It was not to be expected that a people filled with such an unbounded lust for dominion would excel in the more delicate walks of literature and art. But the unscrupulous desire of the Romans to extend the power and glory of the Republic was compatible with vigorous statesmanship, and all the kindred subjects requisite to the advancement of social science. Their mother tongue was the language of command, and proficients therein could much easier produce works in prose, since these would arise from a practical view to utility only, and would require a treatment characterized by science rather than by art. But, as in poetry, so in prose, the Romans were perpetually imitative; they frequently showed talent, but rarely genius, and aimed at erudition, not invention. Those who first devoted themselves to historical research, were also eminent in the public service. Fabius Pictor belonged to an eminent patrician family, and Cincius Alimentus was of honorable birth. Such were Roman historians until the time of Sulla, whose cotemporary, L. Otacilius Pititus, was the first freedman who began to write history. The primary efforts of these authors and their associates were devoted to the transfer of poetical records into prose, the more appropriate vehicle of national annals. M. Porcius Cato Censorius was born at Tusculum, B.C. 234. He displayed uncommon versatility of talent, and attained a place among the first orators, jurists, economists, and historians, of his day. Plautus and Terence were his cotemporaries. Cato enjoyed the advantage of a personal acquaintance with Polybius, the Greek historian, and the philosophers, Carneades, Critolaus, and Diogenes, who were compelled from Athens to lecture at Rome. At the same time Crates arrived from Pergamus, and the taste for Greek literature was so quickened, that the venerable prejudice against it in Cato was overcome, and very late in his life he sat down to learn the language of a people whom he had hated and despised. Early in life he became a soldier, served in the Hannibalian war, was under Fabius Maximus, both in Campania and Tarentum, and did the state some service in the decisive battle of the Metaurus. Stern in integrity, and rural in taste, like Carius Dentatus, and Quintius Cincinnatus, between his campaigns he employed himself in agricultural pursuits, on his Sabine farm. Valerius Flaccus invited him to his town-house at Rome, where the rustic pleader almost immediately became famous in the highest courts, and was soon sent to govern the province of Spain. This office was happily fitted to his talents, and on that western field he reaped the richest harvest of fame. The inherent love of truth and justice in Cato made him detest every demand for respect that did not rest on personal merit. Adventitious rank he despised, and was an unrelenting foe to aristocracy, as being arbitrary, conventional, and oppressive. The most amiable trait in his character was a burning indignation against wrong.