Philhellenes in the Roman Republic

[Gladius Hispaniensis]

Ave

I think most of us are familiar with the antagonism between Philhellenes like the Scipios and people like Marcus Porcius Cato (the earlier one) who were more Latin-oriented in their intellectual outlook. Indeed the Scipio party's active promotion of Hellenic language and culture seemed to provoke MPC's ire more than anything else they did IIRC. My question is - is there any evidence the Cato party actually took active steps to discourage the study of Greek language and culture among youth or is it that they just tolerated Greek while giving preference to Latin?

[Primus Pilus]

Ave

I think most of us are familiar with the antagonism between Philhellenes like the Scipios and people like Marcus Porcius Cato (the earlier one) who were more Latin-oriented in their intellectual outlook. Indeed the Scipio party's active promotion of Hellenic language and culture seemed to provoke MPC's ire more than anything else they did IIRC. My question is - is there any evidence the Cato party actually took active steps to discourage the study of Greek language and culture among youth or is it that they just tolerated Greek while giving preference to Latin?

 

I suppose it depends on what you mean by active steps. Plutarch suggests that Cato Major was quite opposed to a Greek education...

 

Life of Cato Major 23

This he did, not, as some think, out of personal hostility to Carneades, but because he was wholly averse to philosophy, and made mock of all Greek culture and training, out of patriotic zeal. He says, for instance, that Socrates was a mighty prattler, who attempted, as best he could, to be his country's tyrant, by abolishing its customs, p373and by enticing his fellow citizens into opinions contrary to the laws. He made fun of the school of Isocrates, declaring that his pupils kept on studying with him till they were old men, as if they were to practise their arts and plead their cases before Minos in Hades. And seeking to prejudice his son against Greek culture, he indulges in an utterance all too rash for his years, declaring, in the tone of a prophet or a seer, that Rome would lose her empire when she had become infected with Greek letters.

 

However, despite his suggestion that learning Greek letters would be the demise of Rome, Cato himself knew Greek well and used the style in his own writings. While he attempted legislation and or acts to limit other perceived ills of Hellenism in Rome - persecution of the Bacchanalians, ousting the philosophers and rhetoricians from the city, etc. - there is no real evidence that he did anything to actually suppress Greek language. (Except perhaps Valerius Maximus' suggestion that magistrates in the 2nd century wrote to Greeks purposely only in Latin... however, I can't find the exact passage).

[Gladius Hispaniensis]

Thanks for the info PP. Is there evidence that the later MPC followed in the footsteps of his predecessor in his attitude to Greek language and culture?

[M. Porcius Cato]

Thanks for the info PP. Is there evidence that the later MPC followed in the footsteps of his predecessor in his attitude to Greek language and culture?

 

There is evidence of the opposite. Cato the Younger was a philhellene. Far from ejecting philosophers from Rome, Cato the Younger had philosophers by his side in Rome, when travelling abroad, and even at Utica. His last night was spent discussing the Stoic paradoxa.

[P.Clodius]

Thanks for the info PP. Is there evidence that the later MPC followed in the footsteps of his predecessor in his attitude to Greek language and culture?

 

There is evidence of the opposite. Cato the Younger was a philhellene. Far from ejecting philosophers from Rome, Cato the Younger had philosophers by his side in Rome, when travelling abroad, and even at Utica. His last night was spent discussing the Stoic paradoxa.

Indeed, he is perhaps the most famous of the stoics.

[Gladius Hispaniensis]

Indeed, he is perhaps the most famous of the stoics.

Really? More even than Seneca?