Cato was never elected Consul, so...video over, goodbye.
But I feel like talking about Cato, so let's look at his term as Tribune of the Plebs,
in 62 BCE.
Well, mostly.
For whatever reason, Tribunes of the Plebs took office on December 10th, so the beginning
of Cato's year slightly overlaps with the end of Cicero's year.
When Cato took office, late in 63 BCE, the Conservatives had already joined forces and
destroyed most of the Catiline Conspiracy.
The city was now safe, but sharply divided.
Groups of Catilina's supporters had been seen hanging around outside of the Senate house,
harassing Senators and threatening to start a riot.
In this context, Cato's role a the Tribune of the Plebs became all the more important.
There were 10 of them elected every year, and they could propose legislation both to
the Popular Assembly and to the Senate.
They could also veto any legislation, or action coming from any other elected official.
You can think of them as a populist counterbalance against the Senate.
It was kind of strange that a staunch Conservative and a creature of the Senate was elected to
this office, which was usually dominated by populists and Reformers.
But with the Conservatives politically ascendant, and the city still on the brink of violence,
Cato knew that everyone was anxious to see what his faction was going to do next.
The first thing Cato did was introduce legislation related to the Grain Dole.
For the past 60 years Rome had operated a public program where they bought grain from
overseas, stored it in government-run warehouses, and sold at subsidized rates throughout the
year to poor citizens who met certain requirements.
Traditionally the Conservative faction liked to make a show of chipping away at the Grain
Dole whenever possible.
Now, Cato put legislation forward that would quadruple the size of the dole overnight.
So what was Cato doing?
He was co-opting one of the big legislative goals of the Reform faction.
He was betting - rightly, in my opinion - that a well fed city was much less likely to support
radical revolutionaries like Catilina.
He also wanted to associate the Reformers with the negative aspects of the Catiline
Conspiracy, and disassociate them from some of the popular stuff, like expanding the Grain
Dole.
Cato introduced the bill before the Senate, and although Cicero, as Consul, raised some
objections at the extremely high cost of the bill, many other Conservatives got on board,
and it passed easily.
As you would expect, it was even more popular with the Public Assembly, who stood to benefit
from the bill directly.
It was passed into law.
Imagine the logistical nightmare of having to buy and store all of that additional grain.
Some poor bureaucrat's job instantly got 4 times harder.
Some time later, Cicero had left office, the leading conspirators had been executed, but
a small rag-tag rebel army remained in the field.
Another Tribune of the Plebs, a guy named Metellus Nepos, put a bill before the Senate
to recall Pompey and his army from the East and have him take command of the city.
Cato opposed this, saying that the conspiracy was under control, and, hey, let's be reasonable,
we've got two perfectly competent Consuls here, elected by the people, why don't we
let one of them take care of the army.
Metellus responded by calling Cato a coward, and threatened to ignore the Senate's advice
on this matter and take the bill directly to the Public Assembly.
Cato responded by saying something along the lines of "Pompey and his army enters this
city over my dead body."
Let's back up for some context: the last time somebody had taken command of the city, they
had installed themselves as dictator and systematically murdered their political opponents.
I've touched on this before, this was Sulla.
Pompey had been one of Sulla's lieutenants, so you can understand why this was setting
off alarms in Cato's head.
He had no intention of letting history repeat itself.
Days later, Metellus did as he had promised, and took his bill to the Public Assembly without
the consent of the Senate.
Cato went down there with another Conservative Tribune of the Plebs to put a stop to the
whole thing.
Metellus instructed a clerk to begin proceedings by reading the bill aloud, and Cato immediately
vetoed it.
Metellus then took over reading the bill himself, and Cato vetoed it again, this time grabbing
the bill from his hands.
Metellus continued reciting the bill from memory, and Cato's Conservative colleague
threw his hand over Metellus's mouth to stop him from speaking.
By the way, violence against a Tribune of the Plebs was a crime punishable by death,
and this seems like an act of violence to me, but nothing would come of it.
Anyway, the crowd saw this altercation going down on the stage, and started attacking the
other Conservatives in attendance.
The crowd only dispersed when rumours started spread that a Consul approaching with a gang
of armed men, something that would have been illegal had it been true, which is wasn't.
But the crowd scattered anyways, and the bill was not passed.
Metellus was so bitter over this incident that he left the city in protest.
Tribunes of the Plebs were actually forbidden from leaving the city during their term, but
considering the laundry list of illegal stuff that had just happened, nobody bothered to
stop him.
The Senate formally endorsed Cato's handling of the situation.
They tried to go a step further and strip Metellus of his Tribuneship - not for fleeing
the city but for starting a riot - but Cato talked them out of it.
Sidenote: Julius Caesar had publicly supported Metellus through this whole ordeal.
He was serving as one of the eight Praetors that year, but when Metellus fled the city
Caesar renounced his Praetorship in solidarity.
The next day, an angry mob assembled outside of Caesar's home, wanting to march on the
Senate and do God-knows-what.
Caesar spoke to the mob, calmed everyone down, and sent them home.
The Senate was impressed by Caesar's statesmanship, and restored to him the office he had just
resigned.
But Cato voted against this.
Caesar had had some suspicious peripheral role in the Catiline Conspiracy, and now he
had some peripheral role in this Metellus affair.
This didn't sit right with Cato.
From this moment on, the rivalry between the two men would only grow.