Book contents
- Roman Frugality
- Cambridge Classical Studies
- Roman Frugality
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Note on Translations
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 ‘Frugality’, Economy and Society in Archaic Rome (Late Seventh to Early Fourth Century BCE)
- Chapter 2 From Licinius Stolo to Tiberius Gracchus: Roman Frugality and the Limitation of Landholding
- Chapter 3 Frugality as a Political Language in the Second Century BCE: The Strategies of Cato the Elder and Scipio Aemilianus
- Chapter 4 Smallholding, Frugality and Market Economy in the Gracchan age
- Chapter 5 Frugalitas, or: The Invention of a Roman Virtue
- Chapter 6 Frugality, Building, and Heirlooms in an Age of Social Mobility
- Chapter 7 From Poverty to Prosperity: The Recalibration of Frugality
- Index Locorum
- General Index
- References
Chapter 3 - Frugality as a Political Language in the Second Century BCE: The Strategies of Cato the Elder and Scipio Aemilianus
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 June 2020
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Book contents
- Roman Frugality
- Cambridge Classical Studies
- Roman Frugality
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Note on Translations
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 ‘Frugality’, Economy and Society in Archaic Rome (Late Seventh to Early Fourth Century BCE)
- Chapter 2 From Licinius Stolo to Tiberius Gracchus: Roman Frugality and the Limitation of Landholding
- Chapter 3 Frugality as a Political Language in the Second Century BCE: The Strategies of Cato the Elder and Scipio Aemilianus
- Chapter 4 Smallholding, Frugality and Market Economy in the Gracchan age
- Chapter 5 Frugalitas, or: The Invention of a Roman Virtue
- Chapter 6 Frugality, Building, and Heirlooms in an Age of Social Mobility
- Chapter 7 From Poverty to Prosperity: The Recalibration of Frugality
- Index Locorum
- General Index
- References
Summary
The chapter analyses Cato the Elder as the ‘inventor’ of a novel ethos of principled thrift and pride in peasant parsimony in response to the massive and unprecedented influx of war spoils and other riches into Rome in the first half of the second century BCE. It explores how Cato turned aspects of prudent and parsimonious husbandry as allegedly practiced by earlier generations of Roman peasants into a normative benchmark for all Romans, and in particular members of the senatorial elite and endowed his vision with authoritative and exemplary force by projecting it back into the past. The argument then shifts to resistance to this reconfiguration of material moderation as an ancestral ideal and concludes with a look at the self-promotion of Scipio Aemilianus, who aligns himself in some respects with the Catonian persona but distances himself from it in others, not least in his explicit if partial embrace of Greek culture – or rather those aspects of Greek culture that could be presented as compatible with Roman tradition.
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- Roman FrugalityModes of Moderation from the Archaic Age to the Early Empire and Beyond, pp. 192 - 212Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020
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