Scipio, probably uneasy at the great reputations quickly won by Flamininus and Cato, secured his second consulship for the year 194, but failed to achieve anything remarkable. Cato probably spent the three years after his return for the most part at his Sabine farm. When the war against Antiochus broke out, he took service along with his friend Flaccus on the staff of the consul Glabrio,[42] and by a difficult march over the mountains broke in on the king's rear, and so was chiefly instrumental in winning the great battle of Thermopylae, by which Antiochus was driven out of Greece. Immediately after the battle Cato returned home with despatches. We have dim and uncertain information that he took the field once or twice again, but his career as a soldier was practically ended. From this time to his death, forty years later, Cato was the leading figure on the stage of Roman politics. In season and out of season he attacked abuses or innovations in speeches addressed to the senate, the people, or the courts. Soon after his return from Thessaly he struck a heavy blow at the unrepublican honor-hunting among the magistrates, of which the example had been set by P. Scipio Africanus. Most provincial governors drove their subjects into war, sent lying despatches home about their victories, and claimed a triumph. In 190 Cato attacked with success the proposal to grant a triumph to Q. Minucius Thermus, who had already triumphed over the Spaniards as praetor, and after his consulship in 193 had fought against the Ligurians. Cato's next victim was his former commander M'. Acilius Glabrio, who came forward at the same time with Cato, Marcellus (a son of the captor of Syracuse), L. Cornelius Scipio Nasica, T. Quinctius Flamininus (the conqueror of Macedonia) and Cato's friend L. Valerius Flaccus, as candidate for the censorship of 189. Cato by his violent speeches procured the trial of Glabrio for appropriating the plunder captured in Thessaly, and himself gave evidence concerning some property which had disappeared. Glabrio denounced Cato as a perjurer, but yet retired from his candidature. On this occasion Cato and Flaccus failed, Marcellus being elected as plebeian and Flamininus as patrician censor.