PUBLIUS

VALERIUS

See also:

• CATO, DIONYSIUS
• CATO, MARCUS PORCIUS (234—149 B.c.)
• CATO, MARCUS PORCIUS (95-46 B.c.)
• PUBLIUS VALERIUS CATO

CATO  , Roman poet and grammarian, was born about roo B.c . He is of importance as the leader of the " new " school of poetry (poetae novi, vewrspot, as Cicero calls them) . Its followers rejected the national epic and drama in favour of the artificial mythological epics and elegies of the Alexandrian school, and preferred Euphorion of Chalcis to Ennius . Learning, that is, a knowledge of Greek literature and myths, and strict adherence to metrical rules were regarded by them as indispensable to the poet . The veurrepot were also determined opponents of Pompey and Caesar . The great influence of Cato is attested by the lines: " Cato grammaticus, Latina Siren, Qui solus legit ac facit poetas." 1 Our information regarding his life is derived from Suetonius (De Grammaticis, II) . He was a native of Cisalpine Gaul, and lost his property during the Sullan disturbances before he had attained his majority . He lived to a great age, and during the latter part of his life was in very reduced circumstances . He was at one time possessed of considerable wealth, and owned a villa at Tusculum which he was obliged to hand over to his creditors . In addition to grammatical treatises, Cato wrote a number of poems, the best-known of which were the Lydia and Diana . In the Indignatio (perhaps a short poem) he defended himself against the accusation that he was of servile birth . It is probable that he is the Cato mentioned as a critic of Lucilius in the lines by an unknown author prefixed to Horace, Satires, i. lo .

Among the

minor poems attributed to Virgil is one called Dirae (or rather two, Dirae and Lydia) . The Dirae consists of imprecations against the estate of which the writer has been deprived, and where he is obliged to leave his beloved Lydia; in the Lydia, on the other hand, the estate is regarded with envy as the possessor of his charmer . Joseph Justus Scaliger was the first to attribute the poem (divided into two by F . Jacobs) to Valerius Cato, on the ground " Cato, the grammarian, the Latin siren, who alone reads aloud the works and makes the reputation of poets." that he had lost an estate and had written a Lydia . The question has been much discussed; the balance of opinion is in favour of the Dirae being assigned to the beginning of the Augustan age, although so distinguished a critic as O . Ribbeck supports the claims of Cato to the authorship . The best edition of these poems is by A . F . Make (1847), with exhaustive commentary and excursuses; a clear account of the question will be found in M . Schanz's Geschichte der romischen Litteratur; for the " new " school of poetry see Mommsen, Hist. of Rome, bk. v. ch. xii . ; F . Plessis, Poesie latine (1909), 188 .