=Sceptics.=—­Not only priests and diviners came to Rome, but also philosophers who scoffed at the old religion.  The best known of these, Carneades, the ambassador of the Athenians, spoke in Rome in public, and the youth of Rome came in crowds to hear him.  The Senate bade him leave the city.  But the philosophers continued to teach in the schools of Athens and Rhodes, and it was the fashion to send the Roman youth thither for instruction.  About the third century before Christ Euhemerus, a Greek, had written a book to prove that there were no gods; the gods, he said, were only men of ancient times who had been deified; Jupiter himself had been a king of Crete.  This book had a great success and was translated into Latin by the poet Ennius.  The nobles of Rome were accustomed to mock at their gods, maintaining only the cult of the old religion.  The higher Roman society was for a century at once superstitious and sceptical.

CHANGES IN MANNERS

=The Old Customs.=—­The old Romans had for centuries been diligent and rude husbandmen, engaged in cultivating their fields, in fighting, and in fulfilling the ceremonies of their religion.  Their ideal was the grave man.  Cincinnatus, they said, was pushing his plough when the deputies of the Senate came to offer him the dictatorship.  Fabricius had of plate only a cup and a salt-cellar of silver.  Curius Dentatus, the conqueror of the Samnites, was sitting on a bench eating some beans in a wooden bowl when the envoys of the Samnites presented themselves before him to offer him a bribe.[133] “Go and tell the Samnites,” said he, “that Curius prefers commanding those who have gold to having it himself.”  These are some of the anecdotes that they used to tell about the generals of the olden time.  True or false, these legends exhibit the ideas that were current in Rome at a later time regarding the ancient Romans.

=Cato the Elder.=—­At the time when manners were changing, one man made himself notable by his attachment to the “customs of the fathers.”  This was Cato.  He was born in 232[134] in the little village of Tusculum and had spent his youth in manual labor.  Entering the army, according to the usage of the time, at the age of seventeen, he fought in all the campaigns against Hannibal.  He was not noble, but he made himself popular by his energy, his probity, and his austerity.  He passed through the whole course of political honors—­quaestor, aedile, praetor, consul, and censor.  He showed himself everywhere, like the old Romans, rude, stern, and honest.  As quaestor he remonstrated with the consul about his expenses; but the consul, who was Scipio, replied to him, “I have no need of so exact a quaestor.”  As praetor in Sardinia, he refused the money that was offered him by the province for the expenses of entertainment.  As consul, he spoke with vigor for the Oppian law which prohibited Roman women from wearing costly attire;