her excess of clothing or of food, so a
man's life and that of his family, if properly regulated, can be
maintained at a trifling cost. His income, however, must exactly tally
with his requirements; for we cannot call that man contented who earns
much, and spends little. He is a foolish man if he troubles himself to
amass what he cannot enjoy; while he must be a miserable man if he is
able to enjoy the use of wealth, and yet through meanness of spirit
forbids himself its use.

I would willingly put this question to Cato: "If we ought to enjoy our
wealth, why do you make a virtue of simplicity of living when you are
a rich man? If, on the other hand, it is a noble thing, as no doubt it
is, to eat common bread, to drink the same wine as our servants and
farm labourers do, and not to want fine clothes or comfortable houses,
then Aristeides and Epameinondus, Manius Curius and Caius Fabricius
were to be applauded for their neglect of the wealth, whose use they
rejected." Surely it was not necessary for a man who thought turnips
made a delicious meal, and who used to boil them himself while his
wife baked the bread, to write so much about how to save a penny, and
how a man might most quickly make a fortune. The great advantage of
simplicity and contentment is, that it prevents our wishing for
superfluities, or even thinking about them. Aristeides, when cited as
a witness during the trial of Kallias, is said to have observed that
those who were poor against their will, ought to be ashamed of it, but
that those who, like himself, were poor from their own choice, gloried
in their poverty. It would be absurd to suppose that the poverty of
Aristeides was not voluntary, when, without doing any criminal act, he
might by stripping the body of one dead Persian, or by plundering one
tent, have made himself a rich man. But enough of this.

V. As to their campaigns, those of Cato added but little to the
already vast empire of Rome, while Aristeides was present at Marathon,
Salamis, and Plataea, the most glorious of all Grecian victories. We
cannot compare Antiochus with Xerxes, nor the destruction of the walls
of the Spanish cities by Cato, with the tremendous slaughter of the
barbarians by the Greeks, both on sea and land. Aristeides was present
at every action of importance, although he gave up his share of glory
and rewards, even as he did with gold and silver, to those who needed
them more than himself. I cannot blame Cato for alway