Biography
Cato the Elder was born in Tusculum, a municipal town of Latium, to which his ancestors had belonged for some generations. His father had earned the reputation of a brave soldier, and his great-grandfather had received a reward from the state for five horses killed under him in battle. However the Tusculan Porcii had never obtained the privileges of the Roman magistracy. Cato the Elder, their famous descendant, at the beginning of his career in Rome, was regarded as a novus homo (new man), and the feeling of his unsatisfactory position, working along with the belief of his inherent superiority, contributed to aggravate and drive his ambition. Early in life, he so far exceeded the previous deeds of his predecessors that he is frequently spoken of, not only as the leader, but as the founder, of the Porcia Gens.
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Famous quotes containing the word biography:
“In how few words, for instance, the Greeks would have told the story of Abelard and Heloise, making but a sentence of our classical dictionary.... We moderns, on the other hand, collect only the raw materials of biography and history, “memoirs to serve for a history,” which is but materials to serve for a mythology.”
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“Just how difficult it is to write biography can be reckoned by anybody who sits down and considers just how many people know the real truth about his or her love affairs.”
—Rebecca West [Cicily Isabel Fairfield] (1892–1983)
“Just how difficult it is to write biography can be reckoned by anybody who sits down and considers just how many people know the real truth about his or her love affairs.”
—Rebecca West (1892–1983)