o Cato. He also says that the
consul Manius immediately after the victory was won, enfolded him for
a long time in a close embrace, and loudly declared that neither he
nor all the Roman people could ever do as much for Cato as he had that
day done for them. He was sent immediately after the battle to bear
the news of the victory to Rome, and reached Brundusium after a
prosperous voyage.

From that place he drove in one day to Tarentum, and in four more
days reached Rome with the news, on the fifth day after his landing.
His arrival filled the whole city with feasting and rejoicing, and
made the Roman people believe that there was no nation in the world
which could resist their arms.

XV. Of Cato's warlike exploits these which we have related are the
most remarkable. In his political life he seems to have thought one of
his most important duties to be the impeachment and prosecution of
those whom he thought to be bad citizens. He himself attacked many
persons, and aided and encouraged others in doing so, a notable
example being his conduct towards Scipio in the affair of Petillius.
However, as Scipio was a man of noble birth and great spirit, he
treated the attack made upon him with contempt, and Cato, perceiving
that he could not succeed in getting him condemned to death, desisted
from annoying him. But he was active in obtaining the condemnation of
Scipio's brother Lucius, who was adjudged to pay a heavy fine, which
was beyond his means to provide, so that he had nearly been cast into
prison, but was set free by the intervention of the tribunes of the
people.

It is related of him that he once met in the forum a young man who had
just succeeded in obtaining the disfranchisement, by an action at law,
of an enemy of his father, who was dead. Cato took him by the hand and
said, "Thus ought men to honour their parents when they die, not with
the blood of lambs and kids, but with the tears and condemnation of
their enemies." He himself is said to have been the defendant in
nearly fifty actions, the last of which was tried when he was
eighty-six years of age: on which occasion he uttered that well-known
saying, that it was hard for a man who had lived in one generation to
be obliged to defend himself before another. And this was not the end
of his litigations, for four years later, when at the age of ninety,
he impeached Servius Galba. Indeed his life, like that of Nestor,
seems to havo reached over three generations. He