Cato the Younger

Marcus Porcius Cato Uticensis ('of Utica'; 95 BC – April 46 BC), also known as Cato the Younger (Latin: Cato Minor), was an influential conservative Roman senator during the late Republic. His conservative principles were focused on the preservation of what he saw as old Roman values in decline. A noted orator and a follower of Stoicism, his scrupulous honesty and professed respect for tradition gave him a powerful political following which he mobilised against powerful generals of his day, including Julius Caesar and Pompey.

Inscribed bronze bust from Volubilis

Quotes

• Bear in mind, that if through toil you accomplish a good deed, that toil will quickly pass from you, the good deed will not leave you so long as you live; but if through pleasure you do anything dishonourable, the pleasure will quickly pass away, that dishonourable act will remain with you for ever.
  • In the speech which he delivered Numantiae apud Equites ('At Numantia to the Knights'); quoted by Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights, XVI, i, 4
    • John C. Rolfe, ed. The Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius, Vol. 3, LCL 212 (1928), p. 131

• I will begin to speak when I am not going to say what were better left unsaid.
  • Quoted by Plutarch, Life of Cato the Younger, 4
    • Bernadotte Perrin, ed. Plutarch's Lives, Vol. 8, LCL 100 (1919), pp. 247, 361

• Nay, men, if any of you had heeded what I was ever foretelling and advising, ye would now neither be fearing a single man nor putting your hopes in a single man.
  • Quoted by Plutarch, Life of Cato the Younger, 52
    • Bernadotte Perrin, ed. Plutarch's Lives, Vol. 8, LCL 100 (1919), pp. 247, 361

About

• Victrix causa deis placuit, sed vieta Catoni.
  • The victorious cause pleased the gods, but the conquered one Cato.
    • Lucan, Pharsalia, I, 128
    • This line is associated with the Lost Cause of the Confederacy and inscribed on the base of the Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery.
    • Cabell Smith, "Inscriptions on Arlington Confederate Monument", Confederate Veteran, vol. 20 (1920), p. 124

• Unconquer’d Cato, virtuous in extreme.
  • James Thomson, Winter (1726)

See also

• Cato the Elder