Kenney_and_Clausen B.M.W.(eds.) - Get a Free Blog

PROSE LITERATURE
title Origines (jcrtoeis 'foundations') properly applies. Probably what later
passed as Books 4 to 7 were only published after Cato's death; these were a
separate work as regards content and approach, and Cato omitted altogether the
early Republic. According to Nepos Books 4 and 5 dealt with the Punic Wars,
and he adds that here and subsequently Cato described wars capitulatim 'in
summary form', or 'by topics', not like, say, Thucydides, or Polybius. There
must be some over-simplification here, since Cato included a long quotation
from his own speech Against the Rhodians (167 B.C.) in Book %, which might
imply that Philip, Antiochus, and Perseus also came in these books. 1 Book 7
ended with the misbehaviour in Spain of the praetor Servius Galba (151 B.C.)
and Cato's own prosecution of him (149 B.C.), this last only months before
Cato's death. Whatever the precise interpretation of capitulatim and the content
of Books 4 and 5, the narrative evidently became slower and denser in
the last books. Nepos ends by noting that Cato did not name the leaders in
these wars, but referred to them simply by their military titles ('the consul',
'the praetor', etc.), that he narrated the admiranda, marvellous or surprising
phenomena, to be seen in Spain and Italy, and that in the whole work there
was a great deal of careful research and no small learning. 2
Cato's motives for writing history were moral, didactic, and political. The
elder statesman who had served and saved his country from enemies external
and internal 'had no desire to write what can be found in the records of the
Pontifex, how often corn was dear, how often an eclipse or whatever had
obscured the light of the sun or moon', but to teach useful lessons (cf. frs. 2, 3).
This might imply an indifference to detail and complexities; in fact ancient
sources are unanimous in their praise of Cato's careful research, and his critical
sense seems to have been a great deal better than, say, Accius'. He used the
annales as the basis of his chronology (frs. 17, 45, 49) along with Eratosthenes
(fr. 17); he appreciated the importance of documentary evidence (fr. 58); he
recognized the limits of possible knowledge (frs. 40, 45); he had a thoroughly
Alexandrian interest in the characteristics of peoples (frs. 31, 34, 51, 73, 76) and
geography (fr. 38) and the admiranda to which Nepos alludes as a special
feature are also represented in the fragments (frs. 17, 69). Besides Fabius Pictor
(frs. 15, 2,3) it is likely that Cato will have consulted Timaeus, and Greek
political theory lies behind his account of the constitution of Carthage (fr. 80).
It would be quite wrong to see Cato simply as an Italian chauvinist (see p. 140 ) :
his Aborigines are Greeks from Achaia (fr. 6), Latin is a Greek dialect, the
Sabines are of Spartan stock (fr. 50), the Arcadian Catillus founded Tibur
(fr. 56).
1 So Leo (1913) 294k; but there are other possibilities.
2 Nep. Vitae 24.4 ad Jin. in quibus multa industria et diligentia comparet, nulla doclrina is beyond
reasonable defence: read nonnulla doctrina.
I5O
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