SOURCE: Charles Thomas Cruttwell, "Chapter IX," in A History of Roman Literature: From the Caliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius, fourth edition, Charles Griffin and Company, 1878, pp. 87-103.

Dubbing Cato "the perfect type of an old Roman, " Cruttwell proceeds, in the excerpt below, to attribute the character of genuinely Roman letters to Cato's style and values. Cruttwell also espouses the traditional view of Cato's motivation for writing: his hostility to Greek culture.

The creator of Latin prose writing was CATO (234-149 B.C.). In almost every department he set the example, and his works, voluminous and varied, retained their reputation until the close of the classical period. He was the first thoroughly national author.

The character of the rigid censor is generally associated in our minds with the contempt of letters. In his stern but narrow patriotism, he looked with jealous eyes on all that...