Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/656

Rh 638 CATO. habitants of Locri, who had been cruelly oppressed by Plerainius, the legate of Scipio. Livy says not a word of Cato''s interference in this transaction, but mentions the acrimony with which Fabius ac- cused Scipio of corrupting militan,' discipline, and of having unlawfully left his province to take the VcNvn 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 Afi-ica, touched at Sardinia, and brought the poet Ennius in his own ship from the island to Italy ; but Sar- dinia was rather out of the line of the voyage to Rome, and it is more likely that the first ac- quaintance of Ennius and Cato occurred at a sub- sequent date, when the latter was praetor in Sardinia. (Aur. Vict, de Vir. Ill 47.) In B. c. 199, Cato was aedile, and with his col- league Helvius, restored the plebeian games, and gave upon that occasion a banquet in honour of .Jupiter. In the following year he was made prae- tor, 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 atten- dant, and, by the studied absence of pomp, placed his own frugality in striking contrast with the op- pressive magnificence of ordinary provincial magis- trates. 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. Sar- dinia had been for some time completely subdued, but if we are to believe the improbable and unsup- ported testimony of Aurelius Victor {de Vir. III. 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-fashioned 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 i59th year of his age, he was elected consul with his old friend and patron L. Valerius Flaccus. During this consulship a stiange 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 from the city, except for the purpose of at- tending the public celebration of religious rites. Now that Hannibal was conquered ; that Rome abound- ed with Carthaginian wealth ; and that there was no longer any necessit}' for women- to contribute towards the exigencies of an impoverished treasury the savings spared from their ornaments and plea- sures, the tribunes T. Fundanius and L. Valerius, thought it time to propose the abolition of the Oppian law ; but they were opposed by their col- leagues, M. Brutus and T. Brutus. The most im- portant 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 ap- proached, 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 wa- vered, 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 tri- bunes 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 throjigh 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, Ci- terior 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, where- ever 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 anec- dotes 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 poli- tical 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 indivi- dual 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 stem and imperious temper. He boasted of having destroyed more towns in Spain than he had spent days in that countr3^ 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 at- tention 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 re- warded with a triumph, at which he exhibited an extraordinary quantity'- of captured brass, silver, and gold, both coin and bullion. In the distribu- tion 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.)