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On Old Age (2020)

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17 pointsstanrivers11 comments

One of the things I like about Cicero is that he shows that event when one is not perfect, you can consistently improve yourself and others. Cicero was kind of a disgusting person, to me - he was very vain, easily influenced by popular opinion and wanting to fit in, wanted to be close to men of power, changed his position on topics based on what was politically convenient, and so on.

But he also was a great thinker. And as he aged, he was forced to confront his own declining capabilities. And I think some regrets around the above "failed" personality traits lead to him realizing that the only way to be "successful" in old age is to have been moral, as your own brain sees it, when you were young.

So it's interesting that so much of how we judge ourselves is based on what we ourselves believe is right and wrong... and you can't escape that, it seems.

> I quit life as if it were an inn, not a home

  ... ex vita ita discedo tamquam ex hospitio, non tamquam e domo.

Nice Latin; that's something I never learned.

As someone who has grown to loathe Cicero (quite unexpectedly) as I’ve studied more Roman history, this explanation rings true to me. Of course the best life is the life he chose, even when it’s transparently untrue. On the one hand I feel a great kinship with the utterly neurotic Cicero of his letters, especially the years in exile (much of which spent eating to excess as he derides here). On the other hand he’s one of the most contemptible and pompous hypocrites in history, and I almost wish only his books survived.

I know, right? I don't loath him though... like, maybe I purposefully have chosen to not judge him, and maybe he is a bad person generally... but there is something human about the contradictions. You can hear in his writing the same things I feel when I am looking at the weights I bough downstairs telling myself I should work out, but then also watching myself walk upstairs to watch TV instead.

It's also hard because, it's like... are his ideas just made up and not possible to follow, then? or, can you learn from someone that failed at reaching their own "ideal," because everyone falls short.

He's an interesting study, for sure.

"Everyone learns from experience: fools from their own, the wise from others' "

We're all human, so there's still a lot we can learn from the less than complete self-criticism of others (whether we acknowledge our own eye-beams or not).

Incidentally, I once read of a latin author who had been exiled to Marseille, and corresponding with a friend, reporting (like Aesop's fox?) that the figs there were by far the best he'd ever had. I've never been able to re-discover this anecdote, leading me to think I might have dreamt it, but could it have been Cicero? If he had been eating a lot in exile, and was exiled in Marseille, I'll have to dig around that period...

Milo went into exile at Marseille and was famously a friend of Cicero’s (which gives us the Pro Milone). Could be him?

Thanks! It took me ~hour, not an afternoon, with perseus but I eventually found it. (made a bit more difficult because it's greek, not latin[0], and red mullet, not fig!)

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%...

[0] no wonder I couldn't find it in any of my textbooks. Now I wonder where I heard this anecdote, then?

Edit: ...and TIL it was σαρκασμός: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%...

Nice work, and a very telling portrait of Cicero!

If you have an afternoon to spare, perhaps start here:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/searchresults?q=Figs

Hoping that one day ChatGPT gets a better hold on these sources. :)

I would forgive him if he were merely bloviating, but there’s fairly good evidence now that his early legal speeches weren’t as trenchant in their criticism of Sulla as he liked to make out, and his voting record is often him upholding Sullan constitutional reforms. So it’s hard to buy him as the fierce opponent of despots that he clearly wanted to be seen as. And I find it almost impossible to to swallow his account (and let’s be clear it’s his account alone) of the Catiline conspiracy, and even if you do, again here the arch defender of the Roman constitution has it suspended so he can commit extra judicial murders. He did real harm to the Republic at a time he could have had huge influence. I’ve always felt there were strong parallels with Pompey. They both just wanted to be loved and accepted by the aristocracy and so were easily captured for their very obvious talents. But he just spent so long blowing in the wind that I’m baffled by the popular historical perception of him. Cato, who I think is by far a bigger bastard, was at least consistent in his own self interest.

Anyway, fascinating period to study.

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