Notes & Asides

Dear Bill:

I’m not asking who is “Cato,” but after which Cato the pseudonym was chosen. Was it M. Porcius, frequently surnamed “the Censor,” whose most quoted line was “Delenda est Carthago”? Or was it M. Porcius, the Censor’s great-grandson, surnamed Uticencis, a leader of the aristocratic party opposed to Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus, who in defeat took his own life rather than submit to Caesar? Or a composite?