X. Hearing that Athenodorus[672] named Kordylion, who had great skill
in the Stoic philosophy, was living at Pergamus, being now an old man,
and having most resolutely resisted all intimacy and friendship with
governors and kings, Cato thought that he should get nothing by
sending and writing to him, but as he had a furlough of two months
allowed by the law, he made a voyage to Asia to the man, in the
confidence that through his own merits he should not fail in the
chase. After discoursing with Athenodorus and getting the victory
over him and drawing him from his settled purpose, he returned with
him to the camp, overjoyed and greatly elated at having made the
noblest capture and got a more splendid booty than the nations and
kingdoms which Pompeius at that time and Lucullus were subduing in
their campaigns.
XI. While Cato was still engaged in the service, his brother, who was
on his road to Asia, fell sick at AEnus,[673] in Thrace; and a letter
immediately came to Cato, and though the sea was very stormy, and
there was no vessel at hand of sufficient size, taking only two
friends with him and three slaves, he set sail from Thessalonike in a
small trading ship. After narrowly escaping being drowned at sea, he
was saved by unexpected good luck, but he found Caepio already dead. He
was considered to have borne the misfortune with more of passion than
philosophy, not only in his lamentations and his embracings of the
dead body and the heaviness of his grief, but also in his expenditure
about the interment, and the trouble that he took about fragrant
spices and costly vests which were burnt with the body, and a monument
of polished Thasian stone of the cost of eight talents which was
constructed in the Agora of AEnus.
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