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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Sulla80, post: 4514347, member: 99456&quot;]Caesar defeated the Pompeians in the battle of Thapsus.&nbsp; M. Porcius Cato, &quot;The Younger&quot;, fled to Utica in North Arfrica.&nbsp; Cato famously committed suicide rather than accept Caesars offer of clemency:</p><p><br /></p><p><i>&quot;For if,&quot; said he, &quot;I were willing to be saved by grace of Caesar, I ought to go to him in person and see him alone; but I am unwilling to be under obligations to the tyrant for his illegal acts. And he acts illegally in saving, as if their master, those over whom he has no right at all to be the lord.”</i></p><p><i>- Plutarch, The Life of Cato the Younger, 66.1</i></p><p><br /></p><p>So what about the &quot;restitution type&quot;?&nbsp; The issue recalls a coin of his ancestor M. Cato moneyer in 89 BC (Crawford 343/1).[ATTACH=full]1118501[/ATTACH]</p><p>Roman Republic 47-46 BC AR Denarius</p><p><b>M. Porcius Cato Uticensis</b>, African mint (Utica)</p><p><b>Obv:</b> draped female bust right (possibly roma), with hair tied, M CATO PRO PR before, border of dots</p><p><b>Rev:</b> Victory seated right, holding patera in right hand and palm branch in left hand; border of dots, VICTRIX in exergue</p><p><b>Ref: </b>Crawford <a href="http://numismatics.org/crro/id/rrc-462.1c" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://numismatics.org/crro/id/rrc-462.1c" rel="nofollow">462/1c</a>; RSC Porcia 9; BMC Africa 15</p><p><br /></p><p>A play by Joseph Addison, “Cato, A Tragedy”, written in 1713, was very popular in the 18th century and a source of inspiration to American patriots like Nathan Hale, &quot;I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country&quot;, and Patrick Henry, &quot;Give me liberty or give me death!&quot; – both lines variants of lines from the play.&nbsp; Washington had &quot;Cato&quot; performed at Valley Forge in 1778 to rally the troops.</p><p><br /></p><p><b>Next:</b> an ancient coin minted by another person who became a character in a play[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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