Marcus Cato

He says that those who saw him at that time pursuing the enemy and hewing them down, felt convinced that Cato owed less to Rome than Rome to Cato; also that the consul Manius himself, flushed with victory, threw his arms about him, still flushed with his own victory, and embraced him a long time, crying out for joy that neither he himself nor the whole Roman people could fittingly requite Cato for his benefactions.

Immediately after the battle he was sent to Rome as the messenger of his own triumphs. He had a fair passage to Brundisium, crossed the peninsula from there to Tarentum in a single day, travelled thence four days more, and on the fifth day after landing reached Rome, where he was the first to announce the victory. He filled the city full of joy and sacrifices, and the people with the proud feeling that it was able to master every land and sea.

These are perhaps the most remarkable features of Cato’s military career. In political life, he seems to have regarded the impeachment and conviction of malefactors as a department worthy of his most zealous efforts. For he brought many prosecutions himself, assisted others in bringing theirs, and even instigated some to begin prosecutions, as for instance Petillius against Scipio.

That great man, however, trampled the accusations against him under foot, as the splendour of his house and his own inherent loftiness of spirit prompted him to do, and Cato, unable to secure his capital conviction, dropped the case. But he so co-operated with the accusers of Lucius, Scipio’s brother, as to have him condemned to pay a large fine to the state. This debt Lucius was unable to meet, and was therefore liable to imprisonment. Indeed, it was only at the intercession of the tribunes that he was at last set free.