Cicero and the legacy of Cato Uticensis.

Abstract

This dissertation explores the relationship between Cicero and his contemporary Cato Uticensis, and in particular Cicero's contribution to the development of Cato's legacy as the greatest moral figure of his era. There are three primary goals. The first is to explicate, through an examination of the evidence in its individual contexts, Cicero's range of attitudes and opinions toward the figure of Cato both before and after his death. The second goal is to demonstrate how Cicero in his published works manipulated public opinion about Cato for his own rhetorical purposes. Such a demonstration also serves as a case study illuminating the importance of the interplay between public image and public opinion in the crucial final decades of the Roman Republic. The final goal is to consider the origins of the legacy of Cato Uticensis and how and why that legacy emerged as it did. The methodology of this dissertation is to consider closely in somewhat extended contexts the significant characterizations of Cato throughout Cicero's corpus. Following an Introduction, each chapter examines an aspect of Cicero's attitude toward Cato: Cato the overzealous Stoic politician with consequent ethical limitations (Chapter 2), Cato the man of principle in an age of corruption (Chapter 3), Cato the idealized figure of the Stoic sage (Chapter 4), and Cato the man of potential (Chapter 5). Cato himself becomes secondary to the Cato of Cicero's characterizations, almost all of which portray Cato as a man of virtue and principle, a pattern which outlines the origins of Cato's legacy within his own lifetime.