The politician and writer Mark Porzi Caton the Elder (descendants called him Elder so as not to confuse him with his great-grandson) was born in 234 BC. e. He was a native of the city of Tuscula, located several tens of kilometers from Rome, and belonged to a plebeian family.
Military service
Cato could have been engaged in agriculture all his life if it had not begun in 218 BC. e. The Second Punic War. At that time, Rome competed on equal terms with Carthage, whose commander Hannibal invaded Italy during a bold campaign. Due to the difficult situation of the republic, even the very young Cato the Elder was drafted into the army. He unusually quickly became a military tribune. For several years, the young man served in Sicily. Its direct leader was the famous commander Mark Claudius Marcellus.
In 209 BC e. Cato the Elder went to the service of the commander Quintus Fabius Maximus the Cunctator. Then he ended up in the army of Guy Claudius Nero and in her ranks took part in the battle of Metaurus in Northern Italy. In this battle the Romans routed the army of their younger brother Hannibal Hadrubal. A long campaign against Carthage allowed the talented Mark Caton to achieve recognition despite his artistic origin. In ancient Rome, such nuggets were called "new people."
During the Second Punic War, Cato made many useful contacts for his future career. For example, he became friends with Lucius Valery Flaccus, who later became the praetor of the republic. Another factor in the rise of Mark was the death of a large number of Roman aristocrats during the war. The Battle of Cannes, in which Caton, for his happiness, did not have time, took especially many lives of the Nobility representatives.
204 BC e. became a turning point for Mark. On his 30th birthday, he was appointed as a quaestor of the commander Publius Scipio, who took up the organization of the Roman invasion of North Africa, where the heart of the Carthaginian state was located, and for this it was called African. The army was supposed to cross the Mediterranean Sea from Sicily. During the preparation of a complex operation, Scipio quarreled with his assistant. According to one version of ancient historians, Cato the Elder accused the chief of a frivolous attitude to the organization of the landing. Allegedly, the commander idly spent his time in theaters and scattered money allocated by the treasury. According to another version, the causes of the quarrel were deeper and were in the conflict between Scipio and the patrons of Cato Flaccus. One way or another, but the entire end of the Second Punic War, the quaestor spent in Sardinia. It is not known exactly whether he nevertheless visited Africa and whether he took part in the decisive battle at Zam. Opinions of ancient authors on this subject differ.
The beginning of a political career
In 202 BC e. The Second Punic War ended. In a multi-year conflict, the Roman Republic still defeated Carthage and became a hegemon in the west of the Mediterranean Sea. The African rival retained independence, but was significantly weakened. With the onset of peace, Mark Caton Sr. moved to the capital. Soon he began a public political career. In 199 BC e. a native of the plebeian family received the post of aedile, and a year later - praetor.
In a new status for himself, Cato the Elder moved to Sardinia, where he took up the new administration as governor. On the island, the praetor became famous for cleansing it of money lenders. The official surprised ordinary residents by abandoning his retinue and wagon. With his behavior atypical for a magistracy, he demonstrated his own thrift in spending state money (Caton retained this habit until his death).
Consulate
Thanks to the vivid public speeches and activities in Sardinia, the politician has become a serious figure in the capital itself. In 195 BC e. Marc Portius Cato Sr. was elected consul. In the republic, this position was considered the highest in the entire bureaucratic ladder. By tradition, two consuls were elected for a term of one year. A partner of Cato was his longtime patron Lucius Valery Flaccus.
Having become consul, Mark immediately went to Spain, where a revolt broke out by local Iberians, dissatisfied with the power of the Romans. The Senate handed over to Cato a 15,000-strong army and a small fleet. With these forces, the consul invaded the Iberian Peninsula. The rebels' speech was soon suppressed. Nevertheless, the actions of Cato caused a mixed reaction in Rome. The capital heard rumors about his indefatigable cruelty, because of which the conflict with the Iberians was aggravated even more. Cato's main critic was Scipio Africanus, from whom he had once served as a quaestor. In 194 BC e. this nobleman was elected as the next consul. He demanded that the Senate recall Cato from Spain, but the senators refused to stop the campaign. Moreover, they allowed the returning commander to hold a traditional triumphal procession in the capital, which symbolized his personal great services to the state.
The war against the Seleucids
The Syrian War (192-188 BC) was a new challenge for Cato the Elder. Contrary to its name, it marched in Greece and Asia Minor, where the army of the Seleucid state, created by the successors of Alexander the Great, invaded. The Roman Republic that had defeated Carthage now looked into the eastern Mediterranean and did not intend to allow its direct rival to be strengthened.
Mark Cato Sr. went to that war as a military tribune under the leadership of Mania Glabrion, who was then consul. On behalf of his boss, he visited several Greek cities. In 191 BC e. Cato took part in the Battle of Thermopylae, during which he occupied strategically important heights, which made a decisive contribution to the defeat of the Seleucids and their allies of the Aetolians. Mark personally went to Rome in order to inform the Senate about the long-awaited success of the army.
Critic of social vices
Once settled in the capital, Cato Sr. began to speak frequently at the forum, in the courts and in the Senate. The main motive of his public speeches was a criticism of the influential Roman aristocracy. Usually the “new people”, the first in their family to rise to significant government posts, tried to merge with representatives of the nobility. Cato behaved exactly the opposite. He regularly came into conflict with nobility. As his victims, the politician first chose the opponents of his friends Flaccus. On the other hand, he opposed the aristocracy in general, since, in his opinion, it was mired in excessive luxury.
Under the influence of this rhetoric, the teachings of Cato the Elder gradually developed, later developed by a public figure on the pages of his writings. He considered love for greed to be a vile innovation, from which the customs of modestly living ancestors suffer. The speaker warned contemporaries that a love of wealth would be followed by mass shamelessness, vanity, arrogance, rudeness and cruelty, disastrous for the whole of Roman society. Caton called aristocrats egoists who defended only their own interests, while the glorious ancestors of the past worked primarily for the public good.
One of the reasons for the spread of vice politicians called the influence of strangers. Cato was a consistent anti-Hellenist. He criticized everything Greek, and consequently, the apologists of this culture spread in Rome (among which was the same African Scipio). Cato's conservative ideas soon became known as the theory of moral decline. This is not to say that it was this politician who invented it, but it was he who developed this doctrine and made it fully completed. Among other things, Mark accused the Hellenophiles, members of the country's military leadership, of abusing their powers and insufficient attention to army discipline.
Conservative speaker
As a famous fighter for purity of morals, Cato went several times to Greece, where he fought with local heretical cults. In such a famous community, there were followers of Bacchus who encouraged orgies, debauchery and drunkenness. Cato mercilessly pursued such currents. However, while in Greece, he did not forget about his political career. So the military took part in diplomatic negotiations with the unyielding Aetolians.
Nevertheless, the political and economic views of Cato the Elder faded ever stronger before his conservative ideological lobbying. It was most convenient to influence society in this vein in the status of a censor. Cato tried to be elected to a high position in 189 BC. e., however, the first pancake came out lumpy. Unlike other magistrates, censors changed not once a year, but once every five years. Therefore, the politician got the next chance only in 184 BC. e. Cato the Elder has long established itself as a radical conservative. Other applicants for the post were distinguished by softer rhetoric. However, Cato persisted: he insisted that Roman society needed serious internal shake-up.
The main competitor to the former consul was the brother of Scipio African Lucius. Mark decided to attack his opponent by attacking a more famous relative. On the eve of the election, he persuaded Quint Nevius, who served as a tribune, to accuse Scipio of high treason. The essence of the claims was that the commander, allegedly because of a bribe, agreed to conclude a soft peace treaty with Antiochus of Syria, which harmed the republic’s international interests.
Censorship
Cato Sr.'s public maneuver was a success. Scipio's brother was defeated. Caton became the censor of the plebeians, and his friend Lucius Flaccus took a similar position from the patricians. This post gave several unique powers. Censors monitored mores, exercised financial control over state revenues, monitored the receipt of taxes and taxes, and oversaw the maintenance and construction of important structures and roads.
Cato the Elder, whose years of life (234-149 BC) fell on an era important for the development of Roman law, won the election, having behind him a program to heal the authorities from all kinds of vices. The censor began its implementation, barely having time to take office. “Health” primarily came down to the expulsion from the Senate of politicians who clashed with Cato. Mark made another Flaccus (Valery) princeps. Then he conducted exactly the same audit in the ranks of the riders. Many detractors of the censor, including the brother of Scipio African Lucius, were excluded from the privileged estate of equities. Cato himself has been in conflict with the cavalry since the time of his Spanish campaign, when it was the cavalry that proved to be the weakest link in the army.
Exceptions to the nobility of members of ancient aristocratic families became a blatant event for high society. Cato the Elder, whose biography was an example of a "new man", encroached on the privileges of many Romans, which caused their undisguised hatred. As a censor, he controlled the census and could lower fellow citizens in their property class. A significant number of wealthy inhabitants of the empire lost their social position. Unleashing his decisions on them, Cato looked at how the Roman was conducting his farm properly.
Censor significantly increased taxes on luxury and domestic slaves. He tried to increase government revenues and reduce spending on aristocrats. By changing the contracts concluded with tax payers, Cato helped out a significant amount of money. These funds were used to repair the city sewage system, facing stone fountains and building a new basilica on the forum. Also, the censor was one of the initiators of the new electoral legislation. According to Roman tradition, the winning candidates for the top magistracy positions held holiday games and giveaways. Now, these handouts to voters have come under the new strict regulation. Cato made so many enemies that he was sued 44 times, but he never lost a single case.
Old age
After the expiration of his censorship, Cato began arranging his own large estate and literary activities. He, however, did not lose interest in public life. Some of his public appearances and enterprises periodically reminded contemporaries of the former censor.
In 171 BC e. Cato became a member of the commission investigating the abuse of governors in the Spanish provinces. The speaker continued to brand vices and a decline in morals. Many of his censorship laws, however, were repealed while he was still. Cato continued to be a fierce anti-Hellenist. He advocated the termination of contacts with the Greeks, urged not to accept their delegation.
In 152 BC e. Cato went to Carthage. The embassy to which he entered was to consider a cross-border dispute with Numidia. After visiting Africa, the former censor was convinced that Carthage began to conduct a foreign policy independent of Rome. Quite a lot of time has passed since the Second Punic War, and the long-standing enemy, despite his epoch-making defeat, began to raise his head again.
Returning to the capital, Cato began to urge his compatriots to destroy the African power until it recovered after a long crisis. His phrase "Carthage must be destroyed" has turned into an international phraseology, which is used in speech today. The militaristic Roman lobby has succeeded. The Third Punic War began in 149 BC. e., and in the same year the elderly 85-year-old Caton died, who did not live to see the long-awaited defeat of Carthage.
“To son Mark”
In his youth, Cato was remembered by contemporaries as a bright military leader. In adulthood, he took up politics. Finally, closer to old age, the speaker began to write books. They reflected the pedagogical ideas of Cato the Elder, who sought to explain to contemporaries the need to combat the decline in morals not only through public speaking, but also through literature.
In 192 BC e. the politician had a son, Mark. Cato was personally involved in raising a child. When he grew up, his father decided to write for him “The Instruction” (also known as “To the Son of Mark”), which outlined his worldly wisdom and the history of Rome. This was the first literary experience of Cato the Elder. Modern scholars consider the “Manual” the earliest Roman encyclopedia, which contained information about rhetoric, medicine, and agriculture.
"About agriculture"
The main book that Cato the Elder left behind is On Agriculture (also translated as On Agriculture or Agriculture). It was written around 160 BC. e. The work was a compilation of 162 recommendations and tips for managing a rural estate. In Rome they were called latifundia. The vast estates of the nobility were centers of grain cultivation, winemaking and olive oil production. They widely used slave labor.
What did Marc Portius Cato Sr. advise contemporaries in his work? The treatise "On Agriculture" can be divided into two structural parts. The first is carefully composed, but the second is chaotic. It mixes all kinds of recommendations from traditional medicine to culinary recipes. The first part, on the contrary, is more like a systematically compiled textbook.
Since the book was intended specifically for rural residents, it does not have the basics, but rather specific tips are listed, the author of which was Cato the Elder. The economic idea of his work is to rank the profitability of different types of economy. The writer considered vineyards to be the most profitable enterprise, followed by irrigated gardens, etc. At the same time, the low profitability of grain was emphasized, which Caton the Elder elaborated on in his work. Quotes from this book were then often used by other ancient authors in a wide variety of works. Today, the treatise is considered a unique literary monument of antiquity, as it better than any other source describes the rural life of the ancient world of the II century BC. e.
"Beginning"
The Beginnings is another important work authored by Cato the Elder. “About agriculture” is known to a greater extent due to the fact that this book has been preserved in its entirety. “Beginnings” reached us only in the form of separate passages. It was a seven-volume book devoted to the history of Rome from the founding of the city until the II century BC. e.
Cato Sr., whose theory of book organization was innovative, founded a style that became popular with subsequent scholars of the past. He was the first to decide to abandon the poetic form and move on to prose. Moreover, his predecessors wrote historical works in Greek, while Cato used exclusively Latin.
The book of this author differed from the works of the past in that it was not a dry chronicle and a listing of facts, but an attempt at research. It was Caton the Elder who introduced all these norms typical of modern scientific literature. Photographing the events, he offered the reader their assessment, relying on his favorite theory about the decline in the morals of Roman society.