ot
forget, Scipio, that in order to be a good citizen and to serve the
Republic, it is necessary not only to know how to use the lance and to
manage a horse, but to know how to till the soil, and to be familiar
with the secrets of cultivation. Some day you may command our armies,
and you will not only have to conquer lands for Rome, but cultivate
them, so that they will produce abundantly. Do you realize that?"

"Yes, Cato," said the youth.

"Every day you should learn a month of the calendar which our
forefathers made. With that well fixed in your memory it will be easier
for you to command your slaves promptly and well in their work in the
fields. Yesterday I taught you the month of May; repeat it, Scipio."

"Month of May," recited the boy wrinkling his brows in order to better
concentrate his mind. "Thirty-one days. The nones fall on the seventh
day. The day has fourteen and a half hours; the night nine hours and a
half. The sun is in the sign of Taurus; the month is under the
protection of Apollo. Wheat should be weeded. Sheep should be shorn. The
wool should be washed. Young steers should be put under the yoke. The
vetch should be mown in the meadows. The lustration of the crops should
be performed. Sacrifices to Mercury and to Flora."

"You remember it well, Scipio. Our ancestors neither had nor desired any
other science; they were satisfied with knowing what they should do in
each month throughout the year, and with this, and with valor and
audacity to hold their fields, and to take possession of the lands of
their neighbors, they founded our city, which grows and will grow until
it becomes the greatest in the world. We are not charlatans like the
Greeks, who kneel in admiration before marble puppets and argue like
buffoons about what comes after death. We are not madly ambitious like
the Carthaginians, who base their life on commerce and risk all their
wealth upon the sea. Our life is spent on the land; we are ruder but
more solid than other people; we advance more slowly, but we shall go
farther. On the soil which we tread for the first time we do not set up
a tent as do others; we plunge in the plow, and that is why what Rome
takes none wrests from her. Do not forget that, Scipio!"

The Athenian followed not far behind. The words of that man, old at
twenty years, taught him more than his observations. Rome seemed to
speak through his mouth in that lesson given to the son of one of her
consuls.

"You sho