III. Cato was so much talked off that when Sulla was preparing for
exhibition the sacred horse race called Troja,[659] in which youths
are the actors, and had got together the boys of noble birth and
appointed two captains, the boys submitted to the one for his mother's
sake, for he was a son of Metella, Sulla's wife; but the other, who
was a nephew of Pompeius and named Sextus, they would not have, nor
would they go through their exercise nor follow him; and on Sulla
asking whom they would have, they all called out "Cato," and Sextus
himself gave way and yielded the honour to Cato as his better. It
happened that Sulla was an old friend of Cato's family, and sometimes
he had the children brought to him and talked with them, a kind of
friendship which he showed to few, by reason of the weight and state
of the office and power that he held. Sarpedon considering this a
great matter both as regarded the honour and security of the youth,
constantly took Cato to pay his respects to Sulla at his house, which
at that time to all outward appearance differed not from a place of
torture for criminals,[660] so great was the number of those who were
dragged there and put to the rack. Cato was at this time in his
fourteenth year, and seeing the heads of persons who were said to be
men of distinction brought out, and those who were present lamenting
inwardly, he asked his paedagogus why nobody killed this man.
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