Origines

(, "Origins") is the title of a lost work on Roman and Italian history by Cato the Elder, composed in the early-2nd centuryBC. Contents According to Cato's biographer Cornelius Nepos, the Origins consisted of seven books. Book I was the history of the founding and kings of Rome. Books II and III covered the origins of major Italian cities and gave the work its title. The last four books dealt with the Roman Republic, its wars, and its growing power, focused on the period between the onset of the First Punic War up to 149BC. When Cato wrote, there had been four major works devoted to Roman history: Naevius and Ennius had written in Latin verse and Fabius Pictor and Alimentus had written in Greek prose. The two poetic works closely tied the history of Rome to its gods. The two prose works apparently hewed closely to the annals of the pontifex maximus. Feeling no need to follow precedent, Roman or otherwise, Cato declared: In his books on the Italian cities, Cato apparently treated each individually and drew upon their own local traditions.