Marcus Porcius Cato’s (otherwise known as Cato the Younger) thoughts on Pompey Magnus’ fortunes along with his desire to avoid bloodshed in the civil war.
For Pompey and the Optimates this was a very unhelpful speech by Cato. Publicly questioning Pompey’s good fortune right when Caesar’s just crossed the Rubicon and chased Pompey out of Italy was not helpful to their cause.
And while Cato’s effort to avoid bloodshed in this civil war is admirable, it’s really a strange about-face for Cato. Cato, after all, did more than most to bring on the civil war by repeatedly backing Julius Caesar into a corner and refusing any sort of reasonable compromise. In other words, if Cato had shown the same spirit of compromise and concern for the lives of his countrymen when negotiating with Caesar then Caesar would never have crossed the Rubicon and civil war would have been averted. But hey, better late than never 🤷♂️.
To learn more about Julius Caesar, Cato, Pompey and the fall of the Roman Republic, listen to The March of History podcast here on this YouTube channel. Episode “1a. Marius vs. Sulla” is the place to begin.
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