Cato the Younger

Marcus Porcius Cato, (95 BC - 46 BC), who is often known as "Cato the Younger", to distinguish him from his famous great grandfather Cato the Elder, was a Roman statesman in the late Republic. He was famous for his incorruptability and his articulation of Republicanism. Cato believed that the traditional values that had made Rome great had been destroyed, and that, because of that, Rome was suffering from moral degeneracy.

He lived and acted in accord with Stoic philosophy, much to the annoyance of colleagues who felt compromises and deals were necessary for the practical conduct of affairs. Cicero noted, "He speaks as if he were in Plato's commonwealth, " his fellow politician Cicero complained, "not as f he were dealing with the dregs of Romulus" (the Roman electorate).

In 67-66 BC Cato was the Roman military tribune, a high-ranking officer, in Macedonia. Back in Rome he was quaestor, a treasury officer, in 64 BC. In 63 BC came the famous conspiracy of Catiline against the Roman government, a conspiracy which stopped thanks to the courage and energy of the consul Cicero. In the Senate debate on the fate of the senators involved in the conspiracy, Julius Caesar argued against their execution. Cato's uncompromising advocacy of severity carried the day, and they were executed. In another case Cato tried to unseat Murena, a consul notorious for bribery; Cicero, believing that the situation needed Murena as consul, managed to block.

Cato is probably most famous as a staunch opponent of Julius Caesar, who he believed would overthrow the Republic and set himsef up as a tyrant. Long an enemy of Caesar, Cato joined Pompey the Great's forces in the civil war; and after Pompey's defeat and death in 48 BC, Cato led a remnant of the Pompeians to North Africa. His forces were decisively defeated at Battle of Thapsus, and Cato, retreating to nearby Utica, committed suicide rather than fall into Caesar's hands.

Caesar complained that he had been denied the opportunity to pardon Cato. Cicero wrote an essay which made Cato a symbol of the lost republican cause. 18 centuries after his death Catgo became a hero of Enlightenment poltical theorists in Europe and the American colonies. He became the model of civic virtue for David Hume and many of the American Founding Fathers.