De agri cultura

Alexander Hugh McDonald, in his article for the Oxford Classical Dictionary, dated this essay's composition to about 160 BC and noted that "for all of its lack of form, its details of old custom and superstition, and its archaic tone, it was an up-to-date "treatise" constructed from his own knowledge and experience to the new capitalistic farming.

The work of Cato is often characterized as a "farmer's notebook" written in a "random fashion"; it is hard to think of it as literature.

Its direct style, however, was noted by other ancient authors like Aulus Gellius as "forceful and vigorous", in a context of extreme simplicity.

He criticizes both, the former on the basis of the dangers and uncertainty which it bears, the second because according to the Twelve Tables, the usurer is judged a worse criminal than a thief.

[3] Cato makes a strong contrast with farming, which he praises as the source of good citizens and soldiers, of both wealth and high moral values.