Page "Cato the Elder" Paragraph 7

Cato is represented to have said, that he served his first campaign in his 17th year, when Hannibal was overrunning Italy.

Plutarch, who had the works of Cato before him, but was careless in dates, did not observe that the estimation of Livy would take back Cato's 17th year to 222, when there was not a Carthaginian in Italy, whereas the computation of Cicero would make the truth of Cato's statement in harmony with the date of Hannibal's first invasion.