right up to their last breath. 28The orator, I fear, may grow feeble with old age, for his task is one not of talent alone but also of lungs and strength. 28Yet that musical ring in the voice even gains brilliance, somehow or other, in old age, and I have not yet lost it, and you see my years. 28But still a quiet and relaxed style of speech befits an old man, and very often the composed and gentle speech of an eloquent old man wins a hearing for itself; and if you cannot carry this out yourself, you can still give instruction to Scipio and Laelius.
28For what is more pleasant than old age surrounded by the eager attentions of youth? 29Or do we not leave old age even the strength to teach young men, to train them, to equip them for every task of duty? 29And what work can be more glorious than that? 29To me, indeed, both Gnaeus and Publius Scipio and your two grandfathers, Lucius Aemilius and Publius Africanus, seemed fortunate in their escort of noble young men; nor should any teachers of the liberal arts be thought other than happy, even though their strength has grown old and failed. 29And yet that very failing of strength is brought about more often by the vices of youth than by old age; 29for a lustful and intemperate youth hands on a worn-out body to old age.
30Cyrus, indeed, in Xenophon, in the speech he made when dying, at a very great age, says that he never felt that his old age had become any weaker than his youth had been. 30I remember, when I was a boy, Lucius Metellus, who, having been made chief pontiff four years after his second consulship, presided over that priesthood for twenty-two years, being of such good strength in the last period of his life that he did not miss his youth. 30There is no need for me to speak about myself, although that is indeed characteristic of an old man and is allowed to my age.