{"id":87181,"date":"2024-05-07T01:00:47","date_gmt":"2024-05-07T05:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=87181"},"modified":"2024-05-06T08:56:37","modified_gmt":"2024-05-06T12:56:37","slug":"qotd-ciceros-de-senectute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2024\/05\/07\/qotd-ciceros-de-senectute\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: Cicero&#8217;s <em>De Senectute<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p><a href=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:right; padding: 0px 0px 10px 25px\" src=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"400\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-48672\" srcset=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png 400w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400-50x50.png 50w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a>&#8220;Everyone wants to get old; and everyone complains once they have,&#8221; wrote Cicero in his <em>De Senectute<\/em> (<em>On Old Age<\/em>). &#8220;So great is the inconstancy and perversity of foolishness.&#8221; The <em>De Senectute<\/em> was one of the most commonly assigned books in American high schools a century ago; you can still find the old textbooks moldering in second-hand bookshops. It is one of the most thoroughly relevant books ever written, as we invariably get old if we do not die young: Why not consider what makes old age a worthwhile stage of our lives? It is a book we could wish more Americans would read, as this year&#8217;s election cycle only seems to confirm that America is an old country. The book&#8217;s message is easily conveyed: Nature is not your enemy. &#8220;In this we are wise,&#8221; Cicero writes, &#8220;we follow nature, as our best guide, almost as our god.&#8221; Cicero uses a theatrical metaphor: &#8220;Old age is the final scene in life&#8217;s drama.&#8221; The drama is penned by Nature herself: &#8220;The rest of the play is well designed; do you believe Nature neglected to consider how it all would end?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>John Byron Kuhner, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.firstthings.com\/web-exclusives\/2024\/02\/marlene-dietrichs-war-on-nature\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;Marlene Dietrich&#8217;s War on Nature&#8221;, <em>First Things<\/em><\/a>, 2024-02-05.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Everyone wants to get old; and everyone complains once they have,&#8221; wrote Cicero in his De Senectute (On Old Age). &#8220;So great is the inconstancy and perversity of foolishness.&#8221; The De Senectute was one of the most commonly assigned books in American high schools a century ago; you can still find the old textbooks moldering [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,7,41],"tags":[598,1315,576,1345],"class_list":["post-87181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-history","category-quotations","tag-aging","tag-cicero","tag-philosophy","tag-romanrepublic"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-mG9","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87181"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88853,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87181\/revisions\/88853"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}