Regum et imperatorum apophthegmata
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Original / primary: Perseus Eng3
81.1
81.1
The Elder Cato, in assailing the profligacy and extravagance rife among the people, said that it was hard to talk to a belly which had no ears.
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81.2
81.2
He said he wondered how a city could continue to exist unscathed in which a fish sold for more than an ox !
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81.3
81.3
In bitter criticism of the prevalent domination of women, he said,
81.3
All mankind rules its women, and we rule all mankind, but our women rule us.
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81.4
81.4
He said that he preferred to receive no thanks when he had done a favour rather than to suffer no punishment when he had done a wrong, and that he always granted pardon to all who erred, with the single exception of himself.
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81.5
81.5
In trying to stimulate the officials to administer sharp rebuke to the erring, he used to say that, if those who have the power to discourage crime do not discourage it, then they encourage it.
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81.6
81.6
He said that it gave him more joy to see those of the youth that blushed than those that blanched.
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81.7
81.7
He said that he hated a soldier who plied his hands in marching and his feet in fighting, and whose snore was louder than his battle-cry.
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81.8
81.8
He said that the worst ruler is one who cannot rule himself.
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81.9
81.9
He thought it especially necessary for every man to respect himself, since no man is ever separated from himself.
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81.10
Seeing that statues were being set up in honour of many men, he said,
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As for myself, I had rather that men should ask why there is not a statue of Cato than why there is.
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81.11
81.11
He charged those in power to be sparing of their authority, so that authority might continue always to be theirs.
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81.12
He used to say that those who rob virtue of honour rob youth of virtue.
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81.13
An official or a judge, he said, ought neither to require importuning to grant what is right nor to yield to importuning to grant what is wrong.
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81.14
Wrongdoing, he used to say, even if it brings no risk to its authors, brings risk to all.
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81.15
He used to say that, since there are so many odious things connected with old age, it is only right not to add the odium which comes from vice.
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He had an idea that the man who has lost his temper differs from him who has lost his mind only in duration of time.
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He said that those who use their good fortune reasonably and moderately are least envied; for people envy not us but our surroundings.
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81.18
He used to say that those who are serious in ridiculous matters will be ridiculous in serious matters.
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81.19
He used to say that it is necessary to make good deeds secure by means of good deeds, so that they may not fall off in their repute.
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He used to rebuke the citizens for electing always the same men to office.
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For,
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said he,
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you will give the impression that you hold office to be of no great worth, or else that you hold not many men to be worthy of office.
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81.21
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He pretended to be amazed at the man who had sold his lands bordering on the sea as being himself stronger than the sea.
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For,
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said he,
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what the sea only laps, this man has easily drunk up.
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81.22
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When he was a candidate for the censorship, and saw the other candidates soliciting the populace and flattering them, he himself cried out that the
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people had need of a stern physician and a thorough cleansing; they must choose not the most agreeable but the most inexorable man. As a result of his words he was the first choice of the electors.
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81.23
81.23
In instructing the young men to fight boldly, he said that ofttimes talk is better than the sword and the voice better than the hand to rout and bewilder the enemy.
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81.24
81.24
When he was waging war against the peoples living by the river Baetis,
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81.24
he was put in great peril by the vast numbers of the enemy. The Celtiberians were ready and willing to come to his aid for forty thousand pounds, but the other Romans were against agreeing to pay barbarian men. Cato said they were all wrong; for if they were victorious, the payment would come not from themselves, but from the enemy; and if they were vanquished there would be no debtors and no creditors.
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He captured cities more in number, as he says, than the days he spent among the enemy, yet he himself took nothing from the enemy’s country beyond what he ate and drank.
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81.26
81.26
He distributed to each soldier a pound of silver, saying it was better that many should return from the campaign with silver than a few with gold. For the officials, he said, ought to accept no other increase in the provinces except the increase of their repute.f
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He had five persons to wait upon him in the
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campaign, one of whom bought three of the captives. But when he discovered that Cato knew of it, he did not wait to come before his master, but hanged himself.
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81.28
81.28
He was urged by Scipio Africanus to lend his influence to help the banished Achaeans to return to their homes, but he made as though he cared nothing about the matter; in the Senate, however, where the subject aroused much discussion, he arose and said,
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We sit here as if we had nothing to do, debating about some poor old Greeks whether they shall be carried to their graves by bearers who live in our country or in Greece.
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81.29
81.29
Postumius Albinus wrote a history in the Greek language, in which he craved the indulgence of his readers. Cato said sarcastically that he ought to be granted indulgence if he had written the book under compulsion by a decree of the Ampictyonic Council!
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