Marcus Porcius Catō Uticensis (95 BC–46 BC), known as
Cato the Younger (Cato Minor) to distinguish him from his great-grandfather (Cato
the Elder), was a politician and statesman in the late Roman Republic, and a
follower of the Stoic philosophy. He is remembered for his legendary stubbornness and tenacity
(especially in his lengthy conflict with Gaius Julius Caesar), as well as his immunity to
bribes, his moral integrity, and famous distaste for the ubiquitous corruption of the period.
Life
Early life
Cato was born in 95 BC in Rome, the son of Marcus Porcius Cato by
his wife Livia Drusa. He lost both of his parents very early and moved to live in the house of his maternal uncle
Marcus Livius Drusus, who also looked after Quintus Servilius Caepio and
Servilia from Livia's first marriage, as well as Porcia (Cato's sister), and Marcus
Livius Drusus Claudianus (Livius' adopted son). Drusus was assassinated
when Cato was 4 years old.
The legend of Cato's stubbornness began in his early years. Sarpedon, his tutor, reports a very obedient and questioning
child, although slow in being persuaded of things and sometimes difficult. A story told by Plutarch tells of Quintus Poppaedius Silo, leader of the
Marsi and involved in a highly controversial business in the Roman
Forum, who made a visit to his friend Marcus Livius and met the children of the house. In a playful mood he asked the
children's support for his cause. All of them nodded and smiled except Cato, who stared at the guest with most suspicious looks.
Silo demanded an answer from him and seeing no response took Cato and hanged him by the feet out of the window. Even then, Cato
would not say anything. Lucius Cornelius Sulla, a friend of the family and the
Roman dictator, liked to talk with Cato and his inseparable half-brother Caepio, and
appreciated his company even when the teenager defied his opinions in public.
Political beginnings
After receiving his inheritance, Cato moved from his uncle's house and began to study Stoic philosophy and politics. He began
to live in a very modest way, as his great-grandfather Marcus Porcius Cato the Elder had
famously done. Cato subjected himself to violent exercise, and learned to endure cold and rain with a minimum of clothes. He ate
only what was necessary and drank the cheapest wine on the market. This was entirely for
philosophical reasons, since his inheritance would have permitted him to live comfortably. He remained in private life for a long
time, rarely seen in public. But when he did appear in the forum, his speeches and rhetorical skills were most admired.
Cato was first engaged to Aemilia Lepida, a patrician woman, but she was married
instead to Quintus Caecilius Metellus Scipio, to whom she had been betrothed.
Incensed, Cato threatened to sue for her hand, but his friends mollified him, and Cato was contented to compose Archilochian
iambics against Scipio in consolation. Later, Cato was married to a woman called Atilia. By her,
he had a son, Marcus Porcius Cato, and a daughter, Porcia, who would become the second wife of Marcus Junius Brutus.
Cato later divorced Atilia for unseemly behavior.
In 72, Cato volunteered to fight in the war with Spartacus, presumably to support his
brother Caepio, who was serving as a military tribune in the consular army of Lucius Gellius Poplicola. Gellius is often
remembered as an indifferent commander, but his army inflicted the greatest of any defeats on Spartacus before Crassus raised his
six legions and ultimately defeated Spartacus.
As a military tribune, Cato was sent to Macedon in 67 BC at
the age of 28 and given command of a legion. He led his men from the front, sharing their
work, food and sleeping quarters. He was strict in discipline and punishment but was nonetheless loved by his legionaries. While Cato was in service in Macedon, he received the news that
his beloved half-brother was dying in Thrace. He immediately set off to see him but was unable to
see his brother before he died. Cato was overwhelmed by grief and, for once in his life, he spared no expense to organize a
lavish funeral for his brother. Caepio left his fortune to be divided between his daughter Servilia and Cato.
At the end of his military commission in Macedon, Cato went on a private journey through the Roman provinces of the Middle East.
Cato and the Optimates
On his return to Rome in 65 BC, Cato was elected to the position of quaestor. Like everything else in his life, Cato took unusual care to study the background necessary for the
post, especially the laws relating to taxes. One of his first moves was to prosecute former quaestors for illegal appropriation
of funds and dishonesty. Cato also prosecuted Sulla's informers, who had acted as head-hunters during Sulla's dictatorship,
despite their political connections among Cato's own party and despite the power of Gnaeus Pompey
Magnus, who had been known as the "teenage butcher" for his service under Sulla. The informers of Sulla were accused first
of illegal appropriation of treasury money, and then of homicide. At the end of the year, Cato stepped down from his quaestorship
amid popular acclaim, and he never ceased to keep an eye on the treasury, always looking for irregularities.
As senator, Cato was scrupulous and determined. He never missed a session of the Senate and publicly criticized the ones who
did so. From the beginning, he aligned himself with the Optimates, the conservative
faction of the Senate. Among the optimates, Cato was a young turk. Many of the
optimates at this time had been personal friends of Sulla, whom Cato had despised since his youth, yet Cato attempted to make his
name by returning his faction to its pure republican roots.
Propaganda cup of Cato, for his election campaign for Tribune of the Plebs of
62 BC (left cup).
These cups, filled with food or drinks, were distributed in the streets to the people, and bore an inscription supporting the
candidate to the election.
In 63 BC, he was elected tribune of the plebs for the
following year, and assisted the consul, Marcus Tullius Cicero,
in dealing with the Catiline conspiracy. Lucius Sergius
Catilina, a noble patrician, was leading a rebellion inside Rome, with the purpose of
becoming king. Cicero and Cato annihilated the danger and prosecuted all the men involved, proposing to sentence them to death (a
very unusual thing for a Roman citizen). In the senate discussion on the subject, Julius
Caesar agreed that the conspirators were guilty, argued against a public trial for them, yet advocated a sentence of life
exile for the conspirators while their comrades were still in arms. In contrast, Cato argued that a capital punishment would have
the effect of making examples of the traitors and would thereby safeguard the laws by preserving the state itself. The senate was
convinced by Cato's argument, and after the traitors had been executed, the greater portion of Catiline's army quit the field,
much as Cato had predicted.
Cato's political and personal differences with Caesar date from this day. In a meeting of the Senate dedicated to the Catilina
affair, Cato harshly reproached Caesar for reading personal messages while the senate was in session to discuss a matter of
treason. Cato accused Caesar of involvement in the conspiracy and suggested that he was working on Catilina's behalf, which might
explain Caesar's otherwise odd stance that the conspirators should receive no public hearing yet be shown clemency. Caesar
replied that it was only a love letter. Not believing the poor excuse, Cato took the paper from his hands and read it.
Unfortunately, Caesar was right: it was indeed a love letter from his mistress Servilia
Caepionis, Cato's half-sister. This quickly turned into a minor personal scandal. Servilia was divorced from her husband
and the Roman senators started to look out for their households, since Caesar was as notorious for liking to sleep with his
political enemies' wives as he was notorious for purportedly sleeping with the king of Bithynia. Some believe that Cato's wife Atilia was one of Caesar's 'conquests', but the matter is speculative
at best.
After divorcing Atilia, Cato married Marcia, daughter of
Lucius Marcius Philippus, who bore him two or three children. While married to
Marcia, the renowned orator Q Hortenius Hortalus, who was an admirer and friend of
Cato, desired a connection to Cato's family and asked for the hand of Porcia, Cato's eldest
daughter. Cato refused because the potential match made little sense: Porcia was already married to Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus, who was unwilling to let her go, and being nearly 60 years old,
Hortensius was almost 30 years senior to Porcia. Having recently lost his own wife, Hortensius immediately suggested that he take
Marcia, on the grounds that she had already given Cato heirs. On the condition that Marcia's father consented to the match, Cato
agreed to divorce Marcia, who then married Hortensius. Between Hortensius' death in 50 and his leaving Italy with Pompey in 49,
Cato took Marcia and her children into his household again. Ancient sources differ on whether they were remarried.
Cato against the triumvirate
After the Catilina conspiracy, Cato turned all his political skills to oppose the designs of Caesar and his triumvirate allies (Pompey and Marcus Licinius Crassus), who had among them a near-monopoly on the reins of the Roman state.
From Caesar, Pompey and Crassus had access to the popular assembly. From Pompey, Crassus and Caesar had access to the legions of
Rome. From Crassus, Caesar and Pompey had the support of the tax-farmers and a fortune gained at the expense of the
provinces.
Cato's opposition took two forms. First, in 61 BC, Pompey returned from his Asian campaign with
two ambitions: to celebrate a Triumph, and become consul
for the second time. In order to achieve both goals, he asked the Senate to postpone consular elections until after his Triumph.
At first, due to Pompey's enormous popularity, the Senate was willing to oblige him. Then Cato intervened and convinced the
Senate to force Pompey to choose. The result was Pompey's third Triumph, one of the most magnificent ever seen in Rome.
When faced with the same request from Caesar, Cato used the device of filibuster, speaking continuously until nightfall, to
prevent the Senate from voting on the issue of whether Caesar would be allowed to stand for consul in absentia. Thus Caesar was forced to choose between a Triumph or a run for the consulship. Caesar
chose to forgo the Triumph and entered Rome in time to register as a candidate in the election (which he won). Caesar's consular
colleague was Marcus Bibulus, the husband of Cato's daughter Porcia.
When Caesar became consul, Cato opposed the agrarian laws that established farmlands for Pompey's veterans on public lands in
Campania, from which the republic derived a quarter of its income. Caesar responded by having Cato dragged out by lictors while
Cato was making a speech against him at the rostra. Many senators protested this
extraordinary and unprecedented use of force by leaving the forum, one senator proclaiming he'd rather be in jail with Cato than
in the Senate with Caesar. Caesar was forced to relent but countered by taking the vote directly to the people, bypassing the
Senate. Bibulus and Cato attempted to oppose Caesar in the public votes but were harassed and publicly assaulted by Caesar's
retainers. Eventually, Bibulus confined himself to his home and pronounced unfavorable omens in an attempt to lay the legal
groundwork for the later repeal of Caesar’s consular acts.
Cato did not relent in his opposition to the triumvirs, unsuccessfully attempting to prevent Caesar's 5-year appointment as
governor of Illyria and Cisalpine Gaul or the
appointment of Crassus to an Eastern command.
Cato in Cyprus
Clodius (who worked closely with the triumvirate) desired to exile Cicero, and felt that Cato's presence would complicate his efforts. He, with the support of the triumvirs,
proposed to send Cato to annex Cyprus. Plutarch recounts that Cato saw the commission as an attempt to be rid of him, and
initially refused the assignment. When Clodius passed legislation conferring the commission on Cato "though ever so unwillingly,"
Cato accepted the position in compliance with that law. His official office while in Cyprus was Quaestor pro Praetore (an
extraordinary Quaestorship with Praetorian powers)
Cato appeared to have two major goals in Cyprus. The first was to enact his foreign policy ideals, which--as expressed in a
letter to Cicero--called for a policy of "mildness" and "uprightness" for governors of Roman-controlled territories. The second
was to implement his reforms of the quaestorship on a larger scale. This second goal also provided Cato with an opportunity to
burnish his Stoic credentials: the province was rich both in gold and opportunities for extortion. Thus, against common practice,
Cato took none, and he prepared immaculate accounts for the senate, much as he had done earlier in his career as quaestor.
According to Plutarch, Cato ultimately raised the enormous sum of 7,000 talents of
silver for the Roman treasury. He thought about every unexpected event, even to tying ropes to the coffers with a big piece of
cork on the other end, so they could be located in the event of a shipwreck. Unfortunately, luck played him a trick. Of his
perfect accounting books, none survived: the one he had was burnt, the other was lost at sea with the freedman carrying it. Only
Cato's untainted reputation saved him from charges of extortion.
The Senate of Rome recognized the effort made in Cyprus and offered him a reception in the city, an extraordinary praetorship,
and other privileges, all of which he stubbornly refused as unlawful honours.
Cato in the Civil War
The triumvirate of Caesar, Pompey and Crassus was broken in 54 BC at the same time as Cato's election as praetor. Judging their enemy in
trouble, Cato and the optimates faction of the Senate spent the coming years trying to force a break between Pompey and
Caesar. It was a time of political turmoil, when demagogues like Publius Clodius tried to make their political careers by wooing crowds with bribery and
resorting to violence, going so far as abandoning his patrician status to be converted to a pleb. As a leading spokesman for the
republican cause, Cato fought them all.
In 51 BC, Cato ran for the office of consul, unsuccessfully. In a time of rampant bribery and
electoral fraud, he ran a scrupulously honest campaign, and, unsurprisingly, lost to his less conscientious opponents. Cato
accepted the loss with unusual equanimity, but refused to run a second time.
In 49 BC, Cato called for the Senate to formally relieve Caesar of his expired proconsular
command and to order Caesar's return to Rome as a civilian and thus without proconsular legal immunity. In all previous attempts,
Pompey had blocked such attempts, but Pompey was now concerned with Caesar's widespread bribery and support for political
violence. With the tacit support of Pompey, Cato successfully passed a resolution ending Caesar's proconsular command. Caesar
made numerous attempts to negotiate, at one point even conceding to give up all but one of his provinces and legions. This
concession satisfied Pompey, but Cato, along with the consul, Lentulus, refused to back down. Faced with the alternatives of
returning to Rome for the inevitable trial and retiring into voluntary exile, Caesar crossed into Italy with only one legion,
implicitly declaring war on the Senate.[1]
Caesar crossed the Rubicon accompanied by the thirteenth legion to take power from the Senate in the same way that Sulla had done in the past. Formally declared an enemy of the State, Caesar pursued the
senatorial party, now led by Pompey, who abandoned the city to raise arms in Greece, with Cato among his companions. After first
reducing Caesar's army at the battle of Dyrrhachium (where Cato commanded
the port), the army led by Pompey was ultimately defeated by Caesar in the battle of
Pharsalus (48 BC). Cato and Metellus Scipio,
however, did not concede defeat and escaped to the province of Africa to continue resistance from Utica. Due to his presence in this city and command of the port there, Cato is sometimes referred to as
Cato Uticensis (from Utica). Caesar pursued Cato and Metellus Scipio after installing the queen Cleopatra VII on the throne of Egypt, and in February 46 BC the outnumbered
Caesarian legions defeated the army led by Metellus Scipio at the Battle of Thapsus.
Acting against his usual strategy of clemency, Caesar had Scipio and all his troops slaughtered upon their surrender.
In Utica, Cato did not participate in the battle and, unwilling to live in a world led by Caesar and refusing even implicitly
to grant Caesar the power to pardon him, he committed suicide. According to Plutarch, Cato attempted to kill himself by stabbing
himself with his own sword, but failed to do so due to an injured hand. One of Cato's slaves found him on the ground and called
for a physician to stitch up and bandage Cato's wounds. Cato waited until they left him and then tore off the bandages and the
stitches with his fingers and pulled out his own intestines, thereby ending his life.
After Cato
Romans
Cato is remembered as a Stoic philosopher and one of the most active paladins of the Republic. His high moral standards and incorruptible virtue gained him praise even from his political
enemies, such as Sallust (one of our sources for the anecdote about Caesar and Cato's sister).
Sallust also wrote a comparison between Cato and Caesar (Cato's long-time rival - Caesar was
praised for his mercy, compassion, and generosity, while Cato for his discipline, rigidity, and moral integrity). After Cato's
death, both pro- and anti-Cato treatises appeared; amongst them Cicero wrote a panegyric,
entitled Cato, to which Caesar (who never forgave him for all the obstructions) answered with his Anti-Cato. Cicero's pamphlet has not survived, but some of its contents may be inferred from
Plutarch's Life of Cato, which also repeats many of the stories that Caesar put forward in his Anti-Cato. Plutarch
specifically mentions the accounts of Cato's close friend Munatius Rufus and that of the later Neronian senator Thraesea Paetus
as references used for parts of his biography of Cato.
Republicans under the Empire remembered him fondly, and the poet Virgil, writing under Augustus, made Cato a hero in his
Aeneid. It was safe to praise an enemy of Caesar, and heaping posthumous praise on Cato highlights one's opposition to the new
shape of Rome without directly challenging Augustus.
Lucan, writing under Nero, also made Cato the
hero of the fragmentary later books of his epic, the Pharsalia. From the latter work
originates the epigram, "Victrix causa diis placuit sed victa Catoni" ("The conquering cause pleased the gods, but the
conquered cause pleased Cato").[2] Other Imperial authors
such as Horace, the Tiberian authors Velleius Paterculus and Valerius Maximus along with Lucan and Seneca in the 1st century AD
and later authors such as Appian and Dio celebrated the historical importance of Cato the Younger in their own writings.
A statue of Cato the Younger. The
Louvre Museum. He is about to kill himself while reading the
Phaedo, a dialogue of
Plato which details the death of
Socrates. The statue was begun by Jean-Baptiste Roman (
Paris, 1792 - 1835) using
white
Carrara marble. It was finished by François Rude (
Dijon,
1784 - Paris, 1855).
Renaissance
In Dante's The Divine Comedy, Cato
is portrayed as the guardian of the seaward approach to the island of purgatory. In Canto I,
Dante writes of Cato:
-
- I saw close by me a solitary old man, worthy, by
- his appearance, of so much reverence that never
- son owed father more.
- Long was his beard and mixed with white hair,
- similar to the hairs of his head, which fell to his
- breast in two strands.
- The rays of the four holy lights so adorned his
- face with brightness that I saw him as if the sun
- had been before him.
Enlightenment
Cato was also lionized during the republican revolutions of the Enlightenment. Joseph
Addison's play, Cato, a Tragedy (first staged on April 14, 1713) celebrated Cato
as a martyr to the republican cause. The play was a popular and critical success: it was staged more than 20 times in London
alone, and it was published across 26 editions before the end of the century. George
Washington often quoted Addison's Cato and had it performed during the winter at Valley Forge, in spite of a Congressional
ban on such performances. The death of Cato (La mort de Caton d'Utique) was also a popular theme in revolutionary France,
being sculpted by Philippe-Laurent Roland (1782) and painted by Bouchet Louis André Gabriel, Bouillon Pierre, and Guérin Pierre
Narcisse in 1797. The sculpture of Cato by Jean-Baptiste Roman and François Rude (1832) stands in the Musee du Louvre.
Chronology
- 95 BC – Birth in Rome
- 67 BC – Military tribune in Macedon
- 65 BC – Quaestor in Rome (some scholars date this to 64 BC)
- 63 BC – Catilina's conspiracy
- 63 BC – Tribune of the Plebs
- 60 BC – Forces Caesar to choose between consulship and triumph
- 59 BC – Opposes Caesar's laws
- 58 BC – Governorship of Cyprus (leaves at the end of 58/returns March 56)
- 55 BC – unsuccessful 1st run for praetorship
- 54 BC – Praetor
- 51 BC – Runs (unsuccessfully) for Consul
- 49 BC – Caesar crosses the Rubicon and invades Italy; Cato goes with Pompey to Greece
- 48 BC – Battle of Pharsalus, Pompey defeated; Cato goes to Africa
- 46 BC – Defeated in the Battle of Thapsus; Cato kills himself in Utica (April)
Fictional portrayals and more
Novels: Cato is a major character in several novels of Colleen McCulllough's
Masters of Rome series. He is portrayed as a complex, sympathetic, and ultimately
tragic figure. Cato also appears in Thornton Wilder's highly-fictionalized "fantasia"
Ides of March, where Cato is described by Caesar as one of "four men whom I most
respect in Rome" but who "regard me with mortal enmity".
Television: In the television series Rome, Cato, played by actor Karl Johnson, is a
significant character, although he is shown as quite older than his actual age (mid-forties) at the time. In the 2002 miniseries
Julius Caesar, Cato is played by Christopher Walken.
Society: The Cato Institute, the leading libertarian American think-tank, derives its
name indirectly through Cato's Letters, from Cato the Younger.
Notes
- ^ Plutarch, Pompey[1], 59.4
- ^ This phrase is also inscribed at the base of the memorial to the
Confederate soldiers outside Arlington cemetery.
References
Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
- Badian, E. 'M. Porcius Cato and the Annexation and Early Administration of Cyprus' JRS 55 (1965): 110-121.
- Bellemore, J., 'Cato the Younger in the East in 66 BC', Historia 44.3 (1995): 376-9
- Earl, D.C. "The Political Thought of Sallust". Cambridge, 1961.
- Fantham, E., 'Three Wise Men and the End of the Roman Republic', "Caesar Against Liberty?", Arca (43), 2003: 96-117.
- Fehrle, R. "Cato Uticensis" Darmstadt, 1983.
- Goar, R. "The Legend of Cato Uticensis from the First Century BC to the Fifth Century AD". Bruxelles, 1987.
- Gordon, H. L. "The Eternal Triangle, First Century B.C.".The Classical Journal, Vol. 28, No. 8. (May, 1933), pp. 574-578
- Hughes-Hallett, Lucy. Heroes: A History of Hero Worship. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, New York, 2004. ISBN
1-4000-4399-9.
- Marin, P. 'Cato the Younger: Myth and Reality', Ph.D (unpublished), UCD, 2005
- Marin, P. 'Blood in the Forum: The Struggle for the Roman Republic'. London: Hambledon Continuum, 2008 (forthcoming)
- Peter Nadig, Der jüngere Cato und ambitus, in: Peter Nadig, Ardet Ambitus. Untersuchungen zum Phänomen der Wahlbestechungen
in der römischen Republik, Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1997 (Prismata VI), S. 85-94, ISBN 3-631-31295-4
- Syme, R., 'A Roman Post-Mortem', "Roman Papers I". Oxford, 1979
- Taylor, Lily Ross. "Party Politics in the Age of Caesar". University of California Press, Berkeley, California, 1971, ISBN
0-520-01257-7.
- Plutarch. Cato the Younger.
Cato's descendants and marriages
Family tree
- (1)=1st husband/wife
- (2)=2nd husband/wife
- x=assassin of Caesar
