Marcus Cato

He once wished to dissuade the Roman people from insisting unseasonably upon a distribution of corn, and began his speech with these words: It is a hard matter, my fellow citizens, to argue with the belly, since it has no ears. Again, inveighing against the prevalent extravagance, he said: It is a hard matter to save a city in which a fish sells for more than an ox.

Again, he said the Romans were like sheep; for as these are not to be persuaded one by one, but all in a body blindly follow their leaders, so ye, he said, though as individuals ye would not deign to follow the counsels of certain men, when ye are got together ye suffer yourselves to be led by them. Discoursing on the power of women, he said: All other men rule their wives; we rule all other men, and our wives rule us. This, however, is a translation from the sayings of Themistocles.[*](Themistocles, xviii. 4.)

He, finding himself much under his son’s orders through the lad’s mother, said: Wife, the Athenians rule the Hellenes, I rule the Athenians, thou rulest me, and thy son thee. Therefore let him make sparing use of that authority which makes him, child though he is, the most powerful of the Hellenes.

The Roman people, Cato said, fixed the market value not only of dyes, but also of behaviour. For, said he, as dyers most affect that dye which they see pleases you, so your young men learn and practice that which wins your praise.

And he exhorted them, in case it was through virtue and temperance that they had become great, to make no change for the worse; but if it was through intemperance and vice, to change for the better; these had already made them great enough. Of those who were eager to hold high office frequently, he said that like men who did not know the road, they sought to be ever attended on their way by lictors, lest they go astray.