3.3
Cato, then, was no whit less efficient in the conduct of his household than in that of the city. He not only increased his own substance, but became a recognized teacher of domestic economy and agriculture for others, and compiled many useful precepts on these subjects. Aristides, on the other hand, was so poor as to bring even his righteousness into disrepute, as ruining a household, reducing a man to beggary, and profiting everybody rather than its possessor.
3.4
And yet Hesiod Works and Days, 309. has much to say by way of exhorting us to righteousness allied with domestic economy, and abuses idleness as a source of injustice; Homer also says well:— Labour I never liked, Nor household thrift, which breeds good children. But ships equipped with oars were ever my delight, Battles and polished javelins and arrows, Odyssey, xiv. 222 ff., Palmer’s translation. implying that the men who neglect their households are the very ones to live by injustice.
3.5
Oil, as physicians tell us, is very beneficial when externally applied, though very injurious when used internally. But the righteous is not so. He is not helpful to others, while heedless of himself and his family. Indeed, the poverty of Aristides would seem to have been a blemish on his political career, if, as most writers state, he had not foresight enough to leave his poor daughters a marriage portion, Aristides, xxvii. 1. or even the cost of his own burial.
