In 204 Cato began his political career with the quaestorship.[36] As he was a _novus homo_ and a man of small private means, it was no small distinction that he had forced his way to office in his thirtieth year. The lot assigned him as quaestor to Scipio, then in Sicily and about to cross over into Africa. The chance was most unfortunate, if for no other reason, because Cato was intimately connected with the party in the senate opposed to Scipio, which had been attempting to bring him to trial for the atrocities committed by the Roman army in southern Italy. But in addition the two men were so utterly different that there was no possibility of the quaestor standing in that filial relation to his consul, which old Roman custom required. As financial officer, Cato complained of the luxury and extravagance which Scipio allowed not only to himself but to his army. Yet the complaint was made not so much on economic as on moral grounds; it seemed to Cato that the old Roman discipline and power to endure hardships were being swept away. The dispute was ended by Scipio allowing Cato to return to Rome, some authorities say from Sicily, others from Africa. According to one writer,[37] he came home by way of Sardinia and brought thence with him Ennius the poet.[38] In 199 Cato was plebeian aedile, and exercised with severity the police jurisdiction pertaining to that office, yet so as to win popular approval, since he was chosen praetor for 198 without the usual interval. The province of Sardinia was entrusted to him, and he strained every nerve to make his government present as strong a contrast as possible with the lax and corrupt administration of the nobles who took Scipio for their pattern. The troops were sternly disciplined, and law-breakers of every kind severely dealt with; in money matters the strictest economy prevailed; all gifts from provincials to Roman officers were forbidden. The praetor, the great representative of Roman power, passed from town to town attended by a single servant. In 196 Cato was occupied with his canvass for the consulship of the year 195, to which he was elected in company with his friend Flaccus. Cato was the first _novus homo_ elected since C. Flaminius, the consul of 217. It is probable, though not certain, that he paved the way to his election by carrying the first of the _leges Porciae_, restricting the right of punishing Roman citizens. During the whole of his career Cato showed a high sense of the importance of the individual _civis Romanus_.