The Good Book (104 page)

  3. He caused all dress, carriages, women's ornaments and household furniture whose price exceeded fifteen hundred drachmas,

  4. To be rated at ten times the worth; thus making their tax assessments greater.

  5. He also ordered that for every thousand asses of property of this kind,

  6. Three thousand asses should be paid, so that people, burdened with these extra charges, were persuaded out of their prodigality,

  7. Seeing others paying less into the public exchequer who had equally good estates but were more frugal.

  8. And thus, on the one side, not only were those disgusted at Cato who bore the taxes for the sake of their luxury,

  9. But those, too, who on the other side laid by their luxury for fear of the taxes.  

10. For people in general reckon that an order not to display their riches is equivalent to taking away their riches;

11. Because riches are for display, seen much more in superfluous than in necessary things.  

12. This was what amazed Ariston the philosopher: that we account those who possess superfluous things more happy than those who abound in what is necessary and useful.  

13. But when Scopas, the rich Thessalian, was asked by one of his friends to give him something of no great utility,

14. Scopas replied, ‘In truth it is just these useless and unnecessary things that make my wealth and happiness.'

15. Thus the desire of riches does not proceed from a natural passion within us, but arises rather from vulgar opinion of others.

16. Cato, caring nothing for those who exclaimed against him, increased his austerity.  

17. He cut the pipes through which some persons brought the public water into their own houses,

18. And demolished all buildings that jutted into the common streets.  

19. He forced down the price of contracts for public works, and raised it in contracts for farming the taxes to the highest sum;

20. By which proceedings he drew a great deal of hatred on himself.  

 

Chapter 62

  1. Yet however much the patricians complained, the commoners liked his censorship very well;

  2. They set up a statue to him in the public gardens, and put an inscription on it,

  3. Not for his war record, but saying that this was Cato the Censor, who, by good discipline and wise ordinances,

  4. Reclaimed the Roman commonwealth when it was declining into vice.

  5. Before this honour was done to him he used to laugh at those who loved statues and honours,

  6. Saying that they did not see that they were taking pride in the workmanship of brass-founders and painters;

  7. Whereas the citizens carried Cato's own best likeness in their breasts.

  8. And when any seemed to wonder that he should have never a statue, he said,

  9. ‘I would much rather be asked, why I have not one, than why I have one.'  

10. In short, he would not have any honest citizen endure to be praised, except it might prove advantageous to the commonwealth.  

11. Yet still he passed the highest commendation on himself;

12. For he tells us that those who were criticised for doing something wrong used to say, it was not worthwhile to blame them, for they were not Catos.

13. He also adds that they who awkwardly mimicked some of his actions were called left-handed Catos;

14. And that the senate in perilous times would call to him, as to a pilot in a ship,

15. And that often when he was not present in the senate they put off affairs of greatest consequence until he was present.  

16. Much of this is true, for Cato had a great authority in the city, alike for his life, his eloquence and his age.  

17. He was also a good father, an excellent husband to his wife and an extraordinary economist.

18. And as he did not manage his affairs of this kind carelessly or as things of little moment, I ought to record a little further what was commendable in him in these points.  

19. He married a wife more noble than rich; being of opinion that both the rich and the high-born are haughty and proud,

20. But those of noble blood would be more ashamed of base things.  

21. A man who beat his wife or child, laid violent hands, he said, on what was most precious;

22. And a good husband he reckoned worthy of more praise than a great senator.

23. He admired the ancient Socrates for nothing so much as having lived a contented life with a wife who was a scold and children who were half-witted.

24. As soon as he had a son born, only public affairs would keep him from his wife's side as she washed and dressed the infant.  

25. She herself suckled it, and often gave her breast to her servants' children to produce a kind of natural love between them and her son.  

26. When the boy came to years of discretion, Cato himself taught him to read,

27. Although he had as servant a very good grammarian called Chilo, who taught many others;

28. But Cato thought not fit, as he himself said, to have his son reprimanded by a slave,  

29. Nor would he have him owe to a servant the obligation of so great a thing as his learning.

30. He himself, therefore, taught him his grammar, his law and his gymnastic exercises.  

31. Nor did he only show him how to throw a dart, to fight in armour and to ride,

32. But to box and to endure heat and cold, and to swim over the most rapid and rough rivers.  

33. He says, likewise, that he wrote histories, in large characters, with his own hand,

34. So that his son might learn to know about his countrymen and forefathers.  

35. Thus, Cato formed and fashioned his son to virtue; nor had he any occasion to find fault with his readiness and docility;

36. But as the boy proved to be of too weak a constitution for hardships, he did not insist on requiring of him an austere way of living.  

37. However, though delicate in health, Cato's son proved a stout man in battle, and behaved himself valiantly when Paulus Aemilius fought against Perseus;

38. For when his sword was struck from him by a blow, he so keenly resented losing it,

39. That he turned to some of his friends about him, and taking them along with him again, fell upon the enemy;

40. And having by a hard fight cleared the place, at length found his sword among great heaps of arms,

41. And the dead bodies of friends as well as enemies piled one upon another.  

42. Upon which Paulus, his general, much commended the youth; and there is a letter of Cato's to his son, which highly praises his honourable eagerness for the recovery of his sword.

43. Afterwards Cato's son married Tertia, Aemilius Paulus' daughter and sister to Scipio;

44. Nor was he admitted into this family less for his own worth than for his father's.  

45. So Cato's care in his son's education came to a very fitting result.

 

Chapter 63

  1. Cato purchased many slaves out of the captives taken in war, but chiefly bought up the young ones, who were capable of being trained up like whelps and colts.

  2. None of these ever entered another man's house, except sent either by Cato himself or his wife.  

  3. If any one of them were asked what Cato did they were instructed to answer that they did not know.

  4. When a servant was at home, he was obliged either to work or sleep,

  5. For Cato most preferred those who often slept, accounting them more docile than those who were wakeful, and more alert when refreshed with slumber.  

  6. Being also of opinion that the great cause of misbehaviour among slaves was their running after pleasures,

  7. He fixed a certain price for them to pay for permission amongst themselves, but would suffer no connections out of the house.  

  8. At first, when he was only a poor soldier, he would not mind what he ate, but looked upon it as pitiful to quarrel with a servant for the belly's sake.

  9. But afterwards, when he grew richer and made feasts for friends, as soon as supper was over he used to go with a leather thong and scourge those who had served or cooked carelessly.  

10. He always contrived that his servants should be at odds among themselves, being suspicious of any understanding between them.  

11. Those who had committed anything worthy of death, he punished if they were found guilty by their fellow-servants.  

12. Being very desirous of gain, he took care to invest his money safely;

13. He purchased ponds, hot baths, grounds full of fuller's earth, remunerative lands, pastures and woods,

14. From all of which he drew large returns.

15. He was also given to the form of usury which is considered most odious in traffic by sea, as follows:

16. He desired that those he invested in, should have many partners;

17. And when the number of them and their ships came to fifty, he took one share through Quintio his freedman, who therefore was to sail with the adventurers,

18. And take a part in all their proceedings; so that there was no danger of losing his whole stock, but only a little part, and that with a prospect of great profit.  

19. He likewise lent money to those of his slaves who wished to borrow, with which they bought other young ones,

20. Whom, when they had taught and bred them up at his charge, they would sell again at the year's end;

21. But some of them Cato would keep for himself, giving just as much for them as another had offered.

22. But the strongest indication of Cato's avaricious humour was when he took the boldness to affirm that he was a most wonderful man, who left more behind him than he had received.

 

Chapter 64

  1. He had grown old when two famous philosophers, Carneades the Academic and Diogenes the Stoic, came as deputies from Athens to Rome,

  2. To seek release from a penalty of five hundred talents laid on the Athenians,

  3. In a suit to which they did not appear, in which the Oropians were plaintiffs and Sicyonians judges.  

  4. All the most studious youth immediately waited on these philosophers, and frequently, with admiration, heard them speak.  

  5. But the gracefulness of Carneades' oratory, whose ability was really great,

  6. And his reputation equal to it, gathered large and favourable audiences.  

  7. So that it soon began to be told that a Greek, famous even to admiration, winning and carrying all before him,

  8. Had impressed so strange a love upon the young men,

  9. That quitting all their pleasures and pastimes, they ran mad after philosophy;

10. Which indeed much pleased the Romans in general;

11. They beheld with much pleasure the youth so welcome Greek literature, and frequent the company of learned men.  

12. But Cato, seeing this passion for words flowing into the city,

13. Was ill disposed towards it, fearing that the youth should be diverted that way,

14. And come to prefer philosophy instead of arms and military prowess.  

15. And when the fame of the philosophers increased in the city,

16. And Caius Acilius, a person of distinction, at his own request, became their interpreter to the senate at their first audience,

17. Cato resolved, under some specious presence, to have all philosophers cleared out of the city;

18. And, coming into the senate, blamed the magistrates for letting these deputies stay so long a time without being dispatched,

19. Though they were persons that could easily persuade the people to what they pleased;

20. That therefore in all haste something should be determined about their petition,

21. So that they could go home again, and leave the Roman youth to be obedient, as hitherto, to their own laws and governors.

22. He did this not out of any hostility, as some think, to Carneades;

23. But because he wholly despised philosophy, and out of a kind of pride scoffed at the Greek studies and literature;

24. As, for example, he would say that Socrates was a prating seditious fellow, who did his best to tyrannise over his country,

25. To undermine the ancient customs, and to entice and withdraw the citizens to opinions contrary to the laws.  

26. Ridiculing the school of Isocrates, he would add that his scholars grew old men before they had done learning with him.

27. And to frighten his son from anything that was Greek, in a more vehement tone than became one of his age,

28. He stated that the Romans would certainly be destroyed when they once began to be infected with Greek literature;