The History of Roman Literature - Charles Thomas Cruttwell

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in debate. [23] His notice of the Ligurians is far from complimentary. "They are all deceitful, having lost every record of their real origin, and being illiterate, they invent false stories and have no recollection of the truth." [24] He hazards a few etymologies, which, as usual among Roman writers, are quite unscientific. Graviscae is so called from its unhealthy climate (gravis aer), Praeneste from its conspicuous position on the mountains (quia montibus praestet). A few scattered remarks on the food in use among different tribes are all that remain of an interesting department which might have thrown much light on ethnological questions. In the fourth book, Cato expresses his disinclination to repeat the trivial details of the Pontifical tables, the fluctuations of the market, the eclipses of the sun and moon, &c. [25] He narrates with enthusiasm the self-devotion of the tribune Caedicius, who in the first Punic war offered his life with that of 400 soldiers to engage the enemy's attention while the general was executing a necessary manoeuvre. [26] "The Laconian Leonides, who did the same thing at Thermopylae, has been rewarded by all Greece for his virtue and patriotism with all the emblems of the highest possible distinction—monuments, statues, epigrams, histories; his deed met with their warmest gratitude. But little praise has been given to our tribune in comparison with his merits, though he acted just as the Spartan did, and saved the fortunes of the State." As to the title Origines, it is possible, as Nepos suggests, that it arose from the first three books having been published separately. It certainly is not applicable to the entire treatise, which was a genuine history on the same scale as that of Thucydides, and no mere piece of antiquarian research. He adhered to truth in so far as he did not insert fictitious speeches; he conformed to Greek taste so far as to insert his own. One striking feature in the later hooks was his omission of names. No Roman worthy is named in them. The reason of this it is impossible to discover. Fear of giving offence would be the last motive to weigh with him. Dislike of the great aristocratic houses into whose hands the supreme power was steadily being concentrated, is a more probable cause; but it is hardly sufficient of itself. Perhaps the omission was a mere whim of the historian. Though this work obtained great and deserved renown, yet, like its author, it was praised rather than imitated. Livy scarcely ever uses it; and it is likely that, before the end of the first century A.D. the speeches were published separately, and were the only part at all generally read. Pliny, Gellius, and Servius, are the authors who seem most to have studied it; of these Pliny was most influenced by it. The Natural History, especially in its general discussions, strongly reminds us of Cato.

      Of the talents of Cato as an orator something will be said in the next section. His miscellaneous writings, though none of them are historical, may be noticed here. Quintilian [27] attests the many-sidedness of his genius: "M. Cato was at once a first-rate general, a philosopher, an orator, the founder of history, the most thorough master of law and agriculture." The work on agriculture we have the good fortune to possess; or rather a redaction of it, slightly modernized and incomplete, but nevertheless containing a large amount of really genuine matter. Nothing can be more characteristic than the opening sentences. We give a translation, following as closely as possible the form of the original: "It is at times worth while to gain wealth by commerce, were it not so perilous; or by usury, were it equally honourable. Our ancestors, however, held, and fixed by law, that a thief should be condemned to restore double, a usurer quadruple. We thus see how much worse they thought it for a citizen to be a money-lender than a thief. Again, when they praised a good man, they praised him as a good farmer, or a good husbandman. Men so praised were held to have received the highest praise. For myself, I think well of a merchant as a man of energy and studious of gain; but it is a career, as I have said, that leads to danger and ruin. But farming makes the bravest men, and the sturdiest soldiers, and of all sources of gain is the surest, the most natural, and the least invidious, and those who are busy with it have the fewest bad thoughts." The sententious and dogmatic style of this preamble cannot fail to strike the reader; but it is surpassed by many of the precepts which follow. Some of these contain pithy maxims of shrewd sense, e.g. "Patrem familias vendacem non emacem esse oportet." "Ita aedifices ne villa fundum quaerat, neve fundus villam." The Virgilian prescription, "Laudato ingentia rura: exiguam colito," is said to be drawn from Cato, though it does not exist in our copies. The treatment throughout is methodical. If left by the author in its present form it represents the daily jotting down of thoughts on the subject as they occurred to him.

      In two points the writer appears in an unfavourable light—in his love of gain, and in his brutal treatment of his slaves. With him farming is no mere amusement, nor again is it mere labour. It is primarily and throughout a means of making money, and indeed the only strictly honourable one. However, Cato so far relaxed the strictness of this theory that he became "an ardent speculator in slaves, buildings, artificial lakes, and pleasure-grounds, the mercantile spirit being too strong within him to rest satisfied with the modest returns of his estate." As regarded slaves, the law considered them as chattels, and he followed the law to the letter. If a slave grew old or sick he was to be sold. If the weather hindered work he was to take his sleep then, and work double time afterwards. "In order to prevent combinations among his slaves, their master assiduously sowed enmities and jealousies between them. He bought young slaves in their name, whom they were forced to train and sell for his benefit. When supping with his guests, if any dish was carelessly dressed, he rose from table, and with a leathern thong administered the requisite number of lashes with his own hand." So pitilessly severe was he, that a slave who had concluded a purchase without his leave, hung himself to avoid his master's wrath. These incidents, some told by Plutarch, others by Cato himself, show the inhuman side of Roman life, and make it less hard to understand their treatment of vanquished kings and generals. For the other sex Cato had little respect. Women, he says, should be kept at home, and no Chaldaean or soothsayer be allowed to see them. Women are always running after superstition. His directions about the steward's wife are as follows. They are addressed to the steward:—"Let her fear you. Take care that she is not luxurious. Let her see as little as possible of her neighbours or any other female friends; let her never invite them to your house; let her never go out to supper, nor be fond of taking walks. Let her never offer sacrifice; let her know that the master sacrifices for the whole family; let her he neat herself, and keep the country-house neat." Several sacrificial details are given in the treatise. We observe that they are all of the rustic order; the master alone is to attend the city ceremonial. Among the different industries recommended, we are struck by the absence of wheat cultivation. The vineyard and the pasture chiefly engage attention, though herbs and green produce are carefully treated. The reason is to be sought in the special nature of the treatise. It is not a general survey of agriculture, but merely a handbook of cultivation for a particular farm, that of Manlius or Mallius, and so probably unfit for wheat crops. Other subjects, as medicine, are touched on. But his prescriptions are confined to the rudest simples, to wholesome and restorative diet, and to incantations. These last have equal value assigned them with rational remedies. Whether Cato trusted them may well be doubted. He probably gave in such cases the popular charm-cure, simply from not having a better method of his own to propose.

      Another series of treatises were those addressed to his son, in one of which, that on medicine, he charitably accuses the Greeks of an attempt to kill all barbarians by their treatment, and specially the Romans, whom they stigmatise by the insulting name of Opici. [28] "I forbid you, once for all, to have any dealings with physicians." Owing to their temperate and active life, the Romans had for more than five hundred years existed without a physician within their walls. Cato's hostility to the profession, therefore, if not justifiable, was at least natural. He subjoins a list of simples by which he kept himself and his wife alive and in health to a green old age. [29] And observing that there are countless signs of death, and none of health, he gives the chief marks by which a man apparently in health may be noted as unsound. In another treatise, on farming, also dedicated to his son, for whom he entertained a warm affection, and over whose education he sedulously watched, he says—"Buy not what you want, but what you must have; what you don't want is dear at a farthing, and what you lack borrow from yourself." Such is the homely wisdom which gained for Cato the proud title of Sapiens, by which, says Cicero, [30] he was familiarly known. Other original works, the product of his vast experience, were the treatise on eloquence, of which the pith is the following: "Rem tene: verba sequentur;" "Take care of the sense: the sounds will take care of themselves." We can well believe that this excellent maxim ruled his own conduct. The art of war formed the subject of

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