About Cato

The historical Marcus Porcius Cato Minor (94-46 BC) was the great-grandson of one of the great Romans of the Republic and a great Roman in his own right. He achieved much in various periods of office, and was the fiercest defender of the Republic against all-comers, but particularly Julius Caesar. His own faction - the Optimates - were not an entirely attractive bunch, ranging from that example of vainglory and trimming, Pompey, to the fantastically self-absorbed (if brilliant) Cicero, to the nadir of vicious, power-seeking old money, Metellus Scipio. Cato himself could be a prig, unforgiving, and a doctrinaire but his reputation as incorruptible was both impressive and baffling to his venal contemporaries. He was consistent in his actions; even though he considered Pompey's cause doomed once the Optimates had fled from Italy, he went with them citing his long-term opposition to Caesar, whilst advising Cicero to remain neutral so that some decency might remain in Rome. He committed suicide in Utica in 46 BC after the defeat of Metellus Scipio's troops at Thapsus, refusing to live in a world ruled by Caesar. Caesar is reported to have responded with mixed feelings, saying "Cato, I grudge you your death, as you would have grudged me the preservation of your life". A century after Cato's death, in Nero's Imperial reign, the poet Lucan summed up how many thought of Cato when he said of the Roman Civil War: "The conquering cause pleased the gods, but the conquered cause pleased Cato" (Pharsalia 1.128).

The pseudonymous Cato of this blog shares most of Cato's bad traits and regrettably few of his good traits. He helps to lead a Charismatic Evangelical church plant, is a High Tory (and therefore naturally a conflicted Labour Party member), and perhaps naively believes that we live in the Great Crisis of Western Civilization.