SOURCE: H. H. Scullard, "Cato's Censorship," in Roman Politics: 220-150 B.C., Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1973, pp. 153-64.

[In the excerpt that follows, Scullard explains Cato's position in Roman politics, describing both his historical influence and the bureaucratic context in which a censor functioned.]

Cato's censorship is remarkable less for any positive reforms than for the spirit in which it was conducted and the impression which it made upon Roman tradition. Censors had more arbitrary and personal influence than other regular magistrates, because they did not have to account for their acts; since they were not appointed strictly to administer¹ the law,² they had far greater latitude than, for instance, praetors, who were limited by the edictum perpetuum. On entering office immediately after the elections, normally held in April, they held a contio in the Campus Martius preparatory to the census proper, or registration of the citizens. Here they announced the moral principles by which they proposed to exercise their censoria potestas, explained any novelties which they intended to introduce into their edict, and remarked on any new evils which they thought might be endangering the state.³ They then published in the form of a written edict the chief arrangements for the census.

Their main administrative duties were the assessment of the property of citizens and the assignment of them to their proper tribes, classes, and centuries; the revision of the lists of senators and knights, which involved an estimation of the moral fitness of individuals to exercise their functions in the State (regimen morum); leasing the public revenues and maintaining public property; and a final purification (lustrum) of the People. It is not generally possible to trace the precise order in which they performed their tasks, many of which might be tackled concurrently, but after their preliminary proclamation of policy the lectio Senatus would be among their first duties.

From one aspect Cato's censorship was a landmark in Rome's history: it epitomized the clash between the old and the new. Cato stands forth as the representative of the older type of Roman, of that solid core of countrymen who had defeated Hannibal. Cautious, shrewd, hard-headed and hard-hearted, unimaginative and unadaptable, endowed with excessive respect for the more rigid ancestral qualities of the Roman People, distrustful of Greek influences although not so ignorant of them as tradition sometimes suggests, Cato championed the last real attempt of the old-fashioned Romans to re-establish a more austere manner of life in face of the social and moral decline which was resulting from Rome's expansion in the Mediterranean world and her contacts with the East. He wished his censorship to accomplish a real purification of the people, not merely a ritual lustrum. Hence, unlike his predecessors, he acted harshly, and the natural result was much bitterness: 'nobilis censura fuit simultatiumque plena'.⁴

Cato wished to restrain all elements in Roman life, the Senate, Equites, and People, the Latins and Italians, and to keep them within the traditional mould which history had hitherto prescribed for them. His ideal was not ignoble and the example which he set in his private life might appeal to some, but the result was bound to be failure: he could neither stop, still less put back, the clock, nor by a few legislative measures and personal example induce widespread moral regeneration. True, he was no fool, although in face of the suave Hellenized nobles the novus homo aggressively played the part of a countryman, thereby gaining self-confidence and at the same time partly hiding his wide knowledge and interests, but he was more concerned with symptoms than causes and failed to get to grips with the vital problems of the day. Only by a thoroughgoing programme of reform, based on a keen appreciation of the fundamental needs of Rome and Italy, could the senatorial government and the Republic itself be saved from ultimate destruction. Rome was entering upon a new epoch; much hard thinking and unselfish action were required to effect a healthy union between the institutions and traditions of the past and the wider demands of the present. Cato might point to some of the needs, but his reactionary attitude towards others involved his ultimate failure to redeem Roman society.

Grounds there certainly were for his severity, to which point was given by the recent Bacchanalian Conspiracy. Although Livy has drawn a lurid picture of the crime, immorality, and disorder which attended it, he has merely heightened the colours; in sober fact, the public conscience was severely shocked and the Senate regarded the movement as a challenge to law and order which threatened the government. The realization that the worshippers were organized in secret societies, that the movement arose among slaves and freedmen and spread among the plantations and ranches that were springing up in Etruria, Campania, and Apulia, that the cult itself derived from Greece, and that its mystical rites were highly suspect—such factors even apart from the public disorders which the conspiracy evoked would be sufficient to render it a public menace in the estimation of many Romans besides Cato. But despite the prompt and sensible counter-measures, which avoided persecuting the cult as such and the consequent risk of creating a body of religious martyrs, the evil was not eradicated in 186, since renewed inquiries had to be undertaken until 181.

Other symptoms of public unrest were a widespread conspiracy of slave herdsmen in Apulia, where they took to brigandage on a considerable scale in 185, and cases of poisoning in 184 and 180 which demanded investigation.⁵ Even the army had on occasion shown discontent at its terms of service, and lack of discipline resulted. There had been a mutiny in Greece in 198 and insubordination in 190, while even Cato had difficulty with his cavalry in Spain in 195; the complaints of the soldiers were supported by the tribunes in 193; Vulso had to bribe his troops by granting donations and relaxing discipline in 189; there was discontent in the Spanish army in 184.⁶ Even more urgent, because it was ever flaunting itself in the capital, was the problem of luxury and personal display which increased rapidly as a result of the Eastern wars.

To such questions Cato devoted his attention, doubtless hoping that if he could restore a more austere manner of life other problems would settle themselves. But the need to adjust the constitution to new claims, to infuse fresh blood and ideals in the Senate, to define the political activities of the business classes, to awaken the People to their political responsibilities, to modify relations with the Latins and Italians, to face the economic upheavals caused by the influx of capital and slave labour, to shape a comprehensive foreign policy which should balance the claims of East and West, of Rome and the provinces, such problems were either neglected or tackled half-heartedly. The senatorial nobility was entering upon an era of tolerably efficient government, but was blind to the needs of the future or too selfish to try to envisage them. Some sought reform by reaction, others by greater liberalism, but a political genius who could analyse all the needs of his day, formulate practical solutions, and win sufficient moral backing to carry them through did not arise until the body of the Roman Republic had become too rotten to be revivified. Cato, like his great rival Scipio, could not justly claim the title of statesman, but at least he tried to re-establish that widespread sense of duty and moral responsibility which was the prerequisite of any far-reaching reforms. Unfortunately for Rome he looked backwards rather than forwards.

The new measures which Cato proposed to take against luxury were outlined at the preliminary contio. As consul he had vainly opposed the repeal of the lex Oppia; as censor he intended to answer this repeal by edict. He imposed a tax, equivalent to at least 3 per cent., on ornaments, women's clothing, certain vehicles, and luxury slaves,⁷ and he indignantly told the People, perhaps on this occasion, that no better proof could be shown of the degeneracy of the State than that goodlooking slaves should cost more than a farm, or a jar of pickled fish more than a carter.⁸ Statues and other objets d'art, a by-product of Rome's Eastern conquests, were also made liable to a luxury tax.^8a In denouncing these Cato probably took the opportunity to condemn the increasing practice of erecting public statues to famous men, and even to Roman ladies in the provinces, presumably that is to the wives of provincial governors.⁹ His denunciation was doubtless sharpened by his hatred of the increasing importance of women in public life; and the man who suppressed the names of outstanding generals in his Origines would hardly welcome the individual glory which men sought by the erection of statues. He used to boast that 'his own image was borne about in the hearts of his fellow-citizens', and that he would prefer that men should ask why he had no statue, rather than why he had one. He changed his tune, however, when the people erected a statue in honour of his censorship in the temple of Health, with an inscription which recorded, not his military commands or his triumph, but that when the Roman State was tottering he was made censor and by helpful guidance, wise restraints, and sound teachings restored it once again.^9a

Another form of self-display was for soldiers to place their war-spoils in the most conspicuous places in their houses.¹⁰ Some might go farther and exhibit trophies which they had obtained by other less honest means, since the possession of such spoils, genuine or fictitious, had a certain political as well as social value: Buteo in 216 had added to the Senate some 'qui spolia ex hoste fixa domi haberent'.^10a In a speech Ne spolia figerentur nisi de hoste capta Cato probably denounced the abuse of this practice and may have suggested that some generals did not stop despoiling their opponents as soon as peace was made.¹¹

In revising the list of the Senate Cato did not at first have to appoint a new princeps senatus: Scipio Africanus did not suffer the final indignity of having his name struck off the list. After his death, however, early in 183, Cato placed his friend and colleague, Valerius Flaccus, at the head of the list. It had been customary to appoint the senior surviving patrician excensor, but this procedure had been set aside in 209 in favour of Fabius (p. 70) and Scipio himself had become princeps senatus when still well under 40; seniority had yielded to outstanding merit and service to the State. Now Cato disregarded the claims of Cornelius Cethegus, censor of 194 (if, as is probable, he was still living: the latest reference to him is in 193), and of T. Flamininus, the patrician censor of 189, who had both seniority and service to commend him, in order to honour Flaccus.

Before this, however, in 184 Cato had conducted the ordinary lectio senatus with exceptional severity: he expelled seven men including a consular and at least one praetorian. This action appeared unduly harsh partly by contrast with his predecessors' greater leniency, but more because only junior members normally were expelled.¹² The consular was L. Quinctius Flamininus, brother of the victor of Cynoscephalae, who during his campaign against the Boii in 192 had got drunk at a banquet and, in order to please a favourite Carthaginian boy, with his own hand had cut down a Boian noble who had come with his children to seek Roman protection.¹³ Hitherto he had avoided punishment because the crime had been committed within the sphere of his military authority (militiae) and against an enemy (hostis), but he did not escape the moral condemnation of Cato who was often aroused by acts of cruelty or oppression against Rome's allies or subjects.

Censorial procedure was to place a mark (nota) in the register against the name of anyone considered unworthy. The reason need not be communicated to the man himself or be given when the revised list of the Senate was read aloud to the People from the Rostrum, although it was usually stated in the document which the censors deposited in the archives (subscriptio censorid). Thus a censor could act solely on the basis of his arbitrary power, and the first knowledge that Flamininus may have received of his disgrace would be when he heard the revised list being read aloud (recitatio). But men as influential as the Flaminini could seek an explanation in the contio by appealing to public opinion; this they did.¹⁴ Cato replied by delivering a damning speech in which he must have castigated Flamininus' neglect of the mos maiorum and the fides populi Romani, and pointed to the demoralizing effects of Greek standards of sexual morality and to the conditions prevailing in the military quarters of the generals of the nobility. Cato then challenged him, if he denied the charges, to a formal trial with monetary securities (sponsio), but Flamininus remained silent and Cato won a striking moral and political victory. Titus Flamininus, whose relations with his brother were very close,¹⁵ would be involved in the disgrace. Thus Cato avenged his defeat by Titus at the censorial elections of 189, exposed the moral weakness of some of the Hellenizing nobles, and later was able to pass over the superior claims of Titus and appoint his own colleague, Valerius Flaccus, as princeps senatus.

Cato also expelled from the Senate a certain Manilius (or Manlius) who had good prospects for the consulship, because, it is said, he kissed his own wife in the presence of his daughter!¹⁶ If this anecdote, which at any rate illustrates Cato's rigidly doctrinaire outlook, is to be regarded with any seriousness, the offence must have lain in so acting in front of a child. Cato had high ideals of a father's duties: he himself taught his son to read because he thought that the child should not be indebted to a slave for such a priceless thing as education, while he declared that his son's presence put him on guard against indecencies of speech.¹⁷

The censors then had to review the knights.¹⁸ The nucleus of the equestrian order comprised 1,800 cavalrymen aged 18 to 45 (equites equo publico), enrolled in 18 centuries; men over 45 with the necessary property qualifications could remain knights though not for active service, while another group consisted of men under 45 who provided their own horses. Before the time of the Gracchi senators appear to have retained their public horse and their privileged position in the 18 centuries; even after this period sons of senators continued to be enrolled among the junior equites until they became magistrates and senators or until they reached the age of 45. The censors reviewed the equites equo publico in the Forum, where the whole corps filed past, each man leading his horse by the bridle when his name was called by a herald. The censor then either passed ('traduc equum') or discharged him ('vende equum'). Discharge was either sine ignominia or an act of censure. In the former case the reason would be the completion of the normal period of service, in the latter some moral weakness in the knight's character or failure to look after his horse properly. As a penalty the censors could impose a further period of service on the knight at his own expense.¹⁹ They also had to fill up any gaps in the centuries.

Cato began with an astonishing example: he expelled L. Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus.²⁰ Lucius may have been over 45 and perhaps not fit for cavalry service, and Cato may have wished to abolish the practice of allowing ageing senators to retain their horses, but the fact that Cato started with his old political rival was scandalous. True, the discharge was not marked by ignominia, as Asiaticus was not expelled from the Senate also, but this was a public insult, which would not strengthen the idea that Cato's reforming zeal in the interests of a sound body of cavalry was entirely disinterested. Cato's second victim, expelled with ignominia, was a certain L. Veturius, perhaps the son of the consul of 206 and a member of a family which was friendly with the Scipionic group. Two reasons were given: first, that Veturius had neglected some private religious rites of his gens, and secondly, that he was too fat for cavalry service.²¹

Cato, however, was genuinely concerned about the cavalry. He had seen how in the Hannibalic War Rome had suffered defeats through its inefficiency and insufficiency and how this defect had been remedied less by using Roman resources than by reliance upon allied cavalry; then as consul in Spain he had to face a panic among his own cavalry. He probably wished to see the equites become an effective body of cavalrymen instead of a privileged aristocratic corps of young noblemen: hence his attempt to weed out the physically and morally unfit. Further, he proposed to raise the number of equestrian centuries and in a speech to the Senate urged an increase from 1,800 to 2,200 men.²² But here he challenged the vested interests of the nobility, who for voting purposes were mainly enrolled in the 18 centuries. They were unwilling to share their privileges with others and no doubt thought that if the number of equites attached to the legions needed to be increased this could be done by drawing on the men who possessed the equestrian census but not the equus publicus; by this means they would safeguard their class interests and save the State from the burden of providing horses and upkeep for a greater number. Thus Cato failed in his attempt to increase the number and fighting efficiency of the Roman cavalry—and to increase his own political influence, since as censor he would have been responsible for selecting and enrolling the new equites who would then have been in his debt.

The censors performed some other tasks which in origin were not an integral part of the census and in the exercise of which they were more subject to supervision by the Senate or People. These comprised financial duties, such as leasing taxes and contracts for opera publica, the upkeep of public property, and the administrative jurisdiction which these tasks involved.²³ In arranging State-contracts the censors had wide discretionary powers, but when once the contracts had been fixed any revision could be granted only by the Senate. Although these more material activities were supplementary to the moral work of the censors, Cato carried them out in the same rigid spirit.

Finding evidence of abuse and speculation in connexion with the public water-supply, Cato cut off the pipes by which people drew water from the State aqueducts for use in their private houses, gardens, or fields.²⁴ Tapping the public supply presumably was illegal or at any rate subject to payment.²⁵ To drive home the lesson Cato delivered a public speech in which he apparently charged a certain L. Furius with having bought up badly irrigated fields cheaply and using the public water-supply to increase their fertility and value; Cato further explained his views on the regimen aquarum and the responsibility of the officials involved. This Furius may have been Purpureo, the consul of 196 and Cato's competitor for the censorship, but even if he was only a lesser member of his gens, Cato would be glad to find a victim in the ranks of a family associated with the Scipios.²⁶

Another abuse which stimulated Cato's reforming zeal was the erection of private buildings up against public buildings or on public ground: these had to be demolished within thirty days.²⁷ Public opinion must normally have tolerated this misuse of public land, since men would hardly have invested capital in such buildings unless they had a sanguine hope that they would remain undisturbed. He also perhaps cleared away some private buildings that were encroaching on some shrines,²⁸ and removed some statues from public ground.

The victims of Cato's measures probably were offered help by a tribune M. Caelius who threatened to use his veto. This was legally possible because in the exercise of their duties relating to opera publica (which could in fact have been carried out by any of the higher magistrates) censors were subject to possible supervision; consuls, whose potestas was less than the censors', could not intervene, but tribunes could. Cato replied to this threat by delivering a speech against Caelius in which he soundly trounced him as a babbling clown and a corrupt tribune. Caelius did not press his point, but probably returned to the attack later.

Cato's handling of the public contracts (censorum locationes), provoked further discontent. The censors may have started by issuing an edict which excluded some unreliable contractors from undertaking any new contracts.²⁹ This is suggested by the fragment of a speech of Cato against a certain Oppius, who had undertaken to supply wine for the public sacrifices, presumably under a contract granted by the censors of the previous lustrum.³⁰ Oppius had put down only a small guarantee, and perhaps as the result of a bad harvest and high prices he preferred to forfeit his deposit rather than to continue to supply wine at a loss. Cato appears to have excluded him from seeking any further contracts and probably developed his own views on the responsibilities of private contractors towards the State. After this warning the censors farmed the taxes to the highest bidders, and let out the contracts to those offering the lowest tenders.³¹ The capitalists were annoyed and began to agitate. This was feasible because although the censors allocated the contracts, the Senate had considerable control over their subsequent working.³² Censors imbued with a good senatorial outlook doubtless had some regard for vested interests, and Cato's neglect of these in an effort to strike a hard bargain for the benefit of the State caused much dissatisfaction. This was voiced in the Senate by Titus Flamininus, who seized the chance to attack the man who had expelled his brother from the Senate.³³ The violent discussion which followed was probably the occasion of Cato's delivering a speech in which besides defending his action he explained his ideas of duty in a State where prosperity had led to laxity of administration. He was, however, overruled by the Senate which, yielding to financial interests, annulled his arrangements and ordered the contracts to be relet.³⁴ Cato answered the Senate's decree with an edict which forbade those contractors who had treated the earlier contracts with contempt to make new bids.³⁵ With his colleague he then signed fresh contracts for everything on slightly easier terms. The Senate had asserted its authority, but Cato yielded more in the letter than spirit.

Flamininus and his supporters pressed home their advantage by inciting some tribunes to call Cato to account before the People and fine him two talents.³⁶ The precise ground of accusation is unknown, but it probably arose from his previous quarrel with the tribune Caelius, who may now have joined in the attack. The trial must have been stopped by the veto of another tribune, since it is unlikely that the Senate intervened, as it did in 204; Cato at any rate was not condemned.

The building programme of Cato and Valerius Flaccus was conceived on generous lines. Censors received a fixed grant from the Senate for the preservation and construction of public buildings; the amount would be determined after their plans had been discussed by the Senate. Cato's proposal to construct a basilica in the Forum provoked some opposition, but he got his way, and the Basilica Porcia was built, perhaps the first basilica to be constructed in Rome.³⁷ That Cato, the anti-Hellenist, should instigate the erection of a building that was Greek in name and form may seem strange, but he must have seen in south Italy and Greece how much more useful a covered building was than an open forum for the transaction of business. While the Hellenized Roman nobility might indulge their individual and self-advertising tastes by constructing luxurious private buildings in Hellenistic style, Cato followed a good Roman tradition by erecting a building for public utility. Further, it was probably built not in the new Hellenistic manner with stone architraves and ornamental stucco friezes but in the old Tuscan style with timber architraves covered with terra-cotta revetments like most of Rome's ancient and venerated temples.

But the censors' greatest constructional work was even more useful and at the same time more typically Roman: the overhauling of Rome's sewage system.³⁸ The details were probably keenly debated in the Senate where Cato justified his policy.³⁹ The scale of this work has not perhaps been adequately emphasized by Livy, who regarded the Tarquins as the chief architects of Rome's drainage system, but it becomes clear, if we accept the almost contemporary evidence of the annalist Acilius, that the censors spent 1,000 talents (6,000,000 denarii) upon it.⁴⁰ This is a staggering sum (the annual war indemnity from Carthage was only 200 talents, that from Antiochus 1,000) and is seen in its right proportion when contrasted either with the expenditure of the censors in a more normal year (e.g. in 179 B.C. the total building programme was probably under 500,000 denarii) or with the cost of the Basilica Porcia (a single item among the censors' contracts) which may be put at some 25,000 denarii.⁴¹ If the figure of six million denarii is correct, Cato's scheme must have been much more thorough than is elsewhere suggested. No doubt most of Rome's open drainage channels, some of which dated from the regal period, were covered in and the whole system was widely extended. Well might the Roman People erect a statue in Cato's honour in the temple of Health: while attempting to restore their moral health, he promoted their physical well-being by his insistence upon sanitation.⁴²

The completion of a censorship was marked by a formal purification of the people (lustratio), more probably when the censors went out of office than when the strict census had been completed. An ox, sheep, and pig (suovetaurilia) were led around and then sacrificed on behalf of the whole assembled army in the Campus Martius. Although there is no evidence that censors made a formal speech on such occasions, Cato delivered a speech De lustri sui felicitate.⁴³ This fact and the discontent that his censorship had aroused render it probable that someone challenged the felicitas and validity of his lustrum, and that he vindicated his actions in this speech.⁴⁴ The attack may well have been launched by L. Minucius Thermus, who was probably a son of the consul of 193 who had been one of Cato's victims in 190; he will have welcomed the chance to criticize the administration of his father's opponent.⁴⁵ In his defence Cato enlarged upon his Spartan youth, military service, diplomatic activity, perseverance, and self-abnegation.⁴⁶ Such a catalogue of the more austere Roman virtues might well come from a speech in which he expatiated on the felicitas of his censorship.

Such, then, was the range of Cato's activities.⁴⁷ A censor who spent more than six million denarii on public works cannot be said to have accomplished nothing, but in relation to the problems of the day Cato's work was disappointing. His attempt to enforce a programme of moral rearmament by legislation and personal example was too rigidly conceived and too narrowly based. The Romans of his day were not the Romans of the Pyrrhic War, nor were their problems identical: not all Cato's moral forcefulness and wishful thinking could bring back the past. Although he may have deliberately exaggerated his anti-Hellenic attitude, partly as the shield of a novus homo against the darts of a proud nobility in an attempt to show that the outsider was a truer Roman than the nobles themselves, yet it must be admitted that the general trend of his policy was too reactionary and that the real value of his censorship lay less in what he accomplished than in the impression which it made upon later generations: in Cato they saw the true nature of the Roman censorship, sanctissimus magistratus.

Notes

¹ Dion. Hal. xix. 16: άρχήή άνυπεύθυνος. Cf. Varro, LL, V. 81. This immunity from control is attested in a senatorial decree of 204 B.C. (L. xxix. 37. 17; Val. Max. vii. 2. 6).

² Cf. Varro, LL, vi. 71: 'quod turn et praetorium ius ad legem et censorium iudicium ad aequum existimabatur.'

³ On this aspect of their activity see E. Schmähling, Die Sittenaufsicht der Censoren (1938).

⁴ L. xxxix. 44. 9.

⁵ L. xxxix. 29. 9; 38. 3; 41. 5-7; xl. 19. 9; 37. 1-7.

⁶ L. xxxii. 3. 2-7; xxxvii. 32. 11-14; Cato, frg. 20-1 M; L. xxxiv. 56. 9; xxxviii. 23. 4; 44. 9-50; xxxix. 6. 3-7. 5; 38. 6-12. Cf. A. H. McDonald, CHJ, 1939, 129, 132. Such conditions may have helped to extort the concession which a lex Porcia granted: that citizens on military service should have the right of appeal against punishment in the field. This law, however, can only be dated between 198 and 134 and may have been carried during the Spanish Wars of 150-135: cf. A. H. McDonald, JRS, 1944, 19 f.

⁷ L. xxxix. 44; Plut. Cato, 18; Nepos, Cato, 2. 3; cf. p. 260. On the question of the taxation see Mommsen, Staatsr. ii. 395 n. 7; Fraccaro, St. Stor. 1911, 91-7; De Sanctis, III. ii. 624. The tax applied to slaves worth more than 10,000 asses; since the normal price of a slave was some 5,000 asses, the purpose of the tax will have been to limit the influx into Roman homes of highly trained Greeks whose morals and views might be harmful, rather than to help the small farmer by trying to check the spread of slave labour.

⁸ P. xxxi. 25.

^8a Cato delivered a speech De signis et tabulis….

⁹ Pliny, NH, xxxiv. 6. 31. This custom must have been increasing, because a law of 215 had forbidden the erection of women's statues in open places. For the base of a statue to Cornelia, daughter of Scipio Africanus, to which Pliny refers in this passage, see Inscr. Ital. XIII, fasc. iii (Elogia), p. 53. Statues to two Greek cooks aroused Cato's wrath in a speech against a certain Lepidus…. A gilded statue of Acilius Glabrio, the friend of Scipio Africanus, the first of its kind in Rome, was placed in the temple to Pietas which he had vowed at the battle of Thermopylae in 191 and which his son had dedicated in 181 (L. xl. 34. 4; Val. Max. ii. 5. 1).

^9a Plut. Cato, 19.

¹⁰ P. vi. 39. 10.

^1Oa L. xxiii. 23. 6.

¹¹ See p. 261.

¹² The censors of 199, 194, and 189 had expelled none, three, and four respectively. But in 252 B.C. 16 senators had been expelled, 8 in 209, 7 in 204, 9 in 174, 7 in 169 (32 in 115 and 64 in 70 B.C.). But even in the severe year 174, when a praetor, a praetorian, and the brother of the censor were expelled, the consulars remained immune. Cf. P. Fraccaro, Stud. Stor. 1911, 99-100.

¹³ Livy's account (xxxix. 42-3) was based (not necessarily directly, but possibly through Nepos) on a speech by Cato…. Versions of the episode by Valerius Antias and Plutarch (Cato, 17; Flam. 16) tone down some details of the crime. See further, Fraccaro, Stud. Stor. 1911, 9 ff., 14 ff.

¹⁴ Plut. Flam. 19. 1 is more correct than Plut. Cato, 17. 5 where it is stated that T. Flamininus appealed to the People. There could be no question of a provocatio against the censor's authority. Fraccaro, Stud. Stor. 1911, 22, rejects the view of Mommsen, Staatsr. ii³. 386 (based on Cic. Pro Cluent. 120), that the question was referred to the People in another form.

¹⁵ L. xl. 12. 17. According to Plut. Cato, 17. 6, Lucius soon regained popular favour.

¹⁶ Ibid. 17. 7. The name Manilius is doubtful. If he had good hopes of the consulship he must presumably have been of praetorian standing, but no Manilius is contained in the praetorian fasti of 218-179. The name may be a corruption of Mamilius or Manlius. No Mamilius figures among the praetors, but there are several Manlii. Of these A. Manlius Vulso (cos. 178) is possible; true, his name is not among the praetors, but it is very improbable that he reached the consulship without having been praetor and Willem's suggestion (Sénat, i. 324) that he was praetor suffectus of 189 may be accepted. If ejected from the Senate by Cato, he will have been restored by the censors of 179 (who, as will be seen, were friendly to the Manlii); he gained the consulship of 178 with the help of the consuls of 179, L. Manlius Acidinus and Q. Fulvius Flaccus…. An alternative is P. Manlius, praetor in Spain with Cato in 195; it may have been there that he incurred Cato's hatred. He held a second praetorship in 182, by which he would regain entry into the Senate.

Cato's care for the proprieties of married life is seen in his punishment of a certain Nasica for an untimely jest about his wife (Aul. Gell. iv. 20. 3-6; Cic. De orat. ii. 260). This Nasica can scarcely have been a man of note, but Cato's hatred of the Scipios was not apparently confined to the famous.

Another of the seven expelled senators was probably a Claudius Nero, but his identity is uncertain….

¹⁷ Cato, however, retained the services of an accomplished slave named Chilo, a γρᾳ̑μμᾳ̑τιστής, who 'taught many boys' (Plut. Cato, 20. 3). Cato apparently was less concerned with the corrupting influence of a Greek slave upon his neighbours' children, since he allowed Chilo to teach others and presumably himself took the profit.

¹⁸ See A. H. J. Greenidge, Roman Public Life, 224 ff.; P. Fraccaro, Stud. Stor. 1911, 106 ff.

¹⁹ L. xxvii. II. 14 (209 B.C.).

²⁰ L. xxxix. 44. I; Plut. Cato, 18. 1.

²¹ On this second point Cato made merry….

²² One hundred of the 400 additional equites equo publico would presumably have been attached to each of the four consular legions (at Cannae the number of cavalry attached to each legion had been raised by 100: see L. xxii. 36. 3), but it is not clear how they would have been arranged in the electoral centuries. Mommsen supposed that Cato would have raised the number in each of the 18 centuries from 100 to 120, thus making a total of 2,160 men (Staatsr. iii. 260); but it is difficult to believe that the figure 2,200 given in Cato's speech is only a round number. More probably Cato envisaged an increase of the equestrian centuries from 18 to 22….

²³ Private individuals also who neglected their lands and crops were apparently subjected to Cato's censorial nota and relegated to the aerarii: see Gellius, iv. 12. 1.

²⁴ L. xxxix. 44. 4; Plut. Cato, 19. 1.

²⁵ Frontinus, Deaqu. 94….

²⁶ The argument of P. Fraccaro (Stud. Stor. 1911, 39, 51) against the identification with Purpureo does not seem very cogent. Cato would doubtless choose as eminent an offender as he could find. The imposition of a fine would not necessarily involve expulsion from the Senate, especially if the lectio Senatus had already been completed, i.e. there is no reason (with Fraccaro) to reject Purpureo because he still remained a member of the Senate. Q. Minucius Thermus, who had incurred far more serious accusations in 190, had served on an official commission immediately afterwards.

²⁷ L. xxxix. 44. 4.

²⁸… On similar activity by the censors of 179 see L. xl. 51. 8….

²⁹ L. xliii. 16. 2. Cf. P. Fraccaro, Stud. Stor. 1911, 121 ff.

³⁰ On this censorial function see Mommsen, Staatsr. ii. 62 f. Oppius is otherwise unknown; as he was a publicanus or eques he cannot be identified with Q. Oppius, the tribune of 191….

³¹ L. xxxix. 44. 7. Cf. Plut. Cato, 19. 1.

³² P. vi. 17.

³³ Plut. Cato, 19. 2….

³⁴ De Sanctis, IV. i. 602, suggests that the Senate's action may have been unconstitutional and Cato could have disregarded it: in any case he was unwilling to provoke a constitutional crisis.

³⁵ Alternatively to the view expressed above, this might have been the occasion of Cato's speech against Oppius.

³⁶ Plut. Cato, 19. 2….

³⁷ Opposition: Plut. Cato, 19. 2…. There wasno basilica in 210 (L. xxvi. 27. 3). To obtain the site, Cato had to buy up some property (L. xxxix. 44. 7).

³⁸ L. xxxix. 44. 5.

³⁹ This may be inferred from two unassigned fragments of Cato's speeches…

⁴⁰Apud Dion. Hal. iii. 67. 5. This stupendous sum is accepted, apparently without qualms, by Tenney Frank (Econ. Survey, i. 144, 184), although neither expensive material nor much skilled labour would be needed.

⁴¹ For these estimates see T. Frank, Econ. Survey, i. 153. The cost of the Basilica Aemilia is reckoned at 25,000 denarii: the Porcia would be about the same.

⁴² Plut. Cato, 19. 3. Pliny's statement (NH, 19. 23) that Cato wished to pave the Forum with sharp stones in order to discourage loungers need not be taken seriously. On the loiterers see Plautus, Cure. 476 ff. On further building activity see L. xxxix. 44. 6.

⁴³ So Eumenius (a rhetorician of the Constantinian period), Gratiarumact. Const. Aug. 13….

⁴⁴ Unpropitious acts which could mar the felicitas of a census include a censor's seeing a corpse or the changing of the appointed day without augural permission. A later example of such a challenge is when Claudius Asellus in 139 challenged the felicitas of the lustrum of Scipio Aemilianus.

⁴⁵ Thermus will have been the tribune of 183 and may be identified with the legate of Fulvius Flaccus in Spain in 181-180 and the legate of the consul Manlius Vulso in Istria in 176. He is probably the same man as he whom Cato accused in 154.

⁴⁶ These points come from a speech De suis virtutibus contra Thermum which is probably to be identified with In Thermum post censuram and De lustri sui felicitate….

⁴⁷ References to two other speeches, which were probably censorial, attest but do not illuminate other activities of Cato….