by Plutarch
‘The Roman people’, he pointed out on another occasion, ‘fix the value not only of dyes and colours, but also of men’s occupations. For just as dyers make most use of the colours which they see are most popular, so your young men study and apply themselves to the subjects which they think will earn credit with you.’ He also put it to the people that if they had won their empire by means of virtue and self-restraint, they should not allow themselves to fall away from these qualities, but that if it was through self-indulgence and vice, they should try to bring about a change for the better, since these qualities had already made them great enough. Those who were perpetually ambitious to hold high office, he compared to men who did not know their way, and who expected to be attended all the time by lictors, in case they should go astray.54 He also found fault with the people for constantly electing the same men55 to the most important positions. ‘It can only be supposed,’ he said, ‘either that you do not think the office itself is of much consequence, or else that you believe there are very few men capable of filling it.’ Speaking of one of his enemies, who was notorious for his dissolute and disreputable life, Cato said, ‘That man’s mother thinks of it as a curse, not a blessing, if anyone prays that her son should survive her.’ And on another occasion, he pointed to a man who had sold his ancestral estate, which was near the sea, and, pretending to admire him for possessing greater strength than the sea itself, he said, ‘The sea could only wash away a small part of his fields, but this man had drunk up every one of them without any difficulty at all.’56
When King Eumenes of Pergamum57 paid a state visit to Rome, the senate received him with extraordinary honours, and the most prominent citizens in Rome vied with one another in showing him attention, whereupon Cato made a point of treating him with suspicion and reserve. ‘But surely’, someone said to him, ‘Eumenes is an excellent man and a friend of Rome.’ ‘That may be,’ replied Cato, ‘but nevertheless a king is an animal that lives on human flesh.’ He maintained that none of the kings who had enjoyed so great a reputation could be compared with Epaminondas or Pericles58 or Themistocles or Manius Curius59 or Hamilcar Barca.60
His enemies, he used to say, hated him because he got up early every day and devoted himself to public affairs, but neglected his own. Another saying of his was that he would rather do what was right and go unrewarded than do wrong and go unpunished,61 and that he was prepared to forgive everybody’s mistakes except his own.62
9. The Romans once sent three ambassadors to Bithynia,63 one of whom suffered from gout, another had had his skull trepanned and the third was generally regarded as a fool. Cato ridiculed these appointments, and said that the Romans were sending out a delegation which could not muster a pair of feet, nor a head, nor a heart.64 Scipio Africanus once approached him at Polybius’ request to enlist his support on behalf of the Greek exiles from Achaea.65 The question was debated at great length in the senate, some speakers contending that the men should be allowed to return home, and others that they should continue to be detained in Italy. At last Cato rose and asked: ‘Have we nothing better to do than to spend an entire day sitting here and discussing whether some poor old Greeks are to be buried by our grave-diggers or their own?’66 The senate then decreed that the men should be allowed to return home, but a few days later Polybius tried to have another proposal laid before the senate, whereby the exiles would have the honours and positions which they had formerly held in Achaea restored to them, and he asked Cato’s opinion as to whether this petition was likely to succeed. Cato smiled and told him that what he was suggesting was rather as though Odysseus had wanted to go back into the Cyclops’ cave to fetch a cap and belt he had left behind.67
‘Wise men’, he used to say, ‘profit far more from the example of fools than the other way round. They learn to avoid the fools’ mistakes, whereas fools do not imitate the successes of the wise.’ He said that he liked to see young men blush rather than turn pale,68 and that he had no use for a soldier who used his hands on the march and his feet when it came to fighting,69 or one who snored louder in his sleep than he shouted in battle. There was an excessively fat Roman of whom he made fun by saying: ‘How can a body like this be of any service to the state, when everything in it from the gullet to the groin is devoted to the belly?’70 When a certain epicure wished to enjoy his company and sent him an invitation, he excused himself by saying that he could not spend his time with a man whose palate was so much more highly developed than his heart.71 He also remarked once that a lover’s soul lives in the body of his beloved.72 As for regrets, he said that there were only three actions in his life of which he repented. The first was to have entrusted a secret to a woman, the second to have paid for his sea passage to a place instead of walking there and the third to have remained intestate for a whole day.73 Speaking to an old man who was leading a depraved life, he remarked, ‘Old age is vile enough as it is: do not add to it the deformity of vice.’74 To a tribune of the people who was reputed to be a poisoner, had introduced an iniquitous bill and was trying to force its passage, he said, ‘Young man, I do not know which will do us more harm, to drink your potions or to enact your bills.’ And when he himself was attacked by a man who led an infamous and dissolute life, he retorted: ‘We can never fight on equal terms: you are so hardened to abuse that you can return it just as easily as you suffer it, whereas for me it is as unusual to hear as it is unpleasant to utter.’ These are some examples of his memorable sayings.
10. After he had served as consul with his close friend Valerius Flaccus, he was allotted the province which is known as Nearer Spain.75 While he was engaged in subduing some of the tribes by force and winning over others by diplomacy, he was attacked by a huge army of barbarians and was in danger of being driven ignominiously out of the province. In this situation he appealed to a neighbouring tribe, the Celtiberians,76 to join forces with him. When they demanded 200 talents as the price for their assistance, Cato’s Roman officers thought it an intolerable humiliation that Romans should actually pay barbarians to come to their rescue.77 But Cato took the view that there was nothing shocking in this. If the Romans won, they could pay their allies out of the spoils of the campaign, not out of public funds, and if they lost there would be nobody left either to ask for the reward or to pay it.78 In the battle which followed he won an overwhelming victory, and the rest of the campaign was brilliantly successful.79 Polybius records80 that in the space of a single day, the walls of all the cities on the Roman side of the River Baetis81 were razed to the ground on Cato’s orders, and yet these were very numerous and full of excellent fighting men. Cato himself tells us that he captured more cities than he stayed days in Spain.82 And this is no idle boast, if in fact the number taken amounted to 400.
His soldiers enriched themselves greatly during this campaign, and over and above their plunder he presented each of them with a pound of silver,83 saying that it was better that many of the Romans should return home with silver in their pockets than a few with gold. As for himself, he states that he took no share whatever of the spoils of war, apart from what he ate and drank. ‘I do not blame those who seek to make their fortune in this way,’ he added, ‘but I would rather compete for bravery with the bravest than for money with the richest, or for covetousness with the most greedy.’84 At any rate, he not only kept his own hands clean, but insisted that his staff should also be free from any taint of profiteering. He had five personal slaves with him while he was on active service. One of these, whose name was Paccius,85 bought three boys at a public sale of prisoners of war, but when he found that Cato had learned of this transaction, he went and hanged himself rather than face his master. Cato sold the boys and returned the money he received for them to the public treasury.
11. While Cato was still serving in Spain, Scipio Africanus, because he was an enemy to Cato and wished to check the sequence of his successes and take the administration of Spanish affairs out of his hands, contrived to have himself appointed to succeed Cato as governor of the provin
ce.86 He therefore travelled to Spain as quickly as he could and cut short Cato’s term of office.87 However, Cato took with him five cohorts of infantry and 500 horsemen as an escort for his return journey, and on his march to Rome subdued the tribe of the Lacetanians88 and put to death 600 deserters, whom they surrendered to him. Scipio was furious at this action, whereupon Cato replied with mock humility that Rome would truly be at her greatest when men of noble birth refused to yield the prizes of valour to those of humbler position, and when plebeians such as himself dared to contend with their superiors in birth and distinction. But in spite of Scipio’s disapproval, the senate decreed that none of Cato’s measures should be revoked or altered, so that Scipio’s term of office, which he had so eagerly sought, was conspicuous for its inactivity and lack of initiative, and it was his own rather than Cato’s reputation which suffered.
Cato on the other hand was honoured with a triumph.89 But he neither abandoned nor relaxed his efforts, as is so often the case with men whose ambition is directed towards fame rather than virtue, and who, as soon as they have attained the highest honours, served as consul and celebrated a triumph, promptly withdraw from public affairs and devote the rest of their careers to a life of ease and pleasure. Instead, Cato behaved like a man who is all athirst for glory and reputation on his first entry into public life, and in this spirit he once more sprang into action and offered his services to his friends and his fellow-countrymen, both in the courts of law and in the field.
12. This was how he came to serve as legate under Titus Sempronius the consul, and helped him to subdue the region of Thrace and the territories bordering the Danube.90 Later he was a military tribune under Manius Acilius91 during his campaign in Greece against Antiochus the Great,92 who, next to Hannibal, was the most formidable opponent the Romans had ever encountered. Antiochus first reconquered almost all the territory in Asia which had previously been ruled by Seleucus Nicator,93 and subdued many warlike barbarian tribes, and finally his elation at these conquests led him to attack the Romans, whom he regarded as the only nation worthy to cross swords with him. He used the restoration of Greek liberties as a specious pretext for his invasion, although in fact the people had no need for this gift, since the Romans had only recently freed them from the domination of Philip of Macedon.94 At any rate, Antiochus crossed with an army into Greece, which was at once thrown into a turmoil of hopes and fears, and corrupted by the prospects of royal favour held out by the demagogues whom Antiochus had won over. Accordingly, Manius dispatched envoys to the various cities. In most of these Titus Flamininus succeeded in quelling the efforts of the agitators and in restoring the people to their allegiance, as I have described in detail in his Life,95 but Cato was responsible for bringing over Corinth, Patrae and Aegium to the side of Rome.96
He also stayed for a considerable time in Athens, and we are told that a certain speech of his has survived which he delivered to the Athenian people in Greek. In this he told them of his admiration for the virtues of the ancient Athenians, and of his delight at seeing a city as beautiful and as magnificent as theirs. All this is untrue, since Cato in fact spoke to the Athenians through an interpreter. He was quite capable of addressing them in their own language, but he clung to Roman forms97 and made a point of ridiculing those who admired everything that was Greek. For example, he made fun of the Roman author Postumius Albinus, who wrote a history in Greek and asked his readers to make allowances for his ignorance of the language.98 Cato remarked that they might have made allowances if he had been compelled to undertake the task by a decree of the Amphictyony.99 Cato himself claims that the Athenians were greatly impressed by the speed and the conciseness of his address, for the interpreter took a long time and a great many words to communicate what he expressed briefly, and in general he concludes that the Greeks speak from the lips, but the Romans from the heart.100
13. Now Antiochus had blocked the narrow pass of Thermopylae with his army and strengthened the natural defences of the position by means of walls and trenches, and there he sat, confident that it was impossible to attack him in Greece.101 And in fact the Romans did give up hope of forcing the pass by a frontal assault. However, Cato – remembering the famous outflanking march whereby the Persians had turned Leonidas’ defences102 – took a large force and set off under a cover of darkness. They had climbed to a considerable height, when their guide, who was a prisoner of war, lost the way and wandered helplessly along tracks which either gave out or ended in sheer precipices, until the soldiers were thoroughly disheartened and on the verge of despair. At this point Cato, recognizing the danger of their position, ordered the troops to halt, while he himself with a single companion named Lucius Mallius,103 who was an expert mountaineer, went forward to reconnoitre the path. This he did with great difficulty and danger, as it was a moonless pitch-dark night, and the rocks and trees hindered them by preventing them from seeing distinctly where they were going. At last they came upon a path which they believed led down to the enemy’s camp. As they returned, they left marks upon some of the most conspicuous rocks on the heights of Mount Callidromus,104 and at last found their way back to the main body. Then they led the troops forward up to the signs, and started on the downward path. But when they had gone only a little way, the track again gave out, and a yawning precipice stretched below their feet. Once more fear and bewilderment descended on the troops, since it was impossible for them to know or to see that they were almost upon the enemy whom they sought. But presently the darkness began to fade, they believed that they could hear voices close by and soon they actually caught sight of Greek entrenchments and an outpost near the foot of the cliffs. Cato then halted his troops and called up the men of Firmum105 for a private conference: this was a contingent which he had always found to be especially daring and reliable.
When they had run up and gathered round him, he told them: ‘I need to capture one of the enemy alive and find out who this advance guard consists of and what is its strength, the order of battle of the main body and what preparations they have made to resist us. But to get your prisoner you will have to move without a second’s hesitation, as quickly and as boldly as a lion leaping on a timid herd.’ When they had listened to Cato’s orders, the Firmians set off at a rush, just as they were, poured down the mountain-side and hurled themselves upon the enemy’s sentinels. The surprise was complete and the whole outpost was thrown into confusion and scattered at once. The Firmians seized one man, arms and all, and hurried him back to Cato. He soon discovered from the prisoner that the enemy’s main body was encamped in the pass with the king himself, while the detachment which held the approach from the heights above consisted of 600 picked Aetolians. Now that he knew the weakness of the advance guard and the carelessness of their dispositions, Cato was filled with confidence. He drew his sword, and with a battle cry and a great blast of trumpets led his men into the attack. When the enemy saw the Romans pouring down upon them from the cliffs, they immediately fled and took refuge with the main body, filling it with confusion and dismay.
14. Meanwhile, Manius on the lower ground flung his whole army into the pass and stormed the enemy’s fortifications. Antiochus was struck in the mouth by a stone, which shattered his teeth and made him wheel his horse in agony, and before the shock of the Roman charge his troops gave way at every point. There was little enough hope of escape, since the mountain tracks were hard to follow and led over difficult ground, while deep marshes on the one side and steep cliffs on the other threatened any who slipped and fell; but in spite of everything the routed troops tried to force their way through the narrow pass towards these dangers, and trampling upon one another in their terror of the Romans’ swords, many of them perished miserably.
It would seem that Cato never stinted his own praise,106 and could never resist following up a great achievement with a correspondingly boastful description of it, so he gives a characteristically inflated account of this battle. He says that those who saw him pursuing and cutting down the enemy felt th
at Rome owed more to Cato than he to his city, and that the consul Manius himself, flushed with victory, threw his arms around him in a long embrace and cried aloud in sheer joy that neither he nor the whole Roman people could ever repay Cato for his services to the state. Immediately after the battle he was dispatched to Rome107 to carry the news of his own exploits. He sailed with a favourable wind to Brundisium,108 crossed the peninsula in a single day and, after travelling four days more, reached Rome on the fifth day after his landing. His arrival filled the whole city with rejoicing and sacrifices, and inspired the people with the proud belief that they could conquer every land and every sea.
15. These actions which I have described were the most remarkable achievements of Cato’s military career. In his political life he seems to have concerned himself most of all with the impeachment and trial of wrongdoers. He undertook many prosecutions himself, gave his help to others in bringing theirs, and in some instances incited his fellow-citizens to open proceedings, as in the case of Petillius’ prosecution of Scipio.109 Scipio’s response, as a member of one of the greatest families in Rome and a man of lofty spirit, was to trample these accusations underfoot, and when Cato found that he could not obtain a conviction on a capital charge, he dropped the case. But he joined the accusers of Scipio’s brother Lucius, and was active in securing his condemnation to pay a heavy fine to the state. Lucius was unable to meet this and therefore became liable to imprisonment, and it was only with difficulty and after the intervention of the tribunes110 that he was set free.