Cato perhaps deserves even more notice as a literary man than as a
statesman or a soldier. He was the first Latin prose writer of any
importance, and the first author of a history of Rome in Latin. His
treatise on agriculture (_De Agricultura_, or _De Re Rustica_) is the
only work by him that has been preserved; it is not agreed whether the
work we possess is the original or a later revision. It contains a
miscellaneous collection of rules of good husbandry, conveying much
curious information on the domestic habits of the Romans of his age. His
most important work, _Origines_, in seven books, related the history of
Rome from its earliest foundations to his own day. It was so called from
the second and third books, which described the rise of the different
Italian towns. His speeches, of which as many as 150 were collected,
were principally directed against the young free-thinking and
loose-principled nobles of the day. He also wrote a set of maxims for
the use of his son (_Praecepta ad Filium_), and some rules for everyday
life in verse (_Carmen de Moribus_). The collection of proverbs in
hexameter verse, extant under the name of Cato, probably belongs to the
4th century A.D. (See CATO, DIONYSIUS.)

AUTHORITIES.--There are lives of Cato by Cornelius Nepos, Plutarch and
Aurelius Victor, and many particulars of his career and character are
to be gathered from Livy and Cicero. See also F.D. Gerlach, _Marcus
Porcius Cato der Censor_ (Basel, 1869); G. Kurth, _Caton l'ancien_
(Bruges, 1872); J. Cortese, _De M. Porcii Catonis vita, operibus, et
lingua_ (Turin, 1883); F. Marcucci, _Studio critico sulle Opere di
Catone il Maggiore_ (1902). The best edition of the _De Agricultura_
is by H. Keil (1884-1891), of the fragments of the _Origines_ by H.
Peter (1883) in _Historicorum Romanorum Fragmenta_, of the fragments
generally by H. Jordan (1860); see also J. Wordsworth, _Fragments and
Specimens of Early Latin_ (1874); M. Schanz, _Geschichte der romischen
Litteratur_ (1898); article in Smith's _Dictionary of Greek and Roman
Biography_, Mommsen, _Hist. of Rome_ (Eng. trans.), bk. iii. ch. xi
and xiv.; Warde Fowler, _Social Life at Rome_ (1909).

CATO, MARCUS PORCIUS (95-46 B.C.), Roman philosopher, called _Uticensis_
to distinguish him from his great-grandfather, "the Censor." On the
death of his parents he was brought up in the house of his uncle, M.
Livius Drusus. After fighting with distinction i