[263]
Cato the elder, in a fragment preserved by Festus,[264] says that
he was brought up from his earliest years to be frugal, hardy, and
industrious, and worked steadily on the farm (in the Sabine country),
in a stony region where he had to dig and plant the flinty soil. The
tradition of such a healthy rearing remained in the memory of the
Romans, and associated itself with the Sabines of central Italy, the
type of men who could be called _frugi_:
rusticorum mascula militum
proles, Sabellis docta ligonibus
versare glebas et severae
matris ad arbitrium recisos
portare fustis.[265]
It was an education also in demeanour, and especially in
obedience[266] and modesty. In that chapter of Plutarch's _Life of
Cato_ which has been already quoted, after describing how the father
taught his boy to ride, to box, to swim, and so on, he goes on, "And
he was as careful not to utter an indecent word before his son, as he
would have been in the presence of the Vestal Virgins." The _pudor_ of
childhood was always esteemed at Rome: "adolescens pudentissimus" is
the highest praise that can be given even to a grown youth;[267] and
there are signs that a feeling survived of a certain sacredness of
childhood, which Juvenal reflects in his famous words, "Maxima debetur
puero reverentia.
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