Cæsar, conqueror at Thapsus, pursued Scipio into Utica, and invested
it. This city would not have fallen an easy conquest, if Cato, who
had shut himself up in it, together with most of the senators opposed
to tyranny, had found in all hearts a courage and a patriotism equal
to his own. In vain this noble Roman endeavoured to awaken in those
around him the sublime sentiments which had animated the early citizens
of Rome; in vain he went through the streets to calm the alarms of
the people,--the dread of the conqueror closed all ears against
his exhortations: love of country had given place to love of life.
Despairing then of defending Rome by defending Utica, he gave his
whole care to the preservation of the senators, the companions of his
misfortunes, whom the inhabitants wished to give up to Cæsar. When he
had taken all the necessary precautions, he prepared to terminate his
days in a manner worthy of himself. Some of his friends exhorted him to
have recourse to the clemency of the dictator. “He who is conquered,”
said he, “may servilely flatter the hand which has subdued him. Cato
is invincible; he acknowledges neither master nor conqueror.” He then
assembled his friends, and, after a long conversation upon the state
of affairs, he strictly forbade his son ever to take any part in
the government. “You cannot do so,” said he, “in a manner worthy of
the name you bear; and to do it in any other way, would be to cover
yourself with eternal ignominy.” He then took a bath, and whilst in
it, remembered Statilius, his friend, who had refused to escape with
the other senators. He had charged the philosopher Apollonius to
persuade him to save himself. “Have you succeeded with Statilius,” said
he,--“can he have gone without bidding me farewell?” “He! no,” replied
the philosopher; “he is intractable: he declares he will positively
remain here, and imitate you in everything.” “It will soon,” replied
Cato, with a smile, “be seen how that will be.” After his bath, he gave
a magnificent banquet to all his friends and the magistrates of Utica.
They sat long at table, and the conversation was animated, lively, and
learned, chiefly turning upon points of moral philosophy. Demetrius, a
Peripatetic philosopher, undertook to refute, after the principles of
his sect, the two Stoic paradoxes: “The wise alone are free; all the
vicious are slaves.” But Cato replied to him with a fire, a vehemence,
and in a tone of voice which betrayed his intentions, and changed the
suspicions his friends had entertained into certainty. All at once, a
dismal silence prevailed; sadness was painted in every countenance,
and no one durst venture to raise his tear-dewed eyes towards Cato.
This tender friend perceived the effect his rigid philosophy had
produced; he changed the subject, and, to drive away melancholy
ideas, he spoke of those who had just left them, showing the anxious
inquietude he experienced respecting them. After the repast, he walked
about for some time, according to his usual custom, and then retired to
his apartment. There he spoke more affectionately than he had before
done, to his son and his friends, which revived and strengthened the
idea they had conceived of his determination. When he went into his
inner chamber, he threw himself upon the bed, and meditated for a long
time upon Plato’s dialogue on the immortality of the soul. He had
already read a considerable part of it, when, turning his eyes upon his
bolster, he perceived that his sword was not in its customary place;
his son had had it removed whilst they were at supper. Cato called to
a slave, and asked him what had become of his sword. The slave made
no answer, and his master resumed his reading. A few minutes after;
he made the same question, without any eagerness or warmth, but like
a man who has no particular desire. At last, when he had finished his
reading, seeing that nobody seemed disposed to obey him, he called all
his slaves, one after the other, and in the tone of a master, said that
he insisted upon having his sword; he even went so far as to give one
of them so violent a blow, that he made his hand bloody. “What!” cried
he, indignantly, “what! are my son and my people conspiring to deliver
me up to my enemy, without arms and without defence?” At this moment,
his son, coming into the apartment with his friends, burst into tears.
He threw himself at his feet, he embraced his knees, and conjured him
to depart from his purpose. Cato, angry at seeing his son in such
an attitude of supplication, and darting at him glances denoting
displeasure,--“Since when,” cried he, “am I fallen into imbecility,
to make it necessary for my son to be my curator? I am treated like
an insane man; I am not allowed to dispose of my own person; I am to
be disarmed too! Brave and generous son, why do you not chain up your
father till Cæsar arrives, so that that enemy of his country may find
him destitute of defence? Do I stand in need of a sword, if I wished to
deprive myself of life? Could I not hold my breath? could I not dash
my head against the wall? If a man really wish for death, there are a
thousand ways of obtaining it.” A young slave then brought him back his
sword. Cato drew it, examined it, and finding that the point was quite
straight and sharp, he exclaimed,--“Now, then, I am my own master.”
He laid down his sword, took up his book, and read it through again
from beginning to end; he then fell into so profound a sleep, that
the anxious friends who listened at the door heard him snore; but the
fatal moment approached. Cato called for his freed-man, and asked him
if all was quiet; and when he was assured that it was, he threw himself
upon the bed as if to take his repose for the night; but the moment he
was left alone, he plunged the sword into his body a little below the
breast. The blow did not kill him at once; he struggled a little, and
fell off the bed on to the ground. At the noise of his fall, his people
rushed in, and, as he still breathed, his surgeon bound up the wound.
But the instant he recovered his senses, he tore away the bandages, and
with them dragged out his bowels, and expired. “Oh, Cato!” cried Cæsar,
when he heard of his noble end, “I envy thee the glory of thy death,
since thou hast envied me that of sparing thy life.” And he entered
triumphantly into Utica.
Without entering into the question of suicide in general, or that
which would lead to a much longer digression than we can afford,--the
strange mania for self-destruction which possessed the Romans of this
age,--we cannot help observing that this celebrated death of Cato
reads more like a dramatic scene than a reality. Why, if his son and
his friends had been in earnest, when they knew of his intention, they
ought to have bound him, hand and foot, and never have left him alone
a minute. The man’s mind was weakened with trouble, and he ought to
have been treated like a maniac. Such is the modern, or common sense
view of the case; but the noblest of the Romans thought far otherwise.
Stoicism, the favourite philosophy of the day, taught them to despise
life without honour and freedom; and there must have been something
exalted in this creed, for, whilst we constantly find great public men,
for public reasons, laying violent hands upon themselves, we do not
learn that the practice extended to persons affected by disappointed
passions, or suffering under private calamities. We called it a
mania--when we glance at this one point of history, it can be called
nothing else: Cato, Brutus, Cassius, Antony, Cleopatra, Porcia, all
playing in one short scene of the great drama; all contemporaries, and
acted upon, in some way, by each other, all destroyed themselves, and
all without a common-sense reason for doing so.