Cato The Younger (Rome Character) - Comparison To The Historical Cato

Comparison To The Historical Cato

Cato was, in reality as in the series, a staunch traditionalist and Julius Caesar's most implacable political opponent. He was known, in a time when electoral corruption was rife, as a man of great integrity and probity. Philosophically he was a Stoic. He lived an austere lifestyle, avoiding luxury and modern fashions- which is reflected in the series by his wearing the toga pulla, favoured by workmen and mourners. He was a defender of the ideals of the Roman Republic and fierce opponent of those he saw as overly ambitious.

Servilia, Caesar's lover, was his half-sister. In 63 BC, during the crisis caused by Catiline's conspiracy to overthrow the state, Caesar was passed a note in the Senate. Cato, believing Caesar was sympathetic to Catiline, accused him of corresponding with the conspirators and seized the letter, only to discover, to his great embarrassment, that it was a love letter from Servilia.

The real Cato was much younger than his fictional counterpart appears: in 52 BC, the year the series opens, he was 43, seven years younger than Caesar. He was also not as contemptuous of plebeians as the series makes him: he established a provision of state-subsidised grain to poor Romans, and Cato was himself a plebeian.

Cato was not actually present at the Battle of Thapsus – he was holding the town of Utica. He did commit suicide by stabbing himself following Scipio's defeat, supposedly to deny Caesar the power to pardon him. A surgeon attempted to save him by stitching up the wound, but Cato was determined to die, and pulled out the stitches and his own intestines.

He was the father of two children by his first wife Atilia; a son, Marcus Porcius Cato, who died in the battle of Philippi, and a daughter, Porcia Catonis, who was the second wife of Marcus Junius Brutus. His wife and his two children are omitted from the series.