Where this was said
Cato the Younger: The Stoic Who Died Twice
At 1:30:34 · chapter starts 1:24:50
Ryan Holiday traces Cato the Younger's trajectory from Stoic student to thorn in Caesar's side: a man so scrupulously honest that Roman politicians would say 'we can't all be Catos' when asked to do the right thing. As Caesar dismantled the Republic, Cato became the last institutional brake, opposing him at every turn. When Caesar won, Cato went to his room, read Plato's account of Socrates' final days, and stabbed himself in the chest [1] — Ryan Holiday "Stoicism has never fully disappeared — it's been an open secret passed person-to-person among the powerful for centuries. The Enlightenment…" 2:19:50 . When a doctor rushed in and stitched the wound, Cato woke up, realized he had survived, and tore the wound open himself. Holiday calls him 'Stoicism's first martyr' and notes he is the first of many — a philosopher not known for what he wrote but for the completeness with which he lived and died his beliefs.
Cato the Younger, the great Stoic senator, stabbed himself rather than submit to Caesar; when the doctor stitched him up and he survived, he ripped the wound open again and disemboweled himself.
