Yet, in my judgment, it marks an over-rigid temper for a man to take the
work out of his servants as out of brute beasts, turning them off
and selling them in their old age. A kind-natured man will keep even
worn-out horses and dogs, and not only take care of them when they are
foals and whelps, but also when they are grown old. The Athenians, when
they built their Hecatompedon,* (*The Parthenon; built on the site of
an older temple which had borne the name of Hecatompedon, or a "hundred
feet long." The name was retained for the new building.) turned those
mules loose to feed freely, which they had observed to have done the
hardest labor. One of these came once of itself to offer its service,
and ran along with, nay, went before, the teams which drew the wagons up
to the Acropolis, as if it would incite and encourage them to draw more
stoutly; upon which a vote was passed that the creature should be kept
at the public charge till it died. The graves of Cimon's horses, which
thrice won the Olympian races, are yet to be seen close by his own
monument. Old Xanthippus, too, the father of Pericles, entombed his
dogs which swam after his galley to Salamis, when the people fled from
Athens, on the top of a cliff, which they call the dogs' tomb to this
day.
For his general temperance, however, and self-control, Cato really
deserves the highest admiration. For when he commanded the army, he
never took for himself, and those that belonged to him, more than three
bushels of wheat for a month, and somewhat less than a bushel and a half
a day of barley for his baggage-cattle. And when he entered upon the
government of Sardinia, where his predecessors had been used to require
tents, bedding, and clothes upon the public account, and to charge the
state heavily with the cost of provisions and entertainments for a great
train of servants and friends, the difference he showed in his economy
was something incredible. There was nothing of any sort for which he put
the public to expense; he would walk, instead of taking a carriage to
visit the cities, with only one of the common town officers, who carried
his dress, and a cup to offer libation with. Yet on the other hand,
he showed most inflexible severity and strictness, in what related to
public justice, and was rigorous, and precise in what concerned the
ordinances of the commonwealth; so that the Roman government never
seemed more terrible, nor yet more mild, than under his administration.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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