Useful Old

Ninety-five-year-old Walter Laqueur has an interest in thinking that the aged are still useful. In an essay in The American Interest, he assembles ancient evidence in support:

Foolish people, Cicero says, blame old age for their own faults and shortcomings, but Enius did not do so. As an old man, he compared himself to a gallant and victorious racehorse. Nor does old age prevent an active life: Appius Claudius was not only old but blind when he gave a magnificent speech full of wisdom in the senate. People who say there are no useful activities for old age don’t know what they are talking about. He mentions the fact that among the Spartans the people who hold the most important offices are called the elders—which is exactly what they are. Cicero repeatedly makes the point that old people maintain a sound mind as long as they are eager to learn and apply themselves. This is true with regard to elderly lawyers, augurs, priests, philosophers—“what a multitude of things do they remember. . . .” But it is true not only of public figures but of those leading quiet, private lives. Sophocles, he reminds us, composed his tragedies well into his nineties. When he seemed to neglect his family’s finances because of his passion for writing, his sons took him to court. When in Colonus, Sophocles asked for permission to read aloud Oedipus , which he had just written. When he finished he asked whether this sounded like the work of a weak-minded person. The court acquitted him.