Regum et imperatorum apophthegmata

When he was waging war against the peoples living by the river Baetis, [*](In 195 B.C. in Spain.) he was put in great peril by the vast numbers of the enemy. The Celtiberians were ready and willing to come to his aid for forty thousand pounds, but the other Romans were against agreeing to pay barbarian men. Cato said they were all wrong; for if they were victorious, the payment would come not from themselves, but from the enemy; and if they were vanquished there would be no debtors and no creditors. [*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of M. Cato, chap. x. (341 F).)

He captured cities more in number, as he says, than the days he spent among the enemy, yet he himself took nothing from the enemy’s country beyond what he ate and drank. [*](Ibid. chap. x. (342 A).)

He distributed to each soldier a pound of silver, saying it was better that many should return from the campaign with silver than a few with gold. For the officials, he said, ought to accept no other increase in the provinces except the increase of their repute.f

He had five persons to wait upon him in the

He was urged by Scipio Africanus to lend his influence to help the banished Achaeans to return to their homes, but he made as though he cared nothing about the matter; in the Senate, however, where the subject aroused much discussion, he arose and said, We sit here as if we had nothing to do, debating about some poor old Greeks whether they shall be carried to their graves by bearers who live in our country or in Greece. [*](Ibid. chap. ix. (341 A. - Polybius, xxxv. 6).)

Postumius Albinus wrote a history in the Greek language, in which he craved the indulgence of his readers. Cato said sarcastically that he ought to be granted indulgence if he had written the book under compulsion by a decree of the Ampictyonic Council! [*](Ibid. chap. xii. (343 B); Polybius, xxxix. 12 (- xl. 6).)