ving the name only and the honour of a magistrate, but understanding
and judgment and apt expression; and he resolved to make the clerks
into servants as they really were, in some things detecting their evil
doings, and in others correcting their errors which arose from
inexperience. But as the clerks were insolent, and attempted to
ingratiate themselves with and to flatter the other quaestors, and
resisted him, he expelled from the treasury the first among them whom
he had detected in knavish dealings in a matter of trust concerning an
inheritance, and he brought another to trial for dishonesty. This
second person Catulus Lutatius[680] the censor came forward to defend,
a man who had great dignity from his office, and the greatest from his
merit, being considered superior to all the Romans in integrity and
temperance; and he was also an admirer and intimate friend of Cato all
through his life. Now, when Catulus found that the justice of the case
was against him and openly asked to have the man acquitted for his
sake, Cato would not allow him to act so: and when he still continued
to urge his request, Cato said, "It were a scandalous thing, Catulus,
for you, who are the censor, and whose duty it is to examine into our
lives, to be turned out[681] by our officers." When Cato had uttered
these words, Catulus looked at him as if he were going to reply, but
he said nothing, and either being angry or ashamed he went away in
silence and perplexed. However the man was not convicted, for when the
votes for condemnation had exceeded those for acquittal by a single
vote, and Lollius Marcus, one of the colleagues of Cato, owing to
sickness had not attended at the trial, Catulus sent to him and
prayed him to give his support to the man; and he was carried thither
in a litter after the trial and gave the vote which acquitted. However
Cato did not employ the clerk nor give him his pay, nor did he take
any reckoning at all of the vote of Lollius.

XVII. Having thus humbled the clerks and reduced them to obedience, by
managing the accounts in his own way, he made the treasury in a short
time more respected than the Senate, so that every body said and
considered that Cato had surrounded the quaestorship with the dignity
of the consulship. For in the first place finding that many persons
owed old debts to the state and that the state was indebted to many,
he at the same time put an end to the state being wronged and wronging
others, by d