CATO THE YOUNGER. 437 which he did with great order and exactness, taking care to suppress all tumults, and that no wrong should he done to the people. Marcus Octavius, coming with two legions, now en- camped near Utica, and sent to Cato, to arrange about the chief command. Cato returned him no answer ; but said to his friends, " Can we wonder all has gone ill with us, when our love of office survives even in our very ruin ? " In the mean time, word was brought him, that the horse were going away, and were beginning to spoil and plunder the citizens. Cato ran to them, and from the first he met, snatched what they had taken ; the rest threw clown all they had gotten, and went away silent, and ashamed of what they had done. Then he called together all the people of Utica, and requested them upon the behalf of the three hundred, not to exasperate Caesar against them, but all to seek their common safety together with them. After that, he went again to the port, to see those who were about to embark ; and there he embraced and dismissed those of his friends and ac- quaintance whom he had persuaded to go. As for his son, he did not counsel him to be gone, nor did he think fit to persuade him to forsake his father. But there was one Statyllius, a young man, in the flower of his age, of a brave spirit, and very desirous to imitate the constancy of Cato. Cato entreated him to go away, as he was a noted enemy to Cassar, but without success. Then Cato looked at Apollonides, the stoic philosopher, and Deme- trius, the peripatetic ; " It belongs to you," said he, " to cool the fever of this young man's spirit, and to make him know what is good for him." And thus, in setting his friends upon their way, and in despatching the business of any that applied to him, he spent that night, and the greatest part of the next day. Lucius Caesar, a kinsman of Caesar's, being appointed to
