Perhaps even more than Jefferson, Wythe saw the new world through a classical lens. Unusually, he had studied the ancient texts with his widowed mother, who somehow had managed to learn Latin and Greek. Little is known about her background, but she must have been an excellent teacher, for Wythe became known, Jefferson wrote, as “the best Greek and Latin scholar in the state.” Wythe, he added, “might truly be called the Cato of his country.”66
