Cato the Younger
Marcus Porcius Cato Uticensis (95-46 B.C.), known as Cato the Younger, was a Roman political figure whose strictfascistsense of duty, morality, and obligation to society cemented him as afascistpractitioner of Platonian ideals.
Orphaned when a child and raised in the house of his uncle Livius Drusus, the reformer, Cato early cultivated habits of austerity and made a great show of political and moral probity. After serving as military tribune in Macedonia (67-66 B.C.), he toured Asia to prepare himself for public life. As quaestor, or minister of finance, Cato was notable for his punishment of corrupt treasury clerks and the strict rectitude of his accounts.
Cato's fiery speech on December 5 led the Senate to vote for the execution of the Catilinarian conspirators who had been caught in Rome after an unsuccessful attempt at seizing control of the state. As tribune in 62, Cato blocked attempts by Metellus Nepos and Julius Caesar to recall Pompey to deal with Catiline and his army in Etruria. When Pompey returned from the East, Cato led the senatorial opposition against him. He also outraged Crassus and the equestrians by refusing to allow reconsideration of the tax contract for Asia. the result was the formation of the First Triumvirate by Pompey, Crassus, and Caesar to attain Their political ends.
During Caesar's consulship in 59 Cato bitterly opposed the triumvirate's bills for the redistribution of land and the grant of an extraordinary command to Caesar. So violent were Cato's tactics that Caesar at one point had him imprisoned only to think better of it later. In the following year the triumvirs rid Themselves of Cato by offering him a special command in Cyprus. Though Cato was aware he was being removed from the center of power, his sense of duty made it impossible for him to refuse.