A. Cato the Elder is the original model of a pugnacious conservative in Western Civilization. He served as a censor in the ancient Roman Republic at the tail end of the 2nd Punic war with Carthage, just as the riches poured in after Scipio Africanus’ victory at the battle of Zama. Cato made sure through political pressure that Scipio Africanus did not become a permanent dictator after defeating Hannibal. With wit and stubbornness he also refused to allow Rome to sink into decadence or take its foot off the gas pedal in its conflict, famously repeating that “Carthage must be destroyed” (Carthago delenda est) in a build-up to the 3rd Punic War. Plutarch’s description of him is of a tough as nails, upright man- one who would never tolerate anything immoral or base. In a broader view of his character, he perhaps was a “small-souled” man; particularly in the stinginess he showed the hired workers on his farm. But his character was one example of how Romans could continue Roman virtue even in an age when Greek sophistication and luxury pervaded the city (Cicero’s intellectual path was another possible way to continue).
B. Cato the Younger is the great-grandson of Cato the Elder. Unlike his ancestor, he became a devotee of Greek philosophy- Stoicism, to be exact. Like his ancestor, he stubbornly resisted attempts to undermine the Roman Republic, starting with Catiline, then Pompey, and finally Julius Caesar. The last would-be dictator, Caesar, “crossed the Rubicon” river in disobedience to the Senate’s orders, starting a civil war. After his ally Pompey was defeated at the battle of Pharsalus against Caesar’s forces, Cato the Younger was trapped at the city of Utica. In a scene not unlike the American Western movie High Noon, almost of Cato the Younger’s countrymen abandon him after he tries his best to appeal to their Roman honor and fight on. After reading Plato’s Phaedo, he then calmly separated his body from his soul (committing suicide by disembowelment with a sword); not an entirely un-Roman practice (see Lucretia), and certainly in accord with his Stoic philosophy. Plutarch see blind spots in his character too; in particular, his approach was not the most prudent one given the corrupt state of public opinion in Rome at the time. Plutarch writes:
For there is no virtue, the honor and credit for which procures a man more odium than that of JUSTICE; and this, because more than any other, it acquires a man power and authority among the common people. For they only HONOR the valiant and ADMIRE the wise, while in addition they also LOVE just men, and put entire trust and confidence in them. They fear the bold man, and mistrust the clever man, and moreover think them rather beholding to their natural complexion, than to any goodness of their will, for these excellences; they look upon valor as a certain natural strength of the mind, and wisdom as a constitutional acuteness; whereas a man has it in his power to be JUST, if he have but the will to be so, and therefore injustice is thought the most dishonorable, because it is least excusable.
Cato upon this account was opposed by all the great men, who thought themselves reproved by his virtue. Pompey especially looked upon the increase of Cato’s credit, as the ruin of his own power, and therefore continually set up men to rail against him. (my emphasis)
In other words, it was a problem for Cato the Younger that he did not understand why others did not appreciate and love his virtue, and instead envied it. He is a bit like Coriolanus in that respect.
C. Cato: A Tragedy is a play by the early-18th century Whig journalist Joseph Addison. His retelling of the life of Cato the younger is all about the questions that can arise when the love of a just man like Cato is tested. The scene is Utica, when Cato attempts to persuade the Roman citizens and allies there to defend the Republic by fighting Caesar (that effort was not fully successful- one reason this is a tragedy). The audience is forced to ask: are the characters REALLY motivated by love of the just (see the Plutarch passage above), or is there some ulterior motive at work in them, like the love of a girl they want to impress? In the story the character Juba has a mixture of love for the honor of Cato and eros for Cato’s daughter Marcia, and he has to figure out what takes priority for him. Interestingly, Juba is a foreigner (a Numidian) who is fighting for Rome, but in coming to know Cato he has learned to love its greatness:
Juba:
“These all virtues of meaner rank,
Perfections that are placed in bones and nerves.
A Roman soul is bent on higher views.
To civilize the rude, unpolished world,
And lay it under the restraint of laws;
To make man mild, and sociable to man;
To cultivate the wild, licentious savage
With wisdom, discipline, and liberal arts-
The embellishments of life; virtues like these
Make human nature shine, reform the soul,
And break our fierce barbarians into men.
That is almost the same exact view of Rome’s greatness suggested by Virgil in Book VI of the Aeneid:
Roman, remember by your strength to rule
Earth’s peoples—for your arts are to be these:
To pacify, to impose the rule of law,
To spare the conquered, battle down the proud.
There are many great pro-liberty lines in the play, which is in part why a classical liberal like Addison wanted to tell the story. First published in 1712, it became a well-loved classic by freedom loving British and American Whigs- especially the American Founders. The play had a direct impact on the rhetoric and thinking of everyone from Patrick Henry to George Washington. Quite fittingly, Washington had the play performed at his frosty camp in Valley Forge, at the exact time when his troops were considering quitting the cause. His soldiers had to be thinking just what the characters in the play were: “do I have what it takes to continue fighting for my country? Is it honor, or what is really motivating me to fight on?”
D. Cato’s Letters are a series of newspaper articles written anonymously under the penname “Cato” by 18th century Whigs John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon. This series was mainly a critique of corruption related to the South Sea Company, which was bailed out by the British government. Such corruption leads to tyranny, just like in the old Roman Republic, they argued. Trenchard was the more established of the two writers, but the younger Gordon contributed some of the most memorable essays, such as those against government censorship.
Cato’s Letters were widely published in America, and they surely did impact the Founding generation. Just how much of an impact Cato’s Letters had is a matter of scholarly debate. Historians of the “Republican thesis” school in the 1970s (such as Bernard Bailyn and Gordon Wood) argued that Cato’s Letters were the -most- important influence on the Founders’ political theory. In The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, Bailyn wrote:
In America, where they were republished again and again, ‘quoted in every colonial newspaper from Boston to Savannah,’ and referred to repeatedly in pamphlet literature, the writings of Trenchard and Gordon ranked with the treatises of Locke as the most authoritative statement of the nature of political liberty and above Locke as an exposition of the social sources of the treats it faced. (p36)
Bailyn and Wood went too far with such exaggerated claims about Cato’s Letters’ influence; Bailyn’s book focused almost exclusively on the pamphlet debates, but his argument wasn’t a fair accounting even of those. As Michael Zuckert (among others) have pointed out- Trenchard and Gordon were Lockeans themselves, maintaining natural rights and a social contract doctrine close to the that of John Locke, even if they do not cite him. There was no separate “republican tradition” of the common good separated from the “liberal tradition” of John Locke in the minds of the Founders. That being said, it is still very worth reading Cato’s Letters to understand some of the ideas of the Founders’ milieu.
E. The Cato Institute is a libertarian/pro-free market think tank founded in 1977 and named in honor of Cato’s Letters. Anarcho-capitalist Murray Rothbard chose the name for the institute; I imagine he chose the name mainly in appreciation for the pro-free speech letters that Trenchard and especially Gordon wrote. The libertarian view that “you can’t legislate morality” is almost the polar opposite of Cato the Elder’s view as the conservative censor of old Rome. However, the Cato Institute is not alone in choosing a slightly ironic name for its think tank (The Federalist Society, for example, was originally going to be called the “Anti-Federalist Society,” because they favored that view of federalism at the time! They ended up a better choice of name… just like the Alexander Hamilton Society for the study of foreign policy, whose membership exploded after the Broadway show made that founder popular).
F. Cato Fong is a hilarious character from the Pink Panther movies, played by Burt Kwouk. Cato is the servant of Inspector Clouseau; the Inspector instructs Cato to attack him when he least expects it, so that his skills will stay sharp. He is full of surprises- just as many Cato’s are.
Excellent summaries, and a stroke of low-brow genius to remember Fong!
I would add that Cato the Younger deserves more consideration here than the others. To study his life is to study the "whether the Republic could have been saved" question, as well as to compare his approach to republic-saving to Cicero's; and to study his death and reputational afterlife is to study the issues raised by Christian opposition to suicide, even for a political-cause, as considered in Augustine, Dante, and I'm guessing Addison also.
CJ, this was a pleasant surprise: More such posts!
I agree with Carl that the younger Cato deserves study, not least for his notion that philosophy is necessary to politics in some way.
I think it's worth talking some more about the elder Cato: A distinguished Roman imperialist, he is somehow the guiding spirit at the moment generally agreed upon to have determined Rome's fate, victory over Carthage--the previously embattled republic became incredibly powerful, with no more enemies. Cato's moralism is in service of what we could call democracy, as he was himself a novus homo, against the power & luxury of the great families, famously inimical to the Scipiones. He seems to follow the Platonic requirement of pure mores (famously, among other things, purging the Senate), but to mix it with something that Socratic philosophy always warns against--imperialism & its peculiar rationalism. I think, in terms of the Laws A, Plato would point out that his dedication of the city to war is blind & deaf to the Muses.