Cato the Younger

Pompey, however, who had no forces in readiness, and saw that those which he was then enrolling were without zeal, forsook Rome; and Cato, who had determined to follow him and share his exile, sent his younger son to Munatius in Bruttium for safe keeping, but kept his elder son with himself. And since his household and his daughters needed someone to look after them, he took to wife again Marcia, now a widow with great wealth; for Hortensius, on his death,[*](In 50 B.C. Cf. chapter xxv.) had left her his heir.

It was with reference to this that Caesar heaped most abuse upon Cato,[*](In his treatise entitled Anti-Cato. Cf. chapter xi. 4.) charging him with avarice and with trafficking in marriage. For why, said Caesar, should Cato give up his wife if he wanted her, or why, if he did not want her, should he take her back again? Unless it was true that the woman was at the first set as a bait for Hortensius, and lent by Cato when she was young that he might take her back when she was rich. To these charges, however, the well-known verses of Euripides[*](Hercules Furens, 173 f. (Kirchhoff).) apply very well:—

1. First, then, the things not to be named; for in that class
2. I reckon, Heracles, all cowardice in thee;

for to charge Cato with a sordid love of gain is like reproaching Heracles with cowardice. But whether on other grounds, perhaps, the marriage was improper, were matter for investigation. For no sooner had Cato espoused Marcia than he committed to her care his household and his daughters, and set out himself in pursuit of Pompey.

But from that day, as we are told; Cato neither cut his hair nor trimmed his beard nor put on a garland, but maintained the same mien of sorrow, dejection, and heaviness of spirit in view of the calamities of his country, alike in victory and in defeat, until the end. At the time, however, having had Sicily allotted to him as a province, he crossed over to Syracuse, and on learning that Asinius Pollio had come to Messana with a force from the enemy, he sent and demanded a reason for his coming.

But having been asked by Pollio in turn a reason for the convulsion in the state, and hearing that Pompey had abandoned Italy altogether, and was encamped at Dyrrhachium, he remarked that there was much inconsistency and obscurity in the divine government, since Pompey had been invincible while his course was neither sound nor just, but now, when he wished to save his country and was fighting in defence of liberty, he had been deserted by his good fortune.

As for Asinius, indeed, Cato said he was able to drive him out of Sicily; but since another and a larger force was coming to his aid, he did not wish to ruin the island by involving it in war, and therefore, after advising the Syracusans to seek safety by joining the victorious party, he sailed away.

After he had come to Pompey, he was ever of one mind, namely, to protract the war; for he looked with hope to a settlement of the controversy, and did not wish that the state should be worsted in a struggle and suffer at its own hands the extreme of disaster, in having its fate decided by the sword.

Other measures, too, akin to this, he persuaded Pompey and his council to adopt, namely, not to plunder a city that was subject to Rome, and not to put a Roman to death except on the field of battle. This brought to the party of Pompey a good repute, and induced many to join it; they were delighted with his reasonableness and mildness.