However
Cato did not employ the clerk nor give him his pay, nor did he take
any reckoning at all of the vote of Lollius.
XVII. Having thus humbled the clerks and reduced them to obedience, by
managing the accounts in his own way, he made the treasury in a short
time more respected than the Senate, so that every body said and
considered that Cato had surrounded the quaestorship with the dignity
of the consulship. For in the first place finding that many persons
owed old debts to the state and that the state was indebted to many,
he at the same time put an end to the state being wronged and wronging
others, by demanding the money from those who owed it vigorously and
without relenting at all, and paying the creditors speedily and
readily, so that the people respected him when they saw those pay who
expected to defraud the state, and those recover who never expected
it. In the next place, it was the general practice to bring in
writings without observing the proper forms, and previous quaestors
used to receive false decrees to please persons, and at their request.
Cato however let nothing of this kind escape his notice, and on one
occasion being in doubt about a decree, whether it was really
ratified, though many persons testified to the fact, he would not
trust them, nor did he allow it to be deposited until the consuls came
and by oath confirmed its genuineness. Now there were many whom Sulla
had rewarded for killing proscribed persons at the rate of twelve
thousand drachmae apiece, and though all detested them as accursed and
abominable wretches, no one ventured to bring them to punishment; but
Cato, calling to account every man who had public money by unfair
means, made him give it up and at the same time upbraided him for his
unholy and illegal acts with passion and argument.
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