The sayings of Cato

8.  Once when he wished to restrain the Romans from distributing a large quantity of corn as a largesse to the people, he began his speech:

"It is difficult, my fellow-citizens, to make the stomach hear reason, because it has no ears."

When desiring to blame the extravagance of the Romans, he said that a city could not be safe in which a fish sold dearer than an ox.

 He said, too, that the Romans were like sheep, who never form opinions of their own, but follow where the others lead them.

"Just so," said he, "when you are assembled together you are led by men whose advice you would scorn to take about your own private affairs."

With regard to female influence he once said,

"All mankind rule their wives, we rule all mankind, and we are ruled by our wives."

This remark, however, is borrowed from Themistokles. He one day, when his child was instigating its mother to lay many commands upon him, said,

"Wife, remember that the Athenians rule the Greeks, I rule the Athenians, you rule me, and your child rules you; wherefore let him not abuse his power, which, though he knows it not, is greater than that of anyone else in Greece."

Cato also said that the Romans fixed the price, not only of different dyes, but of different professions.

"Just as the dyers," said he, "dye stuff of whatever colour they see people pleased with, so do our young men only study and apply themselves to those subjects which are praised and commended by you."

He used also to beg of them, if they had become great by virtue and self-restraint, not to degenerate; and if, on the other hand, their empire had been won by licentiousness and vice, to reform themselves, since by the latter means they had become so great as not to need any further assistance from them.

Those who were always seeking office, he said, were like men who could not find their way, who always wished to walk with lictors[28] before them to show them the road.

He blamed his countrymen for often electing the same men to public offices.

"You will appear," said he, "either to think that the office is not worth much, or else that there are not many worthy to fill it."

Alluding to one of his enemies who led a dissolute and discreditable life, he said:

"That man's mother takes it as a curse rather than a blessing if any one hopes that her son will survive her."

When a certain man sold his ancestral estate, which was situated by the seashore, Cato pretended to admire him, as being more powerful than the sea itself,

"for this man," said he, has "drunk up the fields which the sea itself could not swallow."

When King Eumenes came to Rome the Senate received him with special honours, and he was much courted and run after. Cato, however, held himself aloof and would not go near him, and when some one said

"Yet he is an excellent man, and a good friend to Rome," he answered,

"It may be so, but a king is by nature an animal that lives on human flesh."

None of those who had borne the title of king, according to Cato, were to be compared with Epameinondas, or Perikles, or Themistokles, or with Manius Curius or Hamilcar Barcas.

He used to say that his enemies hated him because he began his day's work while it was still dark, and because he neglected his own affairs to attend to those of the public.

He also was wont to say that he had rather his good actions should go unrewarded than that his bad ones should be unpunished; and that he pardoned all who did wrong except himself.