Marcus Porcius Cato (the Censor)

Reading notes

• The Art of Poetry §45-59 Cato

  Cato the Elder (the Censor), whose writings helped enrich early Latin with new words.

• The Odes §2.15 unshorn

  Cato the Censor, the old-fashioned moralist, his 'unshorn' head a mark of antique austerity.

• The Odes §3.21 Cato

  Even 'old Cato's virtue,' they say, 'often grew warm with wine.'

• The Epistles §2.2 Catos

  Cato the Censor (234–149 BC), austere moralist; the anecdote 'blessing' young men's resort to brothels rather than wives is told of him.

• The Satires §1.2 the godlike pronouncement of Cato

  Cato the Censor, byword for old-Roman austerity; the anecdote has him approve a young man's visit to a brothel as the lesser evil to adultery — a verdict Horace cites with a straight face.