149 BC Deaths - Cato the Elder, Prusias II of Bithynia (Paperback)

Chapters: Cato the Elder, Prusias Ii of Bithynia. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 27. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Marcus Porcius Cato (234 BC, Tusculum 149 BC) was a Roman statesman, commonly surnamed Censorius (the Censor), Sapiens (the Wise), Priscus (the Ancient), or Major (the Elder), or Cato the Censor, to distinguish him from his great-grandson, Cato the Younger. He came of an ancient Plebeian family who all were noted for some military service but not for the discharge of the higher civil offices. He was bred, after the manner of his Latin forefathers, to agriculture, to which he devoted himself when not engaged in military service. But, having attracted the notice of Lucius Valerius Flaccus, he was brought to Rome, and successively held the offices of Cursus Honorum: Tribune (214 BC), Quaestor (204 BC), Aedile (199 BC), Praetor (198 BC), Consul (195 BC) together with his old patron, and finally Censor (184 BC). Cato the Elder was born in Tusculum, a municipal town of Latium, to which his ancestors had belonged for some generations. His father had earned the reputation of a brave soldier, and his great-grandfather had received a reward from the state for five horses killed under him in battle. However the Tusculan Porcii had never obtained the privileges of the Roman magistracy. Cato the Elder, their famous descendant, at the beginning of his career in Rome, was regarded as a novus homo (new man), and the feeling of his unsatisfactory position, working along with the belief of his inherent superiority, contributed to exasperate and stimulate his ambition. Early in life, he so far exceeded the previous deeds of his predecessors that he is frequently spoken of, not only as the leader, but as the founder, of the Porcia Gens. His ancestors for three generations had been nam...More: http: //booksllc.net/?id=7586