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Caillan Davenport, Professor of Classics and Head of the Centre for Classical Studies, Australian National University

Guide to the classics: written more than 2000 years ago, Cicero’s On Old Age debunks stereotypes that persist today

Roman funerary relief depicting a young man and an elderly woman. Metropolitan Museum of Art/Wikimedia Commons.

As the New Year festivities fade, each January reminds us of the passage of time. There is a tendency to look back with regret at roads not taken, and perhaps even despair at what the future holds.

Yet this time of year can also encourage more positive reflection. It was probably in early January of 44 BCE that Marcus Tullius Cicero, the Roman politician, orator, and philosopher, sat down to write On Old Age.

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