Cato was one of the most famous orators of his time, but his competitors were many, among them some of the most noted men of Rome. [Sidenote: Other orators.] Most of these orators were men of natural ability, whose eloquence was trained in the school of public life and owed its effect in great measure to the weight of the speaker’s dignity or the glory of his deeds. Their speeches are lost, and the reputation they had survives only to remind us that during and after the second Punic war Roman eloquence was growing in power, preparing, as it were, for the brilliant oratory of the Gracchi in the second half of the second century B. C., and the superb productions of Cicero in the century to follow. Among orators of Cato’s time should be mentioned Quintus Fabius Maximus Cunctator, five times consul, censor, and dictator, the conqueror of Hannibal, then Quintus Cæcilius Metellus, consul in 206 B. C., Marcus Cornelius Cethegus (died in 196 B. C.), Publius Licinius Crassus (died 183 B. C.), and Scipio Africanus the elder (died 183 B. C.). [Sidenote: Jurists] In the field of jurisprudence there was considerable activity in the days of Cato. Publius Ælius (consul 201, died 174 B. C.) and his brother Sextus (consul 198 B. C.) published the most systematic work on jurisprudence. This work was called _Tripertita_, and was for centuries regarded with reverence as the beginning from which grew the great system of Roman law. Scipio Nasica (consul 191 B. C.), Lucius Acilius, Quintus Fabius Labeo (consul 183 B. C.), and Cato’s son (born about 192, died in 152 B. C.) were all distinguished jurists whose interpretation of the Twelve Tables and whose wisdom in regard to legal matters are mentioned with praise by later writers. Their writings have perished, but the results of their studies were incorporated in the later works on Roman law. [Sidenote: Latin annalists.] The annalists who wrote in Greek, such as Fabius Pictor, were followed, soon after the middle of the second century B. C., by several writers whose works differed from theirs chiefly by being written in Latin. They derived their general views and methods, as well as some of their facts, from earlier Greek historians, such as Ephorus and Timæus. The first of these Latin annalists was Lucius Cassius Hemina, who wrote a history of Rome to his own time. Somewhat more important was Lucius Calpurnius Piso Frugi, who was consul in 133 B. C. His annals covered the same ground as those of Hemina, and are said to have been written in an artless, somewhat rude style. A similar lack of elegance seems to have belonged to the works of the other annalists of this time. Evidently the Romans had not yet learned to write artistic prose. Yet this is the period when, under the guidance of Greek teachers, the Romans were paying more attention than ever before to grammar and rhetoric, purity of language, and nicety of expression.