Marcus Porcius Cato

Marcus Porcius Cato (born 234 bc, Tusculum, Latium [Italy]—died 149) was a Roman statesman, orator, and the first Latin prose writer of importance. He was noted for his conservative and anti-Hellenic policies, in opposition to the phil-Hellenic ideals of the Scipio family.

Cato was born of plebeian stock and fought as a military tribune in the Second Punic War. His oratorical and legal skills and his rigid morality attracted the notice of the patrician Lucius Valerius Flaccus, who helped him begin a political career at Rome. Cato was elected quaestor (205), aedile (199), and praetor (198) in Sardinia, where he suppressed usury. He was elected consul with Flaccus in 195, and as consul he unsuccessfully opposed the repeal of a measure restricting female extravagance (Lex Oppia). Then, in an extensive and bitter military campaign, he stamped out an insurrection in Spain and organized the province of Nearer Spain. In 191 Cato served with distinction under Manius Acilius Glabrio at Thermopylae in the war against the Seleucid king Antiochus III. Shortly thereafter he included Glabrio in his denunciation of the supporters of the Scipios. He then attacked Lucius Scipio and Scipio Africanus the Elder and broke their political influence. This success was followed by his election to the censorship in 184, again with Flaccus as his colleague. (The censors were twin magistrates who acted as census takers, assessors, and inspectors of morals and conduct.)

As censor Cato aimed at preserving the mos majorum (“ancestral custom”) and combating all Greek influences, which he believed were undermining older Roman standards of morality. He passed measures taxing luxury and strictly revised the list of persons eligible for the Senate. He checked abuses by the tax gatherers, and he promoted much public building, including the Basilica Porta (the first market hall in Rome). Cato’s censorship impressed later generations but was too reactionary; his anti-Hellenic policies, in particular, were retrograde and lacked wide support. His sternness as censor made him so many enemies that he later had to defend himself 44 times against various accusations and attempted prosecutions.

After his term as censor, Cato continued to preach his social doctrines and to support such measures as the Lex Orchia against luxury (181) and the Lex Voconia (169), which checked the financial freedom of women. In his later years he turned to capitalistic farming, speculation, and moneylending on a considerable scale. His embassy to Carthage (probably 153) convinced him that the revived prosperity of Rome’s old enemy constituted a new threat. Cato constantly repeated his admonition “Carthage must be destroyed” (“Delenda est Carthago”), and he lived to see war declared on Carthage in 149.

Cato’s dislike of luxury and ostentation partly explains his deep hatred of the Scipio family. He himself affected rustic manners and speech, though he was witty and deeply learned. Cato’s influence on the growth of Latin literature was immense. He was the author of Origines, the first history of Rome composed in Latin. This work, of whose seven books only a few fragments survive, related the traditions of the founding of Rome and other Italian cities. Cato’s only surviving work is De agri cultura (On Farming), a treatise on agriculture written about 160 bc. De agri cultura is the oldest remaining complete prose work in Latin. It is a practical handbook dealing with the cultivation of grape vines and olives and the grazing of livestock, but it also contains many details of old customs and superstitions. More important, it affords a wealth of information on the transition from small landholdings to capitalistic farming in Latium and Campania. Cato also compiled an encyclopaedia and Praecepta (“Maxims”) for his son, in addition to works on medicine, jurisprudence, and military science. Of at least 150 speeches he published, only meagre fragments of about 80 survive.