Comparison of Aristides and Marcus Cato

Once more, that temperance which Cato always decked out with the fairest praises, Aristides maintained and practised in unsullied purity whereas Cato, by marrying unworthily and unseasonably, fell under no slight or insignificant censure in this regard. It was surely quite indecent that a man of his years should bring home as stepmother to his grown-up son and that son’s bride, a girl whose father was his assistant and served the public for hire. Whether he did this merely for his own pleasure, or in anger, to punish his son fox objecting to his mistress, both what he did and what led him to do it were disgraceful.

And the sarcastic reason for it which he gave his son was not a true one. For had he wished to beget more sons as good, he should have planned at the outset to marry a woman of family, instead of contenting himself, as long as he could do so secretly, with the society of a low concubine, and when he was discovered, making a man his father-in-law whom he could most easily persuade, rather than one whose alliance would bring him most honour.