Talk:Distichs of Cato

I removed this box from the article because wikisource currently has no material written by Dionysius Cato.84.239.128.9 16:03, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

I noticed that the link to the English translation at the end is dead. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.66.25.76 (talk) 23:07, 26 June 2010 (UTC)


 * I've updated the link (looks like the professor moved to a different school). Thanks for pointing this out. —Emufarmers(T/C) 03:47, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

I am no expert, but the paragraph that begins "The Roman jurist Licinianus…" appears to me to be very garbled.

1. Marcus Porcius Cato Licinianus was indeed a distinguished jurist (and soldier). But he was the son of Cato the ELDER, and dying around 152 BC, can scarcely have written on Caesar.

2. Was there a later Cato Licinianus to whom this article, as it now stands, refers? That seems unlikely, as "Licinianus" was, I believe, a matronymic, given to distinguish M. Porcius Cato Licinianus from a half-brother with the same tria nomina, and not, at least in Porcia, a heritable cognomen. Uticensis did have a son, also M. Porcius Cato, who according to "Der Kleine Pauly", "suchte 46 seinen eigene Hand schwerverwundeten Vater...vergeblich am Leben zu erhalten". But I can nowhere find this son called Licinianus, nor can I find any writing attributed to him, and he was actually, again according to the Little Pauly, "von Caesar begnadigt". He fell at Phillipi, and "mit ihm erlosch wohl die Familie".

3. "Liber Catonianus" is not usually taken as signifying the Pseudo-Catonian corpus, but as the name of a medieval anthology that while it does include Pseudo-Catonian material, includes a number of other, unrelated works as well.

I am not, as I say, an expert, but I am I think knowledegable enough in the area to know that the paragraph as it stands makes no sense. I am unable to trace the unpublished reference given.

I am tempted simply to delete the paragraph, but conscious of my own limitations, I content myself with objecting to it here, encouraging the person(s) responsible themselves to revise or delete it. Mjhrynick (talk) 23:23, 24 December 2018 (UTC)