I refuse to live by the favor of a tyrant.  Still, as there are three hundred others for whom you are to intercede, let us see what can be done with the speech.”  This business finished, he took an affectionate leave of his friend, commending to his good offices his son and his friends.  On his son he laid a strict injunction not to meddle with public life.  Such a part as was worthy of the name of Cato no man could take again; to take any other would be shameful.  Then followed the bath, and after the bath, dinner, to which he had invited a number of friends, magistrates of the town.  He sat at the meal, instead of reclining.  This had been his custom ever since the fated day of Pharsalia.  After dinner, over the wine, there was much learned talk, and this not other than cheerful in tone.  But when the conversation happened to turn on one of the favorite maxims of the Stoics, “Only the good man is free; the bad are slaves,” Cato expressed himself with an energy and even a fierceness that made the company suspect some terrible resolve.  The melancholy silence that ensued warned the speaker that he had betrayed himself, and he hastened to remove the suspicion by talking on other topics.  After dinner he took his customary walk, gave the necessary orders to the officers on guard, and then sought his chamber.  Here he took up the Phaedo, the famous dialogue in which Socrates, on the day when he is to drink the poison, discusses the immortality of the soul.  He had almost finished the book, when, chancing to turn his eyes upwards, he perceived that his sword had been removed.  His son had removed it while he sat at dinner.  He called a slave and asked, “Who has taken my sword?” As the man said nothing, he resumed his book; but in the course of a few minutes, finding that search was not being made, he asked for the sword again.  Another interval followed; and still it was not forthcoming.  His anger was now roused.  He vehemently reproached the slaves, and even struck one of them with his fist, which he injured by the blow.  “My son and my slaves,” he said, “are betraying me to the enemy.”  He would listen to no entreaties, “Am I a madman,” he said, “that I am stripped of my arms?  Are you going to bind my hands and give me up to Caesar?  As for the sword I can do without it; I need but hold my breath or dash my head against the wall.  It is idle to think that you can keep a man of my years alive against his will.”  It was felt to be impossible to persist in the face of this determination, and a young slave-boy brought back the sword.  Cato felt the weapon, and finding that the blade was straight and the edge perfect, said, “Now I am my own master.”  He then read the Phaedo again from beginning to end, and afterwards fell into so profound a sleep that persons standing outside the chamber heard his breathing.  About midnight he sent for his physician and one of his freedmen.  The freedman was commissioned to inquire whether his friends had set sail.  The physician he asked to bind up his