ISTEIDES AND CATO.

Now that we have related all the important events of each of these
men's lives, it will be seen that the points in which they differ are
very trifling when compared with those in which they agree. If,
however, we are to take each of their qualities separately, as one
would in comparing two speeches or two pictures, we observe that they
both agree in having begun life in a humble station, and having won
political distinction and power by sheer ability and force of
character. It is true that Aristeides rose to power at a period when
Athens was poor, and when the orators and generals whom he attacked
were men whose means were little superior to his own; for the men of
greatest incomes at that time were assessed as having five hundred
bushels of wet or dry produce a year, while the next class, that of
the knights, had three hundred, and the lowest, or those who could
afford to keep a yoke of oxen, had only two hundred. Cato, on the
other hand, came from an obscure village and a rustic mode of life,
and boldly launched himself upon the turbid sea of Roman politics,
although the days of Curius, Fabricius and Atilius were long past, and
Rome was not accustomed to find her magistrates and party leaders in
labouring men fresh from the plough or the workshop, but in men of
noble birth and great wealth, who canvassed extensively, and bribed
heavily; while the populace, insolent with the consciousness of power,
were growing ripe for a revolt against the governing class.

It was a very different thing for Aristeides to have only Themistokles
for an antagonist, a man of no birth or fortune (for it is said that
he only possessed between three and five talents when he first
embarked on politics) and for Cato to contend for the mastery with
men like Scipio Africanus, Sergius Galba, and Titus Quintius
Flamininus, with nothing to help him but his eloquent voice and his
good cause.

II. Furthermore, Aristeides, both at Marathon and at Plataea, acted as
general with nine colleagues, while Cato was elected one of the two
consuls and afterwards one of the two censors, though there were many
other candidates for both offices. Aristeides never conspicuously
distinguished himself, as the credit of the victory at Marathon
belongs to Miltiades, and that of Salamis to Themistokles, while
Herodotus tells us that Pausanias obtained the most glorious success
of all at Plataea, and even the second place is disputed with
Ariste