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Cato Maior de Senectute with Introduction and Notes by Marcus Tullius Cicero
page 59 of 168 (35%)

NOTES TO CATO MAIOR.

* * * * *

CATO MAIOR DE SENECTUTE (CATO THE ELDER ON OLD AGE). CATO MAIOR was
probably intended by Cicero as the principal title. He twice gives the work
this name, in Laelius 4 and Att. 14, 21, 1. In the former passage he adds
the descriptive words, addressed to Atticus, _qui est scriptus ad te de
senectute._ In a third notice, De Div. 2, 3, he gives the description
without the title, _liber is quem ad nostrum Atticum de senectute misimus._
It is likely that Cicero intended the essay to be known as the CATO MAIOR
DE SENECTUTE, the full title corresponding with LAELIUS DE AMICITIA. The
word _maior_ was necessary to distinguish the book from Cicero's eulogy of
the younger Cato (Uticensis), which seems to have gone by the name of CATO
simply.

P. 1. -- 1. O TITE etc.: the lines are a quotation from the _Annales_ of Q.
Ennius (born at Rudiae in Calabria 239 B.C., died 169), an epic poem in
hexameter verse, the first great Latin poem in that metre, celebrating the
achievements of the Roman nation from the time of Aeneas to the poet's own
days. The incident alluded to in Ennius' verses is evidently the same as
that narrated by Livy 32, cc. 9, 10. Titus Quinctius Flamininus, who
commanded in 198 B.C. the Roman army opposed to Philip of Macedon, found
the king strongly posted on the mountains between Epirus and Thessaly. For
forty days Flamininus lingered, hoping to find some path which would give
him access to the enemy's quarters. A shepherd who knew every nook of the
mountains came before the general, and promised to lead the Roman soldiers
to the ground above Philip's camp. This was done, and Flamininus drove the
Macedonians into Thessaly. It is the shepherd who in the first line
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