Cato the Younger

After Caesar had fallen upon warlike nations and at great hazards conquered them, and when it was believed that he had attacked the Germans even during a truce[*](Cf. Caesar, Bell. Gall. iv. 12-15; Plutarch, Caesar, xxii.) and slain three hundred thousand of them, there was a general demand at Rome that the people should offer sacrifices of good tidings, but Cato urged them to surrender Caesar to those whom he had wronged, and not to turn upon themselves, or allow to fall upon their city, the pollution of his crime.

However, said he, let us also sacrifice to the gods, because they do not turn the punishment for the general’s folly and madness upon his soldiers, but spare the city. After this, Caesar wrote a letter and sent it to the senate; and when it was read, with its abundant insults and denunciations of Cato,

Cato rose to his feet and showed, not in anger or contentiousness, but as if from calculation and due preparation, that the accusations against him bore the marks of abuse and scoffing, and were childishness and vulgarity on Caesar’s part. Then, assailing Caesar’s plans from the outset and revealing clearly all his purpose, as if he were his fellow conspirator and partner and not his enemy, he declared that it was not the sons of Germans or Celts whom they must fear, but Caesar himself,

if they were in their right minds, and so moved and incited his hearers that the friends of Caesar were sorry that by having the letter read in the senate they had given Cato an opportunity for just arguments and true denunciations. However, nothing was done, but it was merely said that it were well to give Caesar a successor.[*](Cf. the Caesar, xxx.; the Pompey, lviii.)

And when Caesar’s friends demanded that Pompey also, as well as Caesar, should lay down his arms and give up his provinces, or else that Caesar should not do so either, Now shouted Cato, those things are come to pass which I foretold to you, and the man is at last resorting to open compulsion, using the forces which he got by deceiving and cheating the state. Outside the senate-house, however, Cato could accomplish nothing, since the people wished all along that Caesar should have the chief power; and although Cato had the senate under his influence, it was afraid of the people.