The Death of Cato

What did the optimates try to do in the 50s BC?

They criticised Caesar via an amicitia with Pompey from 53 BC to try and challenge Caesar’s growing auctoritas

Give an example of something Cato did support Pompey/oppose Caesar

He supported Pompey’s appointment as sole consul in 52

What was Cato’s reaction to Caesar crossing the Rubicon in 49 BC? (Plutarch, Life of Cato the Younger, 53)

Cato did not cut his hair or trim his beard and he ‘maintained the same appearance of sorrow, dejection, and heaviness of spirit in view of the calamities of his country’

What is Cato trying to communicate through his state of sorrow?

• Marked display of pathos

• Personifying the dire state of the res publica

Whose side does Cato join in 49 BC?

Pompey’s forces

What does Cato do after Pompey’s death and defeat in 48?

He retreated to the province of Africa and governed the city of Utica

How does the Historian Syme (1985) interpret Caesar’s policy of Clementia?

‘Clemency is the mercifulness of somebody who can put you to death’

When does Cato commit suicide?

After Republican forces in Africa are defeated by Caesar at Thapus in 46

Give 3 reasons for Cato’s suicide

• Deliberate act of defiance against Caesar’s policy of Clementia

• Part of the inimicitia between Caesar and Cato

• His stoic principles

Give 3 things Cato’s death symbolises

• Libertas

• Death of the republic

• Stoicism

What does Scullard (1959) say about Cato?

‘he was idealised as the martyr of Republican liberty’