Comparison of Aristides and Marcus Cato

Possibly this point invites discussion. Poverty is never dishonourable in itself, but only when it is a mark of sloth, intemperance, extravagance, or thoughtlessness. When, on the other hand, it is the handmaid of a sober, industrious, righteous, and brave man, who devotes all his powers to the service of the people, it is the sign of a lofty spirit that harbours no mean thoughts.

It is impossible for a man to do great things when his thoughts are busy with little things; nor can he aid the many who are in need when he himself is in need of many things. A great equipment for public service consists, not in wealth, but in contented independence, which requires no private superfluities, and so puts no hindrance in the way of serving the commonwealth. God alone is absolutely free from wants; but that is the most perfect and god-like quality in human excellence which reduces man’s wants to their lowest terms.

For as a body which is well tempered and vigorous needs no superfluous food or raiment, so a healthy individual or family life can be conducted with the simplest outlays. A man should make his gains tally with his needs. He who heaps up much substance and uses little of it, is not contented and independent. If he does not need it, he is a fool for providing what he does not crave; and if he craves it, he makes himself wretched by parsimoniously curtailing his enjoyment of it. Indeed, I would fain ask Cato himself this question:

If wealth is a thing to be enjoyed, why do you plume yourself on being satisfied with little when possessed of much? But if it be a fine thing, as indeed it is, to eat ordinary bread, and to drink such wine as labourers and servants drink, and not to want purple robes nor even plastered houses, then Aristides and Epaminondas and Manius Curius and Gaius Fabricius were perfectly right in turning their backs on the gaining of what they scorned to use.

Surely it was not worth while for a man who, like Cato, esteemed turnips a delectable dish and cooked them himself, while his wife was kneading bread, to babble so much about a paltry copper, and write on the occupation in which one might soonest get rich. Great is the simple life, and great its independence, but only because it frees a man from the anxious desire of superfluous things.

Hence it was that Aristides, as we are told, remarked at the trial of Callias[*](Aristides, xxv. 5.) that only those who were poor in spite of themselves should be ashamed of their poverty; those who, like himself, chose poverty, should glory in it. And surely it were ridiculous to suppose that the poverty of Aristides was due to his sloth, when, without doing anything disgraceful, but merely by stripping a single Barbarian, or seizing a single tent, he might have made himself rich. So much on this head.