Plutarch's Lives
Translated by Aubrey Stewart and George Long
Volume II
COMPARISON OF ARISTEIDES AND CATO
Now that we have related all the important events of each of these men's lives, it will be seen that the points in which they differ are very trifling when compared with those in which they agree. If, however, we are to take each of their qualities separately, as one would in comparing two speeches or two pictures, we observe that they both agree in having begun life in a humble station, and having won political distinction and power by sheer ability and force of character. It is true that Aristeides rose to power at a period when Athens was poor, and when the orators and generals whom he attacked were men whose means were little superior to his own; for the men of greatest incomes at that time were assessed as having five hundred bushels of wet or dry produce a year, while the next class, that of the knights, had three hundred, and the lowest, or those who could afford to keep a yoke of oxen, had only two hundred. Cato, on the other hand, came from an obscure village and a rustic mode of life, and boldly launched himself upon the turbid sea of Roman politics, although the days of Curius, Fabricius and Atilius were long past, and Rome was not accustomed to find her magistrates and party leaders in labouring men fresh from the plough or the workshop, but in men of noble birth and great wealth, who canvassed extensively, and bribed heavily; while the populace, insolent with the consciousness of power, were growing ripe for a revolt against the governing class.
It was a very different thing for Aristeides to have only Themistokles for an antagonist, a man of no birth or fortune (for it is said that he only possessed between three and five talents when he first embarked on politics) and [Pg 129]for Cato to contend for the mastery with men like Scipio Africanus, Sergius Galba, and Titus Quintius Flamininus, with nothing to help him but his eloquent voice and his good cause.
II. Furthermore, Aristeides, both at Marathon and at Platæa, acted as general with nine colleagues, while Cato was elected one of the two consuls and afterwards one of the two censors, though there were many other candidates for both offices. Aristeides never conspicuously distinguished himself, as the credit of the victory at Marathon belongs to Miltiades, and that of Salamis to Themistokles, while Herodotus tells us that Pausanias obtained the most glorious success of all at Platæa, and even the second place is disputed with Aristeides by Sophanes, Ameinias, Kallimachus, and Kynægyrus, all of whom won great glory in those battles. On the other hand, Cato not only when consul gained the greatest credit, both by his wise conduct, and his personal prowess in the Spanish war, but, when at Thermopylæ he was acting as tribune under another person's command as consul, contributed mainly to winning the victory by his flank movement, by which he established himself in the rear of Antiochus while that prince was intent upon the enemy in his front. This victory, which was so manifestly due to Cato, had the important result of driving the Asiatic troops out of Greece back to their own country, and so of preparing the way for Scipio's subsequent invasion of Asia.
Neither of them were ever defeated in battle, but in political matters Aristeides was overcome by his rival Themistokles, who drove him into exile by ostracism, while Cato held his own against all the greatest and most influential men in Rome to the end of his life without once being overthrown by them. He was often impeached, and always acquitted, while he frequently succeeded in his impeachments of others, using, both as a bulwark to defend himself and as a weapon to attack others, his power of speaking in public, which indeed is a quality more to be relied upon than good fortune to protect a man from suffering wrong. Antipater, in the account which he wrote of the philosopher Aristotle after his death, observes [Pg 130]that besides his other qualities and accomplishments this man had the power of persuasion.
III. It is generally admitted that political virtue is the highest to which a man can aspire, and of this, most think domestic virtue to be a very important part; for as a city is merely a collection of houses, the public virtue of the state must be increased if it contain many well-regulated households. Lykurgus, when he banished silver and gold from Sparta, and gave his countrymen useless iron money, did not wish to discourage good household management among them, but he removed the dangerous seductions of wealth out of their reach, in order that they all might enjoy a sufficiency of what was useful and necessary. He saw, what no other legislator appears to have seen, that the real danger to a commonwealth arises from the poor and desperate rather than from the excessively rich.
Now we have seen that Cato was as well able to manage his household as to govern the state; for he improved his fortune and became a teacher of household management and husbandry to others, by collecting much useful information on these matters. On the other hand, Aristeides made his poverty a reproach to justice, which by his example was made to seem a ruinous virtue which brought men to want, and was totally useless to those who practised it. Yet the poet Hesiod, when encouraging men to act justly and manage their household affairs well, blames idleness as the origin of injustice, and the same idea is well stated in Homer's lines:—
"Work was never my delight,
Nor household cares, that breed up children bright;
But ever loved I ships with banks of oars,
And arrows keen, and weapons for the wars,"