 The less fortunate nobles, jealous of this exclusive oligarchy, and openly watchful of the decadence and disorder associated with luxury, placed themselves at the head of a party which showed its determination to rely on purer models and to attach much importance to the ancient ways.In their eyes, rusticity, austerity, and asceticism were the marks of Sabine robustness and religion and of the old Roman inflexible integrity and love of order.Marcus Claudius Marcellus, Scipio Africanus and his family, and Titus Quinctius Flamininus, may be taken as representative of the new civilization; Cato's friends, Fabius and Flaccus, were the leading men in the faction defending the old plainness.