The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [304]
20. Salonius answered, no, nor would he, till he had consulted him.
21. Said Cato, ‘Then I have found out a fit son-in-law for you, if he should not displease by reason of his age’;
22. Upon this Cato, without any more ado, told him, he desired to have the damsel himself.
23. These words, as may well be imagined, at first astonished the man,
24. Conceiving that Cato was as far off from marrying, as he from a likelihood of being allied to the family of one who had been consul, and had a Triumph;
25. But perceiving him in earnest, he consented willingly.
26. When Cato’s son died he bore the loss like a philosopher, and was nothing the more remiss in attending to affairs of state;
27. So that he did not grow languid in his old age, as though public business were a duty once to be discharged, and then quitted;
28. Nor did he, like Scipio Africanus, because envy had struck at his glory, turn from the public,
29. And change and pass away the rest of his life without doing anything;
30. For Cato thought old age was most honourable if it was busied in public affairs;
31. Though he would, now and then, when he had leisure, recreate himself with gardening and writing.
32. He composed various books and histories; and in his youth, he addicted himself to agriculture for profit’s sake;
33. For he used to say, he had but two ways of getting money, namely agriculture and parsimony;
34. And now, in his old age, the first of these gave him both occupation and a subject of study.
35. He wrote one book on country matters, in which he treated even of making cakes and preserving fruit,
36. It being his ambition to be curious and singular in all things.
Chapter 66
1. Some say the overthrow of Carthage was Cato’s last act of state,
2. For though indeed it was Scipio the younger who gave it the last blow, the war was undertaken chiefly by the counsel and advice of Cato.
3. He had been sent to the Carthaginians and Masinissa, king of Numidia,
4. Who were at war with one another, to know the cause of their difference.
5. Finding Carthage, not (as the Romans thought) low and in an ill condition,
6. But well manned, full of riches and all sorts of arms and ammunition, and perceiving the Carthaginians in high fettle,
7. He conceived that it was not a time for the Romans to adjust affairs between them and Masinissa,
8. But rather that Rome itself would fall into danger, unless it found means to check this rapid new growth of Rome’s ancient irreconcilable enemy.
9. Therefore, returning quickly to Rome, he acquainted the senate,
10. That the former defeats of the Carthaginians had not so much diminished their strength, as it had advanced their ambition;
11. That they were not become weaker, but more experienced in war,
12. And only skirmished with the Numidians to exercise themselves the better to cope with the Romans;
13. And that their treaty with Rome was merely a suspension of war, which awaited a fairer opportunity to break out again.
14. He then shook his gown to let drop some African figs before the senate.
15. As the senators admired their size and beauty, he added that the place that bore them was only three days’ sailing from Rome.
16. He never after this gave his opinion, but at the end he would be sure to say, ‘Also, Carthage ought utterly to be destroyed.’
17. But Publius Scipio Nasica would always declare his opinion to the contrary, in these words, ‘It seems requisite to me that Carthage should still stand.’
18. For seeing his countrymen wanton and insolent, and the people made obstinate and disobedient to the senate by their prosperity,
19. He wished to keep the fear of Carthage alive as a rein on the contumacy of the multitude;
20. For he regarded the Carthaginians as too weak to overcome the Romans, and too great to be despised by them.
21. On the other side, it seemed perilous to Cato that a city which had been always great,
22. And was now grown sober and wise by reason of its former calamities,
23. Should still be lying in wait until the follies and excesses of the Romans made it vulnerable.