Very different was the outlook of a man like Marcus Porcius Cato. To him the ancient ways alone seemed right. He modelled his own life and actions so far as he could upon the heroes of the past, especially on those like Cincinnatus, who were noted for their simplicity and frugality. Cincinnatus, though he had held the highest offices in Rome, was found driving his own plough by those who came from Rome in an hour of peril to ask him to take over the highest power in the State. So Cato kept his dress, the furnishings of his house and table, and everything about him as plain as those he might have had in the days when every one was poor. In his own record of his life he reports that he never wore a garment that cost him more than a hundred drachmae; that even when praetor or consul he drank the same wine as his slaves; that a dinner never cost him from the market above thirty pence; and that he was thus frugal for the sake of his country, that he might be able to endure the harder service in war. He adds that having got, among some goods he was heir to, a piece of Babylonian tapestry, he sold it immediately; that the walls of his country houses were neither plastered nor white-washed; that he never gave more for a slave than fifteen hundred drachmae, as not requiring in his servants delicate shapes and fine faces but strength and ability to labour, that they might be fit to be employed in his stables, about his cattle or on such-like business; and that he thought proper to sell them again when they grew old, that he might have no useless persons to maintain. In a word he thought nothing cheap that was superfluous, that what a man has no need of is dear even at a penny; and that it is much better to have fields where the plough goes and cattle feed, than gardens and walks that require much watering and sweeping. This stern simplicity he carried throughout his life and in words of eloquence (he was one of the most powerful speakers in Rome) he tried to get others to imitate him. [Illustration: PLOUGHING: a terra-cotta group]