hem
to their allegiance, but Cato won over Corinth, Patrae, and AEgium. Most
of his time was spent in Athens; and there is said to be still extant
a speech which he made to the people there in Greek, in which he
speaks with admiration of the virtue of the Athenians of old, and
dwells upon his own pleasure in viewing so great and beautiful a city.
This, however, is a fabrication, for we know that he conversed with
the Athenians through an interpreter, though he was able to speak
their language, because he wished to keep to the ways of his fathers,
and administer a rebuke to those who extravagantly admired the Greeks.
Thus he laughed at Postumius Albinus, who wrote a history in Greek and
begged that his mistakes might be pardoned, saying that it would be
right to pardon them if he wrote his history by a decree of the
council of Amphiktyons. He himself says that the Athenians were
surprised it the shortness and pregnant nature of his talk; for what
he said in a few words, his interpreter translated by a great many:
and in general he concludes that the Greeks talk from the lips, and
the Romans from the heart.

XIII. When Antiochus occupied the pass of Thermopylae with his army,
and, after adding to the natural strength of the place by artificial
defences, established himself there as if in an impregnable position,
the Romans decided that to attack him in front was altogether
impossible, but Cato, remembering how the Persians under Xerxes had
turned the Greek forces by a circuitous march over the mountains, took
a part of the force and set off by night. When they had gone for some
distance over the mountains, the prisoner who served as their guide
lost his way, and wandered about in that precipitous and pathless
wilderness so as to cause great discouragement to the soldiers. Seeing
this, Cato ordered every one to halt and await his orders, and
himself, with one companion, one Lucius Manlius, an experienced
mountaineer, laboriously and daringly plunged along through intense
darkness, for there was no moon, while the trees and rocks added to
their difficulties by preventing their seeing distinctly whither they
were going, until they came to a path, which, as they thought, led
directly down upon the camp of the enemy. Hereupon they set up marks
to guide them upon some conspicuous crags of Mount Kallidromus, and
returning to the army, led it to these marks, and started along the
paths which they had descried. But before they ha