Marcus Cato

When Fabius Maximus took the city of Tarentum,[*](209 B.C.) it chanced that Cato, who was then a mere stripling, served under him, and being lodged with a certain Nearchus, of the sect of the Pythagoreans, he was eager to know of his doctrines. When he heard this man holding forth as follows, in language which Plato also uses, condemning pleasure as the greatest incentive to evil, and the body as the chief detriment to the soul, from which she can release and purify herself only by such reasonings as most do wean and divorce her from bodily sensations, he fell still more in love with simplicity and restraint.

Further than this, it is said, he did not learn Greek till late in life, and was quite well on in years when he took to reading Greek books; then he profited in oratory somewhat from Thucydides, but more from Demosthenes. However, his writings are moderately embellished with Greek sentiments and stories, and many literal translations from the Greek have found a place among his maxims and proverbs.

There was at Rome a certain man of the highest birth and greatest influence, who had the power to discern excellence in the bud, and the grace to cultivate it and bring it into general esteem. This man was Valerius Flaccus. He had a farm next to that of Cato, and learned from Cato’s servants of their master’s laborious and frugal way of living. He was amazed to hear them tell how Cato, early in the morning, went on foot to the market-place and pleaded the cases of all who wished his aid;