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

CATO.
state of morals at Rome, that a mob could be procured to invite the degraded wretch to resume his
former place at the theatre in the seats allotted to
the consulars. He degraded Manilius, a man of
praetorian rank, for having kissed his wife in his
daughter's presence in open day. Whether Cato's
strange statement as to his own practice (Plut.
Cato, 17) is to be taken as a hyperbolical recommendation of decent reserve, or to be explained as
Balzac (cited by Bayle, s. v. Porcius) explains it,
we cannot stop to inquire. He degraded L. Nasica (or, as some conjecturally read, L. Porcius
Laeca) for an unseasonable and irreverent joke in
answer to a solemn question. (Cic. de Orat. ii.
64.) In order to detect that celibacy which it
was the duty of the censors to put an end to or to
punish, men of marriageable age were asked,
" Ex tui animi sententia, tu uxorem habes?"
" Non hercule," was the answer of L. Nasica,
" ex mei animi sententia." At the muster of the
knights, he deprived L. Scipio Asiaticus of his
horse for having accepted the bribes of Antiochus.
L. Scipio was a senator, but senators, not beyond
the age of service, still retained the public horse
of the knight, and took their place at the muster.
(Diet. Ant. s. v. Equites.) He deprived L. Veturius of his horse for having omitted a stated sacrifice, and for having grown too corpulent to be of
use in battle. (Fest. s. v. Stata.) Several others
he degraded and deprived of their horses, and, not
content with this, he publicly exposed, with bitter
vehemence, the vices of his victims.
It does not appear that, in the exercise of the
theoretically exorbitant and anomalous power of
the censorship, Cato acted unfairly, although personal motives and private enmities or party dislikes may sometimes have conspired with his
views of political and moral duty.
The remarkable censorship of Cato was rewarded
by a public statue, with a commemorative and
laudatory inscription.
Henceforward the public life of Cato was spent
chiefly in forensic contests, senatorial debates, and
speeches to the people. The fragments of his
orations shew his unceasing activity, and the general consistency of his career. He pursued his political opponents with relentless animosity, for with
him, true Italian as he was, revenge was a virtue.
In his own words, the most honourable obsequies
which a son could pay to the memory of his father
were the condemnation and tears of that father's
foes. With greenish-gray eyes and sandy hair, an
iron frame, and a stentorian voice, he gave utterance
to such bitter invectives as to provoke the pungent
Greek epigram recorded by Plutarch. (Cato, 1)
vP1Pdv, ravYaKTr]V, y-XavK6cLjaTrsov, oi0U Oav6vra
Ho'pKlov els aCLiJ TIeposcpo'vu 0 XErai.
His resistance to luxury continued. In B. c.
181, he urged the adoption of the Lex Orchia for
restricting the number of guests at banquets. In
B. c. 169 (according to Cicero, Senect. 5, or several
years earlier, according to the epitomizer of Livy
Epit. xli.) he supported the proposal of the Lex
Voconia, the provisions of which were calculated to
prevent the accumulation of wealth in the hands of
women.
In some questions of foreign policy we find him
taking the side of the oppressed. The proconsular
governors of both Spains compelled the provincial
inhabitants to pay their corn-assessments in money

CATO. 641
at a high arbitrary commutation, and then forced the
provincial farmers to supply the Romans with corn
at a greatly reduced price. When the Spanish deputies came to Rome, B. c. 171, to complain of such
unjust exaction, Cato was chosen advocate of his
former province, Citerior Spain, and conducted the
prosecution with such spirit as to draw down upon
himself powerful enmity, although the guilty governors, M. Matienus and P. Furius Philus, escaped condemnation by voluntary exile. (Liv.
xliii. 2.)
Again, when the Rhodians besought the senate
not to punish the whole island for the unauthorized
acts of a few factious individuals, on the charge of
general disaffection towards the Roman arms in the
wars with Antiochus and Perseus, Cato pleaded
the cause of Rhodes before the senate in an able
and effective speech. The minute and artificial criticisms of Tiro, the freedman of Cicero, upon parts
of this speech, are reported and refuted by Gellius
(vii. 3). Cicero himself speaking by the mouth of
Atticus (Brutus, 85), was scarcely able sufficiently
to appreciate the sturdy, rugged, sententious, passionate, racy, oratory of Cato. It was tinged with
some affectations of striking expressions - with
quaintnesses, vulgarisms, archaisms, and neologisms,
but it told-it worked-it came home to men's
business and bosoms. If we may judge of Cato
by his fragments, he possessed the living fiery
spirit and intense earnestness of Demosthenes,
without the elevation of thought, the harmony of
language, and the perfection of form which crowned
the eloquence of the Athenian.
The strong national prejudices of Cato appear to
have diminished in force as he grew older and
wiser. He applied himself in old age to the study
of Greek literature, with which in youth he had
no acquaintance, although he was not ignorant of
the Greek language. Himself an historian and
orator, the excellences of Demosthenes and Thucydides made a deep impression upon his kindred
mind. In many important cases, however, throughout his life, his conduct was guided by prejudices
against classes and nations, whose influence he
deemed to be hostile to the simplicity of the old
Roman character. It is likely that he had some
part in the senatusconsultum which, upon the appearance of Eumenes, king of Pergamus, at Brundisium, B. c. 166, forbade kings to enter Rome, for
when Eumenes, upon his former visit, after the war
with Antiochus, was received with honour by the
senate, and splendidly entertained by the nobles,
Cato was indignant at the respect paid to the monarch, refused to go near him, and declared that,
" kings were naturally carnivorous animals." He
had an antipathy to physicians, because they were
mostly Greeks, and therefore unfit to be trusted with
Roman lives, inasmuch as all Greeks looked upon
the barbarians, including the Romans, as natural
enemies. He loudly cautioned his eldest son against
physicians, and dispensed with their attendance. He
was not a bad physician himself in recommending as
a peculiarly salutary diet, ducks, geese, pigeons, and
hares, though hares, he tells us, are apt to produce
dreams. With all his antipathy, there is no ground
in ancient authors for the often-repeated statement
that he carried a law for the expulsion of physicians from the city. When Athens sent Carneades,
Diogenes, and Critolaus to Rome in order to negotiate a remission of the 500 talents which the
Athenians had been awarded to pay by way of
2T