M. Porcius Cato is the most remarkable man of that age, he is quite a man of the old times: (the surname Priscus, however, merely indicates his Latin origin from Tusculum.) The account of him in Plutarch is excellent, as his life may be understood without any knowledge of the constitution, or deep insight into politics: nothing else was needed but a keen perception of individual character, which was Plutarch’s strong point. Perhaps Rome never again gave birth to so original a genius as his. Whilst all around him had their science and erudition from Greece, Cato had it from himself; he learned Greek only late in life; his language, his style, his knowledge, were altogether Roman. A more versatile mind than his, the world has never known: he was a great statesman,--his censorship was a distinguished one,--an excellent agriculturist, an active man in every business of life, gifted with remarkable eloquence, which was pure nature, and not at all formed after artificial rules; and he was also a very eminent scholar, indefatigable in research, an excellent prose-writer in his own way, although harsh and uncouth. Livy, who otherwise is fond of him, applies to him in jest the phrase, _qui vivo eo_ ALLATRARE _ejus (Scipionis) magnitudinem solitus erat_. His peculiarities were those of a man of low birth, who, being endowed with immense energy, had worked his way by dint of it through countless difficulties: all his life long, he kept up a feud with the nobles and the rich; he abhorred their manners from the bottom of his heart,--there was no affectation in it. The only one like him in feeling, was his colleague in the censorship and the tribunate, L. Valerius Flaccus. Cato was a fanatical Roman: he bore a hatred against every thing that was polished and elegant, his nationality therefore led him to dwell fondly on the past; he looked upon the men of his day as quite degenerate; his ideal dated a hundred years back, and with him the height of happiness was in simplicity, thriftiness, and stern morality. His constitution was of iron strength: in his eighty-sixth year, he still carried on a troublesome lawsuit; and even as late as in his ninetieth, he impeached Servius Sulpicius Galba. He stood up without flinching for Rome’s supremacy; but at the same time he had an extraordinary sense of justice: though he did not like the Greeks, he yet defended the Rhodians, as he likewise did the Lusitanians against the perjury and the extortions of Galba. On the whole, he is very like the great German characters of the sixteenth century, in whom what is called coarseness by no means deserves that name.