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And to this bears witness that saying of the great Epaminondas to the Thebans, when in the winter the Arcadians requested them to come into their city and dwell in their houses,—which he would not permit, but said to them: Now the Arcadians admire you, seeing you exercise yourselves, and wrestle in your armor; but if they shall behold you sitting by the fire and pounding of beans, they will think you to differ nothing from themselves. So an old man speaking to the people, acting in the state, and honored, is a venerable spectacle; but he who wastes away his days in his bed, or sits discoursing of trivial matters and wiping his nose in the corner of a gallery, easily renders himself an object of contempt. And this indeed Homer himself teaches those who hear him aright. For Nestor, who fought before Troy, was highly venerated and esteemed; whilst Peleus and Laertes, who stayed at home, were slighted and despised. For the habit of prudence does not continue the same in those who give themselves to their ease; but by little and little diminishes and is dissolved by sloth, as always requiring some exercise of the thought to rouse up and purify the rational, active faculty of the soul. For, Like glittering brass, by being used it shines.Sophocles, Frag. 779. For the infirmity of the body does not so much incommode the administrations of those who, almost spent with age, go to the tribune or to the council of war, as they are advantageous by the caution and prudence which attend their years, and keep them from thrusting themselves precipitately into affairs, abused partly by want of experience and partly by vain-glory, and hurrying the people along with them by violence, like a sea agitated by the winds; causing them mildly and moderately to manage those with whom they have to do.
