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Boulder Place Directory 06
Page 03
Cato was an unfeeling and cruel master. His conduct toward his slaves was detestable. The law held them to be mere chattels, and he treated them as such, without any regard to the rights of humanity. After supper he often severely chastised them, thong in hand, for trifling acts of negligence, and sometimes condemned them to death. When they were worn out, or useless, he sold them, or turned them out of doors. He treated the lower animals no better. His war-horse, which bore him through his campaign in Spain, he sold before he left the country, that the state might not be charged with the expenses of its transport. As years advanced he sought gain with increasing eagerness, but never attempted to profit by the misuse of his public functions. He accepted no bribes; he reserved no booty to his own use; but he became a speculator, not only in slaves, but in buildings, artificial waters, and pleasure-grounds. In this, as in other points, he was a representative of the old Romans, who were a money-getting and money-loving people.
It was probably during this time that he introduced the various changes into the organization of the Roman army which are usually attributed to him. Notwithstanding the sternness and severity with which he punished the least breach of discipline, he was a favorite with his new soldiers, who learned to place implicit confidence in their general, and were delighted with the strict impartiality with which he visited the offenses of the officers as well as of the privates. As the enemy still continued in Spain, Marius was elected Consul a third time for the year B.C. 103, and also a fourth time for the following year, with Q. Lutatius Catulus as his colleague. It was in this year (B.C. 102) that the long-expected barbarians arrived. The Cimbri, who had returned from Spain, united their forces with the Teutones. Marius first took up his position in a fortified camp upon the Rhone, probably in the vicinity of the modern Arles; and as the entrance of the river was nearly blocked up by mud and sand, he employed his soldiers in digging a canal from the Rhone to the Mediterranean, that he might the more easily obtain his supplies from the sea.
And it should be noted that this international co-operation is not by any means always with similar and racially allied nations. Republican France finds itself, and has been for a generation, the ally of autocratic Russia. Australia, that much more than any other country has been obsessed by the yellow peril and the danger from Japan, finds herself today fighting side by side with the Japanese. And as to the ineradicable hostility of races preventing international co-operation, there are fighting together on the soil of France as I write, Flemish, Walloons, and negroes from Senegal, Turcos from Northern Africa, Gurkhas from India, co-operating with the advance on the other frontier of Cossacks, and Russians of all descriptions. This military and political co-operation has brought together Mohammedan and Christian; Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox; negro, white and yellow; African, Indian, and European; monarchist, republican, Socialist, reactionary--there seems hardly a racial, religious, or political difference that has stood in the way of rapid and effective co-operation in the common need.
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