A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

638 CATO.
habitants of Locri, who had been cruelly oppressed
by Pleminius, the legate of Scipio. Livy says not
a word of Cato's interference in this transaction,
but mentions the acrimony with which Fabius accused Scipio of corrupting military discipline, and
of having unlawfully left his province to take the
town of Locri. (Liv. xxix. 19, &c.)
The author of the abridged life of Cato which
commonly passes as the work of Cornelius Nepos,
states that Cato, upon his return from Africa,
touched at Sardinia, and brought the poet Ennius
in his own ship from the island to Italy; but Sardinia was rather out of the line of the voyage to
Rome, and it is more likely that the first acquaintance of Ennius and Cato occurred at a subsequent date, when the latter was praetor in
Sardinia. (Aur. Vict. de Vir. Ill. 47.)
In B. c. 199, Cato was aedile, and with his colleague Helvius, restored the plebeian games, and
gave upon that occasion a banquet in honour of
Jupiter. In the following year he was made praetor, and obtained Sardinia as his province, with the
command of 3,000 infantry and 200 cavalry. Here
he took the earliest opportunity of illustrating his
principles by his practice. He diminished official
expenses, walked his circuits with a single attendant, and, by the studied absence of pomp, placed
his own frugality in striking contrast with the oppressive magnificence of ordinary provincial magistrates. The rites of religion were solemnized with
decent thrift; justice was administered with strict
impartiality; usury was restrained with unsparing
severity, and the usurers were banished. Sardinia had been for some time completely subdued,
but if we are to believe the improbable and unsupported testimonyof Aurelius Victor (de Vir. Ill. 47),
an insurrection in the island was quelled by Cato,
during his praetorship.
Cato had now established a reputation for pure
morality, and strict old-faslhioned virtue. He was
looked upon as the living type and representative
of the ideal ancient Roman. His very faults bore
the impress of national character, and humoured
national prejudice. To the advancement of such a
man opposition was vain. In B. C. 195, in the
39th year of his age, he was elected consul with his
old friend and patron L. Valerius Flaccus.
During this consulship a strange scene took place.
peculiarly illustrative of Roman manners. In B. c.
215, at the height of the Punic war, a law had been
passed on the rogation of the tribune Oppius, that
no woman should possess more than half an ounce
of gold, nor wear a garment of divers colours, nor
drive a carriage with horses at less distance than a
mile m the city, except for the purpose of attending the public celebration of religious rites. Now
that Hanmabal was conquered; that Rome abounded with Cartlaginian wealth; and that there was
no longer any necessity for women to contribute
towards the exigencies of an impoverished treasury
the savings' spared from their ornaments and pleasures, the tribunes T. Fundanius and L. Valerius,
thought it time to propose the abolition of the
Oppian law; but they were opposed by their colleagues, M. Brutus and T. Brutus. The most important affairs of state excited far less interest and
zeal than this singular contest. The matrons poured
forth into the streets, blockaded every avenue to the
forum, and intercepted their husbands as they approached, beseeching them to restore the ancient
ornaments of the Roman matrons. Nay, they had

CATO.

the boldness to accost and implore the praetors and
consuls and other magistrates. Even Flaccus wavered, but his colleague Cato was inexorable, and
made an ungallant and characteristic speech, the
substance of which, remodelled and modernized, is
given by Livy. Finally, the women carried the day.
Worn out by their importunity, the recusant tribunes withdrew their opposition. The hated law
was abolished by the suffrage of all the tribes, and
the women evinced their exultation and triumph by
going in procession through the streets and the
forum, bedizened with their now legitimate finery.
Scarcely had this important affair been brought
to a conclusion when Cato, who had maintained
during its progress a rough and sturdy consistency
without, perhaps, any very serious damage to his
popularity, set sail for his appointed province, Citerior Spain.
In his Spanish campaign, Cato exhibited military
genius of a very high order. He lived abstemiously,
sharing the food and the labours of the common
soldier. With indefatigable industry and vigilance,
he not only gave the requisite orders, but, whereever it was possible, personally superintended their
execution. His movements were bold and rapid,
and he never was remiss in reaping the fruits and
pushing the advantages of victory. The sequence
of his operations and their harmonious combination
with the schemes of other generals in other parts
of Spain appear to have been excellently contrived.
His stratagems and manoeuvres were original,
brilliant, and successful. The plans of his battles
were arranged with consummate skill. He managed
to set tribe against tribe, availed himself of native
treachery, and took native mercenaries into his pay.
The details of the campaign, as related by Livy
(lib. xxxiv.), and illustrated by the incidental anecdotes of Plutarch, are full of horror. We read of
multitudes who, after they had been stript of their
arms, put themselves to death for very shame; of
wholesale slaughter of surrendered victims, and the
frequent execution of merciless razzias. The political elements of Roman patriotism inculcated the
maxim, that the good of the state ought to be the
first object, and that to it the citizen was bound to
sacrifice upon demand natural feelings and individual morality. Such were the principles of Cato.
He was not the man to feel any compunctious
visitings of conscience in the thorough performance
of a rigorous public task. His proceedings in Spain
were not at variance with the received idea of the
fine old Roman soldier, or with his own stern and
imperious temper. He boasted of having destroyed
more towns in Spain than he had spent days in that
country.
When he had reduced the whole tract of land
between the Iberus and the Pyrenees to a hollow,
sulky, and temporary submission, he turned his attention to administrative reforms, and increased the
revenues of the province by improvements in the
working of the iron and silver mines. On account
of his achievements in Spain, the senate decreed a
thanksgiving of three days. In the course of the
year, B. c. 194, he returned to Rome, and was rewarded with a triumph, at which he exhibited an
extraordinary quantity of captured brass, silver,
and gold, both coin and bullion. In the distribution of prize-money to his soldiery, he was more
liberal than might have been expected from so
strenuous a professor of parsimonious economy,
(Liv. xxxiv. 46.)