Marcus Porcius Cato Biography

Dromo's Den

CATO, Marcus Porcius (234-149 B.C.). A Roman statesman, surnamed Censorius and Sapiens (the wise), afterward known as Cato Priscus, or Cato Major (Cato the Elder), to distinguish him from Cato of Utica. He was born near Tusculum, where the modern village of Monte Porzio Catone perpetuates his memory. Having inherited from his plebeian father a small farm in the Sabine country, he busied himself in agricultural operations and learned to love the simple and severe manners of his Roman forefathers. Induced by Lucius Valerius Flaccus to remove to Rome, Cato denounced the purposes and the degeneracy (so he called it) of the Philo-Hellenic party, then becoming prominent, and set a pattern of sterner and purer character. He soon distinguished himself as a pleader, and, after passing through minor offices, was elected consul (195 B.C.). In his Province of Hither Spain Cato was so successful in restoring order and displayed such military genius that he was honored by a triumph (194).

In 184 Cato was elected censor and discharged so rigorously the duties of his office that the epithet Censorious, formerly applied to all holders of that office, was made his distinctive surname. He repaired the watercourses, bricked the reservoirs, cleansed the drains, increased the sums paid by the publicani (q.v.) for the farming of the taxes, and diminished the prices paid by the state to the contractors of public works. More questionable attempts at reforms were those in regard to restricting the prices that might legally be paid for slaves, dress, furniture, equipage, etc. Cato was a thoroughly dogmatic moralist, intolerant and stoical; great because he manfully contended with rapidly growing evils, yet not wise, because he opposed both bad and good innovations with equal animosity. He was always scrupulously honest.

In 175 B.C. Cato was sent to Carthage to help settle the differences between the Carthaginians and the Numidian King Masinissa; but having been offended by the Carthaginians, he returned to Rome, where, ever afterward, he described Carthage as the most formidable rival of the Empire, and concluded all his addresses in the Senate house-whatever the immediate subject might be-with the well-known words: "Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam" (`Moreover, I believe that Carthage must be destroyed').

Though Cato was early acquainted with the Greek language and its literature, his reactionary principles led him to denounce the latter as injurious to national morals. In his eightieth year his second wife, Salonia, bore him a son the grandfather of Cato of Utica. He composed various literary works, such as De Agri Cultura (or De Re Rustica), which has been preserved entire. The best edition is by Keil (Leipzig, 1884). His greatest historical work,the Origines, in 7 books, has, unfortunately, perished. It was called Origines because, in addition to the history of Rome, it described the origins of the Italian towns with which Rome had come in contact. Fragments of Cato's orations-of which 150 were read by Cicero-are given in Meyer's Oratorum Romanorum Fragmenta (Zurich, 1842). As an orator Cato was very famous, his style being natural, forcible, and racy to a degree. See Sears, History of Oratory (Chicago, 1896). For the fragments consult the edition by Jordan (Leipzig, 1850); also H. Peter, Historicorum Romanorum Fragmenta (Leipzig, 1870). For a translation of De Agri Cultura, see Roman Farm Management: The Treatises of Varro and Cato done into English, by a Virginia Former (New York, 1913).

The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. IV (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 691.