8. And to this bears witness that saying of the great Epaminondas to the Thebans, when in the winter the Arcadians requested them to come into their city and dwell in their houses,—which he would not permit, but said to them: Now the Arcadians admire you, seeing you exercise yourselves, and wrestle in your armor; but if they shall behold you sitting by the fire and pounding of beans, they will think you to differ nothing from themselves. So an old man speaking to the people, acting in the state, and honored, is a venerable spectacle; but he who wastes away his days in his bed, or sits discoursing of trivial matters and wiping his nose in the corner of a gallery, easily renders himself an object of contempt. And this indeed Homer himself teaches those who hear him aright. For Nestor, who fought before Troy, was highly venerated and esteemed; whilst Peleus and Laertes, who stayed at home, were slighted and despised. For the habit of prudence does not continue the same in those who give themselves to their ease; but by little and little diminishes and is dissolved by sloth, as always requiring some exercise of the thought to rouse up and purify the rational, active faculty of the soul. For, Like glittering brass, by being used it shines.[34] For the infirmity of the body does not so much incommode the administrations of those who, almost spent with age, go to the tribune or to the council of war, as they are advantageous by the caution and prudence which attend their years, and keep them from thrusting themselves precipitately into affairs, abused partly by want of experience and partly by vain-glory, and hurrying the people along with them by violence, like a sea agitated by the winds; causing them mildly and moderately to manage those with whom they have to do. Whence cities, when they are in adversity and fear, desire the government of grave and ancient personages; and often having drawn out of his field some old man who had not so much as the least thought of it, have compelled him, though unwilling, to put his hand to the helm, and conduct the ship of the state into the haven of security, rejecting generals and orators, who not only knew how to speak loud and make long harangues without drawing their breath, but were able also valiantly to march forth and fight their enemies. So when the orators one day at Athens, before Timotheus and Iphicrates uncovering Chares the son of Theochares, a vigorous and stout-bodied young man, said they were of opinion that the general of the Athenians ought to be such a one; Not so, by all the Gods, answered Timotheus, but such a one he should be that is to carry the general’s bedding; but the general himself ought to be such a one as can at the same time see both forwards and backwards, and will suffer not his reasonings about things convenient to be disturbed by any passion.