Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 September 2009
Long before his obsessional wish was finally fulfilled in 146 B.C, the elder Cato had yet other concerns than Carthaginem delendam esse. In his manual for the farmer, De agricultura 143, he gives ample prescriptions concerning the way the wife of the bailiff (the vilica) of an estate should behave:
‘She must visit the neighbouring and other women very seldom, and not have them either in the house or in her part of it. She must not go out to meals or be a gad-about. She must not engage in religious worship herself or get others to engage in it for her without the orders of the master or the mistress; let her remember that the master attends to the devotions for the whole household.’ (translation: W. D. Hooper & H. B. Ash. Loeb)