C. Cato

[M. Porcius Cato]

How much was an army? How much was Crassus goal? After all he had to settle with a public army...

 

But for what end? You can't save the republic by smashing its laws. Had Cato chucked his principles and raised an army, he would have made himself a Catiline -- and one facing the combined forces of Pompey and Caesar. I think Cato realized that the only shelter from the gathering storm of civil war lay in Pompey's fickle patriotism.

[Fulvia]

 

The more plausible motivation for appointing Cato was economic. First, the republic had been deprived of nearly 1/4 of its income by settling Pompey's vets in Campania, and Clodius' lex frumentaria was bleeding the state of its remaining cash. Obviously, stealing 7000 talents from some Hellenistic potentate isn't a problem -- as Pompey and his kind well knew from their own experience. The problem is finding someone who will turn the loot over to the state. For this task, Cato was the *perfect* choice -- he was devoted to the claims of Roman law over the claims of some king (*cough* Caesar! *cough*) and he was scrupulously honest. Plus, the other choice would have been Gabinius, who almost certainly would have kept a large share of the gold for himself. Thus, by choosing Cato, Clodius managed to bankroll his corn dole, co-opt an opponent of both Clodius and Cato (i.e., Gabinius), and thereby forestall criticism that he and his patrons had bankrupted the state -- and, frankly, nothing in any of this could have been opposed by Cato on any principled grounds. The only risk that Clodius ran was that Cato would keep the money for himself -- but that was hardly a risk: Had Cato kept the money, he would have done far more to cripple the optimates than any good that would have come from the money itself. Plus, what would Cato (who was already rich) going to do with 7000 talents? Buy himself a tunic and some shoes??

 

I had never thought of this before, that Clodius was banking on Cato's high handed morality to actually validate and fund his popularis lex. Cato was about as predictable as a clock when it came to matters of intigrity, Clodius couldn't lose on him. Cato gets an ego boost, which if anything, would placate him towards Clodius if even for a moment, I wonder if he ever realized how he was being used....