Disticha Catonis

Disticha Catonis, also Dicta Catonis, title given to a Latin moral poem of the 3rd or 4th c. which had considerable popularity in Germany in the Middle Ages, especially as a school manual. It consists of a short preface (epistola); a group of rules for living, expressed in prose (breves sententiae); and four books of moral aphorisms in the form of hexametrical distichs. Sometimes referred to as Dionysius Cato, after a supposed author, the work is of unidentified authorship. Its general moral tone is stoical and utilitarian. An Old High German translation, made c.1000 by Notker Labeo, is lost. The oldest surviving German version of the Disticha is in Middle High German and dates from about the middle of the 13th c. It was made in Austria and is preserved in a MS. formerly at Zwettl Abbey in Lower Austria. An abbreviated version is also extant. The Disticha were translated in 1498 by Sebastian Brant. Some MSS. contain a translation of a continuation of the Disticha known as Novus Cato or Supplementum Catonis, which is mainly concerned with rules of behaviour.