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 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 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,"
where we see that the same men neglect their duties at home, and gain
their living by injustice and piracy abroad. The physicians tell us
that oil is most useful, outwardly used, and most harmful when taken
inwardly; but it is not true of the just man that he is most useful to
his friends, but useless to himself. It seems to me to be a blot on
Aristeides' fame, if it be true that he could not even provide money
for his daughters' dowry or for his own funeral expenses. The family
of Cato for four generations, supplied Rome with prætors and consuls,
for his grandchildren, and their children too, all rose to the highest
offices in the state; while the hopeless poverty of Aristeides, though
he was the foremost man of his time in Greece, reduced some of his
family to the disreputable profession of interpreting dreams, and
forced others to live on public charity, putting it quite out of their
power to emulate the glorious actions of their ancestor.
IV. Some, indeed, may dispute this; for it is true that poverty is no
disgrace in itself, but only when it is a proof of indolence,
extravagance, or folly. The poverty of a laborious, upright, temperate
statesman combines well with his other virtues, and shows true
greatness of mind: for a man whose attention is given to little
things, can never succeed in doing great ones; nor can a man help
others if he is in need of help himself. A statesman requires, not
wealth, but contentment, in order that his attention may not be
diverted from public affairs by his own cravings for useless luxuries.
God alone is entirely without wants, and we approach nearest to the
divine ideal when we can reduce our wants to the fewest possible. Just
as a healthy man requires neither 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 Platæa, 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 always glorifying
himself and claiming the first place for himself, although he says in
one of his books that it is absurd for a man either to praise or to
blame himself; still I think that he who does not even wish for the
praises of others, is a more perfect character than he who is always
exalting himself. An indifference to popular applause does much to
soften the bitterness of political controversy, while on the other
hand a love of distinction often leads men to be ill-natured and
spiteful to others, a fault which Aristeides entirely avoided, and to
which Cato was peculiarly liable. Aristeides saved Athens by
supporting the authority of Themistokles on several critical
occasions, and even acting as his subordinate; while Cato by his
opposition, nearly ruined Scipio's famous expedition to Carthage, in
which he defeated the hitherto invincible Hannibal. Nor did he cease
his intrigues against Scipio until by calumnious and false accusations
he drove him out of Rome, and stigmatized his brother with the
disgraceful charge of embezzling the public money.
VI. Self-denial, upon which Cato has bestowed such lavish praise, was
practised in its purest and brightest form by Aristeides, while Cato
seems to have forfeited all claim to this virtue by his unsuitable and
unseasonable second marriage. It could not be to his honour, when he
was of such a great age, to marry the daughter of his own servant, a
man who acted as a public clerk, and to bring her into the house to
act as mother-in-law to his son, who was now himself grown up and
married. Whether he acted thus from natural inclination, or to spite
his son for his behaviour about his mistress, the marriage and the
motives which led to it are equally discreditable to him. The
sarcastic explanation of it which he gave to his son is utterly
untrue; for had he wished to beget other children as noble as his son,
he ought to have married a well-born lady at once, and not to have
been satisfied with a low intrigue until it was detected, and then to
have chosen as his father-in-law, the man whom he could most easily
influence, rather than some one whose alliance would bring him honour
and advantage.