In sola Sparta expedit senescere.

Sparta is the most convenient residence for aged persons; age being in a peculiar manner respected and honoured in that country. The following story from Valerius Maximus will illustrate this position. It is here given from the sixth Number of the Spectator. «It happened at Athens, during the representation of a play, that an old gentleman came too late for a place, suitable to his age and quality. Many of the young men, who observed the confusion he was in, made signs to him, that they would accommodate him, if he came where they sat. The good man bustled through the crowd accordingly, but when he came to the seat to which he was invited, the jest was to sit close and expose him, as he stood, out of countenance, to the audience. The frolic went round the Athenian benches; when the good man skulked towards the boxes appointed for the Lacedemonians, that honest people rose up to a man, and with the greatest respect received him among them. The Athenians being suddenly touched with a sense of the Spartan virtue, and their own degeneracy, gave a thunder of applause; and the old man cried out, «The Athenians understand what is right, but the Lacedemonians practise it»». So the poet,

«Credebant hoc grande nefas et morte piandum,
Si juvenis vetulo non assurrexerit», &c.