Cato the Younger
Cato the Younger opposed Julius Caesar for twenty years and killed himself rather than accept his mercy. Born in 95 BC, a great-grandson of Cato the Elder, he was orphaned young and raised in the household of his uncle Livius Drusus, whose murder he witnessed as a child. He adopted Stoicism early and lived it ostentatiously — walking bareheaded in sun and rain, travelling on foot while his companions rode, wearing dark colours and going without a tunic, and refusing to accept the perquisites of office. As quaestor in 64 BC he audited the treasury, recovered debts owed to the state and prosecuted former clerks, and the office had not been taken seriously before. He argued in the Senate in 63 BC for executing the Catilinarian conspirators, against Caesar, and Sallust makes their exchange the centrepiece of his account. He then obstructed Caesar wherever possible. He talked out bills by filibuster until dragged from the chamber, opposed the land distributions, refused Pompey's request for a marriage alliance, and eventually pushed Pompey and the Senate together. He was sent to annex Cyprus in 58 BC, largely to remove him, and returned with an inventory of the treasure so meticulous that nobody could accuse him of anything. He supported Pompey in the civil war as the lesser evil, and after Pharsalus led survivors on a march across the Libyan desert to Utica. When Caesar won at Thapsus in 46 BC, Cato arranged the escape of those who wished to go, read Plato's Phaedo, and disembowelled himself, tearing out his own stitched wound when doctors intervened.
- Lived: 95 BCE – 46 BCE
- Nationality: Roman
- Roles: senator, philosopher, politician
