movement, nor by chance, like some others, that he was thrown into the management of state affairs, but he selected a public career as the proper labour of a good man, and thought that he ought to attend to public concerns more than the bee to its cells, inasmuch as he made it his business to have the affairs of the provinces and decrees and trials and the most important measures communicated to him by his connections and friends in every place.  On one occasion by opposing Clodius the demagogue, who was making a disturbance and laying the foundation for great charges, and calumniating to the people the priests and priestesses, among whom was also Fabia,[683] the sister of Terentia, Cicero’s wife, he was in great danger, but he involved Clodius in disgrace and compelled him to withdraw from the city; and when Cicero thanked him, Cato said that he ought to reserve his gratitude for the state, as it was for the sake of the state that he did every thing and directed his political measures.  In consequence of this there was a high opinion of him, so that an orator said to the judices on a certain trial when the evidence of a single person was produced, that it was not right to believe a single witness even if he was Cato; and many persons now were used to say when speaking of things incredible and contrary to all probability, as by way of proverb, that this could not be believed even if Cato said it.  And when a man of bad character and great expense delivered a discourse in the senate in favour of frugality and temperance, Amnaeus[684] rose up and said, “My man, who will endure you, you who sup like Crassus, and build like Lucullus, and harangue us like Cato.”  Others also who were people of bad character and intemperate, but in their language dignified and severe, they used to call by way of mockery, Catos.

XX.  Though many invited him to the tribuneship, he did not think it well to expend the power of a great office and magistracy, no more than that of a strong medicine, on matters wherein it was not required.  At the same time as he had leisure from public affairs, he took books and philosophers with him and set out for Lucania, for he had lands there on which there was no unseemly residence.  On the road he met with many beasts of burden and baggage and slaves, and learning that Nepos Metellus[685] was returning to Rome for the purpose of being a candidate for the tribuneship, he halted without speaking, and after a short interval ordered his people to turn back.  His friends wondering at this, he said, “Don’t you know that even of himself Metellus is a formidable man by reason of his violence; and now that he has come upon the motion of Pompeius, he will fall upon the state like a thunderbolt and put all in confusion?  It is therefore not a time for leisure or going from home, but we must get the better of the man or die nobly in defence of liberty.”  However at the urgency of his friends he went first to visit his estates, and after staying no long time he returned to the city.  He arrived in the evening, and as soon as day dawned, he went down into the Forum to be a candidate for the tribuneship and to oppose Metellus.  For this magistracy gives more power to check than to act; and even if all the rest of the tribunes save one should assent to a measure, the power lies with him who does not consent or permit.