Cato the Elder (234-149 BCE) was a famous Roman patrician (aristocrat) and statesman.  In was an idealist who defended traditional Roman virtues against both Greek cultural influences, and the decadence created by the new wealth of the Roman Empire.  His ideas and political battles represent the paradox of the Roman Republic:  the values that made it strong led to the disintegration of those values.

Among the elder statesmen, he attached himself most closely to Fabius Maximus.  At that time Fabius enjoyed the highest reputation and wielded the greatest power of any man in Rome, yet it was not these distinctions but rather the man's character and his way of life which Cato chose as his ideal.  And it was the same considerations which persuaded him to oppose the great Scipio, later known as Africanus.  This distinguished man, although at that time barely in his thirties, was already becoming a serious rival to Fabius, and was generally believed to be jealous of him.  When Cato was posted to Africa to serve as Scipio's quaestor [financial office] for the invasion of Carthage [204 BCE], he say that his commander was not only indulging in his usual lavish personal expenditure, but was also squandering extravagantly high pay on his troops.  He protested to Scipio and told him bluntly that the most important issue was not the question of expense, but the fact that he was corrupting the native simplicity of his men, who, as soon as they had more money than they needed for their everyday wants, would spend it on luxuries and the pleasures of the senses.  Scipio retorted that when his plan of campaign was proceeding as it were under full sail he had no use for a niggling quaestor, and that he would be called upon to account to the Roman people not for the money he had spent but for the battles he had won.
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But a man who observed the ancestral custom of working his own land, who was content with a cold breakfast, a frugal dinner, the simplest clothing, and a humble cottage to live in, and who actually thought it more admirable to renounce luxuries than to acquire them--such a person was conspicuous by his rarity.  The truth was that by this date the Roman republic had grown too large to preserve its original purity of spirit, and the very authority which it exercised over so many realms and peoples constantly brought it into contact with, and obliged it to adapt itself to an extraordinary diversity of habits and modes of living.
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He also stayed for a considerable time in Athens, and we are told that a certain speech of his has survived which he delivered to the Athenian people in Greek.  In this he told them of his admiration for the virtues of the ancient Athenians, and of his delight at seeing a city as beautiful and as magnificent as theirs.  All this is untrue, since Cato in fact spoke to the Athenians through and interpreter.  Hew was quite capable of addressing them in their own language, but he clung to Roman forms and made a point of ridiculing those who admired everything that was Greek.  For example, he made fun of the Roman author Postimus Albinus, who wrote a history in Greek and asked his readers to make allowances for his ignorance of the language. . . Cato himself claims that the Athenians were greatly impressed by the speed and the concision of his address, for the interpreter took a long time and great many words to communicate what he expressed briefly, and in general he concludes that the Greeks speak from the lips, but the Romans from the heart.
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He was also a good father, a kind husband, and a most capable manager of his own household, since he was far from regarding this side of his affairs as trivial or allowing it to suffer from neglect.  For this reason I think I should give some examples of his conduct in his private life.  He chose his wife for her family rather than her fortune, for he believed that while people of great wealth of high position cherish their own pride and self-esteem, nevertheless women of noble birth are by nature more ashamed of any disgraceful action and so are more obedient to their husbands in everything that is honorable.  He used to say that man who beats his wife or child is laying sacrilegious hands on the most sacred thing in the world.  He considered that it was more praiseworthy to be a good husband than a great senator, and was also of the opinion that there was nothing much else to admire in Socrates of old, except for the fact that he was always gentle and considerate in his dealings with his wife, who was a scold, and his children, who were half-witted. When his son was born, Cato thought that nothing but the most important business of state should prevent him from being present when his wife gave the baby its bath and wrapped it in swaddling clothes.  His wife suckled the child herself and often did the same for her slaves' children, so as to encourage brotherly feelings in them towards her own son.  As soon as the boy was able to learn, his father took charge of his schooling and taught him to read, although he had in the household and educated slave called Chilo who was a schoolmaster and taught many other boys.  However, Cato did not think it right, so he tells us, that his son should be scolded or have his ears pulled by a slave, if he were slow to learn, and still less that he should be indebted to his slave in such a vital matter as his education.  So he took it upon himself to teach the boy, not only his letters, but also the principles of Roman law.  He also trained him in athletics, and taught him how to throw the javelin, fight in armor, ride a horse, use his fists in boxing, endure the extremes of heat and cold, and swim across the roughest and most swiftly flowing stretches of the Tiber.   He tells us that he composed his history of Rome, writing it out with his own hand and in large characters, so that his son should possess in his own home the means of acquainting himself with the ancient annals and traditions.  He also mentions that he was careful not to use any indecent expression before his son as he would have been in the presence of the Vestal Virgins, and that he never bathed with him.  This last seems to have been the general custom among the Romans, and even fathers-in-law avoided bathing with their sons-in-law, because they were ashamed to show themselves naked.  In later times, however, the Romans adopted from the Greeks the practice of stripping in the presence of other men, and they in turn taught the Greeks to do the same even in the presence of women.

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Most of the Romans were well content to see their sons embrace Greek culture and frequent the society of the estimable men.  But Cato, from the moment that this passion for discussion first showed itself in Rome, was deeply disturbed.  He was afraid  that the younger generation might allow their ambitions to be diverted in this direction, and might come to value most highly a reputation that was based upon feats of oratory rather than upon feats of arms.  So when the prestige of the philosophers continued to rise still higher . . . Cato made up his mind to find some plausible excuse for clearing the whole tribe of philosophers out of the city.  Accordingly he rose in the Senate and criticized the authorities . . .

Cato did not take this action, as some people believe, out of personal animosity towards [the philosophers], but rather because he was opposed on principle to the study of philosophy, and because his patriotic fervor made him regard the whole of Greek culture and its methods of education with contempt.  He asserts, for example, that Socrates was a turbulent windbag, who did his best to tyrannize over his country by undermining its established customs and seducing his fellow-citizens into holding opinions that were contradictory to the laws.  . .  And in the effort to turn his son against Greek culture, he allowed himself an extreme utterance which was absurdly rash for an old man:  he pronounced with all the solemnity of a prophet that if ever the Romans became infected with the literature of Greece, they would lose their empire.  At any rate time has exposed the emptiness of this ominous prophecy, for in the age when the city rose to the zenith of her greatness, her people had made themselves familiar with Greek learning and culture in all its forms.