Marcus Porcius Cato - Biography, Cato's writings

Roman statesman, orator, and man of letters, born in Tusculum, Latium. Deeply conservative, and strongly opposed to the contemporary fashion of all things Greek, when made censor (184 BC) he conducted such a vigorous campaign that he was thereafter known by this name. Sent on a mission to Carthage (175 BC), he was so impressed by the power of the Carthaginians that afterwards he ended every speech in the Senate with the words: ‘Carthage must be destroyed’. His treatise on agriculture is the oldest extant literary prose work in Latin.

Marcus Porcius Cato (Latin: M·PORCIVS·M·F·CATO) (234 BC, Tusculum–149 BC) was a Roman statesman, surnamed the Censor (Censorius), Sapiens, Priscus, or the Elder (Major), to distinguish him from Cato the Younger (his great-grandson).

He came of an ancient plebeian family, noted for some military services, but not ennobled by the discharge of the higher civil offices. He was bred, after the manner of his Latin forefathers, to agriculture, to which he devoted himself when not engaged in military service. But, having attracted the notice of Lucius Valerius Flaccus, he was brought to Rome, and became successively quaestor (204 BC), aedile (199 BC), praetor (198 BC), and finally consul (195 BC) together with his old patron.

Biography

Origin

Porcia Gens

Cato the Elder was born at Tusculum, a municipal town of Latium, to which his ancestors had belonged for some generations. Cato the Elder, their famous descendant, at the beginning of his career in Rome, was regarded as a novus homo, and the feeling of his unsatisfactory position, working along with the self-awareness of inherent superiority, contributed to exasperate and stimulate his ambitious soul.

Cognomen Cato

His ancestors for three generations had been named Marcus Porcius, and it is said by Plutarch that at first he was known by the additional cognomen Priscus, but was afterwards called Cato—a word indicating that practical wisdom which is the result of natural sagacity, combined with experience of civil and political affairs. However, it may well be doubted whether Priscus, like Major, were not merely an epithet used to distinguish him from the later Cato of Utica, and there is no precise information as to the date when he first received the title of Cato, which may have been given in childhood as a symbol of distinction. The qualities implied in the word Cato were acknowledged by the plainer and less oudated title of Sapiens, by which he was so well known in his old age, that Cicero says, it became his virtual cognomen. From the number and eloquence of his speeches, he was styled orator, but Cato the Censor (Cato Censorius), and Cato the Elder are now his most common, as well as his most characteristic names, since he carried out the office of censor with extraordinary standing, and was the only Cato who ever accomplished it.

Deducing the year of birth

In order to determine the date of Cato's birth, we consider the records of ancient writers as to his age at the time of his death, which is known to have happened 149 BC. According to the coherent chronology of Cicero Cato was born in 234 BC, in the year before the first consulship of Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus, and died at the age of 85, in the consulship of Lucius Marcius Censorinus and Manius Manilius. Other authors exaggerate the age of Cato. The exaggerated age, however, is inconsistent with a statement recorded by Plutarch on the asserted authority of Cato himself.

Cato is represented to have said, that he served his first campaign in his 17th year, when Hannibal was overrunning Italy. Plutarch, who had the works of Cato before him, but was careless in dates, did not observe that the estimation of Livy would take back Cato's 17th year to 222, when there was not a Carthaginian in Italy, whereas the computation of Cicero would make the truth of Cato's statement in harmony with the date of Hannibal's first invasion.

Youth

Second Punic War

When Cato was a very young man, the death of his father put him in possession of a small hereditary property in the Sabine territory, at a distance from his native town. The memory of this hero inspired Cato, who decided to imitate the character, and hoped to match the glory of, Dentatus. Soon came up an opportunity in the military campaign of 217 BC during the Second Punic War against Hannibal Barca. There is some discrepancy among experts as to the events of Cato's early military life. In 214 BC he served at Capua, and the historian Wilhelm Drumann imagines that already, at the age of 20, he was a military tribune. At the siege of Tarentum, 209 BC, Cato was again at the side of Fabius. Two years later, Cato was one of the select group who went with the consul Claudius Nero on his northern march from Lucania to check the progress of Hasdrubal Barca. It is recorded that the services of Cato contributed not a little to the decisive victory of Sena on the Metaurus, where Hasdrubal was slain.

Between the wars

In the pauses between campaigns, Cato returned to his Sabine farm, using a simple dress, and working and behaving like his laborers.

Follower of the old Roman strictness

In the surrounding area of Catos's Sabine farm were the lands of Lucius Valerius Flaccus, a young nobleman of significant influence, and high patrician family. Flaccus could not help remarking the energy of Cato, his military talent, his eloquence, his frugal and simple life, and his traditional principles. Cato's friends, Fabius and Flaccus, were the leading men in the faction defending the old plainness.

Path to magistracies

Flaccus was a perceptive politician who looked for young and emergent men to support them. He had observed Cato's martial spirit and eloquent tongue. Finally, Flaccus knew too that for a stranger like Cato, the only way to the magisterial honors was success in the Roman Forum. For that reason, he suggested to Cato that he shift his ambition to the fruitful field of Roman politics. Invited to the town-house of Flaccus, and ratified by his support, Cato began to distinguish himself in the forum, and became a candidate for assuming a post in the magistracy.

Early military career

Quaestor

In 205 BC, Cato was appointed quaestor, and in the next year (204 BC) he entered upon the duties of his place of work, following Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus Major to Sicily. When Scipio, acting on the consent which, after much opposition, he had obtained from the senate, transported the armed forces from Sicily into Africa, Cato and Gaius Laelius were appointed to escort the baggage ships. There was not that friendliness of cooperation between Cato and Scipio which ought to exist between a quaestor and his proconsul. Fabius had opposed the permission given to Scipio to carry out the attack into the enemy's home, and Cato, whose appointment was intended to monitor Scipio's behavior, adopted the views of his friend. It is reported by Plutarch, that the lenient discipline of the troops under Scipio's command, and the exaggerated expense incurred by the general, provoked the protest of Cato; that Cato left his place of duty after the dispute with Scipio about his alleged extravagance, and returning to Rome, condemned the uneconomical activities of his general to the senate; and that, at the joint request of Cato and Fabius, a commission of tribunes was sent to Sicily to examine the behavior of Scipio, who was found not guilty upon the view of his extensive and careful arrangements for the transport of the troops. This version is barely consistent with the narrative of Livy, and would seem to attribute to Cato the wrongdoing of quitting his post before his time. Livy says not a word of Cato's interference in this matter, but mentions the bitterness with which Fabius blamed Scipio of corrupting military discipline and of having illegally left his province to take the town of Locri.

The author of the abridged life of Cato which is commonly considered as the work of Cornelius Nepos, assert that Cato, after his return from Africa, put in at Sardinia, and brought the poet Quintus Ennius in his own ship from the island to Italy; but Sardinia was rather out of the line of the trip to Rome, and it is more likely that the first contact of Ennius and Cato happened at a later date, when the latter was praetor in Sardinia.

Aedile and praetor

In 199 BC Cato was chosen aedile, and with his colleague Helvius, restored the plebeian games, and gave upon that occasion a banquet in honor of Jupiter. In 198 BC he was made praetor, and obtained Sardinia as his province, with the command of 3,000 infantry and 200 cavalry. Sardinia had been for some time completely calmed, but if we are to believe the improbable and unsupported testimony of Aurelius Victor, a revolt in the island was subdued by Cato, during his praetorship.

Consul

Repeal of the Oppian law

In 195 BC he was elected consul with his old friend and patron Flaccus. Cato was thirty-nine years old. In 215 BC, at the height of the Second Punic War, a law —the Oppian Law, (Lex Oppia)— had been passed at the request of the tribune of the plebs Gaius Oppius, to restrict luxury and extravagance on the part of women. Even Flaccus hesitated, but his colleague Cato was inflexible, and made an impolite and characteristic speech, the substance of which, remodeled and modernized, is given by Livy.

Just had this important affair been concluded when Cato, who had maintained during its progress a severe and determined firmness without, perhaps, any very serious damage to his popularity, set sail for his appointed province, Hispania Citerior.

Post in Hispania Citerior

In his campaign in Hispania, Cato behaved keeping with his reputation of untiring hard work and alertness.

The details of the campaign, as related by Livy, and illustrated by the incidental anecdotes of Plutarch, are full of horror and they make clear that Cato reduced Hispania Citerior to subjection with great speed and little mercy.

His Roman triumph

When he had reduced the whole area of land between the river Iberus and the Pyrenees to a hollow, resentful, and temporary obedience, he turned his attention to administrative reforms, and increased the revenues of the province by improvements in the working of the iron and silver mines. In the course of the year, 194 BC, he returned to Rome, and was rewarded with the honor of a Roman triumph, at which he exhibited an extraordinary quantity of captured brass, silver, and gold, both coin and ingots.

End of his consulship

The return of Cato seems to have been speeded up by the enmity of Scipio Africanus, who was consul, 194 BC and is said to have desired the command of the province in which Cato was harvesting notoriety. The former asserts that Scipio was unsuccessful in his effort to obtain the province, and, offended by the reject, remained after the end of his consulship, in a private capacity at Rome. The latter relates that Scipio, who was disgusted by Cato's severity, was actually appointed to succeed him, but, not being able to secure from the senate a vote of censure upon the administration of his rival, passed the time of his command in total inactivity. From the statement in Livy, that in 194 BC, Sextus Digitius was appointed to the province of Hispania Citerior, it is probable that Plutarch was mistaken in assigning that province to Scipio Africanus. The notion that Africanus was appointed successor to Cato in Spain may have arisen from a double confusion of name and place, due to the fact that Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica was chosen, 194 BC, to the province of Hispania Ulterior.

However the true facts may be, Cato successfully proved himself by his eloquence, and by the production of detailed financial accounts, against the attacks made on his behavior while consul;

Plutarch affirms that, after his consulship, Cato accompanied Tiberius Sempronius Longus as legatus to Thrace, but here there seems to be a mistake, for though Scipio Africanus was of opinion that one of the consuls should have Macedonia, we soon find Sempronius in Cisalpine Gaul, and in 193 BC, we find Cato at Rome dedicating to Victoria Virgo a small temple which he had vowed two years before.

Late military career

Battle of Thermopylae

The military career of Cato was not yet ended. In 191 BC, he was appointed military tribune (some affirm that legatus), under the consul Manius Acilius Glabrio, who was dispatched to Greece to oppose the invasion of Antiochus III the Great, king of the Seleucid Empire. In the decisive Battle of Thermopylae (191 BC), which led to the downfall of Antiochus, Cato behaved with his usual valor, and enjoyed the good fortune. After the action, the general hugged Cato with the greatest warmness, and attributed to him the whole credit of the victory. This fact rests on the authority of Cato himself, who, like Cicero, often indulged in the habit, offensive to modern taste, of sounding his own praises. After an interval spent in the pursuit of Antiochus and the pacification of Greece, Cato was sent to Rome by the consul Glabrio to announce the successful outcome of the campaign, and he performed his journey with such celerity that he had started his report in the senate before the arrival of Lucius Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus, the later conqueror of Antiochus, who had been sent off from Greece a few days before him.

A doubtful visit to Athens

It was during the campaign in Greece under Glabrio, and, as it would appear from the account of Plutarch, (rejected by the historian Wilhelm Drumann) before the battle of Thermopylae, that Cato was chosen to keep Corinth, Patrae, and Aegium, from siding with Antiochus. Already perhaps he had a basic knowledge of Greek, for, it is said by Plutarch, that, while at Tarentum in his youth, he became in close friendship with Nearchus, a Greek philosopher, and it is said by Aurelius Victor that while praetor in Sardinia, he received instruction in Greek from Ennius. Nevertheless as because his speech was an affair of state, it is probably that he used the Latin language, in compliance with the Roman norm, which was observed as a diplomatic mark of Roman dignity.

Influence in Rome

His reputation as a soldier was now established; Cato's enmity dated from the African campaign when he quarrelled with Scipio for his lavish distribution of the spoil amongst the troops, and his general luxury and extravagance.

Cato was also opposed to the spread of Hellenic culture, which he believed threatened to destroy the rugged simplicity of the conventional Roman type.

His regulations against luxury were very stringent. In 181 BC he supported the lex Orchia (according to others, he first opposed its introduction, and subsequently its repeal), which prescribed a limit to the number of guests at an entertainment, and in 169 BC the lex Voconia, one of the provisions of which was intended to check the accumulation of an undue proportion of wealth in the hands of women.

Amongst other things he repaired the aqueducts, cleansed the sewers, prevented private persons drawing off public water for their own use, ordered the demolition of houses which encroached on the public way, and built the first basilica in the Forum near the Curia (Livy, History, 39.44;

Later years

From the date of his censorship (184) to his death in 149 BC, Cato held no public office, but continued to distinguish himself in the senate as the persistent opponent of the new ideas.

He had a horror of physicians, who were chiefly Greeks. It was not till his eightieth year that he made his first acquaintance with Greek literature, though some think after examining his writings that he may have had a knowledge of Greek works for much of his life.

In his last years he was known for strenuously urging his countrymen to the Third Punic War and the destruction of Carthage. In 157 BC he was one of the deputies sent to Carthage to arbitrate between the Carthaginians and Massinissa, king of Numidia. But Cato was so struck by the evidences of Carthaginian prosperity that he was convinced that the security of Rome depended on the annihilation of Carthage.

To Cato the individual life was a continual discipline, and public life was the discipline of the many. his pride alone induced him to take a warmer interest in his sons, Marcus Porcius Cato Licinianus and Marcus Porcius Cato Salonianus.

To the Romans themselves there was little in this behaviour which seemed worthy of censure; 40) in which Livy describes the character of Cato, there is no word of blame for the rigid discipline of his household.

Cato's writings

Cato is famous not only as statesman or soldier, but also as author. Some have argued that if it were not for the impact of Cato's writing, Latin might have been supplanted by Greek as the literary language of Rome. It is a miscellaneous collection of rules of husbandry and management, including fascinating sidelights on country life in the 2nd century BC. Cato advises on hiring gangs for the olive harvest, and was noted for his chilling advice on keeping slaves continually at work, on reducing rations for slaves when sick, and on selling slaves that are old or sickly. Probably Cato's most important work, Origines, in seven books, related the history of the Italian towns, with special attention to Rome, from their legendary or historical foundation to his own day. Under the Roman Empire a collection of about 150 political speeches by Cato existed. The first to which we can give a date was On the Improper Election of the Aediles, delivered in 202 BC. It is not clear whether Cato allowed others to read and copy his written texts (in other words, whether he "published" the speeches) or whether their circulation in written form began after his death.

In due course, my son Marcus, I shall explain what I found out in Athens about these Greeks, and demonstrate what advantage there may be in looking into their writings (while not taking them too seriously).

A history of Rome "in big letters" from which Cato taught his son to read.

The two surviving collections of proverbs known as Distichs of Cato and Monosticha Catonis, in hexameter verse, probably belong to the 4th century AD. They are not really by Cato.