Did St. Augustine misunderstand Cato Minor?

[EphelDuath]

Chapters 23 and 24 of “the City of God” attack the hypocrisy of Cato, whom Augustine reports, killed himself because he could not live under Julius Caesar; yet did not ask his son to commit suicide as well.

As I understand it, Cato Minor committed suicide as a protest to Caesar, as if to say, “you may control Rome, but you don’t control me.” Not because Cato was overcome with the grief of the end of the republic. He was a stoic philosopher, and understood well that some fortunes like freedom are a luxury.

 

[utunumsint]

Chapters 23 and 24 of “the City of God” attack the hypocrisy of Cato, whom Augustine reports, killed himself because he could not live under Julius Caesar; yet did not ask his son to commit suicide as well.

As I understand it, Cato Minor committed suicide as a protest to Caesar, as if to say, “you may control Rome, but you don’t control me.” Not because Cato was overcome with the grief of the end of the republic. He was a stoic philosopher, and understood well that some fortunes like freedom are a luxury.

Well it still shows a doublestandard. If he believed so strongly that living under Caesar would be a disgrace, why would he allow his son to live? I guess the idea is, if it is good enough for him, why not for his son? Augustine’s point is that it was envy or shame that motivated him “Cæsar was **envied **the glory of pardoning him [Cato] (as indeed Cæsar himself is reported to have said); or if **envy **is too strong a word, let us say he was **ashamed **that this glory should be his.” So yes, he does have a correct understanding of Cato’s actions, as you’ve described. However, in the Christian sense, both of these faults show an excessive sense of pride.

You also have to remember that Augustine is always thinking of his audience. He is trying to convince pagans, but also to encourage Christians. For example, the one whom he writes the book for, Marcellinus, himself became a dedicated Christians, and was later martyred under Theodoric the Ostrogoth (I believe).

He goes on to give the example of Regulus who was captive under the Carthaginians, was sent by them to Rome to negotiate a truce on the condition he return, which he advised the Romans to reject. He then returned to Carthage on acount of his oath and was brutally tortured to death. Augustine take on this is "Having such a contempt of life, and preferring to end it by whatever torments excited enemies might contrive, rather than terminate it by his own hand, **he could not more distinctly have declared how great a crime he judged suicide to be. ** And so he, speaking to a Christian audience now says “how much rather must Christians, the worshippers of the true God, the aspirants to a heavenly citizenship, shrink from this act,”.

Augustine was writing after the sack of Rome. Consecrated virgins were greived because of rape, and some were asking whether or not it would have been better to commit suicide, rather than to submit to the rapists. So the question of suicide and its legitimacy was his topic.

 

[EphelDuath]

Thanks.

 

[DavidFilmer]

As I understand it, Cato Minor committed suicide as a protest to Caesar, as if to say, “you may control Rome, but you don’t control me.”

To my knowledge, Cato did not leave a “suicide note,” so his motives are left to speculation.

Given his strong spirit, History has accorded him a fitting suicide (purely on principle; that he did not wish to live in a dictatorship instead of the Republic that he cherished).

For my own part, I believe Cato knew the “game was up” once Caesar assumed complete power. Caesar chased Cato all over Italy, and now Caesar had won absolute control, disbanding the Republic and installing himself as dictator for life.

Surely, Caesar’s first order of business would have been to hunt down and destroy his former opposition - first and foremost was Cato Minor.

Cato was faced with the choice to take his immense (but neglected) fortunes and live in self-imposed exile, or continue to live in Roman society, where surely Caesar would find and kill him. Cato’s high principles precluded the first, and he would not give his enemy the satisfaction of the latter. So he killed himself, to deprive Caesar of his victory.

If my understanding is correct, then Augustine was (as you suggest) mistaken in his assessment of the situation (though not quite as you suggested). However, I am pretty sure that nobody really knows for sure what Cato’s motives really were.

 

[utunumsint]

Augustine is getting his information on Plutarch’s life of Cato the Younger.
penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Cato_Minor*.html

69 As Cato said these words the young man went out sobbing, and all the rest also, except Demetrius and Apollonides. These alone remained, and with these Cato began to talk, now in gentler tones. **“I suppose,” said he, “that ye also have decided to detain in life by force a man as old as I am, and to sit by him in silence and keep watch of him: or are ye come with the plea that it is neither shameful nor dreadful for Cato, when he has no other way of salvation, to await salvation at the hands of his enemy? 2 Why, then, do ye not speak persuasively and convert me to this doctrine, that we may cast away those good old opinions and arguments which have been part of our very lives, be made wiser through Caesar’s efforts, and therefore be more grateful to him? And yet I, certainly, have come to no resolve about myself; but when I have come to a resolve, I must be master of the course which I decide to take. 3 And I shall come to a resolve with your aid, as I might say, since I shall reach it with the aid of those doctrines which ye also adopt as philosophers. So go away with good courage, and bid my son not to try force with his father when he cannot persuade him.” **

70 Without making any reply to this, but bursting into tears, Demetrius and Apollonides slowly p405withdrew. Then the sword was sent in, carried by a little child, and Cato took it, drew it from his sheath, and examined it. And when he saw that its point was keen and its edge still sharp, he said: “Now I am my own master.” Then he laid down the sword and resumed his book, and he is said to have read it through twice.

And here is Ceasar’s reported response.

72 When Caesar learned from people who came to him that Cato was remaining in Utica and not trying to escape, but that he was sending off the p409rest, while he himself, his companions, and his son, were fearlessly going up and down, he thought it difficult to discern the purpose of the man, but since he made the greatest account of him, he came on with his army in all haste. 2 When, however, he heard of his death, he said thus much only, as we are told: “O Cato, I begrudge thee thy death; for thou didst begrudge me the sparing of thy life.” For, in reality, if Cato could have consented to have his life spared by Caesar, he would not be thought to have defiled his own fair fame, but rather to have adorned that of Caesar. However, what would have happened is uncertain; though the milder course is to be conjectured on the part of Caesar.

So, even if Plutarch’s account is not historically accurate, it was a very popular account of his day that was feeding the controversy that the pagans were stiring up on the issue that the Christian women did not prefer suicide to rape.

God bless,
Ut