Cato the Elder
234 - 149 BC. Marcus Porcius Cato was a wealthy Roman landowner who strongly
believed in the traditional Roman Republican values and stood as a symbol for
those ideals. He believed that the rural, farming life was the best and most
virtuous life for a Roman citizen. He believed that the Greek culture and ways that
were brought back to Rome by her conquering armies actually did more to weaken
the Roman people than to strengthen the state. He also saw
Carthage as a major menace to Rome and, when he was a Senator, ended every speech he
made with the words "Carthage must be destroyed", regardless of what the rest of
the speech was about. He even brought a huge bunch of grapes, grown in
Carthagenian soil, to a meeting of the
Senate in order to impress upon the rest of the senators that Carthage's great
agricultural capacity posed a dangerous threat to Roman leadership in the
Mediterranean. It was partly due to Cato's constant inveighing against Carthage that Rome
imposed an impossible ultimatum upon the city. This led to the Third
Punic War in which Carthage was burned, her inhabitants slaughtered, and even the
stones from which the city was built were scattered. The Romans even
symbolically sowed the earth with salt around the site of the destroyed city in effect
saying that Carthage would never rise from the ashes. One hundred years later,
Carthage was an important Roman town in North Africa.
Cato served as quaestor, aedile, praetor, consul, and censor in the Roman
government. He also served as a military general, winning major victories in Spain.
He used his powers as censor to get rid of many senators whom he felt were a
corrupting influence on Roman society.
Cato the Elder wrote the first history of Rome that was not an epic poem.
Parts of this work, the Origines, still survive but most of it is lost. He also
wrote a treatise on agriculture that still survives.