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STOICISM OF CATO.
induced Iiim to write his work against Cato (Anti-Cato), in
which he may have given the reins to his passion, which would
never have arisen in his soul if Cato had remained alive. There
was, in fact, nothing that Caesar was more desirous of than
Cato’s friendship, a desire which Cato could not gratify. The
Stoic philosophy never produced any heroes among the Greeks.
If we except Zeno, the founder of the school, and Clcanthes,
not one Greek statesman was a stoic philosopher. Among the
Romans, on the other hand, many a great and virtuous states-
man was a votary of the Stoa; and although some of them,
such as Cicero, were not real Stoics, yet they admired the
system and loved it. It would be a most unpardonable misap-
prehension of human virtue, if any one were to cast a doubt
upon the sincerity of Cato’s intentions ; and this sincerity is not
impeached by the assertion which has often been made, and I
think with great justice, that Cato with his philosophy did
incalculable injury to the commonwealth. He would have
retained the old forms absolutely, and have allowed nothing
which bordered upon arbitrary power. There is no doubt that
in this manner he estranged the équités from the senate, after
Cicero had succeeded with great difficulty in reconciling the
two parties. Cato thus tore open the old wound by opposing
a demand of the publicani in Asia, which was not unjust,
merely because he considered it advantageous to them. This
produced a breach which was never healed. Cato’s advice to
put the accomplices of the Catilinarian conspiracy to death was
not mere severity, but a pure expression of his sense of justice,
and perfectly in accordance with the laws of Rome; but it was
nevertheless very unfortunate advice. Such was his conduct
always, and it was a principle with him not to pay any regard
to circumstances; the consequence of which was that, when his
opinion was followed, many things turned out far worse than
they had been before. His personal character was above all
censure and suspicion ; dissolute persons, such as A. Gabinius,
might laugh at him, but no one ever ventured to calumniate
him.
It was highly unfortunate for him even while Pompey was
alive, that he was mixed up with the Pompeian party ; and,
now that Pompey was dead, his situation was downright miser-
able. The men of that party acted in Africa like savages, and
Cato saved Utica from their hands with great difficulty; for
SUICIDE OF CATO.
71
the leaders wished to plunder the town, because its inhabitants
were said to be favourably disposed towards Caesar, but in
reality because they hoped thereby to secure the attachment of
the soldieιs. The inhabitants of Utica thus looked up to him
as their deliverer. He had undertaken the command of the
place only for the purpose of protecting it, and he pacified the
mutineers by promising that the place should remain quiet,
and that, if it were spared, it would not be ungrateful. When
Caesar, after the conquest of his other enemies, appeared before
Utica, Cato advised his people not to continue their resistance.
The generals and the men capable of bearing arms had taken
to flight, and Cato’s opinion was that the garrison, which con-
sisted for the most part of old men and unprincipled young
nobles who were incapable of handling a weapon, should sue
for pardon. His own son received the same advice from his
father, who thus shewed a very amiable inconsistency in his
conduct ; for here the father got the better of the Stoic. Cato
excused himself, by saying that he had seen the days of the
republic and could live no longer; “ but my son,” he added,
“ who is a stranger to the republic, can live in different
circumstances.” He then withdrew to his room, and spent
the night preceding the morning when the gates were to be
thrown open, in reading Plato’s Phaedo, assuredly not for
the purpose of strengthening his belief in the immortality
of the soul; for a person who does not possess that belief will
never acquire it from reading the Phaedo, and Cato had un-
doubtedly read it so often that he knew it by heart; but in
that awful and sublime moment, in which he was to breathe
out his soul, it was less the thought of immortality that
engaged his attention, than the contemplation of the death
of Socrates, though he believed in immortality as taught by
the Stoics. He took leave of the world while directing his
mind to the last moments of one of the most virtuous men of
all ages. He then inflicted a mortal wound upon himself, in
consequence of which he fell from his bed. When his son
and friends found him, they raised him up and dressed his
wound; he pretended to sleep, but took the first opportunity
to tear open the wound, and died almost instantly.
After the surrender of Utica, the other towns soon followed
its example. Juba, the son of King Juba, surrendered to
Caesar, and afterwards received such an excellent education