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52. On the frugality of the Ancients

[Frugality in public and private matters was admired by the sterner Ancients (cf. Seneca, Epistulae morales, I, 5, etc.). This is an example of one of the earlier compilations of Montaigne which failed to grow into a larger chapter.]

[A] Attilius Regulus, the commander-in-chief of the Roman Army in Africa, at the height of his reputation for his victories over the Carthaginians wrote to the Roman State saying that one of his ploughmen whom he had left in sole charge of his estates (which consisted of some seven acres of land all told) had run off with his farm equipment: he asked for leave to go home and see to things, lest his wife and children should suffer want. (The Senate decided to appoint another man to manage the property and to make good what had been stolen, and decreed that his wife and children should be cared for at public expense.) The elder Cato, when returning as Consul from Spain, sold his working horse to spare the expense of shipping it back to Italy; and when he was Governor of Sardinia he made his inspections on foot; his retinue consisted of one officer-of-state bearing his robes and a sacrificial vessel; and most of the time he carried his baggage himself. He was proud of never having any clothing which cost more than ten crowns and of never having spent more than tenpence a day in the market; and as for his houses in the country, not one was pointed and plastered on the outside.

Scipio Aemilianus, after having had two Triumphs and two Consulships, went on an embassy with just ten servants. They say that Homer only had one; Plato, three; Zeno the head of the Stoic sect, not even one.

[B] When Tiberius Gracchus went on an official government mission he was voted fivepence-halfpenny a day: he was then the highest man in Rome.1