is found sitting upon a cushioned seat crowned for a sacrifice. 'You
should come to me oftener, Socrates, for I am too old to go to you; and at
my time of life, having lost other pleasures, I care the more for
conversation.' Socrates asks him what he thinks of age, to which the old
man replies, that the sorrows and discontents of age are to be attributed
to the tempers of men, and that age is a time of peace in which the tyranny
of the passions is no longer felt. Yes, replies Socrates, but the world
will say, Cephalus, that you are happy in old age because you are rich.
'And there is something in what they say, Socrates, but not so much as they
imagine--as Themistocles replied to the Seriphian, "Neither you, if you had
been an Athenian, nor I, if I had been a Seriphian, would ever have been
famous," I might in like manner reply to you, Neither a good poor man can
be happy in age, nor yet a bad rich man.' Socrates remarks that Cephalus
appears not to care about riches, a quality which he ascribes to his having
inherited, not acquired them, and would like to know what he considers to
be the chief advantage of them. Cephalus answers that when you are old the
belief in the world below grows upon you, and then to have done justice and
never to have been compelled to do injustice through poverty, and never to
have deceived anyone, are felt to be unspeakable blessings. Socrates, who
is evidently preparing for an argument, next asks, What is the meaning of
the word justice? To tell the truth and pay your debts? No more than
this? Or must we admit exceptions? Ought I, for example, to put back into
the hands of my friend, who has gone mad, the sword which I borrowed of him
when he was in his right mind? 'There must be exceptions.' 'And yet,'
says Polemarchus, 'the definition which has been given has the authority of
Simonides.' Here Cephalus retires to look after the sacrifices, and
bequeaths, as Socrates facetiously remarks, the possession of the argument
to his heir, Polemarchus...

The description of old age is finished, and Plato, as his manner is, has