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[39]
12. We come now to the third ground for abusing
old age, and that is, that it is devoid of sensual
pleasures. O glorious boon of age, if it does indeed
free us from youth's most vicious fault! Now
listen, most noble young men, to what that remarkably great and distinguished man, Archytas of
Tarentum, said in an ancient speech repeated to me
when I was a young man serving with Quintus
Maximus at Tarentum: “No more deadly curse,”
said he, "has been given by nature to man than
carnal pleasure, through eagerness for which the
passions are driven recklessly and uncontrollably
to its gratification.
Cicero: De Senectute De Amicitia De Divinatione. With An English Translation. William Armistead Falconer. Cambridge. Harvard University Press; Cambridge, Mass., London, England. 1923.
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