Al-Warraq Library

Home / Philosophy / Treatises on Friendship and Old Age

PhilosophyTreatises on Friendship and Old AgeMarcus Tullius CiceroTreatises on Friendship and Old Age

Treatises on Friendship and Old Age

Marcus Tullius Cicero

PhilosophyEnglish
0 views
Read the bookGutenberg book pageInternet Archive

Al-Warraq Library does not host book files; it takes you to the copy at the original source. Public-domain status differs from country to country, so check the law where you live before downloading or republishing the book. Do you hold rights in this work? Request its removal

In On Old Age, Cato the Elder, in his eighty-fourth year, talks with two young friends and answers the four reasons people give for thinking old age…

Catalogue details

Author
Marcus Tullius Cicero
Category
Philosophy
Language
English
Source
Project Gutenberg

About this book

In On Old Age, Cato the Elder, in his eighty-fourth year, talks with two young friends and answers the four reasons people give for thinking old age miserable: that it withdraws us from active life, weakens the body, takes away pleasures and brings death near. With warmth and wit he shows that each can be met with dignity. In On Friendship, Laelius, mourning his great friend Scipio, explains what true friendship is: a bond possible only between good people, founded on virtue rather than usefulness.

Context and significance

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BC), Rome's greatest orator and a statesman later killed on the orders of Mark Antony, wrote both dialogues in 44 BC, in the troubled months around the murder of Julius Caesar. They have been among the best-loved works of Latin prose for two thousand years. This translation is by Evelyn Shuckburgh. Compare the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.

Similar books