SOURCE: Alan E. Astin, "The De agricultura and Other Writings," in Cato the Censor, Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1978, pp. 182-210.

[Astin's Cato the Censor is the first extensive biography of Cato since Plutarch 's Lives and the only indepth study to date in English. The chapter excerpted below summarizes all of the writings, provides an extensive discussion of De agricultura, and examines Cato's development and purpose as an author. Astin ultimately deems Cato's influence on Roman prose "a considerable imaginative achievement."]

1. Cato's writings

'His eloquence lives and flourishes, enshrined in writings of every kind.'¹ If Livy has here allowed enthusiasm to outweigh precision, if his claim has too wide a sweep, the overstatement is at least understandable. The motivations and purposes which induced Cato to write, the range, the forms, the quality, even the basic nature of his compositions may all be subject to debate; but the magnitude of his achievement is beyond question. He was virtually the founder of Roman prose literature. Nor is his achievement in any way diminished by the recognition that, like all who make original contributions, he was not working in a vacuum, that his writings were related to, and developed from, what others had done. Other Romans had written historical works in prose, but in Greek, not in Latin. Others had created literary works in the Latin language, but in verse, not in prose. Other Romans must have noted down practical information and assembled 'books' for private use, but Cato was the first to prepare such books with a view to circulation, to their use by a 'public'. And if the scope and sophistication of his compositions has sometimes been overestimated, still they unquestionably display a remarkable breadth of interest and variety. A summary survey will illustrate this and provide a basis for more detailed discussion.

1 …. Although [the speeches] proved to be of great significance in the development of Roman literature it is unlikely that Cato himself thought of them in such terms. Whether he himself 'published' any, apart from those included in the Origines, is uncertain, though the balance of probability inclines slightly against.

2. Two 'books' not intended for publication and probably never published:

(i) A history which, according to Plutarch, Cato stated he himself wrote 'with his own hand in big letters, so that his son might have in his home an aid to the understanding of the old Roman traditions'. It was presumably written c. 185-180. Despite occasional conjectures to the contrary it is generally agreed that this work is to be distinguished from the Origines, except in so far as the experience of writing it could have been one of the factors encouraging the later decision to write a major historical work.²

(ii) A commentarius or notebook in which Cato collected prescriptions for the treatment of illnesses in his household. He mentioned this commentarius in his Ad fllium, adding an indication, probably very brief, of the general nature of his treatments. Occasional modern attempts to identify this book either with part of the Ad filium itself or with the extant De agricultura are certainly erroneous.³

3. Writings addressed to his elder son, M. Porcius Cato Licinianus:

(i) The Ad filium. This has often been envisaged as a set of books, probably conceived as a single project, written to assist with the education of Cato's son, each book dealing with a separate topic, and including at least agriculture, medicine, and rhetoric; in fact the first Roman 'encyclopaedia'. However, there are grave objections to such a reconstruction. The most likely interpretation of the evidence is that Cato addressed to his son a collection, probably in only one book, of precepts, exhortations, and observations, many of them pithily expressed, on a variety of topics and with a marked emphasis on practical affairs. Since the son was almost certainly born in 192 or 191 such a work would probably have been put together during the 170s. Subsequently copies of the work passed into circulation, so that it was known to Pliny, Plutarch, and others, and several fragments survive. There is nothing to indicate whether Cato himself was in any way responsible for the 'publication', but in any event it is unlikely that the Ad filium was written with a view to this.

(ii) A letter from Cato to his elder son, congratulating him on his bravery at the battle of Pydna in 168. This is presumably the same letter as the one in which Cato, having heard that his son had received his discharge from the army, warned him against engaging in combat unless he was first formally re-enlisted. A few other very brief fragments, including at least one usually assigned to the Ad filium, may come from this letter and could be taken to suggest that its contents were rather wide-ranging. That would help to account for its subsequent publication and survival until at least the time of Cicero. There is no good evidence for the survival of other letters, either to the son or to others. The letter is most unlikely to have been written originally with a view to 'publication'; whether Cato himself was in any way responsible for its passing into circulation is unknown.⁵

4. Three specialized monographs. The interpretation of the Ad filium as an 'encyclopaedia' gave rise to questions about the relationship between that work and these monographs. With the interpretation of the Ad filium adopted in this book these questions no longer arise.

(i) De agricultura. The only one of Cato's works to survive intact, this will be discussed in detail below. It consists of a single book.

(ii) De re militari. Fifteen different fragments are preserved in eighteen citations, and the work is explicitly mentioned in three further passages. There is little doubt that the correct title is De re militari, though other phrases are found, such as De militari disciplina. Despite one reference to 'books' the work virtually certainly consisted of a single book. It cannot be dated but a fragment from its preface shows that it was not merely a private notebook but was written for publication. Material drawn from it was incorporated in later military writings and transmitted as far as the Epitoma rei militaris of Vegetius, who refers to Cato by name, though it is virtually certain that he did not have direct access to Cato's work. There is good reason to believe that Vegetius has significantly more Catonian material than the three fragments positively established, but attempts to identify further specific passages are in varying degrees insecure.⁶ The fifteen fragments of Cato's work suggest that it was a handbook of practical information about Roman military practices and methods, especially on the tactical level, ranging through such matters as the taking of auspicia, details of internal organization, methods of maintaining discipline, formations on the march and in battle, and the uses of specialist troops such as archers. Probably the points were exemplified by accounts of particular events.⁷

(iii) A work dealing with aspects of civil law, perhaps more specifically with augural and pontifical law. In this case special difficulties arise because Cato's elder son, who predeceased him, wrote books on law which were evidently more extensive and more authoritative than Cato's own, the references to which are all rather indirect. It is likely that most of the citations from 'Cato' in the Digest and Justinian's Institutes are from the son's work (though at least one is probably a corruption of 'Capito').⁸ The same could be true of the one fragment which is usually assigned to Cato's own work, though more probably Festus, who preserved it, and may be supposed to have taken it from the Augustan scholar Verrius Flaccus, would have added some qualification if he had believed any other Cato to have been the author.⁹ The most explicit evidence is a passage of the De senectute in which Cicero represented Cato as busying himself in old age with various literary occupations, including, 'I am dealing with the civil law of the augurs and pontifices.'¹⁰ Though this is not reliable evidence for the date of composition, read in its context it does show that Cicero believed Cato to have written such a work. That is implied also in not a few other references to Cato's expertise in law, several of them in lists of his skills which clearly correspond to his principal writings." The paucity of fragments is presumably because this work was quickly outdated by the flood of voluminous and authoritative legal writings which followed.

5. Carmen de moribus. This work is known only from a single passage of Gellius (a later reference by Nonius is almost certainly taken from Gellius), whose initial interest is in the use of the word elegans in a particular quotation, though he is led on to recall two further quotations.¹² He explicitly terms it 'the book of Cato which is entitled Carmen de moribus', and he twice more refers to it in the singular. Of the three fragments Gellius makes it clear that the second really consists of several (three?) separate quotations he has brought together. Although the term carmen has inspired a variety of suggestions regarding metrical form, the very diversity of conclusions encourages the belief that it was a prose work of markedly didactic tone.¹³ Such a tone is certainly suggested by the fragments, though such limited material is a slender basis on which to make assertions about the book as a whole. Nevertheless they suggest that, as is only to be expected, it was concerned with mores not in a theoretical or philosophical sense but in the practical terms of actual behaviour. The first two fragments contrast certain features of contemporary conduct with the practice of earlier generations, by implication to the disadvantage of the former, while the third uses a simile to moralize about deterioration consequent upon idleness. It is a reasonable assumption, but no more than that, that the work was written for the purpose of circulation—rather than, for example, as a further preceptual guide for Licinianus—and that it was some kind of public exhortation to higher standards of conduct, as Cato conceived them to be.

6. A collection of 'sayings'. Cicero in the De officiis speaks explicitly of 'many witty sayings by many people, like those which were collected by the old Cato', 'multa multorum facete dicta, ut ea, quae a sene Catone collecta sunt'. A passage in the De oratore, though not quite explicit, is beyond reasonable doubt another reference to the same collection and shows that Cicero drew several of his examples from it.¹⁴ Presumably the compilation of such a work was primarily a reflection of Cato's own sense of humour and fondness for aphorism. It would be rash to assume that it was compiled for the express purpose of circulation, but supposing it to have been made initially for private purposes it is easy to envisage Cato allowing copies to be made and the collection quickly passing into circulation. Cicero's reference to the 'old' Cato, senex, is not adequate evidence that Cato compiled the collection towards the end of his life, for Cicero often applies the word to Cato as a distinguishing epithet rather than as an indication of time. It is obviously possible, though undemonstrable, that the collection was built up over a considerable period. The only dictum cer tainly from the collection was spoken by a certain C. Publicius about a P. Mummius. It is highly probable however that the collection is the source of a dictum (quoted twice by Cicero) addressed by Q. Fabius Maximus Cunctator to M. Livius Macatus after the capture of Tarentum in 209, and possibly also of a remark by Scipio Africanus which Cicero in the Republic says was reported by Cato.¹⁵ Several other remarks in the second book of the De oratore must have been drawn from the collection. There are about ten possibilities, but no means of establishing that any particular one of them was taken from this source.

Inevitably there has been speculation as to whether Cato included in this collection any sayings of his own. The question has been complicated by Plutarch's statement that 'many literal translations [sc. from Greek] are included among his sayings and maxims'…, This however is almost certainly a different matter.¹⁶ Plutarch means that there were many such translations among the sayings attributed to Cato, and by Plutarch's time there were available collections of such sayings independent of Cato's own collection. One such collection was manifestly the basis of chapters 8 and 9 of Plutarch's Life, Moreover a number of sayings in general circulation, including some of Greek origin, were posthumously attached to Cato's name and included in such collections; indeed there are a number of such spurious attributions among the Apophthegmata preserved in the Plutarch corpus.¹⁷ Not that Cato himself is likely to have been shy of using sayings translated from Greek: he was evidently quite prepared to borrow a sentence from Xenophon for the Preface to the Origines.¹⁸ However that may be, it is clear that the Plutarch passage probably has no direct connection with Cato's own collection.

Nor is much help to be got from the survival of a large number of sayings attributed to Cato. Many of these, probably the majority, were culled from his speeches and other writings, and some from Polybius. There are others which could not easily be envisaged in such works, but it is perfectly possible that they were incorporated in a collection by someone else soon after—or even before—Cato's death. On the other hand it is by no means inconceivable that Cato included some of his own dicta in his own collection. The suggestion that they would no longer have had meaning or interest for him apart from the original circumstances is as much—and as little—applicable to other people's dicta as to his own. He unquestionably made a collection of the former; and he was not a man inhibited by modesty. The conclusion must be that while it is possible he included dicta of his own, it remains quite uncertain whether he actually did so.

7. Origines. This was a major historical work, the first in Latin, written with a view to circulation among a reading public. About 125 fragments survive from its seven books. The first book dealt with the origins and very early history of Rome, the second and third books with the origins of many other Italian peoples. The remaining four books covered the history of Rome from at least as early as the First Punic War literally down

to Cato's own day: the last book included the speech against Ser. Sulpicius Galba which he delivered only shortly before his death….

Such is the range of Cato's writings, so far as they are known. The very list highlights his remarkable versatility and the vigour with which he pursued a variety of interests. At the same time it raises fundamental questions about such matters as Cato's motives in writing, his debt to his predecessors, his methods of working, and the level of his artistry. The starting-point must be the De agricultura, not for its special merits—for some of the works of which only fragments remain were certainly of higher literary and intellectual quality—but because it is the only work which has survived to be judged as a full text.

2. The De agricultura¹⁹

Cato's De agricultura is a book of moderate length—just over one hundred pages in a modern critical edition—which despite its title deals with only some aspects of agriculture.²⁰ It is not—and makes no pretension to be—a comprehensive treatment of the different types of agricultural production and organization. In particular it does not deal with either cereal production or animal raising as topics of central importance, according them only cursory mention as auxiliary items on farms the primary function of which was to produce wine or olive oil. Indeed, although Cato also dealt briefly with horticulture in the neighbourhood of a city, it was clearly wine and oil production that he had in the forefront of his mind as he wrote. Yet although in this sense the scope of his work is limited, in places it extends beyond strictly agricultural matters to include a number of medicinal treatments and even cooking recipes. Strongly didactic in character, with the imperative form predominating throughout, it offers little in the way of theory and generalization but a great deal of practical instruction, much of it on matters of detail, even of minute detail. With very few exceptions each of the 162 chapters deals with a single quite specific topic—such as a particular operation on the farm or a particular recipe—and this is basically true even of a few chapters, mostly in the earlier part of the book, in which the topics are rather broader and more complex. Indeed in the manuscript tradition through which the work has been preserved the point was emphasized by the rubrics indicating the contents of the individual chapters—though there is uncertainty as to whether these rubrics, which usually reproduce or paraphrase the opening words of the chapter, were part of the original work.

Stylistically the De agricultura is plain in the extreme, consisting largely of short uncomplicated sentences and making only limited use even of a narrow range of simple conjunctions and particles. The rare flash of more vivid language and the occasional aphorism provide a tenuous link with the fragments of the speeches and other works,²¹ but by the very contrast which they create these also emphasize the simple, unadorned directness which prevails. In short, Cato here employs the language of direct practical instruction, without effort to achieve literary effect or linguistic elegance. The striking exception to this is the Preface, which, whatever may be thought of its intellectual content, was manifestly composed with considerable care in order to achieve an elevated and artistic effect. It has even been suggested that its style and structure were strongly influenced by Greek rhetorical principles, but in fact its characteristics are those of the native Latin tradition, with its use of synonyms, of parallelism, of repetitions—sometimes for deliberate effect, sometimes because there was no attempt to avoid them—and the emphasis on the opening and closing elements in sentences of relatively simple structure.²²

It has often been observed that the Preface contrasts with the main body of the work in another respect also; for it makes explicit reference to the type of the colonus, the peasant farmer working his own farm, whereas the book itself is not directed at all to this form of farming. Instead, although not a little of the detailed practical information would be applicable within any kind of farm organization, Cato clearly has in mind larger units belonging to, and managed on behalf of, an owner who is not normally resident on the farm.

There is no firm evidence as to when the De agricultura was composed. One of the early chapters contains a hint that it was probably written later than 198, but since Cato did not die until 149 that does little to help.²³ If the most literal interpretation is placed upon Cato's assertion that up to his seventieth year none of his villas was plastered and also upon the full implications of the instructions in chapter 128 'for plastering a dwelling', that chapter should have been written after 164;²⁴ but a date inferred only from the literal implications of such details is scarcely a reliable basis for further argument and interpretation. That the De agricultura was composed in Cato's later years is certainly plausible but is not securely established.

Nevertheless this book is not only the first work on agriculture to have been written by a Roman;²⁵ it is also the earliest prose work in Latin to have survived and was among the earliest written. Consequently it is of exceptional interest in several different respects, including textual criticism, the history of Latin language and idiom, Roman religion, and the practical aspects of Roman agriculture; and it has also received much attention as a social and economic document. In the present study attention is focused especially on two aspects: the characteristics, methods, and processes of composition, which are considered in this chapter; and the light which the work may throw on Cato's personality and especially upon his attitudes to various social and economic matters….

Two striking features of the De agricultura have prompted numerous discussions about the time and manner of its composition, its publication, and possible subsequent modification. They are the seemingly disorderly presentation of the material and the occurrence of 'doublets'.

The appearance of disorder is obvious to any reader. Items appear to be introduced casually, following no systematic plan, sometimes intruding between chapters which are related to each other, sometimes in a bewildering succession of apparently disconnected individual points. Closer examination has led to a fairly widespread recognition that the first twenty-two chapters are associated with the broad theme of purchasing, managing, and developing a farm, and that the next thirty or so are based upon a calendar of farm operations beginning with the vintage and extending through to the tasks of the following summer. Yet even within these broad themes there is a general impression of interruptions and digressions and of very loose construction. In the remaining two-thirds of the book, although two or three or even more chapters in succession may be loosely connected around a single topic and in a few cases a more extended sequence can be distinguished, as in the case of the cooking recipes, the over-all impression is almost universally agreed to be that there is a lack of system, a largely haphazard arrangement, and no unifying theme. Even the person addressed is not always the same. Usually it is the owner, the dominus, but in at least one section and possibly in others the vilicus, the slave who manages the farm, is addressed in the second person.²⁶ In many chapters instructions are given in an 'impersonal' second person form for tasks which the owner is most unlikely to carry out in person; and although the imperatives which predominate throughout the book are most often in the second person, quite frequently there is a change into the third.

This sense of disorder is heightened by the occurrence within this short work of a number of 'doublets', that is to say items, in some cases whole chapters, which occur twice, usually with very little variation in content or even in wording. Not all repetitions are to be regarded as doublets or in need of special explanation; and sometimes the reckoning has perhaps been on the generous side. In some cases only a few words or a single sentence are repeated, and quite a number of doublets are merely another aspect of the relatively limited amount of over-all planning in the book. These are items which occur in two different contexts to both of which they are equally relevant and appropriate, and it is arguable that such repetitions could have been eliminated only if the organization of the material had been planned in advance with meticulous care and attention to detail, and perhaps even then only with the aid of a number of cross-references. Nevertheless several striking and apparently unnecessary doublets remain.²⁷ Thus instructions for the propagation of trees by layering are given first in chapters 51 and 52 and again, with only minor variations, in 133. Recommendations about the lengths of various ropes, reins, and straps given in 63 are repeated with slight differences in 135. 4, in the midst of other recommendations of the same kind. Chapters 91 and 129 are virtually identical in content and closely related (though not identical) in wording, and the relationship between 92 and 128, though not quite so close, is similar. Chapter 115 gives instructions for the preparation of a laxative wine differing only slightly from those just given in 114, without any reference back or mention that an alternative is being set out; and another prescription is found twice, with almost identical vocabulary and differing only in grammatical structure, first in 156. 5 and then in 157. 9, both of these unusually long chapters being con cerned with the uses of cabbage.

Although these features have been exciting discussion for more than a century, it has been observed with some plausibility that the numerous explanations which have been offered, despite their variations in detail, fall into two principal categories: (i) that Cato's original text has been distorted by subsequent revisions and interpolations; (ii) that the text is largely as Cato left it (except that at some stage the spelling was 'modernized') and that its disorderliness reflects the manner in which it was compiled and published.²⁸ However, these two approaches to the problem are not necessarily mutually exclusive, nor indeed have they always been treated as such. Moreover the second of these categories perhaps imposes a misleading unity on what are really several separate categories of argument. It would be more accurate to say that there have been four main types of explanation which, as well as varying in detail within themselves, have been brought together in a variety of combinations.²⁹

(i) It has been argued that the De agricultura was substantially revised and interpolated after Cato's death, though probably before the time of the elder Pliny, who seems to have known the work in its present form.³⁰ One suggestion is that at a particular time, perhaps in the Augustan period, the text was subjected to a wholesale and incompetent revision which included the insertion of much material from some other work. The form of revision more frequently postulated is that because it was a practical handbook in constant use its users were inclined to add notes and glosses which sometimes were additional material, sometimes slightly modified versions of Cato's instructions, and that in due course these became incorporated in the text. A practical handbook, it is thought, would have been particularly liable to that kind of interpolation, though it perhaps occurred less in the earlier, more coherent sections, where the author's personality had imposed itself more strongly.

(ii) It is likely that Cato obtained at least some of his material for the De agricultura from 'notebooks' or commentarii in which useful practical information had been collected, such as a 'calendar' of farm operations, a number of cooking recipes, and various other grouped or miscellaneous notes. (Again there has been much variation in modern assessments, ranging from a simple recognition of such underlying documents as the calendar and some inventories through to a highly complex theory which seeks to identify the basic documents and the manner of their synthesis in considerable detail.³¹) It has therefore been suggested that the disorder springs partly from the unsystematic character of such notebooks, partly from a failure to integrate properly material drawn from a number of such sources. The origin of the doublets might have been that the same particulars had been recorded in more than one notebook.

(iii) A further suggestion is that the process of composition, especially perhaps of the later part of the book, was spread over a long period. Cato simply went on adding individual chapters or groups of chapters from time to time, when appropriate items happened to come to his attention. Hence the arrangement was haphazard, lacking theme and structure. Some information was put in twice, either by accident or because Cato did not bother to delete the earlier version when he put in a modified version. The sporadic nature of the process, perhaps spread over many years (as many as forty have been suggested), resulted in some loss of the sense of relevance and purpose, so that among the miscellaneous items added could be such items as the cookery recipes.

(iv) Lastly, it has been held that the book was unfinished at Cato's death. Consequently he had not completed the work of revising and rearranging a rough draft which in places may have consisted of little more than a collection of notes. Subsequently by allowing copies of the draft to be made someone in effect published it more or less in the rough unfinished state in which Cato had left it. Unfulfilled intentions might also account for the rather tenuous relationship between the Preface and the body of the work. (A variant on this, that Cato compiled the work in a rough and ready way because he did not envisage it being published, is incompatible both with the existence of the Preface and with the content of the earlier chapters.³²)

These various hypotheses certainly contain some valid points. In particular it cannot reasonably be doubted that Cato drew a great deal of material from private notes and documents which were kept for practical purposes. Indeed it is highly probable that the specific recommendations given in respect of farms of different types and sizes—a suburban garden, a vineyard, and at least two farms devoted to olive-production—are based on the inventories and other particulars of actual farms belonging to Cato. The material drawn from such sources includes the inventories of farm equipment, the sample contracts, the religious formulas, the instructions on cypress trees and on brooms attributed to particular persons, and many other detailed instructions.³³ Presumably some of the sequences of closely related items, such as the cooking recipes, were obtained in this way rather than from Cato's memory, but the process was by no means wholly mechanical, even in the later sections. In the middle of chapter 157, which is certainly based on some special source, Cato's personal control of the material is revealed by the phrase 'if you use cabbage as I advise'; and the impress of his personality is particularly evident in chapters 54, 61, and 142-3, as well as in many of the earlier chapters. Similarly the possibility of intrusive glosses in a work of this kind is certainly to be taken seriously. It is, for example, the most plausible explanation for the bare statement in chapter 124 that 'dogs should be shut away during the day so that they may be keener and more watchful at night', which occurs totally unexpectedly in the middle of a sequence of chapters devoted to wine-based medicinal prescriptions. Nevertheless it is not so easy to envisage this kind of interpolation on such a scale that it was a major factor in bringing about the seeming disorder of the whole work.

Indeed, when the effort is made to envisage in detail what is actually supposed to have happened, physically, to Cato's text it may be doubted whether any of the four kinds of hypothesis outlined above is a satisfactory explanation or can account for more than a few details. A revision so incompetent that it distorted and disrupted the whole sequence and coherence of Cato's work is itself something which would require a special explanation, especially when it is supposed to have happened not at the hands of an uncomprehending medieval scribe but in the age of Caesar or Augustus; yet a less dramatic revision which had not done this could not afford an explanation of the peculiarities of the De agricultura. Again, while it is easy to admit the possibility that the work is unfinished in the sense that Cato might have intended to add more material at the end, it is much less easy to envisage what kind of process of compilation and drafting would, in ancient conditions, have left the incomplete work awaiting major rearrangement and revision, yet in a sufficiently coherent form, presumably in one manuscript, for it to have been possible for it to pass into circulation. Yet if Cato was not contemplating such drastic revision a failure to finish would not itself be the explanation of the peculiarities; and if Cato left simply a collection of drafts and notes, presumably on waxed tablets, the decision to copy them into a single manuscript for publication as a book is also in need of special explanation. There is more to be said for the view that the later parts of the work were compiled without reference to any clear-cut plan or structure, in a manner which might be better described as accumulation than as composition. Whether such a process took place sporadically over a substantial period of time is more doubtful. At any rate, a sense of continuity is apparent in chapter 142, where there is an unmistakable reference back to the instructions to the vilicus set out in chapter 5. Moreover it is necessary to account also for the fact that the progression of thought is frequently erratic and surprising even in the earlier sections of the book, where a broad plan is observable. For these sections the explanation of sporadic accumulation is neither helpful nor probable.

Nevertheless, the view of the De agricultura as characterized by a lack of systematic planning is helpful in two respects. Up to a point it is valid in itself, and it points to a fifth type of explanation, one which is sometimes briefly stated or implied but which is deserving of fuller consideration, namely that the origin of the peculiarities is to be sought not so much in the mechanics of compilation or transmission as in Cato's own attitudes and preconceptions. It has been recognized, for example, that chapter 34 reveals a tolerance of digressions which would be thought inept in a modern writer, for with the words 'I return to the matter of planting' Cato resumes a topic from which he had strayed several chapters earlier and at the same time shows that the digression was his own and not a subsequent interpolation.³⁴ In fact the emphasis on disorder and fragmentation in the De agricultura has perhaps been slightly misplaced. Although there is no strong over-all structure or rigid discipline of relevance, neither the earlier nor even the later sections are quite as fragmented as has often been supposed. A distinction must be drawn between disciplined thought and continuity of thought. Definite—though undisciplined—sequences of thought can be found more extensively and with fewer sharp breaks than has usually been assumed. Frequently, however, the sequential element does not take the form of a coherent exposition or development of a central theme. It will be as well to examine this in more detail before returning to the question of Cato's attitude in a more general sense.

In some cases the continuity of thought is simply a matter of a series of individual points which are related to each other, at times only loosely, by a particular concept or a particular farm product. In others it takes the form of a type of progression which paradoxically both establishes and tends to obscure the element of continuity: there is a tendency when a particular topic is being discussed to pick up something which has been mentioned in a subordinate or indirect manner and to make a comment directly upon this without any further direct relevance to the topic from which it sprang. In such cases there is sometimes a speedy return to the initial topic, as in chapter 3. There, in logical sequence to comments on the need for adequate buildings, there is mention of the need for good presses 'so that the work can be done well', which inspires a digression about the importance of doing the pressing as quickly as possible and the reasons why gatherers and press-operators are tempted to delay; but after a few short sentences Cato returns to the details of the pressing-equipment required.³⁵ The digression mentioned above which ends with the 'I return to planting' of chapter 34 is similar in kind but on a larger scale. In some other cases an earlier topic is picked up in a way which suggests not so much a resumption after a digression as the addition of an afterthought.³⁶

As for groups of passages which centre on a particular theme, some are obvious enough, such as the inventories, the cookery recipes, the religious formulas, and the sample contracts. Others however are set out in such a way that the common element is not presented to the reader as a prominent feature. Thus chapters 91-101 at first sight seem to consist of a number of miscellaneous recipes and prescriptions for widely differing purposes, each introduced by reference to its purpose: e.g. 'To make a threshing-floor … If an olive tree is sterile … To keep caterpillars off vines … To keep scab from sheep … If you intend to store oil in a new jar …' On closer examination however all these items are found to involve the use of amurca, olive-lees, so that the whole group could have been entitled 'On the uses of amurca'. Several similar groups can be identified. Although there are some breaks in continuity where Cato changes to a completely different topic, these breaks are not as frequent as some modern accounts might suggest. In particular chapters 104 to 127, excepting only the intrusive injunction about dogs in 124, are linked together by the concept of the uses and applications of various other products of the farm; and it is likely that this idea really governs the whole block from 91 to 130, opening with uses of amurca and coming back to this in the last three chapters with supplementary material. Apart from the dogs in 124, only chapter 102 (a prescription for treating oxen and other animals bitten by snakes) seems to fit awkwardly into such a sequence; and for that a reason able explanation can be conjectured if these lists were at least in part specially compiled by Cato himself. That this was so is indeed probable, for it would be surprising if in the normal course of running a farm there had been occasion to assemble a miscellany of very varied uses of, for example, amurca, and it seems more likely that these were brought together from other notes arranged on a different basis.

The fundamental explanation for the lack of system and the lack of disciplined thought in the De agricultura is to be found precisely in Cato's role as the virtual founder of Latin prose literature, a role which is invariably recognized but the implications of which are easily overlooked. It is all too easy to forget how different was Cato's background and experience in this field from that of modern scholars and writers, almost all of whom have from childhood been trained and disciplined in techniques of composition; whose education and literary environment alike have constantly instilled ideals of relevance, consistency, clear and logical exposition, and avoidance of repetition; who take it for granted that the satisfactory presentation of a complicated and technical topic requires a high de gree of organization and preliminary planning, not to mention the repeated revision of drafts, and who have had plenty of opportunity to observe the consequences of an insufficiency of such organization and planning. Cato had received no such training, did not live in an environment which constantly inculcated such ideals and techniques of composition, and had had little previous experience of constructing books and equally little opportunity to benefit from the experience of others. Experience and skill in the composition of speeches he certainly did have, but that is a different kind of composition, presenting different problems which are of limited relevance to the De agricultura. A speech was not only a relatively short composition; the very circumstances which called it into being gave it a strong inherent unity and direction, in effect imposed a kind of plan and coherence—just as chronological sequence has often provided a basic framework for historical writings. Even so Gellius' comments suggest that the Rhodian speech, however forceful and vigorous, was by no means notable for disciplined thought or for clear, logical, and well-organized exposition of the arguments.³⁸ The Preface to the De agricultura does display a care and coherence in composition which may well be related to Cato's experience with speeches; but the Preface is brief and it could be argued that even within this short passage the arrangement of material is in one respect determined less by logic than by the kind of progression of ideas which was discussed above.³⁹ Similarly experience gained from writing the other works which may have been earlier than the De agricultura would have been with much simpler material. In particular the Ad filium was probably only a miscellany of precepts, and it is easy to imagine the Carmen de moribus as rather similar, loosely assembled about the theme indicated by its title. The composition of an extended didactic work devoted to a single topic and containing a mass of interrelated practical information was a much more demanding task.

It may be objected that Cato had had the literary experience of reading Greek works, often works of high quality; but this too is of doubtful relevance. In the first place his acquaintance with Greek literature by no means necessarily implies that he read it with serious attention to techniques of composition and organization. In the second place Cato is most likely to have come across works of quality, hence unlikely to have been confronted with instructive examples of glaring faults which sprang from inadequate planning and discipline. Nor is it by any means certain that he even had the opportunity to examine work similar to his own; for there is doubt as to whether there were available Greek predecessors for the type of practical agricultural handbook he was attempting to write.⁴⁰ In any event, despite the few chapters which bear traces of being derived, directly or indirectly, from Greek sources, there are few clear signs of Greek influence in the work, and even if the idea of writing it was directly inspired by a Greek predecessor, its peculiarities make it almost impossible to believe that it was closely modelled upon any earlier work.

The De agricultura was probably not the first of Cato's writings. Although most of his books cannot be dated with confidence it is likely that he had already written others, such as the Ad filium and perhaps the Carmen de moribus, both of which were strongly didactic in tone (and much easier to compose). Probably encouraged by these experiments and not a little pleased with his achievements, it then occurred to him, in the same didactic spirit, to make available in writing more of his own expertise, only this time in the form not of precepts addressed to his son but of a work on a particular topic for a wider public: he would write a practical instructional book on agriculture, drawing upon his own personal knowledge and commentarii relating to his own properties. He commenced composition with only a sketchy and rudimentary scheme in mind, not thought out either in particular detail or at sufficient length to carry him more than a limited way through the book. He simply intended to give advice on the selection, general management, and equipment of a farm, and, since he believed it important for the owner to have sufficient knowledge to carry out frequent detailed inspections, he would supply a great deal of specific information about the tasks of the farm; probably the 'calendar' of operations through the year was envisaged as part of the initial plan. It is improbable that it ever occurred to him to think out with any precision who were his potential readers, or to put himself imaginatively in their place in order to assess what would be useful or appropriate to them. No attempt was made to relate the carefully composed Preface closely to the substance of the work—indeed the relationship is so loose that the Preface neither states nor implies the purpose of the book, while its references to coloni and soldiers have no relationship at all to the type of farming actually described. Contrasting the merits of agriculture as a source of income with the hazards of trade and the disrepute of usury, Cato mentions a traditional attitude that to be 'a good farmer and a good colonus' was the height of excellence, then states the advantages of agriculture to be that 'from farmers come both the bravest men and the most energetic soldiers, the income is especially respectable and secure and the least likely to provoke resentment, and those who are engaged in that occupation are least inclined to contemplate wrongdoing.' The underlying idea is that a book on agriculture is a worthy project because agriculture itself has such merits; but this is conceived in such general terms, drawing no distinction between different types of farming or of farmer, that it was clearly not thought out with close attention either to the purpose or to the substance of the book itself.⁴¹ In short, it is a brief self-contained essay, and it probably never occurred to Cato to take account of the specific material which was to follow, about which his ideas at this stage were in any case still for the most part rather general and vague. Then, untroubled by powerful preconceptions about the desirability of system, discipline, and strict relevance, he pressed ahead with topics largely as they came to mind, the sequence determined in part by a simple association of ideas and in the earlier sections loosely controlled by his sketchy plan.

Particularly in the later sections of the book much of the material gleaned from commentarii, especially the recipes and prescriptions, was reproduced more or less as it stood, without rephrasing to bring out its relationship to the new context, and in some cases the same item was found to be appropriate in more than one place. Occasionally an item was introduced into an irrelevant context because it was copied along with an adjacent item which was relevant and with which it was linked in a commentarius (this is almost certainly the explanation of the doublet in chapter 133, and probably of the ill-fitting chapter 102). Such features point to a lack of concern for or of interest in careful choice of words to create a sense of unity; they may also reflect a brisk and rather impatient manner of work, and possibly even that Cato did not actually copy out the passages with his own hand but instructed a secretary to do it.⁴³ Moreover when Cato came across additional information appropriate to some theme which he had dealt with previously his lack of a strong concern about relevance allowed him to insert such material at the point he had now reached in his manuscript, without deleting what had intervened or attempting an insertion into the earlier section. Probably he composed a continuous text in a single manuscript, so that such an insertion would have been difficult; but it is also probable that it never occurred to him that it would be desirable to attempt it.

The heavy reliance on commentarii and personal knowledge had another consequence. It both reflected and powerfully reinforced the markedly particularist tendencies in Cato's attitudes, his frequent failure to distinguish details which were applicable to his own situation from information which had general validity and utility. Thus recommendations as to places at which to purchase materials, statements of prices, and even calculations of cost linked with the number of days required for transportation are expressed in terms which could not have been applicable generally.⁴⁴ Similarly particular details of Cato's own properties are transformed into general recommendations, and he really deals only with those forms of agriculture which happened to concern him at the time—even though it is certain that he did have experience of other forms, at least at some stage in his career.⁴⁵ Hence too—almost certainly—the extraordinary piece of advice that an owner should commence building on his farm only from the age of thirty-six.⁴⁶

The application of such attitudes and such methods to a mass of detailed material, not infrequently interrelated and interdependent, inevitably resulted in a degree of unevenness and disorder and an erratic progression of ideas which can only be bewildering to readers habituated to orderliness and relevance and to whom these are, quite properly, major criteria in the assessment of instructional works. The peculiarities of the De agricultura are the consequence of major shortcomings in method and concept; but those shortcomings must be seen and indeed can be satisfactorily understood only in the context of Cato's pioneer ing role in the development of Roman prose writing. They reflect not carelessness or a lack of imagination but the novelty of the situation, the lack of relevant training and experience, in short the absence of an established literary culture such as Cato himself was helping to initiate. In such a context it was a consid erable imaginative achievement to have conceived of such a work, all the more so if there were no Greek models for this particular type of handbook; and for all the peculiarities and omissions it was probably also a considerable practical achievement to assemble this mass of detailed material.

3. Other writings in relation to De agricultura

Since the De agricultura is the only one of Cato's works to have survived, the scope for detailed comparison and general assessment of his writings is severely limited. The meagre fragments of the lost works offer little or no opportunity to pursue many of the questions which over the years have been so intensively studied in the De agricultura. The Origines, which is more extensively attested than the others in both testimonia and fragments, affords slightly greater opportunity; but since it is clearly distinctive in a number of respects and poses several problems of its own, it will be reserved for the next chapter. There it will be possible to consider how far it does or does not conform with such general conclusions as may be reached regarding Cato's other writings; for, in spite of all the limitations, certain points do seem to emerge.

Perhaps the most obvious characteristic is that so far as can be seen all the works which came into circulation, with the probable exception of the collection of witticisms, were essentially didactic. Admittedly this is only an assumption in the cases of the Carmen de moribus and the book on law, but it is an assumption which is difficult to avoid. Closely allied to the didactic aspect is the markedly practical, almost utilitarian emphasis. That was evidently the case even with the Carmen de moribus which, as was noted earlier, seems to have been concerned with mores not in a theoretical sense but in the practical terms of actual behaviour. Again, only the collection of witticisms was probably an exception.

If in some respects attention focuses naturally on characteristics which Cato's writings share in common, from other points of view these writings fall readily into distinguishable groups. One such group consists of the three works devoted respectively to agriculture, warfare, and law—each concerned with a single topic, each written with the intention of publication, and each envisaged as a kind of practical instructional handbook. Again it must be admitted that the latter two points are only assumptions—though assumptions which can scarcely be avoided—in respect of the book on law, about which it is possible to say nothing further. The De re militari however does offer some interesting points of comparison. As with the De agricultura its subject-matter was directly related to Cato's personal experience. Indeed the Preface contained a clear allusion to the relevance of that experience: 'I know that if what has been written is made public there will be many who will bring pettifogging criticisms, but for the most part they are people quite devoid of true distinction. I have allowed their pronouncements to flow past me.'⁴⁷ Such a personal declaration, condemning in advance any who might venture to disagree, is certainly different from anything in the De agricultura. (It is tempting to see it as a reaction to earlier criticism, hence as evidence that the De re militari was a relatively late work, probably later than the De agricultura.) On the other hand two other fragments strongly suggest that the Preface, similarly to that of the De agricultura but perhaps in a manner more directly related to the book itself, argued the importance of the topic;⁴⁸ and marked stylistic effects in all three fragments indicate that in this Preface too some effort was devoted to creating an impressive and high-sounding effect. In general the stylistic characteristics are such as are to be expected: sentences short and simple, with instances of asyndeton and antithesis—one of the latter particularly striking—two neologisms,⁴⁹ an epigrammatic touch, and a bold, perhaps even grandiloquent, use of the word orationes to indicate the pronouncements of possible critics. Most of these occur in the three fragments which are probably from the Preface. Of the remaining fragments three use the second person, which again suggests an approach similar to that of the De agricultural.⁵⁰ Also, though most of the fragments are such short extracts that they must be judged with caution, it does look as if the treatment was in general plain and straightforward; and one fragment heavily links together five nouns by using aut four times in succession.⁵¹ It is perhaps significant that the one instance of atque is in a fragment which appears to be part of a narrative, where Cato may have thought it appropriate to seek a more elevated or dramatic effect.⁵²

Like the De agricultura the De re militari was the first Latin book of its kind; but whereas in the case of the former there is uncertainty about the earlier existence of Greek handbooks of comparable type, there is no doubt that there were a considerable number of practical military treatises and manuals, mostly written in the Hellenistic period.⁵³ In view of Cato's particular interests, general curiosity, and at least moderate familiarity with Greek writings, it is scarcely conceivable that he did not know of at least some of these manuals; and it would therefore be unreasonable to suppose that there was no connection between these and his decision to write his own military book, at least to the extent of prompting the general idea of doing so. It is much less likely, however, that he followed any of them closely as a model. Much of the detail in them would have been irrelevant to Roman military practices, and both the fragments and the use made subsequently of Cato's work indicate that it dealt very specifically with Roman methods and practices. Cato, who in the De agricultura is so unconcerned about structure, is scarcely likely to have attempted to fit these Roman details into a pattern taken over from a Greek manual. It is impossible to tell, however, to what extent the De re militari exhibited the same attitudes as the De agricultura towards matters of composition, coherence, relevance, and structure, though the very nature of the military material may be expected to have encouraged a rather firmer structure.

Other writings contrast with the three practical handbooks in various ways. The Ad filium and perhaps the collection of witticisms are distinctive in probably not having been written with a view to publication, and neither they nor the Carmen de moribus were concerned with the exposition of a single topic. The Ad filium was evidently a collection of precepts and exhortations covering a wide range of subjects, while a book about mores was scarcely dealing with a single topic in the same sense as a book of practical instruction on agriculture or warfare. In fact the Carmen as well as the Ad filium may well have been predominantly 'preceptual' in character, and in both cases, though there was no doubt a tendency for topics to occur in groups roughly determined by topic, the nature of the subject-matter probably meant that there was even less constraint to think about structure. The nature of the material explains also why striking stylistic features are more in evidence in the fragments of these works, though the features themselves are much the same as in other writings: a marked epigrammatic quality, as is only to be expected, together with brevity and succinctness, asyndeton and assonance, antitheses and paradox.⁵⁴

4. The development of Cato's literary activity

There remains the most basic of the questions about Cato's writings: why did he write them? Clearly no single comprehensive answer could completely and sufficiently explain such a diversity of works. It is obvious that in an important sense the considerations which lay behind a book of miscellaneous guidance for Cato's son differed from those behind a book on agriculture intended for general circulation, and similarly in the case of each individual book. The De agricultura in particular, no doubt partly because it alone survives, has from time to time been seen (implausibly) as a kind of propaganda tract, usually in the sense of seeking to encourage the spread of the type of agriculture Cato describes.⁵⁵ Yet it is not sufficient to fragment the question by considering the motivation for each book separately and in isolation; there is a more general question to be answered. For Cato was an innovator, not merely in the sense of being the first Roman to write books about these particular topics but in the much more fundamental sense of being the first to write prose books in Latin about any topic at all. An explanation is required not simply for his choice of topics but for the fact that he wrote at all.

Answers to this question have been very largely along the lines that he was attempting to create a Latin prose literature as a response to the Romans' rapidly growing awareness of Greek literature—though within this general concept it is possible to discern two rather different emphases, as well as numerous variations in detail. Usually stress is laid on Cato's supposed hostility to Greek culture, or at least to certain aspects of it. Alarmed at the dangers with which he judged Rome to be threatened, yet conscious of the power of Greek literature to fascinate, not only on account of its brilliance and intellectual content but because an extensive literature was in itself an exotic novelty in Rome, he deliberately set out to create a Latin literature as an alternative. Between such an interpretation and the apparent theme of the Carmen de moribus it is possible to envisage a positive relationship, thus adding to the coherence of the picture; but it is the Ad filium which has bulked largest in such discussions. Almost universally believed to have been a kind of 'encyclopedia', in the form of a set of books with each book dealing with a separate topic, this is usually supposed to have been an attempt to provide a specifically Roman version of Greek educational programmes. Sometimes, and particularly in more recent studies, the motive for attempting to provide such an alternative has been seen not so much in outright alarm at the influence of Hellenic culture, as in a rational appraisal that certain features of Greek educational programmes were unsuited to Roman requirements and also that these programmes lacked a number of topics needed by Romans. That approach shades off into the other main category of interpretation, that Cato was not so much anxious to combat Greek literature as fired by a patriotic zeal that Rome be given a literature of its own: consciousness of cultural and literary inferiority was hurtful to the pride of the conquering Romans and was a deficiency which must be remedied. Others had already been at work in the field of verse—among them, Ennius, initially sponsored by Cato himself—and now Cato would attempt to create a prose literature.

In what follows it must be borne in mind that no account has yet been taken of the Origines, which has featured significantly in such assessments; but at least it is not easy to see that work, to which Cato was still making additions in the last year of his life, as having an initial or a primary role in the development of his literary activity. For the other works enough has been seen both about them and about Cato's attitudes to the Greeks for it to be evident that the type of explanation outlined above is not satisfactory.⁵⁷ Cato's attitude to the Greeks and their culture, ambivalent though it was and in certain respects strongly prejudiced, was not such as would naturally have led him into attempting to create a substitute for Greek literature. It is misleading to take his hostile comments about Greek culture literally or in isolation from the other evidence which compels a different and more complex view; and it is far from clear that he was troubled by a sense of cultural inferiority, let alone afflicted with a sense of doom because he believed the fascinations of Hellenic literature threatened to hypnotize the Romans into a blind acceptance of all the worst along with the best in Greek life and culture. Profound though his dislike was of certain features of that culture, most of his writings had little or no relevance to those features. Indeed the topics about which he wrote are for the most part wholly unconvincing and implausible as the basis of a literature intended to rival that of the Greeks. So also are the unsystematic attitudes and methods displayed in the composition of the De agricultura, suggestive of a confident self-reliance that simply gave no thought to the Greeks, far more than of an anxious concern to produce a work that could be compared in merit. Neither does it seem likely that in these works Cato was closely following Greek models, either in detail or in structure. Above all the Ad filium, which for over a century has been a central feature of most discussions, has been incorrectly interpreted and was not a full-scale Latin version of a Greek educational programme. Instead it was probably simply a collection of precepts and exhortations for the guidance of Cato's son, and in the first instance was probably assembled for that purpose alone.

The question 'Why did Cato write?' is deceptively simple. It appears to invite an explanation of a particular event, and thereby an answer which would almost certainly be too static, too monolithic, expressed in terms of an event rather than the growth of an idea. For it is improbable that Cato's authorship can be explained in terms of a single decision, a single moment, or even a single attitude or a single overriding purpose. It is better understood as emerging and developing, and doing so in response to his circumstances and his experience. There was a background to Cato's composition of prose works in Latin. Familiarity with the concept of books had been growing for a considerable time. Well before Cato wrote it had reached the point where some books originated in Rome and dealt with Roman subject-matter. Already the dramatists and poets, above all Ennius, had notable achievements to their credit, while Fabius Pictor and Cincius Alimentus with their histories in Greek had at least set the precedent for books to be written by Romans of high social standing. Furthermore the actual use of writing in Latin was of great antiquity and was certainly familiar for a wide variety of practical uses, including domestic records and communications. It is a reasonable guess that Cato's first prose books were not envisaged at all as books for a public but were intended for purely domestic, practical purposes. Possibly the 'history in big letters' written to aid the education of his elder son—itself an imaginative idea—was one of the earliest experiments and led him on to others. In due course the same basic idea of instructing his son through the medium of writing, linked with an awareness of his own talent for aphorism, produced the further development of a collection of precepts and exhortations. By its very nature, however, this was a vehicle which encouraged Cato to display his facility in the use of language, so that a work almost certainly written for the guidance of an individual could arouse sufficient interest for copies to be made and in due course for it to pass into circulation. Such experiments are likely to have stimulated not only pleasure in their success but an interest in further ventures; so increasing enthusiasm led Cato on to new and more elaborate ideas, including that of devoting a whole book to a single topic of instruction. It is indeed plausible that as he went on he was encouraged by a certain patriotic pride, for he can scarcely have been unconscious that what he was doing was novel in Rome and hitherto had been in the province of the Greeks; but the obvious relationship of his topics to his personal experience and interests suggests that his thoughts were not so much concerned with the literary background or with possible comparisons as centred on what he himself was doing as, so to speak, a self-contained activity.

If Cato's authorship did develop in some such manner as this, the question of motivation takes on a different aspect. No longer is it necessary to seek some powerful overriding purpose. That does not mean that the writing of the books was simply an end in itself, a pastime without purpose. Particular motives for individual works there must have been, perhaps especially for the Carmen de moribus; and linking almost all the works one with another is their common didactic character. Cato wrote his books for the purpose of instruction, probably thought automatically in those terms without seriously considering alternatives, and perhaps had a heightening sense of usefulness—and of selfimportance—as he applied the concept to topic after topic. It is much less likely, however, that the purpose was carefully and precisely thought out on each occasion, or that his authorship was inspired in the first place by a burning desire to instruct the community.

If this explanation is broadly correct—and any explanation can be only a matter of interpretation and hypothesis—it may appear at first sight to somewhat diminish Cato's achievement. Unsystematic in method, deficient in discipline, relevance, and order, his initiative in Latin prose literature is no longer seen either as a sudden, dramatic step or as inspired by some great patriotic or social purpose. Furthermore, seen in the wider pattern of the development of Roman literature as a whole, the emergence of prose writings in Latin at about this time seems inevitable. Is it then little more than an accident that it was Cato who did what someone was bound to do anyway before long?

To present Cato's contribution in such subdued terms would unquestionably be misleading. What the histo rian, viewing in retrospect a whole historical movement, sees as an inevitable development may not have been so obvious and predictable in the contemporary context: fulfilment of the inevitable often requires an agent gifted with exceptional initiative and inventiveness. It is surely no accident that in this instance the agent was one of the most forceful, vigorous, and versatile personalities of the time. What was said before about the De agricultura may be said of Cato's writings in general: his innovation has to be viewed in the light of the absence of an established literary culture, with all that implies in terms of the lack of training in techniques of composition and in terms of an environment in which various concepts and standards were not yet familiar norms. In such a context Cato's contribution was a considerable imaginative achievement, no less so if it was a step-by-step development, extending and elaborating a modest initial idea, rather than a single momentary inspiration….

Notes

¹ Livy, 39. 40. 7.

² Plut. Cato Mai. 20. 7. Cf. Peter, HRR i², pp. cxxix f.; Helm, RE, s.v. Porcius, no. 9, col. 146; Kienast's view, p. 107, that the composition of this work shows that Cato was probably already collecting material for the Origines goes further than the facts warrant. It is possible that Plutarch's words τω̑ν πᾳ̑λαιω̑ν καì πᾳ̑τρίων reflect an original reference to mores maiorum.

³ Pliny, Nat. hist. 29. 15; Plut. Cato Mai. 23. 5…. Mazzarino, Introduzione, chs. II and III, passim, esp. pp. 31 ff….

⁵ Plut. Cato Mai. 20. 11; Quaest. Rom. 39; Cic. De off. 1. 36 and 37; Cugusi, Epistolographi latini minores i. 1, pp. 67 ff., i. 2, pp. 34 ff.; cf. Jordan, pp. 83 f., Epistulae frs. 1 ff. Schmidt, 'Catos Epistula ad M. filium', Hermes, 100 (1972), 568 ff., argues for a wide-ranging didactic letter and also against the survival of more than one letter. Festus, p. 280L and Diom. Gramm. 1. 366. 13K are not good evidence for more and both passages are probably to be emended.

⁶ Veget. 1. 8; 2. 3; 3. 20. A sentence in this last chapter, with no mention of Cato, is identical with a sentence cited by Nonius, p. 301, 32L, as from Cato's De re militari, and it is probable that the whole of Veget. 3. 20 follows Cato closely. For discussion of Cato as a source for Vegetius see esp. Schenk, Flavius Vegetius Renatus, Klio, Beih. 22; Neumann, RE, Suppb. X, s.v. Vegetius, cols. 1005 ff., esp. 1014 f.

⁷ Jordan, pp. 80 ff., De re mil. frs. 1-15. Barwick, 'Zu den Schriften des Cornelius Celsus und des alten Cato', WJA 3 (1948), 126 f., is not convincing when he seeks to explain the plural in libris in Veget. 1. 15 (= fr. 7) by the hypothesis that in addition to the separate monograph Cato included another in libris ad filium. Apart from the relationship to Vegetius the monograph has aroused only slight modern interest. See Köchly and Rüstow, Griechische Kriegschriftsteller ii. 61 ff.; Nap, 'Ad Catonis librum de re militari', Mn 55 (1927), 79 ff.; Spaulding, 'The Ancient Military Writers', CJ 28 (1933), 660 f.

⁸ Just. Inst. 1. 11. 12 ;Dig. 1. 2. 2. 38; 21. 1. 10. 1; 24. 3. 44 pr. (prob. Capito); 45. 1.4. 1; cf. 34. 7; Gell. 13. 20. 9; RE, s.v. Porcius, no. 14, col. 168.

⁹ Festus, p. 144, 18L, s.v. mundus: 'sic refert Cato in commentaris iuris civilis.'

¹⁰ Cic. De sen. 38. It is conceivable that Cato's complaint recorded in Cic. De divin. 1. 28 = HRR i², fr. 132 that auguries had been lost as a result of neglect by the college is a fragment of this work, though this is not the only possible source.

¹¹ Livy, 39. 40. 5 f.; Nepos, Cato 3. 1; Quintil. Inst. 12. 11. 2; also Cic. De orat. 1. 171; 3. 135; Val. Max. 8. 7. 1; Quintil. Inst. 12. 3. 9. Cic. De orat. 2. 142 perhaps refers to the son.

¹² Jordan, pp. 82 f., Carmen frs. I-3 = Gell. 11. 2. 1 ff.; Nonius, p. 745, 15L. Helm, RE, s.v. Porcius, no. 9, cols. 146 f., suggests that another possible fragment is in Column. De re rust. 11. 1. 26. A further possibility is Jordan, p. 110, Diet. mem. 76 = Sen. Epist. 122. 2; cf. Cic. De fin. 2. 23; Column. De re rust. I pr. 16.

¹³ Helm, RE, s.v. Porcius, no. 9, cols. 146 ff., referring to TLL iii. 463, 51. For a recent argument that it was in saturnians, Pighi, 'Catonis carmen de moribus', Latinitas, 14 (1966), 31 ff.

¹⁴ Cic. De off. 1. 104; De orat. 2. 271.

¹⁵ Fabius: Cic. De orat. 2. 271; 2. 273, cf. De sen. 11; Rep. 1. 27. Africanus: Quintil. Inst. 6. 3. 105, which Jordan, p. 83, cites as Apophth. fr. 1.

¹⁶ Plut. Cato Mai. 2. 6. See esp. Rossi, 'De M. Catonis dictis et apophthegmatis', Athenaeum, n.s. 2 (1924), 174 ff.; Delia Corte, Catone censore², pp. 246 ff.

¹⁷ Nachstädt, Teubner edn. of Plut. Moralia, ii. 1, p. 81. It has been generally recognized that this collection cannot be the one used by Plutarch. Though it has sometimes been suggested that it was compiled by extracting dicta from Plutarch's Life, this too is incorrect: the order of the common items differs too much, and there are too many striking sayings in the Life, especially in chs. 8 and 9, which are not in the collection and which would scarcely have been omitted if the latter had been based on the former. Yet there is a definite relationship between the two, indicated by some correspondence in order and in a number of cases by exact correspondence in much of the wording. It looks as if somewhere in the antecedents of both works there was a common list, that the version available to Plutarch was more comprehensive (as shown (a) by chs. 8 and 9, (b) by sayings which are in both the Life and the Moralia but not in the Apophthegmata), and that the Apophthegmata was based on part of the same material but drew also upon other—and spurious—material.

¹⁸HRR i², fr. 2; cf. Xen. Sympos. I. I.

¹⁹ Useful surveys of the extensive literature regarding the De agricultura will be found in Schanz-Hosius, Gesch. der röm, Literatur i⁴. 184 ff.; Helm, RE, s.v. Porcius, no. 9, cols. 147 ff.; Mazzarino, Introduzione, passim; White, 'Roman Agricultural Writers', in Temporini, Aufstieg und Niedergang i. 4, pp. 439 ff. Marmorale, Cato Maior², p. 162 n. 36, has a major bibliographical list; see also Zuccarelli, 'Rassegna bibliografica … (1940-1950)', Paideia, 7 (1952), 213 ff. On the aspects of the work discussed in this chapter see also esp. Gummerus, Der röm. Gutsbetrieb, Klio, Beih. 5 (1906), 15 ff.; Leo, Gesch. der röm. Literatur i. 270 ff.; Birt, 'Zum Proöm und den Summarien', BPhW 29 (1915), cols. 922 ff.; Hörle, Catos Hausbücher, §§I and II; Brehaut, Cato the Censor. On Farming, pp. xiii ff.; Delia Corte, Catone censore², pp. 100 ff.; Thielscher, Belehrung, passim. For bibliography more esp. concerned with social and economic aspects see p. 240 n. 1. On the agricultural material from a practical point of view see esp. White, Roman Farming; Brehaut, Cato the Censor. On Farming.

²⁰ The correct title is almost certainly De agricultura, despite the occasional occurrence of De re rustica: Schanz-Hosius, op. cit. p. 184; Marmorale, op. cit., p. 163. Helm, op. cit., cols. 147 ff., links the question too closely with the issue of whether Cato himself published the book.

²¹ e.g. De agr. 2. 7; 4 ('frons … est'); 39. 2 ('cogitato … etc.'); 61. 1. Note also several vigorous sequences, markedly rhetorical in character, in ch. 2, dealing with the owner's inspection of the farm and his discussion with the vilicus.

²² Leeman, Orationis Ratio, pp. 21 ff., suggests Greek influence, but see Kappelmacher, 'Zum Stil Catos im De re rustica', WS 43 (1922/3), 168 ff.; von Albrecht, Meister röm. Prosa, pp. 15 ff.

²³De agr. 3. 1, with the injunction to build only at thirty-six years of age.

²⁴ Thielscher, Belehrung, pp. 14 f., who however places too much confidence in the inference. Pliny, Nat. hist. 14. 45, is clearly not to be taken literally as secure evidence for composition in Cato's old age, though it has sometimes been quoted to that effect.

²⁵ Colum. De re rust. 1. 1. 12; cf. Pliny, Nat. hist. 14. 47.

²⁶De agr. 143; cf. 5. 6 ff., where it is not clear whether the vilicus or the dominus is addressed, though the latter is perhaps more probable. Elsewhere many of the second-person imperatives would have been directed most appropriately to the vilicus, but they may have been thought of rather as 'impersonal' directions.

²⁷ See esp. Mazzarino, Introduzione, pp. 69 ff. Doublets are examined in great detail by Hörle, Catos Hausbücher, esp. pp. 5 and 127 ff. Thielscher, Belehrung, in his commentary sets out many of the passages concerned in a form which greatly facilitates comparison.

²⁸ See esp. Schanz-Hosius, Gesch. der röm. Literatur i⁴. 184 ff.; Helm, RE, s.v. Porcius, no. 9, cols. 152 ff.; Mazzarino, Introduzione, passim; White, 'Roman Agricultural Writers', in Temporini, Aufstieg und Niedergang i. 4, pp. 439 ff., esp. 447 ff.

²⁹ e.g. Mazzarino, Introduzione, esp. p. 57, combines three of the approaches set out below: that Cato was adapting material in commentarii to a literary form, that the task was incomplete at his death, and that when this unfinished work passed into circulation it was modified by annotations.

³⁰ So, rightly, Helm, RE, s.v. Porcius, no. 9, col. 152, citing esp. Pliny, Nat. hist. 19. 147. In 15. 44 and 46 Pliny states that Cato did not discuss plum-trees. On the basis of this Mazzarino, Introduzione, pp. 69 ff., argued that Pliny's copy of Cato's book did not include the list given in De agr. 133, which does mention the plum, but only the version in 8. 2, which is similar but without the plum; from which he infers that only the version of layering given in 51-2 is original, the version of layering in 133 being a gloss unknown to Pliny. He does not however account for Pliny, Nat. hist. 17. 96, which seems fatal to the argument, since it clearly quotes Cato's instructions on layering from the version in 133, including the reference to plums: cf. Münzer, Beiträge zur Quellenkritik, pp. 14 f. (though Münzer's principal argument is that much of Pliny's Catonian material is at second hand). Furthermore comparison of the sequence of ideas in 50-2 and 131-3 suggests a different explanation and that both sections are original: see Appendix 10. Aside from this question Nat. hist. 18. 34 seems to be the only one of the many unequivocally agricultural passages attributed by Pliny to Cato which does not correspond reasonably well to a passage in the De agricultura. Among a great number of quotations this is such a striking exception that the correctness of the attribution must be suspect.

³¹ Hörle, Catos Hausbücher, I and II.

³² Hauler, Zu Catos Schrift, p. 6.

³³ Thielscher, Belehrung, pp. 5 ff, though he applies this type of interpretation too extensively, inferring from the text much more than is justified in the way of biographical detail concerning Cato.

³⁴ Leo, Gesch. der röm. Literatur i. 272; cf. Helm, RE, s.v. Porcius, no. 9, col. 152; Brehaut, Cato the Censor. On Farming, p. xix; Marmorale, Cato Maior², p. 164, cf. p. 184, who regards the work of planning as the simple and complete explanation.

³⁵ Some other examples: De agr. 6. 3-4, on the planting of reeds; 7-8, on fruits; 15-18, digressing from building to lime-burning and thence to woodcutting, then back to building. Note also how reference to a general activity several times provokes a digression into detailed instructions: 39 (mending pots); 40 (suitable sites for trees leads to instructions for grafting); and other instances through to 49.

³⁶ e.g. 128-30, uses of amurca, picking up from 103….

³⁸ pp. 137 ff. and 151 f.

³⁹ Cato begins by contrasting trade and usury unfavourably with agriculture as sources of income. After indicating briefly the disadvantages of the two former he begins to expand his points by emphasizing the hostility of the maiores to usury. Mention of the maiores, however, leads him into a report of their high opinion of farming, after which he returns to the disadvantages of trade, and finally takes up again the merits of farming. Evidently the mention of the maiores led him to introduce at once an idea which from the point of view of orderly presentation would have been better placed after the account of the disadvantages of trade; for as it is it makes the sequence of ideas in the Preface more awkward and complicated to follow. Cf. Janson, Latin Prose Prefaces, p. 84.

⁴⁰ On Hellenistic agricultural writings see Susemihl, Gesch. der griech. Lit. in der Alexandriner-Zeit i. 829 ff; cf. Schmid-Stählin, Gesch. der griech. Lit. ii. i⁶, pp. 289 ff; White, Roman Farming, pp. 15 f. Many Greek authors are named by Varro, De re rust. 1. 1.7 ff. and Columella, De re rust. 1. 1.7. It is clear that some of these works were scientific and theoretical rather than practical (the majority of the authors named by Varro are termed philosophers), and that others were specialized monographs, e.g. on bee-keeping or viticulture; but about many nothing is known, though Susemihl conjectures that there was a preponderance of specialized monographs. No practical handbook comparable to Cato's is known, though it would be rash to insist that none existed. The nearest is perhaps Xenophon's Oeconomicus, but that differs in many major respects.

⁴¹ Janson, Latin Prose Prefaces, pp. 84 ff., distinguishes two lines of argument interwoven in the Preface: a moral argument, which is not relevant to the book, and economic arguments with which the book fits well. It is certainly the case that there is a loose, rather general relationship in so far as Cato alludes in the Preface to an income from farming of such a kind that it could be compared with an income from trade or usury; for that is the type of farming with which the book is concerned. Nevertheless by presenting Cato's treatment in terms of the interweaving of two distinct lines of argument and by overestimating the element of economic argument Janson creates the impression of a closer and more positive relationship than actually exists. Only in one point—that an income from agriculture is more secure than one from trade—can the argument be termed economic; and in the sentence just quoted in the text that point is so closely joined to 'moral' arguments that even in this respect it seems less a case of interweaving different kinds of arguments than of failing to draw a distinction….

⁴³ Such a procedure would fit well with the form in which many of the items are given. Cato certainly had secretaries (cf. Plut. Cato Mai. 24. 3) and the passage relating to the composition of the speech De sumptu suo (ORF³, fr. 173; see pp. 135 f.) suggests that he may not so much have read his commentarii as had them read to him; for the idea of a scribe copying a passage, note in the same fragment the words noli, noli scribere, inquam, istud. It is a hypothesis to be approached with caution and the general interpretation set out in this chapter is not dependent upon it; for Cato's personal touch is apparent at various points even in the later parts of the De agricultura. Nevertheless the fragment from the De sumptu suo does suggest that Cato sometimes composed by dictation. Possibly Cato's own explicit statement that the 'history in big letters' was written with his own hand (Plut. Cato Mai. 20. 7) also indicates that this was out of the ordinary and that he often dictated. However it is also possible that the significance of this lies rather in the emphasis on Cato's personal intervention as opposed to the use of slave tutors, which is certainly the point being made a few lines before.

⁴⁴ Esp. De agr. 21. 5; 22. 3 f; 135; 136. Brehaut, Cato the Censor. On Farming, pp. xiv f, rightly observes that despite these particularistic items Cato's intention was undoubtedly to write a book of general guidance with much wider reference.

⁴⁵ The Sabine inheritance. Note also the enthusiasm for pasturing reported in Cic. De off. 2. 89 = Jordan, p. 108, Dicta mem. 63, with other references. Thielscher, Belehrung, p. 272, wrongly rejects the authenticity of this on the ground of its similarity in form to De agr. 16. 1.

⁴⁶De agr. 3. 1. So Thielscher, Belehrung, pp. 9 f. and 187, and others. Leeman, 'Cato, De Agricultura 3, 1', Helikon, 5 (1965), 534 ff., suggests that it may have reference to an old Greek or Etruscan belief that life is to be divided into seven-year periods. Brehaut, op. cit., p. 8, note ad loc, seeks a rational explanation in the suggestion that by that age most Romans would be approaching the end of their liability for military service.

⁴⁷ Jordan, p. 80, De re militari fr. 1 = Pliny, Nat. hist, praef. 30. In the remainder of this chapter the fragments of this work will be indicated by the number only.

⁴⁸ Frs. 2 and 3.

⁴⁹ Fr. 1, vitilitigent; fr. 14, disciplinosus; said to be neologisms by Pliny, Nat. hist, praef. 32 and Gell. 4. 9. 12 respectively, evidently correctly in both cases. Cf. Till-Meo, La lingua di Catone, pp. 81, 90, 128 f.

⁵⁰ Frs. 9, 11, and 13.

⁵¹ Fr. 11.

⁵² Fr. 6: 'inde partem equitatus atque ferentarios praedatum misit.'

⁵³ Schmid-Stählin, Gesch. der Griech. Literatur ii. 1⁶, pp. 286 ff.; Kromayer-Veith, Heerwesen und Kriegführung, p. 13.

⁵⁴ Jordan, pp. 82 f., Carmen frs. 1-3 = Gell. 11. 2. 1 ff.; see further p. 186 n. 12. Jordan, pp. 77-80, assigns sixteen fragments to the Ad filium, though five (10, 11, 13, 15, 16) have no indication that they actually belong.

⁵⁵ For the question of social and economic attitudes in the De Agricultura see Ch. 11. Delia Corte, Catone censore², pp. 99 ff., takes the initial purpose to have been political, an attempt by Cato to restore his 'peasant image' after he had been prosecuted de sumptu suo….

⁵⁷ Ch. 8, passim, esp. pp. 178 ff….

Abbreviations

HRR i² H. W. G. Peter, Historicorum Romanorum Reliquiae, Leipzig, 1914.

RE Pauly-Wissowa-Kroll, Real-Encyclopadie der classichen Altertumswissenschaft.

Kienast D. Kienast, Cato der Censor, Heidelberg, 1954.

Titles of periodicals are abbreviated in accordance with the system used in L'Année philologique.