Cato the Younger

Plutarch

Plutarch. Plutarch's Lives, Vol. VIII. Perrin, Bernadotte, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1919.

When Cato died,[*](In 46 B.C. A single letter of his to Cicero is extant (ad div. xv. 5): cf. chapter xxiii. 3.) he was forty-eight years old. His son received no harm at the hands of Caesar, but he was of an easy disposition, as we are told, and in his relations with women not blameless. In Cappadocia he enjoyed the hospitality of Marphadates, one of the royal family, who had a comely wife; and since young Cato spent more time with them than was seemly,

he was satirized in such writings as these:

  1. On the morrow Cato journeys,—after a good round thirty days;
and,
  1. Marphadates and Porcius, two friends with but a
  2. single Soul.
For the wife of Marphadates was named Psyche (soul). And again:
  1. Nobody born, illustrious, our Cato hath a royal
  2. Soul.