As to how the characters and relationships in Cato all maps onto the era in which Addison was writing, the various parallels and allusions would seem obvious enough. Sempronius and Syphax represent the contemporary Tories: alternately self-interested, dissembling, and cruel. While they play at being devoted either to the ideals for which Cato stands (on the part of Sempronius) or the master whom they are bound to serve (on the part of Syphax) they both secretly scorn the idea of loyalty for its own sake and desire only the improvement of their personal situations. Marcus, Portius, and Marcia, meanwhile, represent the contemporary Whigs. They are conscientious, disciplined, and self-sacrificing, willing to forfeit their ease, happiness, and – in the case of Marcus – even their own lives in service to their father and to the virtues which he embodies. Marcus, as aforementioned, is the least sober and stoic of the three, given as he is to a degree of romantic anguish over his feelings for Lucia, but he nevertheless ends up making the greatest sacrifice by the time the play has run its course. Lucius, being something of an appeaser, would seem to stand in for those British statesmen in 1712 who identified with the ideology and objectives of the Whigs but felt that aggressive resistance to the Tories in the latter’s pursuit of a second Restoration was too likely to result in destructive civil conflict to actively pursue. And Caesar, though more a presence than a character, was arguably Addison’s stand-in for James Francis Edward Stuart, the intransigent pretender to the British throne who believed himself favored by God, looked with distaste on constitutional government, and would gladly have rewarded those who aided in delivering him to his rightful coronation.
In actual fact, the motivations of Julius Caesar were somewhat more complicated than a mere lust for power. He had the inclinations of a tyrant, to be sure, but he was also a populist and a reformer who sought to empower the plebeians and transform the patchwork Roman Republic into a more cohesive and stable administrative unit. James, by contrast, never showed himself to be either interested in, or amenable to, any particular program of restructuring or reform. What he wanted, simply put, was the kingdom that had been taken from his father and the power to rule it as he saw fit. But while casting Caesar in the role of James might have been a trifle unkind, Addison had no cause to pursue a nuanced portrayal of the looming but unseen presence that provides the motive force for his allegorical drama. For the contemporary Whigs – and particularly for those who identified most strongly with the “republican” aspects of the British Constitution and sought inspiration in the lives and careers of ancient statesmen like Cato, Marcus Junius Brutus (85-42 BC), and Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) – Caesar was a villain, plain and simple. He destroyed the Roman Republic, gave rise to the Roman Empire, and caused the deaths of thousands of his countrymen along the way. By using him as a stand-in for the man who would at length become known as “The Old Pretender,” Addison was doubtless attempting to suggest that the Stuart heir was as single-minded in his pursuit of power and as willing to see his nominal subjects killed if they dared to stand in his way. This manner of poetic exaggeration was very much the mode in which Cato was written. The characters therein were not necessarily accurate reflections of either their historical originals – if such existed – or of the contemporary groups or figures that they were intended to represent. Rather, they are caricatures of a sort whose extravagant behaviors and pronouncements were intended to elicit an emotional response in audiences quite probably skeptical of the idea that the looming death of the reigning British sovereign might conceivably result in an out-and-out civil war.
Consider, by way of example, the deceitful Sempronius. A Senator who presumably fled Rome along with the Optimates and survived Pharsalus and Thapsus only to end up sequestered in Utica with what remained of his colleagues, his ostensible purpose in Cato is to give voice to what Addison seemed to regard as the fundamental self-interest of the Tories and their supporters. In the presence of Cato, his children, or young Juba, he is effusive in his praise of the course that Cato has plotted and eager to bring the fight once more to Caesar’s traitorous legions. But this, the audience learns soon enough, is all a front. In actual fact, though he claimed a moment before that Cato’s virtues, “Strike with something like religious fear, / And make even Caesar tremble at the head / Of armies flush’d with conquest [,]” in truth he believes that Caesar’s victory is inevitable. “Alas!” he thus remarks to Syphax, Juba’s equally devious retainer,
Thou know’st not Caesar’s active
soul,
With what a dreadful course he rushes
on
From war to war. In vain has nature
form’d
Mountains and oceans t’oppose his
passage;
He bounds o’er all.
One day more
Will set the victor thund’ring at our
gates.
Worse yet,
Sempronius is convinced that he chose poorly in following Cato into the deserts
of Africa. “Cato has used me ill [,]” he complains,
He
has refused
His
daughter Marcia to my ardent vows.
Besides,
his baffled arms, and ruin’d cause,
Are
bars to my ambition. Caesar’s favor,
That
show’rs down greatness on his friends, will raise me
To
Rome’s first honours.
The best course, Sempronius accordingly concludes, is to play for time, make contact with Caesar, and communicate to him that he has friends in Cato’s camp at Utica who would gladly offer their assistance.
Though the quotations cited above are taken only from Act 1, they nevertheless serve to make the motivations of Sempronius abundantly clear. Sempronius is dissembling, two-faced. He praises Cato at one moment and plots against him the next. He does not believe in standing fast against that which one has no hope of defeating – which is to say that he does not think that one ought to die for their principles – and endeavors only to serve that which, and those whom, can attend to his material interests. While, again, forming something of a caricature, this very much encapsulates the contemporary Whig view of their opposition. The Tories – ideologically descended, as they were, from the Cavaliers who had sided with Crown during the English Civil War (1642-1649) – were courtly, pro-monarchy, pro-Church, and anti-Parliament. They had shown themselves to be amenable, in the late 17th century, to allowing the Crown to wield significant political power – as during the final years of Charles II (1630-1685) – and had formed productive working relationships with King William III and his successor Queen Anne during the early years of the 18th century for precisely that same reason. Successful as they were, however – or perhaps exactly for that reason – they became known among their Whig rivals as excessively self-interested, craven, and hypocritical. They supported monarchs with Catholic sympathies and then campaigned on the idea that the Church of England was in peril. They endeavored to pull Britain out of a war, for the ostensible purpose of sparing lives and resources, and then attempted to elevate a pretender who really was a Catholic so that they wouldn’t have to face the political consequences. They played the part of selfless public servants while at the same time coveting nothing more than political power.
Granted, this is a very one-sided portrait of the 18th-century Tories, but one which Addison would nevertheless have had ample reason to promote. Being a Whig in good standing, and a Member of Parliament, the author of Cato well understood that support for the mechanism of succession which the House of Commons had previously approved would almost certainly end up empowering Parliament even further in the event of its implementation. Tory partisans who argued to the contrary, that it was in fact in the best interests of the nation to disregard the Act of Settlement (1701) and re-empower the monarchy, thus warranted an exceedingly skeptical glance. Being Addison’s stand-in for these selfsame monarchists, Sempronius is accordingly portrayed as enthusiastically unfaithful to the cause which he outwardly claims to honor. Consider, by way of further example, the following pair of scenes. At the beginning of Act 2, during a meeting of what remains of the Senate, Sempronius once more dons the aspect of an unbowed, virtuous Roman. “Rise, fathers, rise!” he exhorts his colleagues,
‘tis Rome demands your help;
Rise, and revenge her slaughtered
citizens,
Or share their fate!—
To battle!
Great Pompey’s shade complains that
we are slow;
And Scipio’s ghost walks unrevenged
among us.
But while Cato
chalks up his colleague’s bloody-minded exhortation to an excess of zeal,
Sempronius had earlier communicated to Syphax at the end of Act 1 that he
intended to mask his antipathy towards Cato when next they met in a contrived
outburst of unfettered passion. “I’ll bellow out for Rome,” he asserted,
And for my county,
And mouth at Caesar, till I shake
the senate.
Your cold hypocrisy’s a stale
device,
A worn-out trick; wouldst thou be
thought in earnest,
Clothe thy feign’d zeal in rage, in fire, in fury!
The lengths to which Addison has Sempronius go in pursuit of his desired ends, and the means by which he characterizes himself and what he seeks, speak yet further to the disdain with which the author of Cato viewed the contemporary Tories. When a plot, instigated by Sempronius, to spur a mutiny among the weary soldiers under Cato’s command fails in Act 3 when Cato himself shames the men involved, Sempronius makes a point of volunteering to carry out their execution. Upbraiding the soldiers – both earnestly and for show – as, “Base, grov’ling, worthless wretches,” he then proceeds with uncharacteristic frankness to describe the nature of the trap he had earlier set for them. “Know, villains,” he thus explains,
When such paltry
slaves presume
To mix in
treason, if the plot succeeds,
They’re thrown
neglected by; but if it fails,
They’re sure to
die like dogs, as you shall do.
Then, when the
leader of the mutineers shortly attempts a counter, Sempronius once more covers
himself in the guise of loyalty and diligence. “Dispatch them quick,” he
orders, “But first pluck out their tongues / Lest with their dying breath they
sow sedition.” Not only, it seems, is Sempronius a hypocrite, a liar, and a
traitor, but he is likewise cruel and ruthless in his devotion to himself. He
uses men, discards men, intends they die to fulfill his personal ambitions and
has them killed when they fail so that his schemes do not become known. He is,
in many ways, avarice embodied.
The extent of the rapaciousness represented
by Sempronius is made clearest near the end of Act 3 when he is goaded by his
erstwhile co-conspirator Syphax into revealing the nature of his obsession with
Cato’s daughter, Marcia. The aforementioned mutiny having failed, and Syphax
having suggested that the pair flee while they are yet unsuspected, Sempronius
first laments having to leave Marcia behind before going on to explain the true
nature of his interest. “Think not thy friend can ever feel the soft / Unmanly
warmth and tenderness of love [,]” he assures his companion,
Syphax, I long to clasp that haughty
maid,
And bend her stubborn virtue to my
passion:
When I have gone thus far, I’d cast
her off.
When Syphax
responds by suggesting that Sempronius disguise himself as Juba and attempt to
kidnap Marcia from her bedchamber, the Senator’s elation at the prospect is
similarly disturbing. “Heavens, what a thought is there!” he exclaims.
Marcia’s my own!
How will my bosom swell with anxious
joy,
When I behold her struggling in my
arms,
With glowing beauty, and disorder’d
charms,
While fear and anger, with alternate
grace,
Pant in her breast, and vary in her
face!
There is little
cause to doubt that Addison’s intention herein was to conjure the image of
rape. Indeed, Sempronius all but says outright that he intendeds to assault
Marcia and then discard her. He wants her to struggle, to be angry, and
fearful. He wants her to resist him so that his eventual conquest will be all
the sweeter. These are not the expressions of a man who is besotted, like Juba;
someone who cares more for the happiness of their beloved than they do for
their own. Rather, these are the twisted desires of one who can truly love
nobody but themselves. Compassion is unknown to them, or tenderness, or
selflessness.
Again, it bears admitting that this does not amount to a very balanced understanding of contemporary Tories like Robert Harley or Lord Bolingbroke. Their desire to re-empower the House of Stuart as a means of avoiding political punishment was most definitely a craven thing, it must be said. Nevertheless, it would difficult to find fault with the action itself for which they were seeking to avoid responsibility. The War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714), though of enduring strategic significance to contemporary Britain’s imperial ambitions, had grown increasingly unpopular with the British public by the beginning of the 1710s. The most recent election – in 1710 itself – had seen the incumbent Whigs suffer an unexpected defeat at the hands of the resurgent Tories precisely because the former had campaigned on the idea that peace could not be achieved until certain concession had been extracted from France, and the newly-empowered Tories – under the aforementioned Robert Harley – were accordingly eager to secure a settlement with the French and Spanish, recall British troops from the Continent, and consolidate the commercial gains that Britain’s victories had won thus far. One could hardly call this a dishonorable motive. Great Britain – and England before it – had been embroiled in some manner of pan-European conflagration or internal civil conflict almost continuously since the days of the English Civil War. And for that matter, the War of the Spanish Succession had itself been going on for the better part of a decade. If the British people had indeed grown tired of war taxes, and trade disruptions, and sending their fathers, sons, and bothers off to die so that the French couldn’t conquer the Dutch, there was nothing unreasonable or immoral about the Tories under Harley seeking an end to the conflict Britain was then in the midst of so as to save some lives and preserve some treasure.
This fact in itself, of course, wasn’t Addison’s issue. He had reason, to be sure, to disagree with the Tories in their ultimately successful efforts to pull Britain out of the war with France. He was a Whig, after all, and the Whigs were resolutely in favor of ensuring that a French prince never held the throne of Spain. That this came to pass all the same, however – that Britain left the alliance, that the French prince in question was ratified as King Phillip V (1683-1746) of Spain – was assuredly not the reason that Addison so savagely pilloried the Tories in the form of the deceitful and self-interested Sempronius. Rather, it was that the Tories seemingly refused to suffer the consequences of their actions as truly selfless statesmen should have. Political exile – at the hands of the future king George I – was the cost which their decision required them to pay. That they could not – or rather simply would not – was accordingly a mark of cowardice. Evidently, the Tories were incapable of selflessness, incapable of love. All that they cared about was themselves and their fortunes, and they would sacrifice anyone and anything to protect and enlarge them. Thus, did Addison characterize Sempronius, his arch-Tory villain: grasping, covetous, ruthless, and insatiable. He will destroy that which he desires, loves nothing and no one but himself.
Even in death – his plans foiled, his ambition cut short – Sempronius remains an ignoble portrait of Tory self-interest. Having sought, as Syphax suggested, to disguise himself as Prince Juba so as to steal into Marcia’s bedchamber and carry her away before departing for Caesar’s battle lines, Sempronius is instead accosted by Juba at the beginning of Act 4 and swiftly cut down. In his dying moment, however, rather than repent for the deeds that brought him to such an abrupt and shameful end – thereby demonstrating some faint glimmer of integrity before expiring – Sempronius instead curses his fate, his killer, and the object of his late pursuit. “Am I then doom’d to fall [,]” he laments, “By a boy’s hand, disfigured in a vile / Numidian dress, and for a worthless woman?” Then, in a final fit of self-importance, he makes a plea that his death be recognized by the world at large. “Oh,” he cries out, “For a peal of thunder, that would make / Earth, sea, and air, and heav’n, and Cato tremble!” Consider, for a moment, the significance of this final exhortation. Sempronius has been struck down, wounded mortally, and is not long for this earth. He knows his time is short, that his schemes have all come to naught, and that his jealousies, hatreds, and ambitions will be of no use to him in the Underworld, where he must surely believe his is bound. Despite the opportunity thus afforded him to shed his ego and find some sense of peace, however, Sempronius simply cannot let go. To his dying breath, though it can do him no good, he curses those who stood in his way. Not only that, but he actually appeals for a sign of his passing from the Gods. “Sempronius cannot die unremarked,” he seems to feel. “Jupiter himself must announce my departure.” It would be difficult to imagine a more egotistical final sentiment.
In actual fact, it bears repeating a final time, the leadership of the contemporary Tory faction were not nearly so cartoonish in their sense of personal or professional vanity. Harley, though somewhat careless with matters of national security and perfectly willing to manipulate public perceptions of his governments by way of his connections with the press, was also famously something of a moderate and a conciliator among his fellow partisans. Twice he survived attempted assassination, often he pursued policies intended to reconcile Tory and Whig principles, and in the short term his service as Chancellor of the Exchequer did much to revive the sagging British economy as the War of the Spanish Succession dragged on into his tenth year. Much the same could be said of Harley’s colleague-cum-rival, Bolingbroke, though the latter enjoyed a somewhat lesser degree of public acclaim. He was a noted orator and a talented parliamentarian, a supporter of the Anglican establishment, and a capable wartime administrator. He was easily made jealous, it was true; his elevation as Viscount Bolingbroke in 1712 was soured by the knowledge that Harley was at the same time made Earl of Oxford. And he was personally given to licentiousness and indulgence, once remarking that he wished to be known – in reference to a famous courtier in the retinue of Roman Emperor Nero (37-68 BC) – as the Petronius of his age. But neither he nor Harley were the out-and-out villains that Addison portrayed in the form of Sempronius. This was rather the point, of course. Cato was not intended to provide a fair and unbiased assessment of the balance of virtue and corruption in contemporary British political culture. Sempronius represented what Addison believed about the Tories – not what they really were, but what he felt them to be. The audience was supposed to find his personality vile, his motivations unjustifiable, and his actions inexcusable, and then to transfer these feelings back onto the Tories themselves. Were any of their number as despicable as Sempronius? Unlikely. But in a moment of tension – as the years between 1710 and 1714 arguably were – and with the right presentation, an audience might be convinced all the same.
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