Marcus Porcius Cato Uticensis

“ Pliny quotes Cato as advising to buy what others have built rather than build oneself, and thus, as he says, enjoy the fruits of another's folly. The cacoethes aedificandi is a familiar disease among country gentlemen.]
[Footnote 19: Columella (I,4) makes the acute observation that the country house should also be agreeable to the owner's wife if he wishes to get the full measure of enjoyment out of it. Mago, the Carthaginian, advised to, "if you buy a farm, sell your house in town, lest you be tempted to prefer the cultivation of the urban gods to those of the country."] ”

“ Priscus was the Porcian cognomen, probably denoting the descent of the gens from the Prisci; and he whom we are accustomed to call Cato the elder, as a translation of Marcus Porcius Priscus Cato, was the first to add the second cognomen, the meaning of which is wary, 164from Catus, probably a contraction from Cautus (cautious) . Priscus and Prisca are both found in the Roman martyrology; but to us the most interesting person thus named is Priscilla, the fellow-worker of St. Paul, in honour of whom this diminutive has had some prevalence in England, though somewhat of a puritan kind. ”

“ No. 127 is from the bust in basalt belonging to the Rospigliosi Palace. No. 125 is from the bronze found in the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum, and now in the Naples Museum.]
110. Cato—Marcus Porcius. Roman Patriot and General.
[Born B.C. 95. Died at Utica, in Africa, B.C. 46. Aged 49.]
One of the classical undying forms reared in antiquity to symbolize high moral purity, unquenchable love of liberty, and the sternest virtue. Cato answers to the idea of Roman patriotism, as Julius Cæsar to that of Roman conquest. Before this one we stand, wondering at human power ”

“ This Atticus was Cicero's intimate friend to whom he addressed so many of his charming letters. He changed his name as stated in the text, the new name being that of an uncle who adopted him, as we learn from his life by Nepos. As is well known to all students of Cicero, Atticus had dwelt in Athens many years and derived his income from estates in Epirus, which is the point of Scrofa's jest. ”

“ Augustine says (VI, 2) : "Although his elocution has less charm, he is so full of learning and philosophy that ... he instructs the student of facts as much as Cicero delights the student of style."
Varro's treatise on farm management is the best practical book on the subject which has come down to us from antiquity. It has not the spontaneous originality of Cato, nor the detail and suave elegance of Columella. Walter Harte in his Essays on Husbandry (1764) says that Cato writes like an English squire and Varro like a French academician. ”

“ The manner of speaking which was then in vogue, may easily be collected from the writings of Naevius: for Naevius died, as we learn from the memoirs of the times, when the persons above-mentioned were consuls; though Varro, a most accurate investigator of historical truth, thinks there is a mistake in this, and fixes the death of Naevius something later. For Plautus died in the consulship of P. Claudius and L. Porcius, twenty years after the consulship of the persons we have been speaking of, and when Cato was Censor. ”

“ Cat. 52. ↑ As Gratia, Fronto's daughter, married Victorinus about the year 160, she is not likely to have been more than two or three years old, at the most, in 143. ↑ i.e. Sallust; M. Porcius is Cato. ↑ This repeated use of atque was a habit of Cato's. ↑ Pius's villa, twelve miles from Rome, on the Via Aurelia, where he died. ↑ Fronto had evidently accused himself of impudentia for sending Marcus something of his (? his speech) to be criticised. ↑ This is the only considerable fragment of Fronto's speeches which we have. Nothing more is known of the case with which it deals. ”

“ XXXV That day of the senate’s meeting, on which these transactions passed, displayed in the brightest colours the merit of Marcus Cato, which on many prior occasions had shone conspicuous, and with peculiar lustre. He was great-grandson of Marcus Cato, the founder of the Porcian family, and was a man who closely resembled virtue itself, and, in every particular of his conduct, seemed more like the gods than mankind; who never acted rightly, that he might appear to do so, but because he could not act otherwise; who never thought anything reasonable, that was not likewise just ”

“ But you know the kind of man he is: frightfully difficult to get on with, even for two such easy-going people.
Now for your questions about C. Cato. You know he was acquitted under the Junian and Licinian law. The Fufian law will acquit him too, I assure you, and that as much to the relief of his accusers as of his supporters. However, he has made his peace with Milo and myself. Drusus is being prosecuted by Lucretius. The day for challenging the jury is fixed for the 3rd of July. About Procilius there are sinister rumours: but you know what juries are. Hirrus is on good terms with Domitius. ”

“ But Cato, at first a new and unknown man, whom all we who aspire to the same honors consider as a pattern to lead us on to industry and virtue, was undoubtedly at liberty to enjoy his repose at Tusculum, a most salubrious and convenient retreat. But he, mad as some people think him, though no necessity compelled him, preferred being tossed about amidst the tempestuous waves of politics, even till extreme old age, to living with all imaginable luxury in that tranquillity and relaxation. I omit innumerable men who have separately devoted themselves to the protection of our Commonwealth ”

“ He therefore called upon his neighbors, the Celtiberians, for help; and on their demanding two hundred talents for their assistance, everybody else thought it intolerable, that ever the Romans should promise barbarians a reward for their aid; but Cato said, there was no discredit or harm in it; for if they overcame, they would pay them out of the enemy's purse, and not out of their own; but if they were overcome, there would be nobody left either to demand the reward or to pay it. However, he won that battle completely, and after that, all his other affairs succeeded splendidly. ”

“ The poor at Rome were thus left almost without resources; their votes in the popular assembly were nearly the only thing they could turn into money, and it is therefore not surprising that they were ready to sell them to the highest bidder.
Many distinguished men saw with deep regret the old Roman virtues disappearing, and strove vigorously against these corruptions of the national character. Of this party the most conspicuous member was M. Porcius Cato, who may be taken as a type of the old Roman character. ”

“ Numidia's spacious kingdom lies behind us, Ready to rise at its young prince's call. While there is hope, do not distrust the gods; But wait, at least, till Cæsar's near approach Force us to yield. 'Twill never be too late To sue for chains, and own a conqueror. Why should Rome fall a moment ere her time? No, let us draw her term of freedom out In its full length, and spin it to the last, So shall we gain still one day's liberty; And let me perish, but in Cato's judgment, A day, an hour, of virtuous liberty, Is worth a whole eternity in bondage. Enter Marcus. ”

“ I govern the Athenians, but you govern me, and your son governs you; so let him use his power sparingly, since, simple as he is, he can do more than all the Greeks together." Another saying of Cato's was, that the Roman people did not only fix the value of such and such purple dyes, but also of such and such habits of life: "For," said he, "as dyers most of all dye such colors as they see to be most agreeable, so the young men learn, and zealously affect what is most popular with you." ”

“ And yet the author of this tragedy does not only run counter to this, in the fate of his principal character; but every where, throughout it, makes virtue suffer, and vice triumph: for not only Cato is vanquished by Caesar, but the treachery and perfidiousness of Syphax prevail over the honest simplicity and the credulity of Juba; and the sly subtlety and dissimulation of Portius over the generous frankness and open-heartedness of Marcus. ”

“ Pointing at one who had sold the land which his father had left him, and which lay near the sea-side, he pretended to express his wonder at his being stronger even than the sea itself; for what it washed away with a great deal of labor, he with a great deal of ease drank away. When the senate, with a great deal of splendor, received king Eumenes on his visit to Rome, and the chief citizens strove who should be most about him, Cato appeared to regard him with suspicion and apprehension ”

“ Beyond all the other witnesses, Marcus Cato was remarkable, whose authority, acquired by the uniform tenor of his life, the fact of his being a candidate diminished. He, when a witness, affirmed, that he had not observed, in the triumph, the gold and silver vessels which, on the taking of the camp, he had seen among the other spoils of the king. At last Glabrio declared, that he declined the election, chiefly to throw odium on Cato; since he, a candidate of an origin as humble as his own, by an abominable perjury, attacked that which men of noble birth bore with silent indignation. ”

“ For the case of Marcus Cato, a most wise and active man, occurs to me; who, as he thought that it was better to be recommended to the Roman people by virtue than by high birth, and as he wished that the foundation of his race and name should be laid and extended by himself, voluntarily encountered the enmity of most influential men, and lived in the discharge of the greatest labors to an extreme old age with great credit. ”

“ For now the state, unable to keep its purity by reason of its greatness, and having so many affairs, and people from all parts under its government, was fain to admit many mixed customs, and new examples of living. With reason, therefore, everybody admired Cato, when they saw others sink under labors, and grow effeminate by pleasures; and yet beheld him unconquered by either, and that not only when he was young and desirous of honor, but also when old and greyheaded, after a consulship and triumph ”

“ Nor would he ever go into the bath with him; which seems indeed to have been the common custom of the Romans. Sons-in-law used to avoid bathing with fathers-in-law, disliking to see one another naked: but having, in time, learned of the Greeks to strip before men, they have since taught the Greeks to do it even with the women themselves.
Thus, like an excellent work, Cato formed and fashioned his son to virtue ”

“ He even carries his niggardliness so far as to recommend that, when a slave has a new garment given him, the old shall be taken from him, to be used for patches. But Cicero is right in representing Cato as wise on the subject of manure, on which, if I am not mistaken, he was in advance, not only of his own time, but even of ours. ”

“ The constitutional struggle was at an end; and that it was so, was proclaimed by Marcus Cato when he fell on his sword at Utica. For many years he had been the foremost man in the struggle of the legitimate republic against its oppressors; he had continued it, long after he had ceased to cherish any hope of victory. But now the struggle itself had become impossible; the republic which Marcus Brutus had founded was dead and never to be revived; what were the republicans now to do on the earth? The treasure was carried off, the sentinels were thereby relieved; ”

“ We have so completely lost the constitution that Cato, [11] a young man of no sense, but yet a Roman citizen and a Cato, scarcely got off with his life because, having determined to prosecute Gabinius for bribery, when the praetors could not be approached for several days, and refused to admit anyone to their presence, he mounted the rostra in public meeting and called Pompey an "unofficial dictator." No one ever had a narrower escape of being killed. ”

“ Cato, perceiving the danger, commanded all the rest to halt, and stay where they were, whilst he himself, taking along with him one Lucius Manlius, a most expert man at climbing mountains, went forward with a great deal of labor and danger, in the dark night, and without the least moonshine, among the wild olive trees, and steep craggy rocks, there being nothing but precipices and darkness before their eyes, till they struck into a little pass which they thought might lead down into the enemy's camp. ”

“ For they say that no law for his imperium was ever carried: [666] and this one too was carried, by heaven, in a stupid way. But Pomptinus will have the consul Appius on his side. [667] Cato, however, declares that he shall never triumph so long as he is alive. I think this affair, like many of the same sort, will come to nothing. Appius thinks of going to Cilicia without a law, and at his own expense. [668] I received a letter on the 24th of October from my brother and from Cæsar, dated from the nearest coasts of Britain on the 26th of September. Britain done with ... ”

“ Whilst the marriage was in hand, Cato's son, taking some of his friends along with him, went and asked his father if it were for any offense he brought in a stepmother upon him? But Cato cried out, "Far from it, my son, I have no fault to find with you nor anything of yours; only I desire to have many children, and to leave the commonwealth more such citizens as you are." Pisistratus, the tyrant of Athens, made, they say, this answer to his sons, when they were grown men, when he married his second wife, Timonassa of Argos, by whom he had, it is said, Iophon and Thessalus. ”