t nostri Diana Catonis.
Immortal be our Cato's song of Dian.

He lived to extreme old age, but in the lowest state of penury, and
almost in actual want; having retired to a small cottage when he gave up
his Tusculan villa to his creditors; as Bibaculus tells us:

Si quis forte mei domum Catonis,
Depictas minio assulas, et illos
Custodis vidit hortulos Priapi,
Miratur, quibus ille disciplinis,
Tantam sit sapientiam assecutus,
Quam tres cauliculi et selibra farris;
Racemi duo, tegula sub una,
Ad summam prope nutriant senectam.

"If, perchance, any one has seen the house of my Cato, with marble slabs
of the richest hues, and his gardens worthy of having Priapus [874] for
their guardian, he may well wonder by what philosophy he has gained so
much wisdom, that a daily allowance of three coleworts, half-a-pound of
meal, and two bunches of grapes, under a narrow roof, should serve for
his subsistence to extreme old age."

And he says in another place:

Catonis modo, Galle, Tusculanum
Tota creditor urbe venditahat.
Mirati sumus unicum magistrum,
Summum grammaticum, optimum poetam,
Omnes solvere posse quaestiones,
Unum difficile expedire nomen.
En cor Zenodoti, en jecur Cratetis!

"We lately saw, my Gallus, Cato's Tusculan villa exposed to public sale
by his creditors; and wondered that such an unrivalled master of (516)
the schools, most eminent grammarian, and accomplished poet, could solve
all propositions and yet found one question too difficult for him to
settle,--how to pay his debts. We find in him the genius of Zenodotus
[875], the wisdom of Crates." [876]

XII. CORNELIUS EPICADIUS, a freedman of Lucius Cornelius Sylla, the
dictator, was his apparitor in the Augural priesthood, and much beloved
by his son Faustus; so that he was proud to call himself the freedman of
both. He completed the last book of Sylla's Commentaries, which his
patron had left unfinished. [877]

XIII. LABERIUS HIERA was bought by his master out of a slave-dealer's
cage, and obtained his freedom on account of his devotion to learning.
It is reported that his disinterestedness was such, that he gave
gratuitous instruction to the children of those who were proscribed in
the time of Sylla.

XIV. CURTIUS NICIA was the intimate friend of Cneius Pompeius and Caius
Memmius; but having carried notes from Memmius to Pompey's wife [878],
when she was debauched by Memmius, Pom