by Plutarch
At the beginning of his career, when he was a poor man and was frequently on active service, he never complained of anything that he ate, and he used to say that it was ignoble to find fault with a servant for the food that he prepared. But in later life, when he had become more prosperous,152 he used to invite his friends and colleagues to dinner, and immediately after the meal he would beat with a leather thong any of the slaves who had been careless in preparing or serving it. He constantly contrived to provoke quarrels and dissensions among his slaves,153 and if they ever arrived at an understanding with one another he became alarmed and suspicious. If ever any of his slaves was suspected of committing a capital offence, he gave the culprit a formal trial in the presence of the rest, and if he was found guilty he had him put to death.
When he began to devote himself more energetically to making money, he came to regard agriculture as a pastime rather than as a source of income,154 and he invested his capital in solid enterprises which involved the minimum of risk. He bought up fisheries,155 hot springs, fuller’s establishments, workshops156 and estates which were rich in pasture-land or forest. All these undertakings brought in large profits and could not, to use his own phrase, be ruined by the whims of Jupiter.157 He also used to lend money in what is surely the most disreputable form of speculation,158 that is, the underwriting of ships. Those who wished to borrow money from him were obliged to form a large association, and when this reached the number of fifty, representing as many ships, he would take one share in the company through the agency of Quintio, one of his freedmen,159 who used to accompany Cato’s clients on their voyage and transact their business. In this way he drew a handsome profit, while at the same time spreading his risk and never venturing more than a fraction of his capital.
He would also lend money to any of his slaves who wished it. They used these sums to buy young slaves, and after training them and teaching them a trade for a year at Cato’s expense, they would sell them again. Often Cato would keep these boys for himself, and he would then credit to the slave the price offered by the highest bidder. He tried to encourage his son to imitate these methods, and told him that to diminish one’s capital was something that might be expected of a widow, but not of a man.160 But he certainly went too far when he ventured once to declare that the man who deserved the highest praise, indeed who should be honoured almost as a god, was the one who at the end of his life was found to have added to his property more than he had inherited.
22. Cato was an old man when Carneades161 the Academic and Diogenes162 the Stoic arrived in Rome as ambassadors from Athens.163 They had been sent to plead that the Athenians should be released from a sentence which had imposed on them a fine of 500 talents. The people of Oropus had brought an action, the Athenians had allowed the case to go by default and the people of Sicyon had pronounced judgement against them.164 When the philosophers arrived, all the young Romans who had any taste for literature hurried to frequent their company, and listened to them with delight and wonder. Above all, they were spellbound by the grace and charm with which Carneades expressed himself. He was the ablest of the Greeks and his performance did not belie his reputation. His discourses attracted large and admiring audiences, and before long the city was filled as if by a rushing, mighty wind with the sound of his praises. The report spread that a Greek of extraordinary talents had arrived, who could subdue all opposition beneath the spell of his eloquence, and who had so bewitched all the youth of the city that they seemed to have abandoned all their other pleasures and pursuits and to have become utterly possessed by philosophy.
Most of the Romans were gratified by this, and were well content to see their sons embrace Greek culture and frequent the society of such estimable men. But Cato, from the moment that this passion for discussion first showed itself in Rome, was deeply disturbed. He was afraid that the younger generation might allow their ambitions to be diverted in this direction, and might come to value most highly a reputation that was based upon feats of oratory rather than upon feats of arms. So when the prestige of the philosophers continued to rise still higher, and no less eminent a man than Gaius Acilius165 volunteered to act as their interpreter for their first audience with the senate, Cato made up his mind to find some plausible excuse for clearing the whole tribe of philosophers out of the city. Accordingly, he rose in the senate and criticized the authorities for having kept in such long suspense a delegation composed of men whose powers of persuasion were so remarkable that they could obtain any verdict that they wished. ‘We ought to come to a decision as soon as possible,’ he declared, ‘and take a vote on their proposal, so that these distinguished men may return to their seats of learning and lecture to the sons of Greece, but leave the youth of Rome to give their attention to the laws and the magistrates, as they have done in the past.’
23. Cato did not take this action, as some people believe, out of personal animosity towards Carneades, but rather because he was opposed on principle to the study of philosophy,166 and because his patriotic fervour made him regard the whole of Greek culture and its methods of education with contempt. He asserts, for example, that Socrates was a turbulent windbag, who did his best to act the tyrant in his country by undermining its established customs and seducing his fellow-citizens into holding opinions which were contrary to the laws. He made fun of Isocrates167 as a teacher of rhetoric, saying that his disciples went on studying with him until they were old men,168 so that they were only able to practise the tricks they had learned and plead their cases in the court where Minos sat in judgement in Hades.169 And in an effort to turn his son against Greek culture, he allowed himself an utterance which was absurdly rash for an old man: he pronounced with all the solemnity of a prophet that if ever the Romans became infected with the literature of Greece, they would lose their empire.170 At any rate, time has exposed the emptiness of this ominous prophecy, for in the age when the city rose to the zenith of her greatness, her people had made themselves familiar with Greek learning and culture in all its forms.
However, Cato’s dislike of the Greeks was not confined to philosophers: he was also deeply suspicious of the Greek physicians who practised in Rome. It seems he had heard of Hippocrates’ celebrated reply171 when he was called upon to attend the king of Persia for a fee amounting to many talents, and declared that he would never give his services to barbarians who were enemies of Greece. Cato maintained that all Greek physicians had taken an oath of this kind, and urged his son not to trust a single one of them. He himself had compiled a book of recipes and used them for the diet or treatment of any member of his household who fell ill. He never made his patients fast, but allowed them to eat herbs and morsels of duck, pigeon or hare. He maintained that this diet was light and thoroughly suitable for sick people, apart from the fact that it often produced nightmares, and he claimed that by following it he kept both himself and his family in perfect health.172
24. However, his self-sufficiency in these matters seems to have met with divine retribution, for he lost both his wife and his son by disease. He himself, so far as physical health and strength were concerned, possessed an iron constitution, and was able for many years to resist the onset of old age. Even when he was far advanced in years he continued to indulge his sexual appetite, and he finally took a second wife long after he passed the age to marry. This was how it came about. After the death of his first wife, he arranged a marriage between his son and Aemilius Paullus’ daughter, who was also the sister of the younger Scipio; but while he himself remained a widower, he consoled himself with a young slave girl, who came to his room secretly to sleep with him. This intrigue soon came to light, as might be expected in a small household which contained a young daughter-in-law, and on one occasion, when the slave seemed to flaunt her presence altogether too impudently on her way to Cato’s room, the old man could not fail to notice that his son kept silent, glanced at her with intense dislike and then turned away in disgust.
As soon as Cato understood that his behaviour annoyed his
children, he did not blame or find fault with them at all. Instead, as he was walking towards the forum with his clients in the usual way,173 he called out to one of them whose name was Salonius.174 This man had been one of his scribes and now regularly escorted him, and Cato asked him in a loud voice whether he had yet found a suitable husband for his young daughter. The man said that he had not, and had no intention of settling the matter without first consulting his patron. ‘Very well,’ replied Cato; ‘I have found a suitable son-in-law, unless you happen to object to his age: there is nothing wrong with him in other respects, but he is a very old man.’ Salonius at once urged him to take the matter into his own hands and betroth the girl to whomever he thought best, since she was under his patronage and would always depend upon his good offices. Thereupon Cato, without further ceremony, told him that he wished to marry the girl himself. At first Salonius, naturally enough, was astounded at the proposal, since he supposed that Cato was well past the age to marry, and also that his own family was far too humble to be allied with a house which had earned consular rank and triumphal honours; but once he saw that Cato was in earnest he gladly accepted, and as soon as they arrived at the forum, the betrothal ceremony was carried out.
While the preparations for the marriage were being made, Cato’s son collected some of his friends, went to visit his father and asked whether he had done anything to harm or annoy him, to have a stepmother foisted upon him in this way. ‘Heaven forbid, my boy!’ answered Cato, ‘you have been a model son to me, and I have no fault of any kind to find with you. It is simply that I want to leave behind me more sons like you of my blood, and more citizens like you to serve my country.’175 However, this remark is said to have been made many years earlier by Peisistratus,176 the tyrant of Athens, whose sons were already grown men when he married Timonassa of Argolis, by whom we are told he had two more children, Iophon and Thessalus. Cato also had a son by his second marriage, whom he named Salonius after his father-in-law,177 but his first-born son died during his praetorship.178 Cato often mentions him in his books as having been a good and courageous man, and it is said that he endured his loss with all the calm of a philosopher, nor did he take any less keen an interest in public affairs than before.
Unlike Lucius Lucullus and Metellus Pius179 at a later date, he never became so enfeebled by old age as to abandon public service or to regard political activity as an oppressive duty; still less did he follow the example of Scipio Africanus before him, who because of the attacks of those who envied the glory he had won, turned his back on the Roman people and determined to spend the rest of his life in untroubled retirement.180 Somebody is said to have advised Dionysius,181 the ruler of Syracuse, that absolute power is the best winding-sheet for a man to die in, and in the same way it was Cato’s belief that the service of the state was still the most honourable employment for old age. But whenever he had leisure, his favourite recreations consisted of writing books and farming.
25. He wrote discourses on an immense number of subjects and also histories.182 When he was a young man he applied himself seriously to farming because of his poverty – in fact he remarks that at that time he knew only two ways of acquiring money, by farming and by saving – but in later life he regarded agriculture as a hobby and a subject to study in theory. He also wrote a treatise on farming, which includes recipes183 for making cakes and preserving fruit, so anxious was he to show that he possessed a superior and independent knowledge of every subject. His table was never so abundantly stocked as when he was in the country. He always invited his friends and acquaintances from the neighbourhood, and showed himself a gay and spirited host. And indeed his company was so agreeable that it was greatly sought after, not only by his contemporaries but even by the younger generations, for his experience was wide and he had read and heard a great deal that was worth repeating. He believed that a good table was the best place for making friends, and at his own table the conversation often dwelt on the praises of brave and honourable men, but he also made it a rule to refrain from mentioning those who were worthless or disreputable. Such persons were taboo in Cato’s company, either by way of praise or blame.184
26. Some people consider that the last of his political achievements was the destruction of Carthage.185 In the military sense it was the younger Scipio who brought this about, but the fact that the Romans went to war at all was very largely the consequence of Cato’s advice. This was how it happened. Cato was sent out on a diplomatic mission186 to investigate the causes of a dispute between the Carthaginians and Masinissa,187 the king of Numidia, who were at this time at war. Masinissa had been a friend of the Roman people from the first, whereas the Carthaginians had entered into treaty relations with Rome only after the defeat which they had suffered at the hands of Scipio Africanus,188 and this settlement had stripped them of their empire and compelled them to pay a heavy tribute to Rome. Nevertheless, it was at once apparent to Cato that the city was by no means crushed nor impoverished, as the Romans imagined. He found it teeming with a new generation of fighting men, overflowing with wealth, amply stocked with weapons and military supplies of every kind and full of confidence at this revival of its strength. He drew the conclusion that this was no time for the Romans to occupy themselves with regulating the affairs of Masinissa and the Numidians, but that unless they found the means to crush a city which had always borne them an undying hatred and had now recovered its power to an incredible extent, they would find themselves as gravely threatened as before. He therefore returned with all speed to Rome, and warned the senate that the overwhelming defeats and misfortunes which the Carthaginians had suffered had done much to diminish their recklessness and over-confidence, but little to impair their strength, and that they were likely to emerge not weaker but more experienced in war. He was convinced that this present dispute with the Numidians was merely the prelude to an attack upon Rome, and that the peace and the treaty which existed between them were a convenient fiction to cover a period of suspense, until a suitable moment should arrive to begin a war.
27. As he ended this speech, it is said that Cato shook the folds of his toga and contrived to drop some Libyan figs on the floor of the senate-house, and when the senators admired their size and beauty, he remarked that the country which produced them was only three days’ sail from Rome. Afterwards, however, Cato adopted a method of driving home his point that was excessively brutal: whenever his opinion was called for on any subject, he invariably concluded with the words, ‘And furthermore, it is my opinion that Carthage must be destroyed!’189 On the other hand Publius Scipio Nasica190 made a point of adding the phrase, ‘And in my view Carthage must be spared!’ Scipio had already observed, no doubt, that the Roman people were by this time indulging in many excesses, and that the insolence occasioned by its prosperity prompted it to cast aside the control of the senate and force the whole state to follow in whichever direction the impulses of the masses might lead. He was therefore in favour of keeping the fear of Carthage hanging over the people as a check upon their arrogance, and he evidently also believed that although Carthage was not strong enough to threaten the Romans, she was not so weak that they could afford to despise her. But this was precisely the danger that Cato feared: namely, that at a time when the Romans were intoxicated and carried away by their new-found power, they should allow a city which had always been great and had now been sobered by calamity to continue to threaten them. He believed that it was best to free the Romans from any fear of outside danger, so that they could devote themselves wholeheartedly to reforming their own shortcomings and abuses at home.
This is the way in which Cato is said to have brought about the third and last war against Carthage. He died almost immediately after it had begun,191 leaving a prophecy that it would be ended by a man who was still young,192 but who had already as a military tribune given remarkable proofs of his intelligence and daring in his encounters with the enemy. When his exploits were reported in Rome, Cato is said to have quoted the line from Homer in
which Circe speaks of the prophet Teiresias in the underworld: ‘Only his wisdom abides; the rest glide around him like shadows.’193
This prophecy Scipio soon confirmed by his actions. Cato left one son by his second wife, whose surname I have mentioned was Salonius, and one grandson, the child of his first son who was already dead.194 Salonius died while he was in office as praetor,195 but his son Marcus later became consul.196 This Marcus was the grandfather of Cato the Philosopher,197 who for his courage and uprightness of character and the fame which these qualities brought him was one of the most remarkable men of his time.
Comparison of Aristeides and Elder Cato
1 (28). Now that I have recorded the memorable deeds of each man, it will not be easy, in comparing the whole of one’s life with the entirety of the other’s, to detect the differences between them, for they are obscured by their numerous and significant similarities. If, however, we must make a fine analysis of each in this Comparison, as we would study a poem or a painting, we should observe that common to both was a rise to political eminence based on native virtue and talent, and not inherited privilege. However, Aristeides became an illustrious man at a time when Athens had not yet become great, and when the popular leaders and generals with whom he was involved possessed fortunes that were all fairly modest and more or less alike. For the highest census classification in those days was 500 bushels of grain, the second was 300, and the third and last, 200.1 Cato, by contrast, although he came from a small town and a way of life that one could only call rustic, plunged headlong into Roman politics as if into a boundless sea, nor was this a time when Rome was governed by the likes of Curius or Fabricius or Atilius,2 or welcomed as its magistrates and popular leaders the kind of poor men who mounted the rostra after working their fields with their own hands, busy with plough or mattock. Instead, the public had become accustomed to taking into consideration the splendour of a candidate’s family, as well as his wealth, largesse and blandishments, and, owing to its arrogance and sway, toyed with those who sought office. It was not the same thing to have as one’s rival Themistocles, who did not come from an illustrious family and had only a moderate fortune (for our sources say that when he began his political career he had only 3 or perhaps 5 talents3), as it was to contend for supremacy with men like Scipio Africanus or Servius Galba or Quinctius Flamininus4 when one had no other advantage than a voice that spoke boldly in defence of justice.