Enjoyed Reading “How to Grow Old,” by Cicero? Try These 3 Books!

For more than 2,000 years, readers have loved and kept coming back to Cicero’s dialogue concerning the wonders and benefits of aging (yea, you read that right) — people like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and Saint Augustine, to name a few.

Michel de Montaigne even said that the book “gives one an appetite for growing old.” I’m not exactly in a rush to get into my sixties, but How to Grow Old, originally titled On Old Age, has absolutely stood the test of time.

Cicero was a Roman politician, writer, and orator who lived during the chaotic years after the assassination of Julius Caesar and the power vacuum that ensued. He published the book in 44 B.C., right before being executed by Mark Antony (Cleopatra’s BF) and after a long and very high-profile career as one of the leading figures of the Roman Empire.

Funny story: In the Philip Freeman translation, there’s also the original Latin text displayed on the facing page, which you can follow along with if you’re so inclined! I mostly stuck with the English version, but having the Latin there inspired one of my favorite 2-star reviews of the book I saw on Amazon which complained that the book was terrible because “it’s short and half the pages are in Latin!”