¹ See below, pp. 110–11.

² See my article in C.Q. 1940.Google Scholar

³ Cf. Gelzer, , Die römische NobilitäiGoogle Scholar; Münzer, , Römische Adelsparteien und AdelsfamilienGoogle Scholar; McDonald, , J.R.S. 1938, pp. 153 ff.Google Scholar

⁴ Cato, i. 2.Google Scholar

⁵ As Fraccaro, in R. Accademia Vergiliana di Mantova, N.S., vol. iii, pt. i, 1910 (Fraccaro, i), pp. 112–13Google Scholar, shows, and as is generally accepted by historians.

⁶ Cato, iv. 10Google Scholar; xii. 41.

⁷ Cf. Fraccaro, , i, pp. 120–6Google Scholar, who conjectures he was praetor to Pomponius Matus in 204 (cf. Livy, , xxix. 25. 10Google Scholar). Münzer, , in Hermes, xl, 1905, p. 70Google Scholar, says that Cato's quaestorship was really in 205, but was falsely put in 204 by writers who wanted to avoid all mention of the quarrel between Cato and Scipio. He can see no reason, he says, why anyone should wish to put the quaestorship back from 204 to 205, and he therefore prefers 205 as the date. But there is considerably more evidence to show that a tradition of hostility between Cato and Scipio was worked up by writers at the expense of truth than that truth was sacrificed to obscure a hostility which was really there. I suggest that the date of Cato's quaestorship was changed by certain writers merely in order that Cato might accuse Scipio. Cf. De Sanctis, , Storia dei Romani, vol. iii, pt. ii, p. 517, note 113.Google Scholar

¹ See Livy, , xxxiv. 43. 4–5Google Scholar; Scipio was far more concerned with the Eastern situation than with Cato's success in Spain.

² There was no appeal against the censor's decision. See Lange, , Römische Altertümer, vol. i, p. 808Google Scholar; cf. Mommsen, , Röm. Staats., ii³. 1, pp. 356, 422–3Google Scholar; see further my article.

³ Cf. Livy, , xxxix. 44.Google Scholar

⁴ I cannot accept the suggestion of Münzer, , op. cit., pp. 53–4, pp. 65–6Google Scholar, that the whole story of Cato's connexions with Fabius and this conversation are Cicero's own invention, though he is followed by Fraccaro, , i, p. 115Google Scholar, Beloch, , Röm. Gesch., p. 129 fGoogle Scholar. For while he shows, to my mind convincingly, that Cicero used Atticus' Liber Annalis, he does not show that that was Cicero's only source, and it is wellnigh ridiculous to suppose that it was. Such a theory leaves out of account the numerous other fictitious incidents connected with Cato, particularly his supposed help to Fabius in prosecuting Scipio, which is not in Cicero, and yet is part of the same tradition. Moreover, Cicero's portrait of Cato is on the whole very true to the accepted picture of him (cf. Jones, R. E. in A.J.P. 1939, pp. 310 ff.Google Scholar), and there is no other example of such romancing in the dialogue, though the opportunities were almost limitless on Munzer's hypothesis. (The two examples he quotes from other works of Cicero, p. 54, n. 1, are simple exaggerations, and do not support his general contention.) There can be little doubt that Cicero was using a biography, and with the help of Atticus' Liber Annalis was able to work out distances of time and see easily what else was happening in any given year.

¹ It seems a natural assumption to suppose that the Fabian invention came first, and did not grow out of the supposed conversation with Nearchus; for it did not matter where Cato held the conversation, and it would have been easy to invent one in Sicily, where there were learned Greeks. He laid the scene in Tarentum, because he thought Cato had been there, and it thus added verisimilitude; if the inventor had realized Cato was really in Sicily, he would have laid it there.

² It is very difficult to believe that Cato did only learn Greek in his old age, as Plutarch, , ii. 5Google Scholar, and Cicero, , viii. 26 (cf. i. 3)Google Scholar, say, and as became the accepted story (cf. Quintilian, , xii. ii. 23Google Scholar). It is contradicted by the statement in De Vir. ill. 47. 1, that Ennius taught him Greek in 203–202, which is probably based on Nepos, who, there is reason to suppose, was correcting some of the traditional mistakes about Cato (see below, p. 112). Moreover, Plutarch, , ii. 6Google Scholar, thought that his writings showed clear traces of Greek influence, and says, xii. 5, that in 190 he could have spoken in Greek to the Athenians but preferred not to; Norden, , Antike Kunstprosa, i, pp. 164 ff.Google Scholar, maintains that his speeches show traces of Greek rhetorical teaching (see, however, Malcovati, , Or. Rom. Frag. i, pp. 88–9, who refers, p. 89Google Scholar, n. 3, to Tartara, A., I precursori di Cicerone, 1883Google Scholar, to which I have not access, and is inclined to disagree with Norden). One who had served in Magna Graecia and in Greece itself was not prima facie likely to be ignorant of Greek, nor does such real evidence as we have seem to confirm the suggestion.

³ It should be pointed out that it was not necessarily luxury itself to which Cato objected, but the misconduct to which it led the provincial governors in their search for the means to satisfy their appetites.

⁴ My reasons for saying this are purely subjective; such invention for the purposes of character building seems more in keeping with the Greek spirit which built up its Alcibiades, etc., than with the Roman, which was interested in political characters for political reasons only.

⁵ It is true that the story was given in Polybius (Gellius, , N.A. vi. 14. 8–10Google Scholar) and may, as Nissen, , Kritische Untersuchungen über die Quellen der 4ten und 5ten Dekade des Livius, p. 296Google Scholar, thinks, be taken from there. But we may doubt whether it was given as fully as it is here, or whether Cato figured so largely; as retailed by Gellius, more attention is given to the speakers' different styles of speech than one would expect if the main point were that Cato expelled them. A comparison of Cicero, Ad. Att. xii. 23Google Scholar. 2 with xiii. 30. 2 (3) suggests that the story was not given in Polybius under the narrative for the year, since if it had been, Cicero, who was using Polybius for this period, would have seen it. It may have been an anecdote inserted at the death of Cato, in which case the account would have been much briefer than in Plutarch. Polybius' account was perhaps the ὅλη for later ones.

¹ Fraccaro, , i, p. 114Google Scholar, thinks that it may have been between 210, when he believes Cato left Sicily, and 207, when he was once more on military service.

² Plut, , i. 8Google Scholar; Nepos, , i. 2.Google Scholar

³ I believe that the story was first found in Cato's Origines, together probably with the statement that he had owned the neighbouring farm. Later moralizers imagined the influence which this proximity must have had on Cato.

⁴ It is hardly true to speak of Cato as κομιδ μειράκιον (sec. 3) in 210, when he was 24, and it is an indication that the story was built up out of its context.

⁵ For a full discussion of the different traditions about Cato's age, see Nissen, , op. cit., pp. 225, 294–5.Google Scholar

⁶ As Soltau, in Fleckeisens Jahrbuch, 1896, p. 125Google Scholar, tried to maintain, but there is no mention in Livy of Cato's defence of himself four years earlier, and Soltau was forced to suggest that Plutarch used Nepos for that fact; yet Nepos has the correct tradition of Cato's age on this very pomt (see below, p. 110), so that the hypothesis is untenable; nor is it likely that Plutarch would have thought that 81 + 4=90, yet that is what Soltau would suggest.

⁷ The chapter is topical and not in its chronological place, and this narrative in a character-building biography probably commended itself to Plutarch rather than a notice under the proper year. Plutarch, too, may have been attracted by the greater age.

⁸ xi shows clear traces of being worked over, but it is difficult to see by whom; who was likely to believe that the Senate ordered that no change should be made in Cato's arrangements (cf. Fraccaro, , Studi Storici per l'Antichità Classica, iii, 1910, p. 180Google Scholar, who shows the absurdity)? Whoever it was, however, seems only to have been attempting to heighten the colours. Whether Cato's bitter comment on the nobles' prerogative of office was made in this connexion we cannot say.

¹ Cf. Cato, xxi. 4.Google Scholar

² A particularly good example of this selection of facts is that of his speaking in Greek to the Athenians (xii. 5)Google Scholar as though he were showing a typical Catonic spirit in contradistinction to his contemporaries. It appears from Val. Max. ii. 2. 2, that this was the usual thing (cf. ἐμμένων τοîς πατρίοις in Plutarch). Cf. Gröbe-Drumann, , Geschichte Roms, vol. v, p. 114, n. 8.Google Scholar

³ The Statement regarding Sempronius' province cannot be reconciled with Livy, , xxxiv. 46. 4Google Scholar (cf. Nissen, , p. 294Google Scholar). Livy, , xxxvi. 17. 1Google Scholar, speaks of Cato as consularis legatus in 191, all other writers refer to him as military tribune (Cicero, , Cato, x, 32Google Scholar; Plut. Cato, xii. 1Google Scholar; App. Syr. 18Google Scholar). From two fragments of a speech Cato delivered against L. Thermus (Malcovati, , Or. Rom. Frag. Nos. 71, 73, pp. 171–2Google Scholar) it would appear that Cato was legatus to M. Fulvius in 190. Malcovati, , op. cit., p. 29, n. 3Google Scholar, and Gröbe-Drumann, , op. cit., vol. v, p. 113Google Scholar, follow Livy in making him legatus in 191; De Sanctis, , op. cit., vol. iv, pt. i, p. 163Google Scholar, speaks of him as military tribune but does not discuss the question. I believe that he was military tribune to A. Glabrio in 191, and was legatus to M. Fulvius in 190; for some reason Cato was determined to keep an eye on events in Greece (cf. Mommsen, , Röm. Forsch, ii, p. 460, n. 91Google Scholar), perhaps with the approval of the people (cf. Frontinus, , Strat. ii. 4. 4Google Scholar, who says he was elected tribune by the people); probably because he suspected that outrages of some sort would be committed. Since Fulvius had charge of the censorial elections (Livy, , xxxvii. 50. 6–7Google Scholar), Cato knew he would be able to return to Rome in time for his own canvass (ch. 57. 10), and there was, therefore, but little risk in remaining in Greece. His supposed office of legatus to Sempronius in 194 presents us with a problem very difficult to solve. Sempronius (cf. Livy, , xxxvi. 22. 7Google Scholar; 24.2), as well as Cato, was on A. Glabrio's staff in 191; I suggest that Plutarch or the biographer has confused these two distinct offices of Sempronius, and made him consul in the East with Cato as his legatus. Whether they were sent on a joint mission to Thrace we cannot say; nor can we be certain that Cato was not on Sempronius' staff against the Boii; I think he was not, for this reason: we know that Sempronius fought a not unimportant battle (Livy, , xxxiv. 46. 4Google Scholar) and had Cato been present, we should almost certainly have heard something from Cato's own lips via the biography. If this is so, we must attribute the mistake to the biography, since Plutarch would not have known that Sempronius had been consul. Cf. P.-W., s.v. Sempronius, No. 67 (Münzer). Livy says ambassadors were dispatched by the Senate (xxxv. 23. 5), not as Plutarch says (sec. 4) by Glabrio, and Cato's name is not among them, nor is Cato's name anywhere mentioned by Livy in connexion with the ambassadors' activities. Presumably Glabrio sent him on his own initiative, and this may be the cause of the confusion.

⁴ Cf. Fraccaro, in Studi Liviani, 1934, p. 224.Google Scholar

⁵ e.g. i. 9; x. 2, 4, 5; xi. 3; xii. 7, et passim.

⁶ Vornefeld, , in De Scriptorum Latinorum locis a Plutarcho citatis, 1901, pp. 7–13Google Scholar, thinks that Plutarch made a wide use of Cato's works throughout the Life. But I agree with Kroll, , Studien zum Verständnis der römischen Litteratur, p. 9, n. 1Google Scholar, that Vornefeld has grossly exaggerated Plutarch's use of Latin sources.

¹ e.g. xxii, xxiii, xxv.

² See further my article.

³ e.g. collections of sayings, extracts from his speeches, a collection of letters (cf. xx. 11) whether genuine or not, and in xv, at any rate, the earlier biographical material (see above, p. 108). His supposed Greek speech to the Athenians (xii. 5) I have little hesitation in saying was a rhetorical composition, probably of the first century a.d.

⁴ It is possible to trace with some show of probability the outlines of the main source, and to suggest which chapters are insertions of Plutarch from elsewhere. But since in the absence of any of the relevant literature any such reconstruction must be completely hypothetical and to that extent unconvincing, I prefer to leave it untried here.

⁵ Cf. Soltau, op. cit.

⁶ Cf. Münzer, op. cit., followed by Fraccaro and Beloch, for the incidents of Fabius and Nearchus.

⁷ Cf. Leo, , Die griechisch-römische Biographie, pp. 165–71.Google Scholar

⁸ Cato, xvi. 55; xii. 41.Google Scholar

⁹ e.g. that Curius was eating turnips. Cf. Nissen, , p. 293.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Possibly, of course, it was in the full Life of Nepos; but for reasons which I shall give below (see p. 112) I do not believe that it was.

¹¹ ii. 2: ‘P. Scipio Africanus … voluit eum de provincia depellere et ipse ei succedere, neque hoc per senatum efficere potuit.’

¹² I have mentioned above (p. 108) Soltau's attempt to make Livy Plutarch's source for this fact. Fraccaro, , i, p. 110Google Scholar, tries to derive Plutarch's and Livy's accounts and that of the author of De Viris illustrious from Nepos, , and (p. 110, n. 2)Google Scholar says that octaginta in De Vir. ill. (47. 7)Google Scholar is a mistake for nonaginta. Perhaps octaginta in Nepos, (ii. 4)Google Scholar is a similar mistake!

¹³ Soltau's arguments are in general unconvincing; he notes a few agreements on points of fact between Plutarch's Life and the abridged Life of Nepos, on the strength of which he argues that Plutarch's source must have been Nepos' full Life. But if, for instance (one of Soltau's examples), Cato was tribuntts militum, then Plutarch could hardly say anything but that χιλιαρχίας ἔτυχε. Such similarities cannot be used as evidence of plagiarism, and Soltau's examples are all of that nature. Moreover, he shirks any attempt to explain the differences between the two on points of fact which argue a different tradition. Briefly they are: (1) Cato's war service between 214 and 210; (2) Scipio succeeding Cato in Spain; (3) Cato's age at the time of Galba's prosecution. He produces no real evidence in support of his theory, and fails to take account of much that in fact makes it untenable. Leo's treatment is brief and unhappy. On p. 166, in an attempt to show that Plutarch's source used Livy, he says that the characterization of Cato in Livy, , xxxix. 40. 4–12Google Scholar, is not derived from his annalistic source, and therefore we are left to conclude that Plutarch's source must have derived it directly from Livy. Yet on p. 170 he attempts to show that Livy derived it from Nepos. Then surely Plutarch's conjectural source, who, we are informed on p. 171, used Nepos, could have derived it from Nepos as well as from Livy? The discussion, pp. 168–9, of tne relation of Cicero's Cato to Plutarch's Life is equally unsatisfactory. First we are told that Plutarch's account of the conversation with Nearchus must be derived from Cicero. For this his only reason is: ‘Aus gemeinsamer Quelle hätte Plutarch von dem Dialog, aber nicht von dem Erlebnisse als solchem berichten können.’ I simply cannot follow this argument—if indeed it is such—which begs the whole question. He then shows that there are certain small differences between Cicero's and Plutarch's accounts, which, he says, make it likely that there was an intermediate source; the probability becomes a certainty when we see that Plutarch's Life is a combination of both Cicero's and Nepos'. We need not pursue the matter farther; if one is prepared to ignore the differences between the accounts, and base one's case on a few similarities, then anything is possible, especially if that deus ex machina, the intermediate source, is hauled in.

¹ With certain reservations; see below.

² As Münzer, op. cit., shows, to my mind convincingly.

³ iv. 10; xii. 41.

⁴ xxiv. 10.

⁵ xxiii. 85.

⁶ xxv. 3.

⁷ viii. 26.

⁸ xiii. 45.

¹ Perhaps Atticus, who asked him to write the biography (vii. 5), had expressed dissatisfaction with what we may call the canonical biography, and may have shown its falsity in some details. His interest in history is attested by his Annales.

² i. 1. For the close relations of the Perpemae with the Valerii Flacci, and in particular of this one, see P.-W., s.v. ‘Perperna’, No. 5, cols. 896–7.

³ The dates are Fraccaro's, to whose work on this point I have referred above.

⁴ As I have said, I think this more likely than that it did appear in the full Life. The question could be easily settled: Cato's name did not appear anywhere in connexion with the incident in the more trustworthy accounts, and Nepos could discover that without trouble.

⁵ 47. 1: ‘in praetura Sardiniam subegit, ubi ab Ennio Graecis litteris instructus.’ Fraccaro, , i, p. 127Google Scholar, thinks that Cato brought Ennius to Rome in 203–202, not after his praetorship.