Cato, Marcus Porcius Uticensis (95-46 BC)

Roman politician, great-grandson of Cato ‘the Censor’. Cato was tribune of the plebs 63 BC. He supported the orator Cicero in proposing the execution of the fellow conspirators of Catiline, and was one of the most active leaders of the senatorial party. His staunch republican views and violent hostility to Julius Caesar led him to support Pompey in the civil war, but he failed to hold Sicily for him. He withdrew 48 BC to Utica in Africa, where he committed suicide after learning of Caesar's victory at the battle of Thapsus.

His suicide made him a hero to those with republican sympathies, a martyrdom aided by a virulent attack by Caesar in his pamphlet Anticato.