Seneca on Cato: the best quotes

Cato (left) and Seneca (right)

The Stoics were big on both real life (Socrates) and fictional (Heracles) role models. That’s because virtue ethics is focused on the improvement of the individual character, something that can be achieved only by practice after other people’s examples. For the Stoics (unlike for Aristotle) virtue is both technē (i.e., craftsmanship) and epistēmē (i.e., knowledge), which is why John Sellars famously suggested that Stoic virtue is a kind of “performative art of living.” (For more on the specific Stoic version of virtue ethics see here and here.) For Seneca (not a role model himself), the most recurrent example of someone to emulate was Cato the Younger, the famous arch-enemy of Julius Caesar. (See here for my multi-part series on Cato.) So this post is an homage to both Seneca and especially Cato, listing the best quotes from all the works of Seneca (Delphi complete edition) that I could find in which the Roman statesman mentions his fellow Stoic. Enjoy.

Was any one ever so blind to the truth as to suppose that Marcus Cato was disgraced by his double defeat in his candidature for the praetorship and the consulship? that disgrace fell on the praetorship and consulship which Cato honoured by his candidature. (To My Mother Helvia, On Consolation, XIII)

Choose therefore a Cato; or, if Cato seems too severe a model, choose some Laelius, a gentler spirit. Choose a master whose life, conversation, and soul-expressing face have satisfied you; picture him always to yourself as your protector or your pattern. For we must indeed have someone according to whom we may regulate our characters; you can never straighten that which is crooked unless you use a ruler. (Letters to Lucilius, XI, On the Blush of Modesty, 10)

Socrates was ennobled by the hemlock draught. Wrench from Cato’s hand his sword, the vindicator of liberty, and you deprive him of the greatest share of his glory. (Letters to Lucilius, XIII, On Groundless Fears, 14)

But why should I not tell you about Cato, how he read Plato’s book on that last glorious night, with a sword laid at his pillow? He had provided these two requisites for his last moments, – the first, that he might have the will to die, and the second, that he might have the means. (Letters to Lucilius, XXIV, On Despising Death, 6)

Drawing the sword, –which he had kept unstained from all bloodshed against the final day, he cried: “Fortune, you have accomplished nothing by resisting all my endeavours. I have fought, till now, for my country’s freedom, and not for my own, I did not strive so doggedly to be free, but only to live among the free. Now, since the affairs of mankind are beyond hope, let Cato be withdrawn to safety.” 8. So saying, he inflicted a mortal wound upon his body. After the physicians had bound it up, Cato had less blood and less strength, but no less courage; angered now not only at Caesar but also at himself, he rallied his unarmed hands against his wound, and expelled, rather than dismissed, that noble soul which had been so defiant of all worldly power. (Letters to Lucilius, XXIV, On Despising Death, 7-8)

I desire a life of honour. Now a life of honour includes various kinds of conduct; it may include the chest in which Regulus was confined, or the wound of Cato which was torn open by Cato’s own hand, or the exile of Rutilius, or the cup of poison which removed Socrates from gaol to heaven. (Letters to Lucilius, LXVII, On Ill-Health and Endurance of Suffering, 7)

Behold Marcus Cato, laying upon that hallowed breast his unspotted hands, and tearing apart the wounds which had not gone deep enough to kill him! Which, pray, shall you say to him: “I hope all will be as you wish,” and “I am grieved,” or shall it be “Good fortune in your undertaking!”? (Letters to Lucilius, LXVII, On Ill-Health and Endurance of Suffering, 13)

You need not think that none but great men have had the strength to burst the bonds of human servitude; you need not believe that this cannot be done except by a Cato. (Letters to Lucilius, LXX, On the Proper Time to Slip the Cable, 19)

The Catos, the Scipios, and the others whose names we are wont to hear with admiration, we regard as beyond the sphere of imitation; but I shall now prove to you that the virtue of which I speak is found as frequently in the gladiators’ training-school as among the leaders in a civil war. (Letters to Lucilius, LXX, On the Proper Time to Slip the Cable, 22)

Cato will bear with an equally stout heart anything that thwarts him of his victory, as he bore that which thwarted him of his praetorship. The day whereon he failed of election, he spent in play; the night wherein he intended to die, he spent in reading. (Letters to Lucilius, LXXI, On the Supreme Good, 11)

Therefore Cato’s honourable death was no less a good than his honourable life, since virtue admits of no stretching. Socrates used to say that verity and virtue were the same. Just as truth does not grow, so neither does virtue grow; for it has its due proportions and is complete. (Letters to Lucilius, LXXI, On the Supreme Good, 16)

Death in itself is neither an evil nor a good; Cato experienced death most honourably, Brutus most basely. Everything, if you add virtue, assumes a glory which it did not possess before. We speak of a sunny room, even though the same room is pitch-dark at night. (Letters to Lucilius, LXXXII, On the Natural Fear of Death, 13)

Your dandy would no doubt seem refined and well-attended in comparison with Marcus Cato, – your dandy, who, in the midst of all his luxurious paraphernalia, is chiefly concerned whether to turn his hand to the sword or to the hunting-knife. (Letters to Lucilius, LXXXVII, Some Arguments in Favor of the Simple Life, 9)

[Listen to precepts] like the famous Wisdom of Cato “Buy not what you need, but what you must have. That which you do not need, is dear even at a farthing.” (Letters to Lucilius, XCIV, ON the Value of Advice, 27)

If I had to describe Cato, who was unterrified amid the din of civil war, who was first to attack the armies that were already making for the Alps, who plunged face-forward into the civil conflict, [hero] is exactly the sort of expression and attitude which I should give him. (Letters to Lucilius, XCV, On the Usefulness of Basic Principles, 69)

We might picture that last and bravest wound of Cato’s, through which Freedom breathed her last. (Letters to Lucilius, XCV, On the Usefulness of Basic Principles, 72)

All ages will produce men like Clodius, but not all ages men like Cato. (Letters to Lucilius, XCVII, On the Degeneracy of the Age, 10)

Separate trials have been overcome by many: fire by Mucius, crucifixion by Regulus, poison by Socrates, exile by Rutilius, and a sword-inflicted death by Cato; therefore, let us also overcome something. (Letters to Lucilius, XCVIII, On the Fickleness of Fortune, 12)

Change therefore to better associations: live with the Catos, with Laelius, with Tubero. Or, if you enjoy living with Greeks also, spend your time with Socrates and with Zeno: the former will show you how to die if it be necessary; the latter how to die before it is necessary. (Letters to Lucilius, CIV, On Care of Health and Peace of Mind, 21)

Do you desire another case? Take that of the younger Marcus Cato, with whom Fortune dealt in a more hostile and more persistent fashion. But he withstood her, on all occasions, and in his last moments, at the point of death, showed that a brave man can live in spite of Fortune, can die in spite of her. (Letters to Lucilius, CIV, On Care of Health and Peace of Mind, 29)

You see that man can endure toil: Cato, on foot, led an army through African deserts. You see that thirst can be endured: he marched over sun-baked hills, dragging the remains of a beaten army and with no train of supplies, undergoing lack of water and wearing a heavy suit of armour; always the last to drink of the few springs which they chanced to find. You see that honour, and dishonour too, can be despised: for they report that on the very day when Cato was defeated at the elections, he played a game of ball. You see also that man can be free from fear of those above him in rank: for Cato attacked Caesar and Pompey simultaneously, at a time when none dared fall foul of the one without endeavouring to oblige the other. You see that death can be scorned as well as exile: Cato inflicted exile upon himself and finally death, and war all the while. (Letters to Lucilius, On Care of Health and Peace of Mind, 33)

“Fortune, I have nothing to do with you. I am not at your service. I know that men like Cato are spurned by you, and men like Vatinius made by you. I ask no favours.” This is the way to reduce Fortune to the ranks. (Letters to Lucilius, CVIII, On the Vanity of Place-Seeking, 4)

I shall furnish you with a ready creditor, Cato’s famous one, who says: “Borrow from yourself!” No matter how small it is, it will be enough if we can only make up the deficit from our own resources. For, my dear Lucilius, it does not matter whether you crave nothing, or whether you possess something. The important principle in either case is the same – freedom from worry. (Letters to Lucilius, CXIX, On Nature as Our Best Provider, 2)

Someone who did not know Marcus Cato struck him in the public bath in his ignorance, for who would knowingly have done him an injury? Afterwards when he was apologizing, Cato replied, “I do not remember being struck.” (On Anger, II.32)

“I am not angry,” said [Diogenes the Stoic], “but I am not sure that I ought not to be angry.” Yet how much better did our Cato behave? When he was pleading, one Lentulus, whom our fathers remember as a demagogue and passionate man, spat all the phlegm he could muster upon his forehead. Cato wiped his face, and said, “Lentulus, I shall declare to all the world that men are mistaken when they say that you are wanting in cheek.” (On Anger, III.38)

I bade you have no fears on behalf of Cato himself, because the wise man can neither receive injury nor insult, and it is more certain that the immortal gods have given Cato as a pattern of a wise man to us, than that they gave Ulysses or Hercules to the earlier ages; (On the Firmness of the Wise Person, II)

For Cato did not outlive freedom, nor did freedom outlive Cato. (On the Firmness of the Wise Person, II)

But what will the wise man do when he receives a cuff? He will do as Cato did when he was struck in the face; he did not flare up and revenge the outrage, he did not even pardon it, but ignored it, showing more magnanimity in not acknowledging it than if he had forgiven it. (On the Firmness of the Wise Person, XXIV)

To Cato the Roman people refused the praetorship, and persisted in refusing the consulship. We are ungrateful in public matters. (On Benefits, V.17)

There comes now a part of our subject which is wont with good cause to make one sad and anxious: I mean when good men come to bad ends; when Socrates is forced to die in prison, Rutilius to live in exile, Pompeius and Cicero to offer their necks to the swords of their own followers, when the great Cato, that living image of virtue, falls upon his sword and rips up both himself and the republic, one cannot help being grieved that Fortune should bestow her gifts so unjustly. (On Tranquillity of Mind, XVI)

Shall I weep for Hercules because he was burned alive, or for Regulus because he was pierced by so many nails, or for Cato because he tore open his wounds a second time? All these men discovered how at the cost of a small portion of time they might obtain immortality, and by their deaths gained eternal life. (On Tranquillity of Mind, XVI)

Socrates did not blush to play with little boys, Cato used to refresh his mind with wine after he had wearied it with application to affairs of state, and Scipio would move his triumphal and soldierly limbs to the sound of music. (On Tranquillity of Mind, XVII)

What though all be fallen into one man’s power, though the land be guarded by his legions, the sea by his fleets, though Caesar’s soldiers beset the city gate? Cato has a way out of it: with one hand he will open a wide path to freedom. (On Providence, II)

The gods were not satisfied with seeing Cato die once: his courage was kept in action and recalled to the stage, that it might display itself in a more difficult part: for it needs a greater mind to return a second time to death. (On Providence, II)

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