or broken me down. Neither the Senate, nor the rostrum, nor my friends, nor my clients, nor my guests miss the strength that I have lost. Nor did I ever give assent to that ancient and much-lauded proverbial saying, that you must become an old man early if you wish to be an old man long. I should, indeed, prefer a shorter old age to being old before my time. Thus no one has wanted to meet me to whom I have denied myself on the plea of age. Yet I have less strength than either of you. Nor have you indeed the strength of Titus Pontius the centurion.[1] Is he therefore any better than you? Provided one husbands his strength, and does not attempt to go beyond it, he will not be hindered in his work by any lack of the requisite strength. It is said that Milo walked the whole length of the Olympian race-ground with a living ox on his shoulders;[2] but which would you prefer,—this amount of bodily strength, or the strength of mind that Pythagoras had?[3] In fine, I would
- ↑ Nothing else is known of Pontius than this reference to his extraordinary strength. He may be the centurion of that name, whose name alone occurs in some verses of Lucilius quoted by Cicero in the De Finibus.
- ↑ He is said to have commenced by lifting and carrying a calf daily, and to have continued so doing till the calf had attained full growth.
- ↑ There was a tradition that Milo was a pupil of Pythagoras, and that on one occasion the roof of the building in which Pythagoras was lecturing gave way, and was sustained by the single might of Milo.
