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The Life of Cato: The Introduction of Cato and The Twelve Tables of Roman Law (primary)

Preface: We begin our journey with the introduction of Cato Brutius, a young Roman male citizen like any other, working and going to school in the late Era of the Ancient Roman Republic around 190 BC. His father and family are great city planners and politicians and his mother loves crafting jewelry and keeping up with the home. Cato wants to grow up to be a great city planner and develop significant buildings like his father one day, but to earn the respect of his peers and most importantly his father, he has to work his way up and cover all aspects of construction before diving head first into Roman city planning. His father wanted Cato to get his hands dirty and have opportunities to perform for the family business while also getting an education, so Cato would often follow his father around to learn and help on job sites. Now, we will take a first hand look at Cato's life and the beginning of his construction career.

My father woke me up today and told me that I was going to have my first city project. This was a huge deal for me. Up until this point I had only really been delivering materials for my father and helping out the employees here and there. Now, it was time to put my runt work to the test. I was so excited when my father told me that we would be building a new strip of road for a brand new patrician development that my father had been working on for years. But, my father told me there were laws and restrictions that we had to go over first. He knew that these rules were imperative for me to learn and held strictly in court. If our measurements were off by an inch, my fathers business and or reputation could plummet. Not to mention any legal consequences we could face if the job wasn't done properly. My father gave me one assignment to complete before we showed up to the site and that job was to read the Twelve Tables and specifically take notes on the Land Rights and Crimes section. This section states how roads should be made, measured, and also states the time frame of completion. In the 7th table of The Twelve Tables, the second sentence states that when constructing a public road, the road should be eight feet wide on straight parts and sixteen feet wide on parts of the road where it turns. After I had read through all of the tables, I put on some work clothes, gathered my materials, and headed to my father. It took us about 2 days to complete the entire road, and the first day was spent breaking rocks into smaller and smaller parts so that we could pave the way of the road and be more precise in our measurements. At the end of the second day, my father told me to lay the last strip of road and complete the project on my own. I had never felt so accomplished and that day I walked back home with the biggest smile on my face. To know that my hands had built something that people would benefit from, use everyday, and that would be there long after I left this earth, was a great feeling. It felt like I had done something. When I went back home and saw how proud my father was, I knew at that moment that this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my living days.



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