Plutarch The Lives - 3 Author:Plutarch Volume: 3 General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1832 Original Publisher: A. J. Valpy Subjects: Greece Rome History / Ancient / General History / Ancient / Greece History / Ancient / Rome History / Europe / Greece Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations an... more »d there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: ARISTIDES AND CATO COMPARED. Having thus given a detail of the most memorable actions of these great men, if we compare the whole life of the one with that of the other, it will not be easy to discern the difference between them, the eye being attracted by so many striking resemblances: but if we examine the several parts of their lives distinctly, as we do a poem or a picture, we shall find, in the first place", this common to them both, that they rose to high stations and great honor in their respective commonwealths, not by the help of family connexions, but merely by their own virtue and abilities. It is true, that when Aristides raised himself, Athens was not in her grandeur; and the demagogues and chief magistrates he had to deal with were men of moderate and nearly equal fortunes ; for estates of the highest class were then only five hundred medimni; of those of the second order, who were knights, three hundred; and of those of the third order, who were called zeugitae, two hundred. But Cato, from a little village and a country life, launched into the Roman government, as into a boundless ocean, at a time when it was not conducted by the Curii. the Fabricii, and Hostilii, nor received for its magistrates and orators men of narrow circumstances, who worked with their own hands, from the plough and the spade, but was accustomed to regard greatness of family, opulence, distributions among the people, and servility in courting...« less