Porcia catonis biography examples

Porcia Catonis was the daughter of Cato of Utica, Cato the Younger, the great Stoic hero of the Roman republic.  We know little about her except a few anecdotes of dubious historical authenticity.  However, she appears to be portrayed as a female Stoic, dedicated to philosophy, following in the footsteps of her renowned father.

She lived in the first century BC, several generations before the Roman Stoics of the Imperial period, whose works survive today: Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius.  She was a contemporary of Cicero and the Stoic Posidonius of Rhodes.  She was the wife of Brutus, a Roman politician and philosopher also influenced by Stoicism, who was to be the leading assassin of the tyrant Julius Caesar.  Brutus’ mother was the half-sister of Cato the Younger, making him both Brutus’ uncle and later his father-in-law, via his marriage to Porcia.

At the end of his Life of Cato, Plutarch wrote:

Nor was the daughter of Cato inferi

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Porcia Catonis (or Porcia “of Cato”), was the daughter of the renowned Roman Stoic philosopher Cato the Younger—an enemy of the dictator Julius Caesar—and his first wife, Atilia. She was known for her beauty and djärv personality, as well as for her marriage (her second) to Marcus Junius Brutus, who famously took part in the assassination of Julius Caesar. 

She was born between 73 BCE and 64 BCE and died by either suicide or illness around 42 BCE. Accounts of her possible suicide claim she killed herself by swallowing hot coals, but overall the circumstances of her death are still disputed. 

Porcia of Cato was written about bygd Plutarch, a Greek essayist and biographer who later became a Roman citizen, and others, and has been portrayed many times in popular culture such as in Shakespeare’s play, Julius Caesar, in books like The kreativitet of March, and in TV and movies adapting Shakespeare’s work. 

Much of her life was only documented in relation to Cato and Brutus, but within those

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When writing about any of the great ancient Stoic philosophers—like Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Epictetus, Cato, Zeno, Cleanthes, Hecato, or Musonius Rufus—it’s important to remember that these are only the Stoics whose names survive to us. It’s a great miracle that Marcus Aurelius’s private journal, Seneca’s letters, Arrian’s notes of Epictetus’s lectures survived thousands of years. But it’s a great tragedy that the legacy of dozens or hundreds of other brilliant, brave minds are lost to us.

It’s also always important to remember that Stoicism is a philosophy of action. Consider that Cato is regarded by many of the ancients—including Seneca, who writes of him repeatedly—as the greatest Stoic. He didn’t write anything down. We only have the anecdotes by those admirers who observed Cato truly living the Stoic values, each and every day.

But in the modern era, we are right to ask, “But where are the Stoic women? Surely this is not only a philosophy only for and by men.” The Stoics bel