that he may have had a knowledge of Greek works for much of his life. In his last years, he was known for strenuously urging his countrymen to prosecute the Third Punic War and to destroy Carthage. In 157, he was one of the deputies sent to Carthage to arbitrate between the Carthaginians and Massinissa, king of Numidia. The mission was unsuccessful and the commissioners returned home, but Cato was so struck by Carthage's growing prosperity that he was convinced that the security of Rome depended on its annihilation. From then on, he began concluding his speeches in the Senate —on any topic whatsoever— with the cry, "Carthage must be destroyed" (). Other times, his phrase is fully quoted as "Moreover, I advise that Carthage must be destroyed" (). Cicero's dialogue Cato the Elder on Old Age also depicted Cato's antipathy to Carthage. According to Ben Kiernan, Cato may have made the first recorded incitement to genocide. To Cato the individual life was a continual discipline, and public life was the discipline of the many. He regarded the individual householder as the germ of the family, the family as the germ of the state. By strict economy of time he accomplished an immense amount of work; he demanded his dependents practice a similar dedication, and proved himself a hard husband, a strict father, and a severe and cruel master. There was little difference, apparently, in the esteem in which he held his wife and his slaves, although perhaps his pride caused him to take a warmer interest in his sons, Marcus Porcius Cato Licinianus and Marcus Porcius Cato Salonianus. To the Romans themselves little in this behavior seemed worthy of censure, it was respected rather as a traditional example of the old Roman manners. In the remarkable passage in which Livy describes the character of Cato, there is no word of blame for the rigid discipline of his household. Writings Cato was and remains famous as an author as well. He was a historian, the first Latin prose writer of any importance, and the first author of a history of Italy in Latin. Some have argued that if it were not for the impact of Cato's writing, Latin might have been supplanted by Greek as the literary language of Rome. He was also one of the very few early Latin authors who could claim Latin as a native language. His