FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 26:  Cf.  Livy, xxix. ch. 19, sqq.]

[Footnote 27:  See vol. i., ‘Life of Themistokles,’ ch. x.]

[Footnote 28:  Lictors were attendants granted to Roman magistrates as a mark of official dignity.  See vol. i., ‘Life of Romulus,’ ch. xxvi.]

[Footnote 29:  Spain was divided by the Romans into two provinces, of which this out was that which was nearer to Rome.]

[Footnote 30:  The inhabitants of the town of Firmum, in Picenum; now Fermo.]

[Footnote 31:  On the nature of these relations, see ’Smith’s Dict. of Ant.,’ s.v.]

COMPARISON OF ARISTEIDES AND CATO.

Now that we have related all the important events of each of these men’s lives, it will be seen that the points in which they differ are very trifling when compared with those in which they agree.  If, however, we are to take each of their qualities separately, as one would in comparing two speeches or two pictures, we observe that they both agree in having begun life in a humble station, and having won political distinction and power by sheer ability and force of character.  It is true that Aristeides rose to power at a period when Athens was poor, and when the orators and generals whom he attacked were men whose means were little superior to his own; for the men of greatest incomes at that time were assessed as having five hundred bushels of wet or dry produce a year, while the next class, that of the knights, had three hundred, and the lowest, or those who could afford to keep a yoke of oxen, had only two hundred.  Cato, on the other hand, came from an obscure village and a rustic mode of life, and boldly launched himself upon the turbid sea of Roman politics, although the days of Curius, Fabricius and Atilius were long past, and Rome was not accustomed to find her magistrates and party leaders in labouring men fresh from the plough or the workshop, but in men of noble birth and great wealth, who canvassed extensively, and bribed heavily; while the populace, insolent with the consciousness of power, were growing ripe for a revolt against the governing class.

It was a very different thing for Aristeides to have only Themistokles for an antagonist, a man of no birth or fortune (for it is said that he only possessed between three and five talents when he first embarked on politics) and for Cato to contend for the mastery with men like Scipio Africanus, Sergius Galba, and Titus Quintius Flamininus, with nothing to help him but his eloquent voice and his good cause.