# 19 The Secure Stoic *Week 4, Day 1 of [[00 The Wealthy Stoic Course]]* #source/course << [[18 Week 3 Tips and Tools - The Wealthy Stoic|Back]] | [[20 Live Below Your Means|Next]] >>  ## Content From [[Seneca]], we learned that one _can_ have all the money in the empire and be that empire’s poorest citizen. But it can also go the other way. This week, we begin with a figure who lived two centuries before [[Seneca]]. He was not only one of Rome’s most influential citizens in his own time, but a lodestar for generations and generations thereafter. We are talking about **[[Cato]] the Elder**. History remembers his great-grandson Cato the Younger for his ardent defense of Rome’s Republic, the last man standing when the Republic fell. As it happens, this was the family business. Born some 55 years after his towering relative died, Cato the Younger never met his great-grandfather, but his life was shaped extensively by the man. Indeed, Cato the Elder loomed large in the life of Cato the Younger. Everything he did, everything he tried to be was to live up to the example of his great-grandfather. Even though his great-grandfather was no fan of philosophy, Cato the Younger worshiped his natural stoic approach to life and spent his whole life trying to live up to the model, to honor the legacy of his great-grandfather. We get a clear sense of this approach from the only work that survives to us from the Catos. It’s the oldest surviving form of Latin writing. And it shows what the younger—who would have read and re-read his great-grandfather’s work, [_On Agriculture_](https://geni.us/tGdj)—learned from his great elder. Cato the Elder achieved towering fame fighting for the ancestral customs (_mos maiorum_) against the modernizing influences of an ascendant empire, but all the while, he was earning a fortune in agriculture. He, like a lot of grandfathers, was what you might call a lower-case Stoic: He didn’t know he was practicing philosophy. He _lived_ it. He made himself one of Rome’s great agriculture fortunes, but you’d never have known it. He never wore a garment that cost more than a few dollars. He drank the same wine as his slaves, who he regularly worked alongside in the fields. He bought his food in the public markets. He rejected the expensive fashions of the day. He declined expensive gifts offered to him, did his political work for no pay, and traveled with few servants and kept things simple. “In general,” Plutarch writes of Cato the Elder, “he considered that nothing is cheap if it is superfluous, that what a man does not need is dear even if it cost only a penny.” Because when you need, you are vulnerable.  When you are self-sufficient, you are rich…whatever your net worth.  It can seem like the life of a Cato, the life of one who has strict spending habits, is difficult. The expression in the ancient world was, _“What do you expect of us? We can’t all be Catos.”_ But in fact, he has a much easier time than those who aren’t. The person who spends more than they have is stressed out, even if they have a lot. The person to whom luxuries become a necessity is now vulnerable, or worse, damned to a treadmill they can never get off. We think those with more are superior. In fact, they are usually far weaker. The ability to make due, to be indifferent about stuff? This is a strength. This is wealth. What’s more impressive? The person with a lot of stuff? Or the person who doesn’t need a lot of stuff? To The Wealthy Stoic, it’s an easy answer. It’s easy to acquire. It’s hard to say no. It’s tough to develop limits and to figure out what enough is. But like Cato the Elder said, if you can’t do that, eventually there will be nothing left and nowhere to go. So forget that ancient expression—_we can be Catos._ We can learn from their example. Before we buy something, we can ask: what would the Catos do? --- ## Activity What would the Catos do? How can you instill a Cato mindset? --- ## Week 4 Workshop List a few words to describe your relationship with money (unstable, unpredictable, secure, managed, etc.) How do you view materialism? Are you more impressed by people with a lot of material possessions or people that live a nomad lifestyle? Who do you aspire to be like?