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PROSE LITERATURE
culture of Tarentum, and, thanks to military and diplomatic skill as well as to
his excellent connexions, he reached the consulship three years before Cato, and
received charge of the war against Philip of Macedon, which he duly won
(197 B.C.). 1 The spirit of his and Marcellus' censorship "was optimistic and
liberal. Wars were ending, and at last there was the prospect of lasting peace.
Armies and navies were returning widi vast booty and new tastes. Rome was
now the diplomatic focus of the oecumene. Five years later, however, the mood
had changed entirely. The Scipios had been disgraced in a series of trials which
Cato himself had promoted; the scandal of the Bacchanalian affair had shaken
domestic confidence, and a consular army had been lost in Liguria. Cato was
elected censor for 184/3 B - c - at a ti me when it seemed that every facet of Roman
life was subject to momentous and uncontrolled forces which (Cato thought)
threatened to destroy the character of the Roman institutions. His censorship
was never forgotten for its severity.
He championed what he saw as the true mores maiorum, ancestral customs,
in which a vision (perhaps even then romantic) of the simple life was central. He
presented himself as the hard-headed, commonsensical peasant, widi no time
for Hellenistic fol-de-rol: Greek doctors are death, poetae and expert chefs
are a sign of decadence (cf. or.fr. 217). 2 Cato's son Licinianus was born about
192 B.C., and Cato took his role as educator seriously, even preparing a book of
improving stories 'written in big letters' to teach the boy to read (Plut. Cat.
Maj. 20). From diis time until his death in 149 B.C. Cato used his pen to attack,
to defend, to judge, and to instruct with a verve, originality, and directness
that would be remarkable in a man half his age and in any era. His blunt and
contentious manner involved him in many prosecutions of leading men; he
himself was prosecuted forty-four times, though he was never convicted of
anything: that is at least as much a tribute to his own eloquence as to his
honesty. 3
It would be an over-simplification to suppose that Flamininus and Cato were
respectively simply 'for' and 'against' the tide of Hellenistic culture. In
particular one must beware of irrelevant modern ideas of cultural nationalism if
one is to understand Cato, who was a great deal more versed in things Greek
than, say, Marius two generations later, and whose very eclecticism was
Hellenistic. He recommended diat one should dip into Greek literature, not
soak oneself in it; and the once widespread idea, that he did not learn the
language until he was an old man, has been recognized as a mistake. 4 Like
1 On Flamininus see Badian (1970).
* Ad Marcum filium fr. I Jordan (Pliny, N.H. 29.7.14, Cat. Maj. 23); carmen de maribus fr. 2
Jordan (Gell. N.A. 11.2).
J On Cato see Kienast (1954) passim with his bibliography, 167k
• See Helm, RE xxn 145.33*!., Gelzer, ibid. no.43ff., Fraenkel (1968) 130, against Leo (1913)
283.
140
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