Addison’s Cato was one of the most well-known and influential political plays among the Founders, but for an original printed copy I had to reach across the pond to the delightful Abraxas-Libris.fr bookshop, which sold me this serviceable 1804 copy for a mere 22 Euros. (Interestingly it appears to have once been owned by one Peter Columbine, who seems to have been a translator of other plays but perhaps not very good at it.)
John Potter’s Antiquities of Greece fired the imagination of a young Thomas Jefferson, who well knew Cato; thus, I find the following excerpt relating Cato letting his slaves starve to death when they were too old to be of use fascinating:
Under current sensibilities, that right there should be enough to excise Cato, much less Cato, from any consideration of merit or admiration.
Under such circumstances, I am, frankly, glad I did not take the career path that would have led me to be a professor of history; I think the despair would have killed me by now.