e at his not having a statue,
when so many obscure men had obtained that honour, he answered, "I had
rather that men should ask why I have no statue, than that they should
ask why I have one." A good citizen, he said, ought not even to allow
himself to be praised, unless the state were benefited thereby. He has
glorified himself by recording that when men were detected in any
fault, they would excuse themselves by saying that they must be
pardoned if they did anything amiss, for they were not Catos: and that
those who endeavoured clumsily to imitate his proceedings were called
left-handed Catos. Also he states that the Senate looked to him in
great emergencies as men in a storm look to the pilot, and that when
he was not present, they frequently postponed their more important
business. This indeed is confirmed by other writers: for he had great
influence in Rome on account of his virtuous life, his eloquence, and
his great age.

XX. He was a good father and a good husband, and was in his private
life an economist of no ordinary kind, as he did not despise
money-making or regard it as unworthy of his abilities. For this
reason I think I ought to relate how well he managed his private
affairs. He married a wife who was well born, though not rich; for he
thought that though all classes might possess equally good sense, yet
that a woman of noble birth would be more ashamed of doing wrong, and
therefore more likely to encourage her husband to do right. He used to
say that a man who beat his wife or his children laid sacrilegious
hands on the holiest of things. He also said that he had rather be a
good husband than a great statesman, and that what he especially
admired in Sokrates the Philosopher was his patience and kindness in
bearing with his ill-tempered wife and his stupid children. When his
son was born, he thought that nothing except the most important
business of state ought to prevent his being present while his wife
washed the child and wrapped it in swaddling clothes. His wife suckled
the child herself; nay, she often gave her breast to the children of
her slaves, and so taught them to have a brotherly regard for her own
son.

As soon as he was able to learn, Cato himself taught him his letters,
although he had a clever slave named Chilon, who taught many children
to read. He himself declares that he did not wish a slave to reprove
his son or pull his ears because he was slow at learning. He taught
the boy to re