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Besides Lucretia, of whom enough has already been said, our
advocates of suicide have some difficulty in finding any other
prescriptive example, unless it be that of Cato, who killed himself
at Utica. His example is appealed to, not because he was the only
man who did so, but because he was so esteemed as a learned and
excellent man, that it could plausibly be maintained that what he did
was and is a good thing to do. But of this action of his, what can I
say but that his own friends, enlightened men as he, prudently
dissuaded him, and therefore judged his act to be that of a feeble
rather than a strong spirit, and dictated not by honorable feeling
forestalling shame, but by weakness shrinking from hardships?
Indeed, Cato condemns himself by the advice he gave to his dearly
loved son. For if it was a disgrace to live under Caesar's rule,
why did the father urge the son to this disgrace, by encouraging him to
trust absolutely to Caesar's generosity? Why did he not persuade him
to die along with himself? If Torquatus was applauded for putting his
son to death, when contrary to orders he had engaged, and engaged
successfully, with the enemy, why did conquered Cato spare his
conquered son, though he did not spare himself? Was it more
disgraceful to be a victor contrary to orders, than to submit to a
victor contrary to the received ideas of honor? Cato, then, cannot
have deemed it to be shameful to live under Caesar's rule; for had he
done so, the father's sword would have delivered his son from this
disgrace. The truth is, that his son, whom he both hoped and desired
would be spared by Caesar, was not more loved by him than Caesar was
envied the glory of pardoning him (as indeed Caesar 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.
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