1Marcus Cato, born in the town of Tusculum, as a very young man, before he turned his attention to public office, lived in the Sabine country, because he had a small estate there left to him by his father. 1From there, at the urging of Lucius Valerius Flaccus, whom he had as his colleague in the consulship and the censorship, as Marcus Perpenna the former censor used to relate, he moved to Rome and began to take part in the life of the forum. 2He served his first campaign at the age of seventeen. 2In the consulship of Quintus Fabius and Marcus Claudius he was military tribune in Sicily. 2When he returned from there, he followed the camp of Gaius Claudius Nero, and his services were highly valued in the battle at Sena, in which Hasdrubal, Hannibal's brother, fell.
3As quaestor he was allotted to Publius Africanus as consul, but he did not live with him as the bond of the lot required: for he disagreed with him throughout his life. 3He was made plebeian aedile with Gaius Helvius. 4As praetor he held the province of Sardinia, from which, as quaestor at an earlier time, on his way back from Africa, he had brought the poet Quintus Ennius, an act we value no less than any Sardinian triumph, however great.