Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
customs, and to entice and withdraw the citizens to opinions contrary
to the laws. Ridiculing the school of Isocrates, he would add, that
his scholars grew old men before they had done learning with him, as
if they were to use their art and plead causes in the court of Minos
in the next world. And to frighten his son from anything that was
Greek, in a more vehement tone than became one of his age, he
pronounced, as it were, with the voice of an oracle, that the Romans
would certainly be destroyed when they began once to be infected with
Greek literature; though time indeed has shown the vanity of this his
prophecy; as, in truth, the city of Rome has risen to its highest
fortune, while entertaining Grecian learning. Nor had he an aversion
only against the Greek philosophers, but the physicians also; for
having, it seems, heard how Hippocrates, when the king of Persia sent
for him, with offers of a fee of several talents, said, that he would
never assist barbarians who were enemies to the Greeks; he affirmed,
that this was now become a common oath taken by all physicians, and
enjoined his son to have a care and avoid them; for that he himself
had written a little book of prescriptions for curing those who were
sick in his family; he never enjoined fasting to anyone, but ordered
them either vegetables, or the meat of a duck, pigeon, or leveret;
such kind of diet being of light digestion, and fit for sick folks,
only it made those who ate it dream a little too much; and by the
use of this kind of physic, he said, he not only made himself and
those about him well, but kept them so.
However, for this his presumption, he seemed not to have escaped
unpunished; for he lost both his wife and his son; though he himself,
being of a strong robust constitution, held out longer; so that he
would often, even in his old days, address himself to women, and when
he was past a lover's age, married a young woman, upon the following
pretense. Having lost his own wife, he married his son to the
daughter of Paulus Aemilius, who was sister to Scipio; so that being
now a widower himself, he had a young girl who came privately to
visit him; but the house being very small, and a daughter-in-law also
in it, this practice was quickly discovered; for the young woman
seeming once to pass through it a little too boldly, the youth, his
son, though he said nothing, seemed to look somewhat indignantly upon
her. The old man perceiving and understanding that what he did was
disliked, without finding any fault, or saying a word, went away
as his custom was, with his usual companions to the market: and
among the rest, he called aloud to one Salonius, who had been a clerk
under him, and asked him whether he had married his daughter? He
answered, no, nor would he, till he had consulted him. Said Cato,
"Then I have found out a fit son-in-law for you, if he should not
displease by reason of his age; for in all other points there is no
fault to be found in him; but he is indeed, as I said, extremely
old." However, Salonius desired him to undertake the business, and
to give the young girl to whom he pleased, she being a humble servant
of his, who stood in need of his care and patronage. Upon this Cato,
without any more ado, told him, he desired to have the damsel
himself. These words, as may well be imagined, at first astonished
the man, conceiving that Cato was as far off from marrying, as he
from a likelihood of being allied to the family of one who had been
consul, and had triumphed; but perceiving him in earnest, he
consented willingly; and, going onwards to the forum, they quickly
completed the bargain.
Whilst the marriage was in hand, Cato's son, taking some of his
friends along with him, went and asked his father if it were for any
offense he brought in a stepmother upon him? But Cato cried out, "Far
from it, my son, I have no fault to find with you nor anything of
yours; only I desire to have many children, and to leave the
commonwealth more such citizens as you are." Pisistratus, the tyrant
of Athens, made, they say, this answer to his sons, when they were
grown men, when he married his second wife, Timonassa of Argos, by
whom he had, it is said, Iophon and Thessalus. Cato had a son by
this second wife, to whom from his mother, he gave the surname of
Salonius. In the mean time, his eldest died in his praetorship; of
whom Cato often makes mention in his books, as having been a good
man. He is said, however, to have borne the loss moderately, and
like a philosopher, and was nothing the more remiss in attending to
affairs of state; so that he did not, as Lucius Lucullus and Metellus
Pius did, grow languid in his old age, as though public business were
a duty once to be discharged, and then quitted; nor did he, like
Scipio Africanus, because envy had struck at his glory, turn from the
public, and change and pass away the rest of his life without doing
anything; but as one persuaded Dionysius, that the most honorable
tomb he could have, would be to die in the exercise of his dominion;
so Cato thought that old age to be the most honorable, which was
busied in public affairs; though he would, now and then, when he had
leisure, recreate himself with husbandry and writing.
And, indeed, he composed various books and histories; and in his
youth, he addicted himself to agriculture for profit's sake; for he
used to say, he had but two ways of getting -- agriculture and
parsimony; and now, in his old age, the first of these gave him both
occupation and a subject of study. He wrote one book on country
matters, in which he treated particularly even of making cakes, and
preserving fruit; it being his ambition to be curious and singular in
all things. His suppers, at his country-house, used also to be
plentiful; he daily invited his friends and neighbors about him, and
passed the time merrily with them; so that his company was not only
agreeable to those of the same age, but even to younger men; for he
had had experience in many things, and had been concerned in much,
both by word and deed, that was worth the hearing. He looked upon a
good table, as the best place for making friends; where the
commendations of brave and good citizens were usually introduced, and
little said of base and unworthy ones; as Cato would not give leave
in his company to have anything, either good or ill, said about
them.
Some will have the overthrow of Carthage to have been one of his last
acts of state; when, indeed, Scipio the younger, did by his valor
give it the last blow, but the war, chiefly by the counsel and advice
of Cato, was undertaken on the following occasion. Cato was sent to
the Carthaginians and Masinissa, king of Numidia, who were at war
with one another, to know the cause of their difference. He, it
seems, had been a friend of the Romans from the beginning; and they,
too, since they were conquered by Scipio, were of the Roman
confederacy, having been shorn of their power by loss of territory,
and a heavy tax. Finding Carthage, not (as the Romans thought) low
and in an ill condition, but well manned, full of riches and all
sorts of arms and ammunition, and perceiving the Carthaginians carry
it high, he conceived that it was not a time for the Romans to adjust
affairs between them and Masinissa; but rather that they themselves
would fall into danger, unless they should find means to check this
rapid new growth of Rome's ancient irreconcilable enemy. Therefore,
returning quickly to Rome, he acquainted the senate, that the former
defeats and blows given to the Carthaginians, had not so much
diminished their strength, as it had abated their imprudence and
folly; that they were not become weaker, but more experienced in war,
and did only skirmish with the Numidians, to exercise themselves the
better to cope with the Romans: that the peace and league they had
made was but a kind of suspension of war which awaited a fairer
opportunity to break out again.
Moreover, they say that, shaking his gown, he took occasion to let
drop some African figs before the senate. And on their admiring the
size and beauty of them, he presently added, that the place that bore
them was but three days' sail from Rome. Nay, he never after this
gave his opinion, but at the end he would be sure to come out with
this sentence, "Also, Carthage, methinks, ought utterly to be
destroyed." But Publius Scipio Nasica would always declare his
opinion to the contrary, in these words, "It seems requisite to me
that Carthage should still stand." For seeing his countrymen to be
grown wanton and insolent, and the people made, by their prosperity,
obstinate and disobedient to the senate, and drawing the whole city,
whither they would, after them, he would have had the fear of
Carthage to serve as a bit to hold in the contumacy of the multitude;
and he looked upon the Carthaginians as too weak to overcome the
Romans, and too great to be despised by them. On the other side, it
seemed a perilous thing to Cato, that a city which had been always
great, and was now grown sober and wise, by reason of its former
calamities, should still lie, as it were, in wait for the follies and
dangerous excesses of the overpowerful Roman people; so that he
thought it the wisest course to have all outward dangers removed,
when they had so many inward ones among themselves.
Thus Cato, they say, stirred up the third and last war against the
Carthaginians: but no sooner was the said war begun, than he died,
prophesying of the person that should put an end to it, who was then
only a young man; but, being tribune in the army, he in several
fights gave proof of his courage and conduct. The news of which
being brought to Cato's ears at Rome, he thus expressed himself: --
The only wise man of them all is he,
The others e'en as shadows flit and flee.
This prophecy Scipio soon confirmed by his actions.
Cato left no posterity, except one son by his second wife, who was
named, as we said, Cato Salonius; and a grandson by his eldest son,
who died. Cato Salonius died when he was praetor, but his son Marcus
was afterwards consul, and he was grandfather of Cato the
philosopher, who for virtue and renown was one of the most eminent
personages of his time.
COMPARISON OF ARISTIDES WITH MARCUS CATO.
Having mentioned the most memorable actions of these great men, if we
now compare the whole life of the one with that of the other, it will
not be easy to discern the difference between them, lost as it is
amongst such a number of circumstances in which they resemble each
other. If, however, we examine them in detail as we might some piece
of poetry, or some picture, we shall find this common to them both,
that they advanced themselves to great honor and dignity in the
commonwealth, by no other means than their own virtue and industry.
But it seems when Aristides appeared, Athens was not at its height of
grandeur and plenty, the chief magistrates and officers of his time
being men only of moderate and equal fortunes among themselves. The
estimate of the greatest estates then, was five hundred medimns; that
of the second, or knights, three hundred; of the third and last called
Zeugitae, two hundred. But Cato, out of a petty village from a
country life, leaped into the commonwealth, as it were into a vast
ocean; at a time when there were no such governors as the Curii,
Fabricii, and Hostilii. Poor laboring men were not then advanced from
the plow and spade to be governors and magistrates; but greatness of
family, riches, profuse gifts, distributions, and personal application
were what the city looked to; keeping a high hand, and, in a manner,
insulting over those that courted preferment. It was not as great a
matter to have Themistocles for an adversary, a person of mean