im, but that he would often help him to do his work when he
was at leisure from military duty. He drank only water when
campaigning, except that when suffering from parching thirst he would
ask for some vinegar, and sometimes when his strength fairly failed he
would drink a little wine.

II. Near his estate was a cottage which had once belonged to Manius
Curius, who three times received the honour of a triumph. Cato used
frequently to walk over and look at this cottage, and, as he observed
the smallness of the plot of ground attached to it, and the simplicity
of the dwelling itself, he would reflect upon how Curius, after having
made himself the first man in Rome, after conquering the most warlike
nations, and driving King Pyrrhus out of Italy, used to dig this
little plot of ground with his own hands, and dwelt in this little
cottage, after having thrice triumphed. It was there that the
ambassadors of the Samnites found him sitting by the hearth, cooking
turnips, and offered him much gold; but he sent them away, saying,
"that a man who was contented with such a supper, had no need of
gold, and that it was more honourable for him to conquer those who
possessed gold, than to possess it himself." Cato, after leaving the
cottage, full of these memories, returned to his own house and farm,
and after viewing its extent and the number of slaves upon it, he
increased the amount of his own daily labour, and retrenched his
superfluous expenses.

When Fabius Maximus took the city of Tarentum, Cato, who was a very
young lad at the time, was serving in his army. He became intimate
there with one Nearchus, a philosopher of the Pythagorean school, and
listened with much interest to his discourses. Hearing this man, like
Plato, describe pleasure as the greatest temptation to evil, and the
body as the chief hindrance to the soul, which can only free and
purify itself by such a course of reasoning as removes it from and
sets it above all bodily passions and feelings, he was yet more
encouraged in his love of simplicity and frugality. In other respects
he is said to have studied Hellenic literature late in life, and not
to have read Greek books till extreme old age, when he greatly
improved his style of oratory, partly by the study of Thucydides, but
chiefly by that of Demosthenes. Be this as it may, his writings are
full of Greek ideas and Greek anecdotes: and many of his apophthegms
and maxims are literally translated from the Greek.