Cato: A Tragedy, and Selected Essays

Appendix: Lewis Theobald’s The Life and Character of Marcus Portius Cato Uticensis (1713)

the life and ch ar ac ter of Marcus Portius Cato Uticensis Collected from Plutarch in the Greek, and from Lucan, Salust, Lucius Florus, and other Authors in the Latin Tongue. Design’d for the Readers of Cato, a Tragedy  by Lewis Theobald  Quid ergo Libertas sine Catone? Non magis quàm Cato sine Libertate. Valer. Max. the life and ch ar ac ter of M. Cato of Utica This Gentleman was the Great Grandson of M. Portius Cato Major, who by his Virtue and Excellence gain’d a wonderful Reputation and Authority amongst the Romans, and transmitted a Grandeur and Nobility to his Family, which to that Time it wanted; and which his famous Descendant, of whom I am here treating, by the signal Probity of his Life, and Glory of his Death, as it were studied to preserve and keep alive to all Posterity. This Cato Uticensis was born in the 659th Year from the Building of Rome, when C. Caldus and L. Domitius Ahenobarbus were Consuls; for he kill’d himself in the 48th Year of his Age, which was the 707th Year from the Building of the City, when the Great Julius Caesar was the third Time Consul, with Marcus Aemilius Lepidus. Our young Cato was, by the Loss of both his Parents, left an Orphan, and was bred up in the House of Livius Drusus, his Uncle by the Mother’s side. He from his very Infancy discover’d those Seeds of Virtue in his Disposition, which naturally produce the Harvest of his After-Sentiments and Actions: The Accent and Delivery of his Words, the Frame of his Countenance, and even the very Lewis Theobald (1688–1744) was a prominent Shakespearean commentator and classical scholar in the early eighteenth century. The popularity of Addison’s Cato prompted him to produce two works: a new English translation of Plato’s Phaedo and the following essay on the life of Cato the Younger. Diversions of his Childhood, were concurring Testimonies of a firm and inflexible Temper, that could neither easily be carried away with youthful Levities, or sway’d by more ungentle Passions. I shall not here trace him thro’ all his growing Years, but only give an Instance from Plutarch, how early those Principles, and that Love of Liberty for his Country, were rooted in his Breast; to which he Religiously adhered thro’ all his Life, and to which he set the Seal of his Approbation in his memorable Death: Being now almost Fourteen Years old, and carried by his Tutor Sarpedo to Sylla’s House, who was then Dictator, and who had formerly had a Friendship with Cato’s Father, the young Gentleman saw the Heads of Great Men brought thither, who had fell under the Dictator’s Displeasure, and observing that all the Standers by sigh’d in secret at the Repetitions of Cruelty, he turns to his Master, and with an Air of indignant Resolution asks him, Why does no body kill this Man? The Master replying, Because they all fear him, Child, more than they hate him: Why then (says Cato again) do you not give me a Sword that I may stab him, and free my Country from this Slavery? He seem’d indeed design’d by Fate a Pattern of Integrity, in Opposition to the general Corruption of the Times; for he thought the only Way to be honest, was to run counter to the Age, and not be ashamed of his own Singularities, but his Contemporaries Vices: He was a Man (says Velleius Paterculus) that was the very Picture of Virtue, and in all his Faculties more allied to the Purity of the Gods than the Frailties of Man; who never did a good Action; in an Ostentation of Honesty, but because he could not recede from the Sentiments of Honour which were ingrafted in his Breast, and only thought such Proceedings had Reason on their Side which were founded on Justice. Being now one and twenty Years Old, the Gladiator’s War broke out in Italy, which was rais’d and fomented by one Sparticus a Thracian , who had perswaded seventy of his Fellow Swordsmen, it would be much more Honourable for them to fight for their own Liberty, than the Diversion of Rome: Lucius Gellius, the Consul, was chosen Praetor of the Army to subdue the Rebels, and Cato entered himself a Voluntier under...