09-07-2025
Why Britain should emulate the way the ancients treated the elderly
Old age – the 'winter' of life – is often depicted as 'sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything'. But as Barbara H Rosenwein, an American historian and author of Winter Dreams: A Historical Guide to Old Age, aims to show us: the 'elderly have always retained their emotional depth and desires.'
(I hate the word 'elderly'. It reminds me of the highway sign with two stooped figures, designed apparently, to protect us Senior Railcard Holders. We are not 'stooped'!)
Rosenwein is 80 years old, has two children, five grandchildren and calls herself a 'historian of the emotions'. In Winter Dreams, she hurtles through two millennia to chronicle how society feels about the aged – and how they feel about themselves.
She begins with the older women within her own family. Immediately she finds contrasts: her grandmother thought herself old at 60 and moved into a retirement home, while her mother-in-law saw herself as young even in her 80s, dying her hair red and swimming everyday. She taught art to 'old' people and had a martini before dinner. Her girlfriends – 'the Elegant Eight' – regularly went to the movies and concerts together.
Rosenwein's own mother had dementia and lived in a fantasy world, believing herself loved and in love with a fantasy man. Rosenwein writes: 'This fantasy, this 'winter dream' in the last season of her life, gave her great joy'. (Ah, there's her title, which initially did confuse me: she refers to both nightly and aspirational dreams in her book. But it's also nicely lyrical, and I believe Rosenwein uses it, mostly, to mean the ideal scenarios elders 'dream' of – and hope for – as life nears its end.)
Her historical deep-dive starts in Ancient Greece, which sounds like the ideal place to go and retire. Sons were mostly expected to care for their elderly parents; Homer provided 'satisfying visions of old men… (who) basked in the admiration of other men and looked back on a lifetime's achievements with pride'. Socrates acknowledged the wisdom of the elderly, saying: 'I enjoy talking with the very old, for we should ask them, as we ask those that have travelled a road that we too will probably have to follow, what kind of road it is.'
Such responsible attitudes towards the old were legally enforced when Solon, the Athenian poet, aristocrat and statesman, instituted a family-financed social security for the aged called 'gerotrophia': elder care. 'Citizens who neglected their parents lost their right to citizenship: a severe punishment.'
But no one had ever dared hope for such an outcome. Before Solon's time, in 700 BC, Hesiod predicted a dire fate for the old: the young would 'treat their parents with disdain as soon as they are old', he wrote, 'heartlessly finding fault with them – and they'll not be likely to repay their parents for their care.' That could easily be a story in today's Britain.
Similarly, Sophocles's children wanted him declared mentally incompetent. To prove the contrary, Sophocles read to lawyers from his latest play about Oedipus, whose children turn their backs on him. Oedipus is able to look back on his life and pronounce it blameless (indeed, a happy 'winter dream'). The judges acquitted him.
Echoing down through the ages, Rosenwein reminds us of Cicero's 'extraordinarily upbeat account of old age'. Set in 150 BC, in the voice of the severe Censor Cato – supposedly expounding his views in his 84th year, though they were essentially those of Cicero himself – Cato declares he 'is contented…. still active intellectually, mentally and politically' and believes everyone else can be so, if they have lived 'honourably and well'. (That's Sir David Attenborough to a T, then.)
Of course, the ancients mostly explored the male approach to ageing, but there were some exceptions. The poet,Sappho, mourned her losses: 'For me old age has seized my once tender body… How often I lament these things, but being human, one cannot escape old age.'
Euripides, in his play Hecuba, described, unusually, the emotional range of an old woman. At the start of the play, Hecuba is weak, decrepit; all in all, a helpless cry baby. But by the end, she's a powerful orator, strategist and murderer, overturning the ancient prejudice against what Rosenwein describes as 'exhausted old women'.
Hurrah, too, for Aristophanes – the Father of Comedy – his play, Women of the Assembly, sees women disguise themselves as men and take over the Athenian assembly, declaring total equality, the abolition of private property, the eradication of marriage and ability to have free sex. (Aristophanes often made fun of the elderly in his plays and yet also made ageing sound quite jolly.)
In more recent times, the native people of the Great Lakes (between southern Canada and northern USA), the Ojibwe, provide an exemplary picture of old age. Rosenwein cites Michael D McNally's sympathetic account of these elders: 'Ojibwe', he observes 'consider old age to be the high point of a life well spent… Only an old man or woman has the power and authority necessary to impart the traditions of the tribe and to pass their expertise to the younger generation.'
I'm a similar age to Rosenwein and our generation, born post-war, are now undeniably old – but we're spectacularly different from any geriatrics that have tottered by before us. I can still see my grandparents, sitting in deckchairs on the beach. Grandad had a hankie on his head, trousers rolled up; Grandma was knitting. No chance they'd ever strip off and dive into the sea. It was a miracle if they paddled.
According to Rosenwein, they were the 'Old Old' – weak and dependent (one of two categories Rosenwein comes up with), while the 'Young Old' are fit, engaged, working and sociable. She's talkin' 'bout my generation. We were the first to be health-aware: we went for the burn with Jane Fonda, in leg-warmers and headbands; played squash, jogged, gave up smoking, ate yoghurt, wholemeal bread and made salads with olive oil. We didn't think about ageing or death – we just wanted to feel great.
Rosenwein herself believes her literal 'dreams' are darker and more vivid than they were 10 years ago. 'The other night, I dreamed I was back at my old university and couldn't find my classroom. I was late and in the wrong building. I panicked and woke up, heart pounding,' she writes.
I understand that. My own dreams, until quite recently, were optimistic, joyful. A recurring theme was jumping up and touching the sky. But lately, my dreams have been about loss, being late; I'm chased by something malevolent, or holding a baby (not my own). I know exactly where that turn has come from. My husband has Alzheimer's and now my life as a carer makes me fearful of the future, the uncertain road ahead and whether I'll be able to cope.
I've also realised that now, I think about death every day. Not necessarily morbidly, but just practically. For instance, if I'm doing a cross-country drive or taking a long flight, I think: 'What if I don't come back?' 'Who will miss me?' And: 'should I tidy up my knicker drawer, just in case?'
As Rosenwein argues, and so astutely, 'the winter dreams of the elderly showed they were a lot more than father figures to whom reverence was due. They were people with emotions and concerns of their own.' Eumaeus, for example, was a slave of Odysseus and depended on his master to take care of him during his old age. His 'winter dream' was 'a farm of his own and a beautiful, virtuous wife'. This is the 'near universal feeling that crosses the historical divides' of the old, Rosenwein concludes: 'the desire to live as long and as healthily as possible.' A 'winter dream' to which, surely, we all aspire.
Winter Dreams is a meaty, satisfying meal of a book and I learned a great deal. I only disagreed with Rosenwein's assertion that the poem by Jenny Joseph, 'Warning', is, somehow, aspirational. A woman who declares that she'll 'gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells… learn to spit… grow more fat and eat three pounds of sausages at a go'? No thanks!
And, apart from Aristophanes, there are few references to the importance of humour in facing old age. We can't change how the world sees us, but we will certainly have a happier old age if we can agree with the poet John Betjeman, who understood the importance of humour in his poem 'The Last Laugh':
I made hay while the sun shone.
My work sold.
Now, if the harvest is over
And the world cold,
Give me the bonus of laughter
As I lose hold.
But I believe the best practical advice about ageing was given by Dorothy to her flighty housemate, Blanche, in the legendary US sitcom, The Golden Girls, about four older women navigating the 'winter' of life together. As Blanche sets off nervously on a date, Dorothy places a mirror on the table and orders her to look down into it, announcing: 'See? That's what you look like when you go on top! Never go on top!'
Less a 'winter dream' – more a complete nightmare!
★★★★☆
