Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/652

Rh 634 CATIUS. L ii. iii. iv., pro Sulla, pro Murena, 25, 26, in Pison. 2, pro Place. 40, pro Plane. 37, ad Att. i. 19, ii. 1, xii. 21, xvi. 14, ckZ Fam. i. 9 ; Sueton. Jul. 14 ; Plut. Cic. 10-22, Cat.Min. 23. Muretus, ad Cic. Cat. i. 1, has collected from ancient authorities the names of forty persons connected with the conspi- racy. Dion Cassius is very confused in his chro- nology'. His account would lead us to suppose, that the first efforts of Catiline were confined in a great measure to the destruction of Cicero and those senators who supported the TuUian law against bribery, which he believed to be levelled against himself individually, and that he did not form the project of a general revolution until after his second defeat, at the election in 63. But this is manifestly impossible ; for in that case the whole of the extensive preparations for the plot must have been devised and completed within the space of a few days.) [W. R.] L. CATI'LIUS SEVE'RUS. [Severus.] CATIVOLCUS, king of half of the country of the Eburones, a people between the Meuse and the Rhine, united with Ambiorix, the other king, in the insurrection against the Romans in b. c. 54 ; but when Caesar in the next year proceeded to devastate the territories of the Eburones, Cativol- cus, who was advanced in age and unable to endure the labours of war and flight, poisoned himself, after imprecating curses upon Ambiorix. (Caes. B. G. v. 24, vi. 31.) CA'TIUS, a Roman divinity, who was invoked under the name of divus Catius pater to grant pru- dence and thoughtfulness to children at the time when their consciousness was beginning to awaken. (Augustin. De Civil. Dei, iv. 21.) [L. S.] CA'TIUS. 1. Q. Catius, plebeian aedile B.C. 210 with L. Porcius Licinus, celebrated the games with great magnificence, and with the money arising from fines erected some brazen statues near the temple of Ceres. He served as legate in the army of the consul C. Claudius Nero in the cam- paign against Hasdrubal in b. c. 207, and was one of the envoys sent to Delphi two years afterwards to present to the temple some offerings from the booty obtained on the conquest of Hasdrubal. (Liv. xxvii. 6, 43, xxviii. 45.) 2. C. Catius, a Vestinian, tribune of the sol- diers in the army of Antony, B. c. 43. (Cic. ad Fam. X. 23.) CA'TIUS, an Epicurean philosopher, was a na- tive of Gallia Transpadana (Insuber), and composed a treatise in four books on the nature of things and on the chief good (de Rerum Natura et de summo Bono). Cicero, in a letter written B.c. 45 (ad Fam. XV. 16), speaks of him as having died recently, and jests with his correspondent about the "spectra Catiana," that is, the c5f5wAa or material images which were supposed by the disciples of the garden to present themselves to the mind, and thus to call up the idea of absent objects, Quintilian (x. 1. § 124) characterises him briefly as "in Epicureis levis quidem sed non injucundus auctor." The old commentators on Horace all assert, that the Catius addressed in the fourth satire of the second book, and who is there introduced as delivering a grave and sententious lecture on various topics connected with the pleasures of the table, is Catius the Epi- curean, author of the work whose title we have given above. It appears certain, however, from the words of Cicero, that the satire in question could not have been written until several years CATO. after the death of Catius ; and therefore it is probable that Horace may intend under thia nickname to designate some of the gourmands of the court. [W. R.] CATO, DIONY'SIUS. We possess a small volume which commonly bears the title " Dionysii Catonis Disticha de Moribus ad Filium." It commences with a preface addressed by the au- thor to his son, pointing out how prone men are to go astray for want of proper counsel, and invit- ing his earnest attention to the instructive lessons about to be inculcated. Next come fifty-six pro- verb-like injunctions, very briefly expressed, such as " parentem ama," " diligentiam adhibe," "jus- jurandum serva," and the like, which are followed by the main body of the work, consisting of a se- ries of sententious moral precepts, one hundred and forty-four in nimiber, each apophthegm being enun- ciated in two dactylic hexameters. The collection is divided into four books; to the second, third, and fourth of these are attached short metrical prefaces, and the whole is wound up by a couplet containing a sort of apology for the form in which the materials are presented to the reader. It is amusing to take a survey of the extraordi- nary number of conflicting opinions which have been entertained by scholars of eminence with re- gard to the real author of this work, the period when it was composed, its intrinsic merits, and indeed every circumstance in any way connected with it directly or indirectly. It has been assigned with perfect confidence to Seneca, to Ausonius, to Serenus Samonicus, to Boethius, to an Octavius, to a Probus, and to a variety of unknown personages. The language has been pronounced worthy of the purest era of Latin composition, and declared to be a specimen of the worst epoch of barbarism. The adages themselves have been extolled by some as the dignified exposition of high philosophy ; by others they have been contemptuously characterised as, with few exceptions, a farrago of vapid trash. One critic, at least, has discovered that the writer was undoubtedly a Christian, and has traced nearly the whole of the distichs to the Bible ; while others find the clearest proofs of a mind thoroughly im- bued with Pagan creeds and rites. In so far as the literary merits of the production are concerned, if we distrust our own judgment, we can feel little hesitation in believing that what such men as Erasmus, Joseph Scaliger, Laurentius Valla, and Pithou concurred in admiring warmly and prais- ing loudly, cannot, although its merits may have been exaggerated, be altogether worthless ; and any scholar, who examines the book with an im- partial eye, will readily perceive that, making al- lowance for the numerous and palpable corruptions, the style is not unworthy of the Silver Age. As to the other matters under discussion, it will be sufficient to state what facts we can actually prove. The very circumstance that every one of the sup- positions alluded to above has been ingeniously maintained and ingeniously refuted, would in it- self lead us to conclude, that the evidence which admits of such opposite interpretations must be both scanty and indistinct. Tlie work is first mentioned in an epistle ad- dressed by Vindicianus, Comes Archiatrorura, to Valentinian, in which he states that a certain sick man used often to repeat the words of Cato — "Corporis exigiui (leg. auxilium) medico committQ fideU"—