Marcus Porcius Cato Licinianus

Marcus Porcius Cato Licinianus (191–152 BC) was son of Cato the Censor by his first wife Licinia, and thence called Licinianus, to distinguish him from his half-brother, Marcus Porcius Cato Salonianus, the son of Salonia. He was distinguished as a jurist. Biography Early life and education His father paid great attention to his education, physical as well as mental, and studied to preserve his young mind from every immoral taint. He was taught to ride, to swim, to wrestle, to fence, and, perhaps to the injury of a weak constitution, was exposed to vicissitudes of cold and heat in order to harden his frame. His father would not allow his learned slave Chilo to superintend the education of his son, lest the boy should acquire slavish notions or habits, but wrote lessons of history for him in large letters with his own hand, and afterwards composed a kind of Encyclopaedia for his use. Under such tuition, the young Cato became a wise and virtuous man. Life as a soldier He first entered life as a soldier, and served, 173 BC, in Liguria under the consul Marcus Popilius Laenas. The legion to which he belonged having been disbanded, he took the military oath a second time, by the advice of his father, in order to qualify himself legally to fight against the enemy. In 168 BC, he fought against Perseus of Macedon at the Battle of Pydna under the consul Lucius Aemilius Paullus Macedonicus, whose daughter, Aemilia Tertia, he afterwards married. He distinguished himself in the battle by his personal prowess in a combat in which he first lost and finally recovered his sword. The details of this combat are related with variations by several authors. He returned to the troops on his own side covered with wounds, and was received with applause by the consul, who gave him his discharge in order that he might get cured. Here again his father seems to have cautioned him to take no further part in battle, as after his discharge he was no longer a soldier.