Marcus Cato

For he was not, like Lucius Lucullus and Metellus Pius in after times, too enfeebled by old age to serve the people, regarding the service of the state as a burdensome duty; nor did he, like Scipio Africanus before him, because of envious attacks upon his reputation, turn his back upon the people and make leisure his end and aim for the rest of his life;

but rather, as someone persuaded Dionysius to regard his sovereignty as his fairest winding-sheet, so he held public service to be the fairest privilege of old age. For recreation and amusement, when he had leisure therefor, he resorted to the writing of books and to farming.

He composed speeches, then, on all sorts of subjects, and histories, and as for farming, he followed it in earnest when he was young and poor,—indeed, he says he then had only two ways of getting money, farming and frugality,—but in later life he was only a theoretical and fancy farmer. He also composed a book on farming[*](De re rustica.) in which he actually gave recipes for making cakes and preserving fruit, so ambitious was he to be superior and peculiar in everything.

The dinners, too, which he gave in the country, were quite plentiful. He always asked in congenial country neighbours, and made merry with them, and not only did those of his own age find in him an agreeable and much desired companion, but also the young. For he was a man of large experience, who had read and heard much that was well worth repeating.

He held the table to be the very best promoter of friendship, and at his own, the conversation turned much to the praise of honourable and worthy citizens, greatly to the neglect of those who were worthless and base. About such Cato suffered no tabletalk, either by way of praise or blame.

The last of his public services is supposed to have been the destruction of Carthage. It was Scipio the Younger who actually brought the task to completion,[*](146 B.C.) but it was largely in consequence of the advice and counsel of Cato that the Romans undertook the war. It was on this wise. Cato was sent[*](150 B.C.) on an embassy to the Carthaginians and Masinissa the Numidian, who were at war with one another, to inquire into the grounds of their quarrel. Masinissa had been a friend of the Roman people from the first, and the Carthaginians had entered into treaty relations with Rome after the defeat which the elder Scipio had given them. The treaty deprived them of their empire, and imposed a grievous money tribute upon them.