Cato (Marcus Porcius Cato) known as Cato the Elder (Cato Maior), also called Cato the Censor (Cato censor), was a Roman statesman and writer, born in 234 BC. AD in the municipality of Tusculum and died in 149 BC. AD
Born of an obscure family; he first served under Fabius Maximus during the Second Punic War. He was successively a soldier at the age of 17, quaestor of the consul Scipion the African in -204, curule aedile in -199, praetor in -198 in Sardinia, he completed the submission of this country, sent with the title of consul to Hispania (Spain) and in Greece in -195, he obtained the honors of triumph by subjugating the tribes of the Spanish highlands.
He became censor in -184, he exercised his functions with a severity that passed into proverb, and he deserved to have a statue erected to him with this inscription:To Cato, who corrected morals. He fought against the Hellenization of the political class, opposing the more open Scipios, and opposed (unsuccessfully) the repeal of the Oppia law against women's luxury. He had the Basilica Porcia built on the forum romanum during his censorship.
In his last years, in -153, he led a diplomatic mission sent to Carthage. Impressed by the economic recovery of Carthage, he adopted a systematic anti-Carthaginian attitude, and ended all his speeches in the Roman Senate with the formula Delenda Carthago est ("We must destroy Carthage"). He died in the year 149 BC. AD, at age 85, at the outbreak of the Third Punic War.
Cato applied himself to science and letters; he excelled in jurisprudence as well as in agriculture; he studied until his old age and learned, it is said, Greek at the age of 80. However, he considered certain of the arts of Greece to be dangerous, and he prevented their introduction into Rome. (See:Carneade). This wise pagan is reproached for his taste for wine and his avarice.
Cato left in dying a large number of orations, the De agri cultura, a work of Italian history entitled:Roman origins, and some secondary writings.
* The origins, in seven books, from the founding of Rome to the praetorship of Ser. Galba, conqueror of Lusitania.
* De agri cultura (or De re rustica) Treatise on agriculture, the only work that has come down to us
* Orations, of which he wrote around 150, and of which fragments of around 80 have come down to us
* De re militari
* De lege ad pontifices auguresque spectanti
* Praecepta ad filium
* Historia Romana in large letters, a work intended for the teaching of his son
* Carmen de moribus
* Apophthegmata
The Disticha Catonis and Monosticha Catonis are not actual writings of Cato.
Cornelius Nepos, among others, gave us a short biography of Cato the Elder. Plutarch also wrote a biography; Livy a remarkable portrait (book XXXIX, chap. XL).