SECOND SIEGE, A.C. 46.
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.