mporaries as a prodigy of diligence and acuteness.

Agriculture and the Art of War

Agriculture and the art of war were, of course, primarily regulated
by the standard of traditional and personal experience, as is very
distinctly apparent in that one of the two treatises of Cato on
Agriculture which has reached our time. But the results of Graeco-
Latin, and even of Phoenician, culture were brought to bear on these
subordinate fields just as on the higher provinces of intellectual
activity, and for that reason the foreign literature relating to
them cannot but have attracted some measure of attention.

Jurisprudence

Jurisprudence, on the other hand, was only in a subordinate degree
affected by foreign elements. The activity of the jurists of this
period was still mainly devoted to the answering of parties consulting
them and to the instruction of younger listeners; but this oral
instruction contributed to form a traditional groundwork of rules,
and literary activity was not wholly wanting. A work of greater
importance for jurisprudence than the short sketch of Cato was the
treatise published by Sextus Aelius Paetus, surnamed the "subtle"
(-catus-), who was the first practical jurist of his time, and, in
consequence of his exertions for the public benefit in this respect,
rose to the consulship (556) and to the censorship (560). His
treatise --the "-Tripartita-" as it was called--was a work on the
Twelve Tables, which appended to each sentence of the text an
explanation--chiefly, doubtless, of the antiquated and unintelligible
expressions--and the corresponding formula of action. While this
process of glossing undeniably indicated the influence of Greek
grammatical studies, the portion treating of the formulae of action,
on the contrary, was based on the older collection of Appius(69)
and on the whole system of procedure developed by national usage
and precedent.

Cato's Encyclopaedia

The state of science generally at this epoch is very distinctly
exhibited in the collection of those manuals composed by Cato for his
son which, as a sort of encyclopaedia, were designed to set forth in
short maxims what a "fit man" (-vir bonus-) ought to be as orator,
physician, husbandman, warrior, and jurist. A distinction was not yet
drawn between the propaedeutic and the professional study of science;
but so much of science generally as seemed necessary or useful was
required of every true Roman. The work did not inclu