Cato The Younger

Plutarch · a new plain-English translation from the original language

The distinction and renown of Cato's line trace back to his great-grandfather, that Cato who rose above other Romans in reputation and influence through sheer virtue, as recorded elsewhere in his own account. Losing both parents while still a child, Cato was left along with his brother Caepio, his sister Porcia, and — as a half-sister on the mother's side — Servilia. The whole group grew up sheltered under the roof of their maternal uncle Livius Drusus, who was then prominent in public affairs; for he ranked among the most powerful of speakers, was otherwise a man of exceptional self-restraint, and yielded to no Roman in loftiness of spirit.

It is said that Cato, from earliest childhood, showed in his voice, his face, and even in the pastimes of his play, a character unbending, unaffected, and steady in all things. For his impulses had a force that carried things through beyond his years, and though he was harsh and forbidding toward flatterers, he mastered still more thoroughly those who tried to frighten him. He was also quite slow to laughter, his face rarely relaxing even into a smile, and he was not quick nor apt to slip into anger — but once angered, he was hard to appease.

When he came to his studies, he was sluggish and slow to take things in, but once he had taken them in, he held fast to them and remembered them well — which is indeed the natural pattern otherwise: that quick, gifted natures are more apt at recollecting, while those who take things in through labor and effort are the ones who truly remember; for each lesson becomes, as it were, a brand burned into the soul.

It seems too that Cato's resistance to persuasion made his learning more laborious; for to learn is, strictly speaking, a kind of being acted upon, and being quickly persuaded happens to those less able to resist. This is why the young are more easily persuaded than the old, and the sick more than the healthy, and in general, wherever the power of doubt is weakest, what is set before it is most readily accepted.

Yet they say Cato obeyed his tutor and did everything commanded of him, but demanded the reason for each thing and asked why. For his tutor was an agreeable man

— his tutor, quicker with his fist than with argument, whose name was Sarpedon.

While Cato was still a child, the allies of the Romans were working to be granted a share in Roman citizenship; and a certain Pompaedius Silo, a man skilled in war and of the very greatest standing, a friend of Drusus, lodged in his house for a number of days, during which, having grown familiar with the children, he said: "Come now, you must beg your uncle on our behalf to join in the struggle for our citizenship."

Caepio, smiling, nodded assent, but Cato made no answer and stared at the visitors with a fixed and grim look, so Pompaedius said, "And you, young man, what do you say to us? Are you not willing to join the visitors in appealing to your uncle,

as your brother is?" And when Cato still said nothing, but by his silence and his expression seemed to be refusing the request, Pompaedius picked him up and held him out over a window, as though he would drop him, and ordered him to agree or else he said he would throw him down, all the while using a harsher tone of voice and repeatedly shaking his body, which hung suspended by his hands, over the window.

But when Cato endured this for a long time, unshaken and unafraid, Pompaedius set him down and remarked to his friends, in a low voice, how lucky Italy was that this child had not yet grown up — "for were he a man already, I doubt we would win a single vote from the people."

On another occasion, when a relative was celebrating a birthday and invited to dinner other boys along with Cato and his companions, the boys, having free time, were playing by themselves in some part of the house, mixed together, younger and older, and the game they played was one of trials and accusations and the leading away of those convicted;

so one of the boys who had been convicted, a good-looking boy, was led off by an older boy into a small room and shut in there, and he began calling for Cato. Cato, quickly understanding what was happening, came to the door, and pushing aside those who stood guard and tried to stop him, led the boy out; and he went home in anger, and the other boys followed along with him.

So renowned had he become that once, when Sulla, arranging for the boys' sacred horse-race called the Troy game as a public spectacle, gathered the well-born boys and appointed two leaders, the boys accepted the one for the sake of his mother — for he was the son of Metella, Sulla's wife — but the other, who was Pompey's nephew, Sextus, they would neither allow nor wish to practice with or follow; and when Sulla asked whom they wanted, they all shouted "Cato!" and Sextus himself yielded, giving up the honor to him as the better man.

It happened that Sulla was also an old friend of their father, and once he even summoned Cato and spoke with him, granting such familiarity to very few, on account of the weight and grandeur of the office and power he held; and Sarpedon, thinking this a great matter both for honor and for safety, kept bringing Cato to Sulla's house to pay his respects, though the place then looked no different from a place of impiety, given the multitude of people being led in and tortured.

By this time Cato had reached his fourteenth year; and when he saw the severed heads of notable men being carried out, and heard the bystanders groan under their breath, he asked his tutor why no one had struck this man down. His tutor answered, "They dread him, boy, more than they hate him," to which Cato replied, "Then why did you not put a sword in my hand, so that I might kill him,

I might free my country from slavery?" Hearing this speech, and seeing at the same time his look and his face filling with anger and rage, Sarpedon became so afraid that from then on he watched and guarded him closely, lest he dare something too rash.

While still a small boy, he answered those who asked whom he loved most, "My brother"; and whom second, likewise "My brother"; and third, the same again, until, though he kept saying it many times, the questioner gave up. And as he came of age he confirmed still more his affection for his brother; for at twenty years old he never dined apart from Caepio, never traveled abroad without him, never went to the marketplace without him; and when Caepio used perfume, he himself refused it; and in the rest of his manner of living he was exacting and disciplined. At any rate Caepio, admired for his self-control and moderation, admitted that he was such only when measured against others: "But," he said, "whenever I compare my own life to Cato's, I find myself no different from Sippius" — naming one of those notorious for luxury and softness.

When Cato received the priesthood of Apollo, he moved out and took his share of the family property, which came to one hundred and twenty talents, and drew his manner of living in even tighter; and taking as his companion Antipater of Tyre, one of the Stoic philosophers, he devoted himself especially to their ethical and political doctrines, becoming possessed, as if by some divine inspiration, of every virtue, but loving beyond all else, in his devotion to what is noble, the unbending rigor of justice, unyielding toward leniency or favor.

He also practiced the kind of speaking suited to addressing crowds, holding that just as in a great city, so too in political philosophy there ought to be some martial element kept in training alongside it. Yet he did not do his exercises with others, nor did anyone listen to him speak; indeed, when one of his companions said to him, "People find fault with you, Cato, for your silence," he replied, "So long as they find nothing to fault in how I live. Speech will come from me once I have a thought worth uttering, one that silence would not serve better."

The building known as the Basilica Porcia had been erected by the elder Cato while he held the censorship. There the tribunes of the people habitually carried out their business, and finding a column standing where it blocked their seating, they resolved either to take it down or shift it elsewhere. This episode was what first drew Cato into the forum, reluctant though he was; he stood against the tribunes on the matter, and in this first trial of his eloquence and his resolve, he earned general admiration.

For his speech had nothing youthful or polished about it, but was direct, full, and rough; yet even so, a certain charm that drew the ear ran through the roughness of his thoughts, and his character, mingling in, gave a certain pleasure and a smile to his gravity that was not without warmth. His voice was strong enough in volume and had endurance enough to reach so great a crowd, and it had a strength and tension unbroken and untiring; for he often spoke a whole day through without giving out.

Having then won that case, he again withdrew into silence and his ascetic training, and toughened his body through strenuous exercise, training himself to go bareheaded through both scorching heat and falling snow and to travel the roads on foot at any hour rather than by carriage, while the friends who traveled with him used horses, and Cato often fell in beside each of them by turns to talk with them, walking himself while they rode. He also showed a remarkable endurance and self-mastery in illness; for when feverish he would spend the whole day alone by himself, admitting no one, until he perceived a firm relief and change in his sickness.

At dinners, lots were drawn for the portions; and if he drew badly, when his friends bade him take the first share regardless, he would insist it would be wrong to accept it, since doing so would slight Aphrodite. At the start he would drink once through dinner and then break it off, but as time went on he took to drinking more, so that often he would pass the time in wine until dawn.

His friends said the cause of this was politics and public affairs — that since Cato spent whole days on these and was prevented from pursuing philosophy, he made up for it at night and over wine by keeping company with philosophers. Hence too, when a certain Memmius said in a gathering that Cato spent whole nights drunk, Cicero took him up and said, "But you do not mention that he also spends whole days gambling."

In general, Cato, thinking that against the lives and customs of his time one ought to walk the opposite road, since they were base and in need of great change, when he saw that the deep, bright red purple was admired, himself wore black; and often he would go out in public after breakfast unshod and without a tunic — not chasing a reputation for eccentricity, but teaching himself to feel shame only over what genuinely deserved it, and to hold in contempt everything else that people label disgraceful.

And an inheritance that came to him from his cousin Cato, amounting to one hundred talents in silver, once he had gathered it together, he made available without interest to any friend who was in need; and some, with land and slaves of his given and pledged as security, borrowed even from the public treasury.

When he thought it time for marriage, never yet having come together with any woman, he became engaged to Lepida, who had earlier been betrothed to Scipio Metellus but was then free, since Scipio had broken it off and the engagement had been dissolved. Yet before the wedding took place, Scipio reversed his own decision once more and, sparing no effort, secured the girl for himself.

Cato, deeply provoked and inflamed, tried to pursue the matter through a lawsuit, but when his friends prevented this, in anger and youthful heat he turned to writing iambic verses and heaped much abuse on Scipio, employing the bitterness of Archilochus, though he left aside its licentiousness and puerility.

He married Atilia, daughter of Serranus, and came together with her as his first wife — but not his only one, unlike Laelius, the companion of Scipio; rather he was more fortunate than that man in one respect, for throughout the many years of his life he knew but one wife, the one he married at the outset:

When the war against the slaves broke out, the one they called the Spartacus war, Gellius was general, and Cato joined the campaign of his own accord, chiefly because his brother Caepio was serving there as military tribune and he wished to stand by him. He was not able to make use of his zeal and his practice of virtue to the extent he wished, because the war was not being well conducted; but in other respects, amid the great softness and luxury of the men serving there, by displaying good order and self-control and boldness combined with intelligence in everything, he seemed to fall short in nothing of the ancient Cato.

Gellius wanted to write up prizes for valor and conspicuous honors for him, which he neither accepted nor took up, saying that he had done nothing worthy of honors; on account of this he seemed a strange man. And when a law was written that those campaigning for office should not be attended by nomenclators, he alone, in canvassing for the military tribunate, obeyed the law, and made it his own task to greet and address by name those he met, which made him no less burdensome even to those who praised him, the more they recognized the excellence of what he practiced, being weighed down by how hard it was to imitate.

Once made military tribune, he was dispatched to the general Rubrius in Macedonia. There, it is said, when his wife was distressed and weeping, one of Cato's friends, Munatius, said, "Atilia, take heart: I will watch over him for you." "Certainly," said Cato, and when they had advanced a single day's journey, right after dinner he said, "Come now, Munatius, so that you may make good your promise to Atilia, do not leave my side by day or by night."

From that time he had two couches set up in the same room, and Munatius always slept in this way, guarded playfully by Cato. He was attended by fifteen household servants, two freedmen, and four friends; of these the friends rode horses, while he himself always went on foot, joining each of them in turn and conversing with them. When he arrived at the camp, there being several legions, and one being assigned to his command by the general, he considered the display of his own single virtue a small task, and not an effective one.

Instead, being most eager to make those under his command like himself, he did not remove fear from his authority, but added to it reason, by which he persuaded and instructed each man about his duty, honor and punishment following accordingly; it was hard to say whether he made the men more peaceable or more warlike, more eager or more just. So they appeared terrible to their enemies, gentle to their allies, unwilling to do wrong, and eager for praise. And in the matter Cato cared for least,

this above all he had in the greatest measure: glory and gratitude and surpassing honor and affection from the soldiers. For the tasks he laid upon others he willingly toiled at himself, and in dress and diet and manner of marching he made himself more like them than like the officers; yet in character and spirit and speech he surpassed all those called generals and commanders. Through these things, without meaning to, he won at the same time the goodwill of the men toward himself.

For true zeal for virtue does not arise except through the utmost goodwill and honor on the part of the one who instills it; those who praise good men without loving them respect their reputation, but do not admire their virtue nor imitate it.

Learning that Athenodorus, called Cordylion, a man of great skill in Stoic doctrine, was living around Pergamum, already an old man, and one who had most firmly resisted all the friendships and favors of leading men and kings, Cato thought he would accomplish nothing by sending letters and writing to him; instead, having a leave of two months granted by law, he sailed to Asia after the man, trusting that with the good qualities in himself he would not fail in the hunt.

Having met with him and overcome him in argument and turned him from his resolve, he came bringing him to the camp, overjoyed and exulting greatly, as though this prize outshone all the peoples and realms that Pompey and Lucullus were then upending in their armed campaigns.

While he was still on this campaign, his brother, traveling to Asia, fell ill around Aenus in Thrace. A letter came at once to Cato; but a heavy storm was gripping the sea and nothing large enough could be found in port, so, taking only two friends and three servants aboard a small trading boat, he set out from Thessalonica.

And having come within a hair of being sunk, he was saved by some extraordinary chance, just as Caepio had died. He seemed to bear the misfortune more passionately than philosophically, not only with weeping and embraces of the corpse and heaviness of grief, but also with expense on the burial and elaborate provision of incense and costly garments burned together with the body, and a polished tomb of Thasian stone, built at a cost of eight talents, set up in the marketplace of the people of Aenus.

For these things some slandered him, contrasting them with Cato's habitual freedom from vanity in other respects, not perceiving how much gentleness and affection there was in a man who was otherwise unbending and hard against pleasures and fears and shameless entreaties. For these honors, cities and rulers sent him much in tribute to the dead man; of these he accepted money from none, but he did accept incense and ornaments, giving back the honor to those who sent them.

When the inheritance came to him and to Caepio's little daughter, he demanded back none of what he had spent on the tomb, in the division of the estate. And even though he did this and continued to do it, there was one who wrote that he had sifted and strained the ashes of the corpse through a sieve, searching for gold that had melted in the burning. So it was not only by the sword but also by the pen that he came to trust in his own unaccountability and freedom from prosecution.

When Cato's period of duty was over, he was seen off, not with prayers, which is the common thing, nor with commendations, but with weeping and embraces they could not bring themselves to end, the soldiers spreading their cloaks under his feet wherever he walked and kissing his hands—honors which the Romans of that time scarcely showed to a few of their commanders.

Wishing, before entering upon a political career, both to travel through Asia in the course of inquiry and become a spectator of the customs and lives and power found in each province, and at the same time not to be ungracious to Deiotarus the Galatian, who because of hospitality and ancestral friendship begged him to come to him, he made his journey in this manner. He would send ahead at daybreak his baker and his cook to wherever he intended to lodge.

These men, entering a city in a very orderly and quiet manner, if it happened that no friend or acquaintance of Cato's family was there, would prepare his lodging at an inn, troubling no one; and if there was no inn, they would then turn to the magistrates and accept whatever hospitality was given, content with it.

Often, being disbelieved and overlooked because they did not press their business upon the magistrates with noise or threats, they would be found by Cato to have accomplished nothing; and he himself, when seen, was regarded all the less, and sitting silently on the baggage he gave the impression of a lowly and timid man.

Nevertheless, calling the magistrates to him he would say, "You wretched men, change this bad way of receiving guests. Not everyone who comes to you will be a Cato. Blunt, by your kindness, the power of those who need only a pretext, so that they may not take by force what they fail to get from willing hosts."

In Syria too something rather comic is said to have happened to him. For as he was walking to Antioch he saw outside the gates a crowd of people arranged on either side of the road, among them young men standing apart in cloaks, and boys standing in an orderly way on the other side; some wore clean garments and had crowns—priests of the gods or magistrates. Cato, thinking that some honor and reception was being arranged for him by the city more than anything else, was angry with those of his own men who had gone ahead, for not preventing it, and ordered his friends to dismount.

And he went forward on foot with them; but as they drew near, the one arranging all this and setting the crowd in order, already an elderly man, holding a staff and a crown in his hand, came to meet Cato ahead of the others, without so much as a word of greeting, inquired where Demetrius had been left behind and when he was expected. Demetrius had been a household slave of Pompey's; but at that time, so to speak, since all men looked to Pompey, he was courted beyond his worth, having great influence with him.

Such laughter seized Cato's friends that they could not compose themselves as they walked along through the crowd, but Cato, at the time greatly disconcerted, said only, "O wretched city," and nothing else; but afterward he was accustomed to laugh at this himself too, telling the story and recalling it.

Nevertheless, Pompey himself corrected the men who had so blundered toward Cato out of ignorance. For when he came to Ephesus and went to greet him, though Cato was the elder and far advanced in reputation, and Pompey then commanded the greatest of forces, Pompey, seeing him, did not remain seated, nor did he allow him to approach while he himself sat, but sprang up as though to meet one of his superiors, and met him and clasped his right hand.

And much praise of his virtue he uttered at once, while Cato was present, in the course of showing friendship and greeting him, but even more after he had gone, so that everyone, turning their attention now to Cato, marveled at the very things for which he had formerly been despised, and reconsidered his gentleness and greatness of soul. For Pompey's attentiveness toward him did not go unnoticed as being more like courting than loving; rather people recognized that he admired him when present,

but was glad when he departed. Other young visitors he would hold back out of a wish to keep their company, longing to be with him; but he needed nothing of the sort with Cato—rather, as though he were an accountable magistrate in his presence, he sent him off gladly, entrusting his children and his wife to him almost alone among those sailing to Rome, though otherwise fittingly, on account of kinship. From this arose glory and eagerness and rivalry among the cities for him, and dinners and invitations, at which he told his friends to watch him, lest he unwittingly confirm Curio's saying.

For Curio, being annoyed at Cato's severity, though he was a friend and companion, asked him whether he was eager, after the campaign, to become a spectator of Asia; and when he said he was very much so, Curio said, "You speak well, for you will come back from there more agreeable and gentler"—using some such expression.

Deiotarus the Galatian, being already elderly, sent for Cato, wishing to entrust his children and household to him; and when he arrived, offering him gifts of every kind and trying and entreating him in every way, he pressed him so hard that, though Cato had arrived in the late afternoon and spent the night, on the following day he departed about the third hour.

Yet having gone forward a single day's journey, he found at Pessinus even more gifts awaiting him again, along with a letter in which the Galatian pleaded that, even if Cato refused them personally, he should at least permit his companions to accept the gifts, since they were altogether worthy of good treatment on his account, Cato's own household not being so numerous.

But Cato yielded to these requests no more than before, although he saw some of his friends softening and complaining, but saying that every bribe would find some pretext, and that his friends would share in whatever he had acquired honorably and justly, he sent the gifts back to Deiotarus.

Just as he was preparing to embark for Brundisium, his friends proposed that Caepio's remains travel on a separate vessel, he said he would sooner give up his life than these, and so put out to sea. And indeed it is said that by chance he made a most perilous crossing, while the others were carried over without difficulty.

When he returned to Rome, he spent the rest of his time either at home with Athenodorus or standing beside his friends in the forum. When the quaestorship, an office due to fall to him, came within reach, he did not seek it before he had read through the laws governing the quaestorship, made careful inquiry of experienced men about every detail of it, and grasped in outline the powers of the office.

So the moment he took up his duties, he brought about a great change among the clerks and secretaries of the treasury, who, since they always had the public records and the laws in hand, and then received new magistrates who through inexperience and ignorance plainly needed other teachers and guides, would not yield up their power to those magistrates but were in effect the rulers themselves,

until Cato, taking hold of affairs with youthful vigor--possessing not merely the name and honor of a magistrate but intelligence and judgment and speech as well--insisted on using the secretaries as what they actually were, servants: exposing some of them when they did wrong, and instructing others where they erred through inexperience. But since they were insolent and, while fawning and cringing before the other magistrates, made war on him, he found that the first of them had, in a matter of trust concerning an inheritance, proved corrupt, and drove him from the treasury; against a second he brought a charge of malpractice,

in which Catulus Lutatius, the censor, came up to defend him, a man who held very great standing from his office, but held the greatest standing from his virtue, since he surpassed all Romans in justice and self-control; he was also an admirer of Cato and a companion of his through their manner of life. So when, being worsted on the merits, he openly begged for the man's release, Cato would not allow him to do this.

And when he pressed still more insistently, Cato said, "It is shameful, Catulus, that you, the censor, who ought to be examining our lives, should be thrown out by our own servants." When Cato had let fall this remark, Catulus looked at him as though about to answer, but said nothing; instead, whether from anger or from shame, he went away in silence, at a loss.

The man was not, however, convicted; rather, the votes for his condemnation outnumbered those for acquittal by only one, and Marcus Lollius, one of Cato's fellow quaestors, had been absent from the trial through illness, Catulus sent to him begging him to help the man; and Lollius, being carried in a litter after the trial had ended, cast his vote for acquittal. Cato, however, would not employ that clerk, nor did he pay him his salary, nor did he count Lollius's vote as valid at all.

Having thus humbled the secretaries and made them subject to him, and managing affairs exactly as he himself wished, in a short time he made the treasury more dignified than the senate house, so that it was the common view, spoken aloud by everyone, that Cato had lent the quaestorship the dignity of a consulship.

For first, discovering that many owed old debts to the public treasury and that the public treasury owed money to many, he put a stop at once to the city's being wronged and to its wronging others, exacting the debts from the former vigorously and without exception, and paying back the latter promptly and eagerly, so that the people took pleasure in seeing those who thought they would escape payment paying up, and those who had not expected it recovering what was owed them,

Then, since many were making improper claims, and false decrees were being accepted through favor and entreaty as his predecessors had been accustomed to do, nothing of this sort escaped his notice; indeed once, having doubts about a single decree whether it had duly been passed, though many witnesses testified to it he did not believe them, nor did he record it as valid until the consuls came in person and swore to it.

There were many to whom Sulla had given, as a reward for killing men under the proscription, twelve thousand drachmas apiece; everyone hated these men as accursed and polluted, but no one dared take vengeance on them. Cato, however, summoned each one who held such public money unjustly and exacted it from them, at the same time denouncing, with both anger and argument, the unholy and lawless nature of the deed.

Those who suffered this were at once treated as though guilty of murder, and, in a manner already convicted beforehand, were led off to the jurors and paid the penalty, everyone rejoicing and believing that along with this the tyranny of that time was being wiped away and that Sulla himself was watching, being punished.

The people were also won over by the unbroken and untiring diligence of his attention to duty: no one of his fellow magistrates arrived at the treasury before Cato or left after him; and he missed no assembly or meeting of the senate, being on guard and watching closely for those who readily and as a favor voted remissions of debts or taxes, or grants, to whomever they pleased.

By showing the treasury to be inaccessible to false accusers and clean of them, yet full of money, he taught that it is possible for the city to be wealthy without doing wrong. Though at first he appeared to some of his fellow magistrates burdensome and harsh, later he was loved, since he took upon himself, in place of all of them, the hostility that arose from not granting public funds as favors nor judging cases badly, and afforded them the excuse, when pressed and pushed by those who made demands, that it was impossible--Cato being unwilling.

On almost the last of his days in office, having been escorted home by nearly all the citizens, he heard that many friends and powerful men, falling upon Marcellus at the treasury and surrounding him, were forcing him to authorize the payment of a certain sum of money owed. Marcellus had been a friend of Cato's from childhood, and together with him was the best of the magistrates, but by himself he was easily led by a sense of shame toward those who made requests of him, and inclined to grant every favor,

So Cato at once turned back, and finding Marcellus forced into authorizing the payment, called for the record-tablets and struck out the entry himself, while Marcellus stood by without a word; and having done this he escorted him out of the treasury and brought him home, and Marcellus neither complained then nor afterward, but continued in their customary friendship to the very end.

Nor, indeed, even after leaving the quaestorship did he leave the treasury without a guard, but his own household slaves were present daily, recording its transactions, while he himself, having purchased for five talents the books containing the accounts of public expenditures from the time of Sulla down to his own quaestorship, always kept them at hand,

He entered the senate first and left it last of all; often, while the others were slowly gathering, he would sit calmly reading, his cloak drawn up to screen the book in front of him. He was never away when a meeting of the senate took place; and later, when Pompey's circle saw that in matters where they were pursuing unjust ends he remained always unmoved and hard to coerce, they contrived, through some friendly requests for advocacy or arbitration or business, to draw him away elsewhere. Perceiving quickly the scheme, he refused all such requests and made it a fixed rule to do nothing else whenever the senate was in session.

For he had not fallen into the conduct of the city's affairs for the sake of reputation, nor for gain, nor by chance and accident, as some others do, but having chosen public life as the proper work of a good man, he thought it right to attend to public affairs more than the bee attends to its honeycomb; so much so that he even made it his business to have the affairs, decrees, judgments, and greatest actions of the provinces sent to him by friends and guest-connections in each place.

Once, standing against the demagogue Clodius, who was stirring up and setting in motion the beginnings of great revolutionary changes and was slandering to the people priests and priestesses--among them Fabia, sister of Terentia, Cicero's wife, who was put in danger--he covered Clodius with shame and forced him out of the city; and when Cicero offered his thanks for it, he said that Cicero ought to be grateful to the city instead, since it was for her sake that he did and undertook everything in politics,

From this his reputation grew so great that, in a certain trial where a single witness's testimony was being brought forward, an advocate said to the jurors that it is not right to rely on one witness testifying, not even if it were Cato; and many, speaking already of things incredible and paradoxical, would say, as though it were a proverb, that this is not credible even if Cato says it.

When a wicked and extravagant man delivered a speech in the senate in favor of frugality and moderation, Amnaeus stood up and said, "Fellow, who will put up with you dining like Lucullus, building like Crassus, and haranguing us like Cato?" And others, mocking those who were base and unrestrained yet solemn and austere in their speeches, called them "Catos."

When many called upon him to seek the tribunate of the people, he judged it wrong to expend the power of so great an office, like some potent medicine, on matters that were not pressing. And since public business happened to be quiet just then, he gathered his books and philosophers and headed off toward Lucania, to lands he owned there that offered occupations fit for a free man:

Then, on the road, he came upon a great train of pack animals, baggage, and servants, and when he discovered that Metellus Nepos was returning toward Rome so as to seek the tribunate, he stopped without saying anything, and after pausing a while told his own company to turn around. When his friends showed their surprise, he said, "Do you not know that Metellus, through his own recklessness, is dangerous enough already, and that now, entering politics with Pompey behind him, he will crash down on the state like a bolt of lightning, throwing everything into confusion?

This is no time for leisure or travel abroad; rather, the man must be mastered, or else one must die nobly, fighting for freedom." Nevertheless, at his friends' urging, he first went on to his estates and stayed there not long, then returned to the city. Arriving in the evening, at dawn he went straight down to the forum to stand for the tribunate, so as to oppose Metellus. For strength, or office, has more power to prevent than to accomplish; and even if all the rest vote unanimously except one, the power lies with the one who is unwilling and does not allow it.

At first there were few of Cato's friends about him; but once his intention became known, in a short time all the good and respectable men came running together, calling on him and encouraging him, telling him that he was not receiving a favor but rather giving the greatest one to his country and to the most reasonable of the citizens, since, though he had often been able to hold office without trouble and had not wished to, he was now coming down to fight, not without danger, for freedom and the constitution.

It is said that so many pressed around him out of eagerness and goodwill that he was in real danger and only just forced his way through the crowd into the forum. Once elected tribune together with the others, among them Metellus, he saw that the consular elections were being bought and sold, and he rebuked the people for it; and at the end of his speech he vowed to bring charges against whoever had paid the bribe, no matter who it turned out to be, excepting only one man, Silanus, because of their family tie--for Silanus was married to Servilia, Cato's sister.

So he let this man pass, but he prosecuted Lucius Murena, who had arranged by bribery to become magistrate together with Silanus; and since a certain law always gives the defendant a watcher assigned to the accuser, so that what the accuser gathers and prepares for the prosecution should not go unnoticed, the man given to Cato by Murena, following him and keeping watch,when he saw that Cato was doing nothing treacherous or unjust,

but was pursuing a simple and just course of accusation, nobly and humanely, so admired his character and disposition that, coming to him in the forum and calling at his door, he would ask Cato whether he intended to do anything that day concerning the prosecution; and if Cato said no, he would go away trusting him.

While the case was being pleaded, Cicero, who was then consul and was defending Murena, mocked and jested a great deal, on Cato's account, at the Stoic philosophers and at those so-called paradoxical doctrines, and raised laughter among the jurors. Cato, they say, smiling, said to those present, "Gentlemen, what a comical consul we have."

Murena, having been acquitted, felt no resentment or foolish anger toward Cato — a bad or senseless man's reaction, in fact quite the opposite: for when he became consul he used him as an advisor in the greatest matters, and continued to honor and trust him in everything else. The cause of this was Cato himself, who on the rostrum and in the senate-house was harsh and formidable in defense of what was just, but afterward behaved toward everyone with goodwill and kindness.

Before he entered upon the tribunate, in the consulship of Cicero, he corrected that magistracy's course through many other contests, and put the finishing touch on the greatest and finest achievement of it, the affair of Catiline. For Catiline himself, who was bringing a ruinous and total upheaval upon the affairs of the Romans and stirring up factions and wars together, was exposed by Cicero and driven out of the city,

while Lentulus and Cethegus, and many others besides them who had taken up the conspiracy — reproaching Catiline for cowardice and pettiness in his daring schemes — themselves intended to destroy the city utterly by fire and to overturn the empire of the nations through revolts and wars waged by foreigners.

When their preparation had become plain, and Cicero put the question before the senate, Silanus, speaking first, declared that in his judgment the men ought to suffer the ultimate penalty, and those who spoke after him in turn followed his opinion,

down to Caesar. Caesar rose — being a formidable speaker, and wishing every upheaval and disturbance in the city to grow rather than be allowed to die out, as material for what he himself was planning — and, having made a long and winning, humane speech, would not allow the men to be put to death without trial, but urged that they be imprisoned and kept under guard,

and he so changed the opinions of the senate, which had grown afraid of the populace, that Silanus himself backed away from his own words, claiming he had never intended death at all, only confinement — for confinement, he said, was already the worst calamity a Roman citizen could suffer.

When such a turn had occurred and everyone had drifted toward the milder and more humane course, Cato rose to speak against the motion, and at once threw himself into his speech with anger and passion, both reproaching Silanus for his change of mind, and attacking Caesar for overturning the city under the guise of a popular pose and humane rhetoric,

and for trying to frighten the senate over matters where he himself ought to be afraid, and should be glad if he came out of what had happened unscathed and unsuspected — so openly and boldly was he snatching the common enemies from justice, and, though confessing that so great and such a city had come within a hair's breadth of destruction, felt no pity for it, but instead wept and lamented over men who ought never to have been born or come into existence, as though their death would free the city from great slaughters and dangers.

This is said to be the only speech of Cato's that survives, because Cicero the consul had beforehand instructed those scribes distinguished for speed in marks that, in small and brief forms, held the power of many letters, and had then scattered them one here, one there, throughout the senate-house — for the profession now known as shorthand-writing had not yet been developed or taken up by anyone, and people say this occasion marked the earliest footprint of the craft. At any rate Cato prevailed and changed the opinions, so that the men were condemned to death.

But if one must not omit even the small marks of character, as though sketching a portrait of the soul, it is said that then, when there was great rivalry and a mighty contest between Cato and Caesar, and the senate hung suspended upon them, a small tablet was brought in to Caesar from outside. When Cato brought the matter under suspicion and accused certain persons of stirring things up, and demanded that what was written be read aloud, Caesar handed the tablet over to Cato, who stood nearby.

Cato, reading it, found it a wanton letter written to Caesar by his own sister Servilia, who was in love with him and had been seduced by him; he flung it back at Caesar and said, "Take it, drunkard," and then turned again to his original speech.

It seems that this women's-quarter business was altogether a misfortune for Cato: this woman brought ill repute upon him because of Caesar; but the affair of the other Servilia, Cato's own sister, was even more disgraceful. She had married Lucullus, a man who ranked first among Romans in reputation, and after bearing him a child she was expelled from his house for licentiousness. And most shameful of all, not even Cato's own wife Atilia was free of such faults, but although he had had two children by her, he was compelled to divorce her for shameless behavior.

He then married the daughter of Philippus, Marcia, a woman thought to be of good character, about whom there has been the greatest deal of talk; and just as in a drama, this part of his life has become problematic and puzzling. It came about in this way, as Thrasea records it, tracing his account back to Munatius, a man who was Cato's companion and close associate:

Cato had no shortage of men who admired and courted his friendship, some far more conspicuous than the rest; among them was Quintus Hortensius, a man renowned for his brilliance and known for his fairness of character. Not content merely with being on close terms with Cato, or being counted simply as a companion, Hortensius wanted somehow to blend their two households and lineages into a single bond of kinship and shared interest. So he set about winning Cato over to the idea of handing back his daughter Porcia — then married to Bibulus and already the mother of two of his children — so that, like fertile ground lent out again, she might bear Hortensius offspring too.

For though such a thing might seem strange by human opinion, by nature it is noble and civic-minded: that a woman in her prime and full bloom should neither lie idle, quenching her fertility, nor, by bearing more children than are needed, burden and impoverish a household with no need of it, but rather, by sharing her succession with worthy men, make virtue abundant and widely diffused among families, and blend the city with itself through such kinships. And if Bibulus were altogether attached to his wife, he would give her back at once after she bore the child, having become more closely bound both to Bibulus himself and to Cato through the shared partnership of children.

When Cato answered that he loved Hortensius and approved of him as a partner in kinship, but thought it strange to speak of the marriage of a daughter already given to another, Hortensius changed his approach and did not hesitate to reveal his true request: he asked for Cato's own wife, who was still young enough to bear children, while Cato already had a sufficient succession.

And one cannot say that he did this not knowing that Cato was devoted to Marcia: for she happened, they say, to be pregnant at the time. But Cato, seeing Hortensius's eagerness and earnestness, did not refuse, but said that Philippus, Marcia's father, must also agree to this. When Philippus was approached and gave his consent, he betrothed Marcia in no other way than with Cato himself present and joining in the betrothal. This matter, even though it happened at a later time, seemed to me, once I had called the women to mind, best to set down here ahead of its place.

After Lentulus and his fellow conspirators were executed, Caesar — accused and denounced before the senate over the affair — fled to the people for protection, and set about agitating and rallying to his own side the many diseased and corrupted elements of the commonwealth. Alarmed by this, Cato induced the senate to enroll the destitute, landless masses in the grain distribution, at a yearly cost of twelve hundred and fifty talents; and through this conspicuous act of goodwill and generosity, the earlier danger was visibly dissolved.

From there Metellus, having fallen into the tribunate, began to hold turbulent assemblies, and drafted a law that Pompey the Great should come with speed together with his forces into Italy and, taking charge, save the city, as though it were endangered by Catiline. This was the specious pretext; but the actual effect and purpose of the law was to hand over affairs and surrender command to Pompey.

When the senate met and Cato, instead of falling upon Metellus fiercely as he was accustomed to do, offered instead many reasonable and moderate exhortations, and in the end even turned to entreaty and praised the house of the Metelli as having always been aristocratic in sympathy, Metellus, all the more emboldened and contemptuous, thinking that Cato was yielding and cowering, broke out into arrogant threats and bold speech, as one who would carry through everything by force against the senate.

At this point Cato's whole manner shifted — his stance, his tone, his words — and after declaring to everyone else with vehemence that as long as he lived Pompey would never set foot armed within the city, he drove home this point to the senate: reason guided neither combatant safely, nor was either man sound of mind, yet Metellus's course was a frenzy sped by sheer wickedness toward ruin and universal chaos, whereas Cato's own stance was virtue's passion, fighting for what was noble and right.

When the people were about to cast their vote on the law, Metellus had arms, foreigners, gladiators, and servants stationed in the forum, and no small part of the populace, longing for change, hoped for Pompey; and there was also great strength coming from Caesar, who was praetor at that time,

The foremost citizens sided with Cato's outrage and grievance more than they actually stood beside him in the fight, and a heavy dread and gloom settled over his home — enough that a number of his friends went the whole night without sleep or food, huddled together, turning over hopeless calculations for his sake, even as his wife and his sisters cried out in lamentation and tears.

But he himself, meeting everyone fearlessly and confidently and offering encouragement, and having dined as usual and spent the night, was roused from deep sleep by one of his fellow magistrates, Minucius Thermus; and they went down to the forum, few escorting them, but many meeting them and urging them to be on guard.

As soon as Cato arrived and caught sight of the temple of the Dioscuri ringed by armed men, its steps held by gladiators, and Metellus himself perched above beside Caesar, he wheeled toward his friends and remarked, "What a reckless coward, to muster such a host of troops against a single unarmed, defenseless man!" With that he pressed on at once alongside Thermus.

Those holding the steps parted for them, and let no one else through except that Cato, barely dragging Munatius up by the hand, brought him along; and going straight on as he was, he threw himself down in the middle, planting himself between Metellus and Caesar, so as to break off their conference.

They were at a loss what to do, but the more refined onlookers, watching and admiring the face, the resolve, and the boldness of Cato, came closer, and shouted their encouragement to Cato to be of good courage, and to the rest to hold together and rally to one another and not betray liberty and the man contending on its behalf.

Then, when the attendant took up the law to read it, and Cato would not allow him to read it, and Metellus took it up himself and began to read, Cato snatched the document away, and Thermus, when Metellus went on reciting the law from memory, clapped his hand over Metellus's mouth and shut off his voice,

until Metellus, seeing that the contest against these men was unwinnable, and that the people were losing ground to their own advantage and turning away, ordered armed men to come running from a distance with shouts to strike fear. When this happened and everyone was scattered, Murena — the very man who had once been prosecuted and accused by Cato — would not stand by and see him left alone, standing his ground and being pelted with stones and sticks from above,

but he held out the fold of his toga and shouted for them to hold back from the men throwing missiles, and finally, persuading Cato himself and embracing him, led him off into the temple of the Dioscuri. But when Metellus saw the platform deserted and his opponents fleeing the forum, entirely persuaded that he was master of the field, he ordered the armed men to withdraw again, and coming forward in orderly fashion himself set about carrying through the business of the law.

But his opponents, quickly recovering themselves from their rout, came on again with a great and confident shout, so that panic and fear fell upon Metellus's people, who supposed that the others had somehow gotten hold of weapons and were charging upon them, and no one stood his ground, but all fled from the platform. When his party had thus been scattered,

and Cato had come forward and partly praised, partly encouraged the people, the multitude arrayed themselves to put down Metellus by every means, and the senate, being assembled, ordered from the outset that aid be given to Cato and that the law be fought to the end, as one introducing faction and civil war into Rome.

Metellus himself was still unbending and bold, but seeing his own followers utterly terrified of Cato and reckoning him unconquerable and impossible to force aside, he suddenly rushed out into the forum, and gathering the people together he went through many charges hateful to Cato, crying out that he must flee that man's tyranny and his conspiracy against Pompey, on account of which the city would soon repent dishonoring so great a man, and he set out at once for Asia, to lay these charges before Pompey in person.

Great, then, was the reputation Cato won for having removed no small burden from the tribunate, and for having in a way, through Metellus, cast down the power of Pompey. He won still greater esteem when he did not allow the senate, which was eager to dishonor and vote against Metellus, but opposed it and begged them off. For the many took it as humanity and moderation that he did not trample on his enemy nor insult him in his hour of victory, while to the prudent it seemed both right and expedient not to provoke Pompey.

After this Lucullus, returning from the campaign of which Pompey was thought to have stripped away both the conclusion and the glory, came into danger of not celebrating a triumph, since Gaius Memmius roused the populace against him with hostility and pressed accusations, more to curry favor with Pompey than out of any private hatred. But Cato, having become connected by marriage to Lucullus, who had his sister Servilia as wife, and thinking the matter a serious wrong, stood against Memmius, and endured many slanders and

accusations, being cast even out of office as though committing tyranny, yet in the end he so prevailed that he forced Memmius himself to abandon the prosecutions and flee the contest. Lucullus, then, having triumphed, attached himself all the more to Cato's friendship, holding him as a great bulwark and defense against the power of Pompey.

Pompey, returning great from his campaign, and trusting in the brilliance and eagerness of his welcome that he would fail in nothing he might ask of the citizens, sent word ahead requesting that the senate postpone the consular elections, so that he himself might be present and support Piso's candidacy.

Though most yielded, Cato did not think the postponement the main issue, but wishing to cut off Pompey's attempt and hope altogether, spoke against it and turned the senate, so that they voted it down. This disturbed Pompey not a little; and reckoning that he would stumble badly in many things if Cato did not become his friend, he sent for Munatius, a companion of his, and since Cato had two nieces of marriageable age, he requested that the older be given to him in marriage, while the younger would marry his son.

Some say it was not the nieces but the daughters whose betrothal was proposed. When Munatius reported this to Cato, and to his wife and to his sisters, the female relatives were delighted by the prospect of such a tie, given the man's greatness and standing, but Cato, without pausing or deliberating, but struck at once, said:

"Munatius, go back and inform Pompey that Cato cannot be won over by way of the women's chambers, yet I welcome his goodwill, and if he acts justly I will offer him a friendship more trustworthy than any marriage-tie; but I will not hand over hostages to serve Pompey's designs against my country." At this the women were vexed, and Cato's friends blamed the answer as both boorish and arrogant.

Then, however, when Pompey was laboring to win the consulship on behalf of one of his friends and was sending money to the tribes, and the bribery became notorious, the sums being counted out in his own gardens, Cato said to the women that it was necessary, had he been joined to Pompey by kinship, to share and be tainted by such doings as well; and they admitted that he had planned better in rebuffing the match.

Yet if one must judge by what came to pass, Cato seems to have erred in the whole matter by not accepting the connection, but letting it turn instead to Caesar and a marriage which, by bringing the power of Pompey and Caesar together into one, very nearly overturned the affairs of Rome and destroyed the constitution — none of which would perhaps have happened, had not Cato, fearing Pompey's small faults, overlooked the greatest one, namely his gaining another man's power added to his own.

These things, then, were still to come. When Lucullus fell into dispute with Pompey over the arrangements in Pontus — for each demanded that his own dispositions hold good — and Cato openly took Lucullus's side as one being wronged, Pompey, getting the worse of it in the senate and turning to popular agitation, called upon his soldiers to be settled on land.

When here too Cato, standing firm, blocked the law, Pompey so attached himself to Clodius, then the boldest of the popular leaders, and drew in Caesar as well, Cato himself having in a way given the occasion. For Caesar, returning from his generalship in Iberia, wished at once both to declare his candidacy for the consulship and to request a triumph in the same breath.

Since by law those seeking office had to be present in person, while those about to celebrate a triumph had to remain outside the walls, he asked that the senate grant him permission to seek the office through others in his absence. Though many were willing, Cato spoke against it; and when he perceived they were inclined to favor Caesar, he consumed the whole day speaking, and so blocked the senate.

Caesar, then, letting the triumph go, came in at once and attached himself to Pompey and the consulship. Having been declared consul, he betrothed his daughter Julia to him, and the two now bound themselves as allies against the state; one of them brought forward laws granting land allotments and distributions to the poor, while the other stood by supporting the laws,

and Lucullus and Cicero, joining themselves with Bibulus, the other consul, worked against them, but Cato most of all, already suspecting the friendship and alliance of Caesar and Pompey as having arisen for no honest end, and declaring that what he feared was not the distribution of land, but the price which those courting and baiting the multitude would demand in return for it.

As he spoke thus he had the senate voting with him as one, and not a few of those outside came forward too, indignant at Caesar's outrageousness; for what the boldest and most reckless of tribunes used to practice for popular favor, this he now did by consular authority, shamefully and basely insinuating himself among the common people.

Frightened, then, they resorted to force, and first a basket of dung was scattered over Bibulus himself as he came down, then men fell upon his lictors and broke their rods; finally, missiles being thrown and many wounded, everyone else bolted from the forum in a headlong dash, but Cato alone went off last, walking, turning back and calling the citizens to witness.

They not only ratified the distribution, but voted further that the whole senate swear to uphold the law and come to its defense if anyone acted against it, setting heavy penalties against those who would not swear. All swore, then, out of necessity, calling to mind the fate of the elder Metellus, whom the people had allowed to be driven into exile when he refused to swear to a similar law,

out of Italy. Wherefore his wife and the women at home besought Cato with many tears to yield and swear, and his friends and companions urged him much as well, but the one who most persuaded and led him to the oath was Cicero the orator, urging and teaching him that it was, perhaps, not even proper to suppose that one man alone should defy decisions reached in common, and that when nothing already done could be undone, to be reckless of himself

was altogether senseless and mad, and the worst of evils, if, for the sake of which he did all things, he should abandon the city and give it over to its schemers, and be as it were glad to be rid of the struggles undertaken on her behalf; for even if Cato had no need of Rome, Rome had need of Cato, and so did all his friends, of whom Cicero said he himself was first, being plotted against by Clodius, who through the tribunate was marching straight against him,

by such words and entreaties, they say, Cato, being softened both at home and in the forum, was with difficulty compelled, and stepped up to swear the oath after everyone else save one, Favonius, among his friends and companions.

Emboldened, then, Caesar brought in another law, distributing nearly the whole of Campania among the destitute and impoverished. No one raised his voice against it except Cato, and Caesar had him dragged from the platform to prison, though this made him no more inclined to give up his outspokenness, but even as he walked he went on discoursing about the law and urging them to cease from such political conduct,

and the senate followed after him in dejection, and the best part of the people were indignant in silence and grieved, so that it did not escape Caesar's notice that they took it hard; but persisting out of contentiousness and waiting for some appeal or entreaty from Cato, he kept on leading him away. But when it was clear that Cato was not even going to think of making one, overcome by shame and disgrace, Caesar himself persuaded one of the tribunes to intervene and have Cato released.

Having tamed the crowd, however, with those laws and favors, they voted Caesar command of all Illyricum and Gaul together with four legions for five years, Cato foretelling that by their own votes they were setting up the tyrant in the citadel, and, transferring Publius Clodius unlawfully from patrician into plebeian rank, they appointed him tribune,

at the price of Cicero's banishment, conducting all his politics wholly to gratify them, and as consuls Calpurnius Piso, who was father of Caesar's wife, and Aulus Gabinius, a man out of Pompey's bosom, as those who knew his character and manner of life used to say.

But though they had thus taken firm hold of affairs, holding one part of the city under them by favor, the other by fear, they nonetheless feared Cato; for even where they got the better of him, it was with difficulty and hardship, and not without disgrace, but only by being with effort exposed and forced down, which was galling and hard to bear.

Clodius did not expect that he could overthrow Cicero while Cato was present, but as soon as he had entered his office, contriving this very thing first, he sent for Cato and addressed him with words claiming that of all Romans he judged him the most incorruptible, and was ready to give proof of this in deed: for while many were requesting the command over Cyprus and Ptolemy and asking to be sent, he thought only Cato worthy of it, and was glad to grant him the favor.

When Cato cried out that this was a trap and an insult, not a favor, Clodius said with haughty contempt, "Well then, if you feel no gratitude, you shall sail vexed all the same," then straightway went before the assembly and had a law passed to send Cato away; but as he departed he gave him neither ship, nor soldier, nor attendant, except only two clerks, one of whom was a thief and thoroughly wicked,

while the other was a client of Clodius. And as though the charge of Cyprus and Ptolemy were too small a task for him, he further ordered him to bring back the exiles of Byzantium, wishing that Cato should be kept out of the way as long as possible while he himself held office.

Caught in such a necessity, Cato advised Cicero, who was being driven out, not to resort to faction nor to plunge the city into arms and bloodshed, but to yield to the occasion for a time and become again the savior of his country. He himself sent one of his friends, Canidius, ahead to Cyprus so as to win Ptolemy over to yielding peacefully, assuring him that neither riches nor honor would be denied him, since the people would bestow on him the priestly office of the goddess worshiped at Paphos.

He himself remained at Rhodes, making his preparations and at the same time waiting for the replies. Meanwhile Ptolemy, king of Egypt, having left Alexandria because of some anger and quarrel with his citizens, and sailing toward Rome, hoping that Caesar and Pompey would restore him with troops at their command, desired an audience with Cato, and sent him word, supposing that Cato would present himself before him.

But Cato happened at that time to be undergoing a purge of the bowels, and told Ptolemy, if he wished, to come to him; and when he came, Cato did not go out to greet him nor even stand up from where he sat, but received him casually as he might any passerby and bid him take a seat. By this alone he first threw the king into confusion, who marveled that beneath the plain, common style of Cato's establishment lay such haughtiness and gravity of character.

But when the king began to speak of his own affairs and Cato listened to words full of good sense and frankness — for Cato rebuked him and pointed out how much happiness he had left behind for the sake of subjecting himself to such servility and toil, bribery and greed among the powerful men of Rome, whom, even if all Egypt were turned into money, he could scarcely satisfy — and urged him to return home by ship and make peace with his own people, offering even to sail along with him and assist in bringing about that reconciliation,

the king, as though coming to his senses out of some madness or derangement through these words, and perceiving the truth and good sense of the man, set out to follow his counsel; but he was again overturned by his friends, and as soon as he reached Rome and approached the doors of a single magistrate, he groaned over his own poor judgment, realizing he had spurned no mere advice of a decent man, but what amounted to a god's prediction.

While Ptolemy in Cyprus, by a stroke of good fortune for Cato, killed himself with poison, and it was said that he had left behind a great sum of money, Cato himself resolved to sail to Byzantium, and sent his nephew Brutus on to Cyprus, not entirely trusting Canidius. Having reconciled the exiles and left Byzantium in harmony, he then sailed to Cyprus.

Since a great quantity of royal furnishings — cups, tables, gems, and purple fabrics — needed to be converted into cash through sale, wishing to make everything exact and to press every item to its highest value, and to be present himself at everything and bring the final reckoning to bear, he did not even trust the customary practices of the market, but suspecting everyone alike — attendants, criers, buyers, friends — in the end he himself conversed privately with the buyers and drove each one on, and in this way sold off most of the goods.

For this he offended his other friends, as though he distrusted them, and he threw Munatius, the most intimate of all of them, into an anger nearly incurable, so that when Caesar wrote his speech against Cato, this part of the accusation furnished the bitterest material.

Munatius himself, however, relates that the anger arose not from Cato's distrust of him, but from Cato's neglect of him, and from a certain jealousy of his own toward Canidius. For he himself published a treatise about Cato, which Thrasea followed most closely.

He says that he arrived at Cyprus later and received a neglected welcome, and that when he came to the door he was turned away, Cato being occupied at home in some business with Canidius; and when he complained moderately, he received an answer that was anything but moderate — that excessive love, as Theophrastus says, is apt often to become the cause of hatred: "since you too," Cato said, "thinking yourself honored less than is fitting because of your great love for me, grow angry.

But I employ Canidius both for his experience and because I trust him more than others, since he came to me from the beginning and has shown himself honest." These words, spoken to Munatius alone in private, Cato nevertheless reported to Canidius. Munatius, on perceiving this, no longer came to dinner nor answered when called on for counsel; and when Cato threatened, as he was accustomed to do with those who disobeyed him, to take pledges from him, Munatius, caring nothing for this, sailed away and continued

in anger for a long time. Then, when Marcia — for she was still living with Cato — spoke with him, it happened that they had both been invited to dinner by Barca, and Cato, coming in later while the others were already reclining, asked where he should recline. When Barca told him wherever he wished, Cato looked around and said, "next to Munatius," and going over he reclined beside him, but showed no further friendliness during the dinner.

But again, at Marcia's request, Cato wrote to him saying he wished to meet with him about something, and Munatius came at dawn to the house and was kept there by Marcia until everyone else had left; and then Cato came in, threw both arms around him, embraced him, and was affectionate. We have gone into these matters at greater length, believing that they, no less than public and great actions, offer some clarity for showing and understanding character.

For Cato there was collected a sum of silver amounting to a little less than seven thousand talents; and fearing the length of the voyage, he had many vessels made, each holding two talents and five hundred drachmas, and to each he attached a long cord, at the end of which he fixed a sizable cork float, so that were the vessel to break up, the buoy, riding the waves above the depths, would mark the spot,

and so the money, except for a small part, was carried safely across. But of the accounts of everything he had administered, which he kept carefully written in two books, he saved neither: for the one, carried by his freedman named Philargyrus, who had set out from Cenchreae, was lost when the ship capsized along with the cargo; the other he himself guarded as far as Corcyra and pitched camp with it in the marketplace.

But the sailors, being cold, lit many fires that night, and the tents caught fire, and the book was destroyed. Now the royal officials who were present would have been able to silence his enemies and slanderers, but otherwise the matter caused Cato bitter distress. For it was not to gain credit for himself, but out of ambition to leave an example of exactness for others, that he had brought forth the accounts, and in this he was disappointed.

When he had crossed over with his ships, he did not escape the notice of the Romans, but every magistrate and priest, the entire senate, and a large portion of the citizenry came out to the river to greet him, so that both banks were hidden from view, and his voyage upstream fell short of a triumph in nothing, in either spectacle or honor,

and yet to some this seemed awkward and stubborn, that though the consuls and praetors were present, he neither disembarked to greet them nor stopped his sailing, but drove along past the bank on a royal six-oared ship amid the rushing water, and gave no pause until his fleet lay safely moored within the dockyard.

Nevertheless, as the money was carried through the marketplace, the people marveled at its quantity, and the senate, having assembled, voted Cato, along with fitting praises, an extraordinary praetorship and the right to watch the games clad in a purple-bordered robe. Cato refused these honors himself, yet he induced the senate to grant freedom to Nicias, the steward of the royal property, bearing witness to his diligence and honesty.

Philip, Marcia's father, held the consulship in that year, and in a way the dignity and power of the office passed over to Cato, since his colleague added no less honor to Cato, both for his virtue and for his kinship with Philip, than he did to his own office.

When Cicero returned from the exile into which Clodius had driven him, and being now powerful, tore down by force and destroyed, in Clodius's absence, the tablets of the tribunate which Clodius had set up inscribed on the Capitol, and when upon this the senate assembled and Clodius made accusation, Cicero said that since Clodius's tribunate had been irregular, all that had been done and enacted at that time ought to be void and without authority.

Cato objected to him as he spoke, and finally stood up and said that while he considered nothing at all in Clodius's policy sound or good, yet if anyone should annul all that he had done as tribune, then Cato's whole mission concerning Cyprus would also be annulled, and the sending would not have been legitimate, since it was voted by an illegitimate magistrate: it was not illegally that Clodius had been elected tribune, having passed from patrician to plebeian status under a law that permitted it; and if, once magistrate, he had proved wicked, as others had, it was he himself who should be called to account for the wrong, not proper to dissolve the office that had been wronged along with him. From this Cicero held anger against Cato, and though he had been his friend, he ceased to be so for a long time; but afterward they were reconciled.

After this, Pompey and Crassus, meeting with Caesar who had crossed the Alps, resolved jointly to seek a second consulship, and once established in it, to have Caesar's command voted an equal further term, and for themselves the greatest provinces, money, and military forces — which was in fact a conspiracy for the partition of power and the overthrow of the constitution,

and though many good men were then preparing to seek the office, by their mere appearance in canvassing they turned the others aside; only Lucius Domitius, who was married to Cato's sister Porcia, Cato persuaded not to withdraw or give way, since the contest was not about office, but about the freedom of the Romans.

Indeed, talk went about even among the still sound-minded part of the city, that it was not to be overlooked that, with the power of Crassus and Pompey come together into one, the resulting authority would be altogether overgrown and oppressive, and that one of the two ought to be stripped of it. And people banded together urging and encouraging Domitius to lay claim to it, for many, even of those who kept silent out of fear, would be on his side in the voting.

Alarmed at this, Pompey's faction laid an ambush for Domitius while he made his way down before daybreak, torches lighting his path into the Campus, and first the torch-bearer, standing near Domitius, was struck and fell dead; then, as the others too were being wounded, there was a general flight, except for Cato and Domitius.

For Cato held him back, though he himself had been wounded in the arm, and urged him to stay and not abandon, while they still had breath, the struggle for freedom against the tyrants, who were showing what use they would make of power by the very magnitude of the crimes through which they were advancing toward it.

Domitius did not stand up to the danger, but fled to his house, and Pompey and Crassus were elected consuls; yet Cato did not grow weary, but came forward himself and sought the praetorship, wishing to have a base of operations for his struggles against those men and to stand opposed to the magistrates not as a private citizen. They, fearing this too, since the praetorship would become a match for the consulship because of Cato,

first, suddenly and while most people were unaware, gathered the senate and voted that the praetors elected should take office at once, without waiting out the customary interval during which lawsuits were brought against those who had bribed the people. Then, by means of this decree, having contrived that giving bribes would go unpunished, they put forward their own agents and friends for the praetorship, themselves giving money and themselves standing over the votes as they were cast.

But when even against these measures Cato's virtue and reputation prevailed — the mass of people, out of shame, regarding it as a great disgrace to sell Cato's vote, a man it would have been honorable for the city to buy as praetor — and when the first tribe called had declared for him, suddenly Pompey, falsely claiming to have heard thunder, broke up the assembly in the most disgraceful manner, because established practice in such cases required a man to purify himself of the omen and confirm nothing once a sign from the heavens had appeared.

Then, employing lavish bribery once more, they thrust the best men out of the field and by force brought it about that Vatinius, rather than Cato, was elected praetor. Those who had cast their ballots in so lawless and unfair a manner are said to have hurried away at once as though fleeing the scene, while the others gathered together in indignation, and when a certain tribune provided them an assembly, Cato took his stand and, as if inspired by the gods, foretold everything that was to come upon the city,

and roused the citizens against Pompey and Crassus, as men conscious of such deeds in themselves, and clinging to such a course of politics that they had feared Cato, lest he prevail over them as praetor. At last, as he went off to his house, so great a crowd escorted him as had not escorted all the elected praetors together.

When Gaius Trebonius proposed a law for the allotment of provinces to the consuls, so that one should hold Iberia and Libya under himself, and the other Syria and Egypt, with power to make war upon and subdue whomever they wished with naval and land forces, the rest, having despaired of opposing and hindering it, gave up even speaking against it. But when Cato mounted the rostrum before the voting and wished to speak, they grudgingly granted him barely two hours to speak,

and when, speaking much, instructing, and prophesying, he had used up the time, they no longer allowed him to speak, but an attendant came forward and pulled him down as he lingered. And when, standing even from below, he cried out and had those who heard him sharing his indignation, again the attendant took hold of him and led him out of the forum and set him there,

and no sooner was he let go than he turned and rushed back toward the rostrum, crying out and summoning the citizens to defend the city. When this had happened repeatedly, Trebonius, at his wits' end, gave orders that Cato be taken off to prison; yet a throng followed along, catching his words even as he was marched away, so that Trebonius took fright and released him.

In this way Cato used up that day; but on the following days, having intimidated some of the citizens and won others over with favors and bribes, and having barred one of the tribunes, Aquillius, from coming out of the senate-house by force of arms, and having driven Cato himself out of the forum while he shouted that thunder had occurred, and having wounded not a few, some even falling, they ratified the law by force, so that a crowd, gathering together in anger, pelted Pompey's statues,

but Cato, coming upon this, put a stop to it. When Caesar in turn had a law drawn up concerning provinces and armies, Cato no longer turned to the people but to Pompey himself, and called him to witness, foretelling that in taking Caesar upon his own neck he did not know it now, but when he began to be weighed down and mastered, being able neither to set the burden aside nor to endure bearing it,

he would fall upon the city together with him, and would then remember Cato's counsels, since no less Pompey's own interest was contained in them than what was honorable and just. Pompey, hearing this often, neglected it and let it pass, out of disbelief in any change in Caesar, through confidence in his own good fortune and power.

In the following year, when Cato was elected praetor, he seemed to add nothing to the office's dignity and grandeur by exercising it well, so much as he detracted from it and brought it into disgrace by often coming forward to the rostrum barefoot and without a tunic, and presiding in this way over capital trials of eminent men. Some even say that he transacted business after lunch, having drunk wine; but this is not truly said,

since the people were being corrupted with bribes by those seeking office, who treated bribery as a customary trade of the many, and wishing to root out this disease from the city entirely, he persuaded the senate to pass a decree that those established in office, if they had no accuser, should of necessity come forward themselves before a sworn court and render an account of themselves.

At this those seeking office took offense, but the bribe-taking mob took even greater offense. So, at daybreak, when Cato had come forward to the rostrum, they fell upon him in a body, shouting, hurling abuse, throwing things, so that everyone fled from the rostrum, and he himself, thrust out by the crowd and swept along, barely managed to grasp the ships' beaks,

and rising up from there, by the boldness and confidence of his look he at once mastered the uproar and stopped the shouting, and, saying what was fitting and being heard in silence, he entirely dissolved the disturbance. And when the senate praised him, 'But I,' he said, 'do not praise you, for abandoning a praetor in danger and not coming to his aid.'

Each of those seeking office was gripped by a helpless anxiety, afraid on the one hand to bribe himself, afraid on the other that if someone else did so he would lose the office. So it was decided that they should come together into one and each deposit twelve and a half thousand drachmas of silver, and then all seek the office honestly and justly; and whoever transgressed and made use of bribery should forfeit the money.

Having agreed to this, they chose Cato as guardian, arbiter, and witness, and brought the money and deposited it with him; and they drew up the agreement with him, taking sureties in place of the money, since he did not accept the money itself. When the appointed day for the declaration of results came, Cato stood beside the presiding tribune and, watching the vote closely, showed that one of those who had deposited money had cheated, and ordered him to give back the money to the others.

But they, praising and admiring his uprightness, remitted the penalty, considering that they had received sufficient satisfaction from the wrongdoer; but Cato distressed the rest and incurred the greatest envy on account of this, as though he had appropriated to himself the power of the senate, the courts, and the magistrates. For no reputation and trust in any virtue makes men more envied than in the case of justice, because power and trust follow it most of all from the many.

For men do not simply honor a just man the way they honor a courageous one, nor merely admire him the way they admire a wise one; rather they feel affection for him too, place confidence in him, and trust him. As for the others, some they fear, others they distrust; and besides this, they suppose those men differ by nature rather than by choice — courage being a kind of sharpness, and wisdom a kind of strength of soul — whereas in the case of the just man, it is at once within the power of anyone who wishes to be so, and they are ashamed of injustice as an inexcusable vice.

For this reason all the great men made war on Cato as one who exposed them; and Pompey, thinking that Cato's reputation was the undoing of his own power, kept setting people upon him to abuse him, among whom was the demagogue Clodius, who had again slipped over to Pompey's side and railed against Cato, saying that he had embezzled much money from Cyprus, and that he was warring against Pompey out of resentment at Pompey's refusal of his daughter's marriage.

But Cato said that he had gathered so much money from Cyprus for the city, taking neither a single horse nor a soldier, as Pompey, though he had thrown the whole world into confusion with so many wars and triumphs, had not brought in; and that he had never chosen Pompey as a son-in-law, not because he considered him unworthy, but because he saw the difference between them in political principle.

'As for me,' he said, 'I turned down a province that was offered to me once my praetorship ended, whereas this man keeps some provinces he has seized for himself and hands out others to different men; and now he has even lent Caesar a force of six thousand hoplites for Gaul, which neither did that man ask of you, nor did this man give with your consent, but such great forces and arms and horses are the private favors and exchanges of individuals.'

'Though called supreme commander and general, he has handed the armies and provinces over to others, while he himself sits beside the city, presiding as umpire over factional strife at the elections and contriving disturbances, from which it does not escape notice that through anarchy he is courting monarchy for himself.'

In this way he defended himself against Pompey. Now there was a certain Marcus Favonius, his companion and zealous admirer, such as Apollodorus of Phalerum is recorded to have been in relation to Socrates of old — passionate and carried away by argument, not gently or gradually, but seizing upon it undiluted, like wine, and rather madly.

This man, when running for the aedileship, was being defeated; but Cato, being present, gave attention to the ballot-tablets, which had been written in a single hand, and having exposed the fraud, on that occasion annulled the declaration of the result by the tribunes' intervention. Later, when Favonius had been established as aedile, Cato took care of the other business of the office and managed the shows in the theater, giving to the performers crowns not of gold, but, as at Olympia, of wild olive,

and in place of expensive prizes he gave the Greeks beets, lettuces, radishes, and pears, while the Romans received jars of wine, pork, figs, cucumbers, and bundles of firewood. Some laughed at the cheapness of these, while others were moved to reverence, seeing Cato's austerity and grimness quietly turning into good humor.

At last Favonius threw himself into the crowd and, sitting among the spectators, applauded Cato and cried out that he should give to the successful and honor them, and he called upon the spectators to join in, as though he had handed over authority to that man. Meanwhile, in the other theater, Curio, Favonius's fellow magistrate, was putting on a lavish production; but the people, abandoning that one, kept crossing over to this one, and joined eagerly in the game, with Favonius playing the private citizen and Cato the master of the games.

He did this to ridicule the whole affair, and to teach that one ought to treat sport as sport and conduct it with unpretentious grace, rather than lavishing great concern and effort on things worth nothing at all.

When Scipio and Hypsaeus and Milo were competing for the consulship, and were driving forward not only with the customary and by-now-naturalized wrongs of bribery and corruption, but outright, through arms and bloodshed, toward civil war with reckless daring, some thought it proper for Pompey to preside over the elections. Cato at first spoke against it, saying that safety ought to come to Pompey from the laws, not the laws from Pompey.

But when, after a long period of anarchy, with three armed camps occupying the forum every day, it fell little short of having become an incurable evil, he decided that, before the last extremity, the state of affairs should be turned over to Pompey by the voluntary favor of the senate, and that, applying the mildest of remedies for the worst of illegalities, it was better to bring in a monarchy of this kind than to let the strife end in monarchy of another sort.

Bibulus, then, who was a relative of Cato, proposed in the senate that Pompey alone be chosen consul: for either matters would go well once he had set them in order, or the city would be enslaved to the strongest man. Cato rose — to no one's expectation — and praised the proposal, and advised that any government was better than no government at all, and that they should expect Pompey to manage the present situation as well as possible, and to guard the city once it had been entrusted to him.

Once Pompey had been appointed consul in this way, he asked Cato to come to him at his estate outside the city. When Cato came, Pompey received him warmly, with greetings and handclasps, acknowledged his gratitude, and urged him to be his adviser and colleague in the office.

Cato replied that neither his earlier statements had been made out of hostility to Pompey, nor would these be made out of favor to him, but everything for the good of the city. In private, then, he would be his adviser if asked; in public, whether asked or not, he would always say what he thought.

And this is how he acted, as he had said. First, when Pompey was legislating new penalties and heavy punishments aimed at men who, before this, had already bought votes from the people, Cato pressed him instead to leave bygone matters alone and turn his attention to what lay ahead. For it was not easy to determine where an inquiry into prior wrongdoing would stop, and if newer penalties were written for old offenses, terrible things would befall people punished under a law they had not broken at the time they did wrong.

Then, when many prominent men were being tried, some of them friends and relations of Pompey, and Cato saw him yielding in many cases and bending, he reproached him sharply and stirred him up. And when Pompey, having by law abolished the customary practice of giving character-testimonials for those on trial, himself wrote one for Munatius Plancus and gave it in at the trial, Cato — who happened to be sitting as a juror — clapped his hands over his ears and would not let the testimony be read out.

Plancus struck him from the jury after his speech, but was convicted nonetheless. And in general Cato was a difficult and unmanageable problem for defendants, who neither wanted him left on the jury nor dared to challenge him off it. Not a few were convicted for seeming, by challenging Cato, not to trust in the justice of their case; and to some the revilers cast up, as a great reproach, that they had not accepted Cato as a juror when he was offered.

When Caesar, rooted among his armies in Gaul and holding fast to his weapons, was using gifts, money, and friends chiefly to build power in the city, and Cato's forewarnings were now bringing Pompey back — out of much prior distrust — to dream of the danger, while Pompey still remained full of hesitation and timid delay about hindering and taking action, Cato resolved to stand for the consulship, so as to strip Caesar of his arms at once, or else expose the plot. Now those—

—who were running against him were both agreeable men, but Sulpicius in particular had profited greatly from Cato's reputation and influence in the city; so it did not seem a moderate or gracious thing to do. Yet Cato found no fault in it: 'For what is strange,' he said, 'if a man does not yield to another what he considers the greatest of goods?'

By persuading the senate to vote that candidates for office should greet the people themselves, and not use a canvasser going about and soliciting on their behalf, he stirred the people up even more to fury, on the grounds that he had deprived them not only of receiving payment but even of granting the favor, and had thereby made the people at once poor and dishonored.

In addition, Cato himself was not persuasive in soliciting on his own behalf, wishing rather to preserve in his manner the dignity proper to his life than to gain office by such greetings, and he would not permit his friends to resort to the tactics used for winning over and flattering a crowd — and so he failed to win the office.

Though the matter brought upon those who failed, and upon their friends and relatives too, a certain shame, dejection, and mourning for many days, Cato bore what had happened so lightly that, after anointing himself, he played ball in the Campus, and after lunch, as was his custom, went down again to the forum barefoot and without a tunic and walked about with his companions,

Cicero, however, faults him because, when the situation demanded a man of such quality in office, he did not make an effort or court the people with friendly manner, but instead grew weary of it thereafter and gave it up — though he later stood again from the beginning for the praetorship.

Cato used to say that he had failed at the praetorship not because the majority judged against him, but because they had been coerced or corrupted; but in the consular vote, where no wrongdoing had occurred, he recognized that he had offended the people through his own character — which it is not the mark of a sensible man either to change to please others, or, by keeping it the same, to suffer the same fate again.

When Caesar had invaded warlike tribes and won victories at great risk, and, though a truce had been made with the Germans, was thought to have attacked them and cut down three hundred thousand, the rest thought it right for the people to offer thanksgiving sacrifices, but Cato urged that Caesar be handed over to those he had wronged, so as not to turn the pollution upon themselves nor bring the guilt into the city.

'All the same,' he said, 'we ought indeed to offer sacrifice to the gods, since it is not upon the soldiers that they visit the penalty for their general's madness and recklessness, but the city they spare instead.' Following this, Caesar composed a letter to the senate and had it delivered; once it had been read aloud before that body, full of abuse and accusations directed at Cato,

Cato rose — not in anger nor out of contentiousness, but as if from calculation and preparation — and showed that the charges against himself were like insults and jests, a kind of playfulness and buffoonery on Caesar's part; but then, taking hold of Caesar's designs from the beginning and laying bare his whole purpose, as one not an enemy but a fellow-conspirator and partner, he taught them that it was not the children of the Germans or the Celts, but that man himself,

if they were wise, whom they ought to fear — and he turned and provoked them so much that Caesar's own friends regretted having read the letter aloud in the senate, since it had given Cato the occasion for just words and true accusations. Nothing was ratified, but it was only said that it would be well to give Caesar a successor.

When Cato's friends urged that Pompey too should lay down his arms on equal terms and give up his provinces, or else Caesar not be made to — Cato now cried out that the very things he had foretold to them had come, and that the man was already using, openly and by force, the power he had gained by deceiving and cheating the city; but he accomplished nothing beyond this, since the people always wanted Caesar to be greatest, while he kept the senate persuaded and fearful of the people.

When Ariminum had been seized and Caesar was reported to be advancing on the city with his army, then indeed everyone looked to Cato — the people at large and Pompey too — as the one man who had foreseen it all from the start, and had been the first to declare openly what Caesar intended. Cato then said:

'But if, men, any of you had ever been persuaded by what I foretold and advised, you would neither now be afraid of one man nor have placed your hopes in one man.' When Pompey said that Cato's words had proved more prophetic, but his own actions more friendly, Cato advised that affairs be handed over to Pompey alone by the senate; for it belonged to the same men both to cause great evils and to end them.

Pompey, then, having neither an army ready nor seeing those he was then enrolling eager, left Rome; and Cato, having resolved to follow and flee with him, sent his younger son away to Munatius in Bruttium, and kept the elder with him. When his household and daughters required a guardian, he took back Marcia, now widowed and possessed of great wealth; for Hortensius, on dying, had left her his heir.

It was chiefly for this that Caesar, in reviling Cato, charged him with greed and mercenary motives regarding the marriage. For why, he asks, was there need to give her up if he needed a wife, or to take her back again if he did not — unless the woman had been lent out from the start as bait for Hortensius, given to him young so that Cato might get her back rich? To this the line of Euripides applies with some moderation: 'First, the unspeakable things — for among unspeakable things I count your cowardice, O Heracles.'

For it is much the same to charge Heracles with softness as to accuse Cato of sordid gain. But if in some other respect the marriage was not handled well, that should be examined. Cato, having betrothed Marcia and entrusted the household and his daughters to her, himself went off in pursuit of Pompey.

From that day on, it is said, he let his hair grow untrimmed and his beard unshaven, refused any garland, but kept one fixed expression of mourning, dejection, and gravity over his country's misfortunes, alike toward victors and vanquished, until his death. At that time, having drawn Sicily by lot, he crossed to Syracuse; and learning that Asinius Pollio had arrived from the enemy with a force at Messana, he sent to demand from him an account of his crossing.

When in turn Pollio demanded from him an account of the change in affairs, and Cato heard that Pompey had abandoned Italy entirely and was encamped at Dyrrhachium, he said that the workings of providence were deeply confused and obscure, seeing that Pompey — who had never been beaten while his cause was neither sound nor just — should now, in this struggle to rescue his homeland and defend liberty, find fortune deserting him.

He said, then, that he was capable of driving Asinius out of Sicily, but since a larger force was approaching, he did not wish to destroy the island by making war in it, and, having advised the Syracusans to go over to the stronger side and save themselves, he sailed away. When he arrived at Pompey's side, he held always to one single opinion — to drag the war out, hoping for a settlement, and not wishing that the city, once brought low in the contest, should suffer the ultimate horrors at its own hands, decided by the sword.

He also persuaded Pompey and his council to vote other measures akin to these: neither to sack any city subject to Rome, nor to kill any Roman outside of battle — measures which brought him reputation and won over many to Pompey's side, who welcomed his fairness and gentleness.

Sent off to Asia, so that he might be of use to the men there in gathering ships and troops, he brought with him his sister Servilia and the child of hers by Lucullus—for she had followed him, now a widow—and by submitting herself to Cato's guardianship and to a wandering and austere way of life, she took away much of the slander cast on her looseness.

Yet Caesar did not spare even Cato the reproaches he made against her. Now in other matters, it seems, Pompey's officers had no need of Cato at all; but having won over the Rhodians by persuasion, and having left Servilia and the child there, he returned to Pompey, who already had a splendid force of infantry and of ships about him,

and it was there above all that Pompey's real intention seemed to be exposed. For he set out to hand over to Cato the command of the fleet—there were no fewer than five hundred warships, and a great multitude besides of Liburnian galleys, scout-ships, and undecked vessels—

but quickly, either realizing it himself or being taught by his friends, that the one great principle of all Cato's political creed was to set his country free, and that if he became master of so great a force, then on whatever day they overcame Caesar, he would demand of Pompey too, on that very same reasoning, that he lay down his arms and submit to the laws, Pompey changed his mind—though he had already spoken with him about it—and appointed Bibulus admiral instead.

Yet for all that he did not find Cato's zeal at all blunted. Indeed it is said that before a certain battle near Dyrrhachium, when Pompey himself was rousing the army's spirit, and each of the other commanders in turn was bidden to say something to encourage them, the soldiers listened idly and in silence; but when Cato, last of all, went through, as the occasion allowed, all that philosophy has to say about freedom and courage and death and glory, speaking as one who felt every word,

and at the end turned his speech to a summoning of the gods, as being present and looking down upon this struggle fought for their country, so great a shout went up and such a stirring seized the army, roused as it was, that all the commanders, full of hope, rushed eagerly into the danger; and though they routed the enemy and won the field, the full victory was snatched away by Caesar's guardian spirit, working through Pompey's caution and mistrust of his own good fortune.

These things, then, have been written in the Life of Pompey. While everyone else rejoiced and magnified the achievement, Cato wept for his country, and lamented its ruinous and ill-starred lust for power, seeing many good citizens fallen at one another's hands.

As Pompey struck camp to chase Caesar toward Thessaly, he left behind at Dyrrhachium a great store of arms and money and kinsmen and dependents, and he placed Cato in charge of it all as its overseer and defender, giving him fifteen cohorts of troops to command, acting out of both confidence in Cato and wariness of him: for if defeated, he reckoned Cato the most reliable of all to hold everything together; but if he himself proved victorious, he did not mean to let Cato be present to handle affairs as he, Cato, thought right.

Many distinguished men too were cast aside at Dyrrhachium along with Cato. Once word of the rout at Pharsalus reached him, Cato worked out this plan: should Pompey have died, he would ferry his companions across to Italy and spend his own remaining days banished as far as could be from despotic rule; but should Pompey have lived, he would keep the force whole for him in every respect.

So crossing over to Corcyra, where the fleet lay, he yielded up the command to Cicero as a man of consular rank, being himself only of praetorian standing; but when Cicero would not accept it, and instead set off for Italy, Cato—seeing Pompey, out of self-will and untimely pride, wishing to punish those who were sailing away, and about to lay hands first of all on Cicero—admonished him privately and calmed him down, so that he plainly saved Cicero from death and secured immunity for the rest as well.

Guessing that the great Pompey would flee toward either Egypt or Libya, and eager to join him there, he put out to sea with everyone aboard, but sailed in such a way as to allow those not eager to campaign further to depart and be left behind; and having touched at Libya and sailing along the coast, he met Sextus, the younger of Pompey's sons, bringing word of his father's death

in Egypt. Everyone bore it heavily, and none, with Cato present, thought it right after Pompey to give ear to any other commander; and so Cato, out of respect and pity for good men who had given proof of their loyalty, unwilling to abandon them destitute and without resources in a foreign land, took up the command and made his way to Cyrene—for the people there received him, having a few days before shut out Labienus.

There he learned that Scipio, Pompey's father-in-law, had taken refuge with Juba the king, and that Attius Varus, appointed by Pompey to govern Libya, was also there with a force under arms, he set out on foot in the season of winter, having gathered many donkeys to carry water, and driving along a great deal of plunder, and bringing besides wagons and the men called Psylli, who cure the bites of wild beasts by drawing out the poison with their mouths, and who blunt and charm the creatures themselves by chanting over them.

The march went on for seven days without a break, and he led it in front, using neither horse nor pack-animal. He had taken his meals sitting up from the very day he learned of the defeat at Pharsalus, and added this further to his mourning, that he would not lie down except to sleep. Having spent the winter in Libya he led the army out; they numbered a little short of ten thousand.

Matters stood badly for Scipio and Varus, who through rivalry and faction had insinuated themselves into Juba's favor and courted him—a man not to be borne for the weight of his arrogance and the swelling pride his wealth and power gave him, who, when he first met Cato, placed his own throne so it stood between Scipio's seat and Cato's,

but Cato, as soon as he saw it, picked up his own seat and moved it to the other side, placing Scipio in the middle instead, even though Scipio was his enemy and had even put out a book containing abuse of Cato. Yet this they count as nothing, while if he took Philostratus by the middle walking in Sicily, in honor of philosophy, they find fault with that. At any rate, on that occasion he checked Juba, who had all but made satraps of Scipio's people, and reconciled them to one another.

And when all called on him to take command, and Scipio and Varus themselves were first to stand aside and hand over the leadership, he said he would not overturn the very laws for whose sake they were making war on the man overturning them, nor, being only a propraetor, would he set himself above a proconsul who was present. For Scipio had been declared proconsul, and most people took heart from the name itself, believing that success would come with Scipio in command in Libya.

When, however, Scipio, upon taking over the command, at once wished, to gratify Juba, to put the men of Utica to the sword down to the youths and raze the city, on the ground that it favored Caesar's cause, Cato would not allow it, but calling the gods to witness and crying out in the council, he barely rescued the people from their cruelty:

and partly at their own request, partly at Scipio's, he undertook to guard the city, so that it should fall to Caesar neither against its will nor with its consent. For indeed the place was useful and sufficient in every respect for those who held it, and it was made still stronger under Cato. He brought in grain in overflowing abundance, and strengthened the walls, raising towers and throwing up strong ditches and palisades before the city.

Of the men of Utica he ordered the young men to live within the palisades, having first surrendered their arms to him, while he kept the rest within the city, taking great care that they should suffer no wrong or ill-treatment at the hands of the Romans. He sent out to the men in camp a great quantity of arms, money, and grain, and altogether he kept the city as the treasury of the war.

What he had advised Pompey earlier, and now advised Scipio—not to fight against a man skilled and formidable in war, but to use time, which withers away every peak of strength on which tyranny relies—this advice Scipio, out of self-will, despised; and once, taunting Cato with cowardice, he wrote that it was not enough for him to indulge himself by sitting quiet in a city behind walls, but he would not even let others make bold use of their own judgment as the occasion required.

To this Cato wrote back that he was ready to take the infantry and cavalry he himself had brought into Libya and carry them across to Italy, and there draw Caesar off and turn him away from the others onto himself. But when Scipio laughed at this too, it was quite plain that Cato was troubled at having yielded up the command, for he believed Scipio was fit neither to manage the war competently nor, if some improbable stroke of luck brought him success, to deal moderately with his fellow citizens once victorious.

For this reason Cato told his close friends that he expected little good to come of the war, given how green and reckless its commanders were; but that if, after all, some stroke of fortune should come and Caesar be overthrown, he would not stay in Rome, but would flee the harshness and bitterness of Scipio, who was already making dreadful and arrogant threats against many.

And the outcome proved worse than he expected. For about deep evening someone arrived from the camp, three days on the road, announcing that after a great battle at Thapsus everything was utterly ruined and Caesar was master of the camps, while Scipio and Juba had gotten away with only a handful of men, the remainder of the army having been wiped out.

When this news fell upon them, the city, as was natural in the night and in wartime at such a report, came near to losing its senses altogether, and could scarcely hold itself within its walls; but Cato went out, and as each group ran about crying out, he met them, took hold of them, and comforted them, taking away the wild, bewildered edge of their fear, saying that things were probably not as bad as reported, but magnified in the telling beyond their true measure; and so he quieted the uproar, and at daybreak summoned the three hundred whom he used as a council,

Romans who did business in Libya through trade and money-lending, ordering them by proclamation to assemble in the temple of Jupiter, along with any senators present and their sons; and while they were gathering, he came forward calmly and with composure, as though nothing new had happened, holding a book in his hands, and read from it. It was a register of the war's equipment—arms, grain, bows, men-at-arms.

Once they had assembled, Cato began with the three hundred and at length praised their eagerness and faithfulness, which they had shown themselves most useful in displaying with money, persons, and counsel alike, he urged that none of them should let go of hope by procuring for himself some private flight or means of escape. For if they held together, Caesar would think less of them even in making war, and would be more inclined to spare them if they sought terms.

He bade them deliberate on their own behalf, and said he would find fault with neither course: if they should turn their minds to accommodate fortune, he would set down the change to necessity; but if they stood firm against the danger and took up the risk on behalf of freedom, he would not merely praise but admire their courage, and would offer himself as their leader and fellow combatant,

until they should put to the final test the fortune of their country—which, he said, was not Utica nor Adrumetum, but Rome, a city that had often risen again out of worse disasters by the very greatness in it; and there lay open to them many resources for safety and security, and, greatest of all, they were making war against a man drawn in many directions at once by the pressures of circumstance, with Spain now falling away from Pompey's cause toward the younger Pompey,

Rome herself, moreover, had not yet by long habituation fully accepted the bridle, but chafed at her condition and rose up in response to every change of fortune, so that danger itself ought not to be shunned; rather they should have as their teacher the enemy, who spared no life even for the greatest wrongdoings — not, as if the matter rested with themselves, ending either in the happiest life through success or in the most glorious death through failure, but in the uncertainty of war.

Nevertheless, he said, they must deliberate for themselves, and he prayed that, in place of their former courage and zeal, whatever they decided might turn out well for them.

When Cato had spoken thus, some were moved by his words toward confidence, but the greater part, overcome by his fearlessness, his nobility, and his humanity, all but forgot their present circumstances, and, holding him to be the one invincible commander and superior to every fortune, begged to place at his disposal their persons, their money, and their arms, in whatever way he had determined; for it was better, they said, to die obeying such a man than to save themselves by betraying so great a virtue.

When someone said that they ought to vote freedom to the slaves, and most agreed, Cato said he would not do this; for it was neither lawful nor just — though he would accept those of military age whom their own masters chose to release. When many promises had been made, he ordered whoever wished to register his name, and then withdrew,

and not long after, letters reached him, one from Juba and one from Scipio — Juba, who was hiding in the mountains with a few men, wrote asking what Cato had resolved to do; he added that he would wait for Cato to leave Utica, and would bring troops to relieve him should he come under siege; Scipio, meanwhile, lay at anchor near a headland a short distance from Utica, watching for the same news.

Cato therefore decided to detain the letter-bearers until he had confirmed the disposition of the three hundred; for those of the senatorial order were eager, and were at once freeing their household slaves and arming them, but of the three hundred — men of shipping and money-lending, whose wealth lay chiefly in their household slaves — Cato's words held them for no long time before they slipped away,

for just as porous bodies readily take on heat and just as readily let it go, growing cold once the fire is withdrawn, so it was with these men: the sight of Cato rekindled and warmed them, but once they gave themselves an accounting alone, fear of Caesar drove out both their reverence for Cato and their sense of honor. "For who are we," they said, "that we should refuse to do what is commanded, and by whom?

Is this not Caesar, into whose hands the whole power of Rome has come? And among us there is no Scipio, no Pompey, no Cato — yet in a season when fear has driven every man to think less of himself than he ought, are we the ones fighting on behalf of Roman freedom, waging war from Utica, a city which Cato himself, fleeing with Pompey the Great, yielded up along with the rest of Italy? And do we free slaves against Caesar, when even they themselves will have only as much freedom as he is willing to allow? No — even now, wretched men that we are, let us come to know ourselves, and beg the conqueror's pardon, and send men to entreat him."

This is what the most moderate of the three hundred urged; but most of them plotted against the senators, thinking that if they seized them they might thereby appease Caesar's anger against themselves.

Cato, suspecting the change in them, did not confront them openly, but wrote to Scipio and Juba to keep away from Utica, distrusting the three hundred, and sent off the letter-bearers. Meanwhile those of the cavalry who had escaped from the battle — a number not to be despised — rode up to Utica and sent to Cato three men who did not all hold the same opinion,

for some were eager to go over to Juba, others to join Cato, and still others were afraid even to enter Utica. On hearing this, Cato instructed Marcus Rubrius to look after the three hundred, taking down the registrations of those freeing their slaves quietly and without any compulsion,

while he himself took the senators and went out of Utica, and met with the cavalry commanders, begging them not to abandon so many men of the Roman senate, nor to choose Juba as commander in Cato's place, but to save themselves together with the others by coming into a city that could not be taken by storm and that had provisions of grain and everything else for very many years.

While the senators too were begging this with tears, the cavalry commanders conferred with the horsemen, and Cato sat down upon a certain mound with the senators and waited for their answer,

and in the meantime Rubrius arrived in anger, denouncing much disorder and uproar among the three hundred, saying that they were in revolt and throwing the city into confusion. At this the others sank into utter despair and broke into weeping and lamentation, but Cato attempted to hearten them, and dispatched word to the three hundred asking them to hold off.

But those who came from the cavalry made no moderate demands: they said they had no need of Juba paying them wages, nor did they fear Caesar while Cato commanded them, but that it was intolerable to be shut up together with the men of Utica, Phoenicians, a fickle people; for even if they were quiet now, when Caesar came upon them they would join him and betray them.

If then anyone needed them as fellow soldiers and companions in the field, let him first drive out or destroy all the men of Utica, and then call them into a city cleansed of enemies and barbarians. Cato thought these demands terribly savage and barbarous, but answered mildly that he would take counsel with the three hundred.

And going back into the city he met with the men, who no longer contrived pretexts or evasions out of shame before him, but grew openly angry whenever anyone pressed them to fight Caesar, a thing they had neither the power nor the wish to do; and some even murmured that the senators ought to be held back in the city as Caesar approached.

Cato, however, let this pass as if it had not reached his ears, for his hearing was somewhat impaired; but when someone came to him and reported that the cavalry were now leaving, fearing that the three hundred might in utter desperation turn against the senators, he rose and went out with his friends; and seeing that they had already advanced some way, he took a horse and rode after them,

and they, glad to see him riding up, welcomed him and urged him to save himself along with them; and it is said that then Cato even wept, pleading for the senators and stretching out his hands, and turning back the horses of some and laying hold of their weapons, until he prevailed on them to remain that day at least, and so provide the men a safe means of flight.

So, having them with him, he returned, stationed some at the gates, and put others in charge of guarding the citadel; and the three hundred, fearing they would answer for their reversal, sent word urging Cato to come to them at any cost, but the senators, gathering around him, would not permit it, saying they would not give up their guardian and savior to men so faithless and treacherous.

For then, it seems, there came upon all alike who were in Utica the clearest perception, and longing, and wonder at Cato's virtue, seeing that nothing false or deceitful had been mixed into anything he did. And this man, who had long since resolved to take his own life, was laboring at terrible toils, taking on cares and pains on behalf of others, so that, once he had set them all in safety, he might himself depart from life.

For his bent toward death was not hidden, although he did not admit it. He yielded, then, to the three hundred at that time, having consoled the senators; and he went to them alone, and they acknowledged their gratitude and begged him to trust and make use of them in other matters, but said that if there are no more Catos, nor the spirit of Cato,

they were themselves too weak to rise to it, and he should pity their weakness; they had resolved, then, to entreat Caesar and send envoys to him, and would make their entreaty on Cato's behalf first and foremost of all; but if they could not persuade him, they would not even accept for themselves any favor granted, but would fight on his behalf as long as they had breath. To this Cato, praising their goodwill, said that they ought to send quickly for the sake of their own safety, but not to make any entreaty on his behalf,

for entreaty belonged to the conquered, and pardon-seeking to wrongdoers; as for himself, not only had he been unconquered his whole life long, but he had won, so far as he wished, and had mastered Caesar in the things that were noble and just; it was Caesar who had been caught and defeated, for the things he had long denied doing against his country were now exposed and detected.

Having said such things to the three hundred, he withdrew; and learning that Caesar was already on the march with his whole army, he said, "Ah, what men he takes us to be," and, addressing the senators, urged them not to delay, but to make their escape now, before the cavalry arrived. And he shut all the other gates but one leading to the sea, and to those under his charge he distributed the ships and looked after their order, stopping wrongdoing, quelling disturbances, and supplying those who were without means.

When Marcus Octavius, leading two legions, camped nearby and sent to ask Cato to settle with him the question of command, Cato made him no answer at all, but said to his friends, "Do we then wonder how our cause has been ruined, when we see the love of command still keeping pace with us even as we stand on the very brink of destruction?"

Meanwhile, hearing that the departing cavalry were now carrying off and driving away the property of the men of Utica as though it were plunder, he hurried to them at a run, and coming upon the foremost took the goods from them, while each of the others hastened to throw down and set aside what he had taken; and all, in shame, went off in silence with eyes lowered. Then Cato, gathering the men of Utica into the city, begged on behalf of the three hundred that they not provoke Caesar against them, but work together for the safety of all.

Then, turning again toward the sea, he watched over those embarking, and embraced and sent off every friend and guest-friend whom he managed to convince to depart. As for his own son, no amount of persuasion could get him onto a ship, and he felt it wrong to divert a young man so devoted to his father from staying. There was a certain Statyllius, a man young in years but strong in resolve, who wished to imitate

Cato's freedom from passion. Him Cato urged to sail, for he was conspicuously a hater of Caesar; but when he was unwilling, Cato, looking toward Apollonides the Stoic and Demetrius the Peripatetic, said, "It is your task to soften this swollen young man and bring him round to what is expedient." As for Cato himself, he passed that night and most of the day after it seeing off the rest and dealing with the affairs of anyone who required his help.

When Lucius Caesar, who was a relative of that Caesar and was about to go as an envoy on behalf of the three hundred, urged Cato to help him work out a persuasive speech to use on their behalf — "for on your own account it would be honorable for me to clasp his hands and fall at Caesar's knees" — Cato would not let him do this.

"For as for me," he said, "if I wished to be saved by Caesar's favor, I ought to go to him myself alone; but I do not wish to owe thanks to the tyrant for his acts of lawlessness, and it is lawlessness for him to save, as a master, those over whom he had no right to be lord. But as for how you may beg off the three hundred, let us consider that together, if you wish."

Having gone over this together with Lucius, he commended his son and Lucius's companions to him for his departure; and having escorted him and clasped his hand in farewell, he returned home, and gathering his son and his friends he spoke with them at length on many other matters, and forbade the young man to take any part in public affairs — for it was no longer possible to take up affairs in a manner worthy of a Cato, and to do otherwise would be shameful. And already toward evening he turned to the bath.

While bathing, remembering Statyllius, he called out loudly, "Apollonides, have you sent Statyllius off, stripped of that pride of his? And has the man sailed away without even bidding us farewell?" "How could that be?" said Apollonides. "We spoke with him at length, but he is high-minded and unbending, and says he will stay and do whatever you do." At this they say Cato smiled and said, "Well, that will soon become clear."

After bathing he dined sitting up, with many others present, as had been his custom since the battle — for he reclined only when sleeping. All his companions dined with him, along with the magistrates of the people of Utica, and after dinner the drinking held much charm and grace, as one philosophical topic after another circled around, until the inquiry came round to those so-called Stoic paradoxes: that only the good man is free, and that all bad men are slaves. At this point, as was to be expected,

when the Peripatetic present objected, Cato fell upon him fiercely, and raising the pitch and roughness of his voice, drove the argument to its furthest extreme, engaging in an astonishing contest, so that no one failed to perceive he had made up his mind to end his own life and quit the present state of affairs. Because of this, after the discourse, when silence and dejection had fallen on everyone, Cato, trying to raise their spirits and turn them away from their suspicion, again brought up questions and concerns about present matters, as though he were anxious on behalf of those sailing, and anxious on behalf of those traveling overland through waterless and barbarous wilderness.

Having thus broken up the dinner party, and having walked with his friends the usual after-dinner walk, and having given the officers of the watch the orders the occasion required, he went off to his chamber; and there, embracing his son and each of his friends more warmly than he had been accustomed to before, he again gave rise to suspicion of what he intended.

Going in and lying down, he took into his hands Plato's dialogue on the soul; and having gone through most of the book, he looked up above his head, and finding no sword hanging in its place — it had been removed by his son during the time Cato was dining — he called a servant and asked who had taken the dagger. When the man was silent, he turned back again to his book; and after a little pause, as though not hurrying or pressing the matter, but merely asking after his sword incidentally, he ordered it brought to him.

As time went by and no one brought it, he finished reading through the book and again called for each of the servants one by one, and raised his voice all the more, demanding the sword. He struck one of them on the mouth with his fist, bloodying his own hand, and grew angry, shouting now that he was being handed over naked to the enemy by his own son and his servants, until his son, weeping, dashed in along with the friends who were there, and threw himself upon him, wailing and pleading.

Cato stood up and looked at him fiercely, and said, "When and where have I unknowingly been convicted of madness, that no one instructs me or tries to change my mind about what they think I have decided badly, and yet I am prevented from using my own reasoning and am being disarmed? Why do you not also bind your father, noble youth, and twist his hands behind him, until Caesar comes and finds me not even able to defend myself?

For I have no need of a sword against myself, when it is possible to die simply by holding my breath a short while, or by striking my head once against the wall."

As he was saying this, the young man went out weeping, and all the rest as well; but to Demetrius and Apollonides, who alone remained behind, he now spoke more gently and said, "Have the two of you also decided to hold a man of such an age against his will in life, sitting beside him to watch him in silence, or have you come bearing some argument that it is not terrible or shameful for Cato, lacking any other means of safety, to wait for the safety that comes from the enemy?

Why then do you not speak, persuading us of this and teaching us otherwise, so that, having cast aside those former opinions and doctrines by which we have lived, and having become wiser through Caesar, we may feel all the greater gratitude toward him? And yet I myself have decided nothing at all about myself; but having deliberated, I must be master of putting into practice what I have resolved.

I will deliberate, in a way, together with you, deliberating with the very arguments that you too, as philosophers, make use of. So go, then, with confidence, and tell my son not to force upon his father what he cannot persuade him to do."

To this Demetrius and his companions made no reply, but withdrew in tears. The dagger was sent in through a small boy, and taking it he drew it and examined it. When he saw that the point held firm and the blade had kept its edge, he said, "Now my life belongs to no one but me," and laid the sword aside, and again took up the book to read; and it is said that he went through the whole of it twice.

Then he fell into a deep sleep, so that those outside became aware of it, and around midnight he summoned a pair of his own freedmen — Cleanthes, who practiced medicine, and Butas, the one he mainly used for public business. The latter he sent down to the sea, so that after looking he might report back to him whether all had in fact put out; but to the physician he gave his hand, which was swollen from the blow he had struck the servant, to be bandaged,

and this made everyone more cheerful, thinking that he had a will to live. After a little while Butas arrived, reporting that the others had put out to sea, but that Crassus was left behind because of some business, though he too was on the very point of embarking, and that a great storm and strong wind held the sea in its grip. Hearing this, Cato groaned in pity for those sailing, and again sent Butas down to the sea, in case anyone had turned back and had need of any necessities, to report to him.

By now the birds were singing, and he sank once more for a little into sleep. When Butas returned and reported that there was great quiet around the harbors, Cato ordered him to shut the door, and let himself down onto his couch as though to rest for what remained of the night.

Once Butas was out of the room, Cato took up his sword and drove it in under his chest; yet his swollen hand could not deliver a clean blow, so death did not come instantly — instead, thrashing in agony, he tumbled off the bed and, in doing so, knocked over a small geometry tablet that had been lying next to it, and the noise made the servants outside call out, bringing his son and friends rushing in at once.

Seeing him drenched in blood and much of his entrails fallen out, but still alive and conscious, everyone was struck with horror; the physician came forward and, since the entrails remained uninjured, tried to put them back in place and stitch up the wound. But when Cato recovered and became aware of what was happening, he pushed the physician away, and tearing at his entrails with his hands and ripping open the wound further, he died.

In the time in which one would not have thought that everyone in the house could have become aware of what had happened, the three hundred were already at his doors, and not long after the citizens of Utica had also assembled, hailing him with a single voice as their benefactor and savior and the only free man and the only unconquered man,

and they did this though it was being reported that Caesar was approaching; but neither fear nor flattery of the man in power, nor their discord and factional strife among themselves, made them any less earnest in honoring Cato. Having adorned his body splendidly and provided a magnificent procession, and having buried him by the sea, where now a statue of him stands bearing a sword, they then turned to saving themselves and the city.

Caesar, learning from those who arrived that Cato was remaining at Utica and not fleeing, but was sending the others ahead while he himself, together with his companions and his son, went about fearlessly, considered the man's intention hard to guess, but since he held Cato in the highest regard among his concerns, he pressed on toward him with his forces in haste.

When he heard of his death, he is said to have said only this much: "Cato, I begrudge you your death, for you begrudged me the saving of your life." For in truth, if Cato had consented to be saved by Caesar, he would not seem to have so much disgraced his own reputation as to have adorned Caesar's; but what would have happened remains unclear, and the more generous outcome is only conjectured on Caesar's part.

Cato died at the age of forty-eight. His son suffered no wrong at Caesar's hands, but he is said to have become careless and not above reproach where women were concerned. In Cappadocia, he kept company with a certain host-friend of his, Marphadates, a member of the royal house whose young wife was quite lovely, and he spent more time around the couple than was fitting,

he was mocked in verses written against him: "Tomorrow Cato marches, thirty days from now"; and, "Porcius and Marphadates, two friends, one soul" — for Marphadates's wife was named Psyche — and further, "noble and splendid Cato has a royal soul."

But he wiped out and erased all such disgrace by his death. For fighting at Philippi against Caesar and Antony on behalf of freedom, and when the line was giving way, refusing either to flee or to hide himself, but calling the enemy on, showing himself in front and urging on those who stood their ground, he fell, providing his enemies a marvel of courage.

Still more did Cato's daughter fall short neither in self-control nor in courage — for she was married to Brutus, the killer of Caesar, and she herself was privy to the plot against Caesar, ending her own life in a way that matched the nobility of her lineage and character, a story told in the account of Brutus's life. As for Statyllius, though he declared a wish to follow Cato's example, the philosophers stopped him at that time from ending his own life, but later, having shown himself most faithful and useful to Brutus, he died at Philippi.

← All of Plutarch: Parallel Lives