Cato Maior de Senectute with Introduction and NotesCicero, Marcus Tullius
Philosophy
Cato Maior de Senectute with Introduction and Notes
Cicero, Marcus Tullius
Old age -- Early works to 1800
11. SALINATORI: there can be no doubt that Cicero is guilty of a blunder
here, and in De Or. 2, 273 where the story also occurs. Livy (27, 34, 7)
gives M. Livius Macatus as the name of the Roman commander who held the
citadel of Tarentum while Hannibal was in possession of the town. Cicero
probably found the commander described by the annalists merely as M. Livius
(so in Livy 24, 20, 13; 26, 39, 1), and then jumped to tne conclusion that
he was the famous M. Livius Salinator. This man, the father of the
Salinator mentioned in 7, was consul in 219 and subdued the Illyrians, but
was condemned for misappropriation of public moneys and went into exile. In
210 he was induced to return by the desire of the senate. In 207 he became
consul with C. Claudius Nero, and defeated Hasdrubal in the great battle of
the Metaurus. In 204 Livius was censor with Nero as his colleague, and won
his name _Salinator_ by imposing a tax on salt. The title was bestowed in
ridicule, but clung to the family. Salinator was a relative of M. Livius
Macatus. See Liv 27, 34, 7. -- ITA DICENTI etc.: the anecdote is told by
Livy, 27, 25, 5 and Plutarch, Fab. 23. Both, however, refer the story not
to the time at which Tarentum was taken, but to the year after, when
altercations about it took place in the senate. -- TOGA: here put for
'civil life', the _toga_ being replaced in time of war by the _sagum_. Cf.
in Pisonem 73 _pacis est insigne et oti toga, contra autem arma tumultus
atque belli;_ De Or. 3, 167 _'togam', pro 'pace', 'arma', ac 'tela', pro
'bello'._ We have the same contrast between _arma_ and _toga_ in Cicero's
own much-derided verse, _cedant arma togae, concedat laurea laudi_, which
is defended by him, in Pis. 73 and Off. 1, 77. -- CONSUL ITERUM etc.: as
the second consulship of Fabius was in 228 B.C., while the law of Flaminius
was passed in 232 (according to Polybius), it is very difficult to
understand the statement here made. It is possible that Flaminius was one
of the commissioners for executing his own law, and that its execution
lasted over the time of Fabius' second consulship. The Flaminius here
mentioned is the same who fell as consul in 217 at the battle of lake
Trasimenus. He held large and statesman-like views on the policy of
securing Italy by planting Romans and Latins in the territory then recently
taken from the Gauls, in the neighborhood of Ariminum. This particular
measure was carried against the will of the senate, and was the first law
passed, since the _lex Hortensia_ of 287, in defiance of its wishes. It was
also the first agrarian law since the Licinio-Sextian law of 367. Polybius
dates the decline of the Roman constitution from the passing of the _lex
Flaminia_. Cf.'Rheinisches Museum', 1843, p. 573. -- SP. CARVILIO
QUIESCENTE: this Sp. Carvilius was consul in 234 when he conquered the
Corsicans and Sardinians. In 228 he was again consul, and died as augur in
212. He is said, but erroneously, to have been the first Roman who divorced
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