Thus, on the whole, the Greeks took a very somber view of old age. They prized youth as perhaps no other race has ever done and loved to heighten their appreciation of it by contrasting it with life in its “sere and yellow leaf.” Pindar says in substance that darkness, old age, and death never seemed so black as by contrast with the glories of the great festivals and games which every few years brought together all those who loved either gold or glory. Socrates, who refused to flee from his fate and calmly drank hemlock at the age of seventy, and Plato, who lived to be an octogenarian, must, on the whole, be regarded as exceptions, and conceptions of a future life were never clear and strong enough to be of much avail against the pessimism that in bright Hellas clouded the closing scenes of life’s drama. When we turn to Rome, we have, on the whole, a more favorable view. Even in the early stages of Roman life, family and parental authority were well developed and in Roman law the _patria potestas_ gave the head of the family great dignity and power. This term designates the aggregate of those peculiar powers and rights that, by the civil law of Rome, belonged to the head of a family in respect to his wife, children (natural or adopted) and more remote descendants who sprang from him through males only. Anciently it was of very extensive scope, embracing even the power of life and death; but this was greatly curtailed until finally it meant but little more than a right of the _paterfamilias_ to hold his own property or the acquisitions of one under his power.[58] The Roman Senate was, as the etymology of the word suggests, a body of old men; and as the Romans had an unprecedented genius for social and political organization, the wisdom necessary for exercising successfully administrative functions, which age alone can give, had greater scope. In this respect the Catholic Church later and its canon law were profoundly influenced by and, indeed, as Zeller has shown in his remarkable essay on the subject, derived most of its prominent features directly from the political organization of ancient Rome, also giving great authority to presbyters, elders, and affording exceptional scope to the organizing ability that comes to its flower in later life. Jesus was young and Keim believes that all His disciples were even younger. Those who created ecclesiastical institutions, however, were far older. In Cicero’s _De Senectute_[59] we have a remarkably representative statement put into the mouth of the old man, Cato, as to how aging Romans regarded their estate, and I think the chief impression in reading this remarkable document is the vast fund of instances of signal achievements of old men that are here brought together. This will be apparent from the following brief résumé.