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APPENDIX OF AUTHORS AND WORKS
to public confidence, he became censor (again with L. Valerius Flaccus) in 184 B.C.
presenting himself as the champion of the good old Roman virtues at a time of unprecedented
social, economic and moral upheaval; see Plut. Cato maj. 17-19. Most of C.'s
writings date from this time or later, and for the rest of his life he continued to advocate
the mores maiorum, presenting himself as a bluff and canny peasant, with the self-made
man's contempt for those born to wealth and power. He made many enemies and was
constantly involved in prosecutions both as prosecutor and defendant, though he
himself was never convicted. He was the enemy and mocker not of Hellenism as such,
but of pretentiousness, as he saw it, humbug, and vice in philhellenes of noble houses
(e.g. the Qyinctii Flaminini, the Fulvii Nobiliores) who paid scant attention to the
'ways of their ancestors' — as C. defined them: for what was noua res to one generation
was mos maiorum to the next. He was himself, paradoxically, an outstanding example of
the versatility and individualism of the Hellenistic period. He opposed the repeal of a
sumptuary law, the Lex Orchia (181 B.C.), supported the Lex Voconia which limited
women's rights of inheritance (169 B.C.), opposed war with Rhodes (167 B.C.) and
favoured independence for Macedonia; in 155 B.C. he spoke against the Athenian
ambassadors, all three of them philosophers, who caused a stir at Rome, especially the
sceptic Carneades. In 153 B.C. he visited Carthage and became convinced then if not
earlier that Rome to survive must destroy her old enemy. His overriding political
concern was to restore and preserve social cohesion in Rome and Italy, which he saw
as a question of morals and moral education; Greece and the East could be left to themselves.
On the other hand the government of Spain, still at the end of his life far from
settled, concerned him closely from the time of his consulship; in 171 B.C. he prosecuted
P. Furius Philus for extortion and in the last year of his life (149 B.C.) Sulpicius Galba
on behalf of the Lusitanians. He was survived by two sons, Cato Licinianus by his
first wife and Cato Salonianus (grandfather to Cato Uticensis) by a second. Sources:
Plut. Cat. maj.; Livy 29.25, 32.27, 34, 36, 38—9passim, 43.2, 45.25; Cic. Sen. passim;
Nepos, Cato; and C.'s fragments, see below.
WORKS
(1) Speeches. Cicero found and read more than 150 (Brut. 65) and seems to have been
responsible for a revival of interest. Today the titles or occasions of some eighty are
known (list, ORF pp. 553—6), among which twenty belong to the year of his censorship.
Best represented or most notable are the following: (a) From his consulship (195 B.C.)
to his censorship (184 B.C.). (i) Against repeal of Lex Oppia (195 B.C.), arguing against
relaxation of sumptuary regulations relating to women's expenditure and ornament.
Only known from Livy's extensive paraphrase (34.2—4); not in ORF (but see ORF
p. 14). (ii) To cavalry at Numantia (195 B.C.), ORF fr. 17—18 (iii) In defence of his
actions as consul (191/190 B.C.?), ORF fr. 21-55. (iv) To Athenians (191 B.C.), ORF
fr. 20; important as the earliest known assertion of Latin as a language of international
diplomacy on a par with Greek, (v) Against Q. Minucius Thermus De falsis pugnis
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