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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Polity of Athenians and Lacedaemonians by Xenophon: virtuous living to be disregarded even in old age. (So, too, it is
worthy of admiration in him that he lent his helping hand to virtuous
old age.[3] Thus, by making the elders sole arbiters in the trial for
life, he contrived to charge old age with a greater weight of honour
than that which is accorded to the strength of mature manhood.) And
assuredly such a contest as this must appeal to the zeal of mortal man
beyond all others in a supreme degree. Fair, doubtless, are contests
of gymnastic skill, yet are they but trials of bodily excellence, but
this contest for the seniority is of a higher sort--it is an ordeal of
the soul itself. In proportion, therefore, as the soul is worthier
than the body, so must these contests of the soul appeal to a stronger
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