Cato, the Confederacy, and Lost Causes

On January 6, 2022, I will be delivering my paper “Cato, the Confederacy, and Lost Causes,” which focuses on the appropriation of Cato the Younger by Southerners late in the Civil War and in the Jim Crow Era; the paper will be presented at the Society for Classical Studies conference.  The last time I delivered a paper at the Society for Classical Studies was last year on January 6, 2021.  I gave the paper on Zoom in the morning and then went downstairs and turned on the news to watch in horror the attempted coup to disrupt the certification of the presidential election.  I mention this not only because this is personally memorable but also because it is germane to my presentation topic, which addresses the attempt to use the past to reshape the present via a myth, a lie – the Lost Cause.