Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
drew a great deal of hatred on himself. Those who were of Titus
Flamininus's party canceled in the senate all the bargains and
contracts made by him for the repairing and carrying on of the sacred
and public buildings, as unadvantageous to the commonwealth. They
incited also the boldest of the tribunes of the people to accuse him,
and to fine him two talents. They likewise much opposed him in
building the court or basilica, which he caused to be erected at the
common charge, just by the senate-house, in the market-place, and
called by his own name, the Porcian. However, the people, it seems,
liked his censorship wondrously well; for, setting up a statue for
him in the temple of the goddess of Health, they put an inscription
under it, not recording his commands in war or his triumph, but to
the effect, that this was Cato the Censor, who, by his good
discipline and wise and temperate ordinances, reclaimed the Roman
commonwealth when it was declining and sinking down into vice.
Before this honor was done to himself, he used to laugh at those who
loved such kind of things, saying, that they did not see that they
were taking pride in the workmanship of brass-founders and painters;
whereas the citizens bore about his best likeness in their breasts.
And when any seemed to wonder, that he should have never a statue,
while many ordinary persons had one; "I would," said he, "much rather
be asked, why I have not one, than why I have one." In short, he
would not have any honest citizen endure to be praised, except it
might prove advantageous to the commonwealth. Yet still he had
passed the highest commendation on himself; for he tells us that
those who did anything wrong, and were found fault with, used to
say, it was not worthwhile to blame them; for they were not Catos.
He also adds, that they who awkwardly mimicked some of his actions,
were called left-handed Catos; and that the senate in perilous times
would cast their eyes on him, as upon a pilot in a ship, and that
often when he was not present they put off affairs of greatest
consequence. These things are indeed also testified of him by
others; for he had a great authority in the city, alike for his life,
his eloquence, and his age.
He was also a good father, an excellent husband to his wife, and an
extraordinary economist; and as he did not manage his affairs of this
kind carelessly, and as things of little moment, I think I ought to
record a little further whatever was commendable in him in these
points. He married a wife more noble than rich; being of opinion
that the rich and the high-born are equally haughty and proud; but
that those of noble blood, would be more ashamed of base things, and
consequently more obedient to their husbands in all that was fit and
right. A man who beat his wife or child, laid violent hands, he
said, on what was most sacred; and a good husband he reckoned worthy
of more praise than a great senator; and he admired the ancient
Socrates for nothing so much as for having lived a temperate and
contented life with a wife who was a scold, and children who were
half-witted.
As soon as he had a son born, though he had never such urgent
business upon his hands, unless it were some public matter, he would
be by when his wife washed it, and dressed it in its swaddling
clothes. For she herself suckled it, nay, she often too gave her
breast to her servants' children, to produce, by sucking the same
milk, a kind of natural love in them to her son. When he began to
come to years of discretion, Cato himself would teach him to read,
although he had a servant, a very good grammarian, called Chilo, who
taught many others; but he thought not fit, as he himself said, to
have his son reprimanded by a slave, or pulled, it may be, by the
ears when found tardy in his lesson: nor would he have him owe to a
servant the obligation of so great a thing as his learning; he
himself, therefore, (as we were saying,) taught him his grammar, law,
and his gymnastic exercises. Nor did he only show him, too, how to
throw a dart, to fight in armor, and to ride, but to box also and to
endure both heat and cold, and to swim over the most rapid and rough
rivers. He says, likewise, that he wrote histories, in large
characters, with his own hand, that so his son, without stirring out
of the house, might learn to know about his countrymen and
forefathers: nor did he less abstain from speaking anything obscene
before his son, than if it had been in the presence of the sacred
virgins, called vestals. Nor would he ever go into the bath with
him; which seems indeed to have been the common custom of the Romans.
Sons-in-law used to avoid bathing with fathers-in-law, disliking to
see one another naked: but having, in time, learned of the Greeks to
strip before men, they have since taught the Greeks to do it even
with the women themselves.
Thus, like an excellent work, Cato formed and fashioned his son to
virtue; nor had he any occasion to find fault with his readiness and
docility; but as he proved to be of too weak a constitution for
hardships, he did not insist on requiring of him any very austere way
of living. However, though delicate in health, he proved a stout man
in the field, and behaved himself valiantly when Paulus Aemilius
fought against Perseus; where when his sword was struck from him by a
blow, or rather slipped out of his hand by reason of its moistness,
he so keenly resented it, that he turned to some of his friends about
him, and taking them along with him again, fell upon the enemy; and
having by a long fight and much force cleared the place, at length
found it among great heaps of arms, and the dead bodies of friends as
well as enemies piled one upon another. Upon which Paulus, his
general, much commended the youth; and there is a letter of Cato's to
his son, which highly praises his honorable eagerness for the
recovery of his sword. Afterwards he married Tertia, Aemilius
Paulus's daughter, and sister to Scipio; nor was he admitted into
this family less for his own worth than his father's. So that Cato's
care in his son's education came to a very fitting result.
He purchased a great many slaves out of the captives taken in war,
but chiefly bought up the young ones, who were capable to be, as it
were, broken and taught like whelps and colts. None of these ever
entered another man's house, except sent either by Cato himself or
his wife. If any one of them were asked what Cato did, they answered
merely, that they did not know. When a servant was at home, he was
obliged either to do some work or sleep; for indeed Cato loved those
most who used to lie down often to sleep, accounting them more docile
than those who were wakeful, and more fit for anything when they were
refreshed with a little slumber. Being also of opinion, that the
great cause of the laziness and misbehavior of slaves was their
running after their pleasures, he fixed a certain price for them to
pay for permission amongst themselves, but would suffer no
connections out of the house. At first, when he was but a poor
soldier, he would not be difficult in anything which related to his
eating, but looked upon it as a pitiful thing to quarrel with a
servant for the belly's sake; but afterwards, when he grew richer,
and made any feasts for his friends and colleagues in office, as soon
as supper was over he used to go with a leathern thong and scourge
those who had waited or dressed the meat carelessly. He always
contrived, too, that his servants should have some difference one
among another, always suspecting and fearing a good understanding
between them. Those who had committed anything worthy of death, he
punished, if they were found guilty by the verdict of their
fellow-servants. But being after all much given to the desire of gain,
he looked upon agriculture rather as a pleasure than profit;
resolving, therefore, to lay out his money in safe and solid things,
he purchased ponds, hot baths, grounds full of fuller's earth,
remunerative lands, pastures, and woods; from all which he drew large
returns, nor could Jupiter himself, he used to say, do him much
damage. He was also given to the form of usury, which is considered
most odious, in traffic by sea; and that thus: -- he desired that those
whom he put out his money to, should have many partners; and when the
number of them and their ships came to be fifty, he himself took one
share through Quintio his freedman, who therefore was to sail with
the adventurers, and take a part in all their proceedings; so that
thus there was no danger of losing his whole stock, but only a little
part, and that with a prospect of great profit. He likewise lent
money to those of his slaves who wished to borrow, with which they
bought also other young ones, whom, when they had taught and bred up
at his charges, they would sell again at the year's end; but some of
them Cato would keep for himself, giving just as much for them as
another had offered. To incline his son to be of this kind of
temper, he used to tell him, that it was not like a man, but rather
like a widow woman, to lessen an estate. But the strongest
indication of Cato's avaricious humor was when he took the boldness
to affirm, that he was a most wonderful, nay, a godlike man, who left
more behind him than he had received.
He was now grown old, when Carneades the Academic, and Diogenes the
Stoic, came as deputies from Athens to Rome, praying for release from
a penalty of five hundred talents laid on the Athenians, in a suit,
to which they did not appear, in which the Oropians were plaintiffs,
and Sicyonians judges. All the most studious youth immediately
waited on these philosophers, and frequently, with admiration, heard
them speak. But the gracefulness of Carneades's oratory, whose
ability was really greatest, and his reputation equal to it, gathered
large and favorable audiences, and erelong filled, like a wind, all
the city with the sound of it. So that it soon began to be told,
that a Greek, famous even to admiration, winning and carrying all
before him, had impressed so strange a love upon the young men, that
quitting all their pleasures and pastimes, they ran mad, as it were,
after philosophy; which indeed much pleased the Romans in general;
nor could they but with much pleasure see the youth receive so
welcomely the Greek literature, and frequent the company of learned
men. But Cato, on the other side, seeing this passion for words
flowing into the city, from the beginning, took it ill, fearing lest
the youth should be diverted that way, and so should prefer the glory
of speaking well before that of arms, and doing well. And when the
fame of the philosophers increased in the city, and Caius Acilius, a
person of distinction, at his own request, became their interpreter
to the senate at their first audience, Cato resolved, under some
specious presence, to have all philosophers cleared out of the city;
and, coming into the senate, blamed the magistrates for letting these
deputies stay so long a time without being dispatched, though they
were persons that could easily persuade the people to what they
pleased; that therefore in all haste something should be determined
about their petition, that so they might go home again to their own
schools, and declaim to the Greek children, and leave the Roman
youth, to be obedient, as hitherto, to their own laws and governors.
Yet he did this not out of any anger, as some think, to Carneades;
but because he wholly despised philosophy, and out of a kind of
pride, scoffed at the Greek studies and literature; as, for example,
he would say, that Socrates was a prating seditious fellow, who did
his best to tyrannize over his country, to undermine the ancient