Washington vs Cato with Alex Petkas

George Washington
I'm gonna show you how great I am. This would have tiny shower. I just wanna say from the bottom. Of me heart, I'd like to take this chance to apologize to absolutely nobody.

Ben Wilson
Hello, and welcome to how to take over the world. This is Ben Wilson. I've got a special episode for you today. As you know, one of the great secrets of life is that the great men and women always copy someone who came before Napoleon, studied the example of Julius Caesar, and tried to be like him. Steve Jobs emulated Edwin land.

Thomas Edison was obsessed with Michael Faraday. You get the idea. So as I was studying the life of George Washington, the question arises, who was George Washington trying to be like? And it turns out that George Washington was obsessed with a roman statesman named Cato. And as my luck would have it, my friend Alex Petkis, host of the cost of Glory podcast, was researching Cato at the same time that I was doing my George Washington episodes.

Alex also did a bunch of research into Washington and the connection between Washington and Cato. And I think he had some really interesting things to say about why George Washington was so inspired by Cato, what it means to be a modern day Cato, why people tend to become so obsessed with ancient Rome and more. So I think you'll love this conversation that I had with Alex about Cato and Washington and their similarities. By the way, if you're not already subscribed to the cost of glory, you should be. It's one of my favorite podcasts, and I think it's a great resource for anyone who's trying to achieve great things.

So without further ado, here is my conversation with Alex Petkis about Cato and Washington. Alex is doing a series right now called Visions of Caesar, in which, in the lead up to a series on Julius Caesar himself, he's doing some of the surrounding characters. He's done Pompey. He's done Crassus. Those were great episodes.

Have I missed anyone? And then you're leading up to doing Cato right now? Yeah, I did Sulla and Marius, who are kind of back backstory, kind of the generation before also. Right. And so since I just did this George Washington episode, you're working on Cato right now, we thought it'd be an interesting episode to do kind of a comparison episode between Cato and Washington.

George Washington
I love this idea, and I loved your series on Washington, too, and I'm really looking forward to Hamilton and Franklin. And these guys were, as you know now, just obsessed with Plutarch's lives and these ancient Romans. The Greeks, too. So I think this is a great idea. Let's get to it.

Ben Wilson
Yeah, absolutely. So the first question that I want to ask you is, well, why don't you give us just the two minute version for someone who doesn't know anything about Cato, why don't you give us a two minute version of who was he? When did he live? Why is he a significant historical figure? Cato the Younger is this very important roman figurehead.

George Washington
He's to be distinguished from Cato the elder. Cato the elder is like his great great grandfather, who, Cato the elder is the guy who's always saying, Carthage must be destroyed. And he was a great moralist himself, that Cato the younger tried to live up to that stern moralism of his legendary great great grandfather. But Cato the younger lives around the time he's about the age of Julius Caesar, a little younger. And he is most famous in posterity for kind of embodying the ancient roman virtues, especially his devotion to stoicism.

He was a very explicit, open, stoic devotee of stoic philosophers. He kept stoics around in his house, traveled with them and quoted their maxims. And he, for the generation that lived immediately after the death of Caesar and the fall of the roman republic and its transition to a monarchy, Cato really embodied what made Rome great and kind of came to be the figure in which that idea of what made Rome great became united with stoicism in a lot of ways. And stoicism was just kind of one among many philosophies in Cato's day. But after Cato, it kind of became like the roman philosophy.

And people like Seneca looked at Cato as kind of the hero of the republic and a hero of stoicism. And it's kind of that Cato, that version of him, who is the cato that kind of, like, lives on through the ages and is the man that people like George Washington and Hamilton and Jefferson kind of look to as embodying all the roman virtues. I have, like a follow up question, which is, you talk about he embodies these sort of old roman virtues, right? And at the same time is a big devotee of stoicism, which at the time was a newer philosophy. And I think there is a natural fit there between the old roman virtues and stoicism.

Ben Wilson
But were there any like, is it just a totally seamless fit, stoicism and kind of old roman virtus? Or were there some new moral innovations that came with stoicism as well? That's a good question. On the one hand, there is in stoicism this strong emphasis on duty, on the idea that duty is the most important thing, duty in the sense of doing what you're called to do by nature. And one of those things for the Stoics is, you know, to serve your state.

George Washington
But there is this kind of higher order that you have this duty to, which really fits with the republican ideal of self sacrifice and honor above everything, and honesty, which the Romans really valued, at least as a public virtue. On the other hand, and you see this in this early trial that Cato was involved in, where he was prosecuting this consul who was corrupt, bribed a bunch of people, but was kind of an okay guy. And then Cicero was defending the guy. His name was Mirena. And in this trial, Cicero is kind of friends with Cato, but as often in politics, he finds himself on the other side of the bench.

And so Cicero makes fun of Cato as this kind of weird bookish guy who studies this kind of weird philosophy, stoicism. And it's this greek thing for Cato. Oh, yes. Gentlemen, you have to understand my colleague here, he's a little bit too stern, because Cicero thought this guy needed to be upheld for political reasons. And so I think there are these kind of more abstruse aspects of stoicism.

The idea, for one thing, that there is no good in this life except for virtue, which is a prominent stoic teaching. This is a little bit counterintuitive. They also have this idea of the world periodically is consumed in fire and reborn. They have a lot of cosmological doctrines that Cato doesn't front in his political career and public Romans don't do. I think the moral innovations are pretty harmonious, though, on that, all that number.

Ben Wilson
Okay. So as we think of Cato, we think of him as very upright, very honest, incorruptible, I think would be one of the words that I associate with him. But I think often we view him, the way that many people hear about Cato is as sort of a nemesis of Julius Caesar. Right. And in that regard, often he.

Another word you might associate with him is intransigent. As someone who is standing in the way of someone who wants to push through some much needed reforms for the roman republic, where do you come out? Having studied him, I'm sure you feel some affinity and some like towards him, but at the same time, do you feel any sort of like, annoyance towards Cato at the same time? Oh, plenty. Yeah.

George Washington
Well, it's very interesting. And you can kind of see this in the career of Washington. So when he's a young man, one of the big influences on him that kind of, I think, introduced him to Cato and the Romans is this guy Fairfax, this local Virginia noble. And there's this letter exchange between Washington and Fairfax. And Fairfax exhorts Washington to study the works of the ancients.

And he actually, notably says, study the commentaries of Julius Caesar and also the campaigns of Alexander the Great, which are great military manuals. Washington is this ambitious young man trying to work his way up in the military. And so people admire Julius Caesar throughout all the ages, and Washington is no exception. But as you get later in Washington's career, Caesar, when the colonies are faced with war, with this monarchy, suddenly Caesar becomes much more the bad guy and Cato becomes the good guy. But I think in a lot of ways, what makes Cato frustrating as a political figure is also kind of his greatness, his intransigence is part of the secret to his power, which is he was really good at making.

At, like winning through losing, like making Julius Caesar or his opponents pay the utmost political price for any victory that they might win and kind of, like, lose credibility as they kind of bulldoze over Cato. A true conservative. A true conservative. Yeah, he's like the patron saint of the so called loser convicts.

And there are many examples we could cite about that. But most notably, his death is the thing that Washington and I think his contemporaries had most in mind when they thought about Cato, because there's this famous play by Joseph Addison that was really one of the super blockbuster, one of the most popular books in the 18th century, actually, from early 18th century. So it's been around a while by the time Washington got familiar with it. But Addison's Cato is all about Cato's final days in the civil war with Julius Caesar. Cato is one of the last men standing, his last holdout to Caesar and to kind of give it away.

Caesar's coming. With an army, vastly superior. Cato stands no chance. They've lost the battle. He's walled up in Utica.

And Caesar makes all these embassies offering clemency. He wants to pardon Cato. They've been mortal enemies, greatest rivals all their life. And finally, Caesar's going to get the chance to pardon Cato. And Cato deprives him of the pleasure of pardoning him by committing suicide.

And so by dying, by losing, he kind of takes Caesar down with him in a lot of ways. And actually his son in law, Brutus. Brutus. The Brutus is Cato's, is married to Cato's daughter. And it's kind of like the spirit of Cato that Brutus and the other conspirators think that they're resurrecting when they assassinate Caesar.

So, yeah, it's kind of a brilliant move. You mentioned Washington's love of that Addison play. It's funny. It's almost like a nervous tick when you read about Washington's life. And then he goes to Philadelphia, where he catches a showing of Cato, and then he takes the army to Valley forge, where he has the men put together a theater troupe and put on a homespun production of Cato.

Ben Wilson
He really was obsessed with this play, and I think, by extension, obsessed with, which is interesting to think about that. Like, even as he's fighting this war, he is obsessed and wants to keep hearing and learning about this guy who loses and dies in a civil war. I mean, it's kind of interesting. Yeah. And I think that's part of the power of, like, a noble death like that.

George Washington
Because what is my interpretation, what a guy like Washington needs? I mean, like, gosh, they're fighting. Obviously, they have some reason to hope that the French are going to join up once they resist long enough. But this little ragtag bunch of colonials fighting the great british empire, you have to have this resolution of, it's worth doing this even if we lose. It's worth dying in this cause even if we lose.

And I think that Cato kind of gives them that energy. It's not just Washington who's obsessed with this play, this famous moment where Patrick Henry gives a speech, and he ends it with, give me liberty or give me death. That's basically a quote from Addison's Cato. And actually, it's in the delivering of that speech in the Virginia house of Burgess. Patrick Henry held up as though it were a dagger.

He held up this ivory letter opener to his chest, kind of like precisely to evoke that moment in Addison's Cato. So I think that's kind of like the energy that Cato gave these revolutionaries. The cause is so great and just, it's worth losing everything for. Although we do have a chance of victory, you need that courage to get you through. Yeah.

Ben Wilson
One of the things that you reminded me of when you talked about sort of, you have this obsession with the classical roman world. It wasn't just an american thing, it was a european thing at the time, but certainly in the United States as well, or what would become the United States. And there is a lot of love for and interest in figures like Alexander and Julius Caesar. And then once the revolution happens and they start to see themselves as the scrappy underdogs, like that, kind of has to go underground a little bit. And everyone is touting Brutus and Cato.

And it's interesting that Alexander Hamilton, who was sort of Washington's protege, one of the great founders of America, but was dogged through his whole career with accusations of monarchism. True, by the way, at least somewhat true. But one of the things that people constantly say about him is that actually Hamilton loves Caesar. That's a way that they express it. His tendencies towards monarchy is that this is an aficionado of Julius Caesar.

He doesn't like the right Romans. He doesn't like Cato and Brutus. He likes Caesar. So I think it's interesting to see how relevant it was to them. They're kind of larping the entire time.

You know, all of these, especially the Virginians. Right. With all these estates, they imagine that they are latifundias and that they are, you know, they all erect these pillars on all their estates to kind of mimic classical style. They all write under pen names like Brutus or Cato. Is one of them Cato?

Brutus, Cato, Publius. They all have these roman pen names. Yeah. And so anyway, I just thought that was interesting, that. Yeah, some of them had to go underground with their appreciation for Caesar once the revolution starts.

George Washington
Yeah. And Hamilton really knew how to spin a good story, I think. There's this moment where Jefferson. So they've established they beat the British. They're establishing the Republican.

Jefferson is some kind of minister in Washington's cabinet, and he recuses himself of office sometime. And Hamilton says, aha. See, he's refusing the crown, which he desires so much. Exactly like Julius Caesar. He knew he had to tweak Jefferson one time, he apparently quoted.

Somebody quoted Hamilton's at a party. He mentioned to Thomas Jefferson, I think Julius Caesar is the greatest man who ever lived. It's like, you know, that he said that just to annoy Jefferson. Yeah, definitely. Yeah.

Ben Wilson
So Washington is born to a family of. People always talk about the middle upper class. I would call him the lower upper class, if that makes sense. So a little bit similar to Caesar, actually, in that he comes from sort of the bottom level of great aristocratic lineage, but definitely comes from great aristocratic lineage, if that makes sense. He is this really tall, really athletic, really strong person, and very charismatic, very outgoing, easily makes friends, and people can immediately tell, okay, this is someone who is going places, becomes a surveyor.

Kind of has to. You mentioned the Fairfaxes. That's his first great connection that he makes because he needs sort of a sponsor, a mentor. His father dies early. Yeah.

George Washington
And this reminds me of. So Cato had a similar situation in that his father dies early and his mom remarries, and he, you know, into a good household. But I wonder if that. If that might be a kind of interesting comparison between the two men. Like, father dies early, and they feel like they have to find their moral compass in, like, actively.

You know, like, Cato turns to philosophy at a young age, I think, probably precisely because he kind of doesn't have that father figure to look up to a lot of times. Philosophy or great books, men of the past can be that for people. And I wonder if there's an aspect of that in Washington as well. I mean, obviously, he finds the mentor in Fairfax, but, you know, modeling himself after these ancient characters due to some kind of lack of a father figure in their lives. It's interesting.

Ben Wilson
Yeah, it's so interesting. I feel like often with these stories, they either have an absent father figure or a father figure who they consider weak. So, for example, Napoleon always thought that his father was weak. Right. Never appreciated him that way.

Or it tends to be the opposite. Either they have a very weak father figure or a very driving one who, like, gives them that push of, like, I never thought you were enough, and like, oh, I'll prove it to you, dad. And that is interesting that I think. Yeah, you're right. They do both have that, and I think it leads them to kind of get started early.

Right. So that's one of the things about Washington, is sort of precociousness. He's a surveyor. He's the youngest surveyor in Virginia history. So he's going out and surveying and setting out these lots at a time when the frontier is expanding westward in Virginia.

So Washington becomes a whiz kid. His performance as a general in the french and indian war is actually mixed, but it ends. He comes out of it anyway with high esteem. People regard him as a war hero, and he goes back to the ranch, goes back to his fields for the better part of two decades, and is just content to be a citizen. He's in the Virginia house of Burgesses, which is their lower house, their house of representatives, essentially.

And if it hadn't been for the American revolutionary war, you don't get the feeling that this is someone who was kind of trying to break through from some innate need to prove himself any further. Yeah, but something I think that you bring out really well in your series on him is the. So he has this really mixed track record as a general. Like, he makes this. He possibly kicks off a giant, you know, pan continental war by, you know, accidentally shooting this french lieutenant.

George Washington
Maybe they were under treaty. But one thing that he definitely shows, without question, is he's got this incredible courage, this bravery, this total fearlessness in the face of death that really distinguished him. I always keep that in mind when I think about Washington. This is like a signature move throughout his life. Yeah.

Ben Wilson
And what's interesting to me is I feel like that carelessness with his own life comes. It reminded me a lot of Napoleon when I read about it. Right. Similar. They always have bullets whizzing around them.

Washington's even more dramatic in that he actually gets bullet holes through his jacket and through his hat and just somehow never dies. But both of them, you read their philosophical musings, and they're very similar in that Washington calls it providence and Napoleon calls it destiny. But it's the same idea. And they both have this resignation to the hands of God, whatever you want to call it. And it feels very stoic to me.

Even as you were talking about your kind of 101 and stoicism, it feels very stoic. And it almost makes me think that there is this philosophy that goes by many names, call it stoic. I don't know what Napoleon would have called it or what Washington would have called it. Maybe Washington would have explicitly identified himself as a stoic. That's probably true, actually.

He did a lot of stoic reading. But there is this sort of philosophy that underlies a lot of the great men. And it's interesting because many of the people that we're talking about were not explicitly very religious. And yet it is a very religious attitude in that it puts your life and your fate in the hands of this higher power. Yeah, the stoics talk a lot about Providence.

George Washington
Providentia really kind of comes to the fore in Seneca's letters. And Washington had this compendium of quotes from Seneca that he quoted from a lot.

But I think it does, in a way, kind of transcend stoicism. A spirit that you can kind of get from reading the life of a guy like Caesar or Alexander, this supreme confidence in their destiny. And something that Sulla actually had, too, the roman dictator who actually, interestingly, this great german historian, Theodore mommsen, who won the Nobel Prize 100 or so years ago, he compared Sulla to George Washington. He's like, few leaders in history have been like Sulla, in that they both kind of put down power. Sulla laid down his dictatorship, Washington laid down like he didn't run for third term of office.

I thought that was an interesting comparison, jumping ahead a little bit in Washington's story, but, yeah, that confidence in Providence, bring what it may, whether you believe that you are destined to conquer the world or. Or just that providence is your best bet, to just trust in the will of the gods and don't fear death and do your duty. That's the more stoic version of it, I think, that's having that kind of metaphysical confidence fires so many stories of greatness. Do you think that is cause or effect? In other words, there is a good quote from Napoleon where he talks about the battle of Lodi, and he's got across this bridge, and, like, there's just no other way.

Ben Wilson
We just got across this bridge in the teeth of grapeshot and all these cannons and men that are set up on the other side. The only way we win this battle is we just got to go straight across the bridge. And he whips his men into a fury. It's the first time he gives one of his great harangues, and the men really respond, right? They're like, yeah, let's go.

They cross this bridge, they take the bridge at great cost, but they win the day. And it's one of the decisive victories in this campaign in Italy. And he says after that, I can't remember the exact quote, but essentially he says, it's the first time that I thought I was someone special. The first time. And this is the part I remember, that I felt I was called upon as someone who is, who was called upon to decide the fate of peoples.

In other words, I think that is when he got the first idea that I am some special tool in the hands of Destiny. Thats my question. Do Cato and Washington have some experiences early on that lead them to believe that Destiny has some special plan for them, or is it that belief that they have first that leads them to have these special experiences? I think it's gotta be kind of a combination of both. Confidence breeds confidence, but you have to have some basis to make that wager.

George Washington
One of the great moments in Cato's career early on that might have given him that is actually. So there's this first great clash with Caesar. It's not on the battlefield. Cato's not really a battlefield hero. That he did do his military service.

He's not known for being a great general.

So in the Senate, there's this debate in the context of the catilinarian conspiracy. I covered a whole. I did a whole series on this, on the cost of glory. It's a great story in Cicero's career, but basically, there's this conspiracy to overthrow the state. The conspirators are caught, and the Senate is trying to decide whether to essentially execute them without a trial or to do something else.

And Caesar makes this really stirring speech in the Senate. Like, we're Romans. We don't execute citizens without trial. Let's give these men a punishment worse than death. Let's put them in prison, which the Romans didn't do, but let's confiscate their property and scatter them in prisons all across Italy.

And actually, the Senate is really swayed towards Caesar. And then it looks like they're gonna spare these guys. Then Cato stands up and makes this just barn burn. He's like, I can't believe I'm looking at you people right now. These men were about to slit all of our throats.

Can you spare them? Can you tolerate their existence? We have to eliminate this threat to the state, et cetera, et cetera. And he sways the Senate back, and they end up executing the conspirators. And it's like Caesar is, I think, Caesar's praetor or praetor elect at that point.

So he's already a man of some standing. Cato hasn't even been Tribune yet. He's been a quester, I think. So he's a lower ranking guy, but he stands up to this young politician who's not number one, but clearly on his way to becoming close to number one. And Cato kind of makes a stand on principle, and he uses his moral authority as this strict moralist that he's already kind of cultivated.

And he's probably in his early thirties at that point. So, yeah, I think the more you do it, the more you throw yourself into these situations that really conceive of yourself as having a greater role on the stage of history, the more you start to believe it, and the more it kind of becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. So I like that formulation. It starts with some level of belief, but then action and results reinforce that belief until it becomes this kind of unstoppable force in your life. Yeah.

And that's why you read the histories of great men, to kind of get that kind of baseline belief, or you read stoic treatises that talk about providence, and that kind of gives you that initial, those rails that you can build up some speed on. It's one of the reasons I'm obsessed with biography is because, especially, obviously, biographies of great men, when you read them, you feel like things are possible that you didn't think were possible before. Absolutely. It's the power of zeal. Power.

Ben Wilson
Can't get enough of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. I'm curious. It's a powerful image.

It is very aesthetically pleasing. This upright man who embodies the old virtues. That's very much what Washington was, right? Honest, brave, continent, sober, old, classical. You can almost think of them as kind of militaristic virtues.

They're virtues of a conquering and outward looking and expansive people. As you think about today, there almost aren't those virtues to fall back on.

It's hard to think of what that would even look like for the person who was inspired by Washington, by Cato. How does that look in 2024, in the 2020s? Yeah, that's a great question. While I buy some time to think about it, there's a quote from Addison's cato that really echoes that sentiment that I'll share with you.

George Washington
They saw those virtues as being quintessentially roman. And somebody, some character in the play, talks about his admiration of the Roman. He's actually not a Roman. He's a Numidian who's allied with Cato. And somebody, Syphax is telling this other Numidian, saying, hey, Juba, what do you think is so great about the Romans?

Hey, we Numidians are great at archery, and we can ride a horse pretty well. What do the Romans have? And then Juba says, these bodily bravery virtues are just like a baseline. He says, these are all virtues of a meaner rank, perfections that are placed in bones and nerves. A roman soul is bent on higher views to civilize the rude, unpolished world and lay it under the restraint of laws to make man mild and sociable to man, to cultivate the wild, licentious savage with wisdom, discipline, and liberal arts.

The embellishments of life. Virtues like these make human nature shine, reform the soul, and break our fierce barbarians into men. Wow. So, yeah, you can see how a guy like Washington would really attach himself to this play. Yeah, I think about this a lot, because it's like there aren't.

You know, there aren't these kind of. There are wars to fight, obviously, but there aren't these kind of existential conflicts that, at least as Americans, which are a lot of my audience, we don't seem to be faced with existential conflicts. But I think cultivating bravery is like a baseline. There's a quote that Washington admired. I won't pull it up.

Bravery is like, bravery is the foundation of all the virtues in the classical idea. So there is a kind of militarism to it. But I think you can cultivate it by getting yourself going out in the wild, doing martial arts and stuff. And that can be like a baseline for courage in sales meetings and negotiations if you're in the business world. But at least for somebody like Addison or Washington or Plutarch, there is scope, I think, for this visionary civilizing mission.

And I think this is one of the reasons why people are so drawn to the idea of going and conquering Mars or the moon, because that frontier spirit, for the classical figures at least, is very much like the logical conclusion of a wise approach to bravery and where it could end up, what potential it can unlock in the rest of human nature. So I don't know if that's a good answer, but I console myself with that, at least. No, I think that's good. You know, you mentioned bravery and physical prowess. You talked about learning martial arts and things like that.

Ben Wilson
And sometimes people say, what's the point of learning martial art? The chances that I'm gonna fight another person in my life are so low, especially at a time when guns exist. And I think the answer is, the point is not that you are going to fight someone and going to need this martial art. It's an end in and of itself. Right.

And I think that the virtue, on a certain level, like, the virtues are the point. You know, maybe we live in a time where, yeah, they're not going to be rewarded in the same way that they were in Washington's time. That, like, public mindedness, that bravery, that uprightness, you're not going to get the same level of public acclaim, but they're a reward in and of themselves. Yeah, this is what the stoics would say. And there's a line in Addison's cato that Washington loved to quote.

George Washington
He said, tis not immortals to command success, but we'll do more, we'll deserve it. Like, it's better to deserve success than to actually get it. And this really goes in line with this basic principle of stoicism, that virtue is the only good, and it is actually what will make you happy. Like, and some of the ancient philosophers would kind of add some caveats to that, like, it's good to not be tortured on Iraq constantly, but the virtues can be an end in themselves. And if you focus on that, I think one of the reasons that that is good advice is because if you do focus on being the best person you can be, you actually do increase your chances of success.

So I try to abide by that. Yeah. There's this other story that you reminded me of where maybe this won't happen, but having the physical courage stand up to somebody. There's this moment when Washington is just on his latifundia in peacetime, and some poacher is hunting ducks on his property or something, and he catches the man, and he hollers at him, and he confronts him. And the guy, the poacher, points his gun at Washington, and Washington just does not slow down.

He just walks up, grabs the gun from him, and just starts beating him. Totally calls his bluff. But I think that having that kind of. That kind of attitude towards somebody can probably pay off well if you're just not willing to back down in all kinds of situations in life. Like to have that physical courage as a basis for other kinds of courage where, yeah, you're probably not going to come to fisticuffs, but this guy might try to cheat you and think he can get a one up on you, but standing up for yourself, having that kind of haughtiness of soul that a guy like Washington had or Cato had.

Ben Wilson
Yeah. For someone who wants to. Who aspires to be like Cato, for our cato appreciators in the audience, do you think his suicide was a mistake? Do you think that, on the one hand, it's the ultimate expression of his virtue. Right.

And the commitment to his ideals. On the other hand, it deprived Rome of his talents and of his kind of conservative perspective at a time when a new Rome was being forged.

What do you think? Is there an alternative world where Cato becomes some sort of contributor to the Caesar regime? Or if he accepts Caesar's clemency, is he just sort of a. A laughing stock who has to live out his life on the edges of roman society? Yeah, that's a great question.

George Washington
There are a lot of similar episodes in Cato's career that you can kind of see people reacting to where he kind of. So, for example, Pompey comes back from the east conquering around 62, and he's going to be the greatest Roman in town. And he offers, or he requests Cato to give him the hand of his daughter and his sister. He wants Cato's sister for a wife, and he's just gotten divorced, and then he wants his son to have Cato's daughter. And it's like the greatest political alliance possible.

And then Cato just ostentatiously rejects it. And everybody's like, Cato, what are you thinking? And Cicero commented, don't you? Doesn't Cato realize he's not living in Plato's republic, he's living in Romulus's sewer. I could use a dirtier word for that.

And in response, Pompey goes, and he marries Julius Caesar's daughter, and then they form this alliance. And so you could say, by spurning Pompey, Cato kind of forced the two great men into this union that ended up toppling the republic. Plutarch talks about this. There's another moment where Cato is running for consul, and Cato never becomes consul, fascinatingly, for his status, he never actually became the highest roman office because in 52, when he was running, he kind of refused to court the masses because, and people were saying, cato, why don't you go out and glad hand a little bit? And he said, then I wouldn't be Cato, basically.

And Cicero was pulling his hair out, like, we need Cato now in the political arena with some power behind him. And then one last example before we get to his death, there's this moment. So Pompey and Caesar fight the civil war. Pompey ends up losing this great battle of Pharsalus, but the cause isn't totally lost. And so the republican forces gather in Africa to make a last stand.

And there's also Pompey's son in Spain. The war is still very undecided, and everybody's saying, Cato, take control of the troops. You're the figurehead, you're the leader. And Cato says, no, there's another man here who is of consular rank, Metellus Scipio. He should be the leader because that's what the laws demand.

And Metellus Scipio ends up being kind of, like, rash, and he's kind of arrogant, and he doesn't end up doing a good job. And Plutarch says Cato even regretted not taking on the command, but he wanted to stand on the principle of the rule of law. So I think that this is like, it is a pattern that really culminates in Cato's death committing suicide rather than letting Caesar pardon him. And there's a good chance that if he had. So Rome was kind of on a trajectory to become a monarchy.

Probably if Cato had not committed suicide and had kind of reconciled himself with the regime, maybe gone into exile, there wouldn't have been that spirit around to go and assassinate Caesar. Caesar probably would have gone off and fought a great parthian war. His plan was to go into Persia and then come around over the Black Sea and beat up the Scythians and then conquer the Germans. I mean, who knows what have happened? And Rome ended up being a monarchy anyway because of Augustus.

And yet, you know, then we wouldn't, then Cato wouldn't have been Cato. And, you know, we wouldn't have had this great moral exemplar to influence later ages. So I don't know, it's hard to decide. Your quote about, you know, Cato saying about this marriage offer into the, into Julius Caesar's family that then I wouldn't be Cato. It reminds me, you know, so my dad, who listens to this podcast, love you, dad.

Ben Wilson
I'm going to talk about you for a second, is like, to me, this sort of cato ish figure, like kind of old classical american, right? Extremely upright, extremely honest, extremely well regarded, like pillar of the community in the kind of old classic american sense. You know, Ivy League educated, worked in a large corporation for his entire career, corporate finance. Did well. And sometimes I talk to him and I say, you know, dad, for America to get out of the mess that we're in, it might take some, let's say, creative solutions.

And he kind of cannot consider that he views anything extra constitutional as like an abomination. And sometimes that frustrates me a little bit because I'm from this rising generation that some of us have a different viewpoint of what might be needed to get things back on track. But at the end of the day, his name's Larry and he is just like, he's the best man I know. And there are a thousand other people who would tell you the same thing, that he's the best man that they know. Like, this is not just me talking, saying this because he's my dad.

Like, he is legitimately, like a spectacular person. And I do believe that that same thing of like, yeah, he kind of can't consider anything outside of traditional, constitutional, normal channels of power. But like, if he could, then he wouldn't be Larry Wilson, you know? And so it's maybe a fruitless exercise to say, what could Cato have done to have been more flexible and to have had. Cato was supposed to play the role that Cato was supposed to play.

And like you said, that served as an example to later generations of republican virtue. And it's up to other people who don't have those scruples who just are different by disposition to navigate things in a different way if they need to. Caesar never could have been Cato. Cato never could have been Caesar. And they each had a role to play in what came.

George Washington
Yeah. And one way to think about this is like, different ages call for different paradigms and virtues. Like, what you need when you're founding a new republic is a guy like Washington who so principled that he wins the trust of both sides of the coalition. This is something that he obviously shared with Cato, like Cato was. There's this moment in Cato's life where he was.

There's this rampant bribery in the Roman Republic, and people actually come to Cato. All the candidates are like, well, I mean, I don't believe in bribery, but, you know, the other guy is going to do it. So this is kind of prisoner's dilemma. And they all kind of come to Cato and say, hey, we're all going to deposit a million dollars with you, and you can be the umpire, because we all really don't want a bribe. But if there's not some kind of third party and they turn to Cato and he kind of.

He ends up calling somebody out for bribery anyway. And the other candidates say, oh, he's all right, but he was somebody that people turned to in all these situations. And Washington, similarly, was trusted by both sides. And I think if Washington wasn't that, then you really had a volatile situation in the earlier american republic. You got a guy like Hamilton who wants to be Caesar.

You got a guy like Jefferson who wants it to be the French Revolution. Maybe not, but it's open to that idea. And so, in a way, different.

Cato's virtues, oddly enough, were kind of not what the roman republic called for, but they were what the american republic called for. So it's a tough call. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. And if he had made some compromises to those virtues, just like you said, like, that example wouldn't have served for Washington and for the american republic.

Ben Wilson
You know, it's interesting. You think about the Renaissance, and there is this obsession with the classical world, right? What is the great symbol of the Renaissance? It's the vitruvian man. Right?

Which is literally da Vinci and his friends hearing about the discovery of this old manuscript. This guy. Vitruvius or Vitruvian. Yep. Anyway, yeah, Vitruvius.

Vitruvius. And so they all go to see, okay, what are these perfect ratios of the human body? And then all trying to, based on that sketch out and figure out, delve in deeper into this research and so that was just one example. Right? But across art, politics, literature, everything, there is this obsession with the classical world in the Renaissance.

And then it seems like every time that there is an explosion of creativity and accomplishment, once again, it kind of comes around. Right. And you have the same thing in the american world of the late 18th century. You have just this obsession with roman architecture and roman art and roman literature and roman philosophy and roman institutions. What is it?

What is it? Why is it. It seems like the world can't progress unless people return to that idea.

There's nothing comparable, I think, except for you could turn to the Greeks, but, I mean, it's kind of the same world. There's nothing comparable to the classical world. It's not like people return again and again to the life of Charlemagne. That's an example that people pull on from time to time, but it's just not the same. And it's not like people return again, again to the achaemenid empire or the Egyptians even.

What is it about this specific example that leads to these wild outcomes, do you think? Well, on the surface of it, I often think people look as far back into the past as they want to look into the future. And, yeah, in times of great turmoil, where the future seems more up for grabs, which I think the Renaissance very much was a time like that. It's great wars all the time, political uncertainty, similar in the late 18th century. Those are times when you're trying to forge a great future.

George Washington
You try to look for precedents. You try to look for different precedents, like, you look further back than the recent precedents, because you're looking for kind of better ideas for what has worked before. I do think also there's this quality of roman. Of the history of the late Roman Republic. And you could say a similar thing about the glory days of Athens fighting the Persians off, in particular the golden age of Athens and the times of the peloponnesian war, maybe the conflict with Sparta, even where it's such a dramatic, compelling story, there's something about it, just the fact that it captures the imagination so dramatically and the person that is most to blame or to be credited with this dramatic architecture of the late Roman Republic which was there.

It's real, but it's Plutarch. And it's these biographies of these characters that are so vivid, and we have such minute Hollywood kind of details about them, their quotes, the way they looked, the way they acted with their friends, that you can kind of envision yourself in these times in this really powerful way. So I think, in a sense, it's kind of this absolute principle of, like, you look as far back as you want to look in the future, and the Greeks and Romans are kind of more ours than the Persians, and the Egyptians are, like, more western or something. But it's also this contingent fact of, like, it has to do with amazing storytelling on the part of not just Plutarch, but kind of authors that lived around that time and this sense that there were really, really great things at stake. Well, and on the part of the parties involved.

Ben Wilson
Right. Julius Caesar took a large hand in writing his own story, and, of course, we can still read a lot of the letters of Cicero, who was trying to tell his own story. And I think, yeah, part of it is Plutarch, and part of it is the people who were telling their stories, and part of it is the actors themselves who told their stories for us to. To digest now, all these thousands of years later. Yeah.

George Washington
And I'm doing a series on Caesar's Gallic wars next on the cost of Glory. We're going to look at his commentaries in depth, which are this classic work. And Caesar himself was like, if he hadn't been the greatest general and politician of his day, he would have been the greatest author because he's just such a clever, you know, very subtle user of the written word. And also, he was supposed to be a great speaker, a great orator. And I think that these times of great trouble for republics, they really do bring out the people who rise to the top in them, have some kind of extra ness to them.

Also, it is really about the people. Cicero, Caesar, Pompey, all these guys are napoleon several times. Maybe not Cicero, but they were all grand in their own way. Objectively, to what extent, Alex, do you think we just talked about legacy and them telling their own stories. To what extent do you think that some of these figures, whether it's Cato and Caesar and those who played in that time or whether it's Hamilton and Jefferson and Washington and the American Revolution, to what extent do you think that they are cognizant of their role in a story that is unfolding as time goes on?

Well, certainly in the case with Washington, as you know, he loves this play, Cato, and they're in this terrible winter in 1776, I think, in Valley Forge, and they don't have these supplies, and everybody's just getting demoralized and people are leaving. And so he stages the play, Addison's Cato, I guess his officers just put on some costumes, and they stage the play in front of his soldiers at Valley Forge to hearten them for the struggle. And I think Washington wasn't just, he didn't just love this play. He loved the theater in general. And I think that that is, you know, you might think that that kind of thing is frivolity, but I don't know.

Chernow talks about this in the biography, how Washington likes, had this tendency to kind of see his own life in these dramatic terms. And I think that that is part of what made him great, that he always kind of felt like he had a role to play. You know, even though I think you're right, that he didn't have this kind of vision of, I'm going to conquer Asia like Alexander. I'm going to found the nation. He did the next best thing at every stage, but he did have this sense of, there is a drama going on, and I need to really act the role.

And I think that connecting that with his own imaginative hobby of just being just theater nut seems, seems to be really true to me. Certainly explains his affiliation for Cato. It's interesting because for a man who is so, Washington was so grounded in the real world. He was a farmer. He was a serious man on a serious mission.

Ben Wilson
And yet one of his real gifts was for the theatrical gesture. Right. The dramatic gesture. So two of them, I think the one is at the battle of Princeton, and Washington is kind of leading the main force, and there's this kind of side force. I can't remember if they're kind of a wing of the army or if they're a vanguard.

But in any case, they stumble on these british, get fired at and break and are running away, and they kind of come across the main army, and Washington comes screaming in on his horse and kind of puts himself in the way of the retreat. And I love what he says. He says, parade with us, gentlemen. There are more of us than there are of them, and the day will soon be ours. And then just kind of freezes there and just stays there right in the face of enemy fire, and bullets are whizzing around him.

And I love the comment of the person who's recounting the story, who says, believe me, I thought not of myself. And I just think that's such a great comment. Right. He gets swept up in the drama from this dramatic act of Washington. And then the other one that is probably his most famous dramatic act is there's this sort of nascent coup that's going on.

The revolution is over. Many of the soldiers and officers haven't been paid in years, right? And they have been exposing themselves to enormous danger, suffering this incredible hardship. Other people, contractors, farmers, have been getting rich, the revolutionary war, while these people have been exposing themselves to danger and been getting impoverished. And Congress just cannot get their act together to get the financing together to pay these soldiers in order to the money that they're due.

And so they kind of want to. Some of them want an out and out coup. Others say, can we just march on Congress and put some pressure on them and Washington? So they have this kind of. This meeting to discuss this.

And many of them are saying, all right, you know, this is what we got to do. And Washington is of the opposite view. He says, no, we need to submit to civilian leadership. And so he gets up and he makes these very persuasive arguments for why they should not march on Congress. They should just, you know, take whatever Congress can give them.

And no one is hearing it. No one is listening. And you get. You get the feeling that it's just this icy cold reception of what he has to say. And then he takes out a letter and says, I have this letter here that will explain some things.

And he opens it and looks at it kind of funny and then takes out spectacles. No one has seen him wear glasses before. And as he puts on the glasses, he says, you'll excuse me, gentlemen, for I have gone not only gray, but blind in the service of my country. And, like, the room falls apart, right? Everyone's like, no, how could we stand against Washington?

You know? And again, it's not any argument that he made. It is this embodiment of virtue of, like, he absolutely only wants to do what's good for the public. Will combined with this amazing theatrical, dramatic gesture. And he definitely wanted to convey that none of this was intentional.

Right? That he had no sense of his own drama and theatricality. But I kind of think, secretly, that's not quite true. He was a master, I'm convinced. That's just one of my favorite stories in, like, all of the world, just.

George Washington
Yeah. And so there's, he projected that ethos to people. And there's this one quote that I found. So the great french essayist Chateaubriand visited Washington, and he was in Philadelphia, and he recorded his experience there. And I'll just read this quick quote.

He says, when I arrived in Philadelphia, George Washington was not there. I was obliged to wait eight or so days to see him. One morning, I saw him pass in a carriage drawn by a team of spirited horses driven, four in hand. Washington, according to my ideas at the time had to be a sort of cincinnatus, you know, who is this roman guy who laid down, he's given supreme power and then laid it down. And people compared Washington to Cincinnatis a lot.

And then Chatobriand continues, well, you know, he's. He's not a kind of simple cincinnatus is. He's riding in this chariot. Cincinnatus in a chariot, he says, was a bit out of keeping with my notion of the roman republic. Year 296.

Could Washington, the dictator, be anything other than a rustic, prodding his oxen with a goad and steadily gripping the handle of his plow? But when I did go to him with my letter of introduction, I discovered the simplicity of an old Roman. And I think that, like you said it well in one of your episodes, like, it wasn't so much as a president, the decisions he made. It was who he was and who people both believed him to be. And like, the presence that he exuded, the way that he carried himself, that he really embodied this thing that they all valued, the kind of old roman virtues, the kind of republican respect for law, gravitas, slow wisdom, self restraint, simplicity.

And I think that was something that he knew the importance of keeping up appearances. You read Chernow's biographies. He's always obsessing over which buttons the tailor puts on his officer code and the exact shade of blue and getting it all right. And even a man like Kato, who ostentatiously walked around and, like, barefoot and in sandals, he never wore toga like he had an outfit. You know, it was about showing his contempt for outward appearances, but he had to pay attention to them to do that.

And I think that's just part of being a good leader, really, is to have this sense of this isn't what matters, but it does matter enough to project something to people for their sake as much as for my sake. Yeah. Well, is there anything else you want to talk about before we close? I thought I would just end with sort of what has, through this research, what has Washington meant to you? What has Cato meant to you?

Ben Wilson
Like, what is the top thing that you're gonna take away from the journey of the exploration of these lives? Yeah, I think it's renewed my respect, both from Washington and from Cato, of living an upright life. They lived comparably upright lives in the public eye. Plutarch talks about how Cato didn't enter public life out of some kind of accident. A lot of the upperclassmen just kind of get into politics because that's what you do.

George Washington
Or from some kind of overweening ambition. But he thought that it was the province of a good man to enter public life. This is what you're supposed to do. I think you could probably say a similar thing about Washington, that he saw public duty as what a man of honor does, and that was an outgrowth of their devotion to live an upright life, to live according to principle and be honest and trustworthy. And I think that's a great long term strategy for success in business and life and friendship and relationships.

You can get so focused on the bottom line, getting crafty about whatever you're doing with your work, that you can kind of forget that justice is a really good investment and living out a life of personal justice. I find that incredibly inspiring about both of them. I honestly find Washington more inspiring because he's a winner.

But Kato has a lot to admire, too. So I'm looking forward to doing a deep dive on him in the coming days. Excellent. Well, Alex, thanks so much. I mean, I was just struck at the end, as you were talking there, about sort of the majesty of this type of figure.

Ben Wilson
Right. And I think just on an aesthetic level alone, they were such beautiful lives of Cato and Washington. And you can quibble with, you know, some of the outcomes in the case of Cato and some of the strategy and whatever nits people want to pick, the nitpickers will do. But I think what you can't argue with is, like, both men lived beautiful lives that anyone would be lucky to aspire to. So thanks.

Thanks for giving your take. I appreciate it. Anything else for the audience? Any requests, any things to plug before you go? No?

George Washington
Well put. And I appreciate your work on Washington, and it's really given me insights into the man as well. Yeah, I encourage everybody who listens to my show to listen to your show. And I'm really looking forward to digging into Caesar in the coming days, and then Cato after that. Well, Caesar's commentaries, then Cato's biography, and then Caesar's biography property, where, you know, we're just getting started with these figures of the Roman Republic.

Still gotta do Brutus and Cicero and Antony. And I know you've got Benjamin Franklin up coming up and many other great, good figures. So I'm excited for more zeal models coming in the future. Absolutely. Great.

Ben Wilson
Well, everyone, thanks for listening. I don't know how to close because it's on both of our shows, so I can't say thanks for listening out to take over the world. Stay ancient stay ancient.

George Washington
Stay ancient stay ancient.

Washington vs Cato with Alex Petkas

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1: Introduction

2: Historical Context

3: Philosophical Influences

4: The Power of Symbols

5: Modern Relevance

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