The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [301]
19. He forced down the price of contracts for public works, and raised it in contracts for farming the taxes to the highest sum;
20. By which proceedings he drew a great deal of hatred on himself.
Chapter 62
1. Yet however much the patricians complained, the commoners liked his censorship very well;
2. They set up a statue to him in the public gardens, and put an inscription on it,
3. Not for his war record, but saying that this was Cato the Censor, who, by good discipline and wise ordinances,
4. Reclaimed the Roman commonwealth when it was declining into vice.
5. Before this honour was done to him he used to laugh at those who loved statues and honours,
6. Saying that they did not see that they were taking pride in the workmanship of brass-founders and painters;
7. Whereas the citizens carried Cato’s own best likeness in their breasts.
8. And when any seemed to wonder that he should have never a statue, he said,
9. ‘I would much rather be asked, why I have not one, than why I have one.’
10. In short, he would not have any honest citizen endure to be praised, except it might prove advantageous to the commonwealth.
11. Yet still he passed the highest commendation on himself;
12. For he tells us that those who were criticised for doing something wrong used to say, it was not worthwhile to blame them, for they were not Catos.
13. He also adds that they who awkwardly mimicked some of his actions were called left-handed Catos;
14. And that the senate in perilous times would call to him, as to a pilot in a ship,
15. And that often when he was not present in the senate they put off affairs of greatest consequence until he was present.
16. Much of this is true, for Cato had a great authority in the city, alike for his life, his eloquence and his age.
17. He was also a good father, an excellent husband to his wife and an extraordinary economist.
18. And as he did not manage his affairs of this kind carelessly or as things of little moment, I ought to record a little further what was commendable in him in these points.
19. He married a wife more noble than rich; being of opinion that both the rich and the high-born are haughty and proud,
20. But those of noble blood would be more ashamed of base things.
21. A man who beat his wife or child, laid violent hands, he said, on what was most precious;
22. And a good husband he reckoned worthy of more praise than a great senator.
23. He admired the ancient Socrates for nothing so much as having lived a contented life with a wife who was a scold and children who were half-witted.
24. As soon as he had a son born, only public affairs would keep him from his wife’s side as she washed and dressed the infant.
25. She herself suckled it, and often gave her breast to her servants’ children to produce a kind of natural love between them and her son.
26. When the boy came to years of discretion, Cato himself taught him to read,
27. Although he had as servant a very good grammarian called Chilo, who taught many others;
28. But Cato thought not fit, as he himself said, to have his son reprimanded by a slave,
29. Nor would he have him owe to a servant the obligation of so great a thing as his learning.
30. He himself, therefore, taught him his grammar, his law and his gymnastic exercises.
31. Nor did he only show him how to throw a dart, to fight in armour and to ride,
32. But to box and to endure heat and cold, and to swim over the most rapid and rough rivers.
33. He says, likewise, that he wrote histories, in large characters, with his own hand,
34. So that his son might learn to know about his countrymen and forefathers.
35. Thus, Cato formed and fashioned his son to virtue; nor had he any occasion to find fault with his readiness and docility;
36. But as the boy proved to be of too weak a constitution for hardships, he did not insist on requiring of him an austere way of living.
37. However, though delicate in health, Cato’s son proved a stout man in battle, and behaved himself valiantly when Paulus Aemilius