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M. TULLI CICERONIS CATO MAIOR DE SENECTUTE _WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES_ BY JAMES S. REID, M.L.
American Edition Revised BY FRANCIS W. KELSEY UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN _Copyright, 1882_ PREFACE.
Three years ago Mr. James S. Reid, of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, prepared for the Syndics of the University Press editions of Cicero's _Cato Maior de Senectute_ and _Laelius de Amicitia._ The thorough and accurate scholarship displayed, especially in the elucidation of the Latinity, immediately won for the books a cordial reception; and since then they have gained a permanent place in the esteem of English scholars.
The present volume has the full authorization of Mr. Reid, and was prepared with the design of presenting to American students, in a form best adapted to their use, the results of his work. The Text remains substantially that of Mr. Reid; while mention is made in the notes of the most important variations in readings and orthography from other editions. The Introductions have been recast, with some enlargement; the analyses of the subject-matter in particular have been entirely remodelled. The Notes have been in some instances reduced, in others amplified,--especially by the addition of references to the standard treatises on grammar, history, and philosophy. It was at first the intention of the American editor to indicate by some mark the matter due to himself; but as this could hardly be done without marring the appearance of the page, and thus introducing a source of confusion to the student, it was not attempted. In the work of revision free use of the principal German and English editions has been made.
To some the notes of the present edition may appear too copious. The aim throughout, however, has been not simply to give aid on difficult points, but to call attention to the finer usages of the Latin, and to add also whatever explanation seemed necessary to a clear understanding of the subject-matter. Latin scholarship which shall be at the same time broad and accurate, including not only a mastery of the language but also a comprehensive view of the various phases of Roman life and thought, will, it is believed, be best assured by the slow and careful reading of some portions of the literature and by the rapid survey of others. Certainly of the shorter Latin classics few would more fully repay close and careful study of both language and thought than these charming colloquies on Old Age and Friendship. While almost faultless in expression, they embody in a remarkable degree that universal element which characterizes the literary masterpiece, and makes it the valued possession not merely of an age or a nation, but of all time.
FRANCIS W. KELSEY LAKE FOREST, ILL., May, 1882.
I. CICERO AS A WRITER ON PHILOSOPHY.
(i.) STATE OF PHILOSOPHY IN CICERO'S TIME.
In Philosophy the Romans originated nothing. Their energies in the earlier years of the state were wholly absorbed in organization and conquest.
Resting in a stern and simple creed, they had little speculative interest in matters outside the hard routine of their daily life. But with the close of the Period of Conquest came a change. The influx of wealth from conquered provinces, the formation of large landed estates, the excessive employment of slave labor, and the consequent rise of a new aristocracy, prepared the way for a great revolution. The old religion lost its hold on the higher classes; something was needed to take its place. With wealth and luxury came opportunity and desire for culture. Greece, with Art, Literature, and Philosophy fully developed and highly perfected, stood ready to instruct her rude conqueror.[1] In Cicero's time the productive era of Greek Philosophy had well-nigh passed. Its tendency was less speculative, more ethical and practical than in the earlier time. There were four prominent schools, the New Academy, the Peripatetic, the Stoic, and the Epicurean. The supporters of the last-named advocated in Science the doctrine of the atom, in Ethics the pursuit of pleasure, in Religion the complete inactivity of the gods.
The Stoics and Peripatetics were divided by comparatively unimportant differences. In Ethics, considered by them as almost the whole of Philosophy, which was itself defined as 'the art of living', the main question between the two schools was the amount of importance to be attributed to Virtue,--the Stoics declaring that in comparison with Virtue all other things sink into absolute insignificance, while the Peripatetics maintained that these have a certain though infinitesimally small significance. The New Academy taught at this time no complete philosophical system. It simply proclaimed the view that in the field of knowledge certainty is unattainable, and that all the inquirer has to do is to balance probabilities one against the other. The New Academic, therefore, was free to accept any opinions which seemed to him to have the weight of probability on their side, but he was bound to be ready to abandon them when anything appeared which altered his views of the probabilities. He not only might be, but he could not help being, _eclectic_; that is, he chose such views promulgated by other schools as seemed to him at the moment to be most reasonable or probable. Cicero called himself an adherent of this school. On most points however, although eclectic, he agreed with the Peripatetics, but with a decided leaning toward the Stoic ethical system.
The Stoic opinion that it is the duty of the wise man to abstain from public life, which the Peripatetics contested, Cicero decisively rejected.
With the Epicureans he had absolutely no sympathy. Up to this time these schools and their teachings were known to the Romans only through the medium of the Greek. The only Latin philosophical literature was Epicurean, and, excepting the poem of Lucretius (_De Rerum Natura_), scarcely famous as yet, consisted entirely of books rudely written, although considerably read.
(ii.) THE MISSION OF CICERO IN PHILOSOPHY.
Cicero made no claim to originality as a philosopher, nor even to complete acquaintance with every detail of the Greek systems.[2] In early life he had studied with enthusiasm and success all the learning of the Greeks, but especially in the two departments of Rhetoric and Philosophy, then closely connected, or rather hardly distinguished. He not only sought the society of learned Greeks, but spent considerable time in study at Rhodes and Athens, which had become not merely the 'school of Greece', as Thucydides makes Pericles call her, but the school of the civilized world.[3] When, by reason of political troubles, he was forced to retire to private life, he began to carry out a great plan for interpreting the best philosophical writings of the Greeks to his fellow-countrymen. For this work his liberal views as a New Academic peculiarly fitted him. His usual method was to take one or two leading Greek works on the subject with which he was dealing, and to represent freely in his own language their subject-matter, introducing episodes and illustrations of his own. He thus presented to the Romans in their own tongue the most significant portions of the Greek Philosophy; and in his writings there has come down to us much, especially of the Post-Aristotelian Philosophy, that was doomed to oblivion in the original Greek. But further than this, to Cicero more than to any other Roman is due the formation of a Latin philosophical vocabulary, by which the language was enriched and fitted for the part it has since taken as the Language of the Learned. While on many points Cicero's own views can hardly be determined with perfect exactness, the exalted sentiments and the exquisite literary finish of his philosophical writings have always won admiration; and through them he has exerted no small influence on the literature and life of modern times.[4] (iii.) THE PHILOSOPHICAL WRITINGS OF CICERO.
During the whole of an exceptionally busy public life Cicero devoted his spare moments to reading and to the society of the learned. After his exile in 58 and 57 B.C. his political career, except for a brief period just before his death, was over, and it is at this time that his period of great literary activity begins, In 55 he produced the work _De Oratore_, in 54 the _De Re Publica_, and in 52 the _De Legibus_, all three works, according to ancient ideas, entitled to rank as philosophical.[5] From 51 to 46 B.C., owing first to his absence in Cilicia, then to the civil troubles, Cicero almost ceased to write. But in the latter year he was reconciled with Caesar, and as the Senate and law courts were closed against him on his refusal to compromise his political principles, he betook himself with greater devotion than ever to literature. The first work written in 46 was the _Hortensius_, or _De Philosophia_, now lost. It was founded on a lost dialogue of Aristotle, and set forth the advantages of studying Philosophy. During the same year Cicero completed several oratorical works, the _Partitiones Oratoriae_, the _Brutus_, or _De Claris Oratoribus_, and the _Orator_, all of which are extant.
Early in 45 Cicero lost his beloved daughter Tullia. He passed the whole year in retirement, trying to soothe his grief by incessant writing. In quick succession appeared _De Consolatione_, an attempt to apply philosophy to the mitigation of his own sorrow and that of others; _Academica_, an exposition of the New Academic Philosophy, advocating probability rather than certainty as the foundation of philosophy; _De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum_, a work criticising the most prominent views entertained concerning Ethics; _Disputationes Tusculanae_, treating of certain conditions essential to morality and happiness; _De Natura Deorum_, an examination of the principal theories regarding the nature and power of the gods; _Cato Maior_, on old age; _Laelius_, on friendship; _De Fato_, discussing Fate and Free Will; _Paradoxa_, a book setting forth certain remarkable views of the Stoics; _De Officiis_, a treatise on practical ethics, the application of moral principles to the questions and difficulties of ordinary life.
These works, written mostly in 45 and 44, are, except the _De Cons.,_ still extant. To the list may be added also other works of a rhetorical nature, such as the _Topica_ and _De Optima Genere Dicendi_, and some lost philosophical books, such as _De Gloria_.
Even though allowance be made for the fact that Cicero was giving in Latin the substance of Greek books with which he had been familiar from boyhood, the mental vigor and literary power exhibited by this series of works appear prodigious when we consider their great compass and variety and the generally high finish of their style.
_References._--For a fuller account of Cicero's philosophical views and writings consult Ritter, 'History of Ancient Philosophy', Vol. 4, Ch. 2; Maurice, 'Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy', Ch. 7, § 5; Tennemann and Morell, 'History of Philosophy', Ch. 3; Ueberweg, 'History of Philosophy', Vol I, § 61; J.B. Mayor, 'Sketch of Ancient Philosophy', pp. 223-244; Teuffel, 'History of Roman Literature', Vol. i, § 172 _et seq._ Cruttwell, 'History of Roman Literature', Bk. II. Part 1, Ch. 2; 'Cicero', by Collins, in Ancient Classics for English Readers, Ch. 10, et seq.; also the Introduction to Reid's edition of the _Academica_, and the account of Cicero by Prof. Ramsay in Smith's Dictionary of Biography and Mythology.
The most attractive biography of Cicero in English is that by Forsyth. That by Trollope is able but quite partisan. On the philosophy, consult also Zeller's 'Eclectics.'
II. THE CATO MAIOR.
(i.) ORIGIN AND SCOPE.
1. _Date and Circumstances of Composition._ The date at which the Cato Maior was written can be determined with almost perfect exactness. A mention in Cicero's work entitled _De Divinatione_[6] shows that the Cato Maior preceded that work by a short time. The _De Divinatione_ was written after the assassination of Caesar, that is, after the 15th of March in the year 44.[7] Again, the Cato Maior is mentioned as a recent work in three letters addressed by Cicero to Atticus.[8] The earliest of these letters was written on or about the 12th of May, 44.[9] We shall hardly err, therefore, if we assume that Cicero composed the Cato Maior in April of the year 44.[10] This agrees also with slight indications in the work itself. In the dedicatory introduction Cicero speaks of troubles weighing heavily on himself and Atticus.[11] Any one who reads the letters to Atticus despatched in April, 44, will have little doubt that the troubles hinted at are the apprehensions as to the course of Antonius, from whom Cicero had personally something to fear. Atticus was using all the influence he could bring to bear on Antonius in order to secure Cicero's safety; hence Cicero's care to avoid in the dedication all but the vaguest possible allusions to politics. Had that introduction been written before Caesar's death, we should have had plain allusions (as in the prooemia of The time was one of desperate gloom for Cicero. The downfall of the old constitution had overwhelmed him with sorrow, and his brief outburst of joy over Caesar's death had been quickly succeeded by disgust and alarm at the proceedings of Antonius. The deep wound caused by his daughter's death[13] was still unhealed. It is easy to catch in the Cato Maior some echoes of his grief for her. When it is said that of all Cato's titles to admiration none is higher than the fortitude he showed in bearing the death of his son,[14] the writer is thinking of the struggle he himself had been waging against a like sorrow for more than a year past; and when Cato expresses his firm conviction that he will meet his child beyond the grave,[15] we can see Cicero's own yearning for reunion with his deeply loved Tullia.
2. _Greek Sources._ All Cicero's philosophical and rhetorical writings were confessedly founded more or less on Greek originals.[16] The stores from which he principally drew in writing the Cato Maior are clearly indicated in several parts of the work. Passages from Xenophon's _Oeconomicus_ are translated in Chapters 17 and 22. In Chapters 2 and 3 there is a close imitation of the conversation between Socrates and Cephalus at the beginning of Plato's _Republic_, while in Chapter 21 is reproduced one of the most striking portions of the _Phaedo_, 72 E-73 B, 78-80.[17] The view of the divine origin and destiny of the human soul contained in the passage from the _Phaedo_ is rendered by Cicero in many of his works,[18] and was held by him with quite a religious fervor and sincerity.
Besides these instances of special indebtedness Cicero, in composing the Cato Maior, was no doubt under obligations of a more general kind to the Greeks. The form of the dialogue is Greek, and Aristotelian rather than Platonic.[19] But further, it is highly probable that Cicero owed to some particular Greek dialogue on Old Age the general outline of the arguments he there brings forward. Many of the Greek illustrative allusions may have had the same origin, though in many cases Roman illustrations must have been substituted for Greek. Whether the dialogue by Aristo Cius, cursorily mentioned in the Cato Maior,[20] was at all used by Cicero or not it is impossible to determine.[21] 3. _Purpose._ The Cato Maior is a popular essay in Ethics, applying the principles of philosophy to the alleviation of one of life's chief burdens, old age. In ancient times, when philosophy formed the real and only religion of the educated class, themes like this were deemed to afford a worthy employment for the pens even of the greatest philosophers. Such essays formed the only substitute the ancients had for our Sermons. There can be no doubt of Cicero's sincerity when he says that the arguments he sets forth in the treatise had given him real comfort,[22] and the opening words of the dedication show that he meant and hoped to administer the same comfort to his friend Atticus, who indeed acknowledged the benefit he derived from the work.[23] When Cicero wrote the treatise he was himself sixty-two years of age, while his friend was three years older. He speaks, therefore, rather euphemistically when he says that his purpose is to lighten the trouble of an old age which is already close at hand, or at all events approaching.[24] But in addition to the main ethical purpose, there was, as in many of Cicero's works, a distinct political purpose. He desired to stimulate in his readers an admiration for what he regarded as the golden age of Roman politics, the era of the Punic wars, and to do this by making the contrast between that age and his own appear as striking as possible. A like double purpose is apparent throughout the _De Re Publica_, where Africanus the younger is the chief personage, and in the treatise on Friendship, where Laelius is the central figure. For the dialogue on Old Age M. Porcius Cato the Censor is selected as the principal speaker for two reasons: first, because he was renowned for the vigor of mind and body he displayed in advanced life;[25] and secondly, because in him were conspicuously exhibited the serious simplicity, the unswerving adherence to principle, and the self-sacrificing patriotism which were the ideal Roman virtues, and which Cicero could not find among the politicians of his time.
The Cato Maior, like most of Cicero's philosophical writings, is cast in the form of a dialogue. Among the ancients the dialogue was a common rhetorical device, especially in the presentation of abstruse subjects. The introduction of characters to conduct the discussion gave vividness and clearness to the unfolding of the argument, as well as a kind of dramatic interest to the production. In the Cato Maior[26] and the Laelius, as generally, Cicero followed the plan of Aristotle's dialogues (now lost) rather than that of the dialogues of Plato. In the former there was more of exposition and less of discussion than in the latter; one person stated his views on some question, and the company in attendance only made occasional remarks without attempting to debate the question. In the latter, although one person, Socrates, is everywhere prominent, others are continually drawn into the discussions, and there is a quick interchange of question and answer. The Aristotelian form was better adapted to Cicero's purposes than the Platonic; the progress of the argument was less interrupted, and thus better opportunity for a symmetrical development of the theme was afforded.
Then, too, the former was more popular. The style of Aristotle[27] had been imitated by Theophrastus and many other writers down to Cicero's time, while that of Plato had found hardly any imitators.
The editors of the Cato Maior have generally assumed that Cicero attempted to give an antique coloring to the diction of the dialogue in order to remind readers of Cato's own style. It is only necessary to read a page or two of Cato's _De Re Rustica_ to have this illusion dispelled. The only things actually alleged to be archaisms are (1) the use of deponent participles as passives in §§ 4, 59, 74, a thing common enough in Cicero; _neutiquam_ in § 42; (6) of the nominative of the gerundive governing an accusative case in § 6. In every instance the notes will supply a refutation of the allegation. That Cicero should attempt to write in any style but his own is exceedingly improbable.
5. _Personages._ The conversation is supposed to take place between Cato, Scipio Africanus the younger, and Laelius, in the year before Cato's death, _i.e._ 150 B.C., when he was in his eighty-fourth year,[28] Scipio being about 35 and Laelius a few years older.
(1.) _Cato._ M. Porcius Cato was born in 234 B.C.[29] at the ancient Latin town of Tusculum. Little is known of his family except that it was plebeian, and possessed a small patrimony in the territory of the Sabines, close to the farm of M'. Curius Dentatus, one of Cato's great heroes and models. The heads of the family, so far as memory extended, had distinguished themselves as tough warriors and hardy farmers. Among the Sabines, who even down to the times of the Empire were famed for simplicity of manners and the practice of all the sterner virtues, Cato passed those portions of his life which were not occupied with business of state. From his earliest days he toiled in his own fields, and contented himself with the hardest rustic life.[30] Yet even in his boyhood Cato must have passed intervals at Rome, and seen something of the great statesmen and generals of the time.[31] He seems to have received when young as thorough an education as was possible without learning Greek, such an education as was to be obtained only in the capital. He grew up to manhood in the comparatively quiet period between the first and the second Punic wars; the most exciting event of his younger years must have been the destruction at Clastidium of the vast hordes of Celts who had swept over the northern half of Italy, almost within reach of Rome.
Cato was of the age for military service about the time of the battle of Lake Trasimenus, and entered the army then as a common soldier.[32] The first expedition in which he is definitely said to have taken part is that of Q. Fabius Maximus Cunctator against Hannibal in Campania, in 214.[33] This Roman commander was a man entirely after Cato's heart, and became one of his models in public life.
Before and during the early years of his soldier's life, Cato succeeded in winning some reputation as an orator, having practised first in the provincial courts near his home, and afterwards at Rome.[34] This reputation as well as his great force of character procured for him a powerful life-long friend and patron, M. Valerius Flaccus, a statesman of the old Roman conservative-democratic school of politics, the leader of which was Fabius Cunctator. Through the influence of Flaccus, possibly with the aid of Fabius, Cato became military tribune, and served with that rank under Marcellus in Sicily, under Fabius again at the capture of Tarentum in 209,[35] and under C. Claudius Nero at the battle of the Metaurus, where he contributed materially to that great victory.
In 204 Cato began his political career with the quaestorship.[36] As he was a _novus homo_ and a man of small private means, it was no small distinction that he had forced his way to office in his thirtieth year. The lot assigned him as quaestor to Scipio, then in Sicily and about to cross over into Africa. The chance was most unfortunate, if for no other reason, because Cato was intimately connected with the party in the senate opposed to Scipio, which had been attempting to bring him to trial for the atrocities committed by the Roman army in southern Italy. But in addition the two men were so utterly different that there was no possibility of the quaestor standing in that filial relation to his consul, which old Roman custom required. As financial officer, Cato complained of the luxury and extravagance which Scipio allowed not only to himself but to his army. Yet the complaint was made not so much on economic as on moral grounds; it seemed to Cato that the old Roman discipline and power to endure hardships were being swept away. The dispute was ended by Scipio allowing Cato to return to Rome, some authorities say from Sicily, others from Africa.
According to one writer,[37] he came home by way of Sardinia and brought thence with him Ennius the poet.[38] In 199 Cato was plebeian aedile, and exercised with severity the police jurisdiction pertaining to that office, yet so as to win popular approval, since he was chosen praetor for 198 without the usual interval. The province of Sardinia was entrusted to him, and he strained every nerve to make his government present as strong a contrast as possible with the lax and corrupt administration of the nobles who took Scipio for their pattern.
The troops were sternly disciplined, and law-breakers of every kind severely dealt with; in money matters the strictest economy prevailed; all gifts from provincials to Roman officers were forbidden. The praetor, the great representative of Roman power, passed from town to town attended by a single servant.
In 196 Cato was occupied with his canvass for the consulship of the year 195, to which he was elected in company with his friend Flaccus. Cato was the first _novus homo_ elected since C. Flaminius, the consul of 217. It is probable, though not certain, that he paved the way to his election by carrying the first of the _leges Porciae_, restricting the right of punishing Roman citizens. During the whole of his career Cato showed a high sense of the importance of the individual _civis Romanus_.
One of the first official acts of the new consul was to deliver a set speech to the people against a proposal to repeal the Oppian law, passed twenty years before, the object of which was to prevent lavish expenditure on dress and adornments, particularly by women. We have a lively report of Cato's speech from Livy's pen, partly founded on the speech as published by Cato himself.[39] The earnest pleading in favor of simple manners and economy failed, after having almost caused an open insurrection on the part of the women.[40] The two new provinces in Spain, Hispania Citerior and Ulterior, were still in a very unsettled state. The nearer province was made a consular province and assigned to Cato; the praetor who governed the farther province was also placed under Cato's jurisdiction. Before leaving Rome Cato carried a law for protecting the provincials from extortion. During the whole of his year of office he practised with the utmost exactness his principles of purity, simplicity, and economy in public affairs. He is said to have started from his house on the journey to Spain with only three servants, but when he got as far as the forum, it struck him that such an attendance was scarcely worthy of a Roman consul; so he purchased two more slaves on the spot! In the same spirit, before returning he sold his horse that the state might not be at the expense of transporting it to Italy. Cato was no less careful of the revenue than of the expenditure. He largely increased the productiveness of the mines and other property belonging to the state, and all goods captured from the enemy were sold for the benefit of the exchequer. On leaving the province Cato made an unusually large gift to each soldier, saying that it was better for all to bring home silver than for a few to bring home gold. The provincials were thoroughly content with their ruler and ever after looked on him as their best friend. The army was kept in the strictest discipline. Some disorderly conduct of the _equites_ was rebuked by Cato in a bitter harangue which he afterwards published.
Partly by craft, partly by good leadership in the field, Cato broke the strength of the turbulent natives and returned to enjoy a well-earned triumph.[41] In the same year (194) a brilliant triumph was celebrated by Flamininus.
Scipio, probably uneasy at the great reputations quickly won by Flamininus and Cato, secured his second consulship for the year 194, but failed to achieve anything remarkable. Cato probably spent the three years after his return for the most part at his Sabine farm. When the war against Antiochus broke out, he took service along with his friend Flaccus on the staff of the consul Glabrio,[42] and by a difficult march over the mountains broke in on the king's rear, and so was chiefly instrumental in winning the great battle of Thermopylae, by which Antiochus was driven out of Greece.
Immediately after the battle Cato returned home with despatches. We have dim and uncertain information that he took the field once or twice again, but his career as a soldier was practically ended.
From this time to his death, forty years later, Cato was the leading figure on the stage of Roman politics. In season and out of season he attacked abuses or innovations in speeches addressed to the senate, the people, or the courts. Soon after his return from Thessaly he struck a heavy blow at the unrepublican honor-hunting among the magistrates, of which the example had been set by P. Scipio Africanus. Most provincial governors drove their subjects into war, sent lying despatches home about their victories, and claimed a triumph. In 190 Cato attacked with success the proposal to grant a triumph to Q. Minucius Thermus, who had already triumphed over the Spaniards as praetor, and after his consulship in 193 had fought against the Ligurians. Cato's next victim was his former commander M'. Acilius Glabrio, who came forward at the same time with Cato, Marcellus (a son of the captor of Syracuse), L. Cornelius Scipio Nasica, T. Quinctius Flamininus (the conqueror of Macedonia) and Cato's friend L. Valerius Flaccus, as candidate for the censorship of 189. Cato by his violent speeches procured the trial of Glabrio for appropriating the plunder captured in Thessaly, and himself gave evidence concerning some property which had disappeared. Glabrio denounced Cato as a perjurer, but yet retired from his candidature. On this occasion Cato and Flaccus failed, Marcellus being elected as plebeian and Flamininus as patrician censor.
In the next year (188) Cato acted in the senate with the party which tried unsuccessfully to refuse the triumph to the two consuls of 189, M. Fulvius Nobilior and Cn. Manlius Vulso, the former of whom had gained none but trifling advantages over the Aetolians, while the latter had disgraced the Roman name by making war without authorization upon the Gauls of Asia Minor, and had also suffered a humiliating defeat from some Thracian robber bands on his homeward march. Not disheartened by ill success, Cato and his friends determined to strike at higher game. L. Scipio Asiaticus (or Asiagenus), the brother of Africanus, was asserted in the senate to have appropriated 3000 talents of public money when in command against Antiochus. Legal proceedings were taken not only against Asiaticus, but against Africanus, who behaved with great violence and arrogance. In the end Africanus withdrew to his country estate, while his brother was condemned to pay a heavy fine. A death-stroke had been given to the almost kingly authority of Africanus, who never again showed his face in Rome. The proceedings against the Scipios seem to have begun in 187 and not to have been completed before 185.
Nearly twenty years had passed since the conflict between Cato and Scipio began, and now it had ended in a complete triumph for Cato.[43] But the new modes of which Scipio was the chief patron were too strong to be conquered, and Cato spent the rest of his life in fighting a hopeless battle against them, though he fought for a time with the strongest weapons that the constitution supplied. In 184 he was censor along with Flaccus, who seems to have allowed his colleague full liberty of action. Every portion of the censor's duty was carried out on the most severe and 'old Roman' principles. Seven senators were degraded, among them L. Flamininus, an ex-consul and brother of the 'liberator of the Hellenes,' for serious misconduct,[44] also Manilius, an ex-praetor, for no worse offence than that of having kissed his wife in presence of his daughter. M. Furius Purpurio, who had actually competed with Cato for the censorship, was punished for diverting a public aqueduct for his private advantage. Flaccus was named leader of the senate in the place of Scipio Africanus, now dead.
On reviewing the _equites_, Cato removed from that body L. Scipio and many others on various charges: this one had allowed himself to grow too fat for horsemanship; that had failed to groom his horse properly; another had neglected his farm; another again had made an untimely jest on the occasion of the review itself. With the ordinary citizens Cato dealt just as harshly. In his censorian edict he sharply reproved the extravagance prevalent at private feasts. All articles of luxury, such as slaves purchased at fancy prices, luxurious clothing, carriages, statues, and pictures were rendered liable to heavy taxation. In this way Cato revenged himself for the repeal of the Oppian law.
In looking after the property and income of the state Cato followed the same principles he had acted on in Spain. He reduced the expenditure on public works as far as possible, and took care to sell at the full price the right to collect the revenue. Encroachments on the property of the nation were severely punished.
Not by acts only, but by constant speeches, full at once of grimness and humor, did Cato struggle against the degeneracy of his time[45]. He concluded his period of office with a self-laudatory harangue, and assumed the title _Censorius_, while his statue was placed in the temple of the goddess Salus with an inscription affirming that he had reformed the Roman nation.
But in a very brief time all trace of Cato's activity as censor was swept away, except that afforded by the numerous life-long quarrels in which he had involved himself[46]. In less than two years one of his victims, Purpurio, was employed by the senate on a high political mission, while another, L. Flamininus, sat among the senators at the games in defiance of Cato's sentence. Yet Cato remained by far the most powerful member of the senate. Titus Flamininus, his only important rival, quickly passed out of notice. So far as there was any democratic opposition to the senatorial oligarchy, Cato was the leader of that opposition for the remainder of his life. But at that period no great political movements agitated the state within; nearly the whole interest of the time was centred in the foreign relations of Rome. On matters of foreign policy Cato offered but little opposition to the prevailing tendencies of the age, though on particular occasions he exercised great influence. But his voice was at all times loudly heard on all questions of morality and public order. He supported the _lex Furia_ and the _lex Voconia_, the object of which was to prevent the dissipation of family property, and the _lex Orchia_, directed against extravagant expenditure on feasts, also the _lex Baebia de ambitu_, the first serious attempt to check bribery. We hear also that Cato bitterly attacked Lepidus, censor in 180, for erecting a permanent theatre in place of the movable booths before used. The building was actually pulled down.
We are told that from time to time he denounced the misdoings of provincial governors. In 171 he was one of a commission of five for bringing to justice three ex-praetors who had practised all manner of corruption in Spain. Almost the last act of his life was to prosecute Galba for cruel misgovernment of the Lusitanians. The titles of Cato's speeches show that he played a great part in the deliberations of the senate concerning foreign affairs, but as his fighting days were over and he was unfitted for diplomacy, we have little explicit evidence of his activity in this direction. At the end of the third Macedonian war he successfully opposed the annexation of Macedonia. He also saved from destruction the Rhodians, who during the war had plainly desired the victory of Perseus, and in the early days, when the Roman commanders had ill success, had deeply wounded