Waterbury evening Democrat. [volume] (Waterbury, Conn.) 1887-1895, 1891-02-18
FAMED FOR LONG LIFE.
Mon Who Have Lived Beyond the Three
Score and Ten.

Mon Who Have Lived Beyond the Three
Score and Ten.
We have heard a great deal of late of
the intellectual vigor displayed by Won
Moltl<e at the age of ninety, and there
is a current impression that his case is
exceptional. AS a matter of fact, how
ever, there are innumerable instances
of the retention of the mental powers
up to a very advanced period of life.
Thus Sophocles was ninety years old
when he was summoned before the
board having control of the dramatic
performances at Athens, on the Charge
that his intellectual faculties had de-
cayed. His answer was to read from a
just completed manuscript his "Gdipus
at Colonus," perhaps the greatest of his
tragedies.
lsocrates, the odd man eloquent"
was ninety-siX years old when he wrote
his celebrated ''Panegyric" Grafton, and
he lived to be more than hundred.
GOrgias, the famous sophist, died at ono
hundred and eight; IIieronymus, the
historian, lived to one hundred and four
without any loss of mental energy:
Zeno, the chief of the Stoics, died at
ninety-eight. Xenophanes wrote his
memorable elegy at ninety-two, and
Thcophrastus composed his "Charac-
ters' at ninety-nine, The Greek physi-
clans seem to have needed the maxim,
heal myself; for Galen is said to have
died ut one hundred and Hippocrates at
an average variOusly stated from ninety
, to one hundred and nine. Agathocles,
tyrant of Syracuse, kept a firm grasp
upon that city until he died at the age
of ninety-five.
Passing to the Roma ms, we find that
Juvcnal died at one hundred; that,
according to Pliny, Lucia, the comic
, actress, acted on the stage when cen
tenarian, and that NJ. NaleriouS Corvus
was in full possession of his faculties
when he died in his hundredth year. A
census of the Roman Empire taken
under Ncspasian showed one hundred
and fourteen persons who were from
one hundred to one hundred and ten
years old, and fifteen from one hundred
and ten to one hundred and forty years
of age. Coming to relatively modern
times, we note that the pencil fell from
the hand of Titian only when he was
stricken with the plague at the age OF
nearly one hundred, and that no dimi.
mutton of Michael Angeles imaginative
! capacity was observa BILE at the age OF
! ninety.
! In Franco, in 1905, died, at the age of
one hundred and seventeen years, DIR.
Dupin, whose physical and metal vigor
was remarkable. At the age of eighty
he married a second time and had six
teen children, having already had the
! same number by his first marriage. In
| 1910 DIR. Dufournet also married at the
age of eighty and lived to one hundred
! and twenty. 1t seems but the other day
that distinguished Boston lawyer
; Sidney Bartlett, made at ninety as
! powerful an argument as ne had ever
delivered. The mind of Josiah Quincy
/ was clear and his discourse rcplcte will
; interest until he died few years age
at the age of nincty-five. 1t would be
easy to multiply examples. but we have
cited enough to prove that there is moth
ing unique or especially memorable il
the preservation of mental faculties by
Il nonogenarian like Won Moltl1e.-N
/ Y. Ledger.