the public benefit in this respect,
rose to the consulship (556) and to the censorship (560). His
treatise --the "-Tripartita-" as it was called--was a work on the
Twelve Tables, which appended to each sentence of the text an
explanation--chiefly, doubtless, of the antiquated and unintelligible
expressions--and the corresponding formula of action. While this
process of glossing undeniably indicated the influence of Greek
grammatical studies, the portion treating of the formulae of action,
on the contrary, was based on the older collection of Appius(69)
and on the whole system of procedure developed by national usage
and precedent.

Cato's Encyclopaedia

The state of science generally at this epoch is very distinctly
exhibited in the collection of those manuals composed by Cato for his
son which, as a sort of encyclopaedia, were designed to set forth in
short maxims what a "fit man" (-vir bonus-) ought to be as orator,
physician, husbandman, warrior, and jurist. A distinction was not yet
drawn between the propaedeutic and the professional study of science;
but so much of science generally as seemed necessary or useful was
required of every true Roman. The work did not include Latin grammar,
which consequently cannot as yet have attained that formal development
which is implied in a properly scientific instruction in language; and
it excluded music and the whole cycle of the mathematical and physical
sciences. Throughout it was the directly practical element in science
which alone was to be handled, and that with as much brevity and
simplicity as possible. The Greek literature was doubtless made use
of, but only to furnish some serviceable maxims of experience culled
from the mass of chaff and rubbish: it was one of Cato's commonplaces,
that "Greek books must be looked into, but not thoroughly studied."
Thus arose those household manuals of necessary information, which,
while rejecting Greek subtlety and obscurity, banished also Greek
acuteness and depth, but through that very peculiarity moulded the
attitude of the Romans towards the Greek sciences for all ages.

Character and Historical Position of Roman Literature

Thus poetry and literature made their entrance into Rome along with
the sovereignty of the world, or, to use the language of a poet of
the age of Cicero:

-Poenico bello secundo Musa pennato gradu
Intulit se bellicosam Romuli in gentem feram.-

In the districts using the Sabellian and Etruscan