All this resulted of course in a severe reaction not unlike the puritanic wave that swept over England after the catalysis of Elizabethan prosperity. Cato supported by many of the conservative nobles undertook to lead the revolt against philhellenism on every possible score. He attacked the foreign policy of the Scipios, which in his opinion wasted Rome’s youth and resources without compensation for a sentimental cause, and the Scipionic group was accordingly stripped of political power. He attacked the returning generals for permitting the soldiers to be debauched by Greek vices; he directed an attack against the Bacchanalian cult till the senate passed a bill inflicting the death penalty upon those who persisted in furthering the cult; he used all the power of his censorship to degrade senators who had yielded to new customs and to conduct a rigid examination of the plate, furniture, and table expenses of his opponents. Of course this drastic reform movement could not stop the cultural changes that were bound to come. Skepticism and sophistication can hardly be banished by legislation and law courts; but the outward signs of the new culture were for a season obscured. There is no doubt that Greek literature became less popular in the latter days of Cato. Such books as the “Sacred History” of Euhemerus were not again translated for a long time. Those who wished to read Greek poetry and philosophy had to confine themselves for many years to the originals; to put those things into Latin, to translate, paraphrase, or to write similar things in Latin, was not encouraged. Greek rhetoric might still be taught for the comprehension of Greek authors, but to put the Greek rules of rhetoric into Latin for general use was frowned upon. Greek tragedy in Roman adaptations—by Ennius and Pacuvius—had been established at the festivals so long that they remained, and, as adapted to the moral tone of the Romans by those dramatists, there could be little objection to them. But the efforts begun by Scipio Africanus to encourage such plays by making them as inviting as possible to senators bore little fruit. The permanent theater, for which a contract had been let by the censors ten years after Cato’s crusade, was not completed, and when another effort was made to complete it twenty years later the senate had it torn down. Translated Greek comedies were still permitted at the festivals, but it was necessary to indicate that the scene was Greek and not Roman. Latin comedies, togatae—from our point of view not a whit better in morals—then came into fashion. To draw the crowd the authors were permitted a certain freedom of expression but here at least the vices were Roman and hence pardonable.