Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.4, 1865).djvu/385

 When he thought himself of an age fit to marry, hav- ing never before known any woman, he was contracted to Lepida, who had before been contracted to Metellus Scipio, but on Scipio's own withdrawal from it, the con- tract had been dissolved, and she left at liberty. Yet Scipio afterward repenting himself, did all he could to regain her, before the marriage with Cato was completed, and succeeded in so doing. At which Cato was violently incensed, and resolved at first to go to law about it ; but his friends persuaded him to the contrary. However, he was so moved by the heat of youth and passion, that he wrote a quantity of iambic verses against Scipio, in the bitter, sarcastic style of Archilochus, without, however, his license and scurrility. After this, he married Atilia, the daughter of Soranus, the first, but not the only woman he ever knew, less happy thus far than Lcelius, the friend of Scipio, who in the whole course of so long a life never knew but the one woman to whom he was united in his first and only marriage.

In the war of the slaves, which took its name from Spartacus, their ringleader, Gellius was general, and Cato went a volunteer, for the sake of his brother Coepio, who was a tribune in the army. Cato could find here no opportunity to show his zeal or exercise his valor, on account of the ill conduct of the gelieral. However, amidst the corruption and disorders of that army, he showed such a love of discipline, so much bravery upon occasion, and so much courage and wisdom in every thing, that it appeared he was no way inferior to the old Cato. Gellius offered him great rewards, and would have decreed him the first honors ; which, however, he refused, saying, he had done nothing that deserved them. This made him be thought a man of a strange and eccentric temper.

There was a law passed, moreover, that the candidates who stood for any office should not have prompters in