ve to
give an account to the Roman people of battles won, not of money
expended, Cato left the army of Scipio, which was then being assembled
in Sicily. He proceeded at once to Rome, and by adding his voice to
that of Fabius in the Senate, in blame of Scipio's unspeakable waste
of money, and his childish and unsoldierly love of the public
games[26] and the theatre, conduct more worthy of the president of a
public festival than of the commander-in-chief of an army, prevailed
upon the people to send tribunes to enquire into the charges against
him, and if they proved true, to bring him back to Rome. When they
arrived in Sicily, however, Scipio pointed out to them that the
preparations which he had made would ensure him the victory, and that
although he loved pleasant society in his hours of leisure, yet that
he had never allowed his pleasures to interfere with his serious
duties. The tribunes were perfectly satisfied with this explanation,
and Scipio sailed for Africa.

IV. Cato, however, gained considerable credit by his speeches on this
occasion, and the Romans generally called him the new Demosthenes; yet
his manner of life was more admired than his eloquence. Cleverness of
speech was a quality which nearly all the young men of the time sought
to attain, but Cato was singular in his keeping up the severe
traditions of his ancestors in labouring with his own hands, eating a
simple dinner, lighting no fire to cook his breakfast, wearing a plain
dress, living in a mean house, and neither coveting superfluities nor
courting their possessors. The Romans were at this period extending
their empire so much as to lose much of their own original simplicity
of living, as each new conquest brought them into contact with foreign
customs and new modes of life. They therefore naturally looked with
admiration upon Cato, observing that while they became enervated by
pleasures and broke down under labours, he on the other hand seemed
unaffected by either, and that too, not only while he was young and
eager for fame: but even when he was an old grey-headed man, after he
had been consul and had triumphed, he yet, like a victorious athlete,
still kept himself in training, and never relaxed his severe
discipline. He himself tells us that he never wore a garment worth
more than a hundred drachmas, that when he was general and consul he
still drank the same wine as his servants, that his dinner never cost
him more than thirty ases in the mar