A man who was hard to bribe

 The Old Romans must have been tough old soldiers, something like the Spartans. But later writers idealized them to teach civic virtues. Even accounting for storyteller’s inflation, I like Plutarch’s tale about Manius Curius Dentatus, a role model for Cato the Elder.

I came across it in Ryan Holiday’s Discipline is Destiny.

The Romans were fighting the Samnites, and a delegation came to bribe Dentatus, a gifted soldier. When the Samnites arrived, they found him roasting turnips on the fire.

That’s a memorable image: A man who was content with turnips probably was not going to be swayed by money. And a man who was content to roast turnips himself, without assistance from servants, probably wasn’t going to want anything anyone else had to offer.

I like the story because I can see hints of my father and grandfather in that tough old character.

• Sources and notes: Ryan Holiday, Discipline is Destiny; New York: Portfolio-Penguin, 2022, p. 34. If you, like me, are puzzled by “Dentatus” and are also Latin-less, it’s a cognomen. You might guess that it’s related to “dental.” Pliny says Manius Curius was born with teeth.