The Lives of Cato the Younger from Ancient Rome to Modern America traces the reception and influence of Cato from his suicide at the fall of the Roman Republic to the twenty-first century. In preferring death to Julius Caesar’s dictatorship, Cato became a symbol of resistance to tyrannical rulers during the Roman Empire. In the years that followed, three interpretations of Cato became predominant: Cato lived and died with the resolve of a philosopher; he was a traitor to Caesar’s legitimate rule; or he was a republican statesman defending liberty. Beginning with these interpretations, Thomas E. Strunk explores Cato’s reception in antiquity with chapters on Tacitus and Plutarch; and he later discusses medieval Christian writers such as Augustine, who considered Cato’s suicide sinful, and Dante, who made him the noble guardian of Purgatory. In Europe, playwrights composed dramas on Cato’s death that ignited the revolutionary spirit of the age, later inspiring American general George Washington and his soldiers. Abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass invoked Cato and his revolutionary spirit, yet after the Civil War, Cato’s name was appropriated as a symbol of allegiance for Confederates and their descendants, and lines memorializing Cato were inscribed on the Confederate Memorial at Arlington Cemetery. As the first book to provide an in-depth study of Cato and his lasting influence, Strunk’s study seeks to explore the contemporary nature of his principles and their influence on present-day American politics.

Thomas E. Strunk is Associate Professor of Classics at Xavier University. He is the author of History after Liberty: Tacitus on Tyrants, Sycophants, and Republicans (2017) and The Fall of the Roman Republic: Lessons for the American People (2022).

Acknowledgments
List of Illustrations
I. Introduction: A Life of Cato the Younger
II. Pamphleteers and Slanderers: The Three Catos in the Age of Caesar
III. The Stoic Philosopher and the Radical Republican: Seneca and Lucan on Cato
IV. A Republican under the Caesars: Cato in the Writings of Tacitus and Plutarch
V. Sinner or Saint? Cato in Early and Medieval Christian Writers
VI. Cato of Utica Takes Center Stage: Cato in 18th Century European Drama
VII. Revolutionaries, Abolitionists, and Confederates: Cato in the United States
VIII. Conclusion: A Cato for the 21st Century
Bibliography
Index of Passages Cited
General Index