Cato the Younger 53
43 lines✦
thrown, and many men wounded; so that all that were againstthose laws fled out of the forum, the rest with what haste theycould, and Cato, last of all, walking out slowly, often turningback and calling down vengeance upon them. Thus the other party not only carried their point of dividingthe lands, but also ordained that all the senate should swear toconfirm this law, and to defend it against whoever shouldattempt to alter it, inflicting great penalties on those that shouldrefuse the oath. All these senators, seeing the necessity they werein, took the oath, remembering the example of Metellus in oldtime, who, refusing to swear upon the like occasion, was forced_ to leave Italy. As for Cato, his wife and children with tearsbesought him, his friends and familiars persuaded and entreatedhim, to yield and take the oath; but he that principally pre-vailed with him was Cicero, the orator, who urged upon him_ that it was perhaps not even right in itself, that a private man_ should oppose what the public had decreed; that the thing beingalready past altering, it were folly and madness to throw himselfinto danger without the chance of doing his country any good;it would be the greatest of all evils to embrace, as it were, theopportunity to abandon the commonwealth, for whose sake hedid everything, and to let it fall into the hands of those whodesigned nothing but its ruin, as if he were glad to be savedfrom the trouble of defending it. “ For,” said he, “ thoughCato have no need of Rome, yet Rome has need of Cato, andso likewise have all his friends.” Of whom Cicero professed hehimself was the chief, being at that time aimed at by Clodius,who openly threatened to fall upon him, as soon as ever heshould get to be tribune. Thus Cato, they say, moved by theentreaties and the arguments of his friends, went unwillingly totake the oath, which he did the last of all, except only Favonius,one of his intimate acquaintance. Cesar, exalted with this success, proposed another law, fordividing almost all the country of Campania among the poor andneedy citizens. Nobody durst speak against it but Cato, whomCzsar therefore pulled from the rostra and dragged to prison:yet Cato did not even thus remit his freedom of speech, but ashe went along continued to speak against the law, and advisedthe people to put down all legislators who proposed the like.The senate and the best of the citizens followed him with sadand dejected looks, showing their grief and indignation by theirsilence, so that Czsar could not be ignorant how much they wereoffended; but for contention’s sake he stil! persisted, expecting
✦