CATO THE ELDER
[a.k.a. Cato the Censor]

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oman education for the upper classes in Cato’s time was expected to include a broad range of skills and general knowledge. Cato considered the five following branches of education as fundamental: oratory, agriculture, law, war, and medicine. Several generations later considered oratory the fundamental branch of education, as composed of grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric known as the trivium. Cato’s branches of agriculture, law, and war were eventually considered as professions and replaced by the quadrivium: geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, and music.

Cato believed that 2 qualifications were essential to being a great orator: wide knowledge and a good character. In Cato’s words, ‘uir bonus dicendi peritus’, where he writes that “In the teacher of oratory also moral qualities are required” (p. 318, Literary History of Rome/Silver Age, Duff). Though Cato wrote in a very simple Latin style “rem tene, verba sequentur" : keep to the subject and the words will follow” (p. 84, Vol.5, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Marcus Porcius Cato), the influence of Greek rhetoric can be heard in his speeches. Of the more than 150 speeches that he published, only small portions have survived. He compiled an encyclopedia of rules, or maxims, for his son entitled Praecepta. He also compiled a comprehensive instructive encyclopedia for his son on medicine, law, military science, morals, farming, and other subjects entitled Vade-mecum. Cato wrote a series of handbooks for his son covering various subjects, excluding philosophy, since Romans were of such high character and morality that they did not need to waste their time studying philosophy. He filled these handbooks with praise of Roman classical values, dignity, and austerity. These works were written to provide his son with a Roman “cultural” education so that he would not be influenced by Greek literature or education. During this time it was first becoming popular for many Roman noblemen to send their sons to be educated in Athens.

In a manual on the art of speaking that he wrote for his son, he based his instruction on meticulous observation of the style of the Greek orators Demosthenes and Thucydides! Cato was not ignorant of Greek as a grown man since he negotiated with Greeks in law and business, but it was not until he was much older, possibly towards the end of his life, that he began to study Greek literature and culture and acknowledge his admiration and respect for it. The debate all of his life was not so much as conservative versus liberal values and morality but classical austere Roman culture versus the more luxurious and dangerous freedoms arising out of the “enlightenment and relaxation of traditional values” and ideas coming out of what he saw as a threatening liberal Greek culture. In his later years, he took to capitalist farming, became less critical of Greek influence in Rome, and professed his admiration of Greek literature.

ato’s style of writing showed a simple form lacking eloquence but highly theatrical. His speeches show a didactic presentation, witty and powerful, by a skillful orator expressing classical values. His writing is dry and direct. In his own words, the main principle in rhetoric is that “you hold fast to the matter (the subject) and the words will follow— rem tene, verba sequentur”.

Ancient Roman society did not respect artists, especially poets. They were respected as much as non-productive slothful individuals. The tragedies of Livius, the great Greek dramatist, were translated into Latin. Livius not only wrote plays but acted in them as well. As a result of his writing and activities in promoting the interests of the guild of writers and actors, poetry began to receive official public recognition. Though Cato was born 6 years after the writing of Livius’ first play, Livius influenced his writing and the literary atmosphere in which Cato wrote his poetry.

Cato brought the talented writer of Greek, Oscan, and Latin, Quintus Ennius (239-169 BC) to Rome. Ironically, Ennius was a major force in introducing Greek culture into Rome, but for his shaping of Roman patriotism and the influence he had in shaping the development of Latin literature, he is often considered the father of Latin literature.

Latin writers used the encyclopedic method as a means of instruction. One might say that this began with Cato’s Origines and his De Re Rustica, also known as De Agri Cultura. One of Cato’s greatest literary accomplishments is his 7-volume encyclopedic history of Rome that was written for his son and is known as Origines. In his old age, he compiled this Roman history with (1) a collection of ideas on all sorts of subjects such as geography and ethnography, (2) Roman politics, social life, ideals, and traditions, and (3) reminiscences of his personal experiences and travels, into an encyclopedic work. The first volume talks about the kings of the Romans during the regal period. The second and third volumes discuss the origins or rise and prosperity of Italian cities, hence the name Origines. The fourth volume was about the First Punic War, and the fifth volume about the Second Punic War. The last two were personal narratives that continued until 149 BC—the year of his death. Hadas (p.162) believes that “The latter four books seemed to have been joined on to the first three after Cato’s death and the title Origines then applied to the whole.”

Cato’s historical writings were considered didactic and presented forcefully in “unadorned directness”, rather than with graceful form. His disdain of the indulgent aristocracy led to his suppressing of the names of the generals, thus denying the powerful and influential families their rightful glory and pride.

Written about 160 B.C., De Agri Cultura's origin was most probably notes for private use. Losing its "archaic" diction by modernizations, it has maintained its original spirit. It includes the instructions for the construction of a threshing floor and medicine for cattle, but embedded are recipes for cakes and many old world dainties. His list of duties on a rainy day:

Cum tempestates pluuiae fuerint, quae opera per imbrem fieri potuerint, dolia lauri, picari, uillam purgari, frumentum transferri, stercus foras efferi, sterquilinium fieri, semen purgari, funes sarciri, nouos fieri, centones, cucliones, familiam oportuisse sibi sarcire (s.c. reuoca ad rationem).

Included in De Agri Cultura was: the preserving of olives, the sacrifice before the harvest, the treatment of those with gout, and the management of dogs. De Agri Cultura then closes with a few miscellaneous paragraphs on chafed skin(intertrigo), the cantation for a sprain, cabbages, the growing of asparagus & the curing of hams.

An authentic collection of his sayings was compiled in a book of verse proverbs. His maxims and moralizings are presented in groups of two hexameters. Later, altered versions, counterfeit imitations, that arose as the set of 4 books evolved, came to be known as Catonis disticha. Catonis referring to wise Cato and disticha referring to the Latin word distichon meaning poetic verse consisting of 2 lines. Continued...

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