Plutarch's Lives, Volume 2 (of 4)

by Plutarch

Cato never seems to have been sparing of his own praise, and thought that great deeds required to be told in boastful language. He gives a very pompous account of this battle, and says that all those who saw him pursuing and cutting down the enemy felt that Cato did not owe so much to the Romans, as the Romans owed to Cato. He also says that the consul Manius immediately after the victory was won, enfolded him for a long time in a close embrace, and loudly declared that neither he nor all the Roman people could ever do as much for Cato as he had that day done for them. He was sent immediately after the battle to bear the news of the victory to Rome, and reached Brundusium after a prosperous voyage.

From that place he drove in one day to Tarentum, and in four more days reached Rome with the news, on the fifth day after his landing. His arrival filled the whole city with feasting and rejoicing, and made the Roman people believe that there was no nation in the world which could resist their arms.

XV. Of Cato's warlike exploits these which we have related are the most remarkable. In his political life he seems to have thought one of his most important duties to be the impeachment and prosecution of those whom he thought to be bad citizens. He himself attacked many persons, and aided and encouraged others in doing so, a notable example being his conduct towards Scipio in the affair of Petillius. However, as Scipio was a man of noble birth and great spirit, he treated the attack made upon him with contempt, and Cato, perceiving that he could not succeed in getting him condemned to death, desisted from annoying him. But he was active in obtaining the condemnation of Scipio's brother Lucius, who was adjudged to pay a heavy fine, which was beyond his means to provide, so that he had nearly been cast into prison, but was set free by the intervention of the tribunes of the people.

It is related of him that he once met in the forum a young man who had just succeeded in obtaining the disfranchisement, by an action at law, of an enemy of his father, who was dead. Cato took him by the hand and said, "Thus ought men to honour their parents when they die, not with the blood of lambs and kids, but with the tears and condemnation of their enemies." He himself is said to have been the defendant in nearly fifty actions, the last of which was tried when he was eighty-six years of age: on which occasion he uttered that well-known saying, that it was hard for a man who had lived in one generation to be obliged to defend himself before another. And this was not the end of his litigations, for four years later, when at the age of ninety, he impeached Servius Galba. Indeed his life, like that of Nestor, seems to havo reached over three generations. He, as had been related, was a bitter political opponent of Scipio Africanus the Great, and he continued his enmity to Scipio's adopted son, called Scipio the Younger, who was really the son of Æmilius Paulus, the conqueror of Perseus and the Macedonians.

XVI. Ten years after his consulship, Cato became a candidate for the office of censor. This is the highest dignity to which a Roman can aspire, and may be regarded as the goal of political life. Its powers are very extensive, and it is especially concerned with the regulation of public morals, and the mode of life of the citizens of Rome. The Romans thought that none of a man's actions, his marriage, his family, his mode of life, his very entertainments, ought to be uncontrolled, and managed according to his own will and pleasure. They considered that a man's true character was much more clearly shown by his private life than by his public behaviour, and were wont to choose two citizens, one a patrician, and the other a plebeian, whose duty it was to watch over the morals of the people, and check any tendency to licentiousness or extravagance. These officers they called censors, and they had power to deprive a Roman knight of his horse, and to expel men of loose and disorderly life from the Senate. They also took a census of property, and kept a register of the various tribes and classes of the citizens; and they likewise exercised various other important powers. Cato's candidature was opposed by nearly all the most distinguished members of the Senate, for the patricians viewed him with especial dislike, regarding it as an insult to the nobility that men of obscure birth should attain to the highest honours in the state, while all those who were conscious of any private vices or departures from the ways of their fathers, feared the severities of one who, they knew, would be harsh and inexorable when in power.

These classes consequently combined together against Cato, and put up no less than seven candidates to contest the censorship with him, and endeavoured to soothe the people by holding out to them hopes of a lenient censor, as though that were what they required. Cato on the other hand would not relax his severity in the least, but threatened evil doers in his speeches from the rostra, and insisted that the city required a most searching reformation. He told the people that if they were wise, they would choose not the most agreeable, but the most thorough physicians to perform this operation for them, and that these would be himself and Valerius Flaccus; for with him as a colleague he imagined that he might make some progress in the work of destroying, by knife and cautery, the hydra of luxury and effeminacy. Of the other candidates he said that he saw that each one was eager to get the office and fill it badly, because he was afraid of those who could fill it well. The Roman people on this occasion showed itself so truly great and worthy to be courted by great men, as not to be alarmed at the earnest severity of Cato; but, setting aside all those plausible candidates who promised merely to consult their pleasure, elected Cato and Valerius censors. It seemed, indeed, as if Cato, inatead of being a candidate for election, was already in office and issuing his commands to the people, which were at once obeyed.

XVII. As soon as he was elected, Cato appointed his friend and colleague, Lucius Valerius Flaccus, chief of the Senate. He expelled several senators, amongst whom was Lucius Quintius, who had been consul seven years before, and, which was even a greater distinction than the consulship, was the brother of Titus Quintius Flamininus, the conqueror of Philip. He was expelled from the Senate for the following reason. Lucius had a favourite boy who never left his person, and followed him even on his campaigns. This boy had more power and received greater attention than the most trusty of his friends and relatives. Now, when Lucius was governor of a province as proconsul, this boy once, at a drinking party, was flattering him over his wine, saying that "Although there was going to be a show of gladiators at Rome, yet I did not stay to see it, but came out here to you, although I longed to see a man killed." Lucius, to please him, answered in the same tone, "If that be all, do not lie there and fret, for I will soon gratify your wish." He at once ordered a condemned criminal to be brought into the banqueting hall, and one of his servants to stand by him with an axe, and then again asked his favourite whether he wished to see a man struck dead. When the boy said that he did, he bade the servant cut off the man's head. This is the account which most writers give of the transaction, and it is that which Cicero introduces Cato as relating in his dialogue "On Old Age;" but Livy says that the man who was put to death was a Gaulish deserter, and that Lucius did not employ a servant, but slew him with his own hand, and this is the version which Cato has followed in his written account of the matter. When Cato discussed what took place at this wine party, Lucius endeavoured to deny it, but on being challenged to state exactly what happened he refused to answer. He was most justly condemned to lose his right as a senator; but afterwards, when some spectacle was being witnessed in the theatre, he walked past the place reserved for men of consular rank, and sat down in the humblest seat of all, which so moved the people to compassion, that they forced him by their clamour to resume his former seat, thus as far as they were able reversing the sentence upon him and condoning his offence.

Cato expelled another senator, who was thought likely to be soon elected consul, named Manilius, because he had kissed his wife in the daytime in the presence of his daughter. He himself said that his own wife never embraced him except when it thundered loudly, and added by way of joke, that he was happy when Jupiter was pleased to thunder.

XVIII. His conduct in depriving of his horse Lucius Scipio, the brother of Scipio Africanus, a man who had been decreed a triumph, was censured, as being merely prompted by private spite; as he seemed merely to do it in order to insult Scipio Africanus after his death. But what caused the greatest dissatisfaction were his restrictions on luxury. This he could not attack openly, because it had taken such deep root among the people, but he caused all clothes, carriages, women's ornaments, and furniture, which exceeded fifteen hundred drachmas in value to be rated at ten times their value and taxed accordingly, as he thought that those who possessed the most valuable property ought to contribute most largely to the revenues of the state. In addition to this he imposed a tax on all citizens of three copper ases for every thousand, in order that those who were burdened with an excessive taxation on objects of luxury, when they saw persons of frugal and simple habits paying so small a tax on the same income, might cease from their extravagance. This measure gained him the hatred of those who were taxed so heavily for their luxuries, and of those who, to avoid excessive taxation, were obliged to give up their luxuries. Most persons are as much irritated at losing the means of displaying their wealth as at losing their wealth itself, and it is in superfluities, not in necessaries, that wealth can be displayed. This is what is said to have so much surprised Ariston the Philosopher, that men should consider those persons fortunate who possess what is superfluous, rather than those who possess what is necessary and useful. Skopas the Thessalian also, when one of his friends asked him for something which was not particularly useful to him, and added, that he did not ask for anything necessary or useful, answered, "Indeed, it is in these useless and superfluous things that my wealth chiefly consists." For the desire of wealth is not connected with any of our physical necessities, and is an artificial want arising from too much regard for the opinion of the vulgar.

XIX. Cato paid no attention to those who blamed his conduct, and proceeded to measures of still greater severity. He cut off the water-pipes, by which water was conveyed from the public fountains into private houses and gardens, destroyed all houses that encroached upon the public streets, lowered the price of contracts for public works, and farmed out the public revenues for the highest possible rents. All this made him still more unpopular. Titus Flamininus and his friends attacked him, and prevailed upon the Senate to annul the contracts which he had made for the building of temples and the construction of public works, on the ground that they were disadvantageous to the state. They also encouraged the boldest of the tribunes to prosecute him before the people, and to fine him two talents. He likewise received violent opposition in the matter of the basilica, or public hall, which he built at the public expense in the forum below the senate house, and which was called the Basilica Porcia.