LXXIII. When Cato died he was fifty[758] years of age save two. His son[759] received no harm from Cæsar, but he is said to have been fond of pleasure and not free from blame with regard to women. In Cappadocia he had as his host Marphadates, one of the royal family, who possessed a handsome wife, and as Cato stayed longer with them than was decent, he was satirized in such terms as these:
"To-morrow Cato goes away, to-morrow thirty days."
And:
"Porcius and Marphadates, friends are two, but Psyche one."
For the wife of Marphadates was named Psyche (Soul). And again:
"Of noble blood and splendid fame, Cato has a royal Soul."
But he blotted out and destroyed all such ill report by his death; for while fighting at Philippi against Cæsar and Antonius in defence of liberty, and the line was giving way, not deigning either to fly or to secrete himself, but challenging the enemy and showing himself in front of them and cheering on those who kept the ground with him he fell after exhibiting to his adversaries prodigies of valour. And still more, the daughter of Cato being inferior neither in virtue nor courage (for she was the wife of Brutus who killed Cæsar) was both privy to the conspiracy and parted with life in a manner worthy of her noble birth and merit, as is told in the Life of Brutus. Statyllius, who said that he would follow Cato's example, was prevented indeed at the time by the philosophers, though he wished to kill himself, but afterwards he showed himself most faithful to Brutus and most serviceable at Philippi, and there he died.
FOOTNOTES:
[653] Cato was a cognomen of the Porcia Gens, which was Plebeian. The name Cato was first given to M. Porcius Cato Censorius, who was consul B.C. 195 and censor B.C. 184. The father of the Cato whose life is here written was M. Porcius Cato, a Tribunus Plebis, who married Livia, a sister of the tribune M. Livius Drusus. This Cato, the tribune, was the son of M. Porcius Cato Salonianus, who was the son of Cato the Censor. Cato the Censor was therefore the great-grandfather of the Cato whose life is here written. See the Life of Cato the Censor by Plutarch, c. 24. 97. This Cato was born B.C. 95.
[654] The text of Plutarch says that Livius Drusus was the uncle of Cato's mother, but this is a mistake, and accordingly Xylander proposed to read θείο μὲν ὄντι πρὸς τῆς μητρός. But Sintenis supposes that Plutarch may have misunderstood the Roman expression "avunculus maternus." Cato's father had by his wife Livia a daughter Porcia, who married J. Domitius Ahenobarbus. Livia's second husband was Q. Servilius Cæpio, by whom she had a son Q. Servilius Cæpio, whom Plutarch calls Cato's brother, and two daughters, named Servilia, one of whom married M. Junius Brutus, the father of the Brutus who was one of Cæsar's assassins, and the other married L. Licinius Lucullus (Life of Lucullus. c. 38).