Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
seldom shunned boasting of any exploit; which quality, indeed, he
seems to have thought the natural accompaniment of great actions; and
with these particular exploits he was highly puffed up; he says, that
those who saw him that day pursuing and slaying the enemies, were
ready to assert, that Cato owed not so much to the public, as the
public did to Cato; nay, he adds, that Manius the consul, coming hot
from the fight, embraced him for a great while, when both were all in
a sweat; and then cried out with joy, that neither he himself, no,
nor all the people together, could make him a recompense equal to his
actions. After the fight he was sent to Rome, that he himself might
be the messenger of it; and so, with a favorable wind, he sailed to
Brundusium, and in one day got from thence to Tarentum; and having
traveled four days more, upon the fifth, counting from the time of
his landing, he arrived at Rome, and so brought the first news of the
victory himself; and filled the whole city with joy and sacrifices,
and the people with the belief, that they were able to conquer every
sea and every land.
These are pretty nearly all the eminent actions of Cato, relating to
military affairs: in civil policy, he was of opinion, that one chief
duty consisted in accusing and indicting criminals. He himself
prosecuted many, and he would also assist others who prosecuted them,
nay would even procure such, as he did the Petilii against Scipio;
but not being able to destroy him, by reason of the nobleness of his
family, and the real greatness of his mind, which enabled him to
trample all calumnies underfoot, Cato at last would meddle no more
with him; yet joining with the accusers against Scipio's brother
Lucius, he succeeded in obtaining a sentence against him, which
condemned him to the payment of a large sum of money to the state;
and being insolvent, and in danger of being thrown into jail, he was,
by the interposition of the tribunes of the people, with much ado
dismissed. It is also said of Cato, that when he met a certain
youth, who had effected the disgrace of one of his father's enemies,
walking in the market-place, he shook him by the hand, telling him,
that this was what we ought to sacrifice to our dead parents-- not
lambs and goats, but the tears and condemnations of their
adversaries. But neither did he himself escape with impunity in his
management of affairs; for if he gave his enemies but the least hold,
he was still in danger, and exposed to be brought to justice. He is
reported to have escaped at least fifty indictments; and one above
the rest, which was the last, when he was eighty-six years old, about
which time he uttered the well-known saying, that it was hard for him
who had lived with one generation of men, to plead now before
another. Neither did he make this the last of his lawsuits; for,
four years after, when he was fourscore and ten, he accused Servilius
Galba: so that his life and actions extended, we may say, as
Nestor's did, over three ordinary ages of man. For, having had many
contests, as we have related, with Scipio the Great, about affairs of
state, he continued them down even to Scipio the younger, who was the
adopted grandson of the former, and the son of that Paulus, who
overthrew Perseus and the Macedonians.
Ten years after his consulship, Cato stood for the office of censor,
which was indeed the summit of all honor, and in a manner the highest
step in civil affairs; for besides all other power, it had also that
of an inquisition into everyone's life and manners. For the Romans
thought that no marriage, or rearing of children, nay, no feast or
drinking-bout ought to be permitted according to everyone's appetite
or fancy, without being examined and inquired into; being indeed of
opinion, that a man's character was much sooner perceived in things
of this sort, than in what is done publicly and in open day. They
chose, therefore, two persons, one out of the patricians, the other
out of the commons, who were to watch, correct, and punish, if any
one ran too much into voluptuousness, or transgressed the usual
manner of life of his country; and these they called Censors. They
had power to take away a horse, or expel out of the senate any one
who lived intemperately and out of order. It was also their business
to take an estimate of what everyone was worth, and to put down in
registers everybody's birth and quality; besides many other
prerogatives. And therefore the chief nobility opposed his
pretensions to it. Jealousy prompted the patricians, who thought
that it would be a stain to everybody's nobility, if men of no
original honor should rise to the highest dignity and power; while
others, conscious of their own evil practices, and of the violation
of the laws and customs of their country, were afraid of the
austerity of the man; which, in an office of such great power was
likely to prove most uncompromising and severe. And so consulting
among themselves, they brought forward seven candidates in opposition
to him, who sedulously set themselves to court the people's favor by
fair promises, as though what they wished for was indulgent and easy
government. Cato, on the contrary, promising no such mildness, but
plainly threatening evil livers, from the very hustings openly
declared himself; and exclaiming, that the city needed a great and
thorough purgation, called upon the people, if they were wise, not to
choose the gentlest, but the roughest of physicians; such a one, he
said, he was, and Valerius Flaccus, one of the patricians, another;
together with him, he doubted not but he should do something worth
the while, and that, by cutting to pieces and burning like a hydra,
all luxury and voluptuousness. He added, too, that he saw all the rest
endeavoring after the office with ill intent, because they were
afraid of those who would exercise it justly, as they ought. And so
truly great and so worthy of great men to be its leaders was, it
would seem, the Roman people, that they did not fear the severity end
grim countenance of Cato, but rejecting those smooth promisers who
were ready to do all things to ingratiate themselves, they took him,
together with Flaccus; obeying his recommendations not as though he
were a candidate, but as if he had had the actual power of commanding
and governing already.
Cato named as chief of the senate, his friend and colleague Lucius
Valerius Flaccus, and expelled, among many others, Lucius Quintius,
who had been consul seven years before, and (which was greater honor
to him than the consulship) brother to that Titus Flamininus, who
overthrew king Philip. The reason he had for his expulsion, was
this. Lucius, it seems, took along with him in all his commands, a
youth, whom he had kept as his companion from the flower of his age,
and to whom he gave as much power and respect as to the chiefest of
his friends and relations.
Now it happened that Lucius being consular governor of one of the
provinces, the youth setting himself down by him, as he used to do,
among other flatteries with which he played upon him, when he wee in
his cups, told him he loved him so dearly that, "though there was a
show of gladiators to be seen at Rome, and I," he said, "had never
beheld one in my life; and though I, as it were, longed to see a man
killed, yet I made all possible haste to come to you." Upon this
Lucius, returning his fondness, replied, "Do not be melancholy on
that account; I can remedy that." Ordering therefore, forthwith, one
of those condemned to die to be brought to the feast, together with
the headsman and axe, he asked the youth if he wished to see him
executed. The boy answering that he did, Lucius commanded the
executioner to cut off his neck; and this several historians mention;
and Cicero, indeed, in his dialogue de Senectute, introduces Cato
relating it himself. But Livy says, that he that was killed was a
Gaulish deserter, and that Lucius did not execute him by the stroke
of the executioner, but with his own hand; and that it is so stated
in Cato's speech.
Lucius being thus expelled out of the senate by Cato, his brother
took it very ill, and appealing to the people, desired that Cato
should declare his reasons; and when he began to relate this
transaction of the feast, Lucius endeavored to deny it; but Cato
challenging him to a formal investigation, he fell off and refused
it, so that he was then acknowledged to suffer deservedly.
Afterwards, however, when there was some show at the theater, he
passed by the seats where those who had been consuls used to be
placed, and taking his seat a great way off, excited the compassion
of the common people, who presently with a great noise made him go
forward, and as much as they could, tried to set right and salve over
what had happened. Manilius, also, who, according to the public
expectation, would have been next consul, he threw out of the senate,
because, in the presence of his daughter, and in open day, he had
kissed his wife. He said, that as for himself, his wife never came
into his arms except when there was great thunder; so that it was a
jest with him, that it was a pleasure for him, when Jupiter
thundered.
His treatment of Lucius, likewise, the brother of Scipio, and one who
had been honored with a triumph, occasioned some odium against Cato;
for he took his horse from him, and was thought to do it with a
design of putting an affront on Scipio Africanus, now dead. But he
gave most general annoyance, by retrenching people's luxury; for
though (most of the youth being thereby already corrupted) it seemed
almost impossible to take it away with an open hand and directly, yet
going, as it were, obliquely around, he caused all dress, carriages,
women's ornaments, household furniture, whose price exceeded one
thousand five hundred drachmas, to be rated at ten times as much as
they were worth; intending by thus making the assess-ments greater,
to increase the taxes paid upon them. He also ordained that upon
every thousand asses of property of this kind, three should be
paid, so that people, burdened with these extra charges, and seeing
others of as good estates, but more frugal and sparing, paying less
into the public exchequer, might be tired out of their prodigality.
And thus, on the one side, not only those were disgusted at Cato, who
bore the taxes for the sake of their luxury, but those, too, who on
the other side laid by their luxury for fear of the taxes. For people
in general reckon, that an order not to display their riches, is
equivalent to the taking away their riches; because riches are seen
much more in superfluous, than in necessary, things. Indeed, this
was what excited the wonder of Ariston the philosopher; that we
account those who possess superfluous things more happy than those
who abound with what is necessary and useful. But when one of his
friends asked Scopas, the rich Thessalian, to give him some article
of no great utility, saying that it was not a thing that he had any
great need or use for himself, "In truth," replied he, "it is just
these useless and unnecessary things that make my wealth and
happiness." Thus the desire of riches does not proceed from a
natural passion within us, but arises rather from vulgar out-of-doors
opinion of other people.
Cato, notwithstanding, being little solicitous as to those who
exclaimed against him, increased his austerity. He caused the pipes,
through which some persons brought the public water into their own
houses and gardens, to be cut, and threw down all buildings which
jutted out into the common streets. He beat down also the price in
contracts for public works to the lowest, and raised it in contracts
for farming the taxes to the highest sum; by which proceedings he