The Life of Cato - The Poet, His friend, and A Beautiful Home (primary)

My father had been spending weekends in the bayside ritzy area of Rome. This, he said, was where all the stereotypes of high class people dwelled. While my father himself came from a long privilege government background, he has always put forth his hardworking attitude which overshadows his social class. He hates it when people flaunt there wealth over there, but he surely doesn't mind doing work for them and taking their wealth. My father had been building a beautiful bayside home and next weekend he said it would be finally finished. He wanted me to come over and help him deliver materials and wrap up the final touches. What is great about making deliveries for my father is he gives me all the money to go get the materials. Today I gathered beautiful marbles to finish the flooring and my father basically gave me a year allowance which I had to exchange for thousands of precious looking marbles. This house was going to be beautiful when it was finished and even when I arrived it was already looking complete. I spent the afternoon with my father sticking marbles into the quickly forming hard clay floor and it looked magical. We didn't even have marbles in our house and when I asked my father why he shrugged it off and replied, "Cause, its too fancy." After second thought, this house did resemble more of a museum than a house, but then again, living in a museum would be kind of cool. My friend Pluto, who was an excellent town entertainer and even better poet, also thought the home was beautiful. So, he asked my father if he could spend an hour in and around the house as the sunset went down. I ended up staying with him and he kept noticing the smallest details and jotting them down, things that even I as a builder didn't notice, he had a different eye, an artist's eye. He held appreciation for the smallest things and made the biggest deal about them through his words. He described the kaleidoscope affect of the marble flooring, how the home looked out into the ocean like a bird, and how each room had its own excellent view of the bay. It was very cool to me to see how differently he saw architecture than I did. I saw it as money and measurements, but he saw it for so much more and wrote about a cold brick building as a warm and luxurious living space. Things were changing in Rome, rapidly and something about seeing my friend write this poem inspired me to work outside of my element.

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The Life of Cato: Cato The Elder Speech on Woman and Equality (primary)

Today after lunch, Cato The Elder has ordered a senate meeting in which my father and his company had to attend. I also had to come because we were going to work on some destroyed roads afterward. It will be my first time seeing Cato The Elder in person. From what I have heard and from what my father has told me, he is not the nicest guy in the world. When we arrived, I imagined Cato The Elder to be a bigger man, he was small and lanky and didn't really possess the looks of an emperor. However, when he began to speak my heart dropped off for a second. He had this cold, stern voice that was deep. I looked at my employees and they started giggling, but I was not laughing at all. Cato The Elder ordered everyone in the room to stand up and greet each other and after that started his speech. He began talking about problems within the senate and that there needed to be more taxes raised for the military. Then he started talking about women and what role they were to play in society. No

The Life of Cato: Spatial Organization and Urbanization in Rome

As a city planner my father always had to take close notes on the laws of the land and if their were no laws in place, he would take consideration and suggestion from the locals. Sometimes when an order is given to start a development, my father tells me that they send him grids on tablets with exact location, measurements, and a list of materials to be used. This development was probably sent out by a political leader and will either be used for patrician residence or some sort of city council building. Most times when my father is working on buildings there is a verbal plan and a list of materials, but most of his building is done organically. Now, he still has to meet spatial and development requirements, but my father can make the dimensions and measurement of the building exactly how he thinks fits best. If there are no laws in place of the town, my father will ask the locals about how they want the new building to be and my father will draw a template of what it could be based on

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 ha

The Travel Log of Cato Bruttius

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