History of Roman Literature from its Earliest Period to the Augustan Age. Vol. II

by John Colin Dunlop

He next treats of the management of vineyards and olives; the proper mode of planting, grafting, propping, and fencing: And he is here naturally led to furnish directions for making and preserving the different sorts of wine and oil; as also to [pg 15]specify how much of each is to be allowed to the servants of the family.

In discoursing of the cultivation of fields for corn, Cato enjoins the farmer to collect all sorts of weeds for manure. Pigeons’ dung he prefers to that of every animal. He gives orders for burning lime, and for making charcoal and ashes from the branches or twigs of trees. The Romans seem to have been at great pains in draining their fields; and Cato directs the formation both of open and covered drains. Oxen being employed in ploughing the fields, instructions are added for feeding and taking due care of them. The Roman plough has been a subject of much discussion: Two sorts are mentioned by Cato, which he calls Romanicum, and Campanicum—the first being proper for a stiff, and the other for a light soil. Dickson conjectures, that the Romanicum had an iron Share, and the Campanicum a piece of timber, like the Scotch plough, and a sock driven upon it. The plough, with other agricultural implements, as the crates, rastrum, ligo, and sarculum, most of which are mentioned by Cato, form a curious point of Roman antiquities.

The preservation of corn, after it has been reaped, is a subject of much importance, to which Cato has paid particular attention. This was a matter of considerable difficulty in Italy, in the time of the Romans; and all their agricultural writers are extremely minute in their directions for preserving it from rot, and from the depredations of insects, by which it was frequently consumed.

A great part of the work of Cato is more appropriate to the housewife than the farmer. We have receipts for making all sorts of cakes and puddings, fattening hens and geese, preserving figs during winter; as also medical prescriptions for the cure of various diseases, both of man and beast. Mala punica, or pomegranates, are the chief ingredient, in his remedies, for Diarrhœa, Dyspepsia, and Stranguary. Sometimes, however, his cures for diseases are not medical recipes, but sacrifices, atonements, or charms. The prime of all is his remedy for a luxation or fracture.—“Take,” says he, “a green reed, and slit it along the middle—throw the knife upwards, and join the two parts of the reed again, and tie it so to the place broken or disjointed, and say this charm—‘Daries, Dardaries, Astataries, Dissunapiter.’ Or this—‘Huat, Hanat, Huat, Ista, Pista, Fista, Domiabo, Damnaustra.’ This will make the part sound again[18].”

The most remarkable feature in the work of Cato, is its [pg 16]total want of arrangement. It is divided, indeed, into chapters, but the author, apparently, had never taken the trouble of reducing his precepts to any sort of method, or of following any general plan. The hundred and sixty-two chapters, of which his work consists, seem so many rules committed to writing, as the daily labours of the field suggested. He gives directions about the vineyard, then goes to his corn-fields, and returns again to the vineyard. His treatise was, therefore, evidently not intended as a regular or well-composed book, but merely as a journal of incidental observations. That this was its utmost pretensions, is farther evinced by the brevity of the precepts, and deficiency of all illustration or embellishment. Of the style, he of course would be little careful, as his Memoranda were intended for the use only of his family and slaves. It is therefore always simple,—sometimes even rude; but it is not ill adapted to the subject, and suits our notion of the severe manners of its author, and character of the ancient Romans.

Besides this book on agriculture, Cato left behind him various works, which have almost entirely perished. He left a hundred and fifty orations[19], which were existing in the time of Cicero, though almost entirely neglected, and a book on military discipline[20], both of which, if now extant, would be highly interesting, as proceeding from one who was equally distinguished in the camp and forum. A good many of his orations were in dissuasion or favour of particular laws and measures of state, as those entitled—“Ne quis iterum Consul fiat—De bello Carthaginiensi,” of which war he was a vehement promoter—“Suasio in Legem Voconiam,—Pro Lege Oppia,” &c. Nearly a third part of these orations were pronounced in his own defence. He had been about fifty times accused[21], and as often acquitted. When charged with a capital crime, in the 85th year of his age, he pleaded his own cause, and betrayed no failure in memory, no decline of vigour, and no faltering of voice[22]. By his readiness, and pertinacity, and bitterness, he completely wore out his adversaries[23], and earned the reputation of being, if not the most eloquent, at least the most stubborn speaker among the Romans.

Cato’s oration in favour of the Oppian law, which was a sumptuary restriction on the expensive dresses of the Roman [pg 17]matrons, is given by Livy[24]. It was delivered in opposition to the tribune Valerius, who proposed its abrogation, and affords us some notion of his style and manner, since, if not copied by the historian from his book of orations, it was doubtless adapted by him to the character of Cato, and his mode of speaking. Aulus Gellius cites, as equally distinguished for its eloquence and energy, a passage in his speech on the division of spoil among the soldiery, in which he complains of their unpunished peculation and licentiousness. One of his most celebrated harangues was that in favour of the Rhodians, the ancient allies of the Roman people, who had fallen under the suspicion of affording aid to Perseus, during the second Macedonian war. The oration was delivered after the overthrow of that monarch, when the Rhodian envoys were introduced into the Senate, in order to explain the conduct of their countrymen, and to deprecate the vengeance of the Romans, by throwing the odium of their apparent hostility on the turbulence of a few factious individuals. It was pronounced in answer to those Senators, who, after hearing the supplications of the Rhodians, were for declaring war against them; and it turned chiefly on the ancient, long-tried fidelity of that people,—taking particular advantage of the circumstance, that the assistance rendered to Perseus had not been a national act, proceeding from a public decree of the people. Tiro, the freedman of Cicero, wrote a long and elaborate criticism on this oration. To the numerous censures it contains, Aulus Gellius has replied at considerable length, and has blamed Tiro for singling out from a speech so rich, and so happily connected, small and insulated portions, as objects of his reprehensive satire. All the various topics, he adds, which are enlarged on in this oration, if they could have been introduced with more perspicuity, method, and harmony, could not have been delivered with more energy and strength[25].

Both Cicero and Livy have expressed themselves very fully on the subject of Cato’s orations. The former admits, that his “language is antiquated, and some of his phrases harsh and inelegant: but only change that,” he continues, “which it was not in his power to change—add number and cadence—give an easier turn to his sentences—and regulate the structure and connection of his words, (an art which was as little practised by the older Greeks as by him,) and you will find no one who can claim the preference to Cato. The Greeks themselves acknowledge, that the chief beauty of composition results from the frequent use of those forms of expression, [pg 18]which they call tropes, and of those varieties of language and sentiment, which they call figures; but it is almost incredible with what copiousness, and with what variety, they are all employed by Cato[26].” Livy principally speaks of the facility, asperity, and freedom of his tongue[27]. Aulus Gellius has instituted a comparison of Caius Gracchus, Cato, and Cicero, in passages where these three orators declaimed against the same species of atrocity—the illegal scourging of Roman citizens; and Gellius, though he admits that Cato had not reached the splendour, harmony, and pathos of Cicero, considers him as far superior in force and copiousness to Gracchus[28].

Of the book on Military Discipline, a good deal has been incorporated into the work of Vegetius; and Cicero’s orations may console us for the want of those of Cato. But the loss of the seven books, De Originibus, which he commenced in his vigorous old age, and finished just before his death, must ever be deeply deplored by the historian and antiquary. Cato is said to have begun to inquire into the history, antiquities, and language of the Roman people, with a view to counteract the influence of the Greek taste, introduced by the Scipios; and in order to take from the Greeks the honour of having colonized Italy, he attempted to discover on the Latin soil the traces of ancient national manners, and an indigenous civilization. The first book of the valuable work De Originibus, as we are informed by Cornelius Nepos, in his short life of Cato, contained the exploits of the kings of Rome. Cato was the first author who attempted to fix the era of the foundation of Rome, which he calculated in his Origines, and determined it to have been in the first year of the 7th Olympiad. In order to discover this epoch, he had recourse to the memoirs of the Censors, in which it was noted, that the taking of Rome by the Gauls, was 119 years after the expulsion of the kings. By adding this period to the aggregate duration of the reigns of the kings, he found that the amount answered to the first of the 7th Olympiad. This is the computation followed by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, in his great work on Roman antiquities. It is probably as near the truth as we can hope to arrive; but even in the time of Cato, the calculated duration of the reigns of the kings was not founded on any ancient monuments then extant, or on the testimony of any credible historian. The second and third books treated of the origin of the different states of Italy, whence the whole work has received the name of Origines. The fourth and [pg 19]fifth books comprehended the history of the first and second Punic wars; and in the two remaining books, the author discussed the other campaigns of the Romans till the time of Ser. Galba, who overthrew the Lusitanians.

In his account of these later contests, Cato merely related the facts, without mentioning the names of the generals or leaders; but though he has omitted this, Pliny informs us that he did not forget to take notice, that the elephant which fought most stoutly in the Carthaginian army was called Surus, and wanted one of his teeth[29]. In this same work he incidentally treated of all the wonderful and admirable things which existed in Spain and Italy. Some of his orations, too, as we learn from Livy, were incorporated into it, as that for giving freedom to the Lusitanian hostages; and Plutarch farther mentions, that he omitted no opportunity of praising himself, and extolling his services to the state. The work, however, exhibited great industry and learning, and, had it descended to us, would unquestionably have thrown much light on the early periods of Roman history and the antiquities of the different states of Italy. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, himself a sedulous inquirer into antiquities, bears ample testimony to the research and accuracy of that part which treats of the origin of the ancient Italian cities. The author lived at a time which was favourable to this investigation. Though the Samnites, Etruscans, and Sabines, had been deprived of their independence, they had not lost their monuments or records of their history, their individuality and national manners. Cicero praises the simple and concise style of the Origines, and laments that the work was neglected in his day, in consequence of the inflated manner of writing which had been recently adopted; in the same manner as the tumid and ornamented periods of Theopompus had lessened the esteem for the concise and unadorned narrative of Thucydides, or as the lofty eloquence of Demosthenes impaired the relish for the extreme attic simplicity of Lysias[30].