The word _aetas_ has really two senses here; in the first place it is _bona aetas_ or _iuventus_ (cf. 39 where _aetas = senectus_), in the second place _vita_ (for which see n. on 5). -- NEQUE ENIM: the _enim_ refers to _modice_. -- COETU ... SERMONIBUS: for the order of the words see n. on 1 _animi tui_. -- METIEBAR: cf. n. on 43 _referenda_. -- ACCUBITIONEM: a _vox Ciceroniana_, rarely found in other authors. -- VITAE CONIUNCTIONEM: 'a common enjoyment of life'. -- TUM ... TUM: here purely temporal, 'sometimes ... sometimes'; often however = 'both ... and'; cf. 7. -- COMPOTATIONEM etc.: cf. Epist. ad Fam. 9, 24, 3. _Compotatio_ = συμποσιον; _concenatio_ = συνδειπνον. -- IN EO GENERE: see n. on 4. -- ID: _i.e._ eating and drinking. 46. TEMPESTIVIS ... CONVIVIIS: 'even in protracted banquets'. Those banquets which began _early_ in order that they might last long were naturally in bad repute, so that the phrase _tempestivum convivium_ often has almost the sense of 'a debauch'. Thus in Att. 9, 1, 3 Cicero describes himself as being evil spoken of _in tempestivis conviviis, i.e._ in dissolute society. Cf. pro Arch. 13. The customary dinner hour at Rome was about three o'clock in the afternoon. The word _tempestivus_, which in 5 means 'at the right time', here means 'before the right time'. So in English 'in good time' often means 'too early'. See Becker's Gallus, p. 451 _et seq_. -- QUI PAUCI: the substitution of the nominative of the relative for the partitive genitive (_quorum_) is not uncommon. A. 216, _e_; G. 368, Rem. 2; H. 397, 2, n. -- PAUCI ADMODUM: Cic. usually says _admodum pauci_ rather than _pauci admodum_. -- VESTRA AETATE: = _eis qui sunt vestra aetate_. Cf. n. on 26 _senectus_. -- SERMONIS ... SUSTULIT: notice the indicatives _auxit, sustulit_, the relative clauses being attributive, though they might fairly have been expected here to be causal. G. 627; H. 517, 2. In this passage Cic. imitates Plato, Rep. 328 D. -- BELLUM INDICERE: common in the metaphorical sense; _e.g._ De Or. 2, 155 _miror cur philosophiae prope bellum indixeris_; Hor. Sat. 1, 5, 7 _ventri indico bellum_. -- CUIUS EST etc.: _i.e._ nature sanctions a certain amount of pleasure. This is the Peripatetic notion of the _mean_, to which Cicero often gives expression, as below, 77; also in Acad. 1, 39; 2, 139; and in De Off.; so Hor. Sat. 1, 1, 106 _sunt certi denique fines quos ultra citraque nequit consistere rectum_; cf. Od. 2, 10. -- NON INTELLEGO NE: for the negatives cf. nn. on 24, 27.