CATO

M. Porcius Cato, the Censor ( B.C. 234-149), born at Tusculum, of a yeoman stock, was one of the most prominent figures of his time. For the best account of his military and political career, including his advancement to the Consulship ( B.C. 195) and Censorship ( B.C. 184), and his economic and social reforms, the reader may be referred to Mommsen, R.H. , vol. ii. pa im . Cato was the founder of Latin prose, and the chief opponent of the exaggerated Hellenism that was finding its way into Roman life and literature (cf. his own words quoted by Pliny, N.H. xxix. 14, ‘Quandoque ist a gens suas litter as dab it, omnia corrumpet’); but even he shows traces of Greek influence. Cato is represented now only by (1) his treatise De Agri Cultura , the earliest extant work in Latin prose, which, besides giving instruction for the husbandman, deals with housekeeping, cookery, and medicine. (2) His great work was the Origines , the earliest history in Latin prose, the contents of which are enumerated by Nepos, Cato , 3, 3, ‘Senex his to rias scribere instituit. Earum sunt libri vii. Primus continet res gest as regum populi Romani, secund us et tertius unde quaeque civitas ort a sit Italic a (ob quam rem omnes Origines videtur appella e); in quarto autem bellum Poenicum est primum, in quin to secundum. Atque haec omnia capitula tim sunt dicta. Reliqua quoque bell a par i modo perse cut us est usque ad praeturam Ser. Galbae, qui diripuit Lusitanos ( B.C. 151). Atque horum bellorum duces non nominavit, sed sine no minibus res notavit. [22] In eisdem exposuit quae in Italia His pan i is que aut fierent aut viderentur admiranda: in quibus multa industria et diligent i a comparet, nulla doctrina.’ An attempt has been made by A. Bormann ( M. Porcii Cat on is Originum Libri vii. , Brandenburg 1858, p. 38) to prove that the principle of division was geographical, and that history only came in incidentally in connexion with the reduction of provinces; but as Nepos was writing to an eminent authority on antiquities, his account is likely to be right. The period between the kings and the Punic Wars was probably omitted by Cato through want of authorities. The title Origines fails to indicate the scope of the work, which was chiefly occupied with general history; it was probably taken, as Nepos suggests, from the contents of Books ii. and iii., which seem to have been the most novel and valuable part of the undertaking. (Jordan, however, takes ‘Origines’ as equivalent, not to the Greek κτίσεις , but to ‘res Romanae ab origine repetitae.’) (3) Praecepta ad Filium was the general title of a didactic work containing rules for medicine, husbandry, and rhetoric ( e.g. ‘Rem tene, verb a sequentur’). Cf. Quint. iii. 1, 19, ‘Romanorum primus, quantum ego quidem sci am, con did it aliqua in hanc materiam (rhetoric) M. Cato ille Censor i us.’ (4) Speeches. —Fragments of eighty speeches, out of about two hundred and thirty, are collected by Jordan. They are almost equally divided between forensic and deliberative speeches: none is known of earlier date than B.C. 195. Cato incorporated some of them in the Origines , e.g. For the Rhodians (Gell. vi. 3, 7), and Against Galba (Cic. Brut. 89). Works on civil law are attributed to Cato, and we hear also of ἀποφθέγματα (Cic. de Off. i. 104), Liber de re militar i (Gell. vi. 4, 5), and Carmen de moribus (Gell. xi. 2, 2).