110. Cato—Marcus Porcius. Roman Patriot and General.
[Born B.C. 95. Died at Utica, in Africa, B.C. 46. Aged 49.]
One of the classical undying forms reared in antiquity to symbolize high moral purity, unquenchable love of liberty, and the sternest virtue. Cato answers to the idea of Roman patriotism, as Julius Cæsar to that of Roman conquest. Before this one we stand, wondering at human power; before that, subdued by the might of the highest moral excellence. Cato as a child was grave, pains-taking, resolute, tenacious; as he grew, he became strong in the love of virtue, and in his hatred of oppression. Attached to the philosophy of the Stoics, he aimed at happiness through its teaching. He had served with honour many offices in Rome when Pompey, Cæsar, and Crassus found it necessary to remove him to Cyprus, in order that his patriotism might offer no obstacle to their ambitious schemes. Returning to Rome, he was made Prætor, the highest office he ever held. At the breaking out of the civil war he was entrusted by the senate with the defence of Sicily: he afterwards joined Pompey. Subsequently to the battle of Pharsalia, at which he was not present, he sailed to Africa in search of Pompey. Suffering defeat at Thapsus, he committed self-destruction. Before the fatal act he read Plato’s Phædon several times through. His death caused great grief. It was mourned by great Cæsar himself, who grudged Cato his death, since Cato grudged him the glory of sparing his life.
[Double bust representing Cato and his daughter Porcia; it is from the Capitoline Museum, but possesses no especial authenticity.]
111. Julius Cæsar. Roman Dictator.
[Born at Rome, B.C. 100. Died there, B.C. 44. Aged 56.]
The mightiest amongst the mighty of men. At the outset of his career he served in Asia, where he won a civic wreath. Subsequently made Consul in Rome (B.C. 59); and, at the close of his term of office, appointed to the government of Gaul—which country in nine years he wholly subjugated to Roman rule. His invasion of Britain is amongst the earliest recollections of the English schoolboy. The renowned Commentaries of Julius Cæsar graphically narrate these deeds. Rousing the jealousy of Pompey, in Rome, by his splendid achievements, he marched into Italy—afterwards into Spain, in order to crush the adherents of Pompey, and then returned to Rome in triumph, to be created Dictator. As Dictator he overcame his rival in the battle of Pharsalia, in Thessaly. He performed fresh service to the state in Egypt, and going back to Rome in order to advance the social and material prosperity of his country, he fell a victim to a conspiracy, of which Brutus and Cassius were at the head. Twice had the crown been offered to him, and twice had he refused it. No Roman before his time had ever won such honour as was heaped upon his head. He suffered from epilepsy, and was very abstemious. He was tall, fair and slight—very careful of his person, concealing his baldness by a laurel crown. His was indeed a head inwreathed with palms. He was a great captain, a great statesman, a great orator—a great writer. He had innate personal intrepidity, instantaneous decision, answering celerity of action, resources to meet every emergency, consummate military skill, an unshaken presence of mind, a trust—whether in his fortune, as he said, or in himself—which still augured and still conquered success. He had also the most implicit confidence in his troops, whom he treated ever as companions and brothers in arms. Intellectual action in him was without labour. It was subtle, comprehensive, rapid, luminous, self-possessed. He dictated to five secretaries at once, on different subjects: his strokes of eloquence in the Senate, as his strokes of action in the field, were quick and irresistible. In the terrible civil war of the dissolving Republic—a war wasteful of Roman blood in the field,—thirstier for the flow of the same drear beverage by the axe and the dagger,—there, where the sole sad policy of the victor hitherto was revenge, Cæsar tried the novel art of forgiveness: although in his Gaulish conquests—when the barbarian stands before him—he looks to us, by his own reporting, sanguinary and merciless. By toil and spare diet, he hardened a feeble health for any work. A civilian, with but a taste, in youth, of war, he, at forty, stepped into command, at once a supreme commander. Recklessly licentious, yet no intellect could be keener, healthier, and more vigorous. His writings, with the simplicity of a soldier, have the clearness and precision of a grammarian. And why not, since we know that in the versatility of his genius, he wrote two books on grammar. In the history of the world, Julius Cæsar was a power. In the records of psychology a wonder.
[From the bronze in the Florence Gallery. He wore the front of his head shaven. It resembles the bronze medals of Cæsar, but is suspected to be modern. He is said to have been sensitive on account of his baldness, and this bust shows the hair combed forward to hide it. No. 111B possesses much individuality; it is from the head in basalt in the Berlin Museum, and stood constantly on the study table of Frederic the Great. No. 111A is the bust from the Poniatowsky Collection, and remarkable for having the diadem round the head. No. 125 is from the marble in the Gallery of the Emperors, in the Capitol at Rome.]
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112. Marcus Junius Brutus. Roman General.