the senators at the games in defiance of
Cato's sentence. Yet Cato remained by far the most powerful member of the
senate. Titus Flamininus, his only important rival, quickly passed out of
notice. So far as there was any democratic opposition to the senatorial
oligarchy, Cato was the leader of that opposition for the remainder of his
life. But at that period no great political movements agitated the state
within; nearly the whole interest of the time was centred in the foreign
relations of Rome. On matters of foreign policy Cato offered but little
opposition to the prevailing tendencies of the age, though on particular
occasions he exercised great influence. But his voice was at all times
loudly heard on all questions of morality and public order. He supported
the _lex Furia_ and the _lex Voconia_, the object of which was to prevent
the dissipation of family property, and the _lex Orchia_, directed against
extravagant expenditure on feasts, also the _lex Baebia de ambitu_, the
first serious attempt to check bribery. We hear also that Cato bitterly
attacked Lepidus, censor in 180, for erecting a permanent theatre in place
of the movable booths before used. The building was actually pulled down.
We are told that from time to time he denounced the misdoings of provincial
governors. In 171 he was one of a commission of five for bringing to
justice three ex-praetors who had practised all manner of corruption in
Spain. Almost the last act of his life was to prosecute Galba for cruel
misgovernment of the Lusitanians. The titles of Cato's speeches show that
he played a great part in the deliberations of the senate concerning
foreign affairs, but as his fighting days were over and he was unfitted for
diplomacy, we have little explicit evidence of his activity in this
direction. At the end of the third Macedonian war he successfully opposed
the annexation of Macedonia. He also saved from destruction the Rhodians,
who during the war had plainly desired the victory of Perseus, and in the
early days, when the Roman commanders had ill success, had deeply wounded
the whole Roman nation by an offer to mediate between them and the king of
Macedon.

Cato had all his life retained his feeling of enmity to the Carthaginians,
whom Scipio, he thought, had treated too tenderly. In 150 he was one of an
embassy sent to Carthage, and came back filled with alarm at the prosperity
of the city. It is said that whatever was the subject on which he wa