Cato the Elder

Cato the Elder was the most influential conservative of the Roman republic and ended every speech demanding Carthage be destroyed. Born in 234 BC at Tusculum into a family of farmers with no senatorial ancestors, he worked his own land, fought at sixteen against Hannibal, and was taken up by a patrician neighbour who found his austerity remarkable. He rose through every office to the consulship in 195 BC and the censorship in 184 BC, and it is the censorship he is named for. He used it to attack what he regarded as the corruption of Roman character by Greek luxury: he expelled senators for misconduct, taxed jewellery, clothing and carriages at ten times their value, cut off private pipes drawing from the public aqueducts, and demolished buildings encroaching on public land. He opposed the repeal of a law limiting women's ornaments, prosecuted Scipio Africanus and his brother over their accounts, and had a Greek embassy expelled quickly in case the young were corrupted by its philosophy. He wrote the first history of Rome in Latin, the Origines, now lost, and De Agri Cultura, the earliest surviving Latin prose work — a practical manual on running an estate that includes the advice to sell off old oxen and sick slaves. He was sent to Carthage around 153 BC and was alarmed by its recovery, and from then closed every speech on any subject with the observation that Carthage must be destroyed. The Third Punic War began in 149 BC, the year he died, and the city was razed three years later. His great-grandson Cato the Younger inherited the reputation for rigidity and died opposing Caesar. Plutarch paired him with Aristides.

• Lived: 234 BCE – 149 BCE
• Nationality: Roman
• Roles: ruler, writer