Let Us Be Satisfied With This

Recorded by Macrobius in the Saturnalia (Book 2.4.18), this remark was made when a courtier named Strabo disparaged Cato the Younger's stubbornness while visiting his former house, apparently to flatter Augustus. Instead of joining the mockery, Augustus defended the man who had been the Roman Republic's most unyielding champion and his adoptive father Julius Caesar's greatest enemy. Macrobius notes the layered shrewdness: the same logic that honoured Cato also warned against anyone seeking to overthrow Augustus's own now-established order.