the women put it off, and the law was abrogated.  Sent to command the army of Spain, Cato took 400 towns, securing immense treasure which he turned into the public chest; at the moment of embarking, he sold his horse to save the expenses of transportation.  As censor, he erased from the senate-list many great persons on the ground of their extravagance; he farmed the taxes at a very high price and taxed at ten times their value the women’s habits, jewels, and conveyances.  Having obtained the honor of a triumph, he withdrew to the army in Macedonia as a simple officer.

All his life he fought with the nobles of the new type, extravagant and elegant.  He “barked” especially at the Scipios, accusing them of embezzling state moneys.  In turn he was forty-four times made defendant in court, but was always acquitted.

On his farm Cato labored with his slaves, ate with them, and when he had to correct them, beat them with his own hand.  In his treatise on Agriculture, written for his son, he has recorded all the old axioms of the Roman peasantry.[135] He considered it to be a duty to become rich.  “A widow,” he said, “can lessen her property; a man ought to increase his.  He is worthy of fame and inspired of the gods who gains more than he inherits.”  Finding that agriculture was not profitable enough, he invested in merchant ships; he united with fifty associates and all together constructed fifty ships of commerce, that each might have a part in the risks and the profits.  A good laborer, a good soldier, a foe to luxury, greedy of gain, Cato was the type of the Roman of the old stock.

=The New Manners.=—­Many Romans on the contrary, especially the nobles, admired and imitated the foreigners.  At their head were the generals who had had a nearer view of Greece and the Orient—­Scipio, conqueror of the king of Syria, Flamininus and AEmilius Paullus, victors over the kings of Macedon, later Lucullus, conqueror of the king of Armenia.  They were disgusted with the mean and gross life of their ancestors, and adopted a more luxurious and agreeable mode of living.  Little by little all the nobles, all the rich followed their example; one hundred and fifty years later in Italy all the great were living in Greek or oriental fashion.

=Oriental Luxury.=—­In the East the Romans found models in the royal successors of Alexander, possessors of enormous wealth; for all the treasure that was not employed in paying mercenaries was squandered by the court.  These oriental kings indulged their vanity by displaying gleaming robes, precious stones, furniture of silver, golden plate; by surrounding themselves with a multitude of useless servants, by casting money to the people who were assembled to admire them.[136]