In view of Cicero's treatise, the Cato Maior, it is necessary to say something of Cato's relations with the Greeks and Greek literature. The ancients give us merely vague statements that he only began to learn Greek 'in his old age.' The expression must be liberally interpreted if, as seems clear, the whole of his writings showed the influence of Greek literature. It is certain, however, that he thoroughly detested the Greek nation. This hatred was shown in acts more than once. No doubt Cato was at least a consenting party to the expulsion from Rome of Greek teachers in 161 B.C. When in 155 the famous embassy came from Athens consisting of Carneades the Academic, Critolaus the Peripatetic and Diogenes the Stoic, Cato was a prime mover of the decree by which they were removed from the city. Socrates was one of Cato's favorite marks for jests. And this is the man into whose mouth Cicero puts the utterances, but slightly veiled, of Greek wisdom! (2.) _Scipio_. P. Cornelius Scipio Africanus, the younger, was no blood relation of the conqueror of Hannibal, but the adopted son of his son. It must be remembered, however, that adoption was much more formal and binding, and produced much closer ties in ancient than in modern times.[51] The elder Africanus was unfortunate in his sons. The younger of these attained to the praetorship in 174, but was immediately driven from the senate by the censors of that year on account of his disreputable life. The elder was an invalid, who never held any office except that of augur, and died at an early age. He adopted the son of L. Aemilius Paulus, the victor of Pydna; the adopted son bore the name Aemilianus in memory of his origin. Cato's son married a daughter of Paulus, so that the censor was brought into relationship with the Cornelii, whose most illustrious representative he had hated and attacked.