in a body let yourselves be guided by those whom singly you
would never think of being advised by."

The Romans having sent three ambassadors to Bithnia, of whom one was
gouty, another had his skull trepanned, and the other seemed little
better than a fool; Cato, laughing, gave out that the Romans had sent an
embassy, which had neither feet, head, nor heart.* (*Both the Romans and
the Greeks conceived of the region of the heart, the chest, as the seat
not of emotion, nor of will and courage merely, but more especially of
judgment, deliberation, and practical sense. Thus the Greeks derived
their word for moral wisdom from Phren, the diaphragm, and the Romans by
'egregie cordatus homo' meant a wise statesman.)

Cato also said that in his whole life he most repented of three things;
one was, that he had trusted a secret to a woman; another that he
went by water when he might have gone by land; the third, that he had
remained one whole day without doing any business of moment.

He was a good father, an excellent husband to his wife, and an
extraordinary economist; and as he did not manage his affairs of this
kind carelessly, and as things of little moment, I think I ought to
record a little further whatever was commendable in him in these points.
He married a wife more noble than rich; being of opinion that the rich
and the high-born are equally haughty and proud; but that those of
noble blood would be more ashamed of base things, and consequently more
obedient to their husbands in all that was fit and right. A man who beat
his wife or child, laid violent hands, he said, on what was most sacred;
and a good husband he reckoned worthy of more praise than a great
senator; and he admired the ancient Socrates for nothing so much, as for
having lived a temperate and contented life with a wife who was a scold,
and children who were half-witted.

When his son began to come to years of discretion, Cato himself would
teach him to read, although he had a servant, a very good grammarian,
called Chilo, who taught many others; but he thought not fit, as he
himself said, to have his son reprimanded by a slave, or pulled, it may
be, by the ears when found tardy in his lesson: nor would he have him
owe to a servant the obligation of so great a thing as his learning; he
himself, therefore, taught him his grammar, his law, and his gymnastic
exercises. Nor did he only show him, too, how to throw a dart, to fight
in armor, and to ride, but t