person
Gaius Porcius Cato
C. Cato
also: Gaius Cato, C. Cato, Catonis, Catoni, Cato
Tribune of the plebs 56 BC, an ally of the demagogues and (despite the shared name) distinct from M. Cato Uticensis. His promulgatio harassed Lentulus Spinther's Egyptian command, and in February 56 he attacked Pompey bitterly in the Senate (Fam 1.5a, 1.5b).
Reading notes
- Ad Familiares 1.5a §2 the wicked promulgation of Cato
Promulgatio: the formal posting of a bill before the people. This Cato is C. Porcius Cato, the tribune of 56 BC (not M. Cato Uticensis); his bill aimed at stripping Lentulus of the Egyptian command, which Cicero feared would divert and inflame the whole affair.
- Ad Familiares 1.5b §2 this featherweight man
Levissimus homo: the tribune C. Porcius Cato, whose attacks Cicero dismisses as the bluster of a lightweight. Cicero predicts his impetus will soon be broken.
- Ad Quintum Fratrem 1.2 §15 called Pompey ``a private dictator.''
The dictatorship was an extraordinary, legally conferred office; to call Pompey a 'private dictator' was to brand his power as illegitimate. The young C. Cato made the charge from the Rostra while trying to prosecute the consul Gabinius, and was nearly lynched.
- Ad Quintum Fratrem 2.4 §5 posted a notice that he would sell ``the Catonian gang.''
Milo had a stooge secretly buy up C. Cato's troop of beast-fighters; the tribune Racilius then advertised them for public auction as the 'familia Catoniana,' a humiliating joke at Cato's expense.