A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

644 CATO.
Dionysius (i. 74) Cato placed the building of Rome
in the 132nd year after the Trojan war, or in the
first of the 7th Olympiad, B. c. 751. The best
collection of the remains of the Origines is in
Krause's Vitae et Fragmenta Vet. Hist. Rom. Berlin,
1833.
The life of this extraordinary man was written
by Cornelius Nepos, Plutarch, and Aurelius Victor.
Many additional particulars of his history are to
be collected from Livy, who portrays his character
in a splendid and celebrated passage (xxxix. 40).
Some facts of importance are to be gleaned from
Cicero, especially from his Cato Maajor or de
Senectute, and his Brutus. By later writers he
was regarded as a model of Roman virtue, and
few names occur oftener in the classics than
his. Much has been written upon him by the
moderns. There are some Latin verses upon Cato
in the Juvenilia of Theodore Beza. Majansius
(ad XXX JCtos) composed his life with remarkable diligence, collecting and comparing nearly all
the ancient authorities, except a few which were
discreditable to his hero. (See also Wetzel's Excursus in his edition of Cic. de Senect. p. 256, &c.;
De M. Porcii Catonis Vita Studiis et Scriptis, in
Schneider's " Scriptores Rei Rusticae," vol. i. pars
ii. init.; Bayle, Dict. s. v. Porcius; Krause, Vitae ct
Fragm. &c. pp. 89-97; G. E.Weber, Commnentatio de
M. Porcii Catonis Censorii Vita et Moribus, Bremae,
1831; and Gerlach, Scipio und Cato, in Schweitzerisches Museum fulr historische Wissenschaften,
1837; above all, Drumann, Gesch. Roms, v. pp.
97-148.)
2. M. PORCIUS CATO LICINIANUS, a Roman
jurist, the son of Cato the Censor by his first wife
Licinia, and thence called Licinianus to distinguish
him from his half-brother, M. Porcius Cato, the
son of Salonia. His father paid great attention to
his education, physical as well as mental, and
studied to preserve his young mind from every
immoral taint. He was taught to ride, to swim,
to wrestle, to fence, and, perhaps to the injury of
a weak constitution, was exposed to vicissitudes
of cold and heat in order to harden his frame.
The Censor would not allow his learned slave
Chilo to superintend the education of his son, lest
the boy should acquire slavish notions or habits,
but wrote lessons of history for him in large letters
with his own hand, and afterwards composed a
kind of Encyclopaedia for his use. Under such
tuition, the young Cato became a wise and virtuous
man. He first entered life as a soldier, and
served, B. c. 173, in Liguria under the consul M.
Popilius Laenas. The legion to which he belonged
having been disbanded, he took the military oath
a second time, by the advice of his father, in order
to qualify himself legally to fight against the
enemy. (Cic. de Off. i. 11.) In B. c. 168, he
fought against Perseus at Pydna under the consul
Aemilius Paullus, whose daughter, Aemilia Tertia,
he afterwards married. He distinguished himself
in the battle by his personal prowess in a combat
in which he first lost and finally recovered his
sword. The details of this combat are related
with variations by several authors. (Plut. Cat.
Mqj. 20; Justin, xxxiii. 2; Val. Max. iii. 12.
~ 16; Frontin. Strat. iv. 5. ~ 17.) He returned
to the troops on his own side covered with wounds,
and was received with applause by the consul,
who gave him his discharge in order that he might
get cured. Here again his father seems to have

CATO.
cautioned him to take no further part in battle, as
after his discharge he was no longer a soldier.
(Plut. Quaest. Rom. 39.)
Henceforward he appears to have devoted himself to the practice of the law, in which he attained
considerable eminence. In the obscure and corrupt
fragment of Pomponius de Origine Juris (Dig. 1.
tit. 2. ~ 38), after mentioning Sextus and Publius
Aelius and Publius Atilius, the author proceeds to
speak of the two Catos as follows: " Hos sectatus
ad aliquid est Cato. Deinde M. Cato, princeps
Porciae familiae, cujus et libri extant; sed plurimi
filii ejus; ex quibus caeteri oriuntur." This passage seems to speak of a Cato before the Censor,
but Pomponius wrote in paragraphs, devoting one
to each succession of jurists, and the word Deinde
commences that of the Catos, though the Censor
had been mentioned by anticipation at the end of
the preceding paragraph. From the Catos, father
and son (ex quibus), the subsequent jurists traced
their succession. Apollinaris Sulpicius, in that
passage of Gellius (xiii. 18) which is the principal
authority with respect to the genealogy of the
Cato family, speaks of the son as having written
"egregios de juris disciplina libros." Festus (s. v.
Mundus) cites the commentarii juris civilis of Cato,
probably the son, and Paullus (Dig. 45. tit. 1.
s. 4. ~ 1) cites Cato's 15th book. Cicero (de Orat.
ii. 33) censures Cato and Brutus for introducing
in their published responsa the names of the persons
who consulted them. Celsus (Dig. 50. tit. 16. s. 98.
~ 1) cites an opinion of Cato concerning the intercalary month, and the regula or sententia Catoniana
is frequently mentioned in the Digest. The regula
Catoniana was a celebrated rule of Roman law to
the effect, that a legacy should never be valid unless it would have been valid if the testator had
died immediately after he had made his will. This
rule (which had several exceptions) was a particular case of a more general maxim: " Quod initio
non valet, id tractu temporis non potest convalescere." The greater celebrity of the son as a jurist,
and the language of the citations from Cato, render
it likely that the son is the Cato of the Digest.
From the manner in which Cato is mentioned in
the Institutes (Inst. 1. tit. 11. ~ 12),-" Apud
Catonem bene scriptum refert antiquitas,"---it may
be inferred, that he was known only at second
hand in the time of Justinian.
He died when praetor designatus, about B. c.
152, a few years before his father, who bore his
loss with resignation, and, on the ground of
poverty, gave him a frugal funeral. (Liv. Epit,
48; comp. Cic. de Senect. 19.)
(Majansius, ad XXX JCtos, i. 1-113; E. L.
Harnier, de Regula Catoniana, Heidelb. 1820
Drumann's Rom. v. p. 149.)
3. M. PORCIUS CATo SALONIANUS, the son of
Cato the censor by his second wife Salonia, was
born B. C. 154, when his father had completed his
80th year, and about two years before the death
of his step-brother. Hie lost his father when he
was five years old, and lived to attain the praetorship, in which office he died. (Gell. xiii. 19;
Plut. Cat. Maj. 27.)
4. M. PoacIus CATO, elder son of Cato Licinianus. [No. 2.] Like his grandfather, the
Censor, he was a vehement orator, and left behind
him many written speeches. In B. c. 118, lie
was consul with Q. Marcius Rex, and in the same
year died in Africa, whither he had proceeded