Cato Salonianus

Marcus Porcius Cato Salonianus or Cato Salonianus is a name of two Romans of the Porcii Family.

Marcus Porcius Cato Salonianus the Elder

He was the son of Cato the Elder by his second wife Salonia, who was the freedman daughter of one of Cato's own freedman scribes, formerly a slave. His birth was in 154 BC, when his father had completed his eightieth year, and about two years before the death of his half-brother, Marcus Porcius Cato Licinianus. He lost his father when he was five years old, and lived to attain the praetorship, in which office he died.

He was father of one son also called Marcus Porcius Cato Salonianus, and one daughter Porcia who married Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus (her husband's nephew, Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus in 54 BC, would marry Porcia).

Marcus Porcius Cato Salonianus the Younger

According to other sources (and in the fiction of Colleen McCullough), the younger Cato Salonianus was first married to the daughter of a wealthy Roman equestrian but the marriage was childless and unhappy. He was divorced by her after his adultery with Livia Drusa, sister of Marcus Livius Drusus was discovered. He then married Livia Drusa, and with her had two children: Cato the Younger and Porcia (sister of Cato the Younger) (before 95 BC-46 BC/45 BC) by her. Her son Quintus Servilius Caepio (son of Q. S. Caepio the Younger) (who adopted his nephew Marcus Junius Brutus as his heir) was also purportedly fathered by Cato Salonianus.

References

This entry incorporates public domain text originally from:

• William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, 1870.

• Gellius, xiii. 19.
• Plutarch, Cato the Elder, 27.