Marc Cato the Elder: life and work. Treatise on Agriculture

The politician and writer Mark Porcius Cato the Elder (the eldest were called by his descendants, not to be confused with the great-grandson) was born in 234 BC. E. He was originally from the city of Tuscula, located several dozen kilometers from Rome, and belonged to the plebeian family.

Military service

Cato could have spent his entire life farming, had it not started in 218 BC. E. The Second Punic War. At that time, Rome competed on an equal footing with Carthage, whose commander Hannibal invaded Italy in a bold campaign. Because of the difficult situation in the republic, even the very young Cato the Elder was called up to the army. He quickly became a military tribune. For several years the young man served in Sicily. His immediate leader was the famous commander Mark Claudius Marcellus.

In the year 209 BC. E. Cato the Elder moved to the service of the military commander Quintus Fabius Maximus Cumptator. Then he was in the army of Guy Claudius Nero and in its ranks took part in the Battle of Metavre in Northern Italy. In this battle, the Romans defeated the army of younger brother Hannibal Gadrubal. A long campaign against Carthage allowed talented Mark Cathon to achieve recognition in spite of his artistic origin. In ancient Rome, these nuggets were called "new people".

During the Second Punic War, Cato started many useful for the future career of acquaintances. For example, he made friends with Lucius Valerius Flaccus, who later became the praetor of the republic. Another factor in the rise of Mark was the death of a large number of Roman aristocrats during the war. Especially many lives representatives of the nobility took the battle of Cannes, in which Cato to participate, for his luck, did not have time.

204 BC. E. Became a turning point for Mark. In his 30th anniversary, he was appointed quaestor of the commander Publius Scipio, who undertook the organization of the Roman invasion of North Africa, where the heart of the Carthaginian power was located, and for that he was nicknamed African. The army was to cross the Mediterranean Sea from Sicily. During the preparation of a complex operation Scipio quarreled with his assistant. According to one version of ancient historians, Cato the Elder accused the chief of frivolous attitude towards the organization of the landing. Allegedly, the commander idly spent his time in theaters and was scattered by allocated treasury money. According to another version of the reasons for the quarrel were deeper and were a conflict between Scipio and the patrons of Cato Flaccus. One way or another, but the whole end of the Second Punic War, the quaestor spent in Sardinia. It is not known exactly whether he was still in Africa and whether he took part in the decisive battle of Zama. The opinions of ancient authors on this issue diverge.

The beginning of political career

In the year 202 BC. E. Ended the Second Punic War. In the long-standing conflict, the Roman Republic still defeated Carthage and became the hegemon in the west of the Mediterranean Sea. The African rival retained independence, but significantly weakened. With the onset of peace, Mark Cato the Elder moved to the capital. Soon he began a public political career. In 199 BC. E. A native of the plebeian clan received the post of edil, and a year later - praetor.

In a new status for himself, Cato the Elder moved to Sardinia, where, as governor, he began to organize the new administration. On the island the praetor became famous for clearing it from usurers. The official surprised ordinary citizens by abandoning his entourage and wagon. His atypical behavior for the magistracy, he demonstrated his own thrift in spending public money (this habit was kept by Cato until his death).

Consulate

Thanks to the bright public speeches and activities in Sardinia, the politician became a serious figure in the capital itself. In 195 BC. E. Mark Porcius Cato the Elder was elected consul. In the republic, this position was considered the highest in the whole bureaucratic ladder. By tradition, the two consuls were elected for a term of one year. Cato's partner was his long-time patron Lucius Valerius Flaccus.

Becoming a consul, Mark immediately went to Spain, where an uprising of local Iberians, dissatisfied with the power of the Romans, broke out. The Senate gave Cato a 15,000-strong army and a small fleet. With these forces, the consul invaded the Iberian Peninsula. The insurgents' performance was soon suppressed. Nevertheless, Cato's actions caused a mixed reaction in Rome. The capital heard rumors of his irrepressible cruelty, because of which the conflict with the Iberians was aggravated even more. The main critic of Cato was Scipio of Africa, from whom he once served as a quaestor. In 194 BC. E. This noble was elected the next consul. He demanded that the senate withdraw Cato from Spain, but the senators refused to stop the campaign. Moreover, they allowed the returning military commander to hold in the capital a traditional triumphal procession, which symbolized his personal great merits before the state.

The war against the Seleucids

The new challenge for Cato the Elder was the Syrian War (192-188 BC). Contrary to its name, it was in Greece and Asia Minor, where the army invaded the Seleucid state, created by the successors of Alexander the Great. Overcame Carthage, the Roman Republic now looked to the eastern Mediterranean and was not going to allow the strengthening of its direct competitor.

Mark Cato the Elder went to that war as a military tribune under the leadership of Mania Glabrio, then holding the post of consul. On the instructions of his boss, he visited several Greek cities. In 191 BC. E. Cato took part in the Battle of Thermopylae, during which he occupied strategically important heights, than he made a decisive contribution to the defeat of the Seleucids and their Aetolian allies. Mark personally went to Rome in order to inform the senate of the long-awaited success of the army.

Critic of public vices

Once again settled in the capital, Cato the Elder often spoke at the forum, in the courts and the Senate. The main motive of his public speeches was the criticism of the influential Roman aristocracy. Usually "new people", the first in their family to rise to significant government positions, tried to merge with representatives of the nobility. Cato behaved exactly the opposite. He regularly entered into conflicts with the nobility. As a victim, the politician first of all chose opponents of his friends Flaccus. On the other hand, he opposed the aristocracy in general, since, in his opinion, she was mired in excessive luxury.

Under the influence of this rhetoric, the teaching of Cato the Elder gradually developed, later developed by a public figure in the pages of his writings. He considered love for greed as an infamous innovation, from which the customs of modest ancestors suffered. He warned contemporaries that the love of wealth would be followed by mass shamelessness, vanity, arrogance, rudeness and cruelty, disastrous for the whole of Roman society. Cato called aristocrats egoists who defended only their own interests, whereas the glorious ancestors of the past worked primarily for the sake of the public good.

One of the reasons for the distribution of vices politicians called the influence of foreigners. Cato was a consistent anti-Hellenist. He criticized everything Greek, and therefore, the apologists of this spreading culture in Rome (among which was the same Scipio Africanus). Conservative ideas of Cato soon became known as the theory of decadence of morals. It can not be said that it was this politician who invented it, but it was he who developed this teaching and made it fully completed. Among other things, Mark accused the Hellenophiles, who were part of the country's military leadership, of abusing their powers and lack of attention to army discipline.

Conservative orator

As a well-known fighter for the purity of manners Cato several times went to Greece, where he fought with local heretical cults. In the most famous community there were followers of Bacchus, who encouraged orgies, debauchery and drunkenness. Cato ruthlessly pursued such currents. However, while in Greece, he did not forget about his political career. So the military took part in diplomatic negotiations with uncompromising Aetolians.

Still, political and economic views of Cato the Elder all faded more vividly before his conservative ideological lobbying. The most convenient way to influence society in this way could be in the status of a censor. Cato tried to get elected to a high position in 189 BC. But the first pancake was a lump. Unlike the rest of the magistracy, censors changed more than once a year, and every five years. Therefore, the politician received the next chance only in 184 BC. E. Cato the Elder has long established himself as a radical conservative. Other applicants for the post were characterized by softer rhetoric. However, Cato persisted: he insisted that the Roman society needed a serious internal shake-up.

The main rival of the former consul was Scipio's brother, African Lucius. Mark decided to attack his opponent, attacking a more famous relative. On the eve of the election, he persuaded Quintus Nevia, who was the tribune, to accuse Scipio of high treason. The essence of the claims was that the commander allegedly agreed to conclude a soft peace treaty with Antiochus of Syria because of a bribe, which harmed the international interests of the republic.

Censorship

The public maneuver of Cato the Elder was a success. The brother of Scipion was defeated. The censor of the plebeians was Cato, and his friend Lucius Flaccus took a similar position from the patricians. This post gave several unique powers. Censors followed morals, carried out financial control over state revenues, monitored the receipt of taxes and taxes, supervised the maintenance and construction of important structures and roads.

Cato the Elder, whose years of life (234-149 BC) fell on the important for the establishment of Roman law era, won the election, having behind him a program to improve the power of all sorts of vices. The censor started to implement it, having barely time to take office. "Improvement" was primarily reduced to the expulsion from the Senate of the politicians who clashed with Katon. Mark made another Flaccus (Valeria) princeps. Then he conducted exactly the same revision in the ranks of the riders. Of the privileged class of equities, many detractors of the censor were excluded, including the brother of Scipio of the African Lucius. Cato himself has been in conflict with the cavalry since the time of his Spanish campaign, when it was the cavalry that proved to be the weak link in the army.

Exceptions from the nobility of members of ancient aristocratic families have become a scandalous event for high society. Cato the Elder, whose biography represented an example of a "new man", attempted the privileges of many Romans, rather than provoked their undisguised hatred. As a censor, he controlled the population census and could lower fellow citizens in their property class. A significant number of wealthy inhabitants of the empire lost their social status. Crashing down on them their decisions, Cato looked at how the Roman conducts his economy correctly.

Censor significantly increased taxes on luxury and domestic slaves. He tried to increase government revenues and reduce the cost of aristocrats. Changing the contracts that were concluded with the tax-farmers, Cato earned a considerable sum of money. These funds went to repair urban sewerage, facing stone fountains and building a new basilica on the forum. Also, the censor was one of the initiators of the new election legislation. According to the Roman tradition, the winning candidates for the top magistracy held festive games and gifts. Now these handouts to voters came under the new strict regulations. Cato made so many enemies that he was sued 44 times, but he never lost a single case.

Old age

After the end of his censorship, Cato took up the arrangement of his own large estate and literary activities. He did not lose interest in public life, however. Some of his public appearances and enterprises periodically reminded contemporaries of the former censor.

In the year 171 BC. E. Cato became a member of the commission investigating the abuses of the governors in the Spanish provinces. The speaker continued to blame the vices and the fall of morals. Many of his censorship laws, however, were abolished even during his life in peace. Cato continued to be a violent anti-Hellenist. He advocated the termination of contacts with the Greeks, called on not to accept their delegation.

In 152 BC. E. Cato went to Carthage. The embassy to which he was a member had to consider a border dispute with Numidia. After visiting Africa, the former censor was convinced that Carthage began to conduct an independent foreign policy from Rome. Since the Second Punic War, quite a long time has passed, and the old enemy, despite his epoch-making defeat, again began to raise his head.

Returning to the capital, Cato began to call on his compatriots to destroy the African state until it recovered after a long crisis. His phrase "Carthage must be destroyed" has turned into an international phraseology, which is used in speech today. The militaristic Roman lobby has achieved its goal. The Third Punic War began in 149 BC. E., and in the same year the aged 85-year-old Cato died, who never lived to the long-awaited defeat of Carthage.

"To Mark's son"

In his youth, Cato remembered his contemporaries as a bright military figure. In adulthood, he took up politics. Finally, closer to old age, he began to write books. They reflected the pedagogical ideas of Cato the Elder, who strove to explain to contemporaries the need to combat morals, not only through public speeches, but also through literature.

In 192 BC. E. The politician had a son Mark. Cato personally engaged in raising a child. When he grew up, his father decided to write a "Manual" for him (also known as "To Mark's son"), in which his worldly wisdom and the history of Rome were set out. This was the first literary experience of Cato the Elder. Modern researchers consider the "Manual" the earliest Roman encyclopedia, which contained information on rhetoric, medicine and agriculture.

«About agriculture»

The main book that Cato the Elder left behind is "On Agriculture" (also translated as "On Agriculture" or "Agriculture"). It was written about 160 BC. E. The work was a compilation of 162 recommendations and councils for managing a rural estate. In Rome they were called latifundia. Vast estates of the nobility were the centers of growing grain, winemaking and the production of olive oil. They widely used slave labor.

What in his work was advised by his contemporaries Mark Porcius Cato the Elder? The treatise "On Agriculture" can be divided into two structural parts. The first is carefully composed, but the second differs chaotic order. It mixes recommendations of a different kind from folk medicine to culinary recipes. The first part, on the contrary, is more like a systematically compiled textbook.

Since the book was intended specifically for rural residents, it does not have the most basics, and lists quite specific advice, sponsored by Cato the Elder. The economic thought of his work lies in the ranking of the profitability of various types of economy. The most profitable enterprise the writer considered vineyards, followed by watering vegetable gardens, etc. At the same time, the low profitability of grain was emphasized, in which Cato the Elder stopped in detail in his work. Quotations from this book were then often used by other ancient authors in a variety of works. Today the treatise is considered a unique literary monument of antiquity, since it better than any other source describes the rural life of the ancient world of the II century BC. E.

"The Beginning"

"Beginning" is another important work, the author of which was Cato the Elder. "Agriculture" is known to a large extent due to the fact that this book was preserved in its full form. The "beginnings" have come down to us only in the form of scattered fragments. It was a seven-volume book devoted to the history of Rome from the foundation of the city to the second century BC. E.

Cato the Elder, whose theory of organization of the book proved to be innovative, founded a style that became popular with subsequent researchers of the past. He first decided to abandon the poetic form and move on to prose. Moreover, his predecessors wrote historical works in Greek, whereas Cato used exclusively Latin.

The book of this author differed from the works of the past in that it was not a dry chronicle and a list of facts, but an attempt at research. All these typical norms for modern scientific literature were introduced by Cato the Elder. Photographically fixing events, he offered the reader their assessment, based on his favorite theory about the fall of the morals of Roman society.