Cato the Younger

Moreover, Gellius assigned to him prizes of valour and distinguished honours; but Cato would not take them nor allow them, declaring that he had done nothing worthy of honours. And so, in consequence of this, he was thought to be a strange creature. For instance, a law was passed forbidding candidates for office to be attended by nomenclators,[*](Attendants whose duty it was to tell the candidate the names of those whom he was going to meet, that he might appear to be acquainted with them.) and in his canvass for the military tribune-ship he was the only one who obeyed the law. He made it his business to salute and address without help from others those who met him on his rounds, but he did not avoid giving offence even to those who praised his course; for the more clearly they saw the rectitude of his practice, the more distressed were they at the difficulty of imitating it.

Appointed military tribune,[*](About 67 B.C.) he was sent to Macedonia, to serve under Rubrius the praetor. At this time, we are told, his wife being full of grief and in tears, one of Cato’s friends, Munatius, said to her: Take heart, Atilia; I will watch over thy husband. Certainly he will, cried Cato, and after they had gone a day’s journey on their way, immediately after supper, he said: Come, Munatius, see that you keep your promise to Atilia, and forsake me neither by day nor by night.

Then he gave orders that two couches be placed in the same chamber for them, and thus Munatius always slept—and that was the joke—watched over by Cato.

He had in his following fifteen slaves, two freedmen, and four friends. These rode on horses, while he himself always went a-foot; and yet he would join each of them in turn and converse with him.[*](Cf. chapter v. 3.) And when he reached the camp, where there were several legions, and was appointed to the command of one of them by the general, he thought it a trifling and useless task to make a display of his own virtue, which was that of a single man, but was ambitious above all things to make the men under his command like unto himself.

He did not, however, divest his power of the element which inspires fear, but called in the aid of reason; with its help he persuaded and taught his men about everything, while rewards and punishments followed their acts. Consequently, it were hard to say whether he made his men more peaceful or more warlike, more zealous or more just; to such a degree did they show themselves terrible to their enemies but gentle to their allies, without courage to do wrong but ambitious to win praise.