And
when a man of bad character and great expense delivered a discourse in
the senate in favour of frugality and temperance, Amnaeus[684] rose up
and said, "My man, who will endure you, you who sup like Crassus, and
build like Lucullus, and harangue us like Cato." Others also who were
people of bad character and intemperate, but in their language
dignified and severe, they used to call by way of mockery, Catos.
XX. Though many invited him to the tribuneship, he did not think it
well to expend the power of a great office and magistracy, no more
than that of a strong medicine, on matters wherein it was not
required. At the same time as he had leisure from public affairs, he
took books and philosophers with him and set out for Lucania, for he
had lands there on which there was no unseemly residence. On the road
he met with many beasts of burden and baggage and slaves, and learning
that Nepos Metellus[685] was returning to Rome for the purpose of
being a candidate for the tribuneship, he halted without speaking, and
after a short interval ordered his people to turn back. His friends
wondering at this, he said, "Don't you know that even of himself
Metellus is a formidable man by reason of his violence; and now that
he has come upon the motion of Pompeius, he will fall upon the state
like a thunderbolt and put all in confusion? It is therefore not a
time for leisure or going from home, but we must get the better of the
man or die nobly in defence of liberty.
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