Caton: The virtuous Roman leader and orator said “Virtue, you are but a word”
Posted by: adonis49 on: July 2, 2013
Caton: The virtuous Roman leader and orator during ascendency of Caius Julius Caesar
Caius Julius Caesar political aspiration and constant occupation wars pointed to a deliberate purpose for a dictatorial tenure: Caesar was disappointed with the Republic in its frequent civil wars and brutal revenge against Roman opponents, like between Marius and Sylla… and figured out that he was the leader to bring in stability…
Caton, supposedly representing the traditional elite class among the senators, was constantly opposing the other traditional “noble” Caius Julius Caesar schemes for power in his successful ascending strive. Julius Caesar was politically siding with the plebes (common citizens of Rome) in order to restrain the elite senators who were not in his favor.
Caton joined the troops of Pompeii as Caesar crossed the Rubicon and marched to Rome with his 10 legions.
Pompeii had decided to move his legions outside Italy to the Roman provinces in Turkey, Africa and Spain, in order to let Caesar face internally the troublesome and demanding Romans.
Julius Caesar had dedicated the temple of Jupiter Capitolin to “Caius Julius Caesar, Half God” and a statue of him driving a char on a globe, and was appointed dictator for 10 years.
Caius Julius Caesar defeated Pompeii in Greece and tackled him to Egypt, where the Egyptian assassinated him. Caius Julius Caesar defeated the lieutenants of Pompeii in Spain and then Africa, where Caton was leading an army.
Caton committed suicide by plunging a dagger into his chest. He was in the city of Utique (current Tunisia) and had spent the night reading Plato’s volume on the survival of the soul after death. Caton last words were: “Virtue, you are but a word”
Julius Caesar reacted: “Oh Caton, I envy your death: You have robbed my intention for clemency to let you live…”
After Caesar offered his daughter Julia in marriage to Pompeii (30 years difference in age), Caton lambasted this alliance:
“It is intolerable to prostitute the public authority by marriages that use women as means to distributing provinces, armies and power among politicians. With Caesar, the people has installed a tyrant in the citadel…”
Caton lambasted Caesar’s frequent wars of occupations in France (Gaule) and England, for no excuses but to allow his legions to plunder towns and villages in order to maintain his status as proconsul for 5 more years, and keep his legions (the backbone of any sustainable power).
Caesar was the ultimate Roman leader in cruelty and arrogance, and slaughtered about one million French in his countless criss-crossing campaigns to occupy this land and attached it to Rome as a province.
Cicero, in order to frustrate Caesar, kept exalting the “Stoic of Utique” , the “Great virtuous ” and “Caton is still larger than his reputation” after his death.
Senator Caton was the grandson of Caton the Elder and the half brother of Servilia, the lover of Julius and mother of Brutus.
Adonis Diaries 
September 5, 2021 at 3:19 pm
RESEARCH:
Caius Julius Caesar and the Jews
USEFULNESS IN ROMAN EMPIRE
“This Judaism,” says Mommsen (“Römische Gesch.” iii. 549-555), “although not the most pleasing feature in the nowhere pleasing picture of the mixture of nations which then prevailed, was nevertheless a historical element developing itself in the natural course of things, which the statesman could neither ignore nor combat, and which Cæsar on the contrary, just like his predecessor, Alexander, with correct discernment of the circumstances, fostered as far as possible. While Alexander, by laying the foundation of Alexandrian Judaism, did not much less to found the Jewish nation than its own King David by planning the Temple of Jerusalem, Cæsar also advanced the interests of the Jews in Alexandria and in Rome by special favors and privileges, and protected in particular their peculiar worship against the Roman as well as against the Greek local priests.”
“Cæsar’s extraordinary keenness as a statesman,” says F. Rosenthal (in “Monatsschrift,” 1879, p. 321), “recognized in the Jews most useful collaborators in his extensive plans for the creation of a great Roman body politic. Distributed as they were over the greatest part of the Roman Empire, yet acting in harmony with one another, they were as much on this account as by reason of their commercial instincts the intermediators between Orient and Occident.”
“The Jews were destined to play no insignificant part in the new state of Cæsar,” says Mommsen (ib.). Even later, when by a decree of Cæsar all religious or political associations (collegia) were forbidden, except those which had existed from very remote times, the same decree permitted the Jews,
“our friends and confederates . . . to gather themselves together according to the customs and laws of their forefathers, to bring in their contributions, and to make their common suppers” (Josephus, “Ant.” xiv. 10, § 8; Suetonius, “Cæsar,” 42).