The Aged Horse Philosophical and political interpretations of a fable

Abstract

In the context of a didactic for learning and updating the texts and classical languages, this work proposes a translation and interpretation of the philosophical and political sense of the fable The Aged Horse of Babrius. The translation follows the Greek version of Crusius (1897) and the Gredos edition (1985), while the interpretation is based on the philosophical and political reflections of Cicero and Plutarch in On old Age and Whether an old man should engage in plublic affairs. These reflections can also be seen from a statistical analysis of Long-Lived Men of Lucian of Samosata. Thus, the meaning of the fable says that young statesmen should avoid becoming the next useless politicians or “old horses” of the State. This reflection contributes today to weigh the political participation of young people and updates the civic importance of the elderly in their intervention on public affairs.