although I longed to see a man killed.”  Lucius, to please him, answered in the same tone, “If that be all, do not lie there and fret, for I will soon gratify your wish.”  He at once ordered a condemned criminal to be brought into the banqueting hall, and one of his servants to stand by him with an axe, and then again asked his favourite whether he wished to see a man struck dead.  When the boy said that he did, he bade the servant cut off the man’s head.  This is the account which most writers give of the transaction, and it is that which Cicero introduces Cato as relating in his dialogue “On Old Age;” but Livy says that the man who was put to death was a Gaulish deserter, and that Lucius did not employ a servant, but slew him with his own hand, and this is the version which Cato has followed in his written account of the matter.  When Cato discussed what took place at this wine party, Lucius endeavoured to deny it, but on being challenged to state exactly what happened he refused to answer.  He was most justly condemned to lose his right as a senator; but afterwards, when some spectacle was being witnessed in the theatre, he walked past the place reserved for men of consular rank, and sat down in the humblest seat of all, which so moved the people to compassion, that they forced him by their clamour to resume his former seat, thus as far as they were able reversing the sentence upon him and condoning his offence.

Cato expelled another senator, who was thought likely to be soon elected consul, named Manilius, because he had kissed his wife in the daytime in the presence of his daughter.  He himself said that his own wife never embraced him except when it thundered loudly, and added by way of joke, that he was happy when Jupiter was pleased to thunder.

XVIII.  His conduct in depriving of his horse Lucius Scipio, the brother of Scipio Africanus, a man who had been decreed a triumph, was censured, as being merely prompted by private spite; as he seemed merely to do it in order to insult Scipio Africanus after his death.  But what caused the greatest dissatisfaction were his restrictions on luxury.  This he could not attack openly, because it had taken such deep root among the people, but he caused all clothes, carriages, women’s ornaments, and furniture, which exceeded fifteen hundred drachmas in value to be rated at ten times their value and taxed accordingly, as he thought that those who possessed the most valuable property ought to contribute most largely to the revenues of the state.  In addition to this he imposed a tax on all citizens of three copper ases for every thousand, in order that those who were burdened with an excessive taxation on objects of luxury, when they saw persons of frugal and simple habits paying so small a tax on the same income, might cease from their extravagance.  This measure gained him the hatred of those who were taxed so heavily for their luxuries, and of those who, to avoid excessive taxation, were