Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/654

Rh €d€ CJ ITO. CATO. a 1 b 1 4. M. Poa-ius Cato, C08.B.C. 118. 1 8. M, Porcius Cato, Pr. 5. C. Porcius Cato, 6. M. Porcius Cato, Tr. Cos. B. c. 11 4. PI. married Livia. 7. L. Porcias Cato, Cos. B. c. 89. 9. M. Porcius Cato Uticensis, Pr. B. c. 54, married 1. Atilia. 2. Marcia. 1 10. Porcia, married L. Domitius Ahenobarbus. 1 1 . Porcia, married 1. M. Bibulus. 2. M. Enitus. 12. M. Porcius 13. Porcius 14. Porcia. Cato, died Cato. B, c. 42. 15. A son or daughter. 16. C. Porcius Cato, Tr. PI. b. c. 56. 1. M. Porcius Cato Cknsorhts, was born at Tusculura, a municipal town of Latiura, to which his ancestors had belonged for some generations. His father had earned the reputation of a brave soldier, and his great-grandfather had received an honorary compensation from the state for five horses killed under him in battle. The haughtiest patri- cian of Rome never exulted in the splendour of the purest nobility with a spirit more proud than Cato's when he remembered the warlike achievements and the municipal respectability of his family, to which he ascribed extreme antiquity. Yet the Tusculan Porcii had never obtained the honours of the Roman magistracy. Their illustrious descendant, at the commencement of his career in the great city, was regarded as a novus homo, and the feeling of his unmeet position, working along with the conscious- ness of inherent superiority, contributed to exas- perate and stimulate his ambitious soul. Early in life, he so far eclipsed the previous glimmer of his race, that he is constantly spoken of, not only as the leader, but as the founder, of the Porcia Gens. His ancestors for three generations had been named M. Porcius, and it is said by Plutarch {Cato Maj. 1), that at first he was known by the additional cognomen Priscus, but was afterwards called Cato — a word denoting that practical wis- dom which is the result of natural sagacity, com- bined with experience of civil and political affairs. However, it may well be doubted whether Priscus, like Major, were not merely an epithet used to dis- tinguish him from the later Cato of Utica, and we have no precise information as to the date when he first received the appellation of. Cato, which may have been bestowed in childhood rather as an omen of eminence, than as a tribute to past desert. The qualities implied in the word Cato were ac- knowledged by the plainer and less archaic title of Sapiens, by which he was so well known in his old age, that Cicero {Amic. 2) says, it became his quasi cognomen. From the number and eloquence of his speeches, he was styled orator (Justin, xxxiii. 2 ; Gell. xvii. 21), but Cato the Censor, or Cato Censorius, is now his most common, as well his most characteristic appellation, since he filled the office of censor with extraodinar}' repute, and was the only Cato who ever filled it. In order to ascertain the date of Cato's birth, M'e have to consider the testimony of ancient wri- tiM'3 as to his age at the time of his death, which is known to have happened b. c. 149, How far we are to go back from this date is a question upon which the authorities are not unanimous. Accord- ing to the consistent chronology of Cicero (Senect. 4), Cato was bom B. c. 234, in the year preceding the first consulship of Q. Fabius Maximus, and died at the age of 85, in the consulship of L, Mar- cius and M. Manilius. Pliny (H. N. xxix. 8) agrees with Cicero. Other authors exaggerate the age of Cato. According to Valerius Maximus (viii. 7. § 1) he survived his 86th year; according to Livy (xxxix. 40) and Plutarch (Cat. Maj. 15) he was 90 years old when lie died. The exagge- rated age, however, is inconsistent with a statement recorded by Plutarch (Cat. Maj. 1) on the assert- ed authority of Cato himself. Cato is represented to have said, that he served his first campjiign in his 17th year, when Hannibal was over-running Italy. Plutarch, who had the works of Cato before him, but was careless in dates, did not observe that the reckoning of Livy would take back Cato's 17 th year to b. c. 222, when there was not a Carthaginian in Italy, whereas the reckoning of Cicero would make the truth of Cato's statement reconcileable with the date of Hannibal's first invasion. When Cato was a very young man, the death of his father put him in possession of a small heredi- tary estate in the Sabine territory, at a distance from his native town. It was here that he passed the greater part of his boyhood, hardening his body by healthful exercise, superintending and sharing the operations of the farm, learning the manner in which business was transacted, and studying the rules of rural econom5 Near his estate was an humble cottage which had been tenanted, after three triumphs, by its owner M. Curius Dentatus, whose warlike exploits and rigidly simple character were fresh in the memory of the old, and were often talked of with admiration in the neighbourhood. Tile ardour of the youthful Cato was kindled. He resolved to imitate the character, and hoped to rival the glor}% of Dentatus. Opportunity was not wanting : in the school of Hannibal he took his first militar}' lessons, namely in the campaign of b. c. 217. There is some discrepancy among his- torians as to the events of Cato's early military life. In b. c. 214 he served at Capua, and Drumann {Gesch. Roms^ v. p. 99) imagines that already, at the age of 20, he was a military tribune. Fabius Maximus had now the command in Campania, during the year of his fourth consulship. The old