Rob GoodmanRome's Last Citizen: The Life and Legacy of Cato, Mortal Enemy of Caesar

Must read!

Bought as a present for my husband who comments "Cato the Younger was my hero, but now I wonder if he was as good as he should have been. Thanks to the book, I now know that we have to look at the real decisions people make." Historically, he says, this book is the best he has read on this subject.

I knew the end of the book even before I began it, but I was enthralled all the same. Well written and concise. I think the man himself would be proud.

Many thanks to the authors for bringing to life for me ancient Rome and above all the figure of Cato the Younger. It's made me want to read more about ancient Rome and especially Cato, who I find a fascinating character.

Very insightful book

Very well researched.

I picked up Goodman and Soni's book ROME'S LAST CITIZEN by mistake, in belief that I was ordering a book on the Cato who, in the Roman Senate, ended each speech, no matter what the subject, with: And Carthage must be destroyed. I'd just finished several great books on Carthage, Richard Miles' CARTHAGE MUST BE DESTROYED and Adrian Goldsworthy's THE FALL OF CARTHAGE, and thought it would be interesting to see the subject from Cato's point of view, especially as I was highly displeased with his stand, as well as that of Rome, concerning the destruction of Rome's mercantile competitor. In my mind it's a little like Windows trying to destroy Apple, or the other way around: It may make sense commercially, but what a disservice to humanity. Anyway, Goodman and Soni's Cato, born two generations after the Cato I though I was ordering, was contemporary with Caesar and Pompey, (as well as Scipio, Mark Anthony and Octaves), Roman heavyweights of passionate interest. Cato comes through a little too ethereal for my tastes, except during the death of his brother whom he worshipped. Here his philosophy and high standards in no way helped overcome his grief. He had a marble statue carved in the boy's image. As a child, Cato had been asked Who is your hero? My brother. And your second hero? My brother. And were you to have a third hero? My brother. His pain, so intense, became my pain, across 2000 years.Cato preached honor and virtue, the Stoic's life (drawn from the Greeks he loved), the whole making me think of a girl who demurely closes her legs to worldly influences, but in reality is only denying herself earthly pleasures. The authors relate a story that they say was as shocking to the Romans and it is to us: A friend of Cato's, an old man, wanted a son. He knew that Cato's daughter was highly fertile, and even though she was also married, he asked Cato if he could have her. Cato agreed but suggested that things would go more quickly is the man married his (Cato's) wife, already pregnant, instead. The man acquiesced and Cato divorced. For Stoics, women were mere soil in which to shoot their loads (in that, things remain unchanged), and sharing them was the best way to avoid egotism and jealousy.I sometimes wonder if the world benefitted in any way from Rome's existence, with the exception of the spectacular aqueducts and gorgeous ruins. It seems as if everything they had was derivative, mostly from the Greeks, and their existence certainly couldn't compensate for the millions they killed, many of whom being their own citizens. (You think I'm exaggerating? In one battle alone, in Gaul against the Germans, Caesar massacred 300,000 men, women and children.) Cato's end was both Stoic and Greek à la fois (I'm French). After evacuating, from Africa, senators and troops for whom he was accountable (an evacuation before the arrival of his arch enemy, Caesar, an evacuation marvelously described by Soni and Goodman), he stabbed himself in the stomach and passed out; a few hours afterwards, awaking to find someone sewing his bowels back into their place, he ripped himself open and, mercifully, died.My own books can be found on Amazon under Michael Hone.

The authors clearly dislike Cato (and Stoicism), to such an extent that the reader is left feeling that the interpretation cannot be trusted. The narrative builds on the stereotypes and creates a Disney Cato rather than giving a sense of the genuine man. Quotes are also lacking in references which is both annoying and an indication that this is lazy writing rather than genuine scholarship or historiography.

This is a great book. Lots of information in here about Cato. The author does a great job also of using Cato to talk about the issues of the day (the civil war with Pompey and Caesar, Sulla, the decline of the Republic). But it's a well done mix really, Cato, and the issues of the day.In addition to being information dense, it's well written, and easy to read.This book gets better as you go along.The last couple chapters about Cato's legacy in America, England, and after his death in the Roman empire were especially interesting.

Tolle Biographie!

I picked up Goodman and Soni's book ROME'S LAST CITIZEN by mistake, in belief that I was ordering a book on the Cato who, in the Roman Senate, ended each speech, no matter what the subject, with: And Carthage must be destroyed. I'd just finished several great books on Carthage, Richard Miles' CARTHAGE MUST BE DESTROYED and Adrian Goldsworthy's THE FALL OF CARTHAGE, and thought it would be interesting to see the subject from Cato's point of view, especially as I was highly displeased with his stand, as well as that of Rome, concerning the destruction of Rome's mercantile competitor. In my mind it's a little like Windows trying to destroy Apple, or the other way around: It may make sense commercially, but what a disservice to humanity. Anyway, Goodman and Soni's Cato, born two generations after the Cato I though I was ordering, was contemporary with Caesar and Pompey, (as well as Scipio, Mark Anthony and Octaves), Roman heavyweights of passionate interest. Cato comes through a little too ethereal for my tastes, except during the death of his brother whom he worshipped. Here his philosophy and high standards in no way helped overcome his grief. He had a marble statue carved in the boy's image. As a child, Cato had been asked Who is your hero? My brother. And your second hero? My brother. And were you to have a third hero? My brother. His pain, so intense, became my pain, across 2000 years.Cato preached honor and virtue, the Stoic's life (drawn from the Greeks he loved), the whole making me think of a girl who demurely closes her legs to worldly influences, but in reality is only denying herself earthly pleasures. The authors relate a story that they say was as shocking to the Romans and it is to us: A friend of Cato's, an old man, wanted a son. He knew that Cato's daughter was highly fertile, and even though she was also married, he asked Cato if he could have her. Cato agreed but suggested that things would go more quickly is the man married his (Cato's) wife, already pregnant, instead. The man acquiesced and Cato divorced. For Stoics, women were mere soil in which to shoot their loads (in that, things remain unchanged), and sharing them was the best way to avoid egotism and jealousy.I sometimes wonder if the world benefitted in any way from Rome's existence, with the exception of the spectacular aqueducts and gorgeous ruins. It seems as if everything they had was derivative, mostly from the Greeks, and their existence certainly couldn't compensate for the millions they killed, many of whom being their own citizens. (You think I'm exaggerating? In one battle alone, in Gaul against the Germans, Caesar massacred 300,000 men, women and children.) Cato's end was both Stoic and Greek à la fois (I'm French). After evacuating, from Africa, senators and troops for whom he was accountable (an evacuation before the arrival of his arch enemy, Caesar, an evacuation marvelously described by Soni and Goodman), he stabbed himself in the stomach and passed out; a few hours afterwards, awaking to find someone sewing his bowels back into their place, he ripped himself open and, mercifully, died.My own books can be found on Amazon under Michael Hone.

A very comprehensive story on the life of Cato and aftermath. Plutarchs view seeps thorough (who wasn’t known to be a particularly strong fan of Cato), but the authors paint fair and interesting story about him.

I was introduced to Cato the Younger earlier this year while reading Plutarch. Few other "heroes" affected me as profoundly as Cato the Younger. Almost immediately upon finishing Plutarch's Cato, I went searching for more material. The two additional sources I ended up purchasing were Joseph Addison's play and Rob Goodman's book.I'm no Cato scholar, so I can't speak to the accuracy or nuances of his history compared with any other historian -- but as far as an extremely insightful and entertaining read, Rob Goodman captured exactly what I was hoping for. Not only did he give me a detailed perspective of Cato's life, he also filled it in with the legacy of Cato down through the ages. I could feel my mind exploding as I uncovered the juicy details that Plutarch only brushed upon -- I wanted more, and here I found it. Cato as the man, Cato as the politician, Cato as the Stoic, Cato as the paragon of virtue, Cato as a real flawed character, Cato in his own time and Cato as we have demonized and idealized him since. Dante asked, "What man on earth was more worthy to signify God than Cato?" I ask: what man on earth was more mythologized over and over again to fit and inform the zeitgeist of the times?While I love the historic Cato with all his flaws and contradictions, I can't help but feel a special affinity to the Cato of the revolutionary war -- the Cato of George Washington. How could this Cato not inspire dedication to Stoic virtue and gentle enlightenment? I found myself, like George Washington wanting to BE this Cato. This Cato, unlike Seneca or Epictetus, comes with a special weight of actually having lived his Stoic virtues as a politician, inspiring us to this special possibility. Who doesn't love the story of the virtuous standing up to the tyrant -- and though he loses his life actually wins? Cato, Jesus, Socrates, we love them all! For it tells us there is something greater to die for, and something greater to live for. What would the revolution war be if we didn't have this mythologized Cato? Would its possibility still be a possibility? Though a majority of people now days don't even know who Cato was, I can't help but think how we as a people in this post-revolutionary era have both been created in his image and he created in ours.Rob Goodman is not only brilliant in bringing all the pieces of Cato to perspective but brilliant in bringing this superb history to a modern audience in a simple and necessary way. I'm with Seneca on this one -- "Choose Cato" and there is no better way to start than here with Rob Goodman's book.