The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [303]
7. So that it soon began to be told that a Greek, famous even to admiration, winning and carrying all before him,
8. Had impressed so strange a love upon the young men,
9. That quitting all their pleasures and pastimes, they ran mad after philosophy;
10. Which indeed much pleased the Romans in general;
11. They beheld with much pleasure the youth so welcome Greek literature, and frequent the company of learned men.
12. But Cato, seeing this passion for words flowing into the city,
13. Was ill disposed towards it, fearing that the youth should be diverted that way,
14. And come to prefer philosophy instead of arms and military prowess.
15. And when the fame of the philosophers increased in the city,
16. And Caius Acilius, a person of distinction, at his own request, became their interpreter to the senate at their first audience,
17. Cato resolved, under some specious presence, to have all philosophers cleared out of the city;
18. And, coming into the senate, blamed the magistrates for letting these deputies stay so long a time without being dispatched,
19. Though they were persons that could easily persuade the people to what they pleased;
20. That therefore in all haste something should be determined about their petition,
21. So that they could go home again, and leave the Roman youth to be obedient, as hitherto, to their own laws and governors.
22. He did this not out of any hostility, as some think, to Carneades;
23. But because he wholly despised philosophy, and out of a kind of pride scoffed at the Greek studies and literature;
24. As, for example, he would say that Socrates was a prating seditious fellow, who did his best to tyrannise over his country,
25. To undermine the ancient customs, and to entice and withdraw the citizens to opinions contrary to the laws.
26. Ridiculing the school of Isocrates, he would add that his scholars grew old men before they had done learning with him.
27. And to frighten his son from anything that was Greek, in a more vehement tone than became one of his age,
28. He stated that the Romans would certainly be destroyed when they once began to be infected with Greek literature;
29. Though time indeed has shown the vanity of his prophecy;
30. For the city of Rome rose to its highest fortune while entertaining Grecian learning.
Chapter 65
1. Nor had he an aversion only against Greek philosophers, but against the physicians also;
2. For having, it seems, heard how Hippocrates, when the king of Persia sent for him with offers of an immense fee,
3. Said that he would never assist enemies of the Greeks;
4. He affirmed that this was a common oath taken by all Greek physicians, and enjoined his son to avoid them.
5. He had himself written a little book of prescriptions for curing the sick in his own family:
6. He never enjoined fasting, but ordered them either vegetables, or the meat of a duck, pigeon or leveret;
7. Such kind of diet being of light digestion, and fit for sick folks, only it made those who ate it dream too much.
8. However, despite priding himself on understanding medicine, he lost both his wife and his son;
9. Though he himself, being of a strong, robust constitution, lived long and healthily,
10. And would often, even in his old age, go to bed with women.
11. When he was past a lover’s age he married a young woman, upon the following pretence:
12. Having lost his own wife, he had a young courtesan come privately to visit him;
13. But the house being small, and a daughter-in-law also in it, this practice was quickly discovered;
14. For the young woman seeming once to pass through it a little too boldly,
15. The youth, his son, though he said nothing, seemed to look somewhat indignantly upon her.
16. The old man perceiving and understanding that what he did was disliked,
17. Went away as his custom was, with his usual companions to the market;
18. And among the rest, he called aloud to one Salonius, who had been a clerk under him,
19. And asked him whether he had married off his daughter?