And now the birds were
beginning to sing,[756] and he sank asleep again for a while. When
Butas had returned and reported that all was quiet about the ports,
Cato, bidding him close the door, threw himself on the bed as if he
were going to sleep for the rest of the night. When Butas had gone
out, he drew the sword and thrust it beneath his chest, but as he used
his hand with less effect owing to the inflammation, he did not
immediately despatch himself, and having some difficulty in dying he
fell from the bed and made a noise by overturning a little abacus of
the geometrical kind that stood by, which his attendants perceiving
called out and his son and his friends immediately ran in. Seeing him
smeared with blood and the greater part of his bowels protruding,
though he was still alive and his eyes were open, they were all
dreadfully alarmed, and the physician going up to him attempted to
replace his bowels, which remained uninjured, and to sew up the wound.
But when Cato recovered and saw this, he pushed the physician away,
and tearing the bowels with his hands and at the same time rending the
wound he died.[757] LXXI. In a space of time which one would not have
thought enough for all in the house to have heard of the event, there
were present at the door the three hundred, and soon after the people
of Utica were assembled, with one voice calling Cato benefactor and
saviour and the only free man, the only unvanquished.
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