Page:Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography Volume 1.pdf/997

CAT chief glory of the victory gained by the Roman army at Thermopylæ was ascribed to Cato. This action terminated his military career, and from this time he took an active and conspicuous part in civil affairs. In 184. he was elected censor, with his friend Valerius again as his colleague. The remarkable strictness with which Cato performed the duties of this office, and the unflinching determination with which he attacked the vices and crimes of the nobles and checked their luxurious habits, subjected him to great obloquy and raised him up a host of enemies, who assailed him with incessant prosecutions. But he resolutely persevered in his efforts to stem the tide of luxury and vice, and to restore the ancient simplicity of manners and purity of morals. With all his severity and rusticity, Cato was a friend to literature, and was one of the patrons of the poet Ennius, whom he brought from Sardinia to Italy. He learned the Greek language after he was sixty years of age, and according to Cicero, was a warm admirer of the historians, philosophers, and orators of Greece. He was scarcely less celebrated as an orator than as a statesman and soldier, and left behind him 150 orations which were long held in admiration by his countrymen. With all his excellencies, Cato was a man of strong prejudices, and his character was disfigured by great faults. He was envious as well as ambitious, harsh and severe; a man of iron body and iron soul, Livy terms him; and utterly unscrupulous in amassing wealth by all means which the law did not forbid and punish. He was the chief instigator of the third Punic war, maintaining that Rome could never be safe as long as Carthage was in existence, and adding to every speech he delivered in the senate, no matter what the subject might be, the well-known words, "Carthage must be destroyed." He died in 149. at the age of eighty-five, leaving behind him, besides his orations, a work on rural affairs, entitled "De Re Rustica," and a historical work entitled "Origines," of which only a few fragments remain.—(Livy, lib. xxxix. cap 40; Plutarch, Life of Cato; and a life which passes under the name of Corn. Nepos.)—J. T.  , the senior of the two sons of Cato the censor, and the second of his name, is famous for his eminence as a practical jurist, and his authorship of works which became authorities in the Roman law. He was reared in the stoical principles of the elder Cato, and the care bestowed on his physical education had the effect of bracing a naturally weak frame to endure the vicissitudes and hardships of warfare. He served under Popilius Lænas in Liguria in 173 .—in a legion which was afterwards disbanded. Cicero (De Officiis i. 11), in illustration of the strict forms of military law, mentions that Cato on this occasion thought it necessary to renew his military oath, before engaging with the enemy. He fought again at Pydna (. 168), and was commended for his prowess by the consul Æmilius, whose daughter he subsequently married. From this time till his death, in 152. he was exclusively engaged in his legal pursuits. He died as prætor designatus some years before his father. Cicero, in the De Oratore, alludes to the publication of Cato's "Responsa," and objects to the introduction of the names of persons, which they seemed to authorize. Aulus Gellius speaks of his having written a valuable treatise "De Juris Disciplina." He is quoted by the jurist Paulus, and Festus refers to his commentaries. It is probably from him that the regula Catoniana take its name. This was a rule of Roman law applying the maxim "quod initio non valet, id tractu temporis non potest convalescere," to test the legitimacy of legacies. He decided that those only could be considered valid which were valid from the first. A bequest, for instance, could only be received by one who was in a rank legally entitled to receive it when the bequest was made; he could not claim it on the ground of having afterwards risen to that rank.—J. N.  , surnamed (of Utica), from the place of his death, was the great-grandson of Cato the censor, and was born in 95. From his earliest years he exhibited great firmness and independence, and as he advanced towards manhood, the inflexible decision, harshness, and severity of his character increased. He applied himself to the study of the stoic philosophy under Antipater of Tyre; and taking his great-grandfather as his model, adopted frugal habits and manners, and inured himself to hardships and privations by frequent exposure to cold and fatigue, by abstaining from food, and by making long journeys on foot, bareheaded, and in all weathers. He affected singularity, and stood out conspicuous from the profligate nobles of his day, in his morals no less than in his manners. He served his first campaign as a volunteer under Gellius Poplicola in the servile war of Spartacus, 72 ., and afterwards, about 67 ., as legionary tribune in Macedonia under the proprætor Rubrius, where he distinguished himself by his sobriety and temperance, as well as by his courage and activity. In 65. he was elected quæstor, and corrected various abuses in the administration of the public funds. He supported Cicero against Catiline and his associates in 63 ., and made a vigorous speech in support of the motion, that the conspirators should be put to death. On the breaking out of the great civil war, having failed in his efforts to effect a reconciliation between Cæsar and Pompey, he joined the latter, and after the battle of Pharsalia and the death of Pompey, he passed over to Africa. He resigned the command of the army there to Q. Metellus Scipio, the father-in-law of Pompey, who proved incompetent for the task, and was completely defeated at Thapsus, April 6,. 46. Cato then fled to Utica, followed by Cæsar, and finding that the inhabitants were unwilling to stand a siege, he advised his friends to save themselves by flight, but refused to accompany them himself, and resolved to die rather than submit to the conqueror. After partaking of his evening's meal, he tenderly embraced his son and the friends who remained with him, and withdrew into his chamber, where he first read a portion of Plato's Phædo on the Immortality of the Soul, and then stabbed himself below the breast, and died that same night. On receiving intelligence of this event, Cæsar exclaimed—"Cato, I grudge thee thy death, since thou hast grudged me the glory of saving thy life."—(Plutarch, Life of Cato Minor; Sallust, Catil. cc. 52-54; Lucan, i. 128, ii. 380; Addison's Cato.)—J. T.  , a distinguished Roman grammarian and poet, who lived about the close of the republic. He was left an orphan at an early age, and was stripped of his patrimony during the usurpation of Sulla. He afterwards acquired a villa and beautiful domain at Tusculum, but his creditors ultimately seized all his property, and he died at an advanced age in great poverty. Besides various treatises on grammar, he was the author of two poems, "Lydia," and "Diana," of which only the titles have survived. To Cato has also been ascribed a poem entitled "Diræ," edited at Oxford in 1838 by Dr. Giles.—J. T.  , the name given to the author of a Latin work entitled "Disticha de Moribus ad Filium." These distichs are in hexameter verse, and consist of moral precepts for the young. During the middle ages they were extensively used in schools, both on the continent and in England. An English version was published by Caxton in 1483.—J. T.  CATROU,, a learned French author, and a member of the Society of Jesus, was born in 1659. He officiated as a preacher for seven years, and then undertook the management of the Journal de Trévoux. His principal production, "Histoire Romaine," 2 vols. 4to, has been translated into Italian, Spanish, German, and English. It is a learned and valuable work, but disfigured by a bad style. Catrou died in 1737.—J. T.  CATS,, born in 1577 at Brouwershaven; died in 1660 at Zagvliet. First studied at Leyden, and then took the degree of doctor at Orleans. He refused a professorship at Leyden, wishing to devote himself to his own studies. But political duties were forced upon him; in 1627 and 1631 he was ambassador in England; in 1636 and 1651 he was grand pensionary of Holland. Cats' poems are described as characterized by simplicity and naïveté. They shared the fate of most national poetry—for a while popular, then disregarded or forgotten, then recalled to public attention and again admired, because it becomes a sort of patriotism to admire them. In something of this feeling, Bilderdijk and Frith republished Cats' poems in 1800. A monument was erected to him at Gand, which, to use the phrase adopted on such occasions, was inaugurated in 1829.—J. A. D.  * CATTANEO,, born at Milan at the commencement of the present century, celebrated as the greatest economist and statistician of contemporary Italy. He took an active part in the Lombard insurrection of 1848, first, by personally heading the attack in Contrada del Monte; then as the leading member of the committee of war, which so admirably directed the memorable five days' struggle in Milan, that for a while emancipated Lombardy. Cattaneo may be said to have then had Milan in his hands; but when the king of Piedmont entered Lombardy and offered to prosecute the war, Cattaneo, although by conviction a republican, at once yielded his power to a provisional government formed of the king's adherents, and withdrew from all interference in public <section end="997Zcontin" />