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Now as for those who pretend weakness and impotency, they accuse rather sickness and infirmity of body than old age; for there are many young men sickly, and many old ones lusty; so that we are not to remove from the administration of the state aged, but impotent persons; nor call to it such as are young, but such as are able. For Aridaeus was young, and Antigonus old; and yet the latter conquered in a manner all Asia, whereas the former, as if he had only been to make a dumb show with his guards upon a stage, was but the bare name of a king, a puppet always mocked by those who were in power. As therefore he would be a very fool that should think Prodicus the sophister and Philetas the poet—men indeed young, but withal weak, sickly, and almost always confined by their infirmity to their beds—fit to be concerned in the management of the state; so he would be no less absurd that should hinder such vigorous old men as were Phocion, Masinissa the Libyan, and Cato the Roman, from governing or leading forth of armies. For Phocion, when the Athenians were at an unseasonable time hurrying to war, made proclamation that all who were not above sixty years of age should take up arms and follow him; and when they were offended at it, he said, There is no hardship put upon you, for I, who am above fourscore years old, will be your general. And Polybius relates, that Masinissa, dying at the age of ninety years, left behind him a young son of his own begetting, not above four years old; and that, having a little before been in a great fight, he was the next day seen at the door of his tent eating a dirty piece of bread, and that he said to those who wondered at it, that he did this.... For brass by use and wear its gleam displays, But every house untenanted decays;Sophocles, Frag. 779. as Sophocles has it; we all say the same of that light and lustre of the soul, by which we reason, remember, and think.
