in Africa.  His army endured, in the depth of winter, great exposures and fatigues, and they had to encounter a large hostile force under the charge of Cato.  They were, however, successful in every undertaking.  Cato retreated at last to the city of Utica, where he shut himself up with the remains of his army; but finding, at length, when Caesar drew near, that there was no hope or possibility of making good his defense, and as his stern and indomitable spirit could not endure the thought of submission to one whom he considered as an enemy to his country and a traitor he resolved upon a very effectual mode of escaping from his conqueror’s power.

[Sidenote:  He stabs himself.] [Sidenote:  Death of Cato.]

He feigned to abandon all hope of defending the city, and began to make arrangements to facilitate the escape of his soldiers over the sea.  He collected the vessels in the harbor, and allowed all to embark who were willing to take the risks of the stormy water.  He took, apparently, great interest in the embarkations, and, when evening came on, he sent repeatedly down to the sea-side to inquire about the state of the wind and the progress of the operations.  At length he retired to his apartment, and, when all was quiet in the house, he lay down upon his bed and stabbed himself with his sword He fell from the bed by the blow, or else from the effect of some convulsive motion which the penetrating steel occasioned.  His son and servants, hearing the fall, came rushing into the room, raised him from the floor, and attempted to bind up and stanch the wound.  Cato would not permit them to do it.  He resisted them violently as soon as he was conscious of what they intended.  Finding that a struggle would only aggravate the horrors of the scene, and even hasten its termination, they left the bleeding hero to his fate, and in a few minutes he died.

[Sidenote:  Folly of his suicide.]

The character of Cato, and the circumstances under which his suicide was committed, make it, on the whole, the most conspicuous act of suicide which history records; and the events which followed show in an equally conspicuous manner the extreme folly of the deed.  In respect to its wickedness, Cato, not having had the light of Christianity before him, is to be leniently judged.  As to the folly of the deed, however, he is to be held strictly accountable.  If he had lived and yielded to his conqueror, as he might have done gracefully and without dishonor, since all his means of resistance were exhausted, Caesar would have treated him with generosity and respect, and would have taken him to Rome; and as within a year or two of this time Caesar himself was no more, Cato’s vast influence and power might have been, and un doubtedly would have been, called most effectually into action for the benefit of his country.  If any one, in defending Cato, should say he could not foresee this, we reply, he could have foreseen it; not the