CATO, MARCUS PORCIUS, the Censor, sometimes styled Cato Major, one of the greatest men among the ancients, was born at Tusculum in the year B.C. 234. He began to bear arms at seventeen, and on various occasions signalized himself by his valour and military abilities. He was a man of great sobriety, and reckoned no bodily exercise unworthy of him. He had but one horse for himself and his baggage, and he looked after and dressed it himself. On his return from his campaigns he betook himself to plough his farm;
not that he was without slaves to do it, but because such was his inclination. He also dressed like his slaves, sat at the same table with them, and partook of the same fare. He did not in the meanwhile neglect to cultivate his mind, especially in regard to the art of speaking; and he employed his talents, which were of a very high order, in generously pleading causes in the neighbouring cities without fee or reward. Encouraged by Valerius Flaccus, a young nobleman who had a country seat in the neighbourhood, Cato went to Rome, where, not less by his own merits than by the influence of his patron, he soon attracted public notice. He was first elected tribune of the soldiers for the province of Sicily; and he was next made quaestor in Africa under Scipio. Having in this last office reproved the general for his profuseness to his soldiers, the latter answered that he would make war at what expense he pleased; nor was he to give an account to the Roman people of self, but of his enterprises, and the execution of them. Cato, provoked at this answer, left Sicily and returned to Rome.
In B.C. 198 he was made praetor, and fulfilled the duties of that office with the strictest justice. He conquered Sardinia, governed with admirable moderation, and in 195 was created consul. He carried on war in Spain with such success, that on his return he was honoured with a triumph. As tribune in the war of Syria, he gave distinguished proofs of his valour against Antiochus the Great, and contributed materially to the decisive victory at Thermopylae. He now for the second time stood candidate for the office of censor. But the nobles, who not only hated him as a new man, but dreaded his severity, set up against him seven powerful competitors. Valerius Flaccus, who had introduced him into public life, and had been his colleague in the consulship, was a ninth candidate; and these two united their interests. On this occasion Cato, far from courting the favour of the people by insinuating speeches, or giving hopes of gentleness or complaisance in the execution of his office, loudly declared from the rostra, with a threatening look and voice, that the times required firm and vigorous magistrates to put a stop to that growing luxury which menaced the republic with ruin; censors who would cut up the evil by the roots, and restore the rigour of ancient discipline. It is to the honour of the Roman people that, notwithstanding these startling intimations, they preferred Cato to all his competitors who courted them by promises of a mild and easy administration. The comitia also appointed his friend Valerius his colleague, without whom he had declared that he could not hope to compass the reforms he proposed. Cato's merit, indeed, was superior to that of any of the great men who stood against him. He was temperate, brave, and indefatigable; frugal of the public money, and wholly incorruptible. There is scarcely any talent requisite for public or private life which he had not received from nature, or acquired by industry. He was a great soldier, an able statesman, an eloquent orator, a learned historian, and skilful in rural affairs. Yet with all these accomplishments he had very great faults. His ambition, being poisoned with envy, disturbed both his own peace and that of the whole city as long as he lived. Though he refused to take bribes, he was utterly unscrupulous in amassing wealth by all means which the law did not punish as criminal.
To the nobles and their wives, no part of the censor's conduct seemed so obnoxious as the taxes he laid upon luxury in all its branches, including dress, household furniture, women's toilets, chariots, slaves, and equipage. The people, however, were in general pleased with his regulations; insomuch that they ordered a statue to be erected to his honour in the Temple of Health, with an inscription which mentioned nothing of his victories or triumphs, but imported only, that by his wise ordinances in his censorship
he had reformed the manners of the republic. Plutarch relates that before this, upon some of Cato's friends expressing their surprise that when many persons without merit or reputation had statues, he had none, he answered, "I had much rather it should be asked why the people have not erected a statue to Cato than why they have." Cato was the chief instigator of the third Punic war. Being despatched to Africa to terminate a difference between the Carthaginians and the king of Numidia, on his return to Rome he reported that Carthage had grown excessively rich and populous, and warmly exhorted the senate to destroy a city and republic during whose existence Rome could never be safe. Having brought from Africa some very large figs, he showed them to the conscript fathers in one of the lappets of his robe. "The country," says he, "where these figs grew, is but three days' voyage from Rome." We are told that from this time he never spoke in the senate upon any subject without concluding with these words, "Carthage must be destroyed." He judged that for a people enervated by prosperity nothing was more to be feared than a rival state, always powerful, and now, from its misfortunes, grown wise and circumspect. He held it necessary to remove all dangers that could be apprehended from without, when the republic had within so many distempers threatening her destruction.
Cato died in the year B.C. 149, aged eighty-five. He was twice married; first to Licinia, a lady of noble birth, who bore one son; and in his old age he espoused Salonia, the youthful daughter of his scribe and client M. Salonius, by whom in his eightieth year he had a son, who was the ancestor of Cato of Utica.
Of Cato's several works the most important was that entitled Origines, a history of Rome, of which only fragments are extant. His treatise on husbandry, De Re Rustica, has been preserved. The best editions of it are those contained in the Scriptores Rei Rusticae of Gesner (Lips. 1773-4); and Schneider (Lips. 1794-7).