_Cato_.--Oh, Messalla! is it then possible that what some of our
countrymen tell me should be true? Is it possible that you could live
the courtier of Octavius; that you could accept of employments and
honours from him, from the tyrant of your country; you, the brave, the
noble-minded, the virtuous Messalla; you, whom I remember, my son-in-law
Brutus has frequently extolled as the most promising youth in Rome,
tutored by philosophy, trained up in arms, scorning all those soft,
effeminate pleasures that reconcile men to an easy and indolent
servitude, fit for all the roughest tasks of honour and virtue, fit to
live or to die a free man?
_Messalla_.--Marcus Cato, I revere both your life and your death; but the
last, permit me to tell you, did no good to your country, and the former
would have done more if you could have mitigated a little the sternness
of your virtue, I will not say of your pride. For my own part, I adhered
with constant integrity and unwearied zeal to the Republic, while the
Republic existed. I fought for her at Philippi under the only commander,
who, if he had conquered, would have conquered for her, not for himself.
When he was dead I saw that nothing remained to my country but the choice
of a master. I chose the best.
_Cato_.--The best! What! a man who had broken all laws, who had violated
all trusts, who had led the armies of the Commonwealth against Antony,
and then joined with him and that sottish traitor Lepidus, to set up a
triumvirate more execrable by far than either of the former; who shed the
best blood in Rome by an inhuman proscription, murdered even his own
guardian, murdered Cicero, to whose confidence, too improvidently given,
he owed all his power? Was this the master you chose? Could you bring
your tongue to give him the name of Augustus? Could you stoop to beg
consulships and triumphs from him? Oh, shame to virtue! Oh, degeneracy
of Rome! To what infamy are her sons, her noblest sons, fallen. The
thought of it pains me more than the wound that I died of; it stabs my
soul.
_Messalla_.--Moderate, Cato, the vehemence of your indignation. There
has always been too much passion mixed with your virtue. The enthusiasm
you are possessed with is a noble one, but it disturbs your judgment.
Hear me with patience, and with the tranquillity that becomes a
philosopher. It is true that Octavius had done all you have said; but it
is no less true that, in our circumstances, he was the best master Rome
could choose. His mind was fitted by nature for empire. His
understanding was clear and strong. His passions were cool, and under
the absolute command of his reason. His name gave him an authority over
the troops and the people which no other Roman could possess in an equal
degree. He used that authority to restrain the excesses of both, which
it was no longer in the power of the Senate to repress, nor of any other
general or magistrate in the state. He restored discipline in our
armies, the first means of salvation, without which no legal government
could have been formed or supported. He avoided all odious and invidious
names. He maintained and respected those which time and long habits had
endeared to the Roman people. He permitted a generous liberty of speech.
He treated the nobles of Pompey's party as well as those of his father's,
if they did not themselves, for factious purposes, keep up the
distinction. He formed a plan of government, moderate, decent,
respectable, which left the senate its majesty, and some of its power. He
restored vigour and spirit to the laws; he made new and good ones for the
reformation of manners; he enforced their execution; he governed the
empire with lenity, justice, and glory; he humbled the pride of the
Parthians; he broke the fierceness of the barbarous nations; he gave to
his country, exhausted and languishing with the great loss of blood which
she had sustained in the course of so many civil wars, the blessing of
peace--a blessing which was become so necessary for her, that without it
she could enjoy no other. In doing these things I acknowledge he had my
assistance. I am prouder of it, and I think I can justify myself more
effectually to my country, than if I had died by my own hand at Philippi.
Believe me, Cato, it is better to do some good than to project a great
deal. A little practical virtue is of more use to society than the most
sublime theory, or the best principles of government ill applied.
_Cato_.--Yet I must think it was beneath the character of Messalla to
join in supporting a government which, though coloured and mitigated, was
still a tyranny. Had you not better have gone into a voluntary exile,
where you would not have seen the face of the tyrant, and where you might
have quietly practised those private virtues which are all that the gods
require from good men in certain situations?
_Messalla_.--No; I did much more good by continuing at Rome. Had
Augustus required of me anything base, anything servile, I would have
gone into exile, I would have died, rather than do it. But he respected
my virtue, he respected my dignity; he treated me as well as Agrippa, or
as Maecenas, with this distinction alone, that he never employed my sword
but against foreign nations, or the old enemies of the republic.
_Cato_.--It must, I own, have been a pleasure to be employed against
Antony, that monster of vice, who plotted the ruin of liberty, and the
raising of himself to sovereign power, amidst the riot of bacchanals, and
in the embraces of harlots, who, when he had attained to that power,
delivered it up to a lascivious queen, and would have made an Egyptian
strumpet the mistress of Rome, if the Battle of Actium had not saved us
from that last of misfortunes.
_Messalla_.--In that battle I had a considerable share. So I had in
encouraging the liberal arts and sciences, which Augustus protected.
Under his judicious patronage the muses made Rome their capital seat. It
would have pleased you to have known Virgil, Horace, Tibullus, Ovid,
Livy, and many more, whose names will be illustrious to all generations.
_Cato_.--I understand you, Messalla. Your Augustus and you, after the
ruin of our liberty, made Rome a Greek city, an academy of fine wits,
another Athens under the government of Demetrius Phalareus. I had much
rather have seen her under Fabricius and Curius, and her other honest old
consuls, who could not read.
_Messalla_.--Yet to these writers she will owe as much of her glory as
she did to those heroes. I could say more, a great deal more, on the
happiness of the mild dominion of Augustus. I might even add, that the
vast extent of the empire, the factions of the nobility, and the
corruption of the people, which no laws under the ordinary magistrates of
the state were able to restrain, seemed necessarily to require some
change in the government; that Cato himself, had he remained upon earth,
could have done us no good, unless he would have yielded to become our
prince. But I see you consider me as a deserter from the republic, and
an apologist for a tyrant. I, therefore, leave you to the company of
those ancient Romans, for whose society you were always much fitter than
for that of your contemporaries. Cato should have lived with Fabricius
and Curius, not with Pompey and Caesar.