to secure the traditional transmission of Etruscan lore in the noble
families of Etruria, as well as the permission of the secret worship
of Demeter, which was not immoral and was restricted to women, may
probably be ranked with the earlier innocent and comparatively
indifferent adoption of foreign rites. But the admission of the
worship of the Mother of the Gods was a bad sign of the weakness which
the government felt in presence of the new superstition, perhaps even
of the extent to which it was itself pervaded by it; and it showed in
like manner either an unpardonable negligence or something still
worse, that the authorities only took steps against such proceedings
as the Bacchanalia at so late a stage, and even then on an accidental
information.

Austerity of Manners
Catos's Family Life

The picture, which has been handed down to us of the life of Cato the
Elder, enables us in substance to perceive how, according to the ideas
of the respectable burgesses of that period, the private life of the
Roman should be spent. Active as Cato was as a statesman, pleader,
author, and mercantile speculator, family life always formed with him
the central object of existence; it was better, he thought, to be a
good husband than a great senator. His domestic discipline was
strict. The servants were not allowed to leave the house without
orders, nor to talk of what occurred to the household to strangers.
The more severe punishments were not inflicted capriciously, but
sentence was pronounced and executed according to a quasi-judicial
procedure: the strictness with which offences were punished may be
inferred from the fact, that one of his slaves who had concluded a
purchase without orders from his master hanged himself on the matter
coming to Cato's ears. For slight offences, such as mistakes
committed in waiting at table, the consular was wont after dinner to
administer to the culprit the proper number of lashes with a thong
wielded by his own hand. He kept his wife and children in order no
less strictly, but by other means; for he declared it sinful to lay
hands on a wife or grown-up children in the same way as on slaves.
In the choice of a wife he disapproved marrying for money, and
recommended men to look to good descent; but he himself married in
old age the daughter of one of his poor clients. Moreover he adopted
views in regard to continence on the part of the husband similar to
those which everywhere prevail in sla