the practical, unimaginative
Latin plowmen and spearsmen received the very alphabet of every art
from vanquished Hellas. Much of this same debate has turned on a
fragment from Cato. Cicero reports:--"In his 'Origines' Cato said that
it had been a custom of the forefathers, for those who reclined at
banquet to sing to the flute the praises and merits of illustrious
heroes." The combination of conviviality and song in this passage
tempts us to connect it with the scornful words from Cato's own
'Carmen,' already cited! Cato was half right, no doubt. The simple
charm and vigor of rustic Latium were threatened; Greek vice and
Oriental luxury were dangerous gifts: but his resistance was as
hopeless as Canute's protest to the encroaching waves. That this
resistance was offered even to the great Greek literature itself, is
unquestionable.

"I will speak of those Greeks in a suitable place, son
Marcus, telling what I learned at Athens, and what benefit it
is to look into their books,--not to master them. I shall
prove them a most worthless and unteachable (!) race. Believe
that this is uttered by a prophet: whenever that folk imparts
its literature, it will corrupt everything."

The harsh, narrow, intolerant nature of Cato is as remote as could
well be from the scholarly or literary temper. Even his respectful
biographer Plutarch bursts out with indignant protest against the
thrifty advice to sell off slaves who had grown old in service.
Indeed, most of Cato's sayings remind us of some canny old Scot,
or--it may be politer to say--of a hard-headed Yankee farmer, living
out the precepts of Poor Richard's philosophy.

"Grip the subject: words will follow," is his chief contribution to
rhetoric. Another has, it must be confessed, more of Quintilian's
flavor: "An orator, son Marcus, is a good man skilled in speaking." He
is most at home however upon his farm, preaching such familiar
economies as "Buy not what you need, but what you must have: what you
do not need is dear at a penny." The nearest approach to wit is but a
sarcastic consciousness of human weakness, like the maxim "Praise
large farms, but till a small one"; the form of which, by the way, is
strikingly like the advice given long before by a kindred spirit, the
Ascraean farmer Hesiod:--

"Praise thou a little vessel, and store thy freight in a
large one!"

Even the kindness of Cato has a bitter flavor peculiarly Roman. When