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The triumvirate of Caesar, Pompey and Crassus was broken in 54 BC at the same time as Cato's election as praetor. Judging their enemy in trouble, Cato and the Optimates faction of the Senate spent the coming years trying to force a break between Pompey and Caesar. It was a time of political turmoil, when popular figures like Publius Clodius tried to advance the cause of the common people of Rome, going so far as abandoning his patrician status to become a plebeian. As a leading spokesman for the Optimate cause, Cato stood against them all in defense of the traditional privileges of the aristocracy.
The following year, in 52 BC, Cato unsuccessfully ran for the office of consul. Cato accepted the loss, but refused to run a second time.
In 49 BC, Cato called for the Senate to formally relieve Caesar of his proconsular command, which he viewed as having expired, and to order Caesar's return to Rome as a civilian and thus without proconsular legal immunity. Pompey had blocked all previous attempts at ordering Caesar back to Rome but had grown concerned with Caesar's growing political influence and popularity with the plebs. With the tacit support of Pompey, Cato successfully passed a resolution ending Caesar's proconsular command. Caesar made numerous attempts to negotiate, at one point even conceding to give up all but one of his provinces and legions, allowing him to retain his immunity while diminishing his authority. This concession satisfied Pompey, but Cato, along with the consul Lentulus, refused to back down. Faced with the alternatives of returning to Rome for the inevitable trial and retiring into voluntary exile, Caesar crossed into Italy with only one legion, implicitly declaring war on the Senate.
Caesar crossed the Rubicon accompanied by the XIII Legion to take power from the Senate in the same way that Sulla had done in the past. Formally declared an enemy of the state, Caesar pursued the Senatorial party, now led by Pompey, who abandoned the city to raise arms in Greece, with Cato among his companions. After first reducing Caesar's army at the battle of Dyrrhachium, where Cato commanded the port, the army led by Pompey was ultimately defeated by Caesar in the Battle of Pharsalus (Cato wasn't present during the battle, Pompey had left him in command of Dyrrhachium). Cato and Metellus Scipio, however, did not concede defeat and escaped to the province of Africa with fifteen cohorts to continue resistance from Utica. Caesar pursued Cato and Metellus Scipio after installing the queen Cleopatra VII on the throne of Egypt, and in February 46 BC the outnumbered Caesarian legions defeated the army led by Metellus Scipio at the Battle of Thapsus. Acting against his usual strategy of clemency, Caesar did not accept surrender of Scipio's troops, but had them all slaughtered.
Death
In Utica, Cato did not participate in the battle and, unwilling to live in a world led by Caesar and refusing even implicitly to grant Caesar the power to pardon him, he committed suicide in April 46 BC. According to Plutarch, Cato attempted to kill himself by stabbing himself with his own sword, but failed to do so due to an injured hand. Plutarch wrote:
Cato did not immediately die of the wound; but struggling, fell off the bed, and throwing down a little mathematical table that stood by, made such a noise that the servants, hearing it, cried out. And immediately his son and all his friends came into the chamber, where, seeing him lie weltering in his own blood, great part of his bowels out of his body, but himself still alive and able to look at them, they all stood in horror. The physician went to him, and would have put in his bowels, which were not pierced, and sewed up the wound; but Cato, recovering himself, and understanding the intention, thrust away the physician, plucked out his own bowels, and tearing open the wound, immediately expired.[8]
On hearing of his death in Utica, Plutarch wrote that Caesar commented, "Cato, I grudge you your death, as you would have grudged me the preservation of your life."