ro's time,
while that of Plato had found hardly any imitators.

The editors of the Cato Maior have generally assumed that Cicero attempted
to give an antique coloring to the diction of the dialogue in order to
remind readers of Cato's own style. It is only necessary to read a page or
two of Cato's _De Re Rustica_ to have this illusion dispelled. The only
things actually alleged to be archaisms are (1) the use of deponent
participles as passives in Sec.Sec. 4, 59, 74, a thing common enough in Cicero;
(2) the occurrence of _quasi_ = _quem ad modum_ in Sec. 71; (3) of _audaciter_
= _audacter_ in Sec. 72; (4) of _tuerentur_ for _intuerentur_ in Sec. 77; (5) of
_neutiquam_ in Sec. 42; (6) of the nominative of the gerundive governing an
accusative case in Sec. 6. In every instance the notes will supply a
refutation of the allegation. That Cicero should attempt to write in any
style but his own is exceedingly improbable.

5. _Personages._

The conversation is supposed to take place between Cato, Scipio Africanus
the younger, and Laelius, in the year before Cato's death, _i.e._ 150 B.C.,
when he was in his eighty-fourth year,[28] Scipio being about 35 and
Laelius a few years older.

(1.) _Cato._ M. Porcius Cato was born in 234 B.C.[29] at the ancient Latin
town of Tusculum. Little is known of his family except that it was
plebeian, and possessed a small patrimony in the territory of the Sabines,
close to the farm of M'. Curius Dentatus, one of Cato's great heroes and
models. The heads of the family, so far as memory extended, had
distinguished themselves as tough warriors and hardy farmers. Among the
Sabines, who even down to the times of the Empire were famed for simplicity
of manners and the practice of all the sterner virtues, Cato passed those
portions of his life which were not occupied with business of state. From
his earliest days he toiled in his own fields, and contented himself with
the hardest rustic life.[30] Yet even in his boyhood Cato must have passed
intervals at Rome, and seen something of the great statesmen and generals
of the time.[31] He seems to have received when young as thorough an
education as was possible without learning Greek, such an education as was
to be obtained only in the capital. He grew up to manhood in the
comparatively quiet period between the first and the second Punic wars; the
most exciting event of his younger years must have been the destruction at
Clastidium of the vast hordes of