law for protecting the provincials from extortion. During the whole of his
year of office he practised with the utmost exactness his principles of
purity, simplicity, and economy in public affairs. He is said to have
started from his house on the journey to Spain with only three servants,
but when he got as far as the forum, it struck him that such an attendance
was scarcely worthy of a Roman consul; so he purchased two more slaves on
the spot! In the same spirit, before returning he sold his horse that the
state might not be at the expense of transporting it to Italy. Cato was no
less careful of the revenue than of the expenditure. He largely increased
the productiveness of the mines and other property belonging to the state,
and all goods captured from the enemy were sold for the benefit of the
exchequer. On leaving the province Cato made an unusually large gift to
each soldier, saying that it was better for all to bring home silver than
for a few to bring home gold. The provincials were thoroughly content with
their ruler and ever after looked on him as their best friend. The army was
kept in the strictest discipline. Some disorderly conduct of the _equites_
was rebuked by Cato in a bitter harangue which he afterwards published.
Partly by craft, partly by good leadership in the field, Cato broke the
strength of the turbulent natives and returned to enjoy a well-earned
triumph.[41] In the same year (194) a brilliant triumph was celebrated by
Flamininus.

Scipio, probably uneasy at the great reputations quickly won by Flamininus
and Cato, secured his second consulship for the year 194, but failed to
achieve anything remarkable. Cato probably spent the three years after his
return for the most part at his Sabine farm. When the war against Antiochus
broke out, he took service along with his friend Flaccus on the staff of
the consul Glabrio,[42] and by a difficult march over the mountains broke
in on the king's rear, and so was chiefly instrumental in winning the great
battle of Thermopylae, by which Antiochus was driven out of Greece.