Cato the Younger

But the Ptolemy in Cyprus, fortunately for Cato, poisoned himself to death. And since the king was said to have left much treasure, Cato determined, while sailing himself to Byzantium, to send his nephew Brutus to Cyprus, since he did not altogether trust Canidius. Then, after reconciling the exiles and citizens of Byzantium and leaving the city in concord, he sailed to Cyprus.

Now, there were many furnishings of a princely sort, such as beakers, tables, precious stones, and purple vestments, which had to be sold and turned into money. So Cato, wishing to treat everything with the greatest exactness, and to force everything up to a high price, and to attend to everything himself, and to use the utmost calculation, would not trust even those who were accustomed to the market, but, suspecting all alike, assistants, criers, buyers, and friends, and at last talking privately himself with the purchasers and encouraging each one to bid, he thus succeeded in selling most of the merchandize.

For this reason he gave offence to most of his friends, who thought that he distrusted them, and Munatius, the most intimate of them all, he threw into a rage that was well nigh incurable. Hence Caesar also, when he wrote a discourse against Cato,[*](See chapter xi. 4, and note.) dwelt most bitterly on this part of his denunciation.

Munatius, however, states that his anger arose, not from Cato’s distrust of him, but from his inconsiderate conduct towards him, and from a certain jealousy which Munatius himself felt towards Canidius. For Munatius himself also published a treatise about Cato, which Thrasea chiefly followed.

Munatius says that he came to Cyprus after the others, and found that no provision had been made for his entertainment; he says, too, that on going to Cato’s door he was repulsed, because Cato had some engagement inside with Canidius. He says, further, that his measured protest met with no measured reply, for Cato told him that excessive affection, according to Theophrastus, was likely to become a ground for hatred in many cases. And so thou too, said Cato, by reason of thine especial affection for me, art vexed to think thyself less honoured than is meet.