Cato, to keep out a very bad man, put in for the tribunate. He sided with Cicero against Catiline, and opposed Caesar on that occasion. His enemies sent him to recover Cyprus, which Ptolemy had forfeited, thinking to hurt his reputation by so difficult an undertaking; yet none could find fault with his conduct.

Cato laboured to bring about an agreement between Caesar and Pompey; but seeing it in vain, he sided with the latter. When Pompey was slain he fled to Utica; and being pursued by Caesar, advised his friends to be gone, and throw themselves on Caesar's clemency. His son, however, remained with him; and Statilius, a young man, remarkable for his hatred to Caesar.

The evening before the execution of the purpose he had formed with regard to himself, after bathing, he supped with his friends and the magistrates of the city. They sat late at table, and the conversation was lively. The discourse falling upon this maxim of the Stoics, that "the wise man alone is free, and that the vicious are slaves;" Demetrius, who was a Peripatetic, undertook to confute it from the maxims of his school. Cato, in answer, treated the matter very simply; and with so much earnestness and vehemence of voice, that he betrayed himself, and confirmed the suspicion of his friends that he designed to kill himself. When he had done speaking, a melancholy silence ensued; and Cato perceiving it, turned the discourse to the present situation of affairs, expressing his concern for those who had been obliged to put to sea, as well as for those who had determined to make their escape by land, and had a dry and sandy desert to pass. After supper, the company being dismissed, he walked for some time with a few friends, and gave his orders to the officers of the guard: and going into his chamber, he embraced his son and his friends with more than usual CATOPTRICS.