Cato finally becomes censor, with his colleague Flaccus, in 184.
Already the champion of the ancient, austere Roman way of life, Cato now inaugurates a puritanical campaign.
He aims at preserving the mos majorum ("ancestral custom") and combating all Greek influences, which he believes are undermining the older Roman standards of morality.
He passes measures taxing luxury and strictly revises the list of persons eligible for the Senate.
Abuses by tax gatherers are brought under control, and public building is promoted as a worthy cause.
He orders the construction of the Basilica Porcia, a large, oblong building adjoining the forum. (The name is derived from the Greek Basilike, meaning royal, but this basilica is the earliest known. The architectural form proves so useful that others will soon built throughout the Roman world, usually adjoining the forum or agora of a town.)
Roman dramatist Titus Maccius Plautus, commonly known as Plautus, whose comedies are among the earliest surviving intact works in Latin literature, is also one of the earliest pioneers of musical theater.
Playwrights throughout history would look to Plautus for character, plot, humor, and other elements of comedy.
His influence ranges from similarities in idea to full literal translations woven into plays.
The playwright’s apparent familiarity with the absurdity of humanity and both the comedy and tragedy that stem from this absurdity have inspired succeeding playwrights centuries after his death in 184.
The most famous of these successors is Shakespeare—Plautus had a major influence on the Bard’s early comedies.
With concerns rising in Rome over whether Philip V of Macedon is preparing for a new war with the Romans, Appius Claudius Pulcher is sent at the head of an embassy into Macedonia and Greece to observe Philip's activities.
The Roman Senate reasserts its own terms in 184 for settlement of the dispute between Sparta and the Achaean League.
