But he blotted out and destroyed all such ill report by his death; for while fighting at Philippi against Caesar and Antonius in defence of liberty, and the line was giving way, not deigning either to fly or to secrete himself, but challenging the enemy and showing himself in front of them and cheering on those who kept the ground with him he fell after exhibiting to his adversaries prodigies of valour.  And still more, the daughter of Cato being inferior neither in virtue nor courage (for she was the wife of Brutus who killed Caesar) was both privy to the conspiracy and parted with life in a manner worthy of her noble birth and merit, as is told in the Life of Brutus.  Statyllius, who said that he would follow Cato’s example, was prevented indeed at the time by the philosophers, though he wished to kill himself, but afterwards he showed himself most faithful to Brutus and most serviceable at Philippi, and there he died.

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 653:  Cato was a cognomen of the Porcia Gens, which was Plebeian.  The name Cato was first given to M. Porcius Cato Censorius, who was consul B.C. 195 and censor B.C. 184.  The father of the Cato whose life is here written was M. Porcius Cato, a Tribunus Plebis, who married Livia, a sister of the tribune M. Livius Drusus.  This Cato, the tribune, was the son of M. Porcius Cato Salonianus, who was the son of Cato the Censor.  Cato the Censor was therefore the great-grandfather of the Cato whose life is here written.  See the Life of Cato the Censor by Plutarch, c. 24. 97.  This Cato was born B.C. 95.]

[Footnote 654:  The text of Plutarch says that Livius Drusus was the uncle of Cato’s mother, but this is a mistake, and accordingly Xylander proposed to read [Greek:  theio men onti pros tes metros].  But Sintenis supposes that Plutarch may have misunderstood the Roman expression “avunculus maternus.”  Cato’s father had by his wife Livia a daughter Porcia, who married J. Domitius Ahenobarbus.  Livia’s second husband was Q. Servilius Caepio, by whom she had a son Q. Servilius Caepio, whom Plutarch calls Cato’s brother, and two daughters, named Servilia, one of whom married M. Junius Brutus, the father of the Brutus who was one of Caesar’s assassins, and the other married L. Licinius Lucullus (Life of Lucullus. c. 38).]

[Footnote 655:  The word is [Greek:  anamnestikous].  The meaning of Plutarch is perhaps not quite clear.  See the note in Schaefer’s edition.]

[Footnote 656:  These were the Roman Socii, or Italian states, which were in a kind of alliance with and subordination to Rome.  They had to furnish troops for the wars, and to share the burdens of the Roman State in return for which they claimed the citizenship (Life of Marius, c. 32).]

[Footnote 657:  Or Silo (Life of Marius, c. 33).]

[Footnote 658:  There is obviously an error here in Plutarch’s text, as Sintenis observes.  The real meaning of what Pompaedius said appears from the context, and from a passage of Valerius Maximus (3. 1, 2), who tells the same story.]