The Father of Our Country Was a Child of ‘Cato’

George Washington and the play that helped make America 

George Washington reading with his family in the living room. "Washington at Home," circa 1911, by E. Percy Moran. Photomechanical print of original painting. Library of Congress. Public Domain

Throughout the ages, heroic men and women—real and mythological—have roused the spirits of those who hear or read about their exploits. Achilles, Hector, Antigone, Aeneas, and other Greco-Roman figures galvanized entire cultures. In story and song, the Middle Ages celebrated Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, Charlemagne, Richard the Lionheart, Joan of Arc, and scores of other dames and knights.

Americans, too, have their pantheon of heroes. Abigail Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Edison, Wilbur and Orville Wright, and Theodore Roosevelt are only a few of the names inscribed in that hall of champions. They were extraordinary human beings whose words and deeds have inspired their fellow citizens.

Even in today’s postmodernist culture, where some disparage so many of our great predecessors, we look for heroes we might emulate. Children and adolescents—and some adults—find their role models in Marvel comics and movies. Others lift up film stars, athletes, or entrepreneurs like Elon Musk as their exemplars. Still others take lessons from fictional characters, like Aragorn or Eowyn in “The Lord of the Rings.”

And George Washington was no different.

A Hero’s Heroes

"Joseph Addison Esq.," 1733, by John Faber the Younger and Sir Godfrey Kneller. Mezzotint on medium, slightly textured, beige, laid paper. Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Conn. Public Domain

From his youth, George Washington was fascinated by Joseph Addison’s play “Cato.” He may have lacked the classical training of Adams, Jefferson, and others of our Founding Fathers, but Washington shared their enthusiasm for the ancient Greeks and Romans, and in Cato he found a lifelong mentor.

As a young man, he quoted from Addison’s play in a letter. He saw “Cato” staged many times throughout his life, and he often used its lines or paraphrased them in correspondence and conversation. Following the miserable winter at Valley Forge, in May 1778, he had the play performed for his soldiers, drawing a crowd of civilians from nearby Philadelphia. Contemporaries have reported that he slept with a copy of the play beside his bed.

Long before he became the general of America’s revolutionary army or the first president under the new country’s Constitution, Washington found in Cato, and in some of the play’s other characters, beliefs and virtues that he sought to make his own.

A Brave Man

One line from “Cato,” which reads “A brave man struggling in the storms of fate,” is preceded by these instructions regarding the play:

To wake the soul by tender strokes of art, To raise the genius, and mend the heart; To make mankind, in conscious virtue bold, Live o’er each scene, and be what they behold.

This introduction in verse to “Cato” by Alexander Pope explains the intentions of Addison’s tragedy and why it attracted the devotion of Washington and other proponents of honor, virtue, and liberty—both in colonial America and in Great Britain.

First performed in 1713, “Cato” tells the tragic story of that Roman republican and statesman who died resisting the army of Julius Caesar at Utica in North Africa. Surrounding Cato the Younger are other men and women who share his passionate belief in the Republic: his two sons Portius and Marcus, their sister Marcia, the senator Lucius and his daughter Lucia, and Juba, the prince of Numidia.

Opposing Cato, there is not only Caesar and his far superior army but also two traitors: the Roman senator Sempronius and the aging Syphax, general of the Numidians and Juba’s right-hand man. Like Cato himself, both men doubt their chances against Caesar. Unlike Cato, however, they are unwilling to die fighting for a lost republic, and devise their scheme of treachery. The main plot and theme of “Cato” lies in the tension between the traitors and those loyal to Rome’s ancient principles and customs.

“Cato” is also a romance, again encompassed by high ideals. Juba wishes to take Marcia for his wife, while brothers Portius and Marcus have both fallen in love with Lucia. The two young women are friends and exchange confidences regarding their suitors, and though in love themselves—Lucia prefers Portius to his brother—they nobly agree that now is neither the time nor the place to act on these desires.

The play ends with the discovery of the conspirators—Juba slays Sempronius, and Syphax dies in a melee at the hand of Marcus, who is himself killed in the fighting. In the play, as in life, Cato sees that all is lost, ensures the safety of his family and followers, and takes his own life after blessing the proposed union of Marcia and Juba. With his death, the dream of a republic restored dies as well.

The Critics

Without a major overhaul, “Cato” would never succeed on the stage today. Even in its time, critics found the play long-winded, short on action, and burdened with dialogue. Moreover, Addison’s language strikes the modern ear as archaic, and the references to figures and events of antiquity are no longer familiar to most Americans.

In their introduction to “Cato” in the 1938 book “Representative English Plays: From the Miracle Plays to Pinero,” J.S.P. Tatlock and R.G. Martin describe the play as “emotionally frigid,” in part because of the difference in taste between the contemporary world and that of the 18th century’s Age of Enlightenment. They then add, “The polished style, faultily faultless some call it, indirect and highly literary, heightens the sense of coolness, but the feeling throughout is one of detachment.”

These criticisms are just, but if that is so, we are then compelled to ask: Why did “Cato” so charm and intrigue the audiences of that age, even decades after Addison had written it? And why in particular did it appeal so strongly to Washington?

A reading of “Cato” readily answers those questions.

Duty, Honor, and Country

“Cato” tells the tragic story of that Roman republican and statesman who died resisting the army of Julius Caesar at Utica in North Africa. "Death of Cato," circa 1640, by Gioacchino Assereto. Musei di Strada Nuova, Genoa, Italy. Public Domain

In nearly every passage of the play are discussions or mentions of honor, virtue, and liberty. Here, Juba and Cato converse about “nobleness of soul.” Here, Lucia swears before the gods and Portius, “Never to mix my plighted hands with thine, while such a cloud of mischiefs hangs about us,” and she keeps that vow until it is no longer applicable. Here, Juba pledges to Cato, “If I forsake thee whilst I have life, may heaven abandon Juba!” When the senator Lucius urges Cato to seek mercy from Caesar, the older man retorts, “Would Lucius have me live to swell the number of Caesar’s slaves, or by a base submission give up the cause of Rome, and own a tyrant?”

In these lines and scores of others, we see the relevance of “Cato” to Washington and other patriots during and after the American Revolution. When, for instance, the British executed 21-year-old Nathan Hale as a spy, his purported last words were, “I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country.” In the immensely popular play, Cato remarks on seeing his dead son Marcus, “What pity is it that we can die but once to serve our country!” Some scholars believe that Hale might even have recited that line before his death.

Death before dishonor is no empty phrase in “Cato.” Honor and virtue are everything, money and power nothing, and that idea likely appealed to the soldier and the man, George Washington.

The negative opinions of critics should not dissuade us from reading “Cato,” which can be found online. Once we accustom ourselves to the ornate and formal language, the play moves along at a good pace, keeps our interest, and offers insights into the charms and attractions that this play held for Washington and his contemporaries.

Nor does Addison entirely deserve all the negative assessments he receives for being dispassionate. As the tensions increase with the approach of Caesar and the heightened treachery of Sempronius and Syphax, the speeches and musings on freedom take on greater urgency. And certainly, the scene in which Sempronius describes how he will take Marcia against her will—“When I behold her struggling in my arms, with glowing beauty and disordered charms”—is anything but cold.

Finally, we may well gain some of the courage and character that Washington found in Addison’s words. At one point, Marcus asks this question regarding his father: “But what can Cato do against a world, a base, degenerate world, that courts the yoke, and bows the neck to Caesar?”

The play gives us the answer just as it gave the answer to Washington. We can all imitate Cato, facing a “base, degenerate world” but refusing to bow before it or its tyrannies.